by Lynn Red
“I don’t have any idea what you’re talking about,” she said, smiling between kisses. “We’ve got to get going anyway. You’re going to make me pack for you, so the least you can do is give me enough time to do it without rushing.”
“What do you need to pack for a yoga retreat, anyway? Aren’t we just going to San Diego for a couple weeks and drink everything in Napa Valley?”
Izzy screwed up her face. “You do know where Napa Valley is, right?”
Erik shrugged. “I’ll get a straw,” he said with grin. He reached over and grabbed the pull-string on the mini-blinds. He tugged, and they fell, blocking out the evening sun and clattering against the windowsill. Again, he explored the lines on Izzy’s lips with the tip of his tongue before curling it inside, and kissing her deep and hard. “We don’t have to go now, do we?”
Isabel wrapped her legs around his waist, and felt a surge of heat when his hardness pressed against her most sensitive place. “Jamesburg,” she whispered. “Gotta love it.”
-2-
Rex Lee, One Bad Bear
“That’s it,” Rex Lee growled, slamming one fist into the table where he sat in the middle of the ramshackle hut his father called home. “I’m done with this.”
He clenched his fist tight around the dog tags that clung to his thick, powerful neck. Something outside crunched, and then the sound of grinding, grating metal hit his ears. He couldn’t sit by and watch one more second of closed-circuit footage.
The youngest, and most obnoxiously cocksure members of the Edgewood bear clan, Davis and Darrel, were on his father’s land, knocking over the third whiskey still of the night.
The Lee place kept a big part of the eastern seaboard wet when it was supposed to be dry back in the twenties and thirties. When liquor magically became acceptable again, Rex’s grandfather applied for a legitimate permit and got the only distiller’s license for a hundred miles.
It kept the family alive, it kept them fed. But it also made them a lot of jealous enemies.
Davis Edgewood, the one Rex called “Fat Neck” because of the odd roll on the back of his bald head, hooted and slammed what looked to be a length of pipe into the ducting that made up one of the stills.
“Leave ‘em be, Rex,” his father said. The air whistled in Fillmore’s chest every time he pulled a breath or let one out. “They’re just idiot boys. We got more stills than they can wreck. And anyway, Leena needs you more’n I do.”
Rex shook his shaggy hair and pulled a shirt on over his huge head. His muscles pushed the cotton to its limit. Rex massaged his temples for a second, and then rubbed the sides of his face, letting his fingertips trail along the intricate Lee clan tattoos that framed his eyes.
“I can’t sit by and let this keep happening, dad,” he said. “This is how it goes. You let them walk all over you, they tip over a couple of stills, and then the next week those idiot boys will drive a goddamn truck through your wall.”
“Don’t talk like that,” his father whistled. “You can be mad without the swearin’, you know. And anyway, that only happened the once.”
It had been four years since the trouble with the Edgewood clan started. The Lees and the Edgewoods were the oldest bear clans in the greater Jamesburg area, although the Lees were well respected, and the Edgewoods feared for being completely nuts.
Darrel Edgewood, slightly more slender than his barrel chested brother, but every bit as pasty, pale and constantly moist-looking, pulled out a pick-axe and punched a hole in the receptacle at the end of the still they’d just pushed over. The only good part about all this is that the still the two Edgewoods were assaulting was new, so at least no Lee whiskey was being wasted.
“Ain’t about the money, nor even about the equipment, son,” Fillmore said. “You know that. They’re all up in arms that your granddad bought that land from old man Edgewood some twenty-odd years ago, and they want it back.”
“If they want the land so badly, why don’t they just buy it?” Rex asked.
“They’re broke,” his father replied in a flat tone. “And anyways, you can’t be going and getting in fights. You’ve got Leena to think about now. She’d miss her daddy if you went out on a rampage and got yourself tossed in a cell. Again.”
The two bear clans lived so far outside of town that police intervention wasn’t terribly likely, barring some kind of massive explosion. Of course, with the fire the Edgewoods were setting near a fourth still, a giant explosion...
