When afternoon started to threaten the arrival of evening, John took his leave. He gave Ursula a kiss and promised that he would be back around eight. “Please wait for me,” he said. “And please stay indoors.”
“Yeah, yeah,” she said with a smirk. “I promise.” She took the key to the cabin out of her purse and put it in the breast pocket of his coat, giving his chest a gentle pat.
It was painful to watch him leave again, knowing what he was going to become and what might happen to him. Besides hunters, there were likely other bears out there along with wolves and whatever else inhabited the hills and mountains of the Sierra Nevada.
She stood watch by the large window that overlooked the lake. John had gone off in that direction and she wanted to keep an eye on him from her shelter, if she could. Baby Bear was restless inside her tummy, as if he or she knew that Papa Bear had gone away. She chuckled under her breath. “I can’t believe I’m thinking like this.”
Pulling out her cell phone, she called the Big Dipper club. She wanted to let them know that her vacation was going to be extended, but that she would be back. It would be crazy to stay out there in the woods for the rest of her life. She’d never been a social butterfly, but she was getting cabin fever already.
On the fifth ring, she was watching the black bear eat some berries several feet away from the window. He seemed to be hanging close to protect her, but maybe the bear was merely close because he smelled food.
On the seventh ring, she saw the flash of something in the bushes.
Ursula’s eyes widened. It was the barrel of a gun.
“Hello?” a voice said on the other end of the line. The phone was hanging by its cord where she had let it go.
She ran out of the house. “NO!” she shouted, waving her arms. “Don’t shoot him!!”
John the bear looked up at her and let out a growl. She was flailing around and the bear in him felt threatened, but the man in him felt concerned for her.
Suddenly, a shot rang out in the woods. Ursula screamed.
John fell down in a heap of black fur and berry bush branches.
Running, tears pouring down her cheeks, she ran to him, not caring that he was a bear. Not caring that she was breaking her promise. He was hurt and he needed her now.
“John?” she asked, taking his head and placing it on her lap, petting him. “John, can you hear me?” She felt around his fur for the wound. She found it on his shoulder. There was a lot of blood, but the bullet must have grazed him. It had to have grazed him.
He was dazed and in pain and the woman was holding him. He let out a loud howl of both pain and anger. He did his best to stand back up on his four legs, but then fell down again a few inches away from her. The woman didn’t care. She picked up his head again and looked into his eyes.
“Listen to me, John. It’s going to be okay.”
He snorted and groaned, complaining. His shoulder hurt. Couldn’t she understand? Someone had shot him and she was interfering. She shouldn’t be there!
Ursula brought her face close to his and softly rubbed the tip of her nose against his big, wet nose.
“You’re mean to me,” she quietly sang to him, a tear slowly falling down her cheek. “Why must you be mean to me? Gee, honey, it seems to me you love to see me cryin’…”
She looked into his soulful, chestnut eyes and she could see the recognition in them. He knew who she was now. She could see his humanity there.
As the sun slipped away and the moon began its act, John’s black fur shed from him and the bear became her man again.
“Ursula, it hurts,” he said, hissing from the pain.
“Shh,” she said. “You’re safe now.”
She did her best to help him to his feet, and dressed him back in his clothes before he caught his death from the cold. She kept his shirt unbuttoned, understanding now why he did that. If it wasn’t buttoned, he could fling it off when he started to change so it wouldn’t rip apart.
The two of them slowly limped and waddled their way back to their cabin, arms around each other’s shoulders.
Once inside, Ursula sat John on one of the kitchen chairs and surveyed the wound on his upper arm. It was bloody and awful, but it wasn’t as deep as she had feared. “The bullet passed you, but it wasn’t nice about it,” she said. She ran a wash cloth under some warm water. “This might sting a little.”
He let out a howl of pain not unlike his bear form.
“I told you not to come outside,” he said, huffing a little as she cleaned his wound.
“I had to,” she argued. “I wasn’t just going to stay inside and watch you…” She sniffled. “I couldn’t let you die.”
John’s expression went from annoyance to appreciativeness. His eyes were sad now. So much like the bear’s eyes. “Thank you,” he said, clearly feeling guilty about how he’d spoken to her.
“Don’t move,” she instructed. She went into the bathroom and found a first aid kit under the sink. As gruff as he was, at least he took precautions and thought about things like first aid kits and logs for the fire. She suspected he had these things for her, not for him. Bringing out some gauze and Band-Aids, as well as the antiseptic, she stood admiring him for a moment.
John Asher the bear man was holding the wet rag to his shoulder and grimacing like a big baby. She smiled at him. He glanced at her, then turned to face her. “What? Why are you smiling?”
“Oh, nothing,” she said. “You’re just cuter than you realize. But this won’t be cute.” She put some antiseptic on his arm and watched as he threw his head back and yelled.
She wrapped the wound in the gauze and added some Band-Aids to the minor scratches he’d received from the berry bush.
John was gone again the following morning, as Ursula now expected. But thankfully, he was back in the afternoon when her water broke.
“Ahhh, John, help me!!” she greeted him when he came back into the cabin. Thankfully, he had the key with him now.
Quickly, he brought her down off the couch and onto the fuzzy rug by the fireplace. She had lit a fire. That was good thinking. He pulled off his coat and brought her legs up so they were bent, her feet flat on the rug.
He knelt between her legs. “This is going to be okay, darling,” he told her. “You are strong and confident…”
“I can do this,” she said, breathing slowly through her lips.
He coached her and she pushed. Then they rested. He mopped her brow with a wash cloth, smirking a little. “It’s my turn to take care of you,” he said.
She pushed some more, screaming and hollering bloody murder. Before long, there was a little baby in John’s arms and Ursula was crying tears of joy that she didn’t know she would feel about this. They had a baby. They’d created a life together, somehow. It was strange and it was certainly not one they’d be able to explain to many people, but it was their life.
“It’s a girl,” John said, crying a little himself as he held their new little person.
Ursula carefully took her into her arms. “Matilda,” she said. “Matilda Joan. Joan for her daddy, and Matilda just because it feels right.”
John smiled and kissed Ursula deeply. “I love you,” he said. Then he gingerly touched the small brown head of their daughter. “I love you.”
For several months, Ursula Blake sang songs in the cabin for a very limited audience of two. When Matilda was old enough to be able to laugh at her mom’s over-the-top performances, Ursula took her around town in a sling across her chest, sticking and stapling flyers to anything that could hold a flyer.
“Live at the Black Bear Inn: Ursula Blake-Asher! Jazz and Soul Songs to Cozy Up To!”
No matter what, even with his fairly rigid schedule, John never missed a performance. He sat in the front row with Matilda and the two of them would smile up at Ursula every night after dusk, when the black bear and his cub had shifted back into the man and his daughter.
THE END.
BEAR POCALYPSE
“We saw you in here,” The voice was cold and mocking. It matched the evil laughter in the man’s eyes. I had run back into the building as soon as I saw the looters prowling the streets. There was no telling how many had followed him into the hospital. Although, I guess it doesn’t matter what you call any of these buildings now.
It was quick, I will say that for the virus. A super virus, bred in hospitals for years. Immune to antivirals, inoculations, and other medications. It killed billions of people for sure, but the worst thing that it did was remove our humanity.
“Come on out,” I curled my knees in tighter as he beckoned to me. I was hiding in the large compartment of a janitor’s cart. I was not about to move for anything. Although, I was sure that I was shaking. This man had nothing to fear, he knew his days were numbered, so what did my days matter to him? “I can smell you.”
It was an odd realisation, and not likely his intention, but the looter reminded me of how long I had gone without a shower. The water had stopped flowing weeks ago. There was no one to monitor any of the public works. Electricity worked on and off in some areas. Water was done altogether. The sewers were a whole other problem.
Everyone was too busy living for today to do basic things like jobs or work. Billions had lost their lives to the virus, but many had been killed by gangs like the charming gentlemen who were hunting me at the moment.
For the first few weeks I had been a member of a community. The nurses of A2. That was our ward. We had all brought our families to live in the hospital. We were taking care of each other. We had food, medicine, and beds. A few left when the rolling brown outs started. The rest left when the water stopped flowing. The backed up sewers drove most people out of their homes. It was rare to see people moving through the streets.
They would move through the streets scavenging from time to time, but for the most part everyone stayed away, because of the scent. I had stayed because of my father. He was too weak to move. When he finally passed on yesterday I decided it was time to move on. I have been trying to do it ever since.
My first trip outside of the building I ran into a bear. The woods must be getting too crowded now that they are filled with people. He didn’t seem to pay me any mind. He must be used to humans by now. I on the other hand ran like the wind. As soon as I saw him I froze. He looked me up and down and then turned his head. I took off like a shot. It took me ten hours to work up the courage to step outside again. That’s when I saw these guys.
“Knock, knock,” The man was only a few feet away from me. He was knocking on the door to the janitor’s closet. “Let me come in,” he said mockingly. I was mad as he said those words. I didn’t know why I hadn’t gotten behind that heavy steel door. There was even a lock. There was a weird muffled banging that seemed to be shaking the cart.
“What are you doing?” It was a deeper voice than the first.
“I am getting ready.” The first man said. He was shaking the cart. I tried to hold myself still as he violently shook the cart.
“By humping a cart?” The deeper voice sounded a bit confused. I tried to hold it together, but a cry of fear escaped.
The hand flew in through the door before I could react. “Ahh!” I yelled as I felt the cold floor tile hit hard against my cheek. The laughing eyes were going all over my body as he licked his lips. Just the look in his eyes was enough to make me feel sick to my stomach.
The slight bit of solace that I had in this moment was that the virus had likely rendered me sterile. There was no way that I would ever have to have this man’s baby. I edged myself backwards along the floor. I held my foot back ready to kick him. There were four men moving toward me. I knew that I couldn’t take all of them, but I was going to kick him in the balls so hard. That was my goal in that moment. I didn’t think about anything else, I just wanted to hurt him.
“Don’t worry,” the man’s smile made my skin crawl. He leaned forward to grab my legs. “My eye!” He yelled as my 3 inch heel went into his eye. They were the only shoes I had left. I had had to leave the hospital from time to time to get food and I had managed to destroy every pair of shoes that I had owned. The heels were my last clean pair. They had blood on them now. “You bitch!”
“What did you expect?” The deeper voice was coming from a fat young man in a black t-shirt that was two sizes too small. He was almost doubled over with laughter as he watched the man who now had only one laughing eye. They were travelling together, but they didn’t care about each other at all. It was sad to see how much he enjoyed his companion’s pain. The others were still moving towards me.
I was trying to back away further, but I had backed myself into a corner quite literally. I had deterred the first contestant, but I knew that this wasn’t over. A skinny redheaded man wearing a fedora and a Hawaiian shirt was already undoing his pants and he was still fifteen feet away from me. My world was going dark. It was like the stress of the situation was taking away my senses. I had a ringing in my ears.
It was only the fear in the fedora wearer’s eyes that alerted me to a change in the situation. His eyes went wide and then a brown furry paw swiped across his face. Blood spurted on to the floor by my feet as the man dropped lifelessly to the ground. The others started to run. It was only the man with the injured eye that stayed to deal with the bear. He had taken a knife out of his coat pocket, and he was walking slowly toward the great beast.
I took advantage of the situation and crawled along the floor. I knew I could get to the stairwell if I could only stand up, but I could not get my legs to work. I kept looking backwards to make sure that nothing was following me. The looter made up for his size and strength disadvantages with a healthy dose of lunacy. He was swinging the knife wildly.
The bear was up on his back legs and hanging back from the blade. I was almost to the stairwell when a missed swing of the knife took the man by surprise and he went down to the ground hard. He spun onto his back as the bear dropped down on top of him and sunk his teeth into his throat.
