by Delta James
Once she was sure he was gone, she inched her way over to one of the shelves in his root cellar and managed to catch the edge of the gag on the corner and pried it off. That was better; at least she didn’t have that dirty thing stuffed in her mouth. Next, Flynn managed to maneuver around to where she found a sharp metal edge and began working on the material that he’d used to bind her hands. It seemed to be taking far longer than it should. Each time she heard something that sounded like a footstep, she moved herself away from the sharp metal and tried to look pathetic. When she convinced herself that he hadn’t returned, she’d make her way back to the metal and continue. Once she’d regained the use of her hands, she reached down and untied the bindings around her feet.
Finally, after what seemed like an eternity, she was free... or at least her hands and feet were. She rubbed her wrists, getting the circulation restored. Listening with her ear pressed to the cellar door, she cautiously lifted the ancient, creaking wood and peeked out. She appeared to be all alone.
Sinking back down, she searched and found a weapon... well, actually, it was a shovel, but it had an edge and could be used as an effective club. This time, she crouched below the door and listened before surging upward with her spade in her hand ready to fight anyone who might be there. Anticlimactically, there was no one. Climbing out of the root cellar, she closed the door and then ran back towards her camp.
Flynn arrived back at her equipment location to find that it had been mostly destroyed and strewn all around. Her sleeping bag seemed to be intact as did a pair of leggings, socks, a shirt, and a polar fleece jacket. Getting her bearings, she gathered her things and started for the coastline. She would have to hide close to the boat dock and wait for the plane to arrive. Closing in on her destination, Flynn realized that they weren’t on Kodiak Island at all. How had she been so stupid? Henry Koto had taken them to Shuyak Island. Damn the man. Granted, he was dead, but that made it even more appropriate. She found a small hiding place in a niche in the cliff. Gathering brush and rocks to conceal both her and the opening, she crawled in and waited.
She made herself comfortable, or at least as comfortable as she was likely to get for a while. What the hell had she seen? A bear becoming a man... and more significantly, that particular man. He hadn’t even recognized her! Why did that irritate her so much? Had what transpired between them meant so little to him? Why did it seem she couldn’t forget? Was it possible that she hit her head and been momentarily delusional? She reached back and felt the back of her head, seeking an abrasion, cut, or raised bump. Nothing. And why the hell was she thinking about any of this? She needed to focus on getting away from here. She could make sense of it when she was back in Seattle.
* * *
King was able to catch a ride on a floatplane that was headed close to Shuyak. The pilot was a friend and offered to drop him and a rubber raft close to the beach by his home. Once he’d disembarked, he headed for the cabin. He’d been gone longer than he’d hoped, but he had ensured both Flynn’s safety and that she would be there upon his return. He smiled ruefully, her safety might be assured, but her backside and pussy would pay the price for eluding him the past two years.
Each year he had returned to Seattle to hunt her, choosing different seasons to see if he could pick up her trail. While he had been able to detect traces of her scent, she had managed to evade him. King had tried alleviating his need with others in her stead but had found the encounters unsatisfying. After a few failed attempts to obliterate his need to rut, he had chosen to suppress his instinct. His mate would pay for that when he finally had her beneath him.
The rut had been harder than ever to endure since he’d fucked her in the office of the Irish pub. The need to mate was an overriding instinct in his kind and was made all the stronger once a Kodiak bear had found his mate. He always looked forward to seeing Josh when he joined him on the island, but having his brother as a distraction had been especially welcome the last two years. He smiled; when he recovered, Josh would be happy to hear that he’d claimed his mate. Alex flexed his hand, he intended to put it to good use when he got back to Flynn. Once he had her bottom a deep shade of red and she was begging for his forgiveness, he’d take her to their bed and make up for lost time where fucking her was concerned. Flynn would learn early on what it was to be rutted by her mate.
It was Flynn’s face and the memory of her pussy as it convulsed around the length of his cock that he recalled when he would tightly fist it, stroking and squeezing it with vigor. Closing his eyes, he would imagine that it was Flynn who had her hand wrapped around him. It would be her lips he envisioned nipping and sucking at his neck. King had yet to experience fucking her mouth, something he planned to change when he finally took her to mate. He would make use of that hole as well as her darkest sheath.
When forced to relieve his own need, King would fist his cock harder and faster as he felt his balls swell and the semen rise up in preparation to be spewed forth into nothingness, another thing Flynn would pay for and that would never happen again. He planned to use her hard and often. If he didn’t empty his cum into her, he would use it to mark her, spraying himself over her back or breasts and rubbing it in so that the scent of his essence remained behind.
He could see Flynn in his mind’s eye, on her knees before him, spreading her legs and offering her wet, warm pussy for his pleasure. His fingers would flex involuntarily as he imagined taking hold of her hips and holding her steady while he mounted her and sunk deep. As King imagined her response, he would move his hips in the same rhythm and pace as that set by his hand, fisting himself until at last his release gave way. While pleasuring himself allowed him to keep his need at bay, he vowed to himself that once he had Flynn where she belonged, he would never be pleasured by his own hand again. It would be Flynn’s hands, mouth, ass, and cunt that would provide that exquisite gratification.
