Bearly Holding On Read Online Free PDF Page B

closed.
    “I can walk,” she objected. “I'm not a child.”
    “You heard the nurse lady,” he grunted, stepping over some small branches. “You have to stay off your feet.”
    “You won't listen to the doctor, but you'll listen to his nurse?” she asked sarcastically.
    “The doctor was an asshole,” he said, ducking under a tree. He knew the way so well it didn't matter that he didn't carry a flashlight. “You're the one that disobeyed the doctor. I just made sure he wasn't going to send you home suffering.”
    “Yeah,” she admitted softly, remembering what he'd done for her. “Thanks for that.”
    “Thank me later,” he said as he reached his front door, kicking it open with his foot.
    He crossed the room and laid her down gently on his fur-covered bed. It was firm, Awen noticed, but oddly comfortable. Mati crossed the room and turned on a lantern.
    “It's not much,” he told her. “Certainly not as good as what you're used to, but it's warm, it's dry, and its mine.”
    “You know they invented electricity, right?” she deadpanned “And there's this cool thing the city people call cable! There's a box and people talk in it. It's amazing!”
    “You're really funny,” he said flatly, handing her a bottle of water and beginning to rummage around in a small box in the corner of the room. He pulled out a little, old fashioned radio and switched it on. “Did you know about these things called batteries? They power things without a need for electricity.”
    “It's better than silence,” she admitted, chuckling at him. “Too much quiet makes me nervous.”
    “I understand that.” He sat on an old chair beside the bed as he began to tune the radio. “The calm before the storm.”
    “Yeah,” she murmured quietly. “It was silent the first time I was shot. Ever since then, I've been terrified of the quiet.”
    He nodded his head in understanding. He too had been shot at, by hunters seeing him in his bear form trying their luck. He got nothing but static on the device and switched it off. He got up and sat next to her on the bed.
    “Sometimes,” he said, sighing, “what you think is silence is actually filled with all kinds of sounds if you learn to listen behind it.”
    She cocked her head at him.
    “Really,” he admonished, turning to look at her. “Try it. Listen for that ringing in your ears and focus past all that. Hear the wind shifting the trees, the crickets chirping, the coyotes howling off in the distance. The forest is full of sounds if you open your ears to it.”
    She smiled at his brief softness and did as he told her. He was right; she could hear those things, but more than anything and what she had been missing most was feeling them. She could almost feel the wind blowing through her soul, lifting her higher into the atmosphere. The connection she had felt to the forest as a child was the most empowering thing she'd ever felt—more powerful than the gun holstered at her side.
    She looked at him as he watched her and laid a hand on his, squeezing it tightly.
    “Thank you,” she said warmly as his big hands encircled hers. “It's been a long time since I've felt so connected.”
    “We are children of the Earth,” he told her. His eyes seemed to travel back in time. “We must all return to it eventually. You may live an urban life, but this place will always be your home.”
    He looked into her eyes. His inner beast pawed within him, excited by the tenderness he found there. Finally, it seemed that he and his beast were on the same page. They both wanted her, but Mati was feeling an emotion quite different from his inner animal. The beast was more primal, raw in his emotions; he wanted to own her. Mati, on the other hand, just wanted to love her unconditionally. The feeling itself was so overwhelming that he could barely contain himself when Awen stroked his hair, gently tangling her fingers in his dark locks.
    It had been a long time since he had felt a woman's touch, but he