“Grrrrrrowwww!” The great bear moaned. I watched as the fur began to recede. The bear itself was shrinking too. It was hard to tell what was going on. I got back to my feet and started running over to the spot where the combatants lay. The laughing man was missing his windpipe. It looked as though he was trying to say something to me, but all that was coming out was a bunch of gurgles and blood bubbles. I was barely paying attention to him as the crazed laughter drained out of his eyes.
On the end of his knife was no longer a bear. It was a naked man. He was alive, but not for long. I looked around. I was still in a hospital. There had to be something that I could do. I ran through the lobby and into the emergency department. I found a gurney and wheeled it out to him. I couldn’t roll it when it was down and I couldn’t raise it by myself. Truth be told, I have never liked working with gurneys, it’s a paramedics job as far as I am concerned. It was one of the main reasons that I had never worked in the emergency room.
I had spent my entire nursing career working on a post-surgical floor. I knew how to heal and treat wounds. I just had to get this guy to stand up. It was going to be tough. The naked man was not responding at all to my voice. I shook him and that seemed to get his attention. His eyes went wide and he grabbed for the knife.
“Gahhhhhh!” He shouted as he stood up and ripped the knife out of his abdomen. He was big, even when not a bear. About 6’5” and at least 250 lbs of solid muscle. I guided him onto the stretcher. As soon as the rush of energy had passed he just kind of followed where my hands were taking him. He laid back on the stretcher and I wheeled him into the emergency room.
The cupboards had been raided for drugs and supplies. They had taken almost everything. I got a lot of gauze and started to pack the wound. I knew that he was going to need stitches so I started looking for a kit to help me get the wound closed off. It was frustrating to open so many doors and see the same empty shelves staring back at me.
In the end I had to use steri-strips to close the wound. I had found a supply closet with saline in it. I already knew that there were really no options for blood or plasma. I had gotten to him fast enough that I was hoping he wouldn’t need anything like that. The rolling black outs had been a killer for medical supplies in this hospital. Anything that needed to be kept at a constant temperature was useless by now.
I knew that I was going to need more than just a couple fancy bandages to get this wound to heal properly. I waited until he seemed stable enough and I moved up a floor and started poking through the drawers, carts, and supply closets. The hardest floor was the second. My father’s corpse was still rotting in bed 2034-A. I could smell him as I walked out of the stairwell. I checked the floor for a suture kit, but I already knew that there was nothing. I had helped the people who were trying to leave pick the floor clean.
I had originally told my father and myself that I was just going to leave with the group. I was going to head out and leave him to die on his own. I thought that I could do it, but it is just not who I am. It was the seventh floor that finally yielded some results. I had some morphine, saline and a suture kit. I was pretty good at sewing and I had always believed that I could do surgery. I had seen so many of them done on TV and in person, I was actually excited to get the opportunity.
I was getting more and more worried as I got closer to the emergency room. What if this man had already turned back into a bear and he was gone? What if he was just waiting downstairs to eat me? I left the stairwell cautiously. It had been a nerve wracking day. I didn’t hear anything except for the thrashing of the patient. He had been having small fits whenever he came to. He was in an incredible amount of pain. I put the morphine in through his saline and waited for the thrashing to stop altogether for an extended period of time. I wanted my first surgery to be a success.
I found a nice quiet place to wash my hands. I was only going to seal off a wound. It really seemed as though the organs and intestines had all been missed by the blade. It was only the skin that had been broken. There had been a very significant loss of blood, but other than that the young man stood a really good chance of making it through.
I could feel the needle shaking as I got closer to the cut. I still had the steri-strips in place to hold the wound, which liked to move in place. I was going to take them off one by one as I moved down the gash. His stomach was hard with muscles, but the skin still moved very freely back and forth. I was trying to keep everything under control, but I could not get my hand to settle down.
It wasn’t until I passed the needle through the skin and pulled the thread through for the first time that my nerves started to settle. With each passing stitch my confidence grew. By the end I was sad to be finished with the sewing. I was starting to really get the hang of it and I knew that it might be my last opportunity to stitch somebody up. I had found another kit as well. It was secretly hoping that I would have to go in and try to find a bleeder or something.
I walked outside to bath in the moonlight for a moment. It probably wasn’t a great idea, but I knew that I needed some fresh air. It was like my victory cigar. I looked around, none of the stores nearby looked like they would sell cigars. The convenience store seemed too small to offer the finer things in life.
The patient seemed stable and I had gotten the bleeding to stop. I knew that he would be up soon. I had a really good feeling about surgery. I went back and washed the blood off of my hands. I wasn’t sure what I was going to say as I walked back into the room and found the patient was still asleep. I had probably given him too much morphine.
It was a horrible thought. Morphine was a terrible pain killer for surgery anyways. It always made people so itchy. He is going to wake up and scratch the stitches off immediately, I thought to myself as I watched him sleep.
What do you say to the man who risked his life to save you, but was clearly a bear at the time? I had so many questions, but I wasn’t sure what kind of answers I was ready to hear. There were all sorts of weird mutations that were popping up all over the place. When the TV was still working there was a news story that all of the nurses from A2 had come together to watch about a circus of freaks that were not in any way put on. It was a real life freak show that the virus had made possible.
The TV stations had stopped broadcasting after the first month. That was when everything had become pointless. The second month was when the realizations started to set in. We were no longer going to be, “Getting back to the way things were.” The president’s phrase had become a popular source of mockery as the days and weeks wore on. How could we go back?
There was no way to un-see things and no way to undo them. I had watched too many people give up their humanity to ever have faith in the human race again. I saw a nurse that I had known for years stab a man over an armful of pudding cups. I did nothing to save the man as my friends threw him out into the streets to die. I watched as the people I had lived with for a month all left me and my dying father behind.
So why should genetic mutations frighten me when the regular people that I knew had already changed so much. The TV circus had had a wolf family. They were all were werewolves that could shift without the help of the moon. They had run around under the big top and they had an amazing act that they had put together. Even that hadn’t prepared her for what she had seen today. The strength and power of the bear, and the frailty of the human body. It was all just a bit too much.
The naked man was all just a bit too much all on his own. He had a sleeve of tattoos running down his left arm. The symbols looked mainly Celtic and clearly they were trying to tell a story. It all started with a tree of life on the top of his shoulder. The rest of the sleeve was tied together by the roots of the tree as they ran down his arm. It was an amazing design. There were bears and claws, an old raven and Celtic knot made of thorny roots.
It was hard to ignore the muscle tone. He only seemed to have body hair as a bear, it didn’t look like he shaved, but there was no hair on his body. It was hard not to stare at the rippling muscles that ran from one end of his body to the next. His muscles looked as if he was always flexing. Some of that might have been the morphine too, but he was in amazing shape. I ran my fingers along his stomach as I went to examine the wound. As soon as I touched his skin I could feel a rush of energy flow through me. It was impossible to resist trying it again. I ran my fingers down his thigh and up along his stomach and chest only to see his eyes were now open.
“Can I help you?” He said to me and I almost fell over. I had gotten lost in the moment and the angry snarl on his face brought me right back to reality.
I grabbed a chart that sat at the edge of the gurney. “Good neurological response to outside stimuli.” I said loudly as if I was charting it. I was hoping that he wouldn’t notice that I didn’t have a pen. There was also no paper on this chart. I just needed to have an explanation for what I was doing. I was finding it difficult to just admit that spending the last several weeks here essentially by myself had turned me into a bit of a perve.
It was a very sad truth that I had been having trouble even before I met the sexy bear man. I had been in a relationship all through university. Mark was great, but he was going through med school and I was in nursing. I got lost in his shadow. As soon as I found the courage to end it I promised myself I would never let that happen again. I was going to live for me. It meant that I always pulled myself back when I felt any feelings starting to stir. It also meant that I spent a lot of time on my own. As soon as the virus hit that became completely alone.
“I am leaving,” the bear man said as he stood up. His knees buckled under him. I rushed in and grabbed him. He had already pretty much stopped himself with his hands against the bed.
“You lost a lot of blood.” I almost whispered. I was pressed right up against him and looking him right in the eyes.
“I just need to…” He stopped and looked at me. He wasn’t sure if had seen him earlier.
“Turn into a bear?” I thought I knew the answer, but I wasn’t one hundred percent sure. I knew that he was a shifter, but I didn’t know if that was it, or if something even weirder was going to come out of his mouth.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” There was a fire in his eyes that made me jump. I backed away and pushed himself up to standing.
“I was just guessing,” I was talking way too fast, “You know because there were those guys, and you came as a bear and fought them and then the nutty guy stabbed you. Anyways, so the knife went in and you got smaller and naked, smaller for a bear, is what I mean, you are still very big…” my eyes went too low on the word big.
That was when I realized that I hadn’t even found the poor man a sheet. He should have been freezing, but his skin was warm to the touch. I was really hoping that he would start talking. After that long rant that I just did, I was absolutely sure that I shouldn’t try talking again for a while. He was studying my face. I could literally feel his eyes. It was like he was looking into my soul. I looked at the ground.
“Alright, yes, I am going to turn into a bear. I just need you to stand back.” He moved me back forcefully and started making horrible faces. His skin was almost swimming as it started to grow and change. I could feel myself backing up. I wanted to see the transformation, but it was horrifying to watch. Thick brown hair was covering his body. It moved up from his legs and as it moved across his sculpted abs the cut ripped open and blood shot out across the room.
“Awww!” He yelled as he broke the stretcher with a single low from his half-bear arm. I rushed to his side as he crumpled onto the ground. “Back off!” He threw me to the side as he pushed himself back to his feet. The fur had completely disappeared and his skin has stopped rippling. He was holding the flaps of skin in place as he started to pace the room. “What is going on?!”
“You have a very deep cut,” I looked down as his eyes cut. I could feel the seething hatred coming from his stare. “I have another suture kit. I can fix it,” I said to the floor.
“Alright, fine, let’s just do this,” He walked over and sat down on the next bed. I walked around the wreckage of the broken gurney. I could feel myself shaking again as I got closer to him.
“I just need you to lie down and I will hook up the IV again.” He didn’t say a thing, but I could tell he wasn’t going to let me fix the IV. “I just need to give you a painkiller.”
“I don’t need a painkiller,” He growled the words through closed teeth. I wasn’t going to argue with him, but it wasn’t helping with my nerves. I opened the kit and got ready to start stitching.
“Take a deep breath,” I said, mainly to myself. He held himself remarkably still. I heard only a few gasps as the needle passed through his skin. It seemed like I was having a harder time with it. I just kept apologizing to him and he got madder with every sorry.
The skin was already starting to heal as I closed it up. I could tell that his skin was far from that of a regular human being. I wanted to ask him about it, but he didn’t seem very talkative. The feeling of the needle pressing through the skin was oddly very exciting. I was trying to keep myself under control. As a nurse I had always been fascinated by surgery and the human body. I could feel the color rushing to my cheeks.
When I finished I looked up at his face for the first time in I don’t know how long. “Jade Roberts,” I blurted out. It was met with the same level of enthusiasm I had been receiving all day. “It’s my name, I thought you could tell me yours too,” he just turned away. “Ok, then I guess I will just call you bear-man, or man-bear,” I could tell that I was upsetting him, but at this point I didn’t care. He was being rude to the woman who just saved his life twice.
“Dallas,” his tone was begrudging at best. “Dallas Blackwood, bear-man is fine though.” He was asleep in seconds on the tiny hospital bed. It looked small when I laid in one, but his legs were literally dangling off the edge. I found another stretcher and lifted his feet onto it. The beds were at slightly different heights, but I was sure it had to be better than just letting them dangle. There was not even a thank you.
