by Isa Hunt
“Strike three, you're out!” I screamed at him and grabbed another bottle as Jake and Benoit exchanged gunfire across the room.
The other guy charged in, carrying a pistol, and I wasted no time in hurling another bottle at him. He had seen what had happened to his friend though, and he, unfortunately, was ready for me. He ducked under the bottle, which whistled through the air above him and sailed harmlessly out of the room.
“Oh shit,” I muttered as he raised his pistol and opened fire on me.
I hit the deck, flattening myself against the floor as the bullets started ripping through the mattress and crashing into the bed. It was all I could do to stop myself from screaming out hysterically – but then something happened. Something I had only before felt in the recurring dream of fire and mountains. I felt the sensation of fire inside me, inside the deepest parts of my core. A fire that wanted to break out, that wanted to burn these enemies to crisp. And I knew – I don't know how, but I knew that I could unleash it somehow. That all I had to do was unleash it, and I would be safe. Then I felt another curious sensation – a sensation of my limbs and face and bones were beginning to stretch, somehow.
“What the hell is wrong with me?” I managed to utter.
But then the firing stopped, and my quick-thinking brain took over. The strange feeling of fire inside me disappeared, as did the feeling of my bones and muscles stretching. I grabbed the last beer bottle as I heard the guy popping the empty clip out of his pistol, and jumped up. He was only six feet away from me now – there was no way I would let him duck out of the way this time.
“Oh shit,” he murmured – and then the bottle smashed his face. He fell back onto the floor, clawing at his skin and screaming with pain.
Jake and Benoit, meanwhile, had both run out of ammo, so both threw their empty firearms aside and prepared to fight hand-to-hand – and that was when I saw something that blew my mind, something I'd never forget. Each man shifted forms simultaneously. Where Benoit had been standing, there was now a huge gray wolf, and where Jake had been stood a massive grizzly bear. They both charged at each other and started fighting furiously – and then I saw a sight that sent icy fear racing through my veins: a puma, growling with menace, its face burned, coming through the door, its baleful eyes locked on me – and in those green eyes was pure hate, pure murder.
I had no more weapons now, and no place to run.
This was it . . . I was going to die.
I was going to die . . .
CHAPTER 10 – PAUL
The speedo was reading one hundred and sixty miles per hour . . . One sixty-five . . . one seventy . . . One seventy-five . . . One eighty. My focus was razor sharp, my brain like a supercomputer, processing at hyper-speed the features of the street on which my Ferrari was racing with mad speed, taking in every turn, every uneven spot on the surface, every obstacle up ahead. One mistake at this speed and it would all be over. They'd be picking up pieces of me and the car for the next three miles.
But I had to go faster, faster, faster . . . There was no time. She was in danger, as was Benoit – terrible danger.
I saw the sign up ahead, the sign for the motel Benoit had taken her to, and I slammed on the brakes, hauling the speeding car down to a more manageable speed. I skidded through the turn, spinning the wheels and drifting, and then surged into the parking lot.
“Shit!” I growled as I saw the three red sports bikes parked there – Jake and his boys had already gotten here.
Leaving the car running, I jumped out, knowing that every second counted here. I ripped off my shirt, kicked off my shoes, stumbled out of my pants and bolted toward the room, with its door hanging open ominously.
“No time, no time . . . hurry, hurry, hurry!” I muttered to myself as I sprinted.
In a split second I enacted the change that shifted my form from that of a man into that of a grizzly bear, and instantly I was running on four legs instead of two. I was preparing my mind for battle.
Had I arrived in time to save Kelly – or was I too late? There was only one way to find out.
I charged into the room with a roar, the ground shaking beneath my weight. Inside the room, I saw a scene of chaos: Jake, in his bear form, pinning Benoit down – Benoit in his wolf form – while the two puma shifters were in their human forms. Both, weirdly enough, had badly burned faces and necks, but I discarded this detail immediately. A far more important detail was the fact that one was holding Kelly tight in a full nelson grip while the other, gripping a hunting knife, prepared to cut her throat.
