by Sky Winters
She wondered what sort of place he lived in. Certainly it was not a cave. Though it was probably a man cave.
She giggled as she took off her robe to put on her outfit for the day. The dress that she wore last night was great for a first date, but Sabrina decided to go a little more casual for their next day together. She put on some blue jeans and a cute purple t-shirt with an outline of a cartoon cat on it. She brushed her long, blonde hair and then put it up into a ponytail. Then she threw on some flip flops.
Now that she had seen what a beast Jacob was in bed, she couldn’t wait to see what he was like when he became a bear. Victor had been all about turning into a werewolf when it was time to have sex… He had a biting fetish. When she looked at the massive hickey that Jacob had given her on her boob, she remembered that. Not that she really ever forgot it. The difference was that she suspected that Jacob would stop hurting her if she asked.
The hour passed faster than she had anticipated, and she was giddy when she heard a knock at her front door. She practically skipped to the door and then pulled it open, beaming.
“Miss me?” Jacob asked her with a smile. He was also wearing jeans, along with a long-sleeved, V-necked shirt. It wasn’t a t-shirt like hers, but it was still slightly less casual than last night. She was glad that he had been thinking along the same lines.
“Funnily enough, I did,” Sabrina answered.
She collected her purse and they headed out. They would be driving this time. It was not a short walk to Brown University, where the art gallery was housed. Jacob had a cute blue Beetle that he’d most likely bought used, unless it was gifted to him from his parents.
He was even a good boy while driving, conscientious of other drivers. She was used to aggressiveness in the car, much like everywhere else. The more she thought about it, the more she realized that Victor was not a good example of a were-boyfriend. He’d been sexy to be with, but otherwise his personality was mostly humorless and even mean at times. She realized that she did not simply want to be with someone like Jacob, she deserved to be with him.
The art gallery they went to was full of portraits and paintings of ships from the 1700s. Sabrina worried a little that Jacob was bored by what they found there, but every time she turned to ask him how he was feeling about it, he gave her such a sweet smile that she didn’t want to even assume such a thing.
Weeks went by like that. Every date Jacob took Sabrina on was charming and fun. He did not get jealous when other men spoke to her. He did not treat her like she owed him her time. She felt like he was worth her time, in newer and better ways than she was used to.
One day, she woke up feeling sick and he gave her a breakfast of soup and bread in bed. “What do you think it might be?” he asked her sympathetically, putting his hand on her forehead to check and make sure that she wasn’t super hot.
“I think it could be…” She blushed a little. She’d been wondering for a few days now, but this sudden nausea seemed to confirm it. “I think I might be pregnant.”
He gaped at her, surprised, but then his mouth twisted into a smile. “Pregnant?” he asked. “Do you want me to run to the store and get a test so we can be sure?”
“Yes, please,” she said. They kissed and he grabbed his keys, happy to go off and get a pregnancy test for her. She hadn’t expected such a gleeful reaction to her theory. She wasn’t feeling so glad about it. She was nervous, and really hoping that it was Jacob’s bear seed and not Victor’s wolf seed… She’d been with Jacob for a little over a month now, so she liked to think that there was no chance that it was Victor’s, but stranger things had happened to her.
As soon as Jacob returned with the test, she used it and they sat on the couch together and waited, watching it to see if two lines appeared or just one.
When two appeared, she was glad that bears weren’t known for howling, because he certainly would have. Instead, he stood up and hugged her. “This is the happiest moment of my life!” he said. “Are you happy?”
She nodded at him and smiled faintly. “I am. I’m just… I’m hoping that I’ll be an okay mother.”
He kissed her and held her in his arms. Of course you will be. You’re already the best girlfriend, so I’m sure you will be the best mother a kid could ask for, too.”
“You have a lot of confidence in me,” she told him, cuddling against him.
