Bearly Christmas

by Becca Fanning

  "The first disappearances were friends. From a close clan. They don't rodeo, but they work the west, mostly alpine areas, ski lifts and the like. They're fantastic skiers," he added, and she thought she might know who he meant but didn't slow down to make certain.

  "Pretty much an entire family vanished, the Carsons and then the Pinions, one after another. At first it just felt like shifters going under the radar, living mainstream lifestyles."

  "I thought most did." She watched his eyes, the way they lit when they looked at her and darkened with worry when he looked past her, relating the story. The way his hand held her free hand, fingers playing over the knuckles gently, as if he wasn't aware what he was doing.

  As if it felt normal for him to touch her.

  There was nothing normal about it for Gemma. Every touch sent lightning bolts through her body, heat racing through her.

  "Pretty much. But there's always something. Civil rights are still struggling. There's still lots of attention on the people caught up in the struggle. There always is. Races will always look askance at each other and maybe that's not a terrible thing. Maybe our differences are what makes it dangerous for us to be 'separate but equal' but maybe our differences are what make us who we are."

  "That's where I get confused with diversity speeches," she said while taking a note. She'd taken her hand back from him and missed the contact, but wanted to be certain she transcribed everything. "If we say we are all alike with no differences between us, then we lose things from our cultures, don't we? And if we admit our cultures are different, we're accused of not being diverse in our viewpoints."

  None of which she'd meant to say. But in the next instant, he said it for her. "Bigotry is never going to go away. Not completely. I think we as people we can get better. Just not completely healed."

  She'd passed some kind of test, because when he said that about we as a people, she hadn't blinked.

  Of course she hadn't. She had grown up around weres. On her father's ranch. He'd employed cowboy shifters, big bears with gold eyes who kept the coyotes at bay and the rustlers farther off. Who rode the cattle drives and worked the ranch. She'd known them, grown up with them, watched her father lose his ranch when one was accused of murder and he'd gone to bat for the man. Gone to court for him.

  Her father, the champion. He hadn't just lost the case. He hadn't just seen the shifter jailed for a crime he didn't commit.

  He'd lost his ranch. Almost lost his life. Because the angry crowd had come in the night, no different than a lynching, and set fire to the ranch.

  They'd gotten out in time. They'd saved the animals, saved themselves, and possessions weren't important after that.

  But Gemma had seen hard faces of neighbors, of good old boys, of cowboys from neighboring ranches. She'd seen the bears shift, berserker rages driving them, seen them plow into the people setting the fire.

  Her father had rebuilt. The bears had actually come back.

  Gemma hadn't.

  She didn't realize she was crying until he wiped her eyes.

  Colby tilted her head up to his and kissed her cheeks. Her back was against the wall of the chute in the shadowy underground behind the arena stands. Colby stood in front of her, one hand propped at her head level on the wall of the chute. He looked down into her face, his eyes a hot gold of lust.

  Her hands went up and tangled in his hair. Her body flamed. She wanted him here and now, didn't want to wait. She'd thought, after the drink, after the interviews, they'd go somewhere. Together. She didn't want to wait.

  There was nowhere here to be together. Maybe the tiny office with its saddles and stenches? It seemed too far away.

  "You're not crying for just the vanished." His voice was a deep rumble, almost a growl, but he didn't sound angry. More comforting.

  "I'm crying for the vanished," she said. "And because of the people who make shifters vanish. Those people who hurt what they don't understand."

  "What do you understand?" His voice was deeper still, honey laced with guttural edges.

  "That I want you. I – " She broke off, and screamed.

  In the stands, the crowd roared as something happened in the arena. The roar masked the sound of her scream.

  Colby shuddered under the blow, already turning to face the men behind him. She saw three wooden baseball bats raised, three men dwarfed by the size of the shifter.

  Because he was changing. Turning toward them, Colby grew. He rippled and changed, this time the change warping her vision, changing every bone and sinew. Taller, broader, the golden brown hair of a grizzly erupted from his back as his denim button-down ripped apart at the seams.

  His hand had already left her. Gemma watched, horrified, as the giant paw with the five thick, ripping claws flashed out at the closest of the men.

  Gemma knew how to take care of herself. She'd taken a black belt in Taekwon Do and she carried a concealed weapon ever since she'd left her father's house.

  But the savagery of the attack left her frozen, cringing against the wall as the bats flew at Colby.

