by Sky Winters
“Do you want to have him on the bed or outside?”
Isabelle looked at him as if he’d gone insane. “Outside?” she asked, breathing steadily. “Where would I have him outside?”
The corners of Devon’s mouth twitched a little bit and then he smiled. “You could have him in the lake… I was born in the lake.”
She looked at him, surprised. “Then… Then why aren’t you the creature from the black lagoon instead?”
Devon laughed. “Because we’re not in a 1950s horror movie. Now tell me what you want.”
Isabelle could tell that he was pulling for the lake. It made sense, if he was born there. She’d never thought about having a water birth. But, then again, she’d never thought about having a birth at all until a few days ago.
“The lake,” she said. “Argh and hurry!”
She clutched his open leather jacket as Devon carried her out the cabin’s back door and slowly walked, with Isabelle in his arms, into the lake. The water was cold enough to send a shocked shiver through his body.
“Be prepared,” he said. When he realized he’d echoed Scar – a Jeremy Irons character – he smirked at Isabelle, but she was a trifle preoccupied at the moment.
She let out a shriek and a squeal as he brought her into the water. He let her down onto the sand and rocks, getting her into the correct position for having a baby. She lay on her back, knees bent, looking up at him as his head was haloed by the stars.
And the moon.
The big, beautiful moon.
Isabelle had never noticed how stunning the moon was when it was full. She imagined that she would have ample reasons to appreciate it now.
Finally, the moment arrived where all Isabelle could do was push and try not to murder Devon. She pushed and shouted and he worked to make sure their baby came out in one piece, with all of his fingers and toes.
“It’s a boy,” he announced, grinning and getting emotional. Somehow, they had already known that. They’d been referring to their baby as a boy all evening.
The baby started to cry as he was brought up from the water and Devon held him so Isabelle could see. “A beautiful boy,” he added.
She was crying, both from the pain of the delivery and the fact that they really had a son now. That had happened. Devon placed the baby into her arms as she sat up in the water, still wearing her black dress, but not caring about how wet it was.
“What do you want to name him?” Devon asked her. “Keep in mind; he’s a shifter so he should have a bad ass name that makes people fear him.”
“Like Devon?” she asked, smirking at him. She looked from the bright moon to her son’s face. “Jericho,” she said, gazing at him lovingly and petting his small face with her fingertips.
That was a name that meant moon city. She’d done her research.
Then, satisfied, she looked back up at him and added, “Jericho Devon Howard.”
Devon knelt beside her, smiling at his girlfriend and their baby. “I like it,” he said. “And I love you.” He kissed her softly, and then kissed Jericho’s head.
“Can I ask you something kind of random?” she asked.
He looked at her as though he was not sure if he should be afraid or not. “Yeah…?”
“When we went out the first time, I was wearing a Jem and the Holograms shirt. Do you even know what that is?”
Devon scoffed at her. “Of course I do. It’s a band, isn’t it?”
Isabelle sighed a little, feeling slightly disappointed. Her feelings were still somewhat valid.
“A band on the show called Jem,” Devon added. He narrowed his eyes at her as she looked at him, pleasantly surprised. “I have the internet, too, you know.”
She let out a laugh and kissed him. He’d passed her silly little test.
THE END
Bear Protector
CHAPTER ONE
ComeShift With Me
“Good riddance!” Sabrina shouted, slamming the door and locking it, even though she knew that no lock could keep a werewolf out for long, especially not one as young and strong as Victor Esparza was. Her now ex-boyfriend was handsome and sexy as hell, with raven hair and piercing blue eyes that were ice when he was angry. He was a terrific lover, but he was too possessive of her. He was half dog, so go figure.
They’d had some great times together, though. Sabrina couldn’t lie: she was going to miss sex with Victor. There was something so much hotter and dangerous about sex with a shifter. Ever since she started dating the werewolf, she hadn’t wanted anything else.
Now that things with him were over, she knew what she did not want, and how to find what she was interested in. She knew that Victor would most likely be back, and she also knew that it would kill him to see her with someone else. As soon as Victor was out of her home and, for all intents and purposes, her life, she went onto the ComeShift dating app and sifted through the thousands of possible mates. Make no mistake, she still wanted a shifter. Sabrina just wanted a shifter who would treat her like she was her own person.
Sabrina hadn’t dated Victor for that long, by normal standards. It had been about a year since she had met him in a bar. The fact that he was a werewolf had been a shock to her at first, but it had turned out to be anything but scary. Breathtaking in a completely great sort of way. She supposed that she should feel worse about things ending, but she didn’t want to be bossed around anymore. She was twenty-three years old and she had a curvy figure, big blue eyes, and long, blonde curls. Why wouldn’t other men want to look at her?
Victor should have been proud, instead of trying to keep her all to himself.
What she decided she needed was a werebear, not a werewolf. Bears were known for being aggressive as well, but they were also known for being more cuddly and fun than werewolves who were all about rules and jealousy.
