Jools laughed her deep chuckling laugh. She slapped her knees and buffeted Winnie on her broad shoulder. Winnie started to laugh too.
“I don’t see what’s so funny,” grumbled Hannah.
“This year for sure,” said Winnie in her kindest voice, trying hard to stop chortling.
“How do you know?”
“We can smell your heat coming on,” said Jools and Winnie in unison. “Girl, every time we see you, you smell more delicious. Even the boys have noticed.”
Hannah blushed. She thought of Art, Caleb and Jacob as brothers. Had they really been smelling her and commenting to their mothers?
“How come I didn’t last year?”
“We think your bear was a little young. Mostly shifters have their first shifts when they are teenagers. And then two to three years later, their first heats, if they’re female. We figure you lacked the normal environmental triggers from your mother’s breast milk and sweat. So your bear was latent until you had sex with a shifter,” Winnie explained. “No way to be sure really, with you not knowing anything about your birth family.”
“Twenty-six is late for first shift. But now you’re coming into your first heat, two years after first shift. It’s right on time. And you gotta prepare for it,” Jools added.
“I’m on the pill,” Hannah blurted.
“As if,” snorted Jools. “Nothing will override your inner sow in mating season. If you have sex with a bear when you’re in heat, you’ll catch for sure.”
“What Jools is trying to say,” said Winnie glaring at her partner, “Is that you have to stay away from boar bears when you’re in heat, unless you want to get pregnant.”
“Well, I do,” said Hannah stubbornly.
“Wait till you find a mate,” said Winnie just as stubbornly.
Hannah shook her head and set her long black curls bouncing. “I just don’t seem to be that interested in sex anymore. Are you sure Jack wasn’t my mate? Because it sure feels like he was.” Her big brown eyes filled with helpless tears as she thought of her erstwhile lover. If only she had known she was a shifter when she met him, she might have been prepared for the emotional ruckus of being mated and abandoned.
Winnie gathered Hannah against her large bosom. “Ah honey,” she said, patting the younger woman on the back. “If you go into shifter bars, you’re gonna get your heart broken.”
“But why can’t I move on?” Hannah sobbed. She blotted her tears on Winnie’s shoulder and sniffed. “It’s been over two years and I still dream about him. I don’t want to have sex with anyone else.”
Jools hovered over them both uncertain what to say, they had been down this road many times since the rainy day they had discovered a half-grown cub stumbling around their campsite. “I think your feelings are just real intense because he triggered your shift,” she finally said.
“But if you were truly mated he’d have stuck. That’s just how shifter mating dynamics work. Once you’re mated it’s forever. So either he’s dead or he wasn’t the one. Either way you gotta move on, girl.”
“Bachelor boar bears are boors,” Winnie told her. “Fucking boors. You’ve been done by a bachelor boor. No point in dwelling on it. He’s not the one. He was just your trigger.”
“You should go back to the Trap and troll for bear. You’ll see. One boar there is much like another,” Jools advised her.
“Juliet Malcom.” Winnie was shocked.
Hannah sighed. “Want to know the most ironic thing?” she asked.
“What?” said Jools obligingly.
“I went to the wrong bar!”
“Not The Bear Trap?”
“Charlene wanted to meet me at The B-e-e-r Trap, which is clear over in Pioneer Square. Cabbie must have heard me wrong. He took me into Belltown.” Hannah sighed and took a pull of her beer. “If it hadn’t been raining I’d have noticed.”
“And you might have gone through life wondering why you never met anyone who turned your crank,” said Jools firmly. “Getting triggered was the best thing that ever happened to you, Han. And don’t you forget it. Coming into your true nature is a cause for celebration.”
“You got that right,” said Winnie.
CHAPTER FIVE
JACK CLIMBED INTO HIS rental SUV and drove away from the Pentagon. He looked at the clock on the dash and wondered if he would make Dulles in time to make the 15:15 flight to Seattle. He was booked on the 16:15 but he was eager to be on his way. It had taken him eleven long months to get this close to home.
