Blackjack Bears

by Amelia Jade

  Meow. Meow.

  He glanced at the animal as she threaded her way through his legs on her way to the door.

  “You’re probably just telling me to shut up and open the door, ‘cause you’re hungry, aren’t you?”

  Meow.

  Pierce snorted in laughter and pushed the door open. Ellie gave him one last look, flicked her tail, and then disappeared out into the house. Pierce took a lot longer, standing on the last step as he regarded the taupe-colored wall in front of him. It was just about all he could see of the upstairs from there. The door blocked his view to the right, and the wall extended far enough to the left that he couldn’t see past it.

  “Pierce,” he said aloud. “You get your pansy ass up those stairs and you walk around the house. You don’t have to go outside, but you will explore her house without having a nervous breakdown. Got it?”

  Having called himself out audibly, Pierce took the last step and emerged onto the first floor of Mila’s house.

  He closed the door behind him, and decided to familiarize himself with the layout. The front door was off at a right angle to his left from the basement door. He remembered that, and if he kept curling around to the left he would find the stairway and also a bathroom. Following the wall in front of him, he spied an opening before it reached the front of the house.

  “Well isn’t this pretty,” he muttered. The opening in the wall was her sitting room, living room, whatever one wanted to call it, he figured. Several white couches—no leather he noticed—a beautiful set of what appeared to be reclaimed wood furniture stained a light gray, a large TV mounted to the wall, and a few knickknacks scattered around on shelves mounted to the wall and on end tables near the couches.

  It looked perfectly normal and yet…odd. Something was off about it. Frowning, Pierce turned to his right. The back wall of the living room was completely open and led right into what appeared to be a formal dining area. The antique-looking wooden table had a beautiful shine to it, and the formal dinnerware sitting in front of each of the six chairs was immaculate.

  And yet somehow…wrong.

  There was another doorway-sized opening along the same side of the wall he’d used to enter the living room, and he followed that into the kitchen, seeing the basement doorway on his right. The kitchen was…also perfectly clean, with fruit sitting in a basket on the countertop.

  Pierce reached forward to snag an apple, but pulled his hand back as he encountered it.

  Plastic.

  Moving further into the kitchen, he hung a left, heading toward the back of the house now. There was a table and chairs, a more day-to-day type of eating area he figured.

  The longer he was up there, the more he felt the press of the outside world. He looked through various windows, seeing nearby houses, and in the distance the tall, imposing skyscrapers that towered above everything else near them. His bear was fully awake now, and starting to get more riled up as it agreed with him that something wasn’t right about the house. It looked nice, and he liked a lot of the aged décor coupled with modern style furniture. It…worked.

  But it was out of place, almost as if…

  Almost as if it’s here for show, and not for use.

  The lock in the front door twisted and he spun, slamming his back up against the wall as he summoned his bear, bringing the animal right to the surface of his mind, ready to unleash it in a heartbeat against the unknown intruder.

  This was Mila’s house, and he wasn’t going to let them have her.

  “Pierce?” a voice called as the door opened.

  He sagged to the ground as Mila called his name, hitting the floor with a dull thud. Of course it was her coming home! Who the hell else would use the lock on the door and enter without attempting any sort of secrecy? Pierce glared at himself. The cat came out of nowhere and swatted idly at his foot, giving him a low meow before prancing off elsewhere into the house.

  Yeah, got it kitty. I’m being dumb.

  “Hey,” he called as she headed for the kitchen, not wanting to scare her.

  “Oh!” she said, almost upon him by the time he spoke. “You’re up.”

  “Yeah. Ellie decided it was time,” he joked, rising to his feet as he realized she was holding several large brown paper bags.

  “She must have been hungry,” Mila said, echoing his earlier thoughts.

  “Here,” he said, snagging the bags from her. “I’ve got this.”

  “No it’s…okay,” she said, giving up. “I had them though.”

  “Let me do my part,” he said, smiling. “Where do you want them?”

