Unbearable Arms (The Grizzly Next Door 4)

by Aya Morningstar

  Cage was close. Real close. Just one opponent—some lion shifter—stood between him and Malakai Bison. Cage would beat the lion bloody until it purred like a house cat, and then he’d rip Malakai apart.

  Malakai—or Mal, as he usually went by—was the only other grizzly bear in competition this season, and everyone was whispering about the fight between Mal and Cage, even though Mal himself was still two opponents away from the championship. The way the two of them were fighting, these opponents in the way were nothing more than speed bumps. Mal and Cage would clash. It was like gravity.

  “What’s this guy’s name again?” Cage asked Jack, his coach. He was a wolf with thick streaks of gray in his shaggy hair and, when he shifted, in his fur.

  He answered Cage in a husky rasp. “Dammit, Caster! You haven’t learned shit.”

  Cage grinned and cracked his neck. “What’s it matter what his name is? He’ll be on the ground—”

  “Fucking cocky son of a bitch. Your mom should have—”

  “Hold on, Jack,” Cage said, laughing, “I don’t know his name, but I know his style is Muay Thai. I know he favors his left leg, and that he likes to keep larger opponents, like me, out with his long-ass legs. I should try to go in from the right and watch for his elbows and knees, which he’s honed to go for lighting fast hits to the head. Sudden TKO.”

  Jack squinted, and he pulled his lips into a thin line. “And what do you gotta watch for if you get him on the ground?”

  “Knee to the balls,” Cage said, “just like Mal will go for.”

  Jack grunted. “Keep your mind on Tobias.”

  “Tobias?”

  “The fucking lion!” Jack threw up his hands.

  “You see though,” Cage said, “I have learned. I studied my opponent, made a plan, just like you taught me. I don’t need to know the guy’s name to beat him.”

  The crowd was getting louder. He could hear it even through the doors. The fight would start soon.

  Jack looked seriously at Cage. “Look, boy, you know Mal’s name. You want to tear him to shreds, and that fire in your belly might just be enough fuel to do it. But if you don’t beat Tobias, you won’t even get a shot at Mal. Know each opponent’s name, and focus on beating each, one at a time. Full focus! Got it?”

  “Got it,” Cage said.

  This wolf is so wisdom, Cage’s bear whispered in awe.

  “Wise!” Cage said. “It’s wise. Wisdom is a noun! He has wisdom!”

  Jack grinned. “You talking about me? Yeah, I’ve got a lot of wisdom, so do what I tell you. Now go get ready to fight!”

  Jack’s grin disappeared, and he spun Cage around and pushed him toward the swinging double doors that led to the bear cage.

  Cage pressed his hands together and flexed to get his blood pumping. Then he clenched his fists and punched the air like he wanted to kill it.

  “What’s your opponent’s name?” Jack rasped.

  “Lionel!” Cage shouted.

  “You fucking—”

  “Tobias!” Cage said, grinning. “Just fucking with you.”

  “God dammit.”

  Cage threw off his robe and shifted. Instead of pressing the doors open, he tore at each hinge with his giant claws. He ripped each door from its hinge and threw it into the staging area. The crowd roared as the heavy doors slid and clattered across the ground. Cage stood up on his hind legs and strutted into the crowd’s adoring eyes.

  They exploded when they saw him walking in at his full and towering height.

  Tobias was entering from the other side of the ring. He had fiery red hair tied up into a top knot and wrapped in a white headband. Cage could tell just by looking at him that he was a lion, though he hadn’t shifted. His upper body was shaped like a triangle: wide shoulders and big chest. But he was tall, and though his upper body was big, his legs were like stilts, yet lean and sinewy. He really would need to work his way in past those kicks.

  Cage slammed his claws together in a rhythmic pulse, and soon the crowd started stomping in tune with him.

  Finally he lost his balance and fell to all fours.

  This is so awesome! his bear said. For once, Cage didn’t disagree with him. How awesome would it be when it was against Malakai Bison?

  Cage noticed Tobias’ coach shouting at him, and Tobias crossed his arms. The applause died down as Tobias stepped up to the ring, and Tobias’ coach shoved him, eyes widening.

  Tobias sighed, flexed, and shifted. His shorts tore to pieces as he did, and soon a full-sized lion was prowling around. Tobias skipped the theatrics, doing little more than prowling back and forth while his tail moved like a counterweight to his stride. The crowd made some polite noise—nothing compared to what they’d done for Cage.

  He should have tried to throw one of the doors into the crowd. That would have gone over well. Maybe next time.

  The two men shifted back to human form, as no shifting was a strict rule, in this league at least. Before their coaches could throw them new pairs of shorts, Cage heard some of the women catcalling him from the crowd. He turned toward them to give them a full frontal, but Jack hissed at him to get his head in the game and his cock in his pants, so he grudgingly did so.

  Cage stepped through the gate—just barely, because he was so big—and entered the bear cage. He wondered if Tobias and his inner lion thought of it as the lion cage.

  Tobias entered soon after. The cage was borderline irrelevant in this fight. Lions didn’t like climbing, and given Tobias’s fighting style, climbing around would be counterproductive, as he wanted to keep Cage off him, not drop onto him.

  Cage and Tobias squared off. Cage was about an inch taller than Tobias.

  He’s so tall, Cage’s bear said. Almost as tall as us.

