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Elena
No, no, this can’t be…
I keep shaking my head, as I face Rock and Cal in his bear form. They’re standing there, just across from me, and yet, I feel like we’re miles apart, like nothing ever happened between us, or even if it did, that now, it doesn’t mean anything.
“Elena, please—” Rock starts, but I take a step back, pointing at him with my finger.
“You stay where you are! Don’t move!” My whole body is trembling. I know they would never hurt me. Cal just protected me from the bear shifter, but I can’t fight this fear that has a complete grip over me.
“Alright,” Rock nods, raising his hands to the level of his chest, in a gesture of surrender. “Let’s just talk about this…”
I shake my head at them. “You’ve been lying to me all this time.” It all feels like a dream. “You must have had a pretty good laugh at my expense.”
“No, Elena, you don’t understand,” Rock tries to convince me. “It’s nothing like that. We just… had to keep this a secret.”
I look at Cal. He looks both majestic and terrifying at the same time. I dare not approach him, but curiosity gets the better of me. I inhale deeply, walking over to him, one step at a time. None of us says a single word. I look at his eyes, but they’re not his eyes anymore. They have taken on a darker hue, and I wonder if he’s even in there.
“Cal?” I call out softly to him.
The bear grunts in confirmation. He leans his head on my arm, nuzzling against it. I can’t believe this. I keep shaking my head, because none of this makes any sense. How could I nothave seen anything? How could I not have noticed any sign of this? Am I really that blind?
Then, I remember he’s a bear, and I was almost killed twice by two. I pull back in fear, because he’s an animal now. I don’t know how his mind works. Does it get completely taken over by the animal it has become? I don’t know.
“Can he turn back?” I ask Rock.
“Of course,” Rock whispers softly. “Whenever he wants.”
“Show me,” I tell Cal, staring at him straight in the eyes. “I want to see it again.”
Cal glances at Rock, then back at me. We are not in danger any longer, and yet, there is still tension in the air, almost as if the forest itself is now holding its breath, to see what will happen. I was watching Cal transform into a bear holding my breath. I thought I was dreaming. I thought I was on the brink of death, and that was why I was allowed to witness this majestic transformation.
But now, it’s different. We aren’t in danger. At least, for the time being. There is nothing but the gentle cascade of the sunlight, falling down onto Cal. I can’t take my eyes off of him. I’m afraid, but at the same time, in awe. I wonder how many humans have ever witnessed something like this.
Cal steps a bit away from us, breathing slowly, almost as if he’s becoming hot under all that fur on this bright, sunny day. I can’t really pinpoint the moment when it all starts. I just suddenly noticethat his bear fur is slowly starting to recede, melting away like shadows before the dawn, pulling into himself, dissolving and disappearing. The same is happening with his claws. They retract little by little, until all that is left are nails, just like mine.
The massive bear frame reshapes at the same time, bones cracking, readjusting, as the contoured lines and proportions start to take on a more human form. I can’t look away even fora single moment. I am mesmerized. This is what I have come here for, and now that I’ve seen it, I don’t know if I can keep this wonder to myself.
I tremble in sheer awe as the boundary between beast and man blurs once again, revealing not a beast, but a man, a naked and slightly battered human figure, bathed in dissipating luminescence.
Looking down at his nakedness, Cal quickly hides his manhood, as the remnants of his clothes remain scattered about, torn completely to shreds, and as such, unusable.
“Where’s a pair of pants when you need them, huh?” Cal grins, but none of us laughs.
He stands now, just a man, his human form a stark contrast to the primal force he embodied just moments ago. For a brief second, I see that animalistic darkness in his eyes, then it extinguishes, leaving just himself in the aftermath of the confrontation.
I don’t even know where to begin asking all the questions that are swarming inside my mind.
“How…?” That is the only thing I manage to muster.
“I don’t know honestly,” Cal shrugs. “You just… make it happen.”
That explains nothing, but I can understand what he means. If something comes naturally, you can’t really explain it. You just feel it. You just do it. That’s all.
Suddenly, I remember something. “The first time we met?” I ask, not sure if I need to remind them about it, but one look tells me they remember it as well as I do.
“That was me, yeah,” Cal admits, scratching the back of his neck with one hand, while the other one is still hiding his manhood. It is both a serious and a ridiculous situation, and a part of me doesn’t even know how to act.
Although I feel I don’t know anything, I do know one thing, and that is that I’m not in any danger around them. But I want explanations. I want answers. I want to know why they’ve been lying to me all along, when they knew that this was what I came here for.
