Bear Fursuits Books 1-4: Bear Fursuits

by Montrose, Isadora

  “Close enough to do some damage,” Winnie had declared cheerfully, inspecting her bullet pattern. But Jack was arming her to shoot people. Whoa.

  “Stay up here. Climb out and sit on your branch. Brace your feet so your legs don’t go numb. Don’t shoot unless they see you. I’ll come back for you as soon as I can.” He kissed her swiftly and waited until she had crawled into position. He handed her the rifle, indicating that the safety was off.

  Hannah did as he had ordered. Yes, ordered. She had caught his sense of peril and urgency and arguing didn’t even occur to her.

  Jack climbed down and got the fleece blanket. He brought it and wrapped it around her shoulders. “Camo,” he mouthed. Hannah realized that the dark green and grey plaid would hide her bare arms and yellow tee shirt. He pulled out his satellite phone and deactivated the sound. He sent a swift, short text to his dad and his brothers.

  He kissed her again, fast and hard, and left. How could such a big man move so quietly? He stopped at the foot of the tree and scrambled in the dirt. What was he doing? It was hard to see through the leaves, but when she glimpsed him again, his arms were streaked with mud and so was his face and his jeans were dirty.

  What was going on? Was this weird behavior some sort of PTSD because of his ordeal in Uzbekistan? Everything inside her was screaming to stay still and keep watch as if his behavior was perfectly normal. Was this what listening to your bear felt like?

  Jack tracked the men without much difficulty. Those SOBs were going to regret bringing guns onto Enright land. He unsnapped the sheath that secured his knife on his belt. He could feel the smaller knife on his ankle. Maybe it was overkill, but he had spent his entire adulthood preparing for combat. He felt naked without a weapon. Too bad he didn’t have a gun, but he couldn’t have left Hannah defenseless.

  He was close enough now that he could hear the heavy breathing of the two men. Definitely Dobronravov and Alyokin. They murmured to one another continuously. Good. That would use up their wind. They moved clumsily through the undergrowth, seemingly unable to find the tracks that the animals used. Good. They were navigating by compass. They were noisy. They were inexperienced. And they were about to face the massed rage of shifters defending their land and their families.

  He realized that since they were navigating by compass that they would shortly be walking into the bog that lay between them and the big house. It wasn’t on any map. Every spring that he could recall, elk had to be hauled out when they got trapped in the morass of mud and vegetation. Once their big bodies were stuck they would flounder until they died of exhaustion or drowning.

  Jack kept as close as he dared. He texted his plan to his father. Alyokin stopped and argued with Dobronravov who responded angrily. The mosquitoes were getting fierce this close to the wetlands and Alyokin obviously wanted to go a different way. Good. Dobronravov hated any challenge to his leadership. He cuffed Alyokin and they trudged on, even as the ground became soft. They were too absorbed in their quarrel to notice how much deeper they sank with each step.

  Jack stopped. He put his knives high up in the branches of a Douglass fir. He began to strip, piling his clothes behind a stand of spindly larches. He shifted. Stealthily he began to stalk the Russians on his giant padded paws, carefully keeping to the high ground. His unwary prey selected the open areas where the quagmire lurked invisibly.

  They were carrying their semis over their shoulders, not expecting trouble even though they were approaching with hostile intentions. Arrogant bastards. Jack thought he could risk stampeding them now. They would have to choose between stopping and aiming their weapons or ducking behind the little clump of bushes directly in front of them. They were unlikely to realize this offered no defense against a bear. And clearly they didn’t know it was growing in the middle of a bog.

  He gave the deepest, loudest, throatiest moan his bear was capable of. Black bears sadly lack the vocal capacity to growl as wolves do, but Jack knew what would sound scary. The Russians seemed to think his guttural noises were terrifying. They looked around uneasily. He briefly showed himself standing on his hind legs, and they raced toward the spurious protection of the bushes. He backed away and circled back to his clothes, shifted, dressed, armed himself and headed for his clan.

  He could hear the Russians panicking as they sank helplessly into the sucking morass. Good, flailing would make them sink faster. They would use their guns to get a purchase and foul them. Their spare clips would be rendered useless by wet and mud.