Jake looked up at me and roared with rage, but I ignored him – saving Kelly was my first priority. The puma shifter holding the knife only just had time to half turn and yelp with surprise before a vicious swat from my bear paw sent him flying across the room. He smashed into the wall and bounced off, knocked out cold. The other immediately released Kelly from the hold and shifted into his puma form, but before he could attack I grabbed him and threw his writhing cat body through the door.
Now Jake was the one who was outnumbered, and he jumped off of Benoit and raised himself as far up to his full height as the motel room allowed, roaring defiantly, his back to the open door. I roared back at him, preparing to charge, and Benoit, bloodied and wounded but still strong, scrambled to his feet and prepared to attack.
Jake knew that he stood no chance against the both of us, and with a roar of rage he turned around and ran out the door. Benoit and I charged out of the room in pursuit and saw him and the puma shifter both flee into the woods across the street.
As soon as they were gone, we both hurried back into the motel room and changed back into our human forms. Kelly was curled up in a fetal position on the floor, weeping softly.
“I almost died,” she whimpered. “They almost killed me . . . and, and . . . you're a wolf, and . . . and you're a freakin' bear . . . and this is so scary and crazy . . . so crazy . . . so scary . . . I just wanna go home . . . I just wanna go home . . . ”
“And home is where we're going to take you,” I said gently. “Not the apartment you call home, but your real home. Oh and I'm uh, I'm Paul by the way.”
Even with the state she was in, I couldn't help but stare at her. I'd seen pictures, of course, but they didn't do her justice. Damn, she was gorgeous in the flesh. She had the type of eyes that would make a man kill his own brother or betray his best friend. I felt a stirring in my loins – and realized that I was naked. My excitement, as such, would soon become very obvious.
“I'm gonna go put my clothes back on,” I said to Benoit. “As should you. Then we need to get the hell out of here right away before Jake comes back with more of his goons.”
Benoit nodded toward the unconscious puma shifter in the corner.
“And him? What do we do with him?”
“I'd say interrogate the bastard,” I growled, “but we don't have time. And you and I both know that if we try to take him with us as a captive, it'll cause us more problems. So we're gonna have to just leave him.”
“We could put a bullet in his head before we go, though,” muttered Benoit darkly.
“As tempting as it sounds,” I said, “we'd better not. It looks like you guys shot up this place good, and someone has no doubt called the cops by now. Leaving a dead body is gonna make things that much more complicated for us. No, let's just get out of here.”
“Right, well, why don’t you two assholes just sit there and have your freakin' naked chat, as if everything is okay,” Kelly angrily interrupted us. “I've just seen men change into wolves, bears and pumas, and one of those werewolves, were-puma things tried to cut my throat while saying some crazy shit about a red dragon's blood! What the hell is going on?”
“I'm sorry, Kelly,” I said. “I know that everything must seem very overwhelming to you right now. Just . . . Ride with me. I'll explain everything, alright?”
“How on earth do you know my name? I've never seen you in my life before! This is all just so . . . so completely, totally insa
ne! I want off this ride! I don't want any of this! I just wanna go home! I just wanna go home . . . ”
She broke down and started crying.
“Let's get dressed and get out of here,” said Benoit. “We've got a long drive ahead of us, and you can explain everything to her.”
“Things might seem crazy now, Kelly,” I said, mostly to myself, as I walked out to get my clothes. “But they're about to get crazier . . . a lot crazier.”
CHAPTER 11 – KELLY
When I'd first seen the wolf change into Benoit, I thought I'd seen the craziest thing I was ever likely to see in my life. I mean, a wolf turning into a man in less than a second – that's about as crazy as crazy gets, right? Like, seriously, there's nothing that can out-crazy that. Nothing . . . right? Nothing except seeing guys turn into freakin' grizzly bears and pumas.
