Noah

His phone went off almost simultaneously with Hector’s. They looked at each other before looking at their phones.

“The lady?” he asked.

Hector grunted an affirmative. “Odd.”

Moments later other phones in the bar started going off. He looked over his shoulder to see the table where the Koche brothers were seated, all of them looking at their phones as well.

“Come on,” he said to Hector, and they ambled over to join them. “Everyone just get told to meet at Pierce’s place?” he asked, motioning to the youngest Koche brother.

Everyone at the table indicated yes.

“Odd,” Gavin, the middle brother said. “Why would they all want us at once?”

“Someone else is pregnant,” Kean said, grinning around the table. His mate Madison was several months pregnant now, and he’d been waiting for one of his brothers to start in the journey to fatherhood with him. “It has to be.”

“You say that every time,” Hector said. “It’s never that. It isn’t that this time either.”

“You’re probably right,” Kean agreed. “But a guy can hope.”

“Yeah, hope that you’re having twins,” Maximus guffawed. He was the eldest of the quintet, a huge quiet fellow, who didn’t speak all that much.

Everyone but Kean laughed at the joke. He went a little white in the face. Everyone knew he was ecstatic about becoming a father, and also scared shitless about being terrible at it.

“Well, we shouldn’t keep them waiting, now should we?” Noah said, and all seven shifters filed out the entrance of their local watering hole, a basement pub two blocks from their little community on the north side of town.

Trudging through the streets, they ignored the cold and grumbled about the snow. The cold was getting close to the point where they might consider wearing long-sleeve shirts, but it wasn’t quite there yet. The snow on the other hand had kept piling up. It had finally stopped an hour or so ago, leaving the ground covered in another foot of heavily packed snow.

The banks on either side of the sidewalks were already five feet high, and they would be even taller once the plows got down on the streets. All that meant for the shifters was more shoveling at their homes. More work.

“I bet they want us to get to work shoveling,” Hector muttered, drawing agreement from the others. “They were all texting each other or on some sort of female-only multi-line phone conversation. One of them said something and then the others all chimed in. It has to be.”

They eventually made it to Pierce’s place. Oddly, the snow on the driveway had already been shoveled, piled high. Out on the edge of town the snowbanks with the additional snow came to their heads. Cloud Lake had seen a lot of snow that winter. It was only the end of January too.

“Where are they?” Kassian Koche complained. “They said to meet us out front of Pierce’s place. Well, we’re here. Where are they?”

“ATTACK!”

The command was followed almost immediately a barrage of snowballs as women all along the line, far more of them than there were men, popped up from behind the snowbanks and hurled snowball after snowball at them.

Noah ducked for cover, throwing himself up against one snowbank so that he was at least out of sight of those at the top. Most of the others had the same idea, exposing themselves only to the women on the far side. There were four men on one snowbank, three on the other. They were much safer that way. The women couldn’t aim that well.

Or so they thought.

“HEAVE!” another voice shouted.

Great mounts of snow cascaded off the top of the snow forts and right onto their heads, covering all of them. Men howled. Women screamed in laughter, and the barrage of snowballs continued unabated as the men tried to extract themselves.

But the women had forgotten one key thing. The men were shifters. Extraordinarily strong shifters. Noah, instead of trying to extract himself from the mini-avalanche, simply started digging into the snowbanks. It was clear to him now that the women had hollowed out behind them, giving themselves ledges to stand upon. Well, it was time to do a little sapping.

He dug fast, bringing more snow down upon himself, but he didn’t care. Shortly after he started he broke through. The floor fell out under one woman, a friend of the others named Elle. He roared in triumph and started to rise up.

Unfortunately, his entrance attracted the attention of all the women on that side. They turned as one to face him. At that short of range, none of them missed. He was driven back into the snow, bellowing with laughter. But others had followed his lead, and men erupted inside the snow fort. The battle turned soon after, with the women shrieking as they were given a taste of their own medicine, running for the safety of the house.

“This is going to suck to clean up,” Pierce moaned as all told nine females scrambled inside, tracking in lots and lots of snow.

Noah came up and slapped a hand on his shoulder. “You know we’ll help.”

“I know, but it’s still going to suck to clean.”

“I was talking about revenge.”

“Oh.”

“Yeah,” Noah said, feeling an evil smile come across his face as the other men came up to stand nearby. “It’s going to be good.”

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This concludes Bigger Badder Bear Dad. I hope you enjoyed it as much as I did. Although this story is over, there are more adventures to be had. To get access to my newest stories at the introductory price of just 99c, and for other exclusives, sign up for my newsletter!