  Mila pointed at the counter three feet to his left. “Right there.”

  He looked at her, then the bags, then the short distance to the counter.

  “Oh,” he said, feeling silly. “I just made more work by taking them from you, didn’t I?”

  Mila laughed. “Pretty much, but it’s okay. Now you can deal with unpacking them.”

  Not arguing, he shuffled to the side and set the bags down, picking through them as he began to set items on the counter. Bacon. Eggs. More bacon. Hamburgers. Buns. Condiments. Steaks. Potatoes. More whiskey. A whole chicken.

  “We having company?” he asked, mildly shocked by the amount of food.

  “Nope,” she said. “I just needed to restock.”

  Because you were out? Or because there was no food here to begin with?

  “Mila,” he said, turning around, putting his butt against the countertop as he leaned, trying not to look threatening or angry.

  “Yes?”

  “Why does your house look so unlived in?” he asked calmly.

  She looked up, pulling her head from in the refrigerator where she’d been putting things away and reorganizing what was already in there. A quick glance told him that it wasn’t much.

  Her mocha eyes didn’t avoid his questioning look, and he saw no hint that she was searching for a lie. Mila sagged. “Because I don’t really live here. I mean, upstairs, the bedroom and bathroom are a mess. But down here? I’m rarely here.” She leaned back against a floor-to-ceiling set of cupboards. “I work too much,” she admitted. “I eat there, I often sleep there.”

  She pointed at Ellie. “I’ve got an automated feeder for her, so that I don’t accidentally kill her by missing out on being here,” she said sadly. “It’s bad.”

  Pierce watched the muscles in her face as she spoke, as well as the pupils of her eyes, searching for any sort of deception or lie, or even misdirection. But there was none. She wasn’t telling him everything, he knew that much—she was holding something back—but she wasn’t lying to him either.

  Maybe it had to do with what her mysteriously embarrassing line of work was. Something that she couldn’t have a proper home life because of? Was she into something with the adult industry? Did she travel looking for adult models to make movies, or something like that? That would fit the vague description of “Acquisitions” that she’d given him, he supposed.

  Pierce wanted to find out, but he didn’t want to push her. She’d not given him any reason to mistrust her just yet, so he just shrugged. “Well, thanks. These are all my favorite foods. How did you know?”

  She blushed and shook her head.

  “No come on, you have to tell me,” he protested.

  Mila went an even brighter shade of red. She was wearing a different top now, and he could see the red as it flowed down her neck and across the top of her chest in a beautiful pattern.

  “I may have Googled what shifters like to eat,” she said, looking away from him as she said it.

  Pierce didn’t even try to hold it back. He burst into laughter, spurred both by her reaction, but also by his joy at the fact that she’d actually gone and searched to see if she should be getting him anything special. That was more than a lot of people might have done, and the knowledge that she’d done it for him filled his heart.

  “You are certainly one interesting woman,”
he said as he got himself back under control.

  Unfortunately, as soon as he did, the pressing nature of the city surged back in, weighing down upon him.

  “I just didn’t want to make you angry. I know how hangry I get without eating often enough or what I’m craving,” she said. “The last thing I need right now is you getting like that.”

  “Hangry?” he asked, not getting the reference.

  “Yeah, hangry. You know, when you get irritated when you haven’t eaten in too long? You get angry. So you’re hungry and angry. Or hangry?”

  He laughed again. “Never heard that one, sorry.”

  Mila looked at him in disbelief. “You shifters sure are weird. Can’t handle the city, never use the word hangry. You’re missing out!” She paused. “Speaking of that, how are you doing? I notice you’re up here now.”

  Grimacing, Pierce returned to unpacking the bags and started passing her items to put into the fridge. “Not good,” he said at last. “I was doing okay downstairs, but as soon as I came up here, with the windows and such, it started again. For me it’s…tough, but I think I can manage it. But my bear is not having a good time at all,” he admitted.