He had spent nearly seven months getting to Tashkent. By the time he reached the US Embassy it was January. And then the red tape began to snarl. No one was glad to see him. No one wanted to hear his report. He had been treated more like a fucking terrorist than a returning hero.
It was now mid-May and he had been stateside for six weeks and this was the first day that he had been permitted to call home. He had promised his ecstatic mom that he would be in Hanover soon. But first he had to reclaim his mate. Hannah had been two years and a half years without him. And it was shifter mating season.
He had found her Facebook account and seen no sign that she wasn’t still single. No babies either. He was not sure whether that was good or bad. It might have been nice to come back to kids. Certainly it would’ve pleased his parents. But the important thing was to reclaim his mate before she decided to look for a new husband.
Jack figured he had some explaining to do. Not just the fact that his six week mission had turned into a thirty month absence, but that he had given her his undercover name instead of his own. He did not doubt that she would be pissed, but he knew that they were well and truly mated. Nothing could break a bear bond except death. He wasn’t dead, so all he had to do was woo her. With luck she’d forgive him and they would live happily ever after. He just didn’t feel very lucky after Uzbekistan.
He had had more than two years to fantasize about Hannah’s pillowy thighs and curvaceous hips and butt. She was a walking wet dream, and from the first moment he had spotted her shyly looking around The Bear Trap he had been erect and on point. He loved her breasts when they were displayed in all their glory in a low cut dress; and he loved them when she stuffed them into a boobie mashing bra and put on one of her three button suit jackets to go to work. He could hardly wait to feel their lusciousness overflowing his palms.
He glanced in the mirror. No drool. Drool was not cool. But his Hannah made him drool. He hummed with anticipation to himself as he imagined sinking into her warm, tight depths. Sure she might be mad. But he was the only shifter for her. They were mated for life. For sure he was up for this mission, and he was Marine enough to do the job right.
In the Seattle arrivals lounge he checked Facebook again and saw that his darling girl had gone on a four week camping trip. The hell she had. During mating season? Camping my hairy ass. She was off to the Sanctuary as if she was unbonded, unmated, free. He had never been to the Sanctuary. Enrights didn’t do the mating frenzy. But he had heard bachelor boars talking about it. Boasting.
Had his Hannah been going off to the Sanctuary every mating season? He growled as he shut off his iPad and the people around him moved off hurriedly. The crowd melted before the six foot five man with the hard face and ferocious snarl and he found himself alone at the car rental counter.
In his worst nightmares in Uzbekistan, he had not thought of his Hannah out trolling for bear in the Sanctuary. It had been obvious that first night that whatever had brought her to the shifter bar it was not because she was wild for shifter dick. In fact, although he had realized that she was a shifter and his mate as soon as he got a whiff of her scent, she had been reticent about discussing their bears and they never had.
Maybe if they had had longer together and had each been less busy they would have talked more. It wasn’t that he was not interested in her background, her job and her life, but that it had been well-nigh impossible to keep his bear out of her pants. Every time he got a whiff of her pussy, which was every ti
me she was within twenty feet of him, he could think of nothing but getting inside of her.
If had seemed like a full time occupation making sure she had enough rogering to last her while he went away. And in between times they had had to eat and bathe. And they had both had to go to work and she had had classes at the university.
Of course he wouldn’t have been able to reveal his mission or to tell her that he wasn’t a mercenary but a Marine. Or tell her about his clan in Hanover. So talking wouldn’t have been much use. Whereas eating her honey straight from her sweet little honey pot had given him a lot of good memories. And a lot of fantasies that needed putting into action.
Hannah had been a wild woman in bed, he could just imagine how much more voracious she would be if she was in heat. His father had never discussed his mother’s heats, thank goodness. But it had been apparent from their behavior that even after decades they still couldn’t keep their paws away from each other. Especially in the spring. His big chest vibrated with his mating purr as he drove along the winding Washington State roads into the Kittitas.