She checked off what her specifications were, and looked through the results. That was how she found Jacob Priestly. He was a buff guy, with shaggy brown hair and big, brown eyes. His face just begged to be kissed. She imagined that he was the sort of bear who loved honey, and she felt slightly wet just thinking about the kinds of things she’d like to do with him…
Had she been spoiled by dating shifters? Probably. But she was not about to stop. Not if she could help it.
She sent him a message to let him know she was interested, leaving out the stuff about the honey. She would have to see what kind of honey he turned out to be, first.
SabbyCat93: Hi! I couldn’t help noticing that you lived close to me. Wanna get a drink or something sometime?
He didn’t look like the sort of guy who expected long words or beating around the bush, so Sabrina just went right for it, hoping that she’d been correct in that assumption.
Once the dice had been cast, she decided to go around her apartment and clean up the place. It looked like a hurricane had been through it. Hurricane Victor. She could not remember the last time she had been allowed to breathe in there without his say so. Reorganizing the books on the shelf, she realized that it had been too long since she’d even last been able to read a book… It was not good to be so wrapped up in someone that she forgot to be who she was.
Yet here she was, trying to do it all over again.
What she knew of werebears, though, was that they were nowhere near as territorial as werewolves. After all, there was a reason that Baloo was known as the friendly character in The Jungle Book. He was protective, but friendly and fun loving.
Yeah. That’s what Sabrina wanted. She wanted something familiar, but different in all the ways that mattered to her. She hoped that Mr. Priestly could live up to these not-so-lofty desires. But if not, well… There were plenty more shifters where he came from.
Jacob was relaxing in his house after a long day at work. He tilted his head from side to side, letting his neck crack. In college, he was an all-American quarterback. Now that he was twenty-seven and in the ‘real world’, he was a security guard at a prison. He still got to tackle people, and so
metimes he even got to use his gun.
But he was a good boy, deep down. He was tall and muscular, but not the sort of guy who beat up people who were weaker than him for laughs. That was part of how he got the job. The other part of why, he suspected, was because he turned into a bear when he was angry.
Nothing would make a convict shit his pants quite like a guy who was a man one second and a growling, snarling bear the next.
He did his best to keep this side of him in check, of course. Aside from scaring people who needed to be scared, Jacob had inadvertently scared away a lot of women in his life. He was hoping to do better on that front. That was why he’d signed up for ComeShift, even though he thought it was pretty ridiculous. His friend Alvin told him that it would be a good way for him to meet chicks, and he was not going to argue with Alvin, the guy who had a sexy new chick on his arm every week.
Jacob would settle for just one. Preferably the one.
Reclining into his sofa at home, he looked at his phone, flicking through several of his apps and notifications to see if there was anything to entertain him. There was a notification from ComeShift. He clicked it open and read it over. It was from a girl with the username ‘SabbyCat.’ That intrigued him. He wondered, at first, if she was a cat shifter or something, but her profile revealed that she was one hundred percent human.
She was also one hundred percent hotty. He wanted to get lost in her voluptuousness, if she would let him.
JacoBear89: Yay, someone else in Providence! There’s a restaurant with a bar in town called Smokey’s. Want to meet there in about an hour?
She mercifully did not take very long to respond.
SabbyCat93: I’ll see you there, Mr. Bear. ;)
The good news was that he now had plans with a gorgeous girl for the night. The bad news was that meant he couldn’t relax on his sofa anymore. With a smirk, he stood up and stretched. “Lazy ass,” he said before going into his bedroom to put on a more decent shirt for the date. And maybe comb his hair a little.
Sabrina beamed at her phone. Handsome bear boy had said yes. This night wasn’t going to be a complete waste after all. She went into her bedroom and changed out of the jeans and blouse she’d been wearing. She needed to wear something that was alluring and showed off more of her body.
She decided on a red dress, and added a fun, red hairclip to her head, keeping her bangs off of her face. It had a little red feather on it. She felt like she belonged in a movie set in the 1920s. Hopefully Jacob would find her as pretty as she felt.
The place that he’d chosen was just up the road from her apartment building. There wasn’t any reason she couldn’t walk to it, especially on a nice evening like it was. She grabbed a red purse that would match her outfit well enough and left her apartment. She used the phone on her GPS to make sure she knew where she was going.
Smokey’s did not look like much from the outside, but it was full of loud, catchy music when Sabrina went inside. It seemed like it was an 80s ‘best of’ kind of night. She took a stool at the bar and did her best to reserve the seat next to her for the man who was supposed to meet her there.
Hopefully, he would look exactly like he did in his pictures. Though probably not too exactly like the picture of him in his football jersey. She did not want to be dating a boy, even if he was a bear. She wanted a bear, not a cub.
“Is this seat taken?” a low, deep voice asked from behind her.
“Uh, actually…” She jumped up off her stool and was about to try and prevent this stranger from taking a seat beside her when she recognized his face. She instantly smiled at him. “Jacob?”
He grinned back at her. “SabbyCat?”
She laughed and sat back down on her stool, feeling silly for becoming so territorial. “Sabrina is fine,” she said, smirking at him.
Jacob sat in the stool next to her, now that she wasn’t attempting to block him off. “It’s nice to meet you. Thank you for coming here. It’s not the best place, but it’s better than a lot of the dumpy bars around town.”