Shaking his head to break his own reverie, he set a quick pace, arriving at the cabin in record time. Seeing the door to the root cellar open, and not being able to detect fresh scent, he lifted his face to the sky and roared... the sound reverberating through the hills and valleys.
* * *
David and Kevin Koto had been shocked to hear of their brother’s death... not particularly saddened, but surprised. Henry was tough and strong; it had made no sense until they heard it was a Kodiak bear that dealt the lethal blow. Tension had been growing amongst the brothers for the past few years. Unlike their father, they had intended to follow the old ways of their kind. In a long-distant past, anyone harming or killing a member of their clutch would be hunted down and killed in a horrific manner. But as they had moved further away from their roots, the distance had diluted most of the bloodlines and many had lost their prominence. The Kotos were one of the last clutches that could claim to be purebloods, never having mated outside their own kind.
Mating had been on the Koto brothers’ agenda for the past year. The brothers had located and had been in negotiation to procure a pureblooded female to breed and begin to provide each brother with the heirs and offspring they required. Henry’s death had meant that instead of ensuring their newest acquisition provided a satisfactory return on their investment, they had to be in this gods-forsaken ice box tracking down his killer.
As the jet’s stairway deployed, David said to his brother, “There’s the SUV.”
“What the fuck are we doing here, David? Why did Henry insist on this ill-fated venture? There is no economic justification for it. We have a mate en route to Seattle. The mating season started last month, and Henry insisted we all remain abstinent for the last six months. I don’t know about you, but my balls are about to burst.”
“The female will keep. Henry wanted the bear as a trophy and for its reported aphrodisiac properties. When we kill it, we will have someone extract those things we need from it. It is important that others of our kind understand anyone or anything that tries to harm us will be dealt with in the harshest manner.”
“So, we kill the bear. Who’s going to care?”
“Not just the bear, Kevin, that guide... that female, Dr. Flynn Montgomery.”
“She didn’t kill him, the bear did.”
“She was hired, in part, to keep Henry safe. She failed. She dies,” he said as the door to the SUV was opened and they entered the vehicle.
Kevin shivered. “I thought this thing was supposed to be warm when we got in.”
“Incompetence surrounds us, brother. We will persevere.” He addressed the driver, “Take us to the hospital and turn the heat up. We have to identify our brother. Keep the engine running. We won’t be long and you will need to return us to the airport.”
Both brothers sat back and gazed out the window as the SUV sped towards the hospital where they were greeted by the hospital administrator who personally escorted them to the morgue.
Looking at his brother’s lifeless body, David asked no one in particular, “And Dr. Montgomery?”
“Who?” asked the administrator, handing David a clipboard with several forms he glanced over and signed.
The brothers exchanged glances, before Kevin replied, “A friend of the family. We are to meet her later today.”
David cleared his throat. “As of the cause of death is obvious, can you skip the autopsy and send my brother’s body back to Seattle for preparation and burial?”
“State law indicates that we autopsy all unexplained deaths... and the coroner noted a few anomalies in his internal organs,” said the hospital manager.
“I’m no coroner, outdoorsman, or even from Alaska, but I can see my brother was mauled by a bear. Perhaps, you could incorrectly interpret the regulations as being suggestive rather than directive? It would mean a great deal to my brother and me if Henry’s body could be immediately cremated according to our customs and readied for our return home. My family would be most generous if the hospital could accommodate us.”
He looked the director in the eye; the other man nodded and made a call to a local funeral home to arrange an immediate pick-up and cremation.
“I understand your grief and you’re right, there is no question as to the cause of his death and no reason to inconvenience those of you who loved him,” he said.
David discreetly wrote out a check for a large donation to the hospital and handed it to him. “Thank you for your cooperation, assistance, and kindness. It is most appreciated.”
Having completed the official identification and signed the forms necessary to have Henry’s ashes prepared to return with them to Seattle, the brothers were driven to the dock where their pilot waited with the floatplane to take them to the site of Henry’s death. They would shoot the bear who killed him, or at least some Kodiak, and track down and take revenge on the female who had been hired to guide him.
“Have you decided how she is to die?” asked Kevin in a casual tone as they stepped out of the plane onto the dock where Henry had been dropped and watched it taxi away.
David smiled, “I thought we might enjoy using her before I bite her and leave her to die alone in the wilderness, terrified of what happened to her.”
“Yes, the moment you have them on their bellies and you shift as you lay down on them... nothing quite like it. I always wonder what any forensic team makes of it. But Henry said we should avoid fornicating with lesser people now that we will have a proper mate to breed.”
David chuckled. “Doesn’t leave the authorities anything other than clueless. And what Henry wanted or thought is no longer relevant. The fact is, instead of having to share our new mate with two brothers, we shall only have to share with one.”
* * *
Flynn spotted the plane as it landed in the water and taxied up to the dock. She started to rise and step out of her hiding place, but some instinct deep inside her warned her to stay hidden. She shivered but tried to calm and quiet her breathing so as to remain undetected. The two men stood back to back, each of them swinging his head from side-to-side and sniffing the air.
“David, I think I smell her,” one of the men said, looking in her direction.
