(Cover fan art by MayceeMouse :))

It was getting cold outside.

September had flown by and the biting cold nipping at his thick black nose foretold an early winter. Marsh stared up at the graying sky with deep chocolate eyes that almost looked like coal in the dimming light. He still needed to bulk up.

Shaking out his heavy coat, he sniffed around and nibbled on a struggling blackberry bush. His bear was likely pushing six-hundred pounds, but he needed at least another hundred or two in order to make it through hibernation. He'd slept through every winter he'd come upon since finding himself a territory, though he sometimes woke up too soon if he hadn't managed to build up his fat reserves in time. He didn't want to have to go through the struggle of raiding campsites and dumpsters for food again.

Pawing at the ground, he sniffed at a root before deciding not to waste his time on the low-nutrient item. With his mind hard-wired to find food, he started sniffing the air and hobbling along, hoping that he'd pick up the scent of something decently substantial.

After a short bit of wandering, his nostrils flared as they found something on the wind. It definitely wasn't a deer or possum, but it smelled edible, and that was good enough for him. Hell, he'd even take carrion.

His heavy paws followed his nose as he paced through the massive forest, but as he grew closer to the scent, his ears began to twitch as they picked up sounds that he didn't like. There was talking nearby. That meant that there were humans.

The instinct to turn and run was strong as it pulsed through his veins, but he was also very undernourished considering how fast winter was approaching. He needed food... and meat was the best thing he could get a hold of. It was worth the risk.

Moving as quietly as he could, he circled around the small group of humans, silently noting that two of the males were holding long guns. If he could kill them first, the others could only run. That would be two meals, possibly three, if he could chase down one of the runners.

The thought of a good meal made him hunch down and dig his claws into the moist, cold soil beneath them. It was now or never.

With a habitual roar, he lunged forward, immediately drawing the human's attention. Thankfully, he was close enough to swat one of the guns out of the first man's hands, and while the other one fumbled with his own to aim, Marsh took his chance for his first kill. Right as he was raking his paw down the first man's chest, something suddenly swung onto his back, arms fumbling to wrap around his large neck.

With the scent of blood in the air, Marsh refused to stop until he felt fingernails claw at his own right eye. He stumbled backwards and shook his head abruptly, then stood up onto his back legs with an angry roar. The person who had jumped on him had to relent and hold on tightly or be thrown to the ground.

When Marsh dropped back down to his front paws, he hurriedly shook his coat out again, but frustratingly, the person still managed to hold on.

"Shoot it! Shoot it!"

Half of the small group had already taken off running, leaving one man standing beside the one who had the second gun. It appeared to be broken, since he was still messing with it, and not pointing it at him.

"The damn thing is jammed!" the guy with the gun growled as Marsh started for him, only to slide to an abrupt halt as the person on his back returned to clawing at his eye.

Deciding that he needed to deal with the human on his back first, and remaining around the man with the gun was only risking more, Marsh turned and barreled through the underbrush. The man riding on his back returned to holding on tightly, but even with his fingers removed from his eye, Marsh couldn't see more than dark blotches on that side.

He didn't think much into it as he pushed on, making sure that he got a good mile or so away from the foremost danger before coming to an abrupt, skidding stop. The man's hold on him finally slipped, sending him flying several yards over Marsh's head. He came to land in a patch of tall, weedy grass, and was immediately lunged at.

With barely a second to shake off his hard fall, the man stumbled to his feet, then darted behind a nearby tree right as Marsh swung a massive paw at his chest. He dodged, luckily, but with such strong instincts pushing him, Marsh refused to relent. He charged after the man, following him around the tree several times before the man ducked into a particularly-thorny bush.

With his thick coat, Marsh only hesitated long enough to close his eyes and lower his head before charging through it. When he made it out the other side, his stubby ears flicked back and forth as he tilted his head and looked around... but there was no one in sight.

Turning to his third sense, his big wet nose started flaring its nostrils, and within seconds, his head tilted upward. The human had scaled the large redwood impressively fast. Unfortunately for him, he also cornered himself with the action, too.

