by Sky Winters
“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 about 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.”
Sabrina wondered if she should view this as a red flag, or just take it for what it was portrayed to be: a protective boyfriend trying to make sure that his girlfriend and unborn baby would be safe.
One day, while he was at work, she reclined on his large, black leather couch and played on the internet. There was nothing better for her to do. She’d already napped until noon, which made her feel guilty. She entered the sort of hole that was difficult to get out of once it started. She started watching videos.
She searched for the black bear who went crazy in Pine Tree Mall. She wasn’t disappointed. The videos of Jacob when he went on his violent rampage were largely filmed with cell phone cameras. They were blurry and shaky, but they showed him breaking through glass storefronts and roaring at people – including children – and knocking over every cart and sign that was in his path. In some of the videos, she could see that he had blood on his fangs. He had not simply roared at people. He’d clearly mauled at least one person.
Suddenly, she felt bad. She never asked him what had angered him so much. She’d been so surprised and excited when she found out who he was that she’d never thought to ask about why he had felt so angry. She realized now that it had to have been something important to have caused such a visceral feeling. Jacob was such a sweetie. It would take more than a minor tiff to turn him into a monster like that.
When Jacob returned home, she felt like asking him, but he was so tired and happy to be with her again that she didn’t want to dredge it all up again. “I need to take a shower,” he said, giving her a kiss. “I think I’ve got the smell of prison shit all over me.”
He went into the bathroom and she started to wonder how safe it would be to be with him when he got mad. Originally, Sabrina had thought the idea of him shifting into a werebear would be the definition of sexy. But now she was starting to realize that, more than anything else, it was something that made him different in a way that he maybe didn’t like…
That was probably why he didn’t like just shifting on a whim. It scared people. And he was most likely afraid that it would scare her away, too.
Just then, in a flash, she noticed something that was picked up by the surveillance cameras outside. She had it up in a small window on her screen, but she maximized it so
she could get a better view.
A gray blur went past on the screen.
She thought she had a pretty good idea who that was.
Victor.
Sabrina sprang from the couch and did her best to silently pad down the hallway to the bathroom. She could hear the water blasting in the shower. The front door was locked, but front doors couldn’t stop an angry werewolf.
She knocked on the bathroom door to try and alert Jacob that something was up, but she went inside the bathroom to let him know with her voice, as well. “JACOB,” she shouted. “Victor’s on the surveillance!”
The water turned off and Jacob pulled back the shower curtain. “What?”
“Just now, on the surveillance footage, I saw Victor. It was just a flash; I don’t know what he’s doing.”
Jacob didn’t even bother with a towel to dry off. He came out of the shower, dripping. Sabrina glanced down at his cock and then looked away, not wanting to bother with any thoughts about how her hot man was there to save her.
Was it just her or was he harrier than she remembered?
He crept out of the bathroom and to the living room, where her computer was. Sabrina followed him, trying her best to remain as quiet as he was. He looked around at all of the windows he could see, but he could not see any sign of the bastard.
There was a sudden crash from a window near the front door as Victor came leaping into the house. He was quick and agile in ways that Jacob could never be. Letting out a low growl of warning, Sabrina’s trusty werebear shifted in front of her very eyes. He grew in height and his hairiness grew thicker and covered all of him until at last an enormous black bear stood where Jacob Priestly had been.
This black bear was Jacob Priestly.
He lurched forward and took a huge swipe towards Victor the werewolf, but Victor was fast and expecting it. The wolf avoided the blow and made for Sabrina, who ran into the kitchen to arm herself with something, anything that might stop him and possibly even gravely injure him.
She was going through the various knives that were on hand while Jacob ran after Victor, biting and swiping his mighty paws as he approached the wolf.
Victor slowly made his way into the kitchen, moving in a way that let her know that he might pounce at her at any moment. “You belong with me, you BITCH!” he howled.
“Get over yourself,” she snapped at him, holding a butcher’s knife tightly in her hand. If he made a move on her, she was going to aim for his heart. She was not afraid of killing him. In fact, she was more afraid of what would happen if she didn’t. She was starting to feel completely controlled by this fear.
Victor’s golden eyes narrowed, and he smirked in a way that normal wolves certainly couldn’t. “Good,” he said. “Give in to your fear. Fear is what kept you with me.”
“Leave her alone!” Jacob bellowed, finally making contact with a big swipe that cracked Victor over the head and made him land on the floor, dazed and disoriented for long enough to Sabrina to get away and protect herself behind her bear boyfriend.
“Ahh,” Victor said, collecting himself again and returning to his paws. “I suppose you work together well. But do you really think you can give her what she wants, bear? What she needs?”
“What I need is for you to get out of my life and stay out!” Sabrina shouted. “Go find someone who doesn’t mind your selfishness and your rules. You don’t want me. You don’t want someone who can’t even stand the sight of you anymore.”
Victor flew into a rage and jumped at her, mouth wide and aimed at her throat. Jacob caught him on the jaw with his giant paw and sent the wolf slamming to the floor yet again.
“When are you going to learn that I’m bigger than you?” Jacob asked him pityingly. “When are you going to realize that you are beaten?”
“Never!” Victor spat, getting to his feet again.