The whole “I've completely lost my mind and am living in some sort of permanent psychosis hallucination illusion” thing was starting to feel like the only reasonable or rational explanation I could come up with. How on earth had I gone from being a bartender with pretty much nothing going on in her life to being the center of some sort of hunt involving people who could shift forms into those of wild animals? After everything I'd seen and been through in the last twenty-four hours, even my most bizarre encounters with the freakiest freaks who had come to The Full Moon bar now seemed like mild, prosaic events.
The biggest question on my mind, though, was still, “why me?”. I mean, seriously . . . What did I ever do to attract the attention of these . . . I don't even know what to call them. Were-animals? I mean, I'd say werewolves, but only one of them seemed to be able to turn into a wolf, and he had said that he “wasn't exactly” a werewolf – whatever he meant by that.
And now there was this new guy, Paul, he called himself, who could turn into a gigantic freakin' grizzly bear. It was starting to seem like these shifter types if that's what I could call them anyway, looked kinda like the animals they could transform into. Kinda like how a lot of dog owners looked like their dogs – or vice versa, perhaps. Benoit was all slim and lean, with angular features – just like a wolf. And now this Paul guy, he was massive – almost seven feet tall, with deep-set brown eyes in a big face with a powerful jaw. He was handsome, I had to admit, in a rugged woodsman kinda way. He had long, thick, wavy brown hair, and his strong jaw was thickly dusted with dense brown stubble. He looked as if he was in his early thirties. He had thick, sharply-angled eyebrows that I just couldn't stop staring at, and his body was like that of a Viking warrior, covered with thick, powerful muscle. Unlike Benoit, who was smooth and tanned, Paul was paler in tone and had chest hair, as well as a ton of hair on his immensely powerful arms. He was definitely what you'd find if you looked up the definition of macho in some old 70s magazine or something. Not that he seemed old-fashioned or anything. He was more like a hipster, that kinda look – except not some limp-wristed crybaby, like many hipster dudes seemed to be. No, Paul was definitely all man.
And when he'd transformed from his bear form into his human form, he'd been totally nude in front of me, and, well . . . Let's just say the size of a certain organ was definitely in proportion to the huge size of everything else on his body. I hadn't been able to take my eyes off it. I don't think I'd ever seen one that big before, and I couldn't help wondering how big it got when it got hard.
I'd also caught a glimpse of Benoit's manhood when he had shifted forms, and I had to say that I was very impressed by the sight of it too. Even though his body was smaller than Paul’s – well, most people were, I mean, Paul could almost legally qualify as a giant – but Benoit was definitely not that much smaller than his huge friend in the manhood department. In fact, Benoit's almost looked more impressive, because it was larger in terms of proportion to the rest of him.
Well, anyway, the fact that both of these guys were really well-hung was a pretty minor detail in the grand scheme of things. I mean, sure, I had a healthy appetite for sex, and since it had been a while since I'd been with a guy, I had been feeling more horny than usual the past couple of weeks, but there were far more pressing – far crazier – things to think about at this moment than sex.
Twice now in less than twelve hours, guys had tried to kill me by cutting my throat. Twice. What the hell was going on here? I was determined to get to the bottom of this now. Benoit had been reluctant to talk, but now I was going to ride with Paul, and hopefully, he would be more forthcoming with answers about all of this madness.
I was quite pleased to see that Paul drove a freakin' Ferrari, of all things. Jeez, two pimpin' rides here, a Porsche and a Ferrari! At least I didn't have to drive around in the back of some beat-up, thirty-year-old banger.
I climbed into the Ferrari next to Paul. Man, it was pretty cool, and even though I was still feeling really shaken up after the ordeal I'd just been through, I had to smile as I closed the door and eased myself into the luxurious seat.
“We're going to be moving at a pretty fast pace,” he said as he squeezed his huge body into the driver's seat, “because we need to get you out of danger fast. It might seem kinda scary, but don't worry . . . I'll be in complete control of the car all the time.”
“Okay,” I said warily. “And we're uh, we're still going to New York City?”
“Correct.”
