Owl Be Bear For You

By DJ Jennings

Hot summer fun where you’ll change…in more ways than one.

Librarian Mara Scioto lives a nice, neat, orderly existence—except when she’s being attacked by uncontrolled male shifters who need to mate.

Pesky little detail, right?

Raised by a grandmother who hates all shifters, she has one wish: to make it past the age of twenty-five without experiencing The Morph that tells you you’re one of them.

And then the letter from Camp Shifter arrives with her name on it...

Orthopedic surgeon in training Jack Karsten is waiting to see if he’ll follow in his shifter brother’s footsteps. Being a shifter won’t be so bad, if that’s his destiny, but when he meets Mara, he realizes that fate and love don’t always align.

But love always wins.

It can be a bear of an ordeal sorting it all out, but if anyone can help, it’s the staff at Camp Shifter. While they’ll train Jack and Mara on the ways of shifter life, there’s one thing they can’t teach them:

How to get out of their own way and let love leave them changed.

Forever.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Prosaic Press
• Release date: Oct 4, 2022
• ISBN: 9781950172191

Book preview

Chapter 1

🦉🐻

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M en don’t make passes at girls who—

Mara looked up and stared pointedly through her glasses over the long countertop covered with books. A very muscular, cocky guy who made her heart start pounding was staring at her. His half-smile was arrogant and self-assured. He knew he was getting to her.

And he was right.

But she wasn’t about to let him know that.

—who date asses, she muttered, finishing his sentence. She said it quietly, under her breath. Mara wasn’t the type to challenge people directly. But she wasn’t going to say nothing.

He cocked one eyebrow, the smile fading.

Game, set—and match. Mara returned her attention to the stack of books on the counter at the library’s main desk. He was just some dude who wandered in, looking for his wife and kids, right? Or maybe he drove here with his grandma.

Worse—he might be visiting the police station next door, where ex-cons met their parole officers.

Mara sized him up. Tall—well over her own five-foot-ten body. Bulging biceps. Clean navy polo shirt with the hint of a tattoo poking out from under his right sleeve, just above the elbow. Dark brown hair, a little too long for him to be a businessman.

Nasty scar across one cheekbone. Twinkling grey eyes. If he took two steps back she’d be able to see his pants and shoes, but she didn’t need to.

Dad. He was just a young dad—

Aren’t you a feisty little librarian. You that feisty in bed? he growled. Growled. His pupils dilated and the irises went from grey to amber, his nose bridge broadening, hair turning a burnished gold. The skin on his forearms stretched as his muscles expanded, the bones lengthening, his body becoming bigger, as if he took a breath that never ended.

Mara hated July and August. Hated these months with a passion, and it was only August 2. It was peak brand new shapeshifter season. Sigh.

Bet those sweet legs of yours would feel so fine wrapped around my waist. Or that ass, slapping up against my hips while I’m behind you and— He made a primal sound from the back of his throat as he licked his lips and sized her up like a starving man who finds a bite to eat.

Oh, no.

He was definitely a shifter. Lion shifter, if his prodromal characteristics were any hint of what was to come.

She knew the type. This one was new to it (weren’t they all if they couldn’t control it?), which meant he had to be between eighteen and twenty-five. Twenty-five was the oldest age you experienced The Morph. And it was always the new ones who hit on her right as they had their first shift.

Which meant she was right.

He was an ex-con and he had been visiting his parole officer next door when The Morph suddenly hit him.

And that meant she was in danger.

Big danger.

Look, she said in a soothing voice, trying to distract him while she pressed the emergency button under the counter. Security should be here within a minute. Untrained shifters were a known public safety problem and this was why they did untrained shifter drills, like fire drills and tornado drills.

Another thing to be careful about, just in case...

You seem like a nice enough guy, she continued. Maybe I should have a drink with you. Go out. Have a nice time together. Keep him talking. Stall. Mara’s eyes darted around the airy room, searching for vulnerable patrons. Kids and old people, mostly. She didn’t see any.

Her stomach twisted into tiny little knots of rage and disgust, but she smiled anyhow. Pretending to flirt with him would buy her some time.

Buy the security team some time, hopefully. Where were they?

Yeah, he said, the word slow and drawn out, filled with the obvious. Golden irises the color of tequila met her eyes, the bridge of his nose widening, fine layers of fur sprouting on his skin. He didn’t want to go out for a drink. He wasn’t asking her for a date.

He was ready to mate.

She was just a backside to him. A piece of ass. Nothing more. Instinct overrode everything when it came to shifters.

Which was why she couldn’t stand them.

I’m free in an hour. How about we go get a drink? What’s your name? she asked him. Repeating the same questions always helped. It calmed the new shifters. Gave the tiny portion of rational brain left in them something to try to think about.

If she leaned forward just a bit, he’d be fooled more. She could keep him talking. If she kept him talking in human form, she could buy time.