  He was more than a match for them. The first two bats he snapped in half. The third he hurled into the darkness of the under-arena space. Enormous paws fastened around the closest man and flung him at the gate. The man struck the wall and slid, gasping for air but not dead, maybe not even harmed.

  Colby was already reaching for the second. Gemma scooted back out of the way. If she could stay out of it, she'd make it easier for him. She yanked her phone up, hit camera, then watched, amazed, as Colby sent a stunning blow at the second man, but left him winded, barely bleeding from a scratch.

  He wasn't hurting them. He wasn't trying to kill them. He was fully animal but he maintained control.

  Until Gemma stumbled back another step, pocketing her phone. She backed directly into the arms of the third man.

  She'd never even seen him move. Gasping, she drove an elbow toward his ribs, but he moved easily. His arm crooked around her neck. Automatically, Gemma dropped her chin into the V of his elbow, giving herself breathing room. Her hands went up to either side of her face, grabbing his arm. She'd bite, she'd kick, she'd –

  Freeze, when the gun cocked, directly beside her ear.

  "Beast!"

  It wasn't the word. It was the sound of the gun that made Colby stop moving.

  "That's good. That's a good dumb beast." The man behind her stank of cologne and beer and gun oil.

  Gemma retched.

  "What's the matter, little girl? Don't like humans anymore?" He jammed the barrel of the gun into her temple.

  Gemma rocked with the force of the blow. The world slid away and back again.

  Colby slid away and back again. Almost human. She saw his cheekbones and lips emerge from the fur and the black outlined mouth. She saw the fury in those golden eyes, saw the fur turning back to hair.

  She wanted to beg him not to. The man would kill him. He was only waiting until Colby wasn't a bear. That much she was sure of.

  Colby was too. She thought. Because he went halfway back to man, his hands emerging from paws, held up before him, placating.

  The man with the gun laughed. The gun swung toward Colby.

  In the split second Gemma saw Colby look directly into her eyes. His meaning was clear. Don't move. Let me do this.

  In that same second, he moved. The gun swung toward him. The man's trigger finger whitened under pressure.

  Colby surged away from the man.

  Colby the bear moved faster than the man, spinning out of reach of the gun.

  The muzzle flashed. The world rocked with concussion of sound.

  The man holding Gemma flailed, trying to bring the weapon to point at her again.

  He never got the chance. Giant paws grabbed him, talons sliced into his forearm, his shoulders, his chest.

  His throat.

  The man who had attacked them slumped to the ground. Red gore splattered the black version of the No Shifters t-shirt.

  The shifter
stood over him, human again, holding Gemma.

  "We have to get out of here," she said, when she could speak again. The shivering had started the same moment he stopped asking if she was all right.

  The same time he'd stopped kissing her.

  Only seconds had gone by. But people would be coming.

  "Come on," Colby said, and took her hand.

  No sign of Owen when they went through the arena and the underground structure. They kept away from the bodies, left the dead man crumpled in a little used storage area. The other two men had fled.

  They found Owen getting ready to ride. He came out of the locker room and nearly ran into both of them.

  "What's happened?"

  There was blood on Colby's shirt. Colby wasted no words telling Owen what happened.

  "It doesn't tell us much we didn't know," Owen said, when he put down the phone. He'd called someone, though Gemma couldn't imagine who, to collect the body. A report had come back instantly that the man wasn't identified or recognized. Now Owen paced, furious, full of energy. "The shirts, the symbols – we knew what they meant."

  Colby said, "Now we know at least some of them are actively doing something about the No Shifters policy." His voice was bitter.

  Gemma suddenly stood and reached into her back pocket. The men stared at her. She held out her phone. "I've got photos." She hoped. She'd been shooting fast and pretty freaked out.

  "Good," Owen said and Colby took her phone, turned it on, scrolled.

  "I know this guy," Owen said. His voice was the distant of someone trying to remember where they'd seen an actor before. "Good job." He looked at both of them. "You look beat. Gemma, you mind if Colby runs you home? I'd just as soon you're not alone tonight. On the ride," he added. "Cole, take her car, so she doesn't get broken into and they don't get her address."

  Gemma shuddered. "Do you really think -- ?" But Owen had already turned away, back on his phone.

  She turned to look at Colby. "Do you mind?"

  He gave her a grin had had already forgotten the bloodshed. Or at least put it aside for the time being in favor of more important things. He smelled muskier than before. "I'd be honored to drive you home."

  They didn't make it that far.

