Bearly Breathing (Alpha Werebear Shifter Paranormal Romance)

by Lynn Red

  While the two of them argued about the necessity of, and perhaps the intelligence of, trying to catch a fish with a giant rope, I glanced around the forest that backed up to the lake. There was a little bit of rocky, sandy beach, but not very much – maybe ten feet in any direction. Past that, just trees. This is Jamesburg after all.

  Something out there was moving. Something was making the trees move, the leaves shake. A momentary shiver ran through me as I remembered the tree, remembered how close Millie had come to being crushed with me on top of her.

  But then I remembered Orion.

  Somehow, someway, I spent almost an entire hour without a single thought of those pale brown eyes and that shaggy hair. I dwelled for a moment, thinking about those intricate, beautiful tattoos and the eyes with the pain behind them and the easy smile that made them sparkle.

  I shook my head, trying to force myself to stop remembering him. He was gone, and that was that. One time deal, nothing more.

  “Help!” Dean was shouting. Malia grabbed my shoulder.

  “Huh?” I grunted, turning to see the two of them wrestling with a rope. Dean had his arms wrapped in the cord, and Malia had herself wrapped around his waist.

  “I told you not to put that stupid-ass rope around your arm, Dean Cranning. “Whatever’s down there is going to pull your damn arm off!”

  “Not... if I... pull it... up,” Dean said through tightly clenched jaws.

  I stood up, steadied myself in the swaying boat, and hugged Malia’s waist as I dug in my heels. “This seems like a really bad idea,” I said as the first yank on the rope pulled us forward and almost made us spill into the still-cold water. “Just let it go!”

  “No!” Dean said. “Not after all this fighting, no way!”

  “What he means to say is that he can’t,” Malia grunted, straining to hold her mate inside the boat and away from whatever was jerking him toward the water. “At least not without losing an arm.”

  The boat rocked, violently, back and forth. It felt like we had lassoed a train and were riding it into the sunset.

  And then the rocking turned to pitching. Back and forth, harder and harder, until it seemed like we were all about to end up in the drink.

  “Oh no!” A voice from the shore called. I looked up, past Malia and Dean. On the shore, a very rickety looking old man with a very jangly beard was hopping from one foot to the other, shouting. “Lisey! No, Lisey! Bad girl! Bad girl!”

  “What’s Jenga doing here?” Malia asked.

  Jenga Cranston is the town’s most competent quack doctor. He’s also an honest to god witchdoctor, and barely goes anywhere without... Yep, ambling slowly out of the forest with a tiny little doll in his hand, was Atlas. I’m just going to put it out there – Atlas is one of the town’s ex-alphas that was turned into a zombie, but some parts of him were a little worse for the wear, so he had to be Frankensteined together.

  Yep.

  “Lisey! Oh no! You mustn’t pull on that rope anymore, young man, she thinks you’re playing! You’ve got to let go!”

  The boat kept yawing and heaving, more and more. It dipped so low that water rushed into the bottom of the boat.

  “I can’t!” Dean shouted back. “My arm is wrapped... I... augh!”

  It was like playing tug of war with an island. Dean went tottering, almost losing his balance. He crouched back, straining his lean, hard legs against the side of the boat. “I’m guessing I’m not going to win?” he called to Jenga.

  “Lisey is... she thinks you’re playing!” Jenga shouted back. “The more you pull the more she pulls! It’s like you’re playing with a dog, except the dog is a three hundred ton dinosaur! Kind of. She’s not actually a dinosaur, but I think her closest relative is the plesiosaur. You know, sort of like the monster in Loch Ness?”

  Dean interrupted the witch doctor’s science lecture by screeching again and being pulled almost out of the boat. One of his feet was braced against the side of the vessel, the other was in the air. Malia and I were the only things keeping him from going head long into the water, but it wasn’t going to last.

  “She won’t hurt you!” Jenga shouted. “Just go in the water, let the rope go slack!”

  “Are you crazy?” Malia shouted. “That thing is... Oh... My... God.”

  Then I saw it. An eye the size of the boat, looking up at me from under the water. It was like every nightmare I ever had after watching way too much Shark Week when I was twelve coming to life at once.