  Mila’s eyebrows pushed together at his wording. “Your…bear?”

  He nodded, but she just shook her head, not understanding.

  “Right,” he said, standing upright. “I guess you wouldn’t know.”

  “Know what?” she asked, moving to stand closer to him.

  The pressure on his mind eased just a little bit.

  “So, there’s a bear living in my head.”

  “Uh, what?”

  He smiled. “Exactly. Not the physical bear itself, obviously. That’s…” he paused. “Well, we don’t exactly know where that goes. But in my head lives the entity of a bear. Its mind, I guess you might say, though it’s bit more than that. Like…like an avatar of it, almost, if you’re nerdy enough to know what I mean.”

  “A representation of all of its aspects and personality?” she asked.

  “Pretty much,” he confirmed, smiling as she picked up on what he meant. We shifters don’t know everything about human society, but I for one lovvee your sci-fi movies!

  “So that thing is…is in you?” she asked, trying to understand.

  “Yes. It sort of, um, manifests, I guess you might say, around puberty. It’s a tough time for us. We have to deal with all kinds of changes, just like you do, but we also have to learn to live with this thing inside of us. A thing that wants to get out. So we learn to contain it, to build a prison, for lack of better words, inside of our heads. A prison only we hold the key to.”

  Mila was nodding now. “And when you let it out, that’s when you transform?”

  “Exactly, we let it out, leashed, I suppose you could say, but bringing it to the front of our mind allows us to shift into our animal form.”

  “How do you maintain control when you do that?” she asked.

  “Good question. The human mind is much more complex than that of a bear. It’s more advanced, stronger, capable of intelligence. That makes it a very powerful thing indeed. A bear’s mind in comparison is relatively weak, easily tricked or distracted. So we let it out, but we still control it.” He shrugged. “It’s hard to explain it any more than that, unless you actually live it.”

  Mila looked thoughtful. “I think I get the basics though. So being here is not too bad on your human mind, but it’s driving your bear wild, which is making it harder for you to concentrate as more of it leaks through?”

  “Basically,” he rumbled.

  “Is there anything I can do to help?”

  Pierce froze.

  Chapter Seven

  Mila

  The moment the words were out of her mouth, she regretted saying them. Her question was far too open-ended, and though Pierce seemed like a good guy, things could get really awkward if he tried to use her offer for sex. Mila wasn’t going to go down that route with him, despite the physical attraction she knew she felt toward him and his gorgeous physique.

  She watched his thick, but not overly unruly eyebrows furrow slightly as his face scrunched up, then spread apart as his facial muscles relaxed. The strong prominent nose twitched as well, but other than those two miniscule moves, he gave no indication that he’d understood the double edge to the question.

  “I don’t know,” Pierce replied at last, and she could see from the look on his face and the awkward phrasing of his words that he had realized the implications behind her question as well. “The food is, I think, a good start.”

  “Right,” she said, nodding fiercely and picking up a package of chicken and several potatoes. “Is this enough for the both of us?”

  He smiled and added another large potato. “If I get three-quarters of the chicken, then yes, I’ll be good.”

  She looked at the package, shrugged, and then grabbed another one from the counter that hadn’t yet been put away. “I’m hungry too,” she said, justifying the extra food.

  Pierce just smiled and took the chicken from her. “I’ll get these cleaned up. Find me a frying pan, some oil, and point me at any spices you may have, and I’ll take it from there. You’re in charge of potatoes.”

  “Deal,” Mila said, happy for the distraction. “Mashed fine with you?”

  “You had better believe it,” he said happily, already pulling chicken from the package, brandishing a long knife he’d taken from her block.

  “So is the fact that you can’t stand large crowds the reason why the shifter population is so low?” she asked, still curious about his kind.

  Pierce didn’t respond at first, and she wondered if he’d heard her question. But a quick glance showed he’d stopped cutting the chicken and was standing there, his body language thoughtful.