If not? She had thirty seconds. At best.

How did she know that?

Experience.

Bad experience.

Her fingers reached down and nervously touched the gouge on her hip. A bear shifter had done that to her two years ago.

Blood pumped through her faster than a crowd rushing into a Wal-Mart on Black Friday.

Clint. I’m Clint, he said. Rhymes with—

Thwap!

The sound of the dart being fired filled the air as Mara dropped to the ground, half from panic and half from training. Clint roared and jumped over the counter, but his powerful legs just bent in half and he lost energy in mid-jump.

She looked up and saw his expression, eyes confused, as he went back to his human face.

And drooled all over her.

"Ewwwwwwwwww," she gasped, the soles of her shoes on the ground, knees pulled up to her chin as she rested with her back against the wall behind the counter. The security guards rushed the desk. It all happened so fast that patrons were only now gawking, realizing what was happening in real time. Whispers and cries of surprise echoed through the large foyer in front of her desk.

Untrained shifter at the Lockington Library. Repeat, we have a sedated untrained shifter at the Lockington Library. Need transport, Jim, the head of security, barked into his walkie-talkie. Mara heard him huffing with the exertion of rushing to her aid.

Not bad. By her count, they got there in under sixty seconds.

Just in the nick of time.

Mara wiped the drool off her cheek and pushed herself into a full sitting position against the back wall. She hugged her knees and rested her forehead against the backs of her hands.

You okay, Mara? Jim shouted from above. Jim was a retired police chief from two towns over who was tall, lean, and had a kindly face like a farmer’s. But he could bring a disoriented new shifter down in under a minute.

Age meant nothing when it came to safety.

Yeah, Jim. I’ll be fine. Just a little shaken. Her voice sounded tinny. Like she was talking through a paper towel tube.

And then suddenly, no one was talking at all as she slumped to the floor in a dead faint.

Chapter 2

🦉🐻

Dr. Jack Karsten felt the emergency before the call even came in. Something primal inside him was on edge. Had been all night. Flexing his arms, tight then loose, made his joints ache with the need for release.

He’d seen it all that night, working third shift during his first year as a resident. Some guy had come in earlier with a glass soda bottle shoved up his ass, claiming he’d slipped on the floor and oops—bottle up the anus. Another man had swallowed his wife’s vibrator.

While it was running.

The little seven year old with a marble stuck in his ear had been a welcome relief.

The full moon outside made Jack twitch. August 2. All of July and August were the peak months when people learned they were actually shifters. One and a half days down, too many more to go.

He wasn’t a shifter, but he knew that the moon made so many of the shifters change. Most could control it, but the new ones going through The Morph would be out there tonight, unaware of how radically their lives were about to be altered. Add a new moon to shifter season and you got unrelenting chaos.

The hospital’s Treat and Restrain Untrained Shifters Team was staffed and ready to act. Jack was new to the hospital but not new to treating and managing untrained shifters.

Or their victims.

The victims were the hardest part. An untrained male shifter could really hurt a woman in under a minute, leaving her bitten, bruised, torn, and emotionally and physically in ruins. The untrained couldn’t be allowed to roam. They needed medical and law enforcement intervention.

And they needed to be tamed. Trained. Once they were shuttled off to Camp Shifter and had their month of initiation there, most were fine.

Most.

Jack knew that some shifters, the criminally oriented, used the full moon to pretend to be untrained. They used the full moon as an excuse to commit assault.

And worse.

That was the central problem with shifters: the good ones just turned a little wild.

The bad ones? They were dangerous.

Tense and on alert, he knew why he was so troubled. His own sister, Stella, had been a victim of an untrained shifter.

Their next-door neighbor. It happened on prom night. Todd Jorgens had felt The Morph hit him like a tsunami and Stella hadn’t seen it coming. That had been five years ago. The guy was still on probation, and Stella was still in therapy.

When an untrained shifter—especially a male, but the women could do deep damage when they were hit hard enough by The Morph—had no boundaries, the possibilities were endless.

Jack willed the thought away and curled his long surgeon’s fingers into fists so tight, his fingernails left marks on his palms.

Not on my watch, he thought.

The ambulance-dock doors flew open as he checked the whiteboard full of patient assignments. USA. Female, twenty-four, at the library. Untrained shifter is sedated and coming next, the paramedic shouted as a team of nurses and Jack descended on the unconscious woman strapped to the gurney.

USA. Untrained Shifter Attack.

The victim made Jack’s mouth go dry and his heart skip a beat. Long, blonde, curly hair spread around the pillow like sunbeams. A sweet, calm face with eyelashes impossibly long, spreading down over her cheekbones. A lush body, so ripe and full under the thin sheet that covered her. Instinct made him feel protective.

Insta-lust made him feel something much, much stronger.

