Bear With Me (Alpha Werebear Shifter Paranormal Romance)

by Lynn Red

  Short, but savage, rabbit punches battered Rex in the back of the head, and Davis wrenched him, hard.

  The way Davis had him clenched, Rex’s height and size worked against him. The Edgewood bear leaned heavily, crushing Rex with his own weight, and lifted a knee into his stomach.

  “Li...lah!” I heard him gasp. “Li...”

  “I’m scrappy,” I’d told him. Not a single truer word had ever been spoken.

  With my hands curling into long-nailed claws and my jeans loosening and falling off, I jumped out from around the bike and screamed as I leapt up on Davis’s back. Clawing his face made him yelp, and biting deep into his thick, hairy neck got him to swat at me.

  I twisted away from the first poorly aimed blow, but the second one caught me hard enough to throw me off his back. “What’n the hell?” he said, spitting as he twisted Rex’s neck again. “Damn scrappy for a girl.”

  I curled my lips in a snarl. “For a girl?” I screeched. “Damn right!”

  Like one of the bolts of lightning blasting off the thing in the distance, I jumped up on Rex’s huge back and stuck my clawed foot straight into Davis Edgewood’s buck-toothed mouth. My claws caught him right on the lips. He swatted at me again and wheeled backward, grasping wildly to keep his grip on Rex’s head.

  Jumping right up into his puckered-up bear face, I scratched Davis across one cheek, drawing blood, and bit him right on the damn nose. He yelped, and tried to grab me, but I darted backward just in time for him to hit himself in the face.

  Howling in pain, and with blood streaming down from his broken nose, Davis Edgewood was the picture of a mess.

  “I owe... you one,” Rex said, breathing hard through bared teeth. “Scrappy is right.”

  I let out a satisfied laugh. “We gotta get going. What do we do about these two idiots?”

  Just then, the two Edgewoods climbed to their feet at once, like some kind of magical force was animating them. “Something’s not right,” Rex said. “Neither of them should...”

  They charged.

  In one smooth motion, I reached down and fished a broken chain off the ground as Rex swept me up in his arms. It was about three feet long, just right for coming off one of the four wheelers, but it was split in the middle.

  “What are... you... doing?” Rex asked.

  “Shut up and spin! And sorry if I claw you!”

  I latched on to Rex’s back and held onto his shoulder with my one free hand. Whipping the chain around over my head, Rex’s spinning turned us into something very much like a really big, really furry blender.

  My chain caught the first Edgewood – Darrel – right in the jaw and sent him whirling to the ground. A split second later, the metal wrapped around Davis’s thick neck, and then ripped into him right below the eye. He clutched himself as he fell, and by the time his head thumped on the asphalt, he was back to human. Throwing a glance in Darrel’s direction, he was too. Both of them were going to be in a bad way when they came around.

  “We gotta go,” I said, pulling up my pants and cleverly buttoning them just as I got big enough to fill them. “Some serious shit is going down and I have a feeling that there’s more to this than just a couple of stupid bears and a crazy professor.”

  “What do you mean?” Rex asked. Turns out, shredded pants and no shirt? Sexy as hell. The tire track on his face somehow made him look even more like a bad ass, even though it was just a black streak running up his forehead.

  “Look.” I pointed at the vortex swirling above Mason Hall, the Humanities department building.

  Rex turned back to me with one of his obnoxious damn grins on his face. “You know,” he began.

  “Don’t even start. No jokes, we have to—”

  “If you can learn to do that with a Humanities degree, then I think we need to reconsider how much funding goes into those programs.”

  I coulda wiped the grin of Rex’s face... assuming of course, I wasn’t one-hundred percent stupid for him. Instead I just grabbed his head, jumped up and kissed him as hard as I could. Those arms around my waist, those lips against mine were almost too much. “Give me a second,” he said, pulling away but locking his eyes on mine.

  Rex bent down and looped the broken chain around both Edgewoods, binding them together at the neck. He grabbed a second discarded chain, strained until it broke and then bound them both, completely helpless, around a tree at the base of the embankment.