CHAPTER SIX
HANNAH PULLED UP TO the gate of the Sanctuary. Twelve foot barbed wire fences topped with angled razor wire seemed ominous rather than reassuring. She lowered her window to speak to the guard. He was a burly man dressed in camo. He sniffed her and smiled.
“First time,” he stated rather than asked.
“Yes.”
“Cabin or communal?”
Hannah gulped and tried not to turn red. “I reserved a cabin,” she said.
He held out a beefy paw and she handed over the form she had printed off the website.
“Undress in the women’s locker room and walk in,” he told her with a leer. He marked up a map and showed her where cabin twenty-seven was.
“Thanks,” she said knowing her face must be bright red. Well, showing up for a mating frenzy was pretty much declaring that you had come to get naked in the woods.
The locker room was full of naked women all looking at each other assessingly. A large sign asked that shifting be done in the woods to conserve space. Every head turned when Hannah walked in, and then pointedly turned away. Hannah found the closest empty locker and opened it. It looked like a locker: rows of hooks, a shelf, a plastic basket containing a large combination lock. A small mirror on the door completed the amenities.
The women on either side of her leaned in to sniff. Evidently what they smelled reassured them because they grinned at her.
“You’re gonna love it here,” the buxom blonde with the black bush on her right said. Only gotta remember that once a couple’s hooked up ya gotta give them space.” She giggled. “No poaching unless you want a bitch fight.”
The redheaded Amazon on her left thrust a pair of 46 G’s in her face and growled, “Do you have a cabin? A cabin’s best if you’re shy.” Apparently a growl was her friendly register.
“I booked a cabin,” Hannah informed her.
The redhead extended a shapely hand tipped with electric blue nails. “Amelia,” she said gruffly.
“Hannah.” Hannah said, and was alarmed to notice how deep her voice had become. She shook hands with Amelia and then with the blonde who introduced herself as Kristy.
“It’s your hormones,” Amelia said. “Being with so many other shifters coming into rut speeds things up. Gotta run before I turn in here!” She ambled out the large door that opened into the woods.
Hannah took off her boots and socks and stowed them. She had dressed for a camping trip and was puzzled to see that most of the other women were dressed for cocktails. She knew she looked a bit boxy in jeans and camp shirt, and that her sports bra, tee shirt and granny panties were functional rather than sexy. Winnie and Jools had said nothing about needing lace and underwire. And anyway this was the style she preferred when she went camping.
She stripped off her clothes and folded them neatly. She hung her overnight bag with her freshing up kit on the hook, looked herself in the eye in the mirror and mentally shrugged. She looked good naked. Her smooth pearly skin glowed with health. Her breasts were large enough to sag slightly without a bra, but their large pink nipples were pretty. Her generous hips showed to advantage when her bottom was bare and the swell of her belly was punctuated by a symmetrical belly button. Thank goodness she was an innie. Her lush thighs swelled above shapely calves and her legs were long and strong. Her bush was neatly trimmed and matched her hair. Her pits and legs freshly shaven.
She looked good enough to eat. But she was about to turn into a bear anyway, so all that grooming was a waste, wasn’t it.
She picked up the map to her cabin and frowned at it. How was she going to follow it if she turned. A hoarse laugh from two lockers over turned into a cough and a deep voice said, “You turn when you get to your cabin.”
“You mean I have to traipse through the woods naked?” she demanded.
“If you want to find that cabin,” said the chuckling voice. “I’m Nancy,” Hannah found herself shaking a plump mocha colored hand tipped with long blood red nails. “It’s a trap for newbies,” she went on. “They rent you a cabin and then get you to prance around in the altogether. Mind you, lots of shifters like to see what they’re getting--human and bear--before they mate.”
“Oh.” Hannah gulped. “So should I put my clothes back on or what?” she asked. No way was she wandering around in her skin in front of a bunch of strange men.
“Shift,” Nancy advised. “Wander around. If you find your cabin, you can turn once you’re inside. The cabins have large numbers on the outside, but they aren’t in any order.”