“Hey,” he said softly, practically cradling her as he held her, he was so burly. “A guy like me doesn’t get a lot of chances to be with a girl like you. When we first met, I thought for sure that you’d be frightened and not want anything to do with me after a night. That’s how it always used to be. You’ve made me feel like I can be trusted. You’ve made me feel… human. Which is something I don’t exactly deserve, but it’s nice.”
She smiled at him a bit tearfully. “Why would a werebear want to be like a human? You’re special.”
He shook his head. “I’m special for a human. I’m not much of a were.”
Looking at him, she tilted her head a little bit. “Speaking of that, you’ve never even shifted in front of me. Are you shy?”
Jacob blushed. “I only really do that when I’m angry, and I think I’ve forgotten how to be that now that I’m with you.”
Sabrina made a face. “Don’t make me barf. Remember, I’m feeling nauseous.”
He laughed. “Sorry. But it’s true.”
“Well, we’re going to have a baby together. You should stop hiding your whole self from me. I won’t run screaming or call up an angry, torch-waving mob, if that’s what you’re worried about. I promise.”
He appreciated that she was so interested in his shifter nature. A lot of the girls he’d been with had only liked the sex aspect of it, but when they actually saw him become a giant, snarling bear, they didn’t want to be near him anymore. Sabrina seemed to be different, but he still worried that everything would change once she saw the beast that the tall, muscular quarterback became.
“I don’t want to endanger you,” he said. “But I can show you pictures, if that will make you feel better. Then you’ll really know what I’m like when I’m mad. And hopefully you’ll never see it in the flesh.”
He logged on to her laptop and did a quick Google search, bringing up images from a news story about a record-sized black bear tearing up a mall. Sabrina stared at the screen in horrified shock. “You were the Pine Tree Mall bear??”
Jacob nodded. “One and the same.”
“But I thought they killed that bear.”
“Tranquilizers,” he explained, pointing to a small scar on his neck that she thought was from an old sports-related injury. “Someone on the force knows my dad and knows what I am, so they spared me. They let me convalesce outside like a good bear and then gave me a five hundred dollar fine.”
“Jeeezus,” Sabrina said. But she seemed impressed, not bothered by this information. “Well, I have to say, you are a very attractive bear, too.”
Jacob didn’t know what to say to that. He called and ordered pizza to celebrate their baby news. Sabrina meanwhile started to wonder if maybe their small family would be the thing she wanted most in the world, even though she had never known that. Maybe subconsciously her mind had pulled her towards a werebear so she could meet him. Her ex was very much a product of his species, but Jacob was not like any of the bears she had read about online. Well, except for a certain mall-destroyer…
CHAPTER FOUR
Won’t Let Go At Any Price
Unsurprisingly, Sabrina’s coworkers were delighted at her news. They did not know the full extent of it, of course, but everyone loved to hear about a new baby that was on the way. She referred to it as a ‘cub’ and they simply thought it was a cute nickname, not what it actually was.
She went onto the ComeShift app, the plan being to delete her profile. There would be no more need for it now. She was pretty sure that Jacob was planning to propose to her any day now, though he hadn’t said anything. He could be so shy sometimes, which
she thought just made him even cuter.
It was weird and wonderful how Jacob could mix cute and sexy, often at the same time. Sabrina supposed now that her fetish for wicked good looks had been just a phase. As she clicked around, trying to remember why she had found this app so addictive, she ran across Victor’s profile. He smirked back at her and the sight of his roguish handsomeness gave her just the slightest pause. He had clearly moved on from her. That was good.
She didn’t expect him to spend the rest of his life alone.
And it also meant that he was going to be leaving her alone.
Sabrina clicked the link to close her account and let that be the end to it.
When she arrived back home, she found that she’d beat Jacob. His shifts at the prison were sometimes longer than either of them would like, but she was proud of him for having a job that was important and put his unusual powers to good use. No one wanted to mess with him when he was in his human form, so she could only imagine what it would be like if he turned into a bear on anyone.