  His family was where he had told them to gather. The old saw mill was made of fieldstone three feet thick. Although it had been derelict for a hundred years, its walls were still substantial enough to shelter the eight grinning shifters gathered behind them. It was a male bear shifter dirty secret: they liked a fight and nothing else gave quite the same rush as defending your mate and cubs. Go figure.

  His father and Tom had come and had brought two of his mother’s cousins and four of their teenage sons. Tom handed his binoculars to his younger cousin Roman, and gestured him up a tree to spy on the Russians. “Tell us,” he instructed the younger man, “When they have lost their weapons.”

  The other men all nodded. No one mentioned that this risked the men drowning. Jack knew he was ready to take a bullet for Hannah, but not if he didn’t have to. Roman took Tom’s binoculars and vanished silently into the forest. In the distance, the Russians began screaming. Yury and Mikhail, who had come to America straight from a Russian gulag, smiled terribly.

  “Where’s Mom,” Jack asked in his flat combat voice.

  “Down cellar with Uncle Vanya and Klara at the big house. All the women and kids are below grade. Stephan and Cosmo are standing guard at the office. Sam is with Lucy and Millie and the kids.” Tom reported. “Yury’s family are all at his place.”

  “Who are these jokers?” demanded Edward Enright. “And what do they want?”

  “Russians from Leskov’s crew,” Jack said. “As for what they want.” He shrugged. “Me dead? A lead on Leskov? Your guess is as good as mine.”

  “They came armed on our land,” said Ed. Gone was the genial host and indulgent Grandpa. “Trespass is a deadly sin in these parts.” The others nodded.

  “Uncle Ed,” said Gregory softly. “Do we get to kill them?”

  Ed clapped the gangling youth on his shoulder and shook his head. “That is what they deserve. But it would not be wise. We need to interrogate them before we decide what to do.” He turned to Jack. “Where is Hannah?”

  “Up the oak, above the tree house. I have to go get her.”

  “We’ll pull them out and bring them here.” Ed said. “I think Yury and Mikhail should ask them a few questions. The rest of you can shift, fan out and back track them. To see where they came from and if they have companions. Report here to me.

  “Greg, I want you to watch Jack’s back.”

  “I think if we leave them, we won’t have to decide what to do with them,” Roman said as he slipped back to the group. “They’re up to here. He pointed to his biceps. “ Only one arm each. They lost their rifles trying to use them to get leverage.”

  “Go get your Hannah,” said Uncle Yury cheerfully, showing all his yellow teeth. “We can deal with these bandits.”

  Jack set off as quickly as he could back to the tree house. Twilight was falling and he didn’t want to have to wrangle Hannah down the tree in full dark if he didn’t have to. And when night came these woods would be dark. He wasn’t sure how happy her bear would be in the forest then.

  She was where he had left her. She had draped the blanket so that her face and arms were fully concealed. She was a dark blob amongst the leaves. She flung the blanket aside when he called up to her.

  “Stay put, sweetheart, I’ll come up.” He swarmed up the tree and took the blanket and rifle.

  “Did you catch them?” she asked.

  “More or less. They’re stuck in the slough. The others are pulling them out. Let’s get you home. Wait here until I
’m on the platform, then come down.” His bear was telling him the immediate danger was past, but there was always the possibility that Dobronravov and Alyokin had not been alone.

  He handed Hannah the penlight from his pocket. “Keep it on the ground in front of you,” he instructed her. He handed her the cooler and held his rifle ready for use. “Walk before me, I’ll cover your back.”

  Hannah looked startled but she didn’t argue, she just aimed the narrow beam at the ground looking for the notches he had shown her that morning. He could barely hear the bear who was shadowing them. Gregory’s skills were improving. But Jack still stayed on high alert. He needed to know Hannah was safely down stowed before he could relax his vigilance.

  Hannah set a brisk pace for a city girl. His little bear was full of surprises. I’m better with a crossbow, indeed.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  HANNAH FELT AS IF she had fallen down a rabbit hole and wound up in some alternative universe. Jack’s uncles Yury and Mikhail were drinking vodka with Jack and his father and arguing fiercely as they wolfed down Katrina’s goulash. All four men were slightly grubby except for their faces and hands. Their hair was stiff with dried sweat and their clothes streaked with dried mud.

