Shades Of Green Read Online Free

eyes as blue as the morning sky and nodded. Slowly, they both lowered themselves to the ground, making it a bit easier to climb aboard their hairy backs.
    With a shake of her head, Thal ran to the bear who once was Kiran and climbed up to sit behind his neck. The bear shuddered beneath her as she grabbed a handful of hair and made ready to ride the beast to safety.
    Once they all had a seat, the bears took off, their large paws digging deep into the damp ground as they practically flew through the woods. After about fifteen minutes, the bears stopped near a spring and lay down, panting.
    Heat rolled off them in waves. The bear she rode was so hot, it had made her uncomfortable to sit astride him for even another second. Sliding to the ground, she stood silently as the bears dove headlong into the river’s frigid waters.
    “Why have we stopped?” Thal turned to the little man who seemed to do most of the talking. “I’m called Thal.” She hoped that introducing herself would cause him to do the same.
    “I’m Liam.” He gestured to the other two with red hair. “This is Larin and Ian. We’ve come to help.” He glanced toward the two bears still swimming in the river. “And we brought the bears to help ya.”
    “Some help they are, playing in the water like a couple of babes.” She snorted.
    “Don’t hold that against them, Thal.” Ian shook his head. “Yes, they can be hardheaded and a bit slow, but they’re not playing in the river.”
    Thal crossed her arms, raised a brow and met his gaze. “Then what would you call it?”
    “They’re cooling off. Polar bears overheat quickly. They’ll get sick if they don’t stop from time to time to cool off again.” He glanced toward the river. “If they hadn’t found this river, they could have died if they carried us much farther. Did ya feel the heat coming off them?” At her nod, he continued. “That same heat would have killed them. They don’t usually shift their shape this late in the year. It’s dangerous for them. They did so to keep you and yours safe. Ya might not want to give them grief over having to stop to cool off.”
    “They risked their lives for us?” A lump formed in her throat as she stared out over the bank of the river and watched the two, who had at some point changed back into men, diving below the surface of the water and staying submerged much longer than she thought possible for their human-looking bodies. “Why would they do that?”
    “They’ll do anything for ya, if they think you’re their mate. They’ll even die for ya.”
    “Die?” Thal brought her hand to the center of her chest. “I wouldn’t want them to die for me.” She didn’t know what it was about the two men, but something about them made her want to know them. Never before had she ever thought to want the company of a male. Now she stood staring at two whom she wanted to get to know much better.
    With a shake of her head, she turned away from the water. She couldn’t entertain the idea of spending time with the men. They weren’t the kind of males she should see. Her mother would probably die of an attack to her heart if she took up with two full-sized men.
    It would mean that Thal must stay large, and her mother wouldn’t want that. The legends told of only a few nymphs who mated with humans. Eventually, they had left their homes in the woods and never returned. It would kill her mother to lose her that way.
    Nymphs were flighty creatures by nature. They loved the wood and they mated only to beget offspring. The males, were always left with their fathers and the females kept and trained as nymphs and sprites to reawaken the world after its winter sleep.
    Still, something about the two men awakened some strange thing deep inside her, and that thing wanted her to shift her size and show them she could be the kind of female they needed.
    “They are strange creatures, are they not?”
    Spinning around, Thal faced her mother, who stood staring at the