  The thing’s mouth was open, with Dean’s rope tangled on one of its huge teeth.

  The next thing I remember thinking was “damn this water is cold” as the boat flipped, and the three of us, a case of Sam Adams, and a whole bunch of fish that thought they were about to shuffle off the mortal coil, went straight into the icy drink.

  -12-

  “I dunno about you guys, but I’ve pretty much always wanted to wrestle a dinosaur.”

  -Orion

  From not all that far away, maybe a thousand feet into the woods, a whole lot of thrashing and screaming and panicky sounds hit Orion’s ears.

  One of them seemed familiar.

  “No fuckin’ way,” he said, pulling his bike to a stop and then off the shoulder. “This certainly makes the whole hunting thing easier.”

  He wheeled the huge gunmetal-gray and chrome chopper underneath some overgrowth and cocked his head in the direction of the noise. Those sensitive bear ears and his bear nose picked up the sounds of panic again, and the smell of fear and desperation. Closing his eyes to block out the distraction of vision, Orion pulled a long, slow breath through his nose and centered his focus.

  Splashing, he thought. Someone drowning? Something in the water? There’s screaming too, and a lot of thrashing and...

  His feet were moving, unconsciously dragging him toward the source of the sounds. At first it was a slow plod, but the more he listened, the more terrorized and awful the shrieking became. Soon he was jogging, and then running at full speed.

  Vines whipped past his face, thorns drawing blood as Orion charged through the overgrown Jamesburg forest.

  That’s her, he thought when an ear-splitting scream reached him. No time. No time for this.

  As he ran, Orion stooped over, letting his arms grow as golden hair pushed out of his pores. His arms thickened, ripping his shirt first around the sleeves and then down the middle, until it was a tattered mess hanging from his neck.

  His legs turned quickly into thickly-muscled, fur-lined pistons that pounded hard into the ground, driving him forward and rending his hard, stiff jeans.

  His huge paws digging into the dirt, Orion threw back his golden head and roared so that the trees around him shook with his power. Another clawing at the ground, and a second later, he was off again, blasting through the forest.

  Vines ripped him, low hanging branches tugged at his fur and his face. The salty, iron-like taste of blood ran into his mouth, no doubt from the thorns and vines and branches that cut into his thick hide as he went.

  Another scream, more panicking.

  She needs me. She needs me fast – needs me now.

  Leaving a path of broken wood and splintered branches in his wake, Orion tore through the undergrowth. I don’t care what’s after you, he thought. I don’t care if it’s a bear or a wolf or a lion, I’ll save you, Clea. I told you I’d come for you, I gave my word. I won’t let anything—

  He burst out of the forest onto the rocky, sandy, crunchy beach and laid eyes on... a dinosaur?

  “She’s just playing!” Jenga – the old man from the night before – shouted from the shore. “Unwrap your arm. Here! Oh hell. Atlas, no! Atlas, come back here!”

  Atlas grabbed something from the old man and tromped into the water. One step, another step, and then he vanished. Lake Jamesburg is fairly precipitous in its drop off, but that was surprising enough to make Orion grunt a short laugh.

  But then he heard her again.

  Clea was latched onto the other g
irl’s waist. Malia, Orion remembered, was her name. And both of them were clinging to the man, Dean, who had his arm wrapped up in some kind of rope that was attached to... a dinosaur.

  “She thinks you’re playing!” The old man hooted again. “Get that arm... Atlas?”

  From out of nowhere, the very large, and rather green man walked straight out of the water, and up the back of the thrashing plesiosaur. “Hold... still,” he groaned, sticking his hands dangerously close to the creature’s mouth. “Let me... cut.”

  Another thrash of the monster’s head back and then forth slung both the man on his back, and the rope in his mouth in a wide circle. In the thrashing, the mooring rope worked its way around the two women. Newly bound, the three skimmed over the surface, coming dangerously close to the shore. Out of nowhere, the huge, blue-and-green-skinned beast plunged under the water.

  In the instant before disappearing, it let out a loud, warbling sound that seemed to Orion to be vaguely like a laugh.