“Do you have a cabin?”
Nancy nodded. “You betcha. I like my privacy.”
She and her new friend went outside into a pine needle littered space. Nancy immediately and rapidly shifted into a huge black bear with a massive head and giant paws. She sat down on her haunches and looked with satisfaction at Hannah’s smaller bear. Hannah still looked like a sub-adult. Boars preferred their females with a lot more heft and much more fat to sustain a multiple pregnancy. This sow was no competition.
As soon as Hannah shifted the world became more vivid. The colors dimmed it was true, but the scents and sounds of the woods became clearer and more meaningful. She smelled berries and was instantly ravenous. Without stopping to think about her cabin, she set off in search of the salmonberry bushes, irresistibly drawn by their fragrance. When she found the bushes they were covered in fruit and she settled in to eat the clusters of sweet yellow berries and the tender spring shoots. Every mouthful tasted better than the last.
She was annoyed when she was shoved from behind by a large male. She turned snarling prepared to defend her food. But the male was intent on showing off his desirability. He swung his massive black head and opened his mouth to show her gleaming teeth and a long red tongue. His head was covered in ancient white scars, souvenirs of previous matings. Hannah sniffed once and shook her head. This was not the one. She snarled and showed some fang and turned back to her feast.
She was thirsty before she was full and she sniffed the clean, clear air to scent water. She followed her nose to a large stream and walked along the gravel bank to find a good place to enter. Four bears: three males and a coy female were playing on the rocks. When she approached, the males sniffed appreciatively but returned their attention to the first female almost immediately. Hannah did not mind. She sniffed the air but did not find these males as interesting as getting a drink.
She wandered upstream to a still pool and found some trout resting under a log. Dinner taken care of, she ambled out of the stream to investigate the woods. Every path she followed led to bear. Resolutely she sniffed. Nothing. So much for uncontrollable lust. Maybe I should find that cabin? She pictured the map and worked out where her cabin lay in relation to the stream and the women’s hut. The cabin was exactly where she had thought it would be and she felt a smug and clever when she found it.
Number twenty-seven was a small log sha
ck with a cedar shake roof. It stood by itself in a small clearing encroached on by thimbleberry bushes covered in clusters of pale pink unripened berries. A large male stood nibbling at the few red berries amongst the unripe fruit. He stopped as soon as she approached and looked sideways at her. Bingo. This was the one!
This male was the largest she had yet seen. His big black head was unscarred and a deep, rich, glossy black with a bright yellow muzzle and two small golden eye spots above his deep black eyes. He had a large white patch on his massive chest between his huge forearms. And he smelled like sex incarnate.
The male came slowly towards her, head down, nose outstretched and wriggling as he sniffed. He made soft, enticing tongue clicks. Hannah stood stock still and felt a deep happiness settle into her bones. She had found her true mate. She felt as she had done two years ago. Uh oh. Maybe she was at the mercy of her bear hormones after all. Was this just how being in heat felt?
She turned her back on the male and moved in the direction of the open cabin door. She went inside. It contained a rough bed with a bare mattress, a folded red woolen blanket, and a couple of stools. Two screened openings served as windows. There was just room for two bears. She sniffed the air and the scent of old musk filled her nostrils. Yuck. The male came up behind her and nudged her bottom with his head. Hannah spun around and snarled at him. She filled the doorway and dared the big male to come past her.
He backed away, sat down, and shook his head as if bewildered by her skittishness. He made another series of tongue clicks which she found reassuring and deeply arousing. She clicked back at him and looked him over again. She sniffed deeply pulling his scent into her muzzle. His scent had to be the most appealing smell in the whole world.
Out of nowhere a big scarred brown male with a grey muzzle roared into the clearing. He made a series of high pitched vocalizations and charged at the big black who had backed away from the door and turned around to face the brown. The black unhurriedly stood up. He made deep, threatening noises in response to the brown male’s challenge.
Bear Fursuits Books 1-4: Bear Fursuits Page 4