  There wasn't any reason to rush out of the arena. The events were going on for hours. The two men who'd attacked them had fled. The third was being taken care of. No one was going to call the police. No one was looking for Colby.

  There were no sticky questions to avoid.

  Just heat, rising between them. When they left the office where Owen paced, on the phone with Holden by then, Colby held his hand out and she slipped hers into it. He coiled his fingers against her palm, making her lightheaded.

  They stopped just out of sight of the office. He pinned her to the wall. His mouth came down over hers, hot as his hands were. His tongue traced her lips, then slid between her lips. She met it with hers, tasting the animal scent there. But when her hands traced his face, he was all male. All human.

  Her hands continued up, into his hair, knocking his cowboy hat off onto the dusty concrete floor. His hands slid up from her shoulders, along her throat, cupped her face, tangled in her hair and removed the clip, throwing it down after his hat.

  Her long, cinnamon colored hair came down, curls filling his hands. He pressed it to his face, breathed in, mouth slightly open as he tasted her scent.

  Gemma let her head fall back against the wall, her hands grabbing his shirt to pull him hard against her. One of her legs snaked behind his. She wanted him pressed against her from head to foot.

  Colby bit her throat, licked the hollow between her collarbone and down into the V of her blue shell. The fabric shredded under his hands. She blinked, looked, but they were human fingers, human hands, now spreading open her shirt, exposing her black lace bra,

  They were only in a concrete underground hallway. Anyone could come at any time. The thought just made her press herself harder against him.

  One huge, rough, calloused hand moved down from her throat, found her breast and squeezed, cupping it, squeezing, his thumb playing hard over her nipple. Gemma groaned and spread her legs, widening her stance. Colby moved into the space she'd made, sliding one thigh between her legs.

  That wasn't close enough. She moved one leg upward, suggestively, and he took her up on it. "Is that what you want?" His voice was a low growl, a chuckle.

  He scooped her up, his hands under her ass. Gemma, pressed against the wall, wrapped her legs around his waist and pressed her core against him.

  Colby slid one hand down between them before she could properly grind against him. She pouted at him.

  He laughed. "Just want to feel you, darlin'. Oh, girl, you're wet, clear through. I can feel your heat through your pants." He leaned forward and bit her ear, licked it with a hot wet tongue and whispered, "I can smell you. You smell like want."

  She bit at his chin as he pulled back. "I can smell you, too. You smell like an animal."

  His eyes were dangerous. "You ought to know what you're getting into." But as he spoke he pulled his hand away.

  She ground her wet, hungry core against the front of his jeans. The package she'd seen outlined earlier was huge, hard as a rock under the denim.

  "I know what I'm getting into."

  "Do you?" he purred. Teasing. Licking. Biting. "I'm not like other men. Think you can handle it?"

  "Oh, hell, yeah," she said, and pressed harder against him. Her legs were starting to tremble, the cut starting to throb.

  He eased her back onto her feet. Knelt at eye level with her core. Second time today he'd done that. This time she felt wild, carnal, anything but embarrassed. She thrust her hips forward. "Do you know what you're getting in to?" she teased.

  "I'm about to find out." He grasped her totally ruined linen pants in both hands and tore them from the waist, shredding them off her body. Gemma barely had time to react when he had plunged his face into the sopping wet black lace of her panties.

  "God, you smell so good."

  She arched her back, self aware for an instant, then grabbed handfuls of his curls as he yanked aside the lace and plunged his tongue far into her. His fingers followed, spreading her wide, exposing her clit, her pussy, his tongue following the line of her opening, dipping deep inside and lapping forward like an animal, pausing to suck like a man on her clit, making her buck and moan. She clutched his hair, ground herself in his face.

  "More," she moaned. "Take me. Take all of me." Her eyes were closed and the scents of hay and horses and cowboys filled her senses.

  The scent of bear.

  His thumbs came down over her clit. She bit back a scream, pulled on his hair. "I want to touch you. I want to taste you."

  "Patience," he muttered into her.

  She didn't have any. She pulled away from him, trying to get to his jeans, his fly, her fingers grazing his cock through the denim but he was too strong. He spun her around, making her laugh, said, "Not yet, my lovely," and pressed his still clad cock into the crack of her ass, pressing aside the last of the black lace, making her pant and moan. Her breasts pressed hard into the wall and she rubbed them there, seeking every sensation, every feeling. Her own hand traveled down the front of her body, her fingers sinking into her own pussy.