Sabrina could tell that his strength was weakening. All it would take was one more thing to take the bite out of him and he would be history. Hopefully for good.
She remembered that she was holding the knife and hid it behind her back, so Victor wouldn’t see it. He was so distracted by Jacob’s taunting that he barely even seemed to notice her anymore. They’d briefly forgotten what their feud was over. The only thing that mattered now was that they hated each other.
Holding the knife up, she let it fall, hitting Victor in the furry white chest.
“NOOOO!!” he cried.
At the same time, Jacob lunged down at him and bit at his face. There was so much blood all over the cream-colored carpet. At first, Sabrina couldn’t be sure if they had killed him or if they’d just happened to get him in a particularly blood-filled spot.
But when Jacob pulled away from Victor, she could see that her ex was still alive, but just barely. He was back in his wolf form, clutching at his chest with one hand and his face with the other. He was a bloody mess.
Jacob had saved the day. But she had helped. She felt proud of herself, and so glad that she was dating that rampaging bear. This was something that their cub would surely be proud of.
They offered to call for an ambulance to come for Victor, but he declined. If he had still had his tail, it would have been between his legs. “No,” he said. “I’ll see myself home. This is what I deserved.”
Sabrina was not sure that this was the last they would see of him, but she hoped so. He knew that he had been beaten, and he was not one to let such a thing happen more than once. A wolf could not possibly stand up to a bear and a butcher’s knife.
Jacob was riled and wild even after Victor was gone. Sabrina did her best to soothe him with cuddles and kind words, but nothing worked. He was apparently going to be stuck in his werebear form for a while.
She lay in his arms, smiling up at him and finding his magical power so attractive, even still while he was covered in wolf blood and panting a bit. “I was watching videos today,” she told him. “Of your little rampage in the mall.”
“Oh, fuck, not that again,” he growled.
She wanted to laugh, but his anger made her worry that he might turn on her next. She didn’t want him to think she was laughing at him, or judging him or anything like that. “I’m sorry… I just wanted to see what you were like when you shifted. I guess I should have been careful what I wished for.”
“Why would you wish for this?” he asked. As she looked at him, she noticed that some of his black fur was disappearing and his face was taking on his human form again. He was finally settling back down.
“I want to be with you because you’re sweet and gentle, but also strong and protective when I need you to be.” She placed her hand on her stomach. “When we need you to be.”
His transformation back into that of a tall, burly quarterback was nearly complete. All that remained was his bear nose and some whisker-like hairs on his cheeks. “But I’m a monster.”
She smiled at him. “Maybe. But you’re my monster…” She finally decided that it would be okay to ask him. “That day in the mall… I should have asked you this. I’m sorry for not even thinking of your feelings. What were you so angry about?”
Jacob looked into her eyes. His gentle, brown eyes were back to normal. All of him was back to being the way she knew and loved. “My ex-girlfriend had just broken up with me.”
Sabrina’s heart melted a little, even as it also broke a bit for him. “And why were you bloody?”
He appeared to be extremely guilty. She worried that he was going to say he had killed his ex. Maybe she shouldn’t have ever asked. Maybe it was never an appropriate question and some things were better left not talked about…
“I bit my tongue,” he said.
She looked at him, surprised and relieved.
He suddenly smirked a little. “I do that a lot, when I lose control.”
Letting out a laugh, she kissed him. “You do more than that.”
THE END
Papa Bear
CHAPTER ONE
The Man Child
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��How has the job hunting been going?” Maggie asked her fiancé Tony.
He answered her with a shrug, not even looking over at her when she came in the door. Typical.
Maggie Bullock worked full time – plus a lot of overtime – as a customer service representative at a toy company. It sounded like it would be so much fun when she first got the job, but now that she was struggling to pay the rent for her and her deadbeat boyfriend, it was nothing short of draining. She spent eight-plus hours every day responding to stupid people and their stupid questions, only to come home and deal with Tony the couch potato.
Tony Deburgi was an artist, though Maggie was starting to think that he was actually an “artist.” His easel always seemed to be empty, ignored off in a corner somewhere. She bought him a really fancy set of paints for Christmas recently and he’d barely touched it. He claimed to be in a dry spell. “I have lost my muse,” he had told her.
“Well, maybe you should make video games your muse, since you’re so attached to them,” she had replied.
“No,” Tony had argued. “My art is not fan art. It’s abstract!”
They’d had many fights like that lately. Maggie wanted to support his art and help inspire his creativity, but she also wanted him to be realistic and apply himself more.
“I know it’s not ideal,” she said, going into the kitchen and fixing herself a drink. “But I really think you ought to start looking into more options. Painting houses is still a form of art.”
Once she had poured herself the perfect mixture of Scotch and Coke, Maggie carried her glass out to the living room and sat beside Tony, who was sunken into the couch, as though he had molded himself into it. Game controller in hand, he stared at the screen, blasting away werewolves or some other type of shifter. Maggie couldn’t keep track. They all seemed the same.
All of the games he played involved shooting shifters. He never played the cute, colorful games where he could save princesses and collect coins. He always played some form of murderous hit-man against an army of vicious monsters. Tony hated shifters, and Maggie thought he was ridiculous. He’d never even met one before. Video game monsters were not the same thing as living, breathing beings.