Knowing that food was close at paw, Marsh grunted and swung his head, then quickly raked his claws along the bark until he got a decent hold. It took him no time at all to scale a large portion of the tree, only stopping for a moment to regain his bearings when a claw slipped on the side he couldn't see.

At that moment, the human had found a limb large enough to support his own weight and begun digging through the dark gray backpack he'd seemingly been carrying on his shoulders. Marsh's nose picked up the smell of meat before his good eye zeroed in on the large stack of sliced ham now in the man's hand.

"This is what you're after, right? You came for this? I bet you're hungry and need more food for the coming winter," he said.

He wasn't wrong on one thing. He needed more food... but he could always eat the morsel of meat he was offering once he killed him. Besides, a hundred or so pounds of meat was better than one or two.

Smacking his lips at the idea of a feast, Marsh gave a quiet grumble and hurried to finish his climb. However, when he finally reached the large branch the man had been perched on, he watched with irate frustration as he finished tying a knot in a thick twine rope, then leaped from the branch to descend quickly toward the ground.

Seeing his meal swiftly descend out of his reach after dropping the measly pound or so of meat below, Marsh gave a roaring cry, but instead of climbing back down the tree, he swung his head and awkwardly hobbled onto the branch, then leaned over and roared again, frustrated.

When the man's feet landed in the damp leaf litter below, he hurried away until he was at a decently safe distance, then turned. Surprise was etched on his face as he looked up at the stranded bear.

"Wonder why it's not coming down..."

March swung his head repeatedly and nibbled at the moss-laden branch, indecisive. He needed the larger amount of food, but it was going to get away. He also needed to get down in order to try and catch it, but...

He was terrible at climbing down once he'd gone up. It didn't matter if what he was climbing was a tree, a fence, a utility pole. Once he went up, he would always fumble his way downward. The last time he'd tried to climb down from a large tree after being lured up its thin branches by a heavy beehive, he'd snapped several of the higher branches and broken his back leg. Thankfully, his tolerance for pain was quite high and he still managed to walk on it after keeping it lifted for several weeks, but he didn't dare try to scale another tree again... until now.

Growing more and more distraught, he turned in an awkward circle on the uneven branch, then roared again before staring at the frustrating rope that had allowed his pray to escape.

"Is it really stuck up there? I thought bears could climb really well."

Knowing that he did have to eventually get down, he snorted and awkwardly reached for the rope with his massive paw.

"No way. It can't climb down with that, can it?"

The man was already backing away as he spoke, but he refused to look away as Marsh's claws easily slit the rope in two as he added a small fraction of his weight to it. Already off-balance, he gave a startled grunt and felt himself begin to fall. The ground began to approach far too quickly, reminding him of the time he'd broken his leg and instilling fear in his thrumming heart.

Unable to think of another way, he felt his bones painfully shrink and rearrange themselves as his fur partially receded into a much smaller body. A rough scream left his small parted lips as his thick, dangerous teeth shrunk to the size of mere pebbles as they took their place in a human mouth, but didn't lose their sharpness.

Somehow, mid-shift, he managed to reach out and grab the rope, this time managing to not fray it with his remaining small claws, and instead, he managed to grip it with his new thumb and fingers.

His one good eye finally found the man far below him. He looked like he'd just seen a ghost as he continued to slowly back away, but as Marsh got closer to the ground, the man stopped, seemingly realizing that he was no longer in danger because the bear was actually a shifter.

He was about to take a step forward when Marsh immediately felt his body revert back to his true form and he released the rope that had slowed his ascent. As he met the ground, he had regained his thick paws and heavy mass, his weight easily shaking the surrounding ground cover, sending bursts of leaves into the air as he let out a bone-rattling roar.

"I... I'm so confused," the man rushed out before turning and bolting away again.

Marsh was soon hot on his heels and closing the gap by the second, even with his old injury flaring up every few steps. It had likely been agitated after he'd jumped from the rope, but there wasn't much he could do. If he relented now, all of the energy he'd expended on chasing his meal would have been waisted, and that was something he couldn't accept.

"Watch out!"

