Dara took a sip. “I’m thirsty.”
Dennis looked from her to Jasmine. “Me too.”
He took a sip as well.
“Come on guys,” Jasmine said. “You’re not gonna let him boss us around, are you?”
Dennis shrugged. “Look, I don’t even care. I get we all had a bit of a scare back there. But maybe Jake is right. Maybe we are being … wimps.”
“Ooh, there’s something I wanted to show you in the cabin,” Dara said. “Follow me.”
The invitation was for Dennis only.
She grabbed his wrist and led him away from Jasmine.
As she did so, Jake emerged from the house. His eyes focused on Jasmine. He started walking over.
“Need a hand with that drink?”
“No.” Jasmine cracked the lid. “I’m fine thanks.”
He stopped in front of her. Looked her up and down.
Stared at her tits briefly.
Jasmine shuddered and took a sip.
“I’m gonna get him, you know,” Jake said.
“Get who?”
“That fucking grizzly. Fucking scare my friends? Shit.”
“Well, what are you –?”
“You see that lake there,” Jake said, pointing.
Jasmine could see it.
“You follow that south for long enough, and eventually you’ll see it’s connected to the same river we found our body at. I’m willing to bet, if I kept going down there, I’ll find that son of a bitch.”
“It would take hours to walk back to where we were,” Jasmine said softly.
“Well,” Jake said, taking a drink from his can, “hopefully the bear will meet us halfway.”
CHAPTER ELEVEN
The day wore on. An old gas barbeque on wheels was pushed outside the cabin, and a number of deckchairs were set up so they could sit in the shade and enjoy what was left of the day. It was still a while away from nightfall, but it didn’t seem as though they were going back home today. Dara appeared to be completely over her scare. She spent a full hour and a half on the phone to one of her friends, talking about what had happened, before the discussion seemed to evolve into which guy the friend should hook up with tonight. So business as usual.
Jasmine sat with them all, and continued to drink, even though she wasn’t at all comfortable. One huge problem she realized, beyond all the other shit had happened, was that she didn’t have any real friends here. Before today, Dara and Jake were strangers, and her brother Dennis, just wasn’t the most reliable of sorts. She knew if her friends were here, they would tell her to be strong, and to see it through. Everyone had flaws, and everyone tries to do their best in spite of them. She told herself that she should just put her hang-ups away and make an effort when there was an effort to be made.
At one point, she was sitting next to Dennis.
“I’m sorry,” he said to her.
She was surprised. “About us still being here?”
“I know you wanted to go,” he admitted. “What happened before was insane.”
“Well, thanks for saying that at least.”
“I know you’re not really getting along with Dara on Jake –”
“Hey,” Jasmine hissed, “they’ll hear you –”
“But I just wanted to say I really appreciate what you’re doing for me here. It means a lot.”
Jasmine smiled. “You really like Dara, huh?”
Dennis laughed. “We’re still new. I know … I like parts of her.”
“You mean you like to shag her?”
“We haven’t … as yet…”
“Oh gees. And you think tonight’s going to be the night?”
“I don’t know,” Dennis shrugged.
“Are you guys even in a relationship? She’s always on the phone.”
“Yeah. Hopefully the battery goes dead.”
Good talk, Dennis. Jasmine had now confirmed his keen intent on having a night to remember with his new girlfriend, and somehow she played a part in that. At least he had the decency to appreciate her being here though.
Dennis got up and went looking for Jake. He was just inside the cabin.
“Hey,” Dennis said, still standing outside. “Do we want to get some of these hamburgers on or what?”
Jake stepped out of the cabin. He was wearing a pair of sunglasses, and his hunter’s cap.
He had his rifle beside him.
“Maybe wait a bit,” Jake said. “I’m going for a walk.”
“Umm…”
Jake walked past Dennis and started heading towards the lake.
“Umm…”
Jasmine stood up. “He’s going after the bear.”
Dennis turned, biting his lip. “I’ll … I’ll go talk to him.”
Dennis hurried over to where Jake was walking, and entered a conversation with him.
Jasmine watched from a safe distance.
As the image of the two boys became smaller and smaller, her eyes fell away. She took a deep breath and reached into cooler for another drink. She took it and then walked back to her chair.
Suddenly … she heard a noise. A heavy rustling in the bushes behind her.
Jasmine stepped away from the chair and moved in the direction the noise had come from.
“Who’s there?” she asked. “Dara?”
Silence.
Ever so faintly, she could hear Dara talking on the phone inside the cabin.
Jasmine’s eyes darted around the trees, still searching for the what had caused the noise.
Nothing.
Jasmine wiped her forehead and moved back to the seating area. She looked out to the lake again in search for Dennis and Jake’s return.
What she saw blew her mind.
CHAPTER TWELVE
CRACK.
The sound of Jake’s rifle discharging, before he was swallowed by the stampede.
Dennis was ahead of it, running as fast as he could. “GET INSIDE!” he shouted.
The leaves were rustling even louder now. Jasmine turned and saw the emergence of several bears swarming around her.
