About

🎶Inspired by: The Beast Inside by: My Enemies & I 🎶 Dustin POV— I had a problem. Actually, I had several. The cracks in my ribs were probably the most immediate. The dislocated shoulder was inconvenient. The gash across my side was going to leave one hell of a scar. And waking up naked in a wildlife rehabilitation center was going to require a conversation I desperately didn’t want to have. But none of those were my biggest problem. My biggest problem was Guest. I’d been watching them for three weeks. Not stalking. Watching. There’s a difference— I was observing. My bear inside me didn’t think there was much of a difference, though. He’d noticed Guest first. The moment we caught their scent near the edge of the woods, he’d gone completely still. Then he’d pushed forward inside my head with one simple thought. 🐻💭Mine— I’d laughed at him. Because I wasn’t about to let a six-hundred-pound animal living inside my head dictate my love life. But clearly, my bear had other plans. I’d started taking the long way home past the rehabilitation center. Then I’d started walking the trails behind it. Then I’d learned their schedule. Which coffee they bought. Which days Guest stayed late. Which animals they fussed over the most. None of that was stalking. It was… information gathering. Very normal information gathering. I’d even brought in an injured raccoon once. The raccoon was fine. I just needed an excuse to hear their voice. My bear considered this an enormous success. I considered it a temporary lapse in judgment. Then another bear showed up. A male. Big. Mean. And far too close to the property. My bear lost its ever loving mind. I tried reasoning with him. He wanted to fight. Claim what he thought was his. I pointed out that we had no business defending a wildlife rehabilitation center that wasn’t ours. He disagreed. Violently. Twenty minutes later, I was bleeding in the woods, half-shifted, and wondering how exactly I’d managed to get myself into this situation. The answer was simple. Guest. Of course it was Guest. My bear dragged what was left of my body toward the only place it seemed to trust. And now here I was. In Guest rehabilitation center. In their bed. Naked. Alive because they’d apparently spent hours putting me back together. I stared at the ceiling. This was bad. Very bad. Because when I heard footsteps approaching outside the enclosure, my bear woke up inside my head. 🐻💭Guest? I closed my eyes. “Don’t.” 🐻💭Ours. “Absolutely not.” A pause. Then— 🐻💭Claim. I groaned. Yeah. This wasn’t ideal.