Bearly Breathing (Alpha Werebear Shifter Paranormal Romance)

by Lynn Red

  “Of course,” Jenga said. “What other kind does she have?” he giggled to himself as the metal creaked, groaned, and then burst. Orion looked just about as surprised as I must’ve, although with the blood running down his face, he looked about ten grades more bad ass.

  His giant chest, his heaving muscles, and those tattoos around his eyes seemed to play off the scar on his cheek a little more than usual. Rain, mixed with blood, ran down Orion’s face. He stared straight at me as Sara took his wrist irons in her giant hands and squeezed until they broke.

  In my absolute astonishment, I got a little careless with my ward. I lifted a paw toward Orion. Underneath me, Celia let her fur down. Her legs shortened, her teeth grew longer, sharper, and yellower. The first I knew of her tail is when she arched her back and slapped me with so much force that I somersaulted forward before I got my balance.

  My legs throbbed from the impact, and I darted forward to try and knock her cattle prod away again, but it was too late. She grabbed the stick and brandished it with such seriousness that for a second I was convinced she was Errol Flynn reincarnated. And, you know, with giant buckteeth and a beaver tail.

  She waved the tip of her stick at me, and raised her other arm into a rough approximation of a fencer’s stance. “Come on!” she squealed. “And Billie! Did you break the dams yet?”

  At some point, the tiny person had emerged from the tent, but stayed quiet. She was standing behind and to the left of Celia, so I was able to shoot a glance in her direction as the beaver lady lunged at me with her electric Excalibur, and I retreated. The poor thing was shaking.

  “Got some bad news, Celia,” she said in a halting, I-don’t-want-to-say-this way.

  “Spit it out! I’m in a fight to the death! This is the worst moment possible for bad news, but it’s great for dramatic effect!”

  In a way I almost admired her.

  I shot a glance at Orion, who was squeezing his fists, releasing them, over and over. Blood, and with it, color, was coming back into his face.

  “The, uh, the hyenas, they...” Billie trailed off.

  “Spit. It. Out!” Celia screeched, lunging at me again. I lifted a leg, ducked away and then came back at her with a swipe that cut a red track across her left arm. She recoiled, but made no sound except a pained hiss.

  “The hyenas showed up. I haven’t the foggiest how, but they came and are presently disassembling the dams. Slowly. Like too slowly for the town to flood.”

  Celia stabbed wildly, and I caught her with another scratch. “Who cares?” she asked as she circled. “Doesn’t matter, this... this is my coup de grace. Break the dam! Break this one! It’ll still wipe out the town center, especially with all this rain.”

  Billie’s lips were trembling. She was holding the receiver of her radio array in her hand, but not pushing the button. Not giving any orders.

  Celia swung again this time catching me with a glancing blow that gave me a hell of a shock even though it hardly connected. One of my arms and one of my legs seized up, and before I knew what was happening, I fell to the side, into the mud.

  The earth stung my eyes, and the pain coursing through my clenching muscles took up all my thought real estate. The electricity tricked my brain into retracting my claws, and pulling my legs back into a state halfway between human and lynx.

  I looked over at Orion, who shook his head and shouted my name. “Clea!” he roared. “Where are you? Clea!”

  “Over... over here,” I said, weakly, summoning all my strength. My half-shifted lungs could barely make any noise at all, but apparently he heard me. From about fifty yards away, he turned in my direction and starting to take halting, stuttering steps toward me.

  He’s leaving his father, I thought. The revenge he’s wanted all his life, and he’s turning his back on him to come for me?

  “No,” Billie squeaked. “No, Celia, this isn’t right. I... I don’t want to hurt anyone.”

  “What are you, crazy? Gimme that!” Celia left me in the muck, stomped over to her goon and gave her a sharp backhand, before grabbing the radio. “Break the Great James dam!” she screamed into the handset. “It’s time, go!”

  Something garbled came back over the speaker, but whatever it was apparently satisfied Celia, because she threw the handset in the mud and returned her attention to me. “Oh! Your boyfriend’s on the way, huh? Good, I can shock his ass again. Only this time he’s a lot wetter. I imagine he’ll cook up real nice.”

