The Bear Project

by Doris O'Connor

  His grunt trembled through her, and her ass felt on fire as he pushed further in, murmuring encouragements that settled deep in her heart.

  There was something so incredibly intimate of having him draped over her back, whilst his massive cock tunneled into her. By the time he was finally seated and his balls hit the back of her thighs, Emmi felt so full she could scarce draw breath into her lungs.

  Cole fisted one hand into her hair and turned her head to enable him to kiss her. A kiss so heartfelt and tender it seared her soul and sent tears spilling from her eyes. He kissed them off her face and then pulled out a little and thrust back in, all the while holding her gaze.

  Her muscles screamed at her, but she could no more break eye contact than she could stop breathing, as he repeated the slow thrusts in and out of her backside.

  "You're mine, Emmi. I own you, every damn fucking part of you, do you hear me?"

  "Yes, Cole. Yes … oh."

  Words failed her as he started to thrust in earnest, and the slight discomfort gave way to the most intense sensations of bliss. The orgasm build from deep inside her as Cole hit a spot that sent her crazy with every deep thrust into her ass. Emmi pushed against him as the needs of her body took over, and she was sucked under until all that mattered was her need to come.

  Cole felt it, too, this all-encompassing animal lust that gripped both of them, and his bear's claws sliced through her skin. The bed shook with the force of his thrusts, and Emmi started to scream as the first orgasmic tidal waves pulled her under. Heat consumed her, pain and ecstasy all rolled into one, and Cole's roar of completion sent her into oblivion. He bit her again, on the other shoulder this time, and Emmi screamed until her voice gave out, and he collapsed on top of her.

  Utterly used and spent, she lay there, trying to catch her breath, as every fiber in her body sang the Hallelujah Chorus, and her heartbeat synchronized with his.

  Even the soreness in her ass when Cole withdrew with a muttered apology didn't dim the post orgasmic high she floated in right now. The bed dipped when he left, and she tried to turn her head to tell him not to leave, that she wanted him always, but neither her mouth nor her body conformed to the demands her brain sent to them.

  Emmi gave up and simply allowed herself to float in her little bubble of happiness, knowing full well that Cole would be back. How she could be so certain of that, she didn't know. All she did know was that she trusted him, and heaven help her, she was in danger of falling irrevocably in love with them.

  A sliver of unease wrapped itself around her spine at that thought, threatening to take root and to shake her out of her serene state, but then Cole was back.

  Drops of water fell on her overheated skin, but she didn't have the energy to even twitch. He must have jumped into their pool to freshen up, because his wet hair tickled her neck, when he kissed her nose, and he smelled so damn good. Fresh and cool like the mountain spring air, and yet so achingly familiar that she couldn't help but sniff him and nibble him back.

  "This will be cold, so just relax and let me take care of you."

  She smiled in answer, and stifled a surprised yelp when he used a wet washcloth to gently wipe between her legs. There was nothing sexual about his ministrations, yet Emmi's intimate muscles clenched, and she tried to grind her hips against his hand. One hand on her tummy stopped her, and she pouted her annoyance.

  "Enough, Emmi. I've been hard on you. You'll need to rest now."

  "Spoilsport."

  She drifted off to sleep with his amused chuckles ringing in her ears.

  Chapter Eight

  The soulful howl of a wolf hung in the air, and Cole cursed under his breath. What the fuck did Blade want now? That damn wolf couldn't keep his own balls from knocking together, let alone keep Creek Fells in check. He didn't want to leave Emmi's side. She'd fallen asleep before he'd even finished cleaning her up, and he wanted to be here when she woke up.

  She'd be sore for sure, and for the umpteenth time he cursed his bear's roughness. She was human, dammit, and fragile, and no matter how much she'd been with him in the heat of the moment, he knew he'd been too damn hard on her. Her body carried the marks of his possession, and whilst the primitive, possessive side of him rejoiced at the signs of his bear's ownership on their little human, the man in him had a hard time coming to terms with his actions.