My father had been nearly as ornery when he was my patient. Most of the fight in him had been taken away by the virus. It wasn’t until he was on death’s doorstep that he even thought to say thank you for all that I had done for him. It wasn’t until after he passed that I realized exactly what I had given up. Staying behind meant that I had nobody with me at all. There was no way to stay here for more than a couple days longer. I was not exactly a fighter. I was going to have to fall in with a group of looters, or the far more likely get killed by a group of looters. If the experience of the morning had been any indication it was even dangerous for me to step outside the doors of the hospital now that I was all alone.
I had one hope of not being all alone and he was clearly not interested in being my apocalyptic plus one. It was hard to understand his aggression. He had gotten hurt trying to save me, I was sure that wasn’t part of his plan, but I had been trying to make up for it ever since. I left him to sleep for a while as I got the rest of the supplies gathered together. The hospital had been rummaged through by several groups of looters and former employees, but there were still treasures to be found.
I walked all the way up to the eighth floor to start my search. I was checking every closet, cart, and cupboard as I made my way down through the hospital. I was filling backpacks that we had found during our first week living in the hospital. They had been stuffed away in a storage room on the seventh floor. “St. Bonneville’s Hospital loves Nurses!” The message was printed in bold white letters on pink, brown, orange, and white backpacks. It was a part of an employee appreciation initiative, but the dust on the boxes made it look like they had been ordered at least ten years ago.
There had to have been thousands of them. Each group had taken several backpacks with them when they decided to leave the hospital. I had the last seven with me as I loaded them down with supplies. Of course most of the leftover bags were brown. It had been the least popular choice. I had grabbed an orange one when we first found them and then there were two white. I was packing the white ones with bandages and medical kits. The brown ones were being packed with linens and clothing, which was mostly scrubs, but I had only been wearing scrubs for months now anyway.
My orange bag was for food. The bags were a good size and they could hold quite a bit. There was still a bit of food left in the cafeteria. I had started squirreling it away when I made the decision to wait until dad died to leave. I knew that the others were not going to wait for me. Even my best friend Becky. We went through nursing school together. We got hired onto the floor at the same time. We had been through so many things together, but I knew what I was asking her to do was impossible. There was safety in numbers, but those numbers had to be higher than two.
The food was mainly pudding. I had a feeling I was turning into pudding. I had been living on a mainly pudding diet or the past month. It was mainly tapioca now. I had eaten all of the chocolate. I had granola bars saved as well, and a ton of the fruit cups that I hated. I forced myself to eat two a day, because according to the label there was real fruit inside. I was sure they were lying. Fruit didn’t taste that bad for any reason.
I had to bring the bags down one at a time they were so heavy. I wasn’t sure how I was going to take them with me. It was not as if I had a car. Even a car wouldn’t do you any good as there were no gas stations. I tried to look out the windows to see what was available, but I wasn’t even sure what to look for. There weren’t many ox carts around these days. I put all the bags onto a stretcher and went to go check on the patient.
When I got back to the treatment room the bed was empty. He had left. I sank down to my knees without saying a word. I wanted to scream and shout, but I was too tired. It was like an anger coma. I was so mad, sad, and just upset and I just shut down.
I don’t know how long I was down for, what I do know is that there was drool on my chin when I stood up again. I didn’t know what had woken me, but I stood up and went to the bathroom. The lights were out again, but the backup generator, which worked occasionally was casting a very dim light over the building. The mirror was dirty and the light was awful, but I could tell that I needed to brush my hair and find some water.
I walked out to the stretcher filled with supplies. It was time to go. There was no reason to stay any longer. My plan as I walked up to the stretcher was just to push the whole bed through the streets. The streets were very clear, and it was the best I could do until I found a better way to carry all of this stuff. A bed is never a bad idea, I told myself.
“Thanks for packing it all up for us,” it was a voice I sort of recognized. It was the fat young man from earlier in the day. I had no idea how long he had been watching me, but as he spoke I saw others moving in the shadows. “I think you should come with us. What do you say boys?” His boys all seemed to love the idea. “The boys and I haven’t seen a women in…well, too long anyway.”
“I don’t think so,” I said trying to keep my voice steady. I was trying to seem confident. “I have the bear to keep me company.” I lied. I saw a flash of fear dance across the young man’s eyes.
“We watched him leave,” He smiled trying to hide his fear. “He’s long gone by now.”
“He’ll be back soon,” I was trying to look tough which must have seemed completely ridiculous. I am 5’3” and 100lbs on a good day. I don’t intimidate many people. I was trying to channel my inner gangster, but I was sure that I looked more like an angry smurf. “And he won’t take kindly to people stealing our stuff.”
“Is that so,” the deep voice seemed a little unsure of himself, but not scared enough to leave right away.
“Yeah, it is so,” the voice came from behind me. Dallas was towering over everyone in the room as he strode past me and got about an inch from the face of the much smaller man. I could see the other shadowy figures moving fast as they left the building. I think it was likely more intimidating that Dallas was still naked. His dick swayed as he walked, and because of the height difference it was fairly close to the fat man’s face as he stared him down.
“You should likely run,” I whispered to the fat man who had become paralyzed with fear. I tried to hold in the laughter as I watched him try to find his friends. I knew that we needed to get far away from this hospital. Those guys were definitely going to come back. “I thought you were gone.”
I didn’t wait to see if he approved as I buried my face in his stomach and wrapped my arms around him. I felt his arms coming across my shoulders. I was so relieved to see him. That was when I noticed that his scar had healed. “The moon,” he said before I could ask the question. I ran my fingers over the perfect skin that had been a stab wound.
“I thought you left me,” I said. It came off way more desperate than I wanted it to, but I was just so happy to see Dallas. “What do we do now?”
“I don’t think…”
“You don’t think what!” I heard myself shouting at him. He was going to try and leave without me for real and there was just no way I was letting that happen. “You see what happens every time you walk away, and now you want to leave me?” I didn’t even know what I was doing, but I just started pushing the stretcher toward the door.
“What are you doing?” He growled at me.
“I am going it alone,” I yelled without looking back. “I have no one to help me and I am leaving to take care of myself.” I was being overly dramatic, but I didn’t know what else to do. I had no idea whether it was working or not until he grabbed the door for me.
“Let me push it,” He snarled as he almost threw me out of the way. I walked along beside him trying to watch the sides of the street for signs of life. I could only see shadows. I had no idea if we were being followed, but I could tell we weren’t the only ones out here on the streets. We stuck to the middle of the roads. Dallas said it would give us more time to react if we got attacked. “There are people in every alley and building just waiting to slit your throat.”
“Or perform lifesaving surgery,” I reminded him. I was actually starting to enjoy the scowls that I was getting from Dallas, but this time I got a tiny little smile instead. I looked him right in his honey-brown eyes and gave him a wink.
“What was that?” He laughed.
“It was a wink,” I said, astonished that he would even ask. I considered myself a fairly slick winker. It was a skill that I knew a lot of people struggled with. They winked with both eyes, or they pulled a total Popeye face when they tried to wink, but I was adorable when I winked. Everybody had always told me so.
“I know it was a wink, but on the other side of your face it looked like you were having a stroke.” Dallas’s long brown hair fell over his eyes as he leaned down to give me the full effect of his mocking imitation. “Errrrr,” he mumbled as he winked at me holding his arms out like a mummy. I slapped his chest as hard as I could. He pretended to be hurt, but he couldn’t stop laughing.
“You aren’t funny,” I said, but a smile was already creeping across my lips. We laughed as we walked through the streets. I was still on the lookout for danger, but I was just enjoying having someone else around. We found a park near the edge of town and pushed the stretcher into a small circle of pine trees that would provide at least some cover for us. It was in a little residential neighborhood, and it didn’t seem like any of the houses were being occupied.
The night air started to get a bit chilly. I looked over at Dallas and I let out a little laugh. He looked at me and I threw my hands up, “It’s nothing.”
“What are you laughing about?” I tried to walk away, but Dallas picked me up and set me down on the stretcher. I had put my arms around his neck when he first grabbed me and decided to leave them there. His skin was still warm to the touch. “What is it?”
“I just noticed that the night air was making you shrink,” I laughed.
“Oh really,” his face was getting closer to mine.
“Yeah, and I was just thinking that it is kind of like a thermometer.”
“I can fix that,” he said as he kissed me deeply. I was off the stretcher as he lifted me into his arms. His strong arms wrapped around me and held me tight against his muscled chest. He was holding me up with one arm as he took off my scrubs and continued to kiss his way down my body. I felt like a doll in his strong hands. That was when I found myself upside down and staring right at his thermometer. It was no longer getting smaller.
He was driving me crazy with his tongue and teeth as I tried to deal with the amazing sensations and the blood rushing to my head. I decided to focus on pleasing him. I used my hand on the shaft and teased the head with my tongue. It felt amazing, but I was so glad when he finally put me down on the stretcher. I was up on my knees, and he was standing beside the stretcher with his hands on my waist. He was teasing me with the head as he lightly touched along the edges.
His skin was so much warmer than mine. I could feel the difference as he pushed forward and started gently moving back and forth. I rocked my hips to try and feel him deeper inside of me. I wanted to take everything in. The gentle breeze was covering my skin in goosebumps. Every inch of my skin was alive. It was the mix of cool air and hot skin and the rhythmic motion of our hips. I gripped the tiny rubber mattress and screamed with my whole body.
A large hand clapped itself over my mouth as Dallas grunted and let go deep inside of me. I turned around and kissed all over his sculpted chest and abs. He laid down on the gurney and I pulled myself together. I wrapped myself around him as we tried to share the tiny bed. I was idly running my fingers over his smooth skin.
The stars were amazingly bright. Without the light pollution I could actually see them. Dallas pointed out the constellations. “I grew up on a farm,” he explained, “There have always been this many stars.” I was sure that he was wrong. There was no way a sky had ever seemed this beautiful.
“I thought I had seen stars,” I said as I followed a shooting star along the edge of the horizon. It was too magical to be ordinary. We laid there and talked about life and the world.
“I have always wanted a family, but not a shifter family,” Dallas said. He was watching the skies, but I thought I saw a tear welling up in his eyes. “I don’t think it is right to bring a kid into a world he doesn’t belong in.” I was surprised to hear him talk like that, but I realised that I didn’t know much about him.
“How can you say that? You are the most amazing person I have ever met,” it sounded corny, but I meant it. He had already saved me twice. He could heal instantly, and he was ridiculously strong. I was amazingly hot. I was having trouble seeing the down side.
“But I am not a person,” Dallas sat up and looked me right in the eyes. “I am a monster.”
“You can’t think that,” I was crying and I didn’t know why exactly, but it hurt me that he felt like this. “You are not a monster, those guys in the hospital, those guys are monsters!” I was almost mad at him for talking about himself that way.
“Sshh, oww!” He shook the hand that I bit. He was trying to cover my mouth again. “Don’t bite me!”
“Why you’re a monster, aren’t you used to being bitten?” I said without really thinking about if it made sense. I was just mad at him for feeling this way. He was just shaking his head, and then he started to turn away. I playfully bit his nipple as he tried to turn away. I had never felt like this before. He had awoken an animal inside of me. I felt brave, and brazen, and I wanted him to feel that way too. I wanted him to know how he made me feel. Somehow that made me bite him. Maybe it was the trees, or the night air, or that he could turn into a bear, I felt wild.
“What was that for?” Dallas looked more surprised than mad.
“I am feeling monstery,” I laughed. A smile finally cracked through his sullen expression. It was a little smile, but I had worked so hard for it I counted it as an accomplishment. “For the record I would love to have kids like you,” I said as I laid back down to gaze at the sky.
“Well, I guess we will never know,” Dallas said to the sky.
We didn’t talk for a long time. I was just lying there enjoying his presence. I stretched my arms and legs and let out a yawn. “I will take the first watch,” Dallas said as he stood up. “I am about to fall asleep,” he explained as I begged him to stay beside me.