She changed out of her work clothes while she was waiting for Jacob to arrive. She was feeling achy in her lower back and her chest, so she opted for a relaxed, loose outfit. He was going to have to get used to seeing her in yoga pants and big t-shirts for a while. She put on some black yoga pants that were tight nearly everywhere but had a string that allowed her to tighten or loosen the waistband as much as she needed.
Along with the comfy pants, she put on a pink shirt with one of the monsters from Where The Wild Things Are on it. Sabrina laughed a little when she looked at her reflection. She looked like a teacher or a school librarian after work hours, because in her mind that was the sort of thing they wore when they weren’t at work. References to work.
Oh god, she realized. I’m eventually going to have to think about school again. She hadn’t thought about school since she finished her masters, but now she was going to have a little person who would need an education. She wondered slightly bitterly if there was some kind of clause that would allow her and Jacob to get out of that.
Heh. Bear clause.
Just then, when she was trying to calm her worrying, there was a knock at her front door. That was odd. She’d given Jacob a key. Had he lost it already?
She rolled her eyes, chuckling under her breath, and went out to the apartment’s foyer to open the front door.
But Jacob was not there. Victor was.
Sabrina gasped and stepped back instinctively, but then grabbed ahold of the doorway in order to prohibit Victor from coming in. “What are you doing here?” she demanded.
“I noticed that you were still on that dating app,” he said. “I’ve missed you.”
He suddenly sniffed the air around her and his eyes darkened. “You smell like bear. What have you been doing without me? Dating a dancing bear?”
“Get away from me!” she shouted.
Victor pushed his way into the room, not afraid of her in the slightest. Honestly, she had no way to defend herself against him. Werewolves could not be treated like standard brutes. “Or what?” he asked her, growling under his breath. “You’ll sic your bear on me? He’s probably so dumb and slow moving…”
“Shows how many bears you’ve known.” A sudden laugh came from the doorway. Sabrina turned her head and saw Jacob. She was so relieved! He was not too far behind her.
Her ex sized up her new boyfriend. Even when he wasn’t a bear, Jacob was tall with broad shoulders. Victor was a much more sinewy type of muscular. Werewolves were built to be lean and fast, unlike werebears who were more prone to lumbering along and ripping animals in half. Both were fearsome and deadly, and right now Sabrina was hoping that Jacob might unleash some of his unchecked deadliness before Victor forced them apart.
“Is this guy bothering you?” Jacob asked her. “I can kick him out, if you want. And have him arrested for breaking and entering.”
Sabrina’s face fell. “I opened the door for him, Jacob,” she said, unable to lie about the truth. He had rushed into the room, but he hadn’t forced the door open. “This is my ex-boyfriend, Victor Esparza.”
For a second, it looked like Jacob hadn’t heard her. He continued to smile at her, not looking at the other man who was now trapped between them in a way that clearly agitated Victor and made him uncomfortable. “Your what?” Jacob finally asked, sounding confused or as if he had heard her wrong.
“Her ex-boyfriend, you idiot,” Victor snapped at him. “Clean the sap out of your ears!”
Brown eyes widening, Jacob looked from Sabrina to Victor and back again. It was of course not unusual for her to have an ex-boyfriend. He was just shocked that she had chosen to be with this werewolf at one point. Well, at least she was not with him anymore. But what was he doing in their apartment?
“What are you doing here?” he asked, trying to keep his voice calm and not get angry as the insults were thrown at him. Sabrina could tell that he was starting to get mad, and part of her hoped that he would get angry enough to shift. She wanted to see him change so much that she would put up with her ex being in her apartment as long as it caused him to do it.
“I came here to see Sabrina,” Victor said. “But apparently I’m barking up the wrong tree.”
With that, he left the apartment, slamming the front door behind him. Sabrina felt slightly disappointed, though she was glad that no one had gotten hurt. Victor could have easily started something. She believed that he just wasn’t ready for that sort of thing… At least not yet.