  All he wanted to do was wrap her up in cotton wool and protect her from the world at large, and his baser instincts in particular. Cole didn't allow himself to indulge in them often, but, fuck it all, if his little Emmi didn't raise the Dominant in him.

  The scent of approaching wolf, laced with the stench of alcohol, reached his nostrils, and Cole swore under his breath. He wouldn't put it past the wolf to march right into the caravan, and there was no way he'd let that incompetent bastard see his girl naked. No fucking way.

  Emmi stirred in her sleep when he carefully extricated himself from her, and he brushed his lips across hers.

  "Shhh, go back to sleep. I'll be back in a little while. There's something I have to sort."

  The ghost of a smile crossed Emmi's face, and then her even breathing told him that she had slipped back into deep sleep.

  Cole yanked his trousers up and got out of the door, just in time to see Blade shift to human. He snarled at him when the fucker took a step toward him and gestured to the opposite of the clearing. Blade sniffed the air, and his smirk made Cole want to rip the man's head off his body, but he bunched his hands into fists instead.

  "Don't even fucking think about it, Blade. Get your ass over to the edge, so we can talk. What the fuck are you doing here?"

  Blade ambled over in the loping, self-assured gait that was typical of his species.

  "My, we are touchy, chief. One night with a little bit of human pussy and you're hen whipped." He laughed at Cole's growl in answer and put his hands up and dropped his gaze.

  "I don't mean nothing by it. She's hot. I just ain't never seen you this taken in."

  "Emmi is not for discussion here. Tell me why the fuck you're here instead of in town sorting the problem."

  Blade looked uncomfortable and ran a hand through his messy dirt blond hair.

  "It ain't as easy as that. The bastards have gone into hiding somewhere in the forest. I can't hunt them down by myself, and the other shifters refuse to get involved."

  "Then make them, Blade. The council gave you the authority to do so, and if you'd been on top of this situation in the first place it never would have gotten out of hand."

  Anger at the man's incompetence churned a hole in Cole's gut. He didn’t need this shit right now. Not when he had his mate to protect, not when his whole goddamn future happiness was on the line.

  "There's only one thing you can do. Slaughter the lot of them."

  The gasp behind them made both men spin round, and Cole wanted to punch something. Emmi looked utterly terrified. With the bed sheet wrapped toga style around her body, she stood on the bottom step of the caravan. The nervous way she chewed her bottom lip told him of her inner turmoil, as clearly as the white knuckled hold she had on the railing.

  Her eyes darted from him to a naked Blake, and he snarled at the shifter to wipe his smirk off of his face before he broke it, but Blade paid him no heed.

  The insolent pup turned fully to give Emmi an unobstructed view of his physique, and heat rose in her cheeks. She glanced down briefly and then kept her gaze firmly trained on the man's chest.

  Some of Blade's cocky attitude deflated as rapidly as his junk had risen when he'd first caught Emmi's intoxicating scent. Cole should rip the wolf's throat out for even looking at his mate like that, but his bear was soothed by Emmi's indifference to Blade's poorly disguised advances. Cole could smell her distaste and disinterest in the other male, so he let it pass. Blade's inability to control his dick wasn't the problem right now.

  How much had Emmi heard, and what conclusions was she jumping to right now?

  "Go back inside, sugar. I'm sorry if
this oaf here disturbed you. I'll be—"

  "Don't sugar me, Cole. I'm not some clueless bimbo or a bit of human pussy." She interrupted him, and, fuck him, if she didn't look magnificent when she was angry like that. Angry enough to shift had she been able to, and that thought made Cole smile, despite the situation. She would make such a beautiful bear.

  "And wipe that smirk of your face, Cole. What the hell is going on here, and what gives you the right to slaughter anyone? That's barbaric and doesn't make you any better than those hunters."