Rex let a grim smile spread across his face, imagining shoving that beat up old Dodge pickup into the fire and watching it go up in a firestorm. Then he shook his head, realizing that making a giant fireball in the middle of the woods probably wasn’t the best idea – especially after it’d been so long since any real rain came.
“You’ve only been back in town for two weeks, son,” Fillmore said. “I don’t want you goin’ and gettin’ into trouble on my account. You’ve never been one for fighting, what’s got you so het up?”
He rubbed his huge shoulder, kneading the muscle where he was sore. The place he stuck his thumb was the eye of a huge tribal bear tattoo that went all the way over his shoulder, to halfway down his chest. Rex’s father had the exact same marking, and so had his grandfather. If the lines around his eyes told the family’s past, the tribal bear was their crest.
“Nervous, is all,” Rex finally admitted, reaching for the beer he’d almost forgotten right after opening the bottle. He took a swig. “If they’re messing with you like this, I know they’re going to mess with Leena, too. You can take care of yourself—”
Fillmore opened his own beer and laughed. “Mostly, that’s true.”
“Mostly,” Rex corrected himself, tilting his head toward his father. “But her?” He shot a glance out of the kitchen door and to the couch where his six year old girl, his cub, the only thing his mate left behind when she died.
“She’s strong, that one,” Fillmore said. “Just the other day she was telling me that she missed her mama, but that she felt safe with you. That’s all what matters, she told me, that the family is safe and together.”
“I hope that’s not what she said,” Rex said softly. “Terrible grammar.”
His father scrunched up his eyebrows for a second, processing what was just said, then a second later, slapped his knee and let out a long, whistling laugh. “Oh he’s a comedian. Guess that proves you’re mine,” he said. “Well, at least that’s what your momma always said. You’re a little too ugly for me to believe it though.”
Half a smile crept across Rex’s stubble-laden face. He needed to shave, he thought, when he ran his fingers over his beard. It had been at least three hours since the last one.
“You’re all pent up, boy,” Fillmore said after another drink. His voice was getting a little looser, and so was his tongue. “You need to find someone to take care of you.”
Rex bristled. “It isn’t like that, it’s—”
“Oh God almighty, it’s as plain as the sky is blue,” Fillmore cut him off. “I known you all your life, son, and you never been one to hide your feelin’s too well. It’s just natural. Bears, we mate for life, but... well, you lost yours. It’s natural for you to want back what you need. It’ll keep you from pining, at least.”
“Pining?” Rex looked back at the monitors in the corner of the room, where the Edgewood boys had quite a fire going. Half of him wondered what on earth they were going to pull. The other half knew his father was ultimately right – the Edgewoods were angry, and territorial, but probably wouldn’t do anything more than turn over a couple of stills. “I’m not pining. I just want what’s best for Leena.”
Fillmore grunted a laugh. “What’s best for her, son, is what’s best for you. She might act strong – same as you do – but she wants a momma just the same. Cubs need that, you know. They need a pair, of whatever sort. Two bears, a bear and a fox, a bear and a leopard, it hardly matters, so long as they’ve got balance, you know.”
“Balance,” th
e word rolled around Rex’s mouth. He took another drink of his beer. “Yeah, that’s... hey, what the hell are they doing?”
He pointed at the monitors, getting his father’s attention. “They’ve got torches, or something like. They can’t seriously be just leaving that huge fire burning in the middle of the woods. That could burn down the whole damn town.”
Rex was already pushing back from the table, already had his keys in his hand. “Those crazy bastards are coming straight for the house,” he said. “Stay here, lock the door and don’t let Leena out of your sight, not for a second.”
There was a decidedly worried look on his father’s face. “Rex,” he said. “Be... careful. They might not be smart, but those Edgewood boys are as fierce as anything.”
“I will,” Rex answered. He got to the door, pushed it open and then spun on his heel, returning to Leena, where she sat on the couch.
He knelt down in front of her. “Leena,” he said. “Daddy loves you. You know that, right?”
She nodded.