  “You ask me,” said Mikhail for the twentieth time, “We should’ve put them back in the slough. They come on our land with guns to shoot our children.”

  “Is too late, Misha,” Yury told him sadly as he refilled their glasses. “Already, Jack’s friends take them away.” Yury drank and belched politely. “Is good supper,” he told Katrina with a little bow.

  Hannah already knew that Jack had arranged for some unnamed security agency to deal with the Russians. He was sitting looking big and impassive and listening appreciatively as Yury and Mikhail belatedly thought up methods for dealing with their trespassers. He winked at her.

  “The EMS had to take them away to receive medical attention for bilateral periorbital ecchymoses and hypothermia,” Jack said piously. He looked accusingly at his uncles. “Someone seemed to have blacked their eyes and then thrown cold water on them.”

  Yury hit his chest proudly. “I save from bog,” he said. “I wash. Maybe we a little bit rough with those boys.” He grinned.

  Katrina signaled Hannah to get up. “You are tired,” she informed her. “These men will talk until dawn. You go to bed.” She gave the younger woman a little push toward the staircase.

  Hannah was glad to go. After spending three hours in what Katrina called her root cellar, but was clearly some sort of bunker, she had been growing increasingly worried. Not that her companions shared her anxiety. The four of them sat around a scruffy folding table playing poker. Periodically Katrina opened another jar of herring or cherries from her shelves and Vanya poured more shots of vodka. Klara cut bread from a giant oval of rye. Hannah had been shown the bathroom in the corner, and handed a bottle of water on her return.

  If it had not been for the fact that Vanya had greeted her and Jack with a pistol in his hand, she might have thought that this was some sort of poker party. Katrina dealt the cards briskly, cheerfully accused Vanya of cheating and forbade him to play for money. Klara lost her pile of matchsticks to Hannah and then won them all back in a series of bluffs unexpected in a rosy cheeked, white haired, flowered-aproned babushka.

  The outside world might have vanished, until the door cracked and Ed spoke. “All clear.”

  Even then, Vanya had wanted to finish playing the hand he had dealt and Katrina and Klara had behaved as if that were the most normal thing. Supper with the uncles had been too much information. It was past time for bed.

  She was wrung out emotionally she decided as she was braiding her wet hair. This had to have been the longest day of her life. Jack had asked her to marry him and she was pretty sure he hadn’t accepted her refusal. Or had he? They had picnicked and she had been sure the strawberries were a prelude to seduction. Only he had just fallen asleep on her lap.

  Of course, the armed intruders had put a crimp in whatever plans Jack had had. She had spent ages perched in the oak watching and worrying before Jack came for her. He hadn’t bothered to explain--just escorted her home. Herded her really. She had felt his alertness as a living thing hurrying her along. She knew that he was primarily concerned for her safety even though he didn’t speak or look at her. Just as she knew the bear padding beside them was one of his cousins. Was this her inner bear speaking?

  One thing had been made clear to her today. She loved her mate. Waiting for the sound of his death at the hands of those hunters had been excruciating. She didn’t doubt that she had been in peril. From the things Yury and Mikhail had said, and the things Jack had not, she was sure those men would have killed her or anyone else that stood between them and Jack. But at the same time she had felt safe, confident that Jack would protect her. Which was some crazy logic.

  What would she have done if he had died today? How would she have felt? It was time to admit that she had forgiven him days ago and had merely been holding out for roses and hearts. She was always sensible and it was time to be sensible. She opened the drawers of the little brown dresser and began folding her clothes into her suitcase.

  Jack was kissing his mother goodnight when she came down the stairs with her suitcase in her hand. He looked up furious. “Where are you going?” he demanded.

  “Home. Are you done? Goodnight, Ed, Uncle Yury, Uncle Mikhail. Goodnight, Katrina.” Katrina kissed her on both cheeks.

  “Huh.” Jack took the case out of her hand. “We’ll have to walk, I left the car at my place.”