  That last comment struck home like a poison dart. Blade whistled under his breath and stepped away from Cole, shaking his head, as Cole's bear strained to shift. Before he even knew it he'd crossed the clearing and stood in front of Emmi. She'd gone as white as the sheet she'd wrapped around her, but she stared him down, defiance and anger pouring off her in waves. Thanks to the steps she was at eye-level with him, and even though she blinked rapidly when he put either hand on the railings, caging her in, she didn't back down, or rear back.

  She had spunk, his human, and even pissed off as he was, he could admire her conviction.

  "This is an entirely different situation. You cannot possibly compare the two, and you don’t know what you're talking about." He ground the words out through clenched teeth, not sure whether to simply grab her and kiss her to erase that look out of her eyes, or whether to put her over his knee and spank her until she saw thing his way. If only it was that easy. Damn that fucking wolf and his incompetence.

  "Clearly not. I'm just a bit of human pussy." Her voice dripped with sarcasm, but he picked up the hurt underneath those words clear enough, and it defused some of his own anger. "So naturally, I cannot possibly understand the greater workings going on here. Silly little girl that I am should go back to bed and do what I do best, right?"

  He shook his head and tried to respond, but she stamped her foot and she looked so utterly furious that he could only stare at her.

  "My gran was right, you know. It's amazing what you hear when folks think you're not listening, and before you say it wasn't you that said it, it was that scum…" She paused and threw a look of contempt toward Blade that was sure to shrivel any man's balls. "It was you that said to slaughter them all."

  "Emmi, they're a threat, and they need to be eliminated."

  "Why? Just because they're different? I'm sure they didn't ask to be bitten and turned into something that bays at the moon and has to shift at its say so. And besides what makes them so different from the likes of you? You think you superior to them because you can shift at will? ‘Cause that's just some sort of bullshit shifter racism right there."

  "Emmi, you don't know what you're saying."

  She snorted at that, and if looks could kill he'd be six feet under.

  "Of course not, I'm only human, but, fuck it, Cole. This is wrong, and you know it. I don’t care what they've done. If they've done it because they can't help it, then technically it’s not their fault."

  Cole's bear growled and he knew his animal showed in his eyes, but Emmi growled right back at him. Blade snorted his amusement, and Cole spun round with a snarl.

  "Get the fuck out of here. I'll join you as soon as I've sorted this."

  The punch against his back packed a surprising amount of force for someone as little as his Emmi, and she swore. A loud and rather inventive string of curses that had Blade's smirk deepening, before he had the good sense to shift into his wolf and pad away. Cole knew he would be waiting for him out of eyesight. No doubt the wolf would get a kick out of hearing Cole being harangued by Emmi though.

  Cole turned round slowly and blocked the next punch aimed at his midriff this time.

  "Stop it, Emmi. You'll only hurt yourself, and stop twisting my words. They might not have asked to be turned, but they sure as fuck are embracing their animal sides. Hunting is one thing, but there's a contingent in town that deliberately goes after humans and marks them. You were marked for fuck's sake. Somehow I don't think you'd feel quite the same way if you were the one being hunted down like a rabbit, and then gang-raped and left to die, or worse still forced to turn into a rabid dog by the next full moon."

  He'd gone too far, and he'd said too much. Emmi swayed, and when he put his hands out to steady her, she recoiled from him.

  "Don't you fucking touch me, Cole. What do you mean I was marked? I know you warbled on about rules and me being human and that I needed protecting, but marked? How? When? And why is this allowed to go on? What has all this got to do with you? What, who the fuck are you, Cole?"

  ****

  She was going to be sick. Bile churned in her gut and the blood rushed in her ears, but there was no fucking way she would allow him to touch her now. What the hell had she walked into?

  "I'm your mate, Emmi, and that is all you need to know. I would die before I would let anything happen to you. You never should have heard that—any of that. If Blade did his fucking job, we could have contained this situation long ago. Now, it's all too little too late. I don't think myself superior to Weres, but by their very nature they are unstable. The ones in this town have been allowed to run riot, and they think they're above the law. Slaughter is, quite frankly, too good for them."