  Yeah, almost. Still not taller though. And Tobias weighed less. He’d have an advantage when it came to dodging and weaving, but once Cage got on him, it would be all but over.

  The crowd roared. There was no referee; if you broke a rule like shifting or head butting, the crowd was allowed to flood the cage and gang up on the offender. The last time it had happened was over ten years ago. The guy had head butted, and since there was a lot of money riding on the fight, the crowd had shifted, flooded the cage, and tore the offender limb from limb. Very democratic.

  The fight started by mutual consensus, when each fighter smelled the other was ready.

  Cage and Tobias sniffed the air as they circled each other, and when the scent of battle hit Cage’s nostrils, he roared and charged in.

  ***

  Cage walked home from his sister’s place in the dark. It was a long walk, but he didn’t mind. His sister lived downtown, near the courthouse where she worked. Cage lived near the edge of the city, with woods nearby, so he could be himself. So he could shift. It also happened to be the only place he could afford the rent and still be technically residing in the city—which was necessary for the will.

  Being broke wasn't a big setback for Cage. The shifter mixed martial arts league had paid big, and Cage had gotten a taste of the finer things in life when all that money was still flowing, but he could live just as well without it. The bouncer job was enough to pay the bills. He was, at his core, a grizzly bear, and no bear ever needed heated leather seats or marble countertops.

  The house—what would be Lisa’s house if she’d sign the damn paper—was between Lisa’s apartment and Cage’s place. The most direct route would be to take Bertrand Street straight through downtown, and the damned house was right on that route; he couldn’t miss it.

  So he got off the road and cut into the park. This detour would only take a few minutes longer, and he could get at least the scent of some trees and passably fresh air while he walked.

  He had made this trip hoping to get things done and over with. Lisa was supposed to sign the papers, take the house, and let him go. He’d been gone for years already; she should be used to it by now. And what was that comment about Ren? How had Lisa always seen straight through him? Ren
had been Lisa’s best friend growing up, and she’d stuck with Lisa after the accident. She’d done what Cage hadn’t been able to do.

  And he had always been drawn to her, ever since he could remember. Lisa was just under two years older than Cage, and Ren was a year younger than Lisa. She’d been a grade ahead of him in school though, which, when they were very young, had seemed an insurmountable gap. As they grew older and got into high school, that one year had become nearly meaningless.

  But Cage had fallen in with a bad crowd by that age, and he’d begun his first unofficial lessons in mixed martial arts. His first lesson had involved four panther shifters—all much older than him, but not bigger than him—ganging up on him and beating him bloody.

  That’s when we learned how to take a hit! his bear said.

  “More like twenty hits,” Cage whispered into the night air.

  He’d still seen Ren around when Lisa had her over and he was at the house. She’d really grown up by then: Her curves had really filled out, and Cage couldn’t help but stare when she walked by. She’d always given him this look though, a look that made him fear that his perverted bear had somehow spoken out loud and that Ren had heard his dirty thoughts. She couldn’t have heard his inner thoughts, but she could read into his eyes, which surely were looking well below where they should be.

  Either way, Cage was no good for her. That much was clear, so he’d stayed away. If only he’d stayed away from his sister too.

  A breeze swept through the park, and suddenly fear filled his nostrils. He knew that smell like the fur on his paw. It had always leaked out of his opponents just before he’d delivered the finishing blow, but this was a human’s fear. Yet he smelled a panther too, and that was never good news.

  He broke into a run, sniffing as he went. The lights in the park were spread far from each other, and they illuminated only the main path. There were entire pathways that disappeared into the darkness, and as he hit one of these dark paths, he smelled the fear thick in the air and heard a woman’s scream.

  He broke into a full run but chose not to shift. He could mask his scent better in human form, and the panther wouldn’t have as much time to react.

  Cage’s eyes adjusted as the darkness washed over him, and he made out two figures: a huge man, the Panther, and a woman tugging at her finger.

  “Get the fucking ring off!” Cage heard the man shout.

  Cage reached full speed. With his huge mass, he was a freight train. By the time the mugger heard him, he had but seconds to react. What kind of third-rate shifter couldn’t hear a man Cage’s size rushing him?

  The panther looked up, and the woman screamed when she noticed him. The scream still ringing through the air, Cage tucked his head down and flung himself like a bullet into the man’s gut. His head connected, and Cage could feel the mugger’s lungs compress, and he felt the ribs crack against his skull as the head-butt sunk all the way in.

  There was no sound from the mugger as he toppled over. Cage had knocked the air out of him too quickly for any sound to escape. The impact knocked the mugger onto the wet grass, and he slid nearly a foot before stopping. Cage felt a dull pain on his skull but was otherwise fine. The panther might have been knocked cold at worst, but a shifter could take a hit like that without dying.

  Cage spared a moment to look down at the man and make sure he was down.

  Head-butts are so strong! his bear said. Why can’t you do them in the bear cage?

  The bear cage is what his bear called the MMA rings. The shifter league had few rules; No shifting and no head-butts were the only two he could think of. His bear called it “the bear cage” because there were often cages on the side, mostly so that panthers and other feline-type shifters could climb around the walls like dumbasses before he knocked them out cold.

  “Jesus,” the woman’s voice said. “Cage?”

  Shit. He recognized that voice.

  “Ren?”