“I just need my teddy…”
“Cut that out!” His tone was playful, but I could tell that he meant it. He didn’t like the bear cracks, but that only made me want to say more of them. I watched the naked man as he moved off into the moonlight to check the perimeter.
The pine trees made pretty good cover, and I was sure that if there was anyone around they would have heard us earlier, but Dallas insisted on checking. I went to the brown backpacks and got out a bunch of hospital sheets. It was chilly, but not cold, however the linens were so thin I knew I would need about a hundred of them to be warm. I thought it would be hard to fall asleep, but that was before I stopped moving. As soon as I got comfortable I could feel sleep taking over. It had been months since I had really felt safe. Right now it didn’t matter who was out there or what was going on inside of me. I had a protector. I looked up at the sky one last time and then everything went dark.
The light broke through the trees. It was a bit disorienting at first. I was not sure where I was for a split second. The chilly morning air had numbed my senses. I looked around to find Dallas, but he was nowhere to be seen. I got my clothes back on under the thick layer of thin sheets that I had piled on top of myself. I was a little worried as I was only supposed to be taking a nap and then I was supposed to take a turn on guard duty. Why didn’t he wake me up?
I walked through the trees to find Dallas going through the supplies. “We have to make ourselves more mobile,” he said as he turned to see me coming around behind him. There was a fear in his eyes that I had never seen before.
“What’s going on?”
“We need to get out of this city,” he was scanning the streets around us as he talked. “It isn’t safe here.” It was something that I already knew, but I could see that something had happened to him last night. “They ate her.”
“What are you talking about?” I put a hand on his shoulder, but I was sure that he couldn’t feel it. He was in some kind of shock.
“I thought it was group sex,” he was taking things out of each bag and putting them into the orange bag. “Or something weird, but she was heavily drugged, or delirious and they were eating her alive. I had no idea what was going on until it was too late.”
He stood up and put the back pack on my back. “I am going to rejoin my family,” there was a look of sincerity in his eyes. “Will you come with me?”
“Of course,” I was surprised he felt the need to ask. I thought I had made it clear that I wanted to be with him.
“Alright, we are travelling fast, we don’t need to worry about all this stuff. Once we are in the woods I can take care of the rest,” his skin was already rippling before he changed. The fur was popping up all over his body in clumps. It was so amazing to see the transformation. I climbed on his back and we ran.
“Whoa! Easy there,” I yelled as he took off. It was hard to hold on at first. I joked that he needed reigns. It was hard to tell how he felt about my joke in bear form. Although he had seemed impossible to read in human form as well. I could tell he was shaken up. He did not stop running until we were well clear of the city.
When we reached an abandoned farm house he came to a stop. “You know that fur is attached to me right?” He asked his eyes still wide from the shifting. His face looked ferocious during the transformation and it made everything he said at those times seem angry and savage. I tried not to smile.
“I’m sorry, where am I supposed to hold you?” I was surprised to see a smile come across his face again. I had thought we were back to angry Dallas.
“I don’t know, I have never been used as a mode of transportation before.” Dallas opened the door to the old, red brick farm house. I decided to hang back and wait for him to give me the okay. I had done very little exploring since the outbreak.
I had gone in for a twelve hour shift and I just left the hospital last night. My mother had been among the first to die of it. Dad had come to tell me, but by the time he made it to the hospital he was too weak to ever leave again. I didn’t look in on them before I left for work, and I would always feel guilty about that. It was not that I could have saved my mother, but I could have had more time with her. It was also hard to deal with the fact that it was likely me who gave them the virus. My mother always did my laundry and it was likely my scrubs that infected her. These thoughts always flooded my brain whenever things got too quiet.
I sat down on the front porch swing. The porch was a beautiful, fenced in porch with intricate wood detailing along the railing. I gently kicked out my feet and felt the swing move under me. The chain was old and the seat well worn. I was worried that I was going straight to the ground, but the swing held together fine. It creaked a bit, but it was definitely stronger than it looked.
“It’s piss warm, but we have a whole case of it,” Dallas said handing me a beer. “From the dust in there I would say nobody has moved in that house for about a month,” he took a long swig as he finished talking. The swing moaned as he sat down with a thud on the bench. It was nice to see him looking so relaxed. He was wearing a pair of baggy sweat pants and an unbuttoned plaid shirt.
“Nice,” I said putting a finger through a hole in the leg of the pants. I had brought scrubs from the hospital, but none of them were big enough for him to wear. All the pants looked like capris on his long muscular legs. Even these beat up old sweats were a little on the short side.
“None of the jeans fit,” Dallas shrugged as he sat down beside me on the porch swing. “You don’t like them?” We both laughed and I snuggled into his side.
“So what’s the plan?” I was hoping he had one.
“We’ll stay here tonight and then we will keep heading west,” Dallas was staring out over the horizon. It was late afternoon. “I am thinking if we look in that barn we will probably find some mode of transportation that will speed this trip up.”
“Like a tractor?” I had never really been on a farm. I was kind of excited about the idea of taking a tractor anywhere, but it seemed like it might be a little slow.
“Like an ATV, motorcycle, or a truck, something not completely ridiculous.” Dallas was laughing at me, I glared at him. “I just mean something that moves a little faster.” He threw his arm around me and we walked into the barn.
“You know this isn’t going to be easy, right?” I turned to see a very serious look on Dallas’s face. He seemed very concerned about something. “Being a shifter is a hard life. There is no way for me to lead a normal life.” I put my hand on his arm.
“What is normal?” I hadn’t experienced anything normal in a very long time. “Is it normal to have gangs of looters roaming the streets? Is it normal to have your whole family die?”
“Things will go back to normal at some point,” Dallas said pulling his arm away from me. He walked off toward what looked like a small workshop inside the barn. “Right now you need protection, but what happens when the government gets everything under control and they have found the cure? What happens then?” Dallas turned back to me, “I have to know before this goes any further.”
I was really blown away by what I was hearing. He was starting to go through the drawers filled with screws and bolts, but I could tell that he just couldn’t look at me. “So that’s it, I have to know everything right now, or you are just done with me.”
“I will take you anywhere you want to go,” He said as he closed he drawers and walked past me. He was headed toward a red ATV. He started testing the tires and checking the gas tank. I watched him for a minute. I was flustered and hurt by what he was saying, but I knew in my heart that the only place I wanted to go was with him.
I walked over to him as he was pretending to fiddle with the throttle and I took his beer and set it on a tray next to the ATV. He lifted me onto the seat and I pulled his face in for a kiss. His body was so warm it was amazing just to be near him. “I want to go with you, and be with you.” He went in for another kiss and I could tell what he was thinking, but there was no way it was happening in this stinky, dusty barn. I dodged under him and ran through the barn toward the door.
“Ohh! Get back here!” He yelled as I ran to the house I could hear him gaining on me. I had one foot on the stairs when he pulled me backwards. We rolled onto the grass. He landed up on his elbow with me underneath of him. It was nice to see him eye to eye. He kissed me again and this time I didn’t try to run away. I pushed back his ratty plaid shirt and ran my fingers gently along his chest. I pinched his nipple and he bit my lip.
I pushed him over onto his back and climbed on top. He tried to protest, but I already had his cock in my hand. I grasped it firmly so he knew that I was in charge. I slipped off my pants and I got on top. He moaned as I slid down, and my eyes were rolling back into my head as I looked skyward. We rocked our hips together as he rolled my nipples in his fingers. I was losing control as I felt him erupt inside of me. I collapsed on top of him and listened to his heart beating right against my ear.
I could feel his finger tracing the curve of my hip and running up my back. I was in heaven. There was a warm summer breeze and the only sound was the rustling of leaves in the trees. It was hard to remember that any other part of the world existed. I felt like I was becoming a part of him. The dim light of the setting sun was the only indication that any time had passed. Dallas stood up and carried me over the threshold of the farm house.
“We can’t stay here,” were the first words out of my mouth when I saw the house. The dirt and dust, the smell was the worst part for me. The house hadn’t been cleaned in months and suddenly I was wishing that I hadn’t touched that bottle of beer. Anything that came out of this house was definitely going to kill me.
Dallas led me to the pantry. It was the real food that won me over. I had been living on pudding for so long that anything would’ve been preferable, but the loaded pantry was an unbelievable sight. “How could they have just left all this food behind?” I asked as I walked through hanging sausages and baskets of potatoes. The entire basement of the house had been converted into cold storage.
“The outbreak happened so fast that there are places like this all over the world,” Dallas explained. “This is what we have been doing. My family, we are all out gathering and then we are heading back to the den.”
I think he must have noticed the look I gave him, because he continued to explain, “It’s the name of our compound. On the outside it looks like a salvage yard, but it’s great.” I didn’t say a word, “Anywhere I go right?”
“That’s what I said,” I smiled as I grabbed food of the shelves. I was just excited to eat a meal that wasn’t mainly composed of pudding. I had been worried that my stomach was going to turn into pudding. We headed back up the stairs and started cleaning, there was no way I was eating in a kitchen that dirty.
We spent almost a week in the old farm house. I was glad to be out of scrubs. Although the clothes left behind were a little dated, they were at least a change of pace. Dallas only found two pairs of pants that fit him and he was too big to wear any of the shirts. I told him I liked it better that way. We said every night that we were going to pack up and leave the next morning.
As the sun went down on the sixth night, I was doing the dishes when I felt a large hand glide across my stomach through the thin fabric of my sundress. I put my hand over top of it and interlocked my fingers. I turned around to kiss Dallas, but I was met with a wide eyed stare.
“Something’s wrong,” his expression worried me. I was sure he could sense something wrong with the virus. I felt my heart drop. He had told me that his kind were very sensitive to the body and to the release of hormones. I was sure he was going to tell me that I was going to die. I was carrying a deadly disease, everybody was, and my virus had been activated.
“What’s going on?” I asked as he started to walk away. “If I am dying I have a right to know.”
“You’re pregnant,” He said as he just kept walking. “I am so sorry…what?” My expression seemed to surprise Dallas.
“How can you know that?” I was sure he was wrong. It felt like he had to be teasing me. The virus had made people, all people, sterile.
“Your smell has changed,” he said the words like it was a normal thing to say. I felt very exposed. His words made me feel like I should go put on a gallon of perfume. I wanted to plug his nose permanently. This seemed like an awful invasion of my privacy. “I can’t help it,” he said as if he was also reading my mind. “I can just sense a change in your hormones.”
That was when it hit me. He had just said that I was going to have a baby. I was no longer part of a race that was going extinct. “We’re having a baby?” Tears were already streaming down my face. I couldn’t believe it. I had long given up on the idea. “I didn’t think it could happen,” I jumped up into his arms and threw my arms around him. I was too happy for words.
Dallas had to sit down. He seemed so surprised that I was excited. He couldn’t speak either. As I sat on his lap in the kitchen we tried to breath. It was almost too much to understand. We had somehow beaten the odds. I was carrying his baby. I touched my stomach and felt his warm hand cross over mine. It wasn’t going to be easy, but I knew that we could make this work as long as I had Dallas by my side.
The next morning we started loading a trailer that Dallas found behind the barn. We had hooked it up to the ATV. Dallas was worried that I was going to miss something about my former life, but there was really nothing left of it. As we loaded the trailer I was filled with a sense of anticipation and wonder. I couldn’t wait to see what my new life had in store for me.
Epilogue
“Ma ma!” Devin Blackwood clapped with a huge smile on his face. I was wiggling a bear in his face as we laid in bed. The sun was streaming in through the window. I couldn’t stop looking at his face if I tried.
“Breakfast,” Dallas walked in carrying a basket of fresh eggs and wearing a smile. I thought he was just out of clothes when I met him, but lucky for me, he generally doesn’t where clothes. He gently kissed me on the cheek and I was glad my tough bear was finally finding his tender side. I had finally found my family in this new world.