“It seems pretty good to me,” she replied. “Thank you for meeting me. It’s nice to meet you, too.”
The bartender came to their end of the bar and took their drink orders. She ordered a mojito and he ordered a dark lager. When the bartender went away again, they were finally able to have more of a conversation.
“So, what brought you to the ComeShift app?” he asked her curiously. Most girls who used it happened to have a particular kink when it came to werewolves, werebears, etcetera. If they weren’t weres themselves.
Sabrina smiled bashfully at that. It wasn’t the sort of thing that she normally talked about, especially not in public like this. “I’ve used it in the past and it seemed like a fun way to meet people.” She wasn’t going to bring up her ex on their date. For all she knew, Jacob had been able to pick up the scent of Victor already anyway. “You?”
He chuckled a bit, and gratefully took a swig from his glass of lager as soon as it was brought to him. It embarrassed him, kind of, how much he felt like he needed the app. In this day and age, it was not a big deal to utilize dating websites and stuff like that, but Jacob wished that he was just one of those people who could grab someone’s attention all on his own. “My friend got me into it, actually,” he answered. “He’d had success with it and thought it would be good for me, too.”
She leaned an arm against the bar, looking him in the eyes. She couldn’t deny that she was thinking about having sex with him later, but she was also realizing just how sweet he was, and just how kind his eyes were. Maybe she had picked out someone who was going to be worth more than a one night stand.
But she didn’t want to get ahead of herself. After all, this was just meant to be a bit of rebound fun. Nothing serious.
“And how has it been so far, do you think?” Sabrina innocently took a sip of her mojito, batting her dark lashes at him.
“I think it’s been pretty good so far,” Jacob said. “Especially this time.”
He had lucked out and managed to meet a beautiful date for the evening. He just hoped that it would go well and he would not scare her off.
CHAPTER TWO
More Than Expected
After chatting over a few more drinks, Sabrina had the great idea that they should go check out a nearby karaoke place. “It’ll be fun!” she promised him. “You don’t have to sing if you don’t want to. I hardly ever do. It’s embarrassing.”
Jacob smiled at her. She was hard to say no to, especially after several drinks.
She led him out of Smokey’s by the hand; a familiarity that she would not have used if she had been completely sober. The karaoke place turned out to be a dance club that also had a stage. A large, horribly outdated TV set sat on a table there, along with a big projection screen so that everyone else could see the cheesy, Asian-styled graphics that were displayed there for each song.
Who didn’t want to sing Don’t Go Breaking My Heart with scenes of beaches and waterfalls behind them?
Well, for starters, Jacob didn’t. He was plenty amused just watching others embarrass themselves. And he noticed that Sabrina continued to touch him and hold his hand while they stood there on the dancefloor together.
He felt kind of guilty, actually. Would she be acting this comfortable around him if she hadn’t had quite so many mojitos? Jacob had to wonder.
Finally, when a classic song by Orchestral Maneuvers in the Dark came on, Sabrina turned towards him. She’d been doing her best to resist it, but now she just had to dance with him. She loved this song too much not to.
“Please dance with me?” she asked him, taking his hands and placing them on her waist before he could even answer. “I love this song.”
Jacob smiled at her, gazing into her blue eyes. Besides being gorgeous, she was awfully cute. “How do you even know this song?” he asked with a laugh as they started to slow dance to the song. “You were born in the 90s.”
She looked at him quizzically. “But everyone lo
ves Pretty in Pink, right?”
“You have a point,” he said with a shrug.
As she leaned into him with her head against his chest, Sabrina realized that it had been easy for her to forget that Jacob was not just some guy. Within him, there was a beast. She was surprised that he did not act more like the werebear she’d been expecting… She hadn’t come out to be with just some guy. She joined ComeShift to be with a fiery, lustful shifter!
But she couldn’t deny that he was sweet, and handsome. His body felt like it was made of muscle. She closed her eyes and took in his scent, imagining what he looked like while changing in the locker room.
“Sabrina?” he asked. “Sabrina?”
She realized that she’d been lost in her thoughts for so long that the song had ended and it was on to something new. They were slow dancing to an up-tempo song now. Her thoughts made her feel slightly dizzy. Actually, she knew that it wasn’t just her thoughts.
“Do you want to come back to my place?” she asked him. “It’s just up the street.”
It felt sudden to him, but he supposed that this invitation was what she had been planning all along. He had to admit that some quiet time alone would be good, now that they’d gotten to know each other a little better. The music was starting to give him a headache anyway. It was louder for him that it was for her.
“Sure,” he said. “Good idea.”
Once they’d climbed the stairs and gone into Sabrina’s apartment, she tossed her keys onto the kitchen counter and kicked off her heels. “Can I get you something to drink?” she asked Jacob with a smile. “You probably don’t want more alcohol, but I do have vodka and Jack Daniels.”
He laughed shortly. “No no, that’s okay. Um, do you have juice?”
She grinned at him. “What do you think the vodka’s for? I’ve got grape juice, orange juice and apple juice.”
