Heart's Redemption (MxM)

Chapter 41 ~ Ian

I take the Walkers by surprise.

Most Shifters—the Walkers included—take time to Shift. It's an uncomfortable, sometimes painful process, as bone and flesh are torn asunder and remade.

Not me. I don't know why, but if there's one thing I excel at, it's Shifting smooth and fast.

I hate Shifting without undressing first, though—for one thing, it gets expensive, and for another, it hurts—but it can't be helped.

Torn along seams, my clothes fall away as my form explodes from man to bear.

Falling forward onto my front paws and doing my best to ignore the twinge in my shoulder as it takes its share of my weight, I fasten my jaws around the barrel of Inez's shotgun and wrench it from her grasp. With a toss of my head, I cast it a short distance away, where it falls among the brush.

Inez stumbles back a step, but she's still within reach. I could probably catch her with a swipe of my paw and end things right here, but I don't.

That wouldn't be fair.

Instead, I wait, even now taking pleasure in my alternate form—in my true Shape. In the seconds it takes the Walkers to decide whether to fight me as humans or bears, I revel in my expanded senses, picking up the depth and nuance of the forest's scent, settling into the balance between my heart and my mind.

Unsurprisingly, the Walkers choose to Shift.

Elliot's form I've seen already, and Sofia's is what I'd expect—a smallish black bear with smooth, shiny fur—but Inez takes me by surprise. She's enormous and white, a polar bear with jaws wide enough they could probably close around my head and crush my skull.

I guess trying to play fair was a bad idea after all. I should've just smacked her into the dust when I had the chance.

Oh well.

I bellow a challenge, and she meets it with her own. Her voice is deep and resonant with power. Even one-on-one I don't know if I could beat her. With Sofia and Elliot at her side, I don't stand a chance.

To my surprise, she turns and grunts at the other two, a sign they seem to understand even if I don't (it's not like there's some secret bear language we all speak), and then they lumber back a pace, ceding the field to me and Inez.

I bow my head in acknowledgment. She fully intends to kill me, and if she fails either her son or niece is standing by to finish the job, but she's returning my gesture, at least. She's giving me the chance to die fair.

Still not a great end to the day, but better than nothing.

We stare at each other for a moment and then, with a bellow of rage, she charges and we clash in a fury of teeth, muscle, and claws.

I dodge more than I swipe, but somehow I manage to stay clear of her massive claws, finding that I, for once, have the advantage of being the smaller and more agile fighter.

My shoulder is my weakness, though, and she knows it, striking again and again at my left side, forcing me to put weight on my right as I move to avoid her blows. At last one lands, her claws slicing through my left arm, through fur and muscle, blinding me with sudden, searing pain. My other arm gives under my weight, and I collapse to my side.

Inez closes in, her jaws wide in a roar as she lunges for the kill, but I strike first. This isn't my first fight—not the first time I've been hurt—and I know how to put pain aside in favor of something else. Anger, in this case. I let it give me strength, ignoring the fire in my half-mended shoulder and my shredded arm, enough that I can roll and swipe at Inez with both paws as she attacks.