Summary
Jade Roberts
Since the virus broke free and ravaged our world, I have been living in the hospital I used to work at waiting for my father to pass on. In the first month there was hope, but now all of that has gone. Humans have forgotten how to treat each other with humanity. So should I be surprised that I feel drawn toward this tall, muscular stranger with a bit of a wild side. He is part animal, but he is all man.
Dallas Blackwood
I grew up with a terrible secret that I had to hide from the rest of the world. I am not a person. I am a shifter. I am now in control of it, but it has been a curse. I don’t want to drag this beautiful woman into my dark and dangerous world, but I cannot leave her either. She thinks she understands what she is signing herself up for. The outbreak has changed a lot of things about this world, but it can never change what I am.
THE END
Imprinted to the Bear
The front door of the Zydeco Bar and Grille opened squeakily, and four biker guys came inside. Vicky Roberts looked up from her place behind the bar. She had short brown hair, large blue eyes, and freckles that ran across the bridge of her nose. She liked to keep her hair up in a half ponytail when she was working, so it would stay out of her face. The neon yellow t-shirt that featured the venue’s jazz-inspired logo clung to her body, revealing her curves more than she would have liked, but hey, it was a living.
Like most waitresses, she had taken up this living so she could pursue bigger and better things.
She finished topping off a costumer’s pint of beer and then went over to the newcomers’ table. “Welcome to Zydeco. I’m Vicky. What can I get for you?” She made sure to look at each of the guys so that they all felt cared for. That was one of the tricks of the trade.
She managed to notice that one of them was particularly handsome. She’d have to watch out for that one, she thought.
After taking their orders, she went back to get their requested drinks. The handsome biker was paying a lot of attention to her as well, frequently looking over as she worked at other tables.
Once Vicky finally got a break during a lull, the attractive biker went up to her at the bar. “Hey,” he said, flashing a perfect smile at her and giving a nod. “How’s it going?”
She did not know what she’d done to deserve his attention. “Fine,” she replied, looking at him and trying not to seem too eager to talk to him, or too standoffish. There was a fine line. “How are you? Are you in a motorcycle club or something?”
He seemed taken aback by the fact that she had drawn that conclusion. It was not exactly a difficult conclusion to reach. “We are, as a matter of fact. NOLA Ours, at your service.”
“And you’re their…publicist?” Vicky asked, raising an eyebrow.
Chuckling, he shrugged and then nodded a little. “Sure, if you want. I’m technically the VP, though you’d never know that by the way these assholes talk to me.”
She smiled at him. She could tell that he was joking. Mostly. “What’s your name?” she asked him.
“Amos Steele,” he readily replied. “And you’re Vicky.”
Still smiling, she nodded. “Yup. Right you are.”
He sat on a stool at the bar, and she knew that he had no plans to go back with his friends any time soon. Maybe he was not totally kidding about them being assholes. Or maybe she was that alluring; in her ridiculous shirt and with her face glistening from sweat. New Orleans was no place to have an AC on the fritz. And the Zydeco AC had been on the fritz for more than a week.
It might have been grounds for Vicky to quit, if she didn’t need the money so badly.
“What’s your last name?” he asked with curious eyes, resting his chin against his fists.
Maybe it was the heat in there, or maybe it was the flattery of the situation, but Vicky’s face turned hot as he looked at her that way and asked such a thing. She couldn’t tell now if he was just being friendly, or if he was planning to stalk her later. “Roberts,” she said, narrowing her eyes at him slightly.
“Roberts,” Amos repeated as though it was a new name he’d never heard before, and not a name that was fairly common everywhere. “And where were you born?” he asked. “I can tell you’re not from around here. Your accent is different.”
Smiling, impressed, Vicky nodded. “You have a good ear.”
Amos laughed. “The N’awlans accent is just thick,” he said, making sure to add a bit of the twang to his speech for effect. “So where are you from? If I had to guess, I’d say… Boston?”
She grinned at him. “Just outside,” she replied. “Very good. It’s kind of scary how perceptive you are.”
Although Vicky was dazzled by this guy, she was starting to worry that he might try and become a distraction for her. The last thing she really needed was a distraction from her schoolwork…
“Are your parents still in Boston?” he asked curiously. “Do you go back there regularly?”
At that she had to shake her head. “No, actually. My parents died when I was a baby. I was in foster care, all of my childhood. But I don’t exactly consider that family.”
Now she definitely wanted to pull away.
“Are you off tomorrow?” Amos Steele asked her then. “Could I see you again?”
Vicky shook her head. “No, I can’t. I have class.”
“What class?”
This guy did not know when to stop. She found him attractive and interesting, although his interrogation was scaring her a little now. “I’m sorry; I’ve got to get back to work. I’ll see you around, Amos.”
She gave him another small smile as a parting gift, and then went to go check on one of her tables. They did not really need anything, but she needed them as an excuse to get away. The handsome biker intrigued her, and she would not have minded seeing him again, but his questions had started to feel intense. Vicky felt like she was going crazy from the heat and the stress of the day. She could have sworn Amos Steele’s eyes had briefly glowed gold while he talked to her…
As soon as she was off work that night, Vicky carefully walked the short walk from the bar to her apartment building. She had lucked out in getting a place that was so conveniently close to her work, but that convenience came with a rent that could not continue to be paid by tips alone.
It’s temporary, she reminded herself. It’s all just temporary.
Once she was safely inside her place, she took off her shorts and the neon shirt, and replaced them with a long, loose t-shirt that served as a pajama top. Vicky let her hair down and gave it a good brushing before brushing her teeth. It was twenty minutes til midnight, and she had class the following morning. At least it was not until eleven a.m., but waking up was hard to do when work made her a night owl.
Settling into bed, Vicky wondered if she was going to have those weird dreams about bears. She’d been having recurring bear dreams for as long as she could remember. Sometimes, they were just dreams. Other times, they were nightmares. She did not know why these dreams happened to her. She’d never seen an actual bear in her life. Then again, she did not have memories of when she was very small. Perhaps she had been taken to see bears at the zoo once when she was tiny.
That was the only explanation she could think of.
Sure enough, as she finally drifted off to sleep, she had visions of walking through a forest of spindly trees, and stepping into a circle of bears that seemed to bow to her. Their eyes had a golden glow, and when she looked into them her body was illuminated with warmth.
When her alarm went off at nine thirty the next morning, Vicky did not feel like getting up. To be fair, she never did. She once had an ex-boyfriend who always teased her about how excessive she was with sleep. That could not happen anymore though. She threw off her sheets and stumbled, shivering, into the bathroom to wash her face.
With a shower and some cereal in her, she was ready to go to her art class at the New Orleans Academy of Fine Art. That class was the reason for her move there from Boston. She’d received a scholarship and couldn’t pass up the chance. Art continued to make her life better, and help erase the emptiness of her past.
She took a taxi to the building, and arrived in class ten minutes early. Vicky was not really a stickler for being on time or early, except when it came to this class. She placed her bag on her desk, carefully pulling out her sketchbook and pencils in order to give her project one last check before it had to be turned in.
Right as the professor came in and was setting up to begin, a newcomer arrived in the classroom. He was tall and attractive, with an angular face, light blond hair, and piercing blue eyes. He wore a dark blue hoodie and jeans. Noticing that the chair beside Vicky was empty, he came over and sat down beside her.
“Hey,” he said under his breath. “What’s up?”
Vicky smiled. She was still getting over the hot guy from last night and now this dreamboat was giving her attention. Were the planets aligned? Was this a sign that something bad was going to happen to her soon?
She was not what one would call an optimistic person. Life had been shitting on her so long that she thought any bit of something good was going to immediately be followed by something insurmountably terrible.
Please don’t let this mean I’m going to flunk this class.
One of the main reasons she’d declined biker boy’s offer last night was because she did not want a distraction from her art work. But how was she going to avoid that now, with hot hoodie boy sitting right there beside her all throughout class??
The professor announced that it was time to pass in their first sketch projects. Vicky carefully tore hers out of her sketchbook and passed it up. Hoodie boy lowered his head guiltily, running his long fingers along the edge of their shared grey desk.
“It’s okay,” Vicky found herself saying to him. “You’re new. I doubt it will matter in the final grade.”
She did not know what had possessed her to speak up like that. But he raised his head and looked at her, smiling slightly roguishly. “The thing about it is, I was told about it but I still didn’t do it.”
Vicky shrugged. “Like I said. It won’t matter, so long as you do the other projects.”
He continued to look at her, appraising her, memorizing every detail of her face, apparently. “I’m Stuart,” he said, offering his hand. “Stuart Barkley.”
She blinked at him and took his hand, shaking it a little before releasing. “Vicky Roberts,” she replied. “It’s nice to meet you.”
Once their introductions were over, the class settled in to the day’s lesson on shading. They were given an assignment to draw a still life and be sure to focus on shadows so that they would utilize the shading practices she taught them.
“Honestly, she teaches like we’re all novices at this,” Stuart said under his breath again.
Vicky giggled softly.
As she drew a detailed rendering of her art supplies as they lay on her desk, careful to shade one side of her pencil case and not the other, she glanced over and saw that Stuart was drawing her in profile.
She blushed, flattered and not knowing what to say. Should she even say anything? It would more than likely ruin the moment.
Instead of letting the subject matter of his drawing overpower her feelings, Vicky admired his technique. When Stuart first came into the classroom, without his project and acting like the typical lazy guy she’d known while she was an undergrad, she assumed that he would not be so skilled. Then she remembered that this was a prestigious program and she was not the only one there who’d earned their place in the classroom.
This drawing of his proved that to her. Stuart was not only painfully attractive, he was also very talented. Maybe it would not be so bad if he distracted Vicky after all. He could distract her and inspire her at the same time.
When class was over for the day and Vicky packed up her things, Stuart placed his small sketch pad back into the front pocket of his hoodie. “What do you do for fun around here?” he asked. “You seem to have your shit together more than I do.”
She smiled at him. She could tell that he was a transplant from some other state, like she was. Amos had helped her be more attuned to that, not that it mattered to her where a person was from. “I wouldn’t call it fun, but I work at a bar nearby called Zydeco,” she told him. “I work there most nights to pay for this school.”
Stuart nodded, appearing thoughtful when she mentioned the bar’s name. “That’s a dangerous place. I’ve heard it’s mostly visited by bikers and thugs.”
Vicky shrugged a little. “Aren’t most bars like that?”
“Do you like to go hiking?” he asked, changing the subject. “We should go hiking outside the city one of these days. There’s more to Louisiana than bars and art and jazz.”
“Oh, really?” she joked. “That’s not what my travel book said.”
That made Stuart smile. He seemed like a cool guy. A little over-cautious, but cool. She couldn’t blame him for being wary of the bar. After all, he had a point. The place was crawling with unsavory types, try as her boss might to keep them out.
“I’m free all day two days from now,” Vicky said. “You can pick me up here.” She pulled her sketchbook out of her bag and sacrificed a corner of one page to writing down the address of Zydeco. She did not want to give out her home address to anyone just yet. Stranger danger, all that stuff. She tore the corner off and handed it to Stuart. The rest of that ripped page could be used as a draft page, she thought.
Stuart took the paper and neatly folded it before placing it into the front pouch of his hoodie as well. “Thanks,” he said. “What time will be good for you?”
“Afternoon?” she replied. “We can solidify the plan closer to the day?”
“So… tomorrow?” he asked, smiling at her.
She smiled back. “Tomorrow.”
CHAPTER TWO
Everybody’s Staring
Vicky had a few hours between her class and her shift. She took advantage of the free time by sleeping as soon as she got home. She would need to be well-rested if she had any hope of working from four to midnight. Sometimes she wondered why she had ever agreed to eight hours of the late night shift ‘whenever available.’ But then she remembered her rent plus utilities plus left over tuition that the scholarship didn’t cover, and she felt like crying.