An unfamiliar voice yelled right as the sound of a gunshot rang out. The sound of the bullet whizzing in front of him had Marsh drawing back abruptly, but he wasn't fast enough to protect his nose from being grazed. Little droplets of blood spattered onto the leaves by his paws and the scent of blood overtook his sense of smell, making his frustration burn brighter.

"Don't shoot yet!"

The man he had been chasing was stopped about ten yards away. It was a short distance. Easily closed with a bit of effort... yet Marsh had to hesitate. The man who had fired the gun would have hit him head on if he had been another foot forward. He would have been dead.

His need for food urged him onward, but self-preservation fought with that instinct. He couldn't fill his belly if he was gunned down, dead.

"Why the hell are you telling me to wait? It's clearly going after you!" the one with the gun yelled, already leveling the weapon for another shot.

The man he had been chasing, though panting heavily, cleared his throat with a cough and straightened a little more.

"He's a shifter, but there's something wrong!" he shouted back, making the guy with the gun give him an are you crazy? look.

Marsh understood them, since he'd once been human, and for quite some time, but he had no interest in communicating. All he wanted was food, and it was clear that if he continued to try and catch the man before him, he'd lose his life. His blood boiled at the thought that he'd wasted all of that energy for nothing, but he couldn't compete with a gun.

"Mitchel is driving Carlos to the hospital right now. His chest was completely clawed open," the man with the gun said, anger raising his voice. "He'll be lucky if he survives."

The man he'd been chasing's face paled at the words, but he gave his head a slight shake and frowned at Marsh.

"Why did you do that? If you were so hungry, we could have given you our food... but you didn't seem to really want the meat I offered, though. Then, what did we do? Did we trespass in your territory? Do you not like people in your space?" he asked, trying to figure out how a shifter had gotten so outrageously aggressive.

Marsh stared at him with his good eye, panting with quiet grunts mixed into the sound, yet he never shifted to answer his questions. Instead, he began backing away, swinging his head in frustration as he put distance between himself and the two humans.

He expected them to give up and return to town to see to their injured friend, but when he saw the man he'd chased run over to his buddy and grab his gun, then hurry after him, Marsh felt his hackles rise higher and he backed up onto his hind legs with a warning roar.

The man seemed undeterred as he stopped only a few feet away and lifted the gun.

"I'm not playing around, kid. Shift back now and come back with me, or I'll make a choice I really don't want to have to."

Marsh snorted as he dropped back down to his front paws, but instead of changing his form, he pawed at the ground and gave a frustrated grumble. He truly couldn't shapeshift well. It hurt like hell and remaining human was absolutely out of the question. His bear was his dominant side and would not be locked away behind human flesh.

His damaged nostrils flared and he swiped a paw at his injured eye, no longer able to see anything out of it.

He couldn't hunt his normal prey without both of his eyes functioning. Add his bad leg to that equation, and his recent waste of energy, and Marsh was internally panicking. Would it not be better to just end his life quickly with the bullet from the gun in the man's hands?

"He's not going to shift. I don't know what you thought you saw, Walker, but there's no human inside of that thing," his friend said as he walked up, but didn't dare get too close.

The man, Walker, shook his head and lowered the gun slightly, nodding toward the ground.

"Lie down."

Marsh considered his words, but saw no reason to comply.

Seeing his hesitation, Walker pursed his lips and thought for a moment before nodding toward the ground again.

"You don't have to trust me, but I don't want to kill you. I just want you to prove that you can understand what I'm saying."

Flicking his little ears, Marsh jerked his head to the side with a snort, but after a few tense minutes, he lifted his right paw, then swiped it across his thick left front leg, then leisurely lied himself down in the leaf litter.

The relief that he saw on the man's face was laughable.

"Holy shit. He's actually a shifter," his friend muttered as the sound of large vehicles began to reach Marsh's ears. He had no doubt that the man's other acquaintances had called for back up to deal with him and save their friends.

He wanted to run immediately, but Walker stepped closer, keeping his gun trained on him.

"You're going to come back with me. I don't know why or how you're here, or how you became like this, but we'll take it one step at a time."