She gave a yelp of panic and then fled to the cabin.
Before closing the door, she saw Dennis wasn’t going to make it. The bears chasing him had almost caught up and the bears chasing Jasmine were already at the cabin’s door.
She locked it, bolted it, and then stepped away, her hands in the air.
Dara moved in behind her.
“What the fuck is going on?” she whispered.
“It’s the bears,” Jasmine whispered.
“Bears?”
One of them came to the window directly opposite them. His face pressed against the glass, looking in.
“Oh shit,” Dara exclaimed. “He can see us.”
The bear moved its head back and then took a gigantic swing at the window with its paw, causing the whole thing to shatter.
Jasmine and Dara screamed, and then they ran into the kitchen and backed up against the wall.
“Did you see how many there are?” Dara gasped.
Jasmine nodded.
“Where’s Jake? Where’s Dennis?”
Out there, Jasmine mouthed.
As they both listened, Dennis’s faint cries for mercy could be heard.
Dara grabbed Jasmine’s wrist. “What are we going to do?”
Rap, rap, rap.
A knock at the cabin’s door.
“Is that the bears knocking?” Dara asked.
Jasmine frowned. “Couldn’t be.”
Rap, rap, rap.
Still holding Jasmine’s wrist, Dara led her just outside the kitchen. They looked at each other a moment.
“Who is there?” Jasmine called out in a quiet voice.
“Thunder Brad,” the reply came back.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Both their heads jerked back with surprise. Finding the next words were even harder than ones that came before. “What are you doing here, Thunder Brad?”
“If you don’t want us to hurt your two friend
s here, you best come out now. It’s your only chance.”
Jasmine walked towards the door. Dara tried to keep hold of her, but Jasmine shook her away.
She stood directly in front of it.
“You’re not going to hurt us, are you?”
Silence.
Jasmine couldn’t make head to tail of what was happening out there. Why weren’t the bears attacking Thunder Brad? Had he scared them away?
Jasmine’s fingers began to slowly unlock and unbolt the door.
“Jesus Christ,” Dara said, and ran from the room.
Snap.
The door opened slowly. Jasmine peered out at Thunder Brad through the crack.
“We have your friends,” Thunder Brad repeated. “This needs to be sorted out.”
He pushed the door open and put his arm around Jasmine then he led her up towards the lake.
Two bears were bounding over as they walked. Jasmine could hardly walk on their approach. She could feel her heartbeat echoing through her chest.
“One more,” Thunder Brad said to them.
Jasmine turned her slightly and saw that as they moved past her and Brad, the bears shifted into men who went on to enter the cabin.
“You’re shifters,” Jasmine exclaimed. “Oh my gosh.”
“You know about us, do you?” Brad replied.
“Well, not of you exactly. Not of bears. I’ve just had some experiences in the past … that’s all…”
“You seem relieved.”
“I thought there were real bears. I thought we were all going to die.”
“We are real bears,” Thunder Brad said.
On the grass just before the lake, the tribe of bears had gathered. Both Jake and Dennis were on the ground in front of them. Jake had taken a very serious blow to his face, causing a dark cut which was bleeding fluently.
Thunder Brad threw Jasmine onto the ground with them.
She looked up, pleadingly. “What are you doing to us?”
They waited until Dara was brought to the centre with them, kicking and screaming. Upon her approach, Brad backhanded her face and said, “One more squeal out of you and it will be your last.”
She was dumped on the ground next to Jasmine.
“We bears are peaceful creatures,” Brad announced to the group. “But due to our extraordinary nature of being part beast, and part man, it makes sense for us to be secluded from the world.”
He moved around the circle and brushed in with the bears standing behind the group. When he resurface he had Jake’s rifle in his hand.
“Hunting is prohibited in this area. Now, perhaps if this was an accidental case of self defense, then maybe, maybe we could let this go. But the callousness today, the cold, wicked nature of this young man has proven that restitution is required.”
Jake gave out a groan. He appeared to be rising from unconsciousness.
The two men who had taken Dara from the cabin now moved to bring Jake up to his knees. They held him place while Brad moved a few yards from him.
When he turned, the rifle in his hand was aimed at Jake’s head.
Jake’s eyes fluttered. He stared at Brad disbelievingly.
“I…” he began. “I don’t think –”
CRACK.
The rifle fired a deafening explosion and struck Jake with a bullet right between the eyes. His body slumped, then crumbled. Brad walked over him.
Dara started screaming: “You bastard! You bastard! You bastard!”
The two men then ran to her and held their hands of her mouth as she pointlessly struggled. Only when she appeared to have descended into a silent mass of tears, did they release her.
Brad stooped over Jake’s body and took a small knife from his pocket. Jasmine watched as he pushed the blade right into Jake’s nose and proceeded to hack it off.
Although it was sickening, Jasmine understood the message.
Brad threw the nose away into the grass.
Then he pointed the blade at the remaining three.
“The bear he killed,” Brad said, “she was my wife and queen of our tribe. If you wish to live, one of you females, will be required to fill in her stead.”