This is just temporary, she reminded herself blearily as she lay on her bed, trying to will her brain into sleep.
Before long, the bears were back, this time they were in her apartment, and growling something as if she was supposed to understand.
The alarm at three thirty saved her. She snapped awake and felt relief flow through her. Then she exchanged her jeans and blouse for short shorts, and another neon Zydeco shirt. This time, she’d be wearing bright pink.
She hobbled into work and started serving drinks at the bar, all the while imagining Stuart Barkley and what he would look like in hiking gear. Would he look the same plus boots? She smirked a little.
At one point, she glanced over and realized that a guy was staring at her from a nearby table. He was wearing a black leather jacket that perfectly matched his black hair. His eyes appeared to be green and he looked familiar to Vicky.
Then she realized where she knew him from. He was the guy from the night before. Amos Steele. A strange sensation of fear vibrated through her spine.
Suddenly, the glass she was filling from the tap overflowed onto the floor.
“Shit!” she shouted, letting go of the tap. She hadn’t been paying attention. “That was stupid,” she said, grabbed a roll of paper towels and getting to work cleaning up as soon as possible.
Ben, the head bartender and the boss, stared at her as if she’d gone mental. “Are you all right, Vicky?” he asked her, his annoyance making it hard for him to also sound concerned.
She nodded, dumping a pile of sopping towels into the trash. “Yeah. I’m sorry. I guess I’m a little out of it tonight.”
As soon as the spot was clean, she made sure the glassful of beer was okay before serving it to the waiting customer. “Sorry for the delay,” she said, strolling back up to the bar from the tables.
When she turned and looked back in the direction where she thought she’d seen Amos, there was no sight of him. Either he was gone now or he’d never been there in the first place.
It doesn’t matter now that I didn’t want him to be a distraction, she thought. It looks like he’s a distraction anyway.
The following morning, Vicky felt like she may as well not have even tried to sleep. The bears were relentless, and she tossed and turned all night. “I’m wondering if I ought to see a counselor about this,” she said out loud to herself as she stared at her alarm clock, wishing it did not say nine thirty.
After a few moments spent cursing the time, she got out of bed and started her morning routine. As she placed her bag onto her back, she wondered if Stuart would be sitting beside her in class again. The seats were not assigned, but still she hoped so. She thought they’d struck up a pretty good rapport. And she could not wait to see the final product of his drawing.
When she got to class, she realized, chagrined, that she was wearing the short shorts that she usually reserved for work. Ah well, she thought. At least it will make changing easier.
Stuart entered the classroom shortly before the professor. Sure enough, he sat beside Vicky as though that was his assigned seat. “Good morning,” he said to her.
Unless she was imagining things, he sounded a bit gruffer than before. Maybe he’d been out partying late last night. He didn’t seem like a partier, but then she did not really know him. He could have been completely wild. She blushed a little, just thinking about that.
The class handed in their completed shading exercises. Vicky glanced over at Stuart’s as he passed it up to the professor. He had made her appear so flawless. It was artistic license. She knew that she did not quite look that good. She had the odd blemish here, an old scar there. But she appreciated that he had chosen her as his subject.
“Your assignment over the weekend is to go out somewhere and draw something that you see. Take a moment, find a bench and draw your surroundings,” their professor said. “I will be choosing the top three drawings and they will be submitted to this month’s edition of The Fly.”
The Fly was the academy’s publication that showcased the best and brightest students. It was named after a park that was a short walk away from the school. That gave Vicky an idea. She had a pretty good feeling that she wouldn’t be alone in thinking it, but it would still be good.
She would go to The Fly that weekend during her time off from work!
As she packed up her things at the end of class that day, she smiled over at Stuart. “See you tomorrow for a hike?” she asked him. “If you don’t see me at Zydeco, look for me at The Fly.”
“Oh, I’ll find you,” he said.
She believed that he meant that to be said in a joking way, but there was something about his tone that was somewhat off. He was different that day. Quiet, moody. Maybe he really had had a bad night last night…
When Vicky got home, she wrote down her tentative plans for the weekend on her whiteboard calendar that she kept in her kitchen. It was the sort of thing that was usually found in a college dorm room. That was what she’d bought it for, initially.
She did not usually use it anymore. She did not usually have much in the way of plans.
Visit The Fly
Go Hiking
She threw off her shirt and took a nap in her shorts and bra, allowing herself a little extra time for sleeping since all she’d need to do was put on another neon work shirt. Her alarm went off so cruelly when she felt she’d only just fallen asleep.
Putting on a green Zydeco shirt, she brushed her short hair and put it up into small pigtails. Her hair’s length did not allow for much in the way of styling, but there was something about tiny pigtails that made her happy. Maybe it was the fact that they reminded her of a cartoon character from the 90s.
Ready to go, she left her apartment, locking her door behind her. Vicky was excited to go to work today, but she couldn’t say why. She supposed it was because it would be her last day before a full weekend off. That was a rarity, and it was a rarity that she aimed to take advantage of.
Everything at work was the normal sort of thing she found there. It was muggy and loud and full of big, brawny men who were drinking together or separately and carrying on loud conversations with each other. A little young lady like Vicky could easily get lost in there. Hence the bright t-shirts.
The sexy young biker guy was there again. She saw him sitting by himself at practically the same table where she’d first seen him. He was staring right at her and didn’t look away when she looked.
Vicky blushed and looked away. She needed to focus on her job. Last time they had had a staring contest like that, she’d ended up spilling Coors Light all over the floor and counter. Ben had his eye on her and would most likely send her home early if that happened again. She couldn’t spare the tip money for something so stupid.
Instead, she filled her mind with thoughts of Stuart Barkley. He was out of it in class today, but they had plans to go on a… Was it a date? A hiking date. Vicky smiled again as she imagined him hiking in his blue hoodie, jeans and big brown boots. She didn’t know why the image was so funny to her. He just didn’t seem like the sort of guy who went hiking. He was tall and spindly looking.
Unlike Amos Steele. She cast a glance his way and noted how big he was. He was built more like a mountaineer. He looked like he could knock down a tree with his bare hands. She realized that, although he’d introduced himself as a biker, she’d never actually seen him on a motorcycle. She wondered how he managed that. His bike must be a monster.
Thinking about the two young men who frequently occupied her thoughts helped make the time pass. It wasn’t long before she was clearing and cleaning up the bar after hours. Vicky yawned and put her little pocketed apron away in the back.
“See you Monday,” she announced to everyone.
There were grumbles of assent. The workers there got one weekend off a month and no one else that night was getting their weekend free. Vicky would have felt bad if she hadn’t been in there shoes for three weeks prior. Everyone there learned to live with the schedule, or went somewhere else.
Vicky left Zydeco and started walking the short distance between work and her apartment building. She felt like someone was following her, but then she was always a little paranoid when walking the streets of New Orleans at night. Although she had lived there for months now, she was still surrounded by strangers. Doing her best to ignore the odd feeling and just walk faster, she turned a corner and climbed the concrete steps to her building’s front door, where she was suddenly face to face with Stuart from art class.
“Hey,” she said with a slightly confused smile. It was surprising but also kind of nice to randomly find him there. “What are you doing out so late?”
Just then, Stuart pulled out a knife and pressed against her, holding the knife to her neck. “Get inside,” he said. “Now.”
Eyes widening, Vicky did as he told her to do. She could feel the cool metal of the knife through her t-shirt. He was holding it against her, but not pressing it in to hurt her.
At least not yet.
She wanted to cry out for help, but she knew that if she did that he definitely would hurt her.
Now she felt horribly guilty and stupid for thinking about him all night, as though just thinking of him had summoned him there.
What was Stuart going to do to her? He’d seemed annoyed during class, and she was starting to wonder if she had done something to upset him.
She slowly led him inside her building and towards the elevator, careful to walk at a pace that kept the knife from puncturing her.
CHAPTER THREE
Don’t Feed The Bears
Vicky pressed the elevator’s up button with a shaky hand. “Why are you doing this?” she asked him now that they were alone inside.
“I noticed something about you as soon as I met you,” Stuart said in a deep, growling voice. “You’re not like other girls. And I don’t mean that as a compliment.”
She did not know what he meant by that. Fortunately, she did not have to ask him.
The doors of her building burst open right as the elevator opened its doors and Amos Steele came running towards them. “Let her go!” he yelled.
“Get in the elevator,” Stuart shouted to Vicky, who obeyed.
“What the hell is happening?” she asked, shaking and scared.
Stuart rounded on Amos, and started pointing the knife at him instead. Vicky stood in the elevator and watched as they began to fight each other. She could have slipped away and gone up to her apartment, but she was afraid that she would just be followed upstairs. Stuart did not know her apartment number, but she was not thinking clearly. Anything seemed to be possible right now.
Particularly when Amos morphed into a large, snarling brown and black bear right before Vicky’s eyes.
She let out a blood-curdling scream that more than likely would awaken some of her neighbors, as well as alert the building’s security.
Then, Stuart let go of the knife. “Oh, it’s on,” he barked. He shifted into a massive white and light gray wolf. He lunged towards Amos’s throat, but the bear was bigger and stronger. He smacked Wolf Stuart away with one mighty, sharp-clawed paw.
The two animals bit and swatted at each other while Vicky looked on, not entirely sure who to cheer for. She did not know Amos’s story. She’d only met him once. Stuart, on the other hand, had seemed so nice and had ended up threatening her… So she felt like the way the night was going was in Amos’s favor.
Burly Amos was a bear. Somehow this was connected to her dreams.
Was he the bear who had been coming to her in the night recently, storming through her apartment as if he lived there?
She thought the dreams had been a bad omen, but maybe… Maybe they meant he was looking out for her?
Finally, battered and bloodied, Stuart gave up the fight. He shifted back into his human form. His blue hoodie was all ripped up, revealing the bites and scratches all over his arms, chest and neck.
“You win this round, Bear,” he spat. “But I’ll be back.”
With that, he leaned down and took his knife back, putting it away in his pocket and limping out of Vicky’s building.
Amos looked at her for a moment, still in his bear form. He let out a low moan and sniffed the air.
Her eyes widened and she started to reach for the buttons on the elevator. Maybe she wasn’t safe with him after all. Maybe Bear Amos wanted to eat her.
“Wait,” he said. He shifted back into his normal, human form. He had a huge wound on his lower neck and clavicle. It was harder to see when he was a bear and covered with fur, but now it peeked out of his shirt collar and black jacket, bright red and glistening with blood.
Vicky’s gaze softened as she looked at him. “You’re hurt,” she said. “Because of me… Do you want to come up to my place and clean yourself up?”
Now that Amos was back in his human form, she was not afraid of him. He was so handsome and heroic. She had briefly forgotten how hot this guy was. It was easy to forget when he was all fuzzy and howling as he tore at another beast.
She smiled at him.
He smiled back. “Nah,” he said. “I’ll be fine. But you can’t stay here. You’re no longer safe here. The werewolf has imprinted this place, and he’ll just be here to attack you again when you least expect it.”
Furrowing her brow, Vicky looked at Amos. She could tell all of a sudden that he knew something about her that she did not, and it bothered her. “But why?”
Amos shook his head. “Come with me. I’ll explain when we’re a safe distance away.”
As they stepped outside of the building, Vicky at last caught sight of Amos’s motorcycle. She had been right after all. It was a massive black Harley that was the perfect size for her gargantuan hero. Head still reeling from the ordeal she had just had, the bizarre species fight she’d just witnessed, she did not notice as Amos lifted her into his beefy arms and carefully placed her onto the back of the bike’s seat.
“So the werewolf wanted to kill me and the… bear wants to kidnap me?” she asked, smirking slightly to show him that she was joking. Mostly.