  He looked over at the man on the shore who was holding his huge beard in a panicked, trembling fist. “She’s playing!” the man pleaded with Orion. “She doesn’t know what she’s doing. Lisey is... she doesn’t know her own strength, she thinks that lot is playing, and she doesn’t know to stop.”

  “Playing?” Orion snarled. “She’s going to kill them. How do I stop her?”

  The old man shook his head, eyes wide open and mouth pulled slightly open with how hard he was nervously tugging on his beard. “Cut the rope,” he said. “She thinks they’re playing tug of war, just... just cut the rope and she’ll calm down. That’s the only way. But she’ll kill you if you go in there. She doesn’t mean to do it, she’s just...”

  “All right,” Orion growled. “That’s all I need to know.”

  “Wait! No, don’t go in there!”

  Too late.

  Orion plunged under the generally placid water and paddled toward the wild melee in the center of the lake. It took every shred of effort he could muster, but he kept pushing himself deeper into the deep blue.

  It was almost a relief when he felt the smooth, reptilian skin under his paws.

  Almost.

  He latched on and felt the other giant trying to get around to the creature’s mouth. In the darkness of the depths there was no sight, only the muted, thick, crushing silence of the deep dark.

  In Orion’s mind’s eye though he saw Clea panicking, saw her afraid, and that was all he needed.

  Digging into the great creature’s neck, Orion yanked up. The beast followed his urging, drifting upward as she thrashed. Slowly, he managed to guide her upward enough that the surface of the water was within eyeshot. And not a moment too soon – as he looked up, the long-held breath in Orion’s lungs burned.

  He looked over at his compatriot in the dino-fight and was more than a little surprised to see him with a completely unimpressed look on his face, and his mouth wide open, tongue flopping around with the motion. The big guy, Orion noticed, was clutching some kind of diver’s knife in his fist and still attempting to maneuver around to Lisey’s mouth. Orion though? He didn’t need any damn knife.

  Lisey broke through the surface of the water like a cannon blowing a hole in a concrete wall. The force knocked the air right out of Orion’s lungs so that he had to suck a long, painful breath before he could do anything else.

  The three on the rope, attached to her mouth, all seemed unconscious, or worse. But he couldn’t dwell on that until...

  Lisey swiped her massive head around, crooking her neck in such a way that Orion could almost grab the rope. Stretching as best he could, he could almost touch... just about...

  But then she pulled away, almost wrenching all her hangers on loose. Orion gritted his teeth and latched on as hard as he could, waiting for another chance to grab that rope.

  It came sooner than he was expecting. With another laugh, the giant dinosaur thing swept her head around and without thinking, Orion released his grip. Falling for what felt like an eternity, when his paw found that rope, Orion felt a wave of relief. At exactly the same instant, he locked his massive jaws on the rope, sawing back and forth, and Lisey, apparently angry at losing her playmates, thrashed again.

  The rope snapped.

  All four of them sailed through the air, landing with a series of splashes one after the other. Clea and her unconscious friends were all sinking fast, but Orion thought faster. He paddled down and collected Clea first, followed immediately by her two friends.

  Every stroke of his huge paws through the water was harder than the one before. Orion’s entire body was worn out, tired, sore, and heavy. But he wasn’t going to stop, either. Every painful movement pushed him a few inches closer to the surface, to air, to saving Clea.

  The only thing on his mind, even as pain flared through every muscle and vein in Orion’s body, was her. All he could think was of saving the girl he knew was meant for him, by fate or luck or whatever it was, it didn’t matter. She was his.

  He broke the surface near the shore, the three limp bodies on his back weighing down even more heavily out of the water. In one swift movement, he shrugged the three of them off, onto the gritty beach, and returned to his own skin.

  Beside Clea’s limp form, the giant zombie was crouched, stroking her hair and very obviously fretting. “Be ok...ay,” he said softly. “Wake...up...Clea,”

  Orion’s shirt and jeans hanging in shreds around his still-muscled body, he knelt over Clea, listening for breath. Feeling none on the side of his face, Orion pushed a couple of times, then breathed into her. Behind him, someone coughed and sputtered, the water in their lungs coming out and splashing on the ground. A man’s voice followed, and then a few seconds later, a woman did the same.

