3. Cooper

3

COOPER

L ast night. Before it happened.

I don't really like to hunt as a bear. The wolf shifters seem to like it a lot but the only thing worth hunting in this forest is rabbit, and it's too gamey to me. Usually I do what most bears do… find human junk food.

There's a gas station about five miles away where I like to get free snacks. Yes, as a bear. I just walk right in. The owners think it's hilarious—a bear in their little food market aisle with a favorite snack. I get Gummy Bears a lot just to mess with them. And Snickers' bars.

Shifters have a high metabolism but I'm also pretty dedicated to my physique. Anything a shifter eats in their animal form has no direct caloric effect on their human form, so I tend to eat most of my cheat meals on the nights of the full moon.

Tonight I just sit in the middle of the aisle and gorge on chocolate. They think I'm the smartest bear in the world because I've "figured out" how to get the wrapper off. I just slit the plastic with my claw and push out the candy. Bears aren't really supposed to have chocolate, but as a shifter I have neither the normal frailties and illnesses of a human or of a bear.

When I'm finished with my petty crime, I begin to amble out the same way I came in. I get that it's a little shitty for me to steal from a gas station every month, but it's really less about getting away with the theft and more the thrill of them thinking I'm just a bear, all the while I know the truth… that I can understand every word that comes out of their mouths.

And anyway… I'd hardly call it stealing. Brenda and Bob Bronson—the couple that owns this fine establishment—started a Youtube channel that now has over a million subscribers. They film all my antics. I'm internet famous, and what they make in ad revenue more than makes up for what I steal every month.

I take a bag of BBQ chips for the road and then I head back to my den in the forest to sleep off my junk food bender. I'm about half a mile from the den when I hear a woman cry out. "Help!"

Does she think there's help in these woods? She's not far from me. Is it an animal threat? Another human? I decide to investigate. When I get closer I see it's a human male, and then something in me just… snaps. I make angry chuffing sounds and then I roar… something I don't typically do as a bear.

Then I charge that motherfucker and use the full force of my seven hundred pound weight to send him sailing. He lands several yards away, his back hitting a tree, and I could swear I heard it crack. He's screaming and trying to scramble away.

"Yeah, how does it feel, motherfucker...to be the prey for once?" But of course human speech doesn't come out of my mouth, only bear chuffs. But I know what I said. I smell the acrid aroma of urine as he full on pisses himself.

And then, without hesitation or a single moral quandary, I maul him to death.

I don't normally maul humans, but this guy has me pissed off. And I don't really know why until he's dead and I've made my way back over to her. Her terrified eyes meet mine, and then she faints.

I want to follow her down the dark path to sweet oblivion because I've just realized why I lost my chill and killed that guy. This girl is mine. My mate. And I cannot let another living male touch her ever the fuck again.