  He didn’t speak again until we were racing toward the school, and neither of us were wearing helmets. “You didn’t laugh at my joke,” he said. “Did you hear what I said? What I said was – if degrees in humanities can teach you to do that, I—”

  “Actually,” I cut in, “I did hear you. Thing is, the joke just sucked.”

  Rex roared with laughter as we sped toward the school, toward whatever the hell was going on in that vortex behind the building.

  -26-

  Lilah

  Jenga’s ridiculous motorcycle was propped up against the white brick of Jamesburg College’s limestone facade. Behind the building, the growing storm was whirling and whipping with such fury that I could hardly hear myself think.

  The only reason I heard my old history professor screeching was because my raccoon ears are specially tuned to hear squealing, angry hedgehogs. Professor Duggan is already kind of a sight – I’ve never seen him not wearing his suspenders and tight-around-the-belly white dress shirt.

  But when you add that to his bushy mustache, and... running around, screeching, in a circle? Something was definitely, definitely not right.

  “What’s wrong with him?” Rex asked, elbowing me in the ribs. “And I thought that witch doctor was supposed to wait for us? This could make things a lot worse.”

  “That’s Professor Duggan, history guy. Also he’s got some kind of job on the town council. Only time I’ve ever really run into him was when I took Greek History and then again when I had put some posters up on a phone pole announcing a gallery opening I had. God did he ever get pissed about that stupid flyer.”

  Rex screwed up his face in a half grin. “That’s... good to know. And now I’m wondering why he’s running around in a circle? There’s something wild going on.”

  “You mean aside from the giant purple tornado?” I asked, hunkering back down. My back scratched against the rough white limestone facade. It was rough and it was cold, but I felt at least a little more secure not being able to see the maelstrom. “I was really kind of hoping that Jenga would be around to give a little consultation on how to deal with a wizard.”

  Rex laughed grimly. “That asshole’s no wizard. He’s got something behind him. I don’t know how to explain it, but there’s something not entirely human driving him. He might want to suck the shifting power out of Jamesburg’s innocent girls, but if he’s anything like he was when he gave me these,” he traced his fingertip along the scars ringing his neck, “he’s barely keeping himself together, forget hatching grand plans.”

  “Hey there kids!” A voice from above us came down in between blasting gusts. “What’re we doing sittin’ around?”

  I looked up and saw a long beard hanging out of a second story window. And then, right on cue, a long drool fell down and hit the ground between my feet.

  “Hel...lo,” Atlas said, sticking his head out the window and waving earnestly. “How... are you?”

  “I’m good, Atlas,” I said, having to shout to get my voice above the wind. “Uh, how long have you been here?”

  Atlas frowned, but Jenga waved him off. “Don’t listen to him,” he said. “We’ve been here since before you were. You’re crazy, you think I’m going into that.” Jenga jerked his thumb over his shoulder in the direction of the blue, swirling mist. “Though I s’pose if I walked beside this big oaf, all the lightning would hit him instead’a me. Might be it’d raise his IQ some.”

  Through all that, Atlas just smiled and nodded his head. “Can we keep him?” I asked Rex. “He’s the cutest thing.”

&
nbsp; “I imagine he eats a lot,” Rex said. “Feeding two bears is enough. Add in a third, giant one?”

  “Oh lord, son,” Jenga said. “You have no idea.”

  A twig about six inches long whipped through the air and struck the side of Mason Hall with a thunk. “We... should probably do something about this,” I said, looking at the length of wood sticking out of the building. “But what? I mean... what’s he doing?”

  Jenga shrugged. “Ritual of draining. Ain’t the first time I’ve seen such a thing, but it is the first time I seen it work. There’s some kind of focus. I mean, y’all can see the fluttering asshole up there in the middle, but I’m talking about something else. He’s gotta have some kind of power behind him. I ran some tests, and—”

  “Tests?” I asked. “What kind of tests?”

  Jenga pursed his lips for a second. “Well, if I’m bein’ honest, by test I mean I did some tea leaf scrying, and looked at what direction birds were flying. I’m sure they said something about the situation, but... I’ll be damned if I remember what they were saying. It’s been a long time since I did any continuing professional education, you know.”