  I swung at her uselessly with a fist I couldn’t close. She took a step closer so I could make contact, but she just kicked my hand away.

  Sara had come to whatever sort of senses she had, and was trumpeting something about helping again when she noticed Orion had gotten away from her. She tromped after him when he was about ten feet from me, so close I could almost touch him. When she closed on him, Orion stumbled, falling to one knee, before she helped him up.

  “Go help Atlas,” Orion said in a halting, pained voice. “He needs your help. For me?”

  Sara cocked her head to the side, but apparently, hearing that was what Orion wanted was enough.

  Celia wasn’t paying a shred of attention. The look on her face was victorious, triumphant. She looked so self-satisfied that I sorta didn’t want to break the news that she was about to get jumped by two bears.

  Almost.

  “Hey Celia?” I asked, with a little slur in my words. “You might want to turn around.”

  “I’ll take that,” Orion said, snatching the cattle prod from Celia’s stunned fingers, and flinging it backward.

  It arced, end over end, farther than I imagined he’d tossed it. A peal of thunder rumbled through the forest, and another flash of lightning – the storm was much closer than I thought – blasted.

  “Holy shit,” Orion said, looking in the direction of the flash. “That was—”

  “Atlas!” Jenga shouted. “Sara! No! It can’t be, I—”

  The old man emerged from the small pit he’d dug himself to hide. Sprinting across the forest as fast as his rickety old legs would work. Still sailing end over end, the cattle prod landed, tip down, jabbing into Atlas’s chest.

  He got a very cross look on his face, frowning and drooling, but apparently the thing was still working, because his arms just shook violently when he tried to move them.

  Another roll of thunder broke the night.

  Sara reached up, apparently trying to help her friend remove the cattle prod like she was pulling a burr out of a dog’s fur. She grabbed the handle, and in the instant before she pulled, another brilliant flash split the sky.

  The smell of burned lilac and burned... fraternity house, I guess, filled the air.

  “Oh no,” Jenga cried, falling to his knees. “Oh, no, no, no...”

  Mitch, Celia, Orion and I, not to mention the handful of spare biker goons and the curious onlooker squirrels, all froze in various stages of attacking each other, and turned our attention to the unique-smelling pile of bear.

  All of us expected something; some kind of sign of life, or maybe an explosion or maybe something completely unheard of, so we all just stared at the two bears.

  Orion shook his head, Jenga wrung his hands together, I bit my lip, and Atlas groaned.

  Atlas groaned!

  “Sara?” he asked, sitting up and plucking the cattle prod from his own chest. He hurled it away, and then pulled his meant-to-be-mate to her feet. “Sara?” he asked again. “Are you...?”

  His words were less halting than normal, but the drool was the same as ever. Holding Sara by the shoulders, he shook her violently, her head wobbling around like a torn up ragdoll. Back and forth, over and over he shook her as her head lolled around.

  “Sara! Sara!” he repeated, “Sa...ra!”

  At that, her eyes snapped open and instantly cleared, like all she needed to hear was his stutter, his stammer, to know that it was really him.

  She focused, or well, one of her eyes focused, the other went slightly off-kilter, but
she clung to Atlas’s arm. They held each other for a moment, stared into one another’s eyes, and then kissed as best they could, which was more like an open-mouthed baby kiss than anything else.

  “Ain’t that sweet?” Jenga said. “I guess that lightning set ‘em straight. Figured it’d take somethin’ like that ta’ get their brains the right sort of scrambled.”

  “Atlas!” Sara said. “Hold hand! Hold hand now! Ho-ho-ha-ha-la!”

  Atlas cocked his head to the side, drooled slightly, but then apparently figured out what she wanted, and took her hand. Immediately, she sat down on the ground, pushed him over and stretched out with the back of her head in his lap. “Loving... you,” she said, with a curiously sedate smile.

  “Enough!” Mitch roared. “Enough of this... whatever it is. Freddy, Grunge, break the damn, uh, dam! I’m gonna handle my idiot son and then we’re out of here, got it?”

  With speed that blew my mind and also got my heart racing and got me feeling a little wiggly in places I really shouldn’t feel when I’m caked up with mud and staring down a psychotic beaver, Orion closed the distance between he and his father, and shoulder blocked his old man right into a tree trunk.

