So Much To Bear (A Werebear Erotic Romance) by Bethany Rousseau Page B

morning, wrapped up against the lingering winter chill. She
knew that once she got to really hiking, she wouldn’t need the
insulation, but she was grateful for it as she made her trek
through the town, looking at the plumes of smoke that rose from
chimneys, the almost-eerie quiet of the not-quite-awake
neighborhood she lived in. She passed the town center, glancing at
where the bonfire had been, and shivered at the memory of the angry
mob, at the senseless thirst for murder she had seen there only
days before. Jennifer set her jaw, taking a deep breath and
consigning that ugly day to the past. She would never live in the
town again; as soon as she found out the truth of what had happened
to Damon, she would never think about the town. Jennifer moved
quickly into the tree line, darting into the dappled light and
shadow of the forest, and felt a rush of both apprehension and
relief.
     
    She had always enjoyed the woods; even
before she’d had any connection to the forest through Damon,
Jennifer had liked to explore, had held onto the memories of her
father guiding her through the deeper parts. She wondered at the
fact that they had apparently all been totally unaware of the fact
that a clan and a tribe of werebears inhabited the woods; there
were legends of men that became bears, but they were so old they
practically had cobwebs on them. Jennifer looked around, finding
her way through the green depths, breathing the fresher air and the
smell of evergreen trees, the loamy soil underfoot. For a few
moments, Jennifer thought she might have gotten herself lost once
more; the trees around her seemed unfamiliar, new to her eyes. But
she found the trail and made her way along the path, trying to
decide how she would deal with the possibility of Damon being dead.
Her hands trembled and she felt a rush of cold through her body. He
couldn’t be dead, she told herself firmly. He had disappeared from
the ground below the cliff, and the brook wasn’t strong enough to
carry him away, in spite of what she had said to the
contrary.
     
    Jennifer finally found the cliff that
housed Damon’s cave and stopped, taking a few deep breaths. Even if
he wasn’t there, she told herself firmly, she couldn’t assume the
worst right away. He could be going about his normal routine. She
wouldn’t know for sure until she had checked every one of the sites
she knew about, until she had seen no evidence of his activity in
the forest. Jennifer climbed up slowly, pausing frequently to still
the trembling of her hands as she made her way towards the cave.
She didn’t want to discover that Damon might be dead. She almost
decided against trying to find him, almost decided that she should
just go back to college and have done with the whole thing, consign
Damon to a corner of her heart and move on with her
life.
     
    But somehow, she thought, if the
situation were reversed, Damon would have sought her out. The idea
of Damon searching for her in the town was slightly ludicrous; but
if he had seen her attacked in the forest, and had known she had
disappeared shortly thereafter, Jennifer thought that he would have
begun searching for her right away. He would have come to her
assistance and taken care of her. But then, she thought, doubting
herself once more, Damon was used to taking care of himself. He
might have just written her off entirely.
     
    She came to the landing and the
entrance of the cave and steadied her breathing, trying to suppress
the rapid, rabbit-like fluttering of her heart. She had to look,
she had to know. Jennifer took a deep breath and reached out,
pulling aside the curtain in one quick jerk, like ripping off a
band aid. The sight that greeted her was not what she had
expected—not in her wildest hopes or most desperate fears. The cave
wasn’t just empty of Damon; it looked as though it had been
entirely cleared out. The furniture was gone, the planks that had
made up the floor absent, even the hearth cleaned out as if it had
never