“And you know I’d do anything in the world for you, even if it doesn’t seem like it is at the time?”
She nodded again, this time trying to look around his huge head at the TV.
“Come on Leena,” Rex said, trying to hide his smile and act serious. “I’m talking to you, pay attention for a second.”
“Oh,” she said in her tiny voice. “All right.”
She turned her eyes to him, and they pierced straight through to the deepest part of Rex’s soul. The deep, penetrating ocean blue that came from her mother struck him for a second. He grabbed both of her hands, and kissed her forehead. “Daddy has to go run an errand, all right?”
She shrugged. “Why are you acting so serious if you’re just going to the store or something? Just say ‘bye bye Leenie-weenie’ and then go and then come back.”
He studied her face for a second, and saw nothing but pure, sweet innocence staring back at him. “No,” he finally said with a forced smile. “You’re right. Bye bye, Leenie-weenie.”
“Bye daddy!” she said, in her chipper, bright, tiny, sweet voice. “Hurry up! Can you get some orange soda while you’re out?”
“Yeah,” he said as he stood up. “Orange soda. You got it.”
Shooting one last glance at his dad, Rex turned and pushed open the front door, then closed it behind him with a thump a lot louder than he meant to make.
Didn’t matter, he told himself. Bike’s right there. No time to worry, no time for anything.
But somehow, even as he revved his motorcycle’s engine and roared off in the direction of the stills that the Edgewoods just tore up, the only thing on his mind was his father, telling him to go find a mate.
Rex shook his head and managed a grin. “Maybe someday,” he said, to no one in particular. “But right now, I got other things to worry about.”
*
Four miles down the road, Rex started to see the orange-red on the horizon. The sun was beginning its descent, but the fire he saw wasn’t from the sky, it was from the Edgewoods.
Gritting his teeth, Rex snarled at what he knew was coming.
On the one hand, his father was right – fighting and gnashing his teeth and all this, it was bad news. On the other hand, Rex was a bear.
Crouching down low beside his bike, Rex let the change wash over him. Hard, thick hair the color of tanned leather poured out of him. The longer he let it go, the more it stopped being hair and started being fur.
The muscles in his legs, his arms and his chest all grew. His shirt stretched, then the collar tore, and before he knew it, the cool dusk air was licking his fur-covered skin. He’d been so angry, so intent on protecting his family, that he’d forgotten all about stripping down, but when he first felt the seams on his jeans split open most of the way up his gigantic thighs, he hardly cared.
It had been a long time since Rex let go quite like this. Too long, really. He’d held it in the whole time he was overseas out of necessity. The only time he’d changed at all was when he was alone in the city, and that... that man had him held captive.
He hardly remembered what was happening back then, only that someone was torturing him, or casting some kind of hex. He’d let his rage take him then, too, but it was necessity. That day, or night, or however long it was only came to him in flashes during midnight dreams. All he remembered, really, was that he’d turned into a bear, ripped through the bonds that gave him the scars on his neck, and ran around Baghdad.
Which, in retrospect, probably looked a little strange.
It didn’t matter though – none of it mattered. He took a deep breath through his elongated snout, tasting the night air. He balled his massive paws up as best he could, getting fistfuls of leaves, dirt, sticks. And then, just as he was beginning to feel at home in his new skin, a couple of pale, bobble-headed idiots came bounding over the ridge in a four-wheeler, shrieking with laughter.
“We’re gonna burn this hick-ass farm to the ground, ain’t we?” Davis said to Darrel. The only way Rex remembered which was which is that Davis had the roll on the back of his head and fat lips. He always sounded like he was drooling. Darrel, on the other hand, had a fat tongue and lisped.
Oh, also, Davis was a little stupider than Darrel, Rex thought with a grin. We’ll see how burning this place down goes for you, jackasses.
Darrell Edgewood saw Rex first, but not before Rex was real close.
Rex caught Fat Neck in the side of the face with a paw before he could even turn around. The torch – which reminded Rex of a lynch mob – fell to the ground and skittered harmlessly to the side. It left an oily, greasy trail where it went, complete with small, impotent flames that flickered among the leaves.