  The old bear grunted heavily, and let out a long, trailing wheeze. “You dumb son of a... bitch!” Mitch spat out a broken tooth, straight into Orion’s face before slamming his forehead straight into Orion’s nose.

  Without a word, Orion grabbed Mitch by the hair and dragged his head off the tree trunk, then bashed it back against the bark once, then again. “You take that back,” he finally said. “Mom was better than you. She was better than any of you, better than you deserved.”

  “Yeah well I made up for all my karmic evil when you were born, you dumb bastard!”

  My strength returned, the buzzing in my arm and my leg subsiding slightly, and I managed to get to my feet just in time for Celia to try to run. “You should’ve killed me when you had the chance,” she growled, squaring up. “Now I’m gonna do you, then I’m gonna do him, and then I’m gonna do the whole town.”

  She twisted her thin lips into a snarl and slapped the ground with her large, flat, leathery tail.

  In the distance, sirens wailed. I guess the hyenas finally got to the Greater James dam, and there were a lot of sirens. “It’s over, Celia!” I shouted. “The police are here! You can stop all this right now! You can do good without blowing up the whole damn town!”

  “Not anymore,” she said. Her voice was grinding glass. “Not anymore. I’ve done too much, gone too far to turn back. I’m too close.”

  “To close to what?” I asked.

  Orion’s father slammed a knee into his son’s gut, doubling him over. The two of them shifted almost instantaneously, shoulder blocks turning into paw swipes. Both of them stood on their hind legs, clashing like wild animals, biting, and clawing at each other. They were going back and forth trading blows, but neither seemed to get an upper paw.

  Celia lashed out, raking her teeth across one of my forearms when I wasn’t paying much attention. I grabbed at her neck, scratching a deep gash with my half-retracted claws, and managed to tie her up and drag her to the forest floor. “No!” I shouted. “This is over! This is all finished, Celia! You’re not going to hurt anyone.”

  “Oh yeah?” she asked, clawing at me to get away. “Who said anything about hurting anyone?”

  At the approximate worst time possible, my back paw caught a mud suck, and I lost my grip. Celia scampered away, collecting something off the ground, and holding it out in her trembling arm. Mitch and Orion kept trying to topple each other, apparently oblivious to what was about to occur.

  “Oh, shit,” I said to myself, my stomach sinking into my feet.

  “Detonator.”

  Celia grinned that evil, devilish smile.

  “Suck my ass, cat,” Celia said, grinning as she pressed the button.

  -23-

  “I’m just gonna watch, see what happens, and pretend I can make any sense of it at all.”

  -Clea Kellen

  “Eat drink, you dicks!” Celia bounced from one foot to the other, jamming on the red button. An explosion had already rocked the entire camp, throwing Mitch and Orion in opposite directions, and made my sensitive lynx ears ache like my head was exploding from the inside out.

  Celia was still madly jabbing the button. “You’re all fucked! Here comes the water! Celia Maynard wins again!”

  “Doesn’t seem much like winning,” I said, grabbing the side of my head and massaging my temple.

  From my right, in the direction of the dam, the timbers blocking the waterway creaked lazily. One of them plopped into the water and drifted down the gentle stream, running slowly toward town.

  In the water below, a very satisfied looking Atlas, and a very in-love Sara, were somehow both holding hands, and holding up the entire dam. A trickle of water drip-drip-dripped down onto Atlas’s head, ran down his face, and then along the tendril of drool connected to the water’s surface.

  With a shriek, Celia hurled her detonator at me, and came following very soon after. She was more like a raging ball of fur, tail, claws and teeth than a person, or a beaver. At first, she caught me by surprise, raking her teeth across my face, scratching my cheek. I swung around, trying to smack her, but instead just opened myself to a bite on the shoulder.

  “You bit me!” I said, batting the beaver away and clutching the wound.

  Celia clicked her teeth at me, grinned and dove at me again.

  I twisted away at the last second, giving her a kick square on the ass that sent her tumbling down toward the Greater James. She dug in, dragging herself to a halt before she fell, and then slapped her tail against the ground, like she was marking territory.