I nodded.
“And you're gonna give me some answers along the way, aren't you? I mean, I think I deserve to know what's going on at this point.”
He nodded. I had to admit that his voice kinda turned me on. It was so deep, his syllables infused with such rich bass notes . . . It was a very, very manly voice.
“I'll explain everything to you, Kelly. I'm sorry that Benoit hasn't explained more. He's sometimes . . . not that talkative. He can be kinda quiet. Me though – I like talking. Let me just get out onto the open road, and then I'll answer your questions.”
With a metallic snarl that sent a shiver down my spine, he roared out onto the road, with Benoit following behind us in his Porsche. Paul gunned the motor hard, and we were soon tearing along at over one hundred and twenty miles per hour. It was really fast, but Paul didn't seem fazed by the speed at all.
“Alright,” I said once we were cruising comfortably. “So, you ready to talk now?”
“I sure am,” he rumbled.
“Who are you? And don't just tell me 'I'm Paul and I'm one of the good guys'. Tell me your full name, where you're from, and what you are. Yes, what you are – because I know you're not . . . human.”
It felt weird saying that . . . but seriously, how else could I describe these guys? No human being could turn into a wolf, a bear or a puma.
“I'm Paul Rodman,” he said, “and I'm originally from Canada. Benoit, by the way, is originally from France. With regards to what I am, well, to put it plainly, I'm a shifter – bear shifter. And I'm the alpha of my tribe.”
“Alright, alright . . . this is a lot of stuff to deal with. Tell me what all of that means, slowly, please,” I said. “So a shifter is . . . ”
“As you've seen with your own eyes, someone who can change forms between an animal and a human. My animal form is a bear.”
“And you can choose it? Were you one all your life, or did you, you know, get bitten under a full moon or something?”
He chuckled and shook his head.
“Forget all that stuff you've seen in movies and TV shows about werewolves. Most of it is pure fiction. There's no full moon stuff or silver bullets or curses or anything. This stuff, it's in our blood. I was born a shifter, and I can't turn a human into a shifter. You're either born human, or you're born a shifter, and that's how things are. We shifters have existed alongside humans for thousands of years. Once there were a lot more of us, and we occupied a lot more land when the world was a wilder, more open place. Now, our world is shrinking while the human world keeps expanding. There are only a few refuges left for us now.”
“I see,” I said, slowly digesting all of this information. “And
. . . you said you're the alpha of your tribe? What does that mean?”
“Well, you know, I'm like, the uh, the big boss guy,” he said with a grin and a chuckle. “The leader of the pack, so to speak. There are minor differences in how different shifter societies select their leaders, like with Benoit's wolves, it's a little different to my bears, but the basis is the same: it's a hereditary position, but you still have to prove yourself worthy of the title, and the power that comes with it.”
“I see . . . So you're like . . . king of the bears or something?”
He smiled subtly.
“Or something,” he said, somewhat cryptically.
“Wow,” I murmured, trying to process everything I had just heard. “Just . . . wow. I'd call you crazy if I hadn't seen you turn into a bear in front of me.”
“Most people would – but you can't deny what you've seen with your own eyes.”
“You're right about that.”
We sat in silence for a few more moments. I had lots more questions, though, and one, in particular, that had been bugging me since this whole crazy thing had started.
“Paul,” I eventually said, “why me? What do I have to do with any of this? I'm just a regular girl, there's nothing special about me at all. Why are you guys after me? Why do the bad guys want to kill me?”
He smiled strangely.
“You made a mistake there,” he said.
“A mistake? What mistake?”
“You said that you're nothing special. You might think that now, but you're wrong. You're very, very special, actually.”
“How so? I don't see it, Paul, I don't see it all.”
“You will Kelly . . . because you're one of us. You're a shifter too. A very, very special kind of shifter . . . ”
CHAPTER 12 – KELLY
What Paul had just said hit me like a punch to the jaw. For a few seconds, I simply couldn't respond. Finally, I was able to say something.