The other man turned in the same direction, inhaled deeply, looking directly at her concealed location and nodded.
“We have her.”
Knowing that she was the her they were referring to, Flynn ensured she had her knife, rifle, and climbing gear, left her hiding spot and made a break for the forest. She was fairly sure from the obvious newness of their clothing that she knew Shuyak better than they did. She glanced once over her shoulder to see them lumbering after her. Flynn put on a burst of speed and made for the tree line, veering off in a different direction and heading deeper into the woods. Cresting a hill, she looked back. The vegetation was not overly heavy, and she could see them moving slowly, but deliberately along the trail she had made. Not once did they look up or even ahead. They seemed to be watching where they were putting their feet as opposed to looking for her.
Flynn took several deep breaths and set off running again. She wanted to put as much distance between herself and the two men who meant to rape and kill her as she could. She had two advantages: one, she was more experienced in the rough terrain. They weren’t exactly clumsy, but their movements were slower than she might have expected and very deliberate. The second thing in her favor was that while she was waiting, she was able to get her bearings and realized she knew the approximate location of the ranger station. Flynn turned in the right direction and made her way, without haste, towards the station.
What the hell had the guy meant when he said, the moment you have them on their bellies and you shift as you lay down on them... Shift? Shift into what? What fucking rabbit hole had she fallen down?
* * *
King was making his way towards the camp that Flynn had set up for her and Koto. He didn’t expect her to be there, but it was as good a place as any to start. If he couldn’t find any sign of her there, he’d backtrack towards his cabin and pick up her trail.
As he approached the tent, he slowed and scented the area. She wasn’t there now, but she had been earlier. Flynn was long gone. He found the freshest tracks, studied them and followed. It didn’t take long, or a genius, to figure out she was headed back to the dock where presumably the plane bringing her and Koto to Shuyak had dropped them off. He quickened his pace. He meant to ensure she didn’t escape him again.
Reaching the beach by the dock, his nostrils were assailed by a scent he didn’t associate with the island. It wasn’t immediately identifiable, but its memory tickled the edges of his mind. He could, however, detect Flynn.
He found the place she had hidden away. He smiled, his mate was intelligent and cautious. Alex recognized the pungent scent of urine where Flynn had been. He realized that was the scent he had picked up from Koto, and that he had just detected. The hackles went up on his neck... something or someone had peed all over the area. Whether to disguise her scent or as some kind of warning or retribution wasn’t clear, but in either case, it did not bode well for Flynn.
Without bothering to undress, King shifted, destroying his clothes. He needed to get to Flynn as fast as he could and the best way to do that was to call forth his bear and go after her and those who were in pursuit of her. His sense of smell was amplified when he was in his Kodiak form and he could travel faster. He was running, pushing his endurance and lung capacity to cover the ground. His mate was in danger and he needed to eradicate the threat to her.
* * *
Flynn thought she was making good time. She was trying to balance being careful over the uneven, rocky ground strewn with half-buried roots with increasing the distance between herself and her pursuers. She came to a swift-running waterway that looked treacherous to cross. She scanned the bank and spotted a large boulder on the far side. Perhaps her rope would be long enough that she could tether one end around the rock, driving her knife into the ground on this side to secure the other end of the line.
She knotted a loop and swung the climbing cord like a lariat, trying
to get it to reach around the rock. She missed several times—the makeshift lasso wasn’t quite long enough to reach easily if she created a large enough loop to easily encompass the stone tower, but too small a coil and she wouldn’t be able to get the rope in place. Finally, she found the balance between the size of the noose and the length of the cord. Success!
Flynn was just finishing adding rocks to secure her knife in the soil by the stream. Just as she was picking up the stretched lead, her two pursuers burst through the brush and rushed her clumsily. Flynn crashed into the water, holding onto her guideline. It was taut and the two men seemed reluctant to enter the water. She didn’t blame them, it was freezing.
Suddenly, she felt the rope come loose and turned to see they had cut it. It slipped from her hand and was swept away by the current. Flynn had to catch her balance and secure her footing before she could move.
She heard something big entering the water, too big to be one of the men. Carefully, she turned to see something that looked like a large, low-slung dinosaur coming towards her.
“Hurry, Kevin, don’t let her get away. We can build a fire for you when you get her out.”
Please, God, let me be dreaming, she thought. This couldn’t be happening. First a Kodiak had killed Henry Koto and then somehow morphed back into a man and now some giant lizard was trying to catch her. The only problem was that lizards were not indigenous to Alaska, nor could they survive long in its harsh climate. She needed to wake up from this nightmare!
She had slipped when she turned, dropping her rifle and her foot was now lodged between two rocks. She was as effectively trapped as if her limb had been caught in a steel trap. The creature was closing in and she could do nothing but watch. To add to the danger, a large, seemingly aggressive Kodiak bear charged onto the beach. The only other human in this terrifying scenario raised his rifle and fired, the shot only grazing the large beast, who rushed by him, swiping at him with one deadly paw as he did. The man went down as the bear hurtled himself towards the thing pursuing her. She leaned down trying to free her foot as the beast turned to face the threat from the Kodiak.