  He didn’t know why she had come downstairs. He didn’t know why she was walking beside him in the cool spring air with the full moon shining down on them. It didn’t matter. She was coming home with him. It was just too bad he had been matching those old Ukrainian topers shot for shot. He was drunk. Well, shoot and damn.

  “I’ll need a shower,” he said as they went up the stairs to the sleeping loft. He didn’t even turn on the light because the moon was shining through the sliders.

  Hannah flicked the switch and then stared at the room. The austere red and grey blanket had been replaced with a puffy down comforter in a cover designed to look like a wedding ring quilt. Gold and white cushions were propped in front of his plain white pillows. Gold and white ribbons dripped from the log headboard. Red roses were massed in a tin jug that stood on a milking stool beside the window.

  Soft caramel colored rugs occupied the space on either side of the bed. There were golden California shutters on either side of the windows. The TV was gone and the Ethan Allen dresser she had admired online with Katrina stood against the wall it had occupied. She opened the top drawer. Empty. She bit her lip. He had done this to please her.

  “Do you like it?”

  She turned. He was damp and wore a towel and there were flecks of toothpaste on his lips. His five o’clock shadow was gone. “It’s beautiful,” she assured him.

  He nodded as if satisfied. “Are you going to unpack?”

  “Just my nightgown and toothbrush.”

  He went back into the bathroom to hang up his towel, edges aligned and seams facing each other. Apparently the Marine way. She stood at the sink brushing her teeth and looked sideways at her lover. His bruises were still yellow. He still looked like he had lost a fight. And his cock was ready for her. Time to rinse and spit.

  “I don’t think you need a gown,” he rumbled. He began to undo her braid and run his fingers through the damp ringlets. “Let’s get you naked.”

  That was his idea of romantic? Except that apparently romance was overhyped because his rough words made her womb contract and her passage grow moist. She grabbed his hand and tugged him towards the bed.

  He opened the windows so cool moist air filled their bedroom. “Do you mind?” he asked. “I can’t seem to get enough Hanover air?” He tugged one of the red roses out of the jug and brought it to the bed twirling it gently between his big fingers.

  She was undoing he
r jeans and he stopped her with a kiss. “Let me.” He tossed the rose on the bed and smoothed jeans and panties down her legs, pushing her gently so she sat down beside the rose. He pulled the jeans off and stripped away her socks. His big hand played with her midriff as if learning her curves before he pulled her sweater over her head and revealed her pink lace bra.

  “You are so beautiful.” He bent his head to kiss her neck and breasts where the pale violet shadows of love bites still bloomed on her delicate skin. “I marked you,” he said. “I’m sorry.” He kissed her again. His words were an apology, his tone was jubilant.

  He undid the strap of her bra and removed it so he could hold the soft weight of her breasts cupped in his hands. He let them bounce gently in his palms and sighed happily. He rubbed the coral tips lightly and bent to take them into his mouth. Hannah’s head went back as she felt the first delicious suction of lips and tongue and the excruciating pleasure of his teeth grazing her tender nipples.

  He tossed the gold and white cushions to the floor and picked her up so she lay against the pillows. He used the rose to caress her breasts, lightly running the velvety petals over her alabaster skin. He dabbed the center on her tightly furled nipples. It felt like a promise. He moved the rose down the soft swell of her belly to her muff and swirled the flower over her flower. She opened her legs encouragingly and he tickled her labia and bud with the rose until she squirmed.

  He gave the bloom in his hand a deep sniff. “It smells of you,” he told her huskily as he pulled the petals off and arranged them on her belly. His breath ruffled her skin as he snuffled around her naval.

  “Are you eating those?” She giggled.

  “They taste of you.” He fluffed her muff with his fingers and tasted her juices again. “Are you ready?” he asked. “Not yet,” he informed her. “But soon.”

  He kissed her vulva open mouthed so that her legs reflexively tried to trap his head. He laughed a little and she felt the huffing as a caress. Her bud was tight and straining and still he had barely begun to lap. Her hips were making little circles to entice his kisses and all at once he was there, sucking her clitoris hard. She spasmed and he laughed delightedly before beginning to lap up her cream. His tongue went round and round and in and out of her slick depths.