  She couldn't be hearing this, yet there was no doubting his sincerity. He meant every word he said, and her heart broke into a thousand little pieces.

  "So, you're just going to kill them all? Just like that? You can be so callous? What are you, some contract killer?"

  Cole reared back from her as though she'd slapped him, but he didn't contradict her either, and Emmi balled her hands into fists with such force her nails drew blood.

  Cole inhaled sharply.

  "Don’t do that, sugar."

  Again he tried to reach for her, but she backed away and shook her head.

  "I said don't touch me. Don't you ever touch me again."

  "Emmi, I—" A flash of emotion crossed his features, before the shutters came down so hard and so fast that Emmi found herself looking at a stranger. To think she'd kissed him, let him do things to her body no man had ever done before, and those very hands and lips that brought her so much pleasure were nothing more than killing tools.

  Thinking of him as a drifter had been bad enough, but to know that he killed people for a living—that was too much to fully comprehend. Regardless of how dangerous someone was, taking their life should never be an option in a civilized society. Only she wasn't in civilized society, was she? She was in the middle of nowhere with a contract killer who right now looked more animal than human.

  "There really is nothing left to say is there?" he finally said.

  Emmi shook her head and refused to look at him again. His sigh raised the fine hair on her neck, as he leant in and inhaled against her.

  "I never lied to you, Emmi. Never. I wish to fucking God or whoever you believe in that I would have time to explain all this properly, but I haven't. I'm not sure you'd believe me anyway, so I'm going to go and do my job."

  He stepped away from her, and she sensed rather than saw him shrug out of his jeans. His bare feet appeared in her vision, and she blinked back more tears. She was not going to cry in front of him, she just wasn't.

  "Blade and I will keep them away from here, but, nonetheless, stay inside and lock the doors until I'm back and all is safe. Emmi, look at me."

  His gravelly voice wrapped itself around her, urged her to comply with the inherent demand in his seductive tones, but she fought that pull with all her might. Instead she shook her head and kept staring at the ground. Surely, if she did this long enough he would just go. Where were her ruby fucking slippers to wish herself back home?

  "Fine, have it your way. Just stay out of the forest." With one last searching look, whose scorching intensity sent Emmi's body aflame with unwanted desire, Cole left. There was a rush of air, and then the ground shook as he bounded away in his bear form. Seconds later his roar joined the howl of a wolf, and Emmi ran back into the caravan and slammed the door
shut.

  How long she sat huddled into a corner, rocking to and fro, with tears streaming down her face she would never be able to recall later, but eventually, Emmi went in search of her dress. With her underwear ruined she simply pulled the dress over her head, slipped on her sandals, and grabbed the keys to Cole's truck.

  The monstrous old thing stood winking at her, or so it seemed. Emmi had never driven a truck before, but how hard could it be?

  She had to get away from here, and the only way she'd achieve this was in Cole's truck. The engine roared into life with surprising ease, and after much gear crunching and jerking about she got the thing to move. Every bone in her body jarred, and her leftover bruises from their last passionate encounter seemed multiplied tenfold. Every pothole she hit sent darts of pain from her sore ass along the whole of her body, yet Emmi grit her teeth and kept going.

  When she emerged at the bottom of the mountain path and found the main road, Emmi floored it. The sat-nav on her phone said to head west to the nearest big town away from Creek Fells, and that's exactly what she was going to do.

  The huge tires ate up the road, and it was only when Emmi hit the outskirts of civilization that she stopped the truck and let the tears fall again.

  Chapter Nine

  London, England, Six weeks later

  Emmi stared at the little plastic stick until she couldn't focus on that blasted line anymore and put the test down on the bathroom counter next to its seven predecessors.

  Pregnant!

  How in the hell did this happen? The room spun, and Emmi grabbed the sink for support as the enormity of the situation started to sink in. She was pregnant. Right now, under the protective hand she'd put on her lower tummy without even realizing it, she was growing a baby … or a cub. What the hell would it be? Human or bear, or some horrible mutation in between?