Amos smiled right back at her and got onto the bike, in front. “The correct term is werebear, but I don’t really like it. It makes me sound too much like a Care Bear, and I ain’t one of those motherfuckers.”
He revved the engine and they were off.
Speed limits apparently did not apply to Amos Steele.
“Where are we going?” Vicky yelled over the engine. “I only have the weekend off!”
Amos laughed. “You may not be going back to Zydeco!”
He drove his bike far away from all of the parts of New Orleans that she was used to and familiar with. He drove her away from her home.
Suddenly, a massive stretch of bayou lay before them. Vicky had of course seen the swamplands of Louisiana before, but they had always been seen from a distance. Now, she was in one. And she thought her workplace was muggy.
“Welcome to Lafourche,” Amos introduced. “I have a cabin here. I rent it out mostly for those times I can’t quite bear to be around people.”
She knew what he meant. She couldn’t believe that he was able to be so silly about the fact that he could literally morph into a bear. Apparently at will.
He parked his motorcycle outside of a small, wood cabin that must be his. In the front, a black flag waved. It was decorated with an outline of a large gold paw. A bear paw.
“Unbelievable,” she said.
Amos helped her off the motorcycle and led her into his cabin. It was decorated with framed paintings of fish, and it also contained a wide variety of fishing supplies for someone who she was pretty sure didn’t need supplies.
There was a large bed in the center of the living room. There was no question what Amos came here to do most often. The room was surrounded by wide windows and all of the blinds were not only open but up. “It must be hard to sleep here when the blinds are like that.”
The bayou was dark right now. The only light she could see out there was fireflies and the occasional plane flying across the sky. And stars. Through the low-hanging treetops, Vicky could see a sky completely filled with stars.
“I can see why you come here.”
The cabin had a small kitchen and one bathroom down a short hall from the living/bedroom. Amos had a television set and she assumed, based on all the different types of video game systems hooked up to it, that it was not used for watching cable shows.
This man greatly confused her. But there was something so sexy about his mysterious, sometimes seemingly oxymoronic personality.
Vicky took a seat on the large bed. There was nowhere else to sit. Meanwhile, Amos went around the room, lowering all of the blinds and closing them. She kicked off her sneakers in order to get more comfortable as Amos shrugged out of his leather jacket, and placed it on the floor by the front door.
Once all of the blinds had been adjusted, he came to the bed and sat beside her. “Would you like a drink?”
She shook her head a little. “Thank you for saving my life back there.”
“Of course,” he replied.
All at once, their lips were on each other’s. They slipped their tongues into each other’s mouths, feeling around, getting a sense of who they were now with… Vicky grabbed hold of the bottom of Amos’s shirt and lifted it off of him. Then she ran her fingertips over his hairy chest, kissing him more.
Before long, they had yanked each other’s clothes off and were lying together on the bed, gazing into each other’s eyes.
“Do you want this?” he asked her softly.
“Yes,” she said, appreciating his respect for her. After the kinds of things she had seen him do, she hadn’t expected him to be concerned about getting her consent.
They kissed again and Amos got on top of her, holding her legs apart and kissing each of her inner thighs before pressing his cock into the tight opening between them. He started to slowly thrust himself inside of her, watching her eyes and making sure not to hurt her.
“Ohhh,” Vicky moaned. It had been a long time since she’d last had sex. And of course she had never had sex with a man as big as Amos before. “Yeah, that’s good.” She sucked her bottom lip, raising her legs up so he could go even deeper.
“Yeah?” Amos asked. “Is this what you wanted?” He suddenly slapped her ass and sped up. After a few moments, he pulled out of her and slapped her ass again. “Turn around,” he commanded.
Vicky got onto her knees and he got behind her, inserting himself into her and immediately pounding himself against her at a high speed. She clenched her eyes shut tightly and grabbed ahold of one of his pillows, grasping it firmly as stars filled her brain.
“Oh oh oh god yes!” she screamed.
“Yes,” Amos said back, smacking her side as he continued to storm her pussy. He grabbed ahold of her boobs and fondled them, rubbing his thumbs over her nipples until they were hard.
After a few minutes more of this, he suddenly brought her into his arms and carried her into the kitchen. He cleared away any dishes or pots with an arm and set her on top of the short stove. He thrust his cock into her there and continued to fuck her, making the contents of the kitchen rattle.
Vicky held onto the cabinets on either side of her head, her arms raised in a V.
“Are you gonna cum for me?” he asked, more like an impatient urging rather than a simple question.
She nodded.
“Cum for me!” he demanded.
Vicky threw her head back and allowed herself to think of nothing else but Amos, and his giant cock and giant, sexy body. She came hard against him, tightening against his cock until he came as well, yelling out barbarically.
Once he composed himself, he slipped out of her and went into the bathroom to clean himself up. She carefully hopped down from the small stove and joined him, laughing when she noticed the imprints of the stovetop on her ass.
“This has been the weirdest day of my life,” she said then, carefully cleaning herself with some toilet paper. The cabin did not have a shower or a bath. She wondered how they were going to manage that come the morning.
Amos smiled at her. “Oh trust me, things are going to be weird from here on out.”
CHAPTER FOUR
Shifter Genealogy
In the morning, Amos was already awake when Vicky opened her eyes. He was sitting on the bed, facing away from her, naked. She blushed, remembering what had happened the night before as well as the fact that they had slept naked together. She had never been so close with someone she had basically just met. It wasn’t like her. But something about Amos drew her in…
He saved her life last night.
“What time is it?” she asked him softly, rubbing her eyes as she sat up.
“Almost eleven,” he replied. “I didn’t want to wake you, especially because you work so late all the time and you said you were on a short vacation.”
Vicky smiled at him. He remembered things she had told him. It felt good to be listened to. “Thank you,” she said, meaning it in every way. “Did you have something planned for today?”
He turned to her and gave her a smile. “First of all, I was thinking breakfast.” Amos stood up from the bed, giving her a marvelous view of his body in all of its splendor. His cock was gigantic. So she hadn’t dreamt that…
“As you might have noticed last night, my kitchen here is shit,” he went on. “But there’s a waffle place up the road that’s pretty decent. Do you wanna put on your clothes and go there?”
Vicky suddenly recalled that this cabin also had no shower or tub to speak of. How on earth was a person supposed to live there? “Uh, yeah,” she replied. “Is there a place I could shower or something?”
Amos looked at her for a moment, and she wondered if he did not understand. Perhaps bear shifters preferred to bathe in the bayou, but that was not her idea of a good time. It was not exactly clean water. “We can take care of that after breakfast,” he said. “No one at Waffle House will care if you’re wearing yesterday’s clothes.”
He reached down and touched her breasts, gently tweaking her nipples until she laughed from how tickly it was. “On second thought, maybe I should make you dirtier before we go out.”
“I don’t think I could say no to that if I tried.”
His left hand quickly slid between her legs and cupped her pussy while playing with her clit. His right hand fondled and squeezed at her breasts. God he made her wet. She reached down and took his girth into his hand, stroking and pulling on his exquisite piece. “Please.. fuck me… now.”
“Not until you suck me first.”
He flipped around, and his giant cock was in her face. She let it slide down into her mouth, letting her tongue explore its contours as his face burrowed into her pussy, giving her short rapid licks. She began to feel intense pleasure, and felt that they were part of the same animal. She came instantly, wishing the moment would last forever when he turned around, and flipped her on to her back. She knew what was coming next.
“It’s my turn,” Amos whispered into her ear.
His large cock drilled into her, and he fucked hard.
He grunted, and growled, and trashed into her backside, until he let every last drop of his seed spill inside of her.
They collapsed entangled in a heap, as his eyes gleamed with gold.
“Now I’m really fucking hungry,” he said.
She got up and put her outfit from last night back on. The shorts were surprisingly okay considering she’d worn them all of yesterday, but her neon green shirt smelled atrocious.
Amos laughed when he noticed her grossed-out expression. He walked into the bathroom and she did her best not to stare so brazenly at his penis as he went. A few seconds later, he came back and tossed a spray can of Old Spice at her.
Vicky caught the deodorant with both hands and laughed. “Thanks pal.”
He grinned at her as she sprayed herself all over to try and diffuse the scent from last night’s sweatiness. “God, why do you even live in this place? It’s so sticky.”
“Hey now,” he said, chuckling. “I don’t go around asking you why you’re from Boston.”
He had a point there.
Once she was fully dressed and cleaned as much as she could be, and Amos had thrown on some ratty old jeans and a dark blue tank top, they headed outside to greet the day and the world again.
He drove with her on the motorcycle to the Waffle House. After the bike was safely parked and their helmets were stowed away, they walked hand-in-hand inside the place. While Vicky looked over the menu, trying to figure out what flavor of waffles she was in the mood for, Amos took out his cell phone and made a call.
“We’ve got a Code W just like I expected,” he said, not even trying to hide what he was saying from her.
She looked up from the menu at him, raising her eyebrows. What was a Code W? Did it involve waffles?
“Who are you talking to?” she asked.
“Shhh,” he said back, giving her a funny little half smile.
Even when he was shushing her like an asshole, he was sexy.
He was quiet for a few moments, listening to what was said on the other end. “Mmhmm, with me. Yep. At the Waffle House on MLK.”
Vicky raised her eyebrow at him. Did he always speak in code like that when on the phone?
Amos hung up and put his phone on the table so he would have it at the ready. She hated when people did that, but it wasn’t like this breakfast was really a date, right? No, it was just a post-coital, post-cuddle outing between two strangers.
“I think I want the blueberry waffles,” she said nonchalantly, as though she hadn’t overheard his side of the weirdly cryptic conversation. “But I feel like I always want the blueberry waffles. Maybe I should get the peach ones. Those seem southern enough to suit this place.”
“My friends from NOLA Ours are stopping by here,” Amos said.
She looked at him, her blue eyes so confused. She noticed as she stared at him that his eyes weren’t green at all, but rather a strange hazel color. Mostly green, with a smidge of brown and a gold ring around his pupil.
Maybe that was why they’d appeared gold to her once!
“What are they coming here for?” she asked. “What’s Code W?”
Amos looked around to make sure that no one was nearby who could overhear them. The only other person who seemed to be there was the waitress. She was going around from table to table, cleaning things up and arranging the silverware on each table as though there was a mapped out, silverware placement grid that one must follow in order to stay a waitress at the prestigious eatery.
Mostly, she seemed bored.
Leaning in towards Vicky so the waitress would not hear them, even though she probably would not care, he explained himself. “Code W means werewolves. They’re coming to help me, help you with your situation.”
She narrowed her eyes at him. “What situation is that?” She was offended.
Amos shook his head. “I didn’t mean anything by it. I just meant they’re going to help us with the problem with that guy who tried to kill you last night.”
“You think he will be back?”
“I know he will be back.”
Vicky leaned her back against the rigid, plastic booth. The last thing she needed was another werewolf vs. bear shifter attack on her conscience. One was enough. “How do you know?”
“Because you are imprinted,” he said matter-of-factly. “And, more importantly, because you are from the same werebear line as me. At least, I think so. But don’t worry about that. It’s not like we’re related closely or anything. We’re like fourth cousins twice removed or some shit like that.”
Her eyes became a bit vacant. What he was telling her didn’t make any sense! But it also made so much sense! “So… I’m a werebear, too?”
He nodded. “Yup. But don’t worry about shifting. You ain’t going to shift. Ladies just mate and, em… reproduce.”
“So I’m going to have a baby now?!”
Amos looked around, surprised and nervous about her shouting. The waitress was definitely looking at them now. She tilted her head at them.
He ducked down so his voice would be quietly contained within their booth. “Yes,” he hissed. “Most likely. That’s usually what happens after one of me mates with one of you.”