  Her cattle prod lay in the dirt about five feet from where she was standing, but Celia either didn’t notice or didn’t care that her favorite toy was within reach. “What are you waiting for?” she snarled, and then spat on the ground at her feet. “Come on!”

  I shot a quick glance in Orion’s direction. He was getting to his feet, obviously still shaken from the explosion. He blinked a couple times, then gave me an “I’m okay” nod before turning back to his father.

  The sirens were closer. I tilted my head, and Orion nodded again, then grabbed his father off the ground. “You’re finished,” I heard him growl. “You and the whole damn gang!”

  “HA!” Mitch spat a tooth in Orion’s face and howled with laughter. “The stupid bastard college boy thinks he’s—”

  A wet thud of Orion’s fist crashing square into Mitch’s mouth shut him right up. Seeing the smile on Orion’s lips gave me a little tingle of excitement, but the dimple on his left cheek put me right over the edge.

  “Quit staring at that dreamboat and come at me, cat!” Celia was screeching, tensed up for an impact.

  “You’re washed up, Celia!” I shouted, buying time. My half-shifted shoulder throbbed, blood soaked into my fur. The last thing I wanted was more teeth on me... unless they were Orion’s. “The hyenas are almost here. There’s no way you get out of this.”

  Orion was standing over his father, tying his hands.

  “Who says I want out?”

  I guess I waited too long. Celia came at me instead, slashing wildly. I fell on the ground, rolling around to her left, and tripped her up. She hit the dirt and bounced back up, infuriated. “Why are you still fighting me? What’s there to gain?”

  My breath burned every time I inhaled. The throbbing pain in my shoulder dulled to an ache, but the claw scratch on my face stung when a breeze went across my skin.

  “No!” Celia screamed. “Celia doesn’t lose. You lose, cat!”

  I looked to the ground, thinking of grabbing her cattle prod and giving her a shot of juice, but it was gone. Had it been a mirage? She was coming and I had to deal with her.

  “You can stop this!”

  Her answer was another flurry of claws, a bite on my forearm, and blood in my eyes. I slashed back and caught her
pretty good on the chest, but that thick pelt just turned my claws.

  Zap!

  The sound hit my ears like a shockwave. I froze. She had me. My insides burned, I was done.

  Except... I wasn’t.

  Celia stiffened, her teeth chattered and then she fell first to her knees, then into the river.

  A tiny, shaking squirrel person stood where Celia had been, dropped the cattle prod. “I had to do it,” she said, falling to her knees. “I... I had to.”

  Orion and I both ran to her side. Mitch was a bloody mess, Celia was floating slowly down the Greater James. Given a half hour or so, she’d reach the town center. I laughed bitterly, thinking about her finally getting to have her showdown with Erik Danniken, but being a little late for her own party.

  “You saved me,” I said, putting my hand on a tiny shoulder. It was only sort of a lie.

  “And saving her,” Orion said, “means you saved me, too.”

  Mitch groaned, but didn’t move. Atlas and Sara both drooled, still holding hands and smiling blankly. The sirens were close enough to hear, and then the exhaust was close enough to smell.

  “What in the hell happened here? Clea? Holy sh—Clea, is that you?”

  Ash Morgan, the biggest member of the JPD, climbed out of his cruiser and ran over to me, throwing a blanket around my shoulders as my fur shrank away. “What... I mean, what’s going on?”

  “It’s a long story,” Orion said. “But two zombies are holding up the dam.”

  Ash’s eyes got so big I couldn’t help but laugh. “Uh, you two... you’re okay, right?”

  I nodded. “Go help Atlas,” I said.

  “Yeah I think I better. You two wait here.”

  Billie hopped to her feet. “I would like to turn myself in! I killed someone. At least I think I did.”

  Ash furrowed his brow. “That’s not at all what I expect to hear.”

  “Join the club,” I said as he walked off, shaking his head.

  One after another, squirrels came out of the woodwork, gathering around Billie. When Ash came back from his patrol car, and a whole bunch of hyenas went over to begin the slow process of disassembling the dam, he just didn’t know what to do with himself.