An Alpha's Storm (Water Bear Shifters 1) by Sloane Meyers Page B

said. “I think I just realized what happened, and I definitely did not react the right way when I saw her at the bar. Oh, god, I hope it’s not too late to fix things with her.”
    Ben spoke up next. “Listen, I don’t mean to sound crass, but I don’t really give a damn about your love life right now. I’m concerned about being outed as shifters, and I think we all need to go over as a group and talk to Aubrey.”
    “Are you kidding me?” Ace asked. “You actually think it’s a good idea for all of us to just show up at Aubrey’s house? That sounds like a great way to freak the poor girl out. She’ll probably go straight to the police, and who knows how out of control things will get from there.”
    “She’s already freaked out and upset,” Ben said. “She’s angry with Brett, so she doesn’t want to talk to him. Fine. But she might be swayed to let us at least say our piece if we all show up as a unified front.”
    “You’re out of your mind,” Ace said. “She might be swayed into talking to us, sure. She also might be even more frightened when there are four big guys on her porch instead of one. My guess would be if we all show up, she’ll call the cops without a second thought.”
    “Brett?” Lance asked. “What do you think? You know her better than any of us.”
    Brett bit his lip. “I think we should talk to her,” he said. “She’s a pretty levelheaded person. I think if she sees all of us showing up together, she’ll see how important this is to us and let us speak.”
    Ace rolled his eyes and let out a loud sigh while Ben crossed his arms and gave Ace a triumphant smirk.
    “Fine,” Ace said. “I’ll go along with this idiot plan, since we’re probably already doomed, anyway. But don’t say I didn’t warn you.”
    The group decided that Lance would drive them over, since he had the largest vehicle. Brett sat in the passenger seat to give driving directions, feeling nervous and excited all at the same time. He knew if they could just get Aubrey to listen to them, that everything would be okay. Aubrey was one of the most open-minded people he’d ever met. He couldn’t imagine her doing anything to expose him or any of the other alphas to harm. Sure, she was angry with him. But even in her anger, she wouldn’t want to turn him over to angry scientists who wanted him dead.
    Brett’s biggest worry was that Aubrey wouldn’t be willing to listen to the group at all. If she didn’t let them explain things, she might let her imagination run away with all kinds of fears and misinformation about shifters. If she called the cops, and the pandas’ enemies got wind of where they were, it was game over.
    Brett crossed his fingers in hopes that the presence of all four of the shifters at once would be enough to make Aubrey realize how serious the matter was.
    If not, it looked like he might have to start running again, leaving behind the rescue swimmer job that he loved.

Chapter Ten
     
    Aubrey sat on her couch, using a spoon to eat vanilla bean ice-cream straight from a half-gallon container. She was streaming a TV sitcom on Netflix, but even though she was staring at the screen, she wasn’t really watching. She couldn’t think about anything other than the fact that she had been sleeping with a man who could turn himself into a panda.
    She half-wondered if she was going crazy, and had imagined the whole thing. Maybe she’d been working too much, and hadn’t gotten enough sleep. Maybe all the salty sea air was finally starting to get to her. Surely, she must have somehow conjured up this whole scenario in her head. Human beings couldn’t just change into bears, could they?
    No matter how hard Aubrey tried to convince herself that she hadn’t really seen Brett turning into a panda on the beach, she couldn’t stop images from the evening from playing over and over in her mind. The whole evening had been so surreal, from the moment that Brett walked into the bar until the moment