Shoving aside the roar of arousal that filled him with increasing intensity as each second ticked by, Jack paused. Her presence made his mind scramble and empty at the same time. He folded his hands into fists again, but this time not from tension.

From the very basic sense of social rules that did not give him permission to slide his arms under her and carry her off to be his and his alone.

Blood rushed through his mind like white water rapids as the nurses barked out orders. Finally, he came to his senses and began the checklist of issues to make certain she was fine.

Simple syncope, they said. In layman’s terms: she fainted.

Following a thwarted untrained shifter incident.

Dear God. As he checked her pulse, using the medical procedure as a cover for touching her soft flesh, he felt a connection in the press of fingertip against wrist. What if the attacker had been successful? What if the security team at her—did they say library?—hadn’t made it in time? What if she—?

Dr. Karsten? Rala Dunli, the head of orthopedics, called out his name from the doorway, holding a folder aloft. I’ve seen her before. Any injuries?

He shook his head, words eluding him. Why would Dunli come here?

Good. She had a hip fracture and reconstruction on the pelvis two years ago after a similar attack, Dunli said, turning away, her words like a whisper on the wind as she left.

A similar attack?

Jack sprinted out the door, people parting before him as if he were Moses and they were the Red Sea. His sheer size made people do that. If he hadn’t snapped a knee back in college, he’d have been a pro hockey player. That pre-med major had come in handy when his sports career had ended with an uncooperative bone.

He surreptitiously adjusted himself in his scrubs.

Speaking of uncooperative bone(rs)...

"Dr. Dunli. You said a similar attack?" His words must have come out more ferocious than he’d intended, for Rala Dunli recoiled from him, and he’d never seen the woman cowed by anyone.

Yes. She gathered herself quickly, pulling up with a ramrod-straight backbone. Two years ago. Bear shifter attack. Her boyfriend. The man damn near, well... She sighed. "You can read her chart. It was bad."

Holy shit, he muttered. If Dunli said that, it must be.

Dunli gave him a look. Language. Not in front of the patients.

He glanced back in the room. Sleeping Beauty isn’t hearing a word of this.

Dunli gave him a skeptical look. She was a short, athletic woman with a near-crewcut and a gaggle of young sons back home. Rein it in, Karsten. You’re only in your first month of residency. Mara Scioto won’t be your last USA. Welcome to emergency medicine.

He huffed and ran a big palm through his wild, untamed brown waves.

End of shift? she asked, softening.

Pulled my first forty-eight, he sighed. Two hours to go. The sense of high alert was fading. Out of the corner of his eye he saw the patient stirring. He ached to hold her hand.

Do yourself a favor and learn to detach. You’re so young.

He bristled. Everyone said that. I’m twenty-four.

You look younger.

Everyone said that, too.

I’m no boy genius.

Dunli gave him a long look. You’re the size of a small mountain, Karsten. You play rugby? We have a team here. We play against Mercy East and some of the other hospitals. We could use you.

As what?

As a wall? she joked.

A nurse called for him. Dunli handed him the folder. Read through it, she said, her eyes filled with a weird kind of pity. And go easy on Mara Scioto. What she went through two years ago still gives me nightmares, and I’m about as jaded as they come.

And with that, Rala Dunli upended Jack Karsten’s world.

All in one single conversation.

Chapter 3

🦉🐻

L ook here, young man. I didn’t come all the way across town to see my granddaughter only to be told I can’t go in her room by someone who looks like he was born the year I retired! The voice filled with outrage was all too familiar.

Aha. Nonnie’s here, Mara thought.

But where am I?

She looked up and realized she wasn’t at the library anymore. There was a beige curtain with a mesh strip on the top of it. She was in a hospital bed, her head elevated, and she was covered by thick, warm blankets.

And her head was pounding.

Everything was blurry. She reached up and—

Her glasses.

Where were her glasses?

Nonnie? she called out.

The curtain swept open as if moved by her grandmother’s outrage alone.

Mara! Nonnie declared, hobbling to her and coming in for a hug. The familiar scent of roses and baked cinnamon cookies made Mara nearly weep with relief. My goodness, you’ve given me a scare!

A very big, very hot, very young male doctor stood behind Nonnie, wearing a frown.

Excuse me, Mrs.— He frowned deeper at Nonnie. But you don’t have permission yet to talk with the patient. Ah... He looked at a chart. Mara Scioto.

Don’t have permission? Nonnie said, bursting with indignation. I don’t need permission to come and see my own flesh and blood. You, on the other hand, look like you need permission to see an R-rated movie! Nonnie’s white eyebrows and tightly permed white hairline shot up, her mouth set with determination.

No one told Nonnie what to do.

The doctor was undeterred, though. He stayed calm and in control, eyes searching Nonnie’s face to decide how to proceed. He was in command here. Not Nonnie. That was a new feeling for Mara.

He