Bear with Me (Half-breed Shifter Series) by Miranda Stowe Page A

Mama’s reaction definitely would have.
Her eyes bulged from their sockets before she dropped the bucket she was
holding and screamed bloody murder. The sound she made could’ve put a horror
flick heroine to shame. If Brick didn’t know any better, he would’ve thought
his mama was seriously terrified of him.
    Trembling and clutching her
mouth, she backed toward the opened doorway behind her as if afraid any sudden
moment would prompt him into charging.
    He cocked his head to the
side. “Mama?” But again, only a thunderous snarl emerged.
    She screeched and turned to
race away.
    Hoping off the bed to follow
her and find out what was wrong, Brick landed on all fours and the muscles in
his body jiggled from the landing as if he’d put on about three-hundred pounds.
    Startled, he glanced down,
wondering why the heck he was standing on all fours like some kind of dog. When
he saw brown fur, he screamed, except yeah, only a growl emerged.
    What the hell? He lifted his
arms, or front paws, or whatever the hell they were off the ground and, glad he
could still move on his back legs, he scrambled to the mirror. When a bear
stared back, he stumbled in reverse patting his face. Tripping over the clothes
on the floor that Mama told him to pick up last week, he sprawled backward,
landing on his ass.
    A shock of pain speared
through him, and a tingling sensation spread from the base of his spine,
covering his skin, or fur, or whatever he had now. Scrambling upright again, he
regained his footing and returned to the mirror. But Brick—the human—was back
in the reflection. A naked Brick, which was odd because he distinctly
remembered being too tired to even strip off his shoes, much less his school
clothes, when he’d crawled into bed on Friday.
    With a quick glance, he
confirmed his clothes and sneakers were a shredded mess on his mattress as if
he’d busted out of them like the Hulk...or a huge grizzly bear.
    “What the fuck?” he
whispered, glad Mama hadn’t heard him swear, because he didn’t want to get
whacked on the back of his head by the palm of her hand for profanity. But if
there were ever a time to curse, it was now.
    “Mama?” Snatching up a pair
of boxer shorts off the carpet that he’d just tripped over, Brick tried to
shimmy into them and run from the room at the same time, only managing to
stumble and jab his shoulder into the wall.
    He found his mother in the
living room, her back to the hallway and a phone clutched to her ear. “Please
help me. Please help me! There’s a...there’s a...in my son’s bedroom.”
    “Mama,” he gasped. She
screamed and whirled around, dropping the phone.
    “Brick! Oh, my God. Oh, my
baby.” She pulled him close and hugged him as hard as she’d ever hugged him
before. Since he was already a foot taller than her, he pulled her in and let
her burrow her cheek against his heartbeat. For a full minute, they clung to
each other, the fear of both them soaking the room with relief that they were
both okay.
    Finally, Mama pulled away and
gaped up at him. “But how did you get away? There was a...a bear in your room.
In your bed !”
    He gulped, dread filling his
veins. “You saw it too?”
    She bobbed her head up and
down. “Where did it go? What happened?”
    Good question. “I don’t...I
don’t know. It just...it was like it was inside me. Or outside really, but I
was still inside, and there was...we were one. But then I was me again, and the
bear was gone.”
    Mama blinked at him and
clutched her hands together just under her chin. “Baby, that don’t make no
sense. Just tell me where the bear went.”
    “I...it didn’t go anywhere. I was the bear. And then...then I wasn’t.”
    She stomped her foot and
scowled. “Brick Michael Lowery. There was a God damn bear in your
bedroom. Where. Did. It. Go?”
    She didn’t understand. Or
maybe she was just refusing to listen. Brick held up a finger. Maybe he could
make it happen again. He’d returned to human just by