  “So, you’re guessing?”

  “Call it a guess,” Jenga said. “But I prefer ‘educated estimate’ instead. Or you can call it a hunch, or—”

  With a heavy thwack! something else struck the building. Then, without any warning, the pebble turned into a hail of tiny rocks that made a sound like gunfire beating against the building. Rex covered my head, shielding me from the onslaught of rocks and spraying mortar.

  It stopped just as quickly as it started, and I looked up to see about a million pock-mark looking dents in the white stone, making the building look like a big, giant golf ball. Jenga stuck his head out the window tentatively, and turned left and right. The winds were still howling, twigs and sticks still flew past, but for a moment anyway the danger died down.

  “How about I just go throttle that asshole?” Rex asked. The growl in his voice did funny things in the pit of my stomach that I’m a little ashamed to admit that I still felt, even with hell apparently opening up in front of me. “Or both of them, I guess?”

  There were two people standing in the middle of the swirling energy when I looked again. One of them was definitely Graves, I’d know that whipping black hair and the ecstatic look on his face anywhere. But beside him, someone was moving – very jerkily – between two trees.

  “My sister!” I screamed. “That asshole has my sister!”

  There she was, sure as anything. Dezzy was the second to be bound to the trunks of two trees flanking Graves’s strange installation. He was wearing a pointed hat with a tassel on top, and a black robe covered in golden-looking embroidery.

  “Ain’t right,” Jenga said. “I’ve been trying to make an automaton for decades. I’d like to get my hands on that thing.”

  “On the what? Automaton?” I called up to him. “Like a robot?”

  His answer was a yellow, toothy grin. “Huh,” he grunted.

  “What? We have to do something now or I’m just going to run in there and start slashing at the tin man,” I yelled. “I’m not joking even a little.”

  “Lilah, I was just thinking,” Jenga said, holding on to the windowsill to brace himself against another blast of cold wind. “Remember what I said about Luke and Laura? From General Hospital?”

  I shook my head in disbelief. “Yeah,” I said. “Sure, of course. What does that have to do with anything?”

  “Nothing!” he yelled back. “Just that I was watching it earlier, and it really occurred to me exactly how right I was. Without those two? May as well be watching Happy Days.”

  Rex laughed despite himself. “O...kay,” he said. “Hey, Jenga? Your zombie just left.”

  Sure enough, and amazingly without anyone noticing, Atlas had somehow shuffled out of the building and was making his way slowly toward the center of the quad. “FRIEND!” he shouted. “HELLO!”

  “Oh no,” Jenga said, closing his eyes tightly and pinching his nose. “I should never have mentioned the automaton. He’s wanted one for a while now.” Then, with surprisingly deft fingers, he fished something out of his beard. He produced a tiny little doll that seemed to be made out of some sort of plant.

  “Mandrake!” he said. “It can hold souls. Anyway, if I’m right about there being something else—son of a bitch!”

  Another gust of wind blew the tiny doll out of his hand and sent it careening toward the shambling bear. It thumped against Atlas’s calf, and drew the giant’s attention. “Hunh?”

  “Atlas! Hold onto that for me! It’s important!”

  Obediently, the huge, smiling zombie bent down, collected the man-shaped root, and continued on his way.

  “He’s stubborn,” Jenga said. “You two see if you can find whatever is driving this guy. I’ll try to fight this storm, although these days I’m more versed in vitamin supplements than anything else, I’ve still got a few tricks up my sleeve.”

  From the breast pocket on his Hawaiian shirt, Jenga produced some kind of chicken foot-looking item, and a vial of stuff that he quaffed. “Damn if that don’t burn every time,” he said, wiping his face. He tossed the vial down and I caught it, turning the glass bauble around in my hand until I read “Anti-Sorcery Serum” and just started shaking my head.

  Jenga disappeared into his window, Duggan was howling like a crazy person and running in circles. The world, it appeared, was as it should be.