“Get him, dumbass!” Davis grunted, wiping the blood off his lip and crouching to take on his bear form. “Get ‘im!”
Darrell barreled forward, changing as he charged. “Stupid soldier boy!” he yelled. “Glad we finally got you out of your old man’s house! I can’t wait to get at your dau—”
Rex stopped that with a furious swipe that spun Davis’s half-human head and sent him crashing to the ground.
Davis let out a loud, sloppy, wet-sounding roar and leapt. He crashed down on Rex’s back, but the big soldier was able to twist and yank him to the ground. Davis hit with a suitably wet, sloppy thump.
Standing on his hind legs, Rex let out a roar so loud, so terrible, that the trees over him shook. Both Davis and Darrell stood, exchanged a glance, and charged at once.
Reflexively, Rex tensed himself for impact, but just before the two Edgewoods came into striking distance, Darrell stepped on Davis’s dropped torch, rolling his ankle and then crashing to the ground with a yelp.
The bigger Edgewood skipped over his brother and kept coming.
The torch, pushed by the weight of Darrell’s clumsiness, rolled under a small drip underneath the four-wheeler. Each drip of liquid onto the torch made it flare a little higher, a little hotter.
Gas, Rex realized, but too late.
The explosion that ripped through the woods threw him backwards, through a tree trunk and slammed Rex against the side of a dilapidated shed. All the wind went rushing out of his lungs in an agonizing exhale.
Immediately he felt warmth running down his lips as his ribs all howled in pain. He took one breath – one slow, awful breath – and then as Darrell Edgewood got to his feet, not even bothering to stop to help his brother, Rex’s vision went black.
*
“What happened here?” someone Rex didn’t recognize rolled him onto his back, checked his pulse. “Can you speak?”
Rex groaned and clutched his ribs. He was human again, and feeling every bit of what just happened. “Where am I?” he asked.
“I’m asking the questions,” the man looming large over him said. “Can you remember what happened?”
Through squinted eyes, Rex saw a face that, on second glance, he did remember. “Ash?” he whispered. “Ash Morgan?”
T
he big man crouched beside him took a closer look, and then pulled up the dog tags on his chest. “These things are useful as hell,” he said. “Rex? Good God I had no idea you were home. Why...” he shook his head. “We can talk later. I’m here investigating an explosion that just got about seventeen 9-1-1 calls. I’m guessing you can tell me something about it?”
Rex groaned again. “Edgewoods,” he gasped, still clutching the raw ache in his side. “They were turning over dad’s stills. They started... toward the house with a... torch.”
Ash laid his hand on Rex’s shoulder. “Gotcha, no reason to keep torturing yourself. But, Davis Edgewood says you attacked him. I know he’s full of shit, but do you mind coming down to the station? The judge will want to take a statement.”
“Judge... Rawls? The vampi...re?”
“Yeah, so it’ll be a few hours before he comes in. I’ll make sure you’re comfortable though. Sorry big guy,” Ash said. “It’s either this or I’ll have to bother you again. You know, you look pretty good, for just having been blown up.”
Rex laughed and then doubled up, groaning painfully. “Don’t,” he managed. “Hurts to laugh.”
“Sorry,” Ash said. “Can you stand? At least long enough to get to the car?” He reached down, offering Rex a hand, which the big bear took. The two of them managed to heave Rex to his feet and hobble the few steps to the parked car.
Davis Edgewood was thrashing around in the back of the other, kicking at the window. Two hyenas – Jamesburg’s “normal” police force – opened his door, shot him first with a stun gun and then with pepper spray, and then closed the door. Ash was shaking his head.
“We need to hire more bear cops,” Ash said as he climbed into the front seat. “The hyenas can be mean as all hell, but they can’t do much about an enraged bear. And the Edgewoods never seem to stop causing problems.”
“Darrell,” Rex groaned. “He was... here too.”
His ribs burned and his back ached, but there was something else bothering Rex.
“I have... a stupid question,” he asked.