  “You know, I never thought of it that way,” he said. “Though I’m also no expert on the subject. Shifter culture wasn’t really, ah, something I cared a lot for,” he admitted, though he didn’t go into further detail.

  She was going to ask another question, but he kept talking.

  “Plus, we fought. A lot.”

  “Amongst yourselves?”

  “Yeah. I mean, you know how we’re organized into large territories now, scattered around the globe?”

  She nodded, knowing her history there. “Yeah, about two hundred years ago they were created, right? As a way of keeping the peace between you and us.”

  He nodded. “We were being hunted, pursued as demons and the like for centuries. At first we’d just run away, but by then we’d started to fight back. You started losing.” Pierce’s voice turned softer. “At least, that’s what I’ve been told, I wasn’t there. But the bloodshed was growing, both between humans and shifters, and between various groups of shifters. So the enclaves—the strongholds, whatever you want to call them—were created, carved out of the land, and we moved into them. Peace reigned, both between our two species, and between shifters as a whole.”

  “Two hundred years of peace?” she said. “That’s impressive.”

  He looked angry. “Until recently. Did you hear about that?”

  She nodded. “It made the news, about that other stronghold and yours.”

  “Fenris,” he said nastily. “They attacked my homeland, attacked Cadia. But we’re strong, and we fought back. We were winning last I knew, but I don’t know what’s going on now.”

  Mila stayed quiet. Obviously the topic bugged him. She didn’t sense it was the fighting though. It was something else, something he’d been involved in because of the war, perhaps? She wasn’t sure.

  “Something big was happening right when I blacked out.” He hit the counter, but not hard enough to do any damage, clearly restraining himself. “I wish I knew what it was.”

  Although the subject obviously bothered him, Mila could see the way his shoulders had relaxed as he spoke. The more he talked to her the less tense he became. His bear was getting distracted.


  “Did you fight in the war?” she asked when he didn’t resume speaking.

  Pierce shook his head. “No, I wasn’t done with my training.” His voice changed as he spoke, but he didn’t elaborate on the meaning behind that, either.

  She resolved to back off the subject for a bit. Whatever it was, his involvement, or lack of involvement, clearly bothered him a lot. She didn’t want him to get worked up. Keeping him talking was essential though, so she needed a new excuse. Something that would have him distracted.

  Think, Mila. Think.

  “So what about you, Pierce?” she asked. “Is your wife going to be missing you? Should we notify her?”

  Not that, you idiot. Seriously, that’s the best you could come up with? Asking him about a wife? You basically just confirmed that you’re flirting with him. A guy you met this morning. Good job. You weren’t supposed to feel any emotions for him. That wasn’t part of the plan.

  It was too late now though; the cat was out of the bag.

  “I don’t have a mate,” he said, triggering a memory in Mila.

  Shifters didn’t marry, she recalled. They found a mate, a person that they stayed with for the rest of their life. “Right,” she said. “Sorry, I forgot.”

  He waved it off, his back still to her as he cut the chicken up into two parts, and started dropping them into the frying pan. Almost immediately the smell of whatever spices he’d used filled the room.

  “That smells delicious,” she said, her mouth salivating as she tasted the air over and over again.

  “If there’s one thing we know how to do, it’s cook meat,” he said with a laugh.

  “Good, because honestly I’m terrible at it,” she admitted. “I can make excellent sides, and my baking skills are, believe it or not, actually rather impressive. But meat? Nope.” She smiled. “That was my dad’s job growing up. He was the barbecue man. ‘The Grill Mastah,’ he called himself,” she said, laughing at the memory of her dad, even as it weighed down on her now the state he was in.

  It hurt to see such a powerful man, the superhero of her childhood, laid low by age and disease.

  “But anyway, I never really learned how to do much. I can bake a few dishes, but that’s about it. And with no man around to do it for me, I don’t eat much meat,” she said, testing the potatoes which had been boiling away steadily now.