  “Don’t do this unless you want to do it,” Rex said, grabbing my hand. “I’m not going to try to stop you. I know your sister is out there and I know you can handle yourself in a fight, I’m just... I couldn’t handle you getting hurt.”

  I squeezed that hand for all it was worth, climbed in his lap and held his head still. “I would do anything in the world for her,” I said. “Or for you. Or for Leena. I stopped thinking about me being safe when it was time to stick my thumbs into Davis Edgewood’s eyes to get him off you.”

  Rex smiled. “I knew there was a reason I loved you,” he said. “Well. I know there are about a thousand reasons. This? Just one of them.”

  I memorized every line of his face, every curl of his tattoos and the way his hair was swept backward just so. “We’re gonna be fine,” I said. I was about to say something else when he interrupted me with a rough, deep, hard kiss that forced my head backward.

  “How do you know?” he asked, pulling away and staring straight into my soul.

  “We’re the good guys, right?” I asked with a smirk. “The good guys, they always win.”

  *

  Rex was crouched low and tight as we made our way behind two buildings. Circling the open field, we were trying to get a glimpse of whatever it was that Jenga was convinced was behind Graves’s crazy ritual.

  Atlas kept lumbering forward, that tiny doll clutched in his massive hand, but no one seemed to be paying any attention to him. My sister and Mitzi were both tied up and both looked charmed, or drugged or something. They were just sort of staring off into space with these hauntingly blissed-out faces.

  Graves was howling incoherently, whipping back and forth with his hands on some kind of glass box. The expanding energy vortex shooting into the sky was mimicking the gestures he made – when he flopped left and right, the point of the tornado did the same and when he threw his arms up wildly in the air, lightning flashed, thunder banged.

  “Do you think that’s what he’s talking about?” Rex shouted over the wind. “That box? That thing seems familiar, but I can’t place it.”

  “Baghdad?” I asked. “Did he have it when he...?”

  Rex shook his head. “I dunno, can’t remember. All I remember is that smug asshole’s face, and the pain. Then I remember everything going black.”

  A growl crept out of his throat. “Look at that,” he said, pointing around the corner of the adorned bench we were crouched behind. “I never thought I’d be excited about watching a reanimated corpse shamble across a fie
ld.”

  Sure enough, Atlas had managed to push his way through the considerable wind and made his way to the jerky automaton. “He...llo,” he bellowed, reaching for the strange creature standing sentinel in the middle of the field about six feet from where Graves was thrashing around.

  The robot just stared, apparently deactivated... or whatever one does to automatons. It had this haunting, frozen smile, like one of those Big Boy statues. The fake hair on top of the thing’s head was swept back into a brown pompadour, and the body of the thing was painted like butler’s clothing.

  “Almost finished!” Graves howled. “Soon they’ll be mine! Their power, I can feel it! Feel it in my veins!”

  Atlas stepped on something that cracked and caught the crazed man’s attention. “Jeffress!” he shouted. “Handle that! I don’t know what it is, but deal with it!”

  Like lightning – or like clockwork, I suppose – the automaton’s eyes flicked open. The thing’s arm spun around in a circle, catching Atlas on the jaw. It obviously hurt his feelings much more than it hurt his body, because the giant bellowed and took a swing in return.

  Zombie fighting a robot, I thought. It can’t get any crazier than this.

  Atlas grabbed Jeffress and lifted it above his head then threw it easily to the ground. Except that at the last second, Jeffress hooked his unarticulated hand under Atlas’s arm and they both fell in a heap.

  “What the hell is that?” Rex said, grabbing my shoulder and turning me back toward Graves. “Is that a book?”

  Right before my eyes, the glass box that Graves was holding began to shake violently and threw his hands off, forcing him backward. “No!” the professor shrieked. “There’s no reason for you to be here! You give me your power, genie, not the other way around!”

  The vortex twisted just like Graves, back and forth, almost hypnotically. His swaying, and the twister, grew wilder. Thick, heavy moisture that stank like the inside of an old bar room hit me full in the nose.

  “Lilah,” Rex said, grabbing my sleeve. “Lilah! Look!”