Jacob rounded on her. “You dated that asshole?”
She nodded slightly. “For about a year, unfortunately. He wasn’t always like that…”
“Oh, I’m sure,” Jacob said. “Anyway, how are you?”
“Well, disturbed now. I didn’t realize that he was thinking of me, let alone trying to get me back.”
Jacob took her over to the couch and they sat down, cuddling each other. Now that he was home, she felt much better. She’d been having a great time with him, and now she was worried that it was going to all be ruined by her ex.
“Are you crying?” he asked her, looking at her. “Aww, you are. Don’t cry… I’ll protect you from him. You don’t think I can take him? I’ve broken men twice his size.”
Sabrina smiled at him through her tears. “You look awfully sexy in your uniform.”
He was dressed like a cop, and she supposed that that was kind of what he was. He was an unofficial cop, keeping the prisoners out of trouble, no matter what it took. He even had a gun, which made her laugh a little.
“What?” he asked, smiling.
“A bear with a gun,” she said. “That sounds like something a kid made up.”
After some discussion, they decided that it would be best that they left her apartment and moved into his place together, at least for the time being. Jacob didn’t want there to be any risk of Victor showing up unexpectedly again. It was not good for Sabrina, and it definitely wasn’t good for their baby for there to be so much stress in the air.
They worked together to pack up her things and left. He drove her to his house. When she realized that he had his own small house, she hit him on the shoulder.
“Ow,” he said, laughing. There was no way that little her could have hurt big him. He said it out of wanting to humor her a little. “What was that for?”
“I didn’t know that you lived in a house,” she exclaimed. “All this time, you’ve been staying over at my place; meanwhile you live in a house.”
Jacob smiled at her. “You never asked.”
He brought her inside. It was a modest, one bedroom house. It wasn’t exactly a palace, but it was much better than she’d been anticipating. It was even fairly clean. Wherever there was dirty underwear or a random sock lying on the floor, he rushed and cleaned up, tossing the offending pieces of clothing into the laundry machine.
He had a freaking laundry machine.
“Now I wish that Victor had come over sooner, if only so I could have learned abou
t this place.” Sabrina looked around, grinning excitedly at the place. It may as well as been her new home, though they had not made that official. The plan was just for them to stay there for a while, until they felt they had the all clear from any more home invasions.
But this little house would be a better place to raise a cub than back in her small apartment. It may have been one-bedroom, but it was one bedroom with lots more space than what Sabrina was used to.
“You’re doing quite well for yourself,” she said approvingly.
Jacob beamed proudly. “You’ll be safe here.” He gently placed his hand on her small tummy that was only slightly starting to show. Werebear cubs developed faster than human babies. Not quite as fast as werewolf cubs, she’d been told, but still. It would be fast enough for her. She was continuing to feel like she didn’t know what she was doing, but that was mostly because she didn’t.
Suddenly, he brought her close as they stood in the entryway. He kissed her softly and she knew that a great many things were on his mind. “Are you going to be my guard bear now?” she whispered, looking into his soft, sweet brown eyes.
“Oh, I’ll become a grizzly,” he answered. They kissed again and then he sang into her ear in a whisper, “I touch you once, I touch you twice, I won't let go at any price…”
CHAPTER FIVE
When He’s Angry
Sabrina took time off from work as soon as she started to show enough for people to notice, especially because right around the time her pregnancy was noticeable by one and all, her side effects became worse and worse. Jacob insisted that she stay home and take care of herself. “This is your first cub. It’s better if you take it easy now.”
She scoffed at him, resting in their bed in his house. “You say that like I’m planning to have another of these hell spawn.”
His over-protective boarding on possessive tendencies started to show themselves when she had fully moved into his place. He had a high-powered, high-tech security system installed in and around the perimeters of his house. “This way I can guard your security while I’m off at work, being a security guard.”