  But still, Clea wasn’t breathing.

  Orion pumped his hands against her chest, and pressed his lips onto hers a second time, exhaling into her lungs. His hair hung in limp curls on either side of his face that whipped back and forth when he looked up and shook his head. “It’s no good,” he said. “She’s not breathing.”

  “Keep at it, son,” Jenga urged him. “The other two weren’t so shook up, they’re comin’ around. Just keep at her.”

  Nodding, Orion swept his hair out of his face and pumped again. Then he counted, then he breathed.

  With his hand on his fated lover’s chest, Orion curled his fingers, mentally pushing the breath he breathed into her through her body, filling her lungs. For the first time, he felt a flutter against the back of his arm.

  “That’s it son,” Jenga said. “Keep going, she’s coming around, she’s—”

  A jet of water, followed by a handful of sputtering coughs interrupted the old man. Orion pushed the hair out of her face and stared. He turned her head to the side so she could breathe as easily as possible. At first she breathed shallowly, with such fragility that Orion wouldn’t have known she was breathing if not for the gentle cooling of the water on his face with each tentative exhale.

  He stroked her face with his thumbs, waiting, hoping, and praying for Clea to open those pale, cornflower eyes.

  When she finally did, it was a revelation.

  At first she had a glassy, confused look on her face, but slowly she came to herself, blinked, and then those eyes were full of all the fight and spirit and heat that warmed him to the bones that he remembered. As he watched her come around, his stomach felt lighter, his shoulders relaxed, and instinctively he clutched her to his chest.

  Orion held her tight, not wanting to let go on the off chance that once he did, she’d fade away into nothing, into just a passing dream.

  “O... Orion?” she asked. “You told me you’d come back, but I never thought you’d have to fight a dinosaur to do it.”

  “We always seem to meet like this,” Orion said, his mouth only inches from Clea’s. She felt his breath, tasted his smell in the back of her throat. She wished he could drag her off that beach, throw her on the back of his bike, and take her, right then and there.r />
  That might be a little socially awkward though, especially with Dean and Malia wrapped up in towels and shivering beside her.

  “Lisey ain’t a dinosaur,” Jenga said. “And Atlas, give me that knife before you poke someone with it.”

  Orion smiled; he didn’t know what else to do.

  Clea smiled; she had never felt like this before, never felt this warm, peaceful, serene love. Never felt like she’d found her home. Until right that second.

  With Orion looking into Clea’s eyes, and she looking back into his, the two of them felt alone in the universe. It seemed like nothing even existed for either of them just then. A rogue biker who had done is fair share of mayhem, and a lynx who never knew it was even possible to feel this way.

  He intertwined her fingers between his and stared deep into Clea’s eyes, into her soul.

  “What made you come?” she asked. “I mean, how did you know?”

  Orion shrugged. “I was riding, I was running. Trying to get away from...” he shook his head. “Doesn’t matter. I was riding and I heard a scream, heard a bunch of splashing, of thrashing around. I thought your voice was one of the ones hitting my ears, so I did what I had to do.”

  “You’re... you’re incredible,” she said, watching his face for any hint that she was actually dreaming, or dead, or whatever it is that makes people hallucinate. “Are you the light at the end of my tunnel?”

  Orion crooked one of his dark eyebrows. Somehow, those, along with the intricate tattooing came together to make Orion’s startling eyes even more striking.

  “I, uh, don’t know about all that,” he said, smiling just a little. “But I am here and so are you and last I checked, we’re both real. Look,” he tilted his head over to the left. “Even the big guy’s jealous.”

  Atlas was staring at the two cuddling mates-to-be.

  “Pining again?” Jenga shuffled up beside him. “We really do need to do something about this, I suppose. I promise we’ll get Sara fixed up. It’s just a wiring problem, nothing more.”

  “You... pro...mised,” the big, slow-talking giant said. “Atlas wants... ha...ppy. Nest?”