There was a long pause.
Jasmine and the others were waiting for more.
When more didn’t come she said, “I don’t think we understand.”
Brad knelt down on his knees so they were at eye level. He planted the knife into the grass beside them.
“Two of you may go now, and never come back. If you do return, with or without the authorities, I promise you, we will hunt you and your families as you are so adept at hunting us.”
“Okay,” Dennis said. “Okay, we’ll go.”
“One of the girls stays with us. She never gets to go back.”
“Is that absolutely necessary?” Dennis asked. “Jake was the one who killed … your wife. We were just with him. We had nothing to do with it.”
Thunder Brad’s mouth went wide, exposing his teeth.
The bears around them started to growl.
“Uh … sorry…” Dennis murmured. “So … very sorry…”
Thunder Brad looked to Dara and then to Jasmine.
“Which one of you will it be?”
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Jasmine knew at once it would be her. Not only because she wouldn’t hide behind the sniveling Dara who had just lost her brother, but also because she knew it to be her destiny. It had been a strange day for sure. But perhaps there was no moment stranger than the moment she had first laid eyes on Thunder Brad across the riverbed. She knew he had felt it too. There was an unparalleled force between them, almost like a magnetic field. An energy. Right or wrong, better or worse, this was clearly the beginning of Jasmine’s adventure.
As she thought all this, it was as though Thunder Brad could read her mind. She could tell just by the look on his face, that he also knew she was the one to be his. What that would entail, Jasmine could only contemplate and imagine.
She stood from her place. The bears’s eyes followed her as she did so.
With one hand on Dennis’s back, and one hand on Dara’s, Jasmine said, “Take me. I am yours.”
Thunder Brad immediately reached out and pulled her into his chest. With her held in place against him, he signaled to the two men to pull Dennis and Dara up off the ground. Once they were on their feet they were pushed to run in the direction of the cabin.
“Don’t come back!” Thunder Brad shouted at them. “Don’t ever, ever come back!”
That was the last Jasmine saw of them. Running away.
The two men morphed into their bear forms, and then Thunder Brad morphed into his bear.
Not only was he the same bear that had attacked their car earlier, but he was also by far the largest of all the bears here.
As Brad allowed her to climb on top of him, and ride with the rest of the bears back into the forest, Jasmine found herself thinking about the bear Jake had killed. Brad had described her as not only being his wife, but also the queen of the tribe.
Jasmine realized that if that was true, it could only mean one thing.
Brad was king.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
There was a fork in the river ahead of them. Some of the bears went one way, the rest went the other. They were beginning to branch out. Go their separate ways. Jasmine didn’t completely understand it. Perhaps because nothing was said between the tribe. They just knew now was the time to go back … to wherever they’d individually come from.
After half an hour had passed, they’d lost sight of all other bears completely. They were still following one part of the river and from where they were Jasmine could see the immersion of mountains on the horizon.
The sun was so big. It went from yellow to orange to pink. The day was dying. They eventually left the river behind them and moved out to another path into the forest. Just Jasmine and Brad alone out here. And he was going to be able to do whatever he wanted with her. Anything at all.
F
or some reason, the concept of escape, had not even entered Jasmine’s mind…
Between the trunks of two gigantic trees which reached towards the sky further than Jasmine could see, there was the hidden opening of the cave. Inside, along the walls, there were several small cylinder torches, each with a blue flame burning behind the glass. This gave the walls of the cave a glowing effect. Almost as though, the cave itself was alive…
Eventually the pathway pandered out into the shape of a small cavern. There wasn’t anything on the ground. No objects, food, or bedding. It was completely bare.
Brad bowed his head and Jasmine slid off his side. Brad then shifted into human form.
He was shirtless.
As he had been when they’d first seen each other.
Jasmine backed away from him, until she was against the wall.
“I loved my wife,” Thunder Brad said. “But now that you’re here, I want you to know I will hide that sadness from you. And I won’t blame you for what your friend has done.”
Jasmine opened her mouth. She had to force her words.
“Then … then why have you … brought me here?”
“I meant to say to you that I won’t look down on you because of that. I won’t treat you badly. As long as you fulfill your duty to me, I will fulfill my duty to you.”
Jasmine clasped her hands together. “I don’t know what any of that is.”
Brad’s dark eyes burrowed into her. “Do you find me attractive? In a lustful, animalistic sense?”
“Oh,” Jasmine said, her mouth hanging in shock. “What a question.”
“I looked at you and knew it when I first saw you. I felt as though I knew you. That I’d dreamed about you. In bear culture, we believe in things like destiny.”
“But…” Jasmine mumbled, as he inched closer, “what does that mean for your wife?”
“She met with the world’s evil. Evil will always spill the blood of innocents. Our job, in service to the earth, is to combat those evils. Wherever they may be.”
He’d stopped clear of touching her, but his scent was rapid. Jasmine couldn’t explain it. She was involuntarily getting turned on like crazy.
Worshiped By The Bear Kings: Part One Page 3