She lowered her head so she would speak softer too. She was livid. No one had told her having sex with him one time was going to make her insta-preggers! That was generally a risk when one had unprotected sex, but Amos was so agonizingly upfront and casual about it! “And when were you planning to give me this little bit of information?” she asked him.
“Today,” he said. “Just now.”
Vicky sighed. “So I have a baby bear inside me now?”
He nodded.
“And so now the werewolves are definitely going to want to kill you.”
“Oh, it’s werewolves PLURAL now??”
The waitress cleared her throat.
She was standing right there by their booth. She didn’t smile, but instead had the expression of someone who had been there too long and had heard too much in her life to ever experience anything new or interesting. “Do y’all know what you want?”
“I’ll have the peach waffles, and the Miss here will have the blueberry waffles. Thanks, hon.”
Vicky stared at him with wide eyes as the waitress took their menus back and went away to fetch their order.
“You didn’t have to order that just cos I wanted to try it,” she said.
Amos smiled at her. “I didn’t. I ordered if because I wanted it. But you can have some, if you want to try it.”
Slowly, she smiled back at him. If she had to be impregnated by a bear shifter, motorcycle club VP, werewolf hunter who lived on a bayou with no shower… at least she was with this one.
After about twenty more minutes, while they were feasting on their delicious, fruit-infused waffles, Amos’s motorcycle club buddies showed up. “Bonjour,” one of them said as they gathered up chairs and sat down.
“Vicky, please allow me to introduce Ray, Buzz, and Jean-Claude,” Amos introduced.
Jean-Claude was the one with the evil villain moustache who had spoken French. He was clearly a Creole.
Interesting group of friends.
Then it dawned on her.
“Did Jean-Claude name your club?” she asked.
“Oui,” he said with a smile. “How did you know?”
She smiled as the new information dawned on her. “NOLA Ours,” she said. “Ours is French for bears.”
The biker guys all grinned and nodded at her.
“Anyway,” Amos said, redirecting the conversation back where it belonged. “Here’s the plan. We head back to Miss Roberts’ apartment. The wolves will sense her presence, or they will be waiting right outside for her to come back. She goes in, we go in. We attack at the first sign of them.”
“Right,” Ray said.
“Inside the building?” Buzz asked.
Amos nodded. “Unfortunately, that’s how these guys like to play – rough. So we will play the game the way they want it. And beat them at their own game.”
Vicky sighed down at her waffles. “Only this game is not fun at all.”
CHAPTER FIVE
Familiar Sunrise
After gorging themselves on waffles, the bears all hopped onto their motorcycles – Vicky rode with Amos, of course – back towards her apartment in the heart of the city. The others did not go in with her. Amos did, because he knew that the wolf and his friends would be expecting him to be there, too. The way to ambush someone was to make them think they were catching you going about your business unawares.
Vicky pressed the elevator’s up button and went inside with Amos. As the door was closing, a pale arm stopped it and Stuart from art class slipped inside with them. The three of them rode up together as if nothing was off about anything. When the elevator stopped on Vicky’s floor, they all stepped out; the wolf kept his distance, pretending that he was not following them but so clearly doing just that.
“Honestly, this guy is an amateur,” Amos whispered to her.
She giggled a little, but that did not mean she wasn’t uneasy. She unlocked her apartment and they went inside.
That is when the wolf chose to strike. He and three other men that Vicky assumed were wolves came running towards her. They held the door open and came inside her apartment. She ran and hid beside Amos who grew and grew in his enormity until he was a large, black and brown bear again.
This time she noticed that, when he had transformed, the gold ring in his eyes became the color of his eyes. They had flashed gold that night!
Once he shifted, the pack of wolves followed suit until, before long, Vicky’s apartment was full of forest predators. Even more filled it as three large bears came crashing into the room. The rest of NOLA Ours had waited outside, giving the wolves that chance to feel they were safe.
The growling bears bit and snapped at the wolves as they lunged and bit right back at them. Vicky holed herself away in her bedroom, opening the door to peek at what was happening before closing it again before any of the enemies noticed where she had gone to.
While the werewolves were all strong and swift, the bears were stronger and Amos fought back ferociously. She is not just some she-bear, he thought. She is MY she-bear.
“Stay away from Vicky!” he roared, thrashing his long claws against Stuart. The wolf fell away, bloodied and limping. He did not stand a chance against Amos. None of the wolves did. No one could stand a chance against an angry papa bear protecting his lady and cub.
Jean-Claude stood on the gullet of one of the other wolves, pressing his paw down but not enough to completely choke the wolf. “If you ever come around here again, we will kill you.”
The werewolves began to whimper. They did not want to get involved in a fight versus four angry werebears. They hadn’t known that Amos would bring his friends. They were not so loyal to Stuart that they were willing to get killed for his cause. They quickly high-tailed it out of there, as soon as they could.
Stuart, on the other hand, spat out blood, eyeing Amos a bit. It appeared as though, if he did not leave soon, he was going to die.
“You think that she bear loves you, don’t you?” he asked. “You think she cares about you at all? All she wants is her art and her school work. I have seen her there. I know where her passions lie.”
Vicky saw that as her cue. She came out of the bathroom, unarmed and unable to protect herself, aside from the fact that she had a massive werebear right there to keep her safe.
“Oh, come on,” she said to him, scoffing and shaking her head. She folded her arms in front of her chest. “You talked to me, what, three times? You don’t know what I’m passionate about. And I assure you, the answer is standing right there.”
Amos smiled. Well, if bears can smile, that’s what he did. It was more menacing-looking than happy, but she knew what he meant by it.
With that, he whipped his large paw towards the wolf again until Stuart finally got the message and scampered away.
Vicky smiled up at Amos and he smiled back down at her, his mouth slowly taking on more of an actual smile as he shifted back into his tall, beefy human form. As soon as he was back to Normal Amos, she jumped into his arms and hugged him close.
“He was wrong, you know.”
“Of course he was, darlin’.”
“I love you.”
“I love you, too.”
They gazed into each other’s eyes and then kissed.
Vicky’s place was a wreck. The pictures on the walls were all crooked if they hadn’t been knocked off and there was broken porcelain, smashed glass, and ripped up artwork everywhere. “Well, one thing’s for sure,” she said with a sigh. “I can’t stay here. I guess art class is over, too.”
Amos looked at her, feeling guilty. “I’m sorry we destroyed your apartment.”
Ray attempted to straighten one of the pictures, but it crashed down to the floor and shattered instead. He grimaced. “Sorry.”
She just laughed.
The three biker bears worked to salvage as much as they could while Vicky and Amos packed everything up into boxes. “If you want, you could keep going to your class, just from a different home.”
“I’m not going to be able to afford it. Once the landlord finds out about this…”
He shook his head. “They won’t. We’ll fix it.”
“But what if I want to live with you on the bayou now, instead?”
The three bears looked at her and then looked at each other.
“We should go,” Buzz said.
“Yeah,” Jean-Claude added. “We shouldn’t disturb you.”
Amos suddenly looked over at them. “Boys,” he said. “Bring these boxes to La Grande Grotte.”
When Jean-Claude spoke French, it sounded creole which was cool. But when Amos spoke French, it sounded as though he was well-cultured and had trained in it for many years. Vicky had ended up catching herself an aristocratic bear.
“You got it,” Ray replied. They took the packed boxes and carried them out of Vicky’s apartment.
She eyed him curiously. “La Grande Grotte?” she asked him.
“Yes,” Amos said. “It means—”
“I know what it means,” she said, laughing. “The Large Cave. But what is that?”
He waggled his dark eyebrows at her. “That’s for me to know and you to find out.”
“Right,” Vicky said. Now that the others were gone, it was just the two of them, alone in her semi-demolished apartment. “I’m going to take a shower. You coming?”
Amos grinned and started taking off his clothes at once. He practically chased her into the shower.
As she bent over to turn the water on, he pressed up against her and she let out a gasp as his grande cock entered her. Vicky held onto the wall as the warm water splashed against them and he thrust himself in and out of her. The water made her extra slick against him.
He grabbed the soap and lathered her up, making love to her from behind, and kissing her back and shoulders and face. “I love you,” he said.
When he pulled out, she turned to face him and he held her in his arms, inserting himself again. She bounced against him there. “Oh oh oh!!” she yelled. If they kept this up, they were going to do more damage to the apartment.
The warm water made it harder for him to hold off, and he came inside her within a few blissful moments. They finished cleaning each other and then stepped out of the shower, wrapping her pink and green towels around themselves.
With all of her stuff packed up in boxes that had been taken off to who knew where, Vicky did not have a reason to stay in her building. “I guess I need to end my lease, and my art classes,” she said sadly.
Amos shook his head. “Yeah, end your lease but don’t give up on your classes. I’ll pay for them if need be.”
“Can you pay for the rest of rent I’ll have to pay?” she asked, laughing slightly bitterly. “My class is at least mostly paid for with a scholarship.”
“I can do that, too,” he said, leaning towards her and kissing her chin. “C’mon now. Let me take you to your new home.”
They got back on his motorcycle and he drove them back in the direction of the bayou. They did not go to the same bayou however. When he’d finally parked the bike in a new bayou, Amos smiled at her. “Welcome to your new home. This is Bayou Segnette.”
Vicky looked around, smiling. “It’s about as hot as I suppose one might expect,” she said. He led her by the hand up to a large cabin. It appeared to be much more spacious than the other one. “Does this one have a shower?” she asked, squinting up at him as the sunlight blinked through the trees at them.
Amos chuckled. “Just go inside and see.”
They walked in together, hand-in-hand.
The cabin was definitely bigger. This one had an actual living room, a larger kitchen, a bedroom and – best of all! – a bathroom with a shower and tub!
“Now, it’s not exactly meant for a large family, but I figure it’s a start?” Amos said.
Vicky leapt into his arms, kissing him. “I love it!” she cried. “I love you!”
EPILOGUE
After everything that had happened to Vicky, she was not going to continue working at Zydeco. She hadn’t disliked the place, but it was not the safest place for her to be. Not only that, but the heat exhaustion and second-hand smoke were liable to kill both her and the baby if she stayed.
Instead, safe with her biker bear, she focused on her artwork and taking better care of herself. It turned out that Amos was a bouncer at one of the local dance clubs; he made enough money to support them until she became a successful famous artist.
Her pregnancy did not last as long as a normal pregnancy. That was because, as Amos explained to her, “Werebears do not live by human rules.”
Four months after they moved in together at La Grande Grotte, Vicky gave birth at home to a healthy baby boy. They named him Sylas. “Sylas Steele” just sounded like an awesome name to Vicky, and Amos was not going to argue with that.
The time spent away from Zydeco did wonders for her work. Vicky still went to classes every so often, but she was devoted to her baby and did not want to leave him at home. It didn’t seem to matter if she was still taking the class or not. She continued to improve and explore new techniques that she incorporated into her pieces.
One morning, Vicky sat outside on the cabin’s back deck right over the bayou. The baby was in a rocking cradle right beside her, staring up at her canvas as she attempted an oil painting. As she watched the familiar sunrise over the water, she did her best to let the colors of the water and the trees and the sky inspire her.
“Who is this?” she asked little Sylas, cooing down at the little boy as he looked up at her, smiling and eager to know what the hell was going on. She’d felt like that pretty recently. She had a lot in common with their baby already.
And he had a lot in common with his daddy.
“This is Daddy,” Vicky said excitedly, pointing her thumb towards her portrait of Bear Amos. He was done up in blues and yellows, but it was him all right. “This is your daddy.”
“Oh, that needs to go up on the wall,” Amos’s voice said behind her.
She turned and smiled at him. He came up to her and they kissed. Vicky brought her hands up to his face and accidentally got blue paint all over him.
Well, maybe it was an accident.
Maybe she was simply imprinting on him.