Bear My Soul (Fire Bears Book 1) Read Online Free PDF Page A

paperclip nestled against Aaron’s tiny palm. “Thank you,” he said on a breath, taking the gift. “What’s your name?” His voice had gone deep and emotional.
    “Aaron Daniel Dodson.” He smiled and snuggled against Rory, wrapping his slender arms around her neck.
    “That’s a fine name. I’m Cody Leland Keller.”
    “Leland?” Aaron asked, his tiny nose scrunched.
    “It’s a family name. My brothers have the same middle names, too. Kind of strange, huh?”
    Aaron nodded. “Are you here to eat some of our pizza?”
    Cody huffed a laugh and shook his head. “I came to speak with Rory—I mean, with your mother.”
    Aaron looked at the pizza box, then back to Cody, and shrugged his shoulders up to his ears. “Will you?”
    Cody shook his head and let off a sigh. “Buddy, I don’t… That’s up to your mom.”
    “I’m off to dinner with the Blue-Haired Ladies,” Aunt Leona announced as she flounced down the steps, purse in hand. “Don’t wait up. We old ladies get wild and crazy on Friday nights.”
    Cody narrowed his eyes at Aunt Leona’s receding back. “Are you the ones who’ve been following me around town all day?”
    Apparently, Aunt Leona didn’t hear him, or didn’t want to, because she didn’t even miss a step as she disappeared into the dark.
    “He’s into sharing,” Rory explained as Aaron opened the box and looked in wide-eyed wonder at the meat lover’s pie. “That’s what they’ve been learning at preschool. And he’s really very sweet about it. I guess what I’m saying is, we would love for you to eat with us.”
    “Yeah, you look like you could eat a whole pizza by yourself, Daddy Cody!”
    “Aaron,” Rory warned, shaking her head. “I think you should just call him Cody. That might make him more comfortable.”
    Aaron’s face fell. “Why?”
    Cody gave the boy a troubled look and rubbed his hand roughly through his cropped, blond hair. “You have him in preschool? The public kind?”
    “Of course. He’s five. He’ll be in kindergarten next year, and he needed to learn how to mind his teachers, stand in lines, share, and work well with the other kids. Plus, I have to work for both of us. He goes to school while I work.”
    He frowned at the back of her son’s head as Aaron made his way down to the walkway, pizza slice in hand. “Has he Changed yet?”
    Warning bells slammed against the inside of her head as she froze. “I don’t know what you mean,” she said carefully.
    “Yeah, you do, or you wouldn’t have been asking me about my supernatural family history.”
    Instead of answering, she crossed her arms over her stomach and watched Aaron move tufts of bushes aside, probably in search of the lizards Aunt Leona had told him about.
    “Look at me,” Cody said in a soft, deep voice.
    She slid her gaze to him and gasped. His eyes were the same muddy, golden green that Aaron’s turned to when he was upset, or on the verge of a Change.
    He held her in his feral gaze. “When?”
    Her breath trembled as she struggled to draw air into her lungs. This was it. This was the moment when she let another soul in on their secret, and he was a stranger. She closed her eyes, bolstering her bravery before she whispered, “He Changed for the first time when he was one.”
    “Shit,” Cody murmured, covering his face with his hands, then flinging them away. “Rory, why didn’t you tell me? Why didn’t you come to me about him? I have a kid , and you left me out of his life completely.”
    “I meant to tell you,” she whispered, tears stinging her eyes at the memory. “I’d bought plane tickets to come back and let you meet him. He’d just turned one, and I was nervous about flying with a baby, but I did all this research and had this plan to come here anyway during winter break. I was still trying to finish college then. But then he Changed, and I knew if you weren’t like him, and you found out, you would put him in danger—tell someone or report him to the