Bearly Breathing (Alpha Werebear Shifter Paranormal Romance) (24 page)

“Crazy is what that beaver is. Thanks again.”

My phone beeped to signal the end of the call, but I had already tossed the handset on the seat of my car.

Normally I’m reserved, even a little bashful about the whole clothes-ripping part of shifting, but this was one time that modesty had absolutely no place. I crouched down as rain spattered my back. Even with the terror and the fear and the stubborn courage coursing through me, the rain had a calming effect. I grabbed my backpack full of clothes and slid it on.

I took a deep breath and closed my eyes as fur slid out of my pores. Denim ripped, cotton tore. Balling up my hands and curling my toes made the shift quicker and easier. Moments later, I scratched at the ground, then retracted my claws.

My paws squished over the soaked forest floor as I approached the wall of green. Hoping against hope this one would show me my mate, and a solution to all this insanity. A car – or rather a motorcycle with a sidecar – slowed on the highway and then turned off.

“What ho, there!” It was the old man with the jingling beard, Jenga. “Everything all right? Hello?”

I hunched into a shadow, considering just ignoring him. But, if I really
did
either get caught, or come up on Orion, and he was hurt or something, then I’d need any help I could get. I mewled to get his attention and the dashed back toward my car. “They’re damming the rivers.”

He looked down at me, not even the least bit surprise. “Cathy, right?” He asked. “No, no, Katie. No, that’s not it.” He slapped his forehead. The zombie bear beside him, sitting, unbelievably, in the sidecar, smiled at me and drooled a generous amount.

“Cl...ea,” Atlas groaned. “I lo...ve you.”

“Clea! That’s it,” Jenga said, smiling broadly. “I’m very sorry about my friend falling in love with you. He ain’t the only one. Sara seems to have caught wind of that feller that fought the sea monster, and dashed off to find him.”

“Meaning he and she aren’t here?” I asked, wincing in anticipation of his answer.

“I was hoping so, but I don’t see any sign of her.”

“Listen,” I hissed. “We have to move fast. There’re five dammed up rivers and they’re going to break at any moment, I—”

“Oh, that. This might sound a bit funny comin’ from a man with zombie friends, but it’s hard to believe that whacked-out beaver managed it. Even more surprisin’ is that she got that far down the road to crazy without takin’ a u-turn to stupid-ville. That beaver’s sharp as a garden spade.”

I shook my head. “We have to act, we have to do... something. Orion’s been kidnapped I think, and without him I don’t know what to do. Please!”

“Hold on there, missy,” Jenga said. He opened his watery old eyes wide. “You said your boyfriend was kidnapped? The one Sara fell so hard for?”

I scrunched my nose up, not really sure what was going on. “Sure? I guess?”

“Oh, hot damn, little lady, I... I hate to suggest this, but how’s that nose of yours? Strong enough to catch scents through the rain?”

I nodded. I didn’t much like the idea of being used as a police dog, but at the same time, if there was some way we could find Orion, I’d do anything in the world.

“Smell this,” the old man beckoned me toward his motorcycle and produced a shred of purple sweatpants fabric.

I inhaled deeply and then immediately retched. “Ugh! What is that? It smells like rotten... oh.” Jenga was smiling his wide, yellow-toothed smile. “That’s Sara! Do you think you can do it?”

I wandered back to the forest, sniffing the air. “Yeah,” I said quickly. “I can find her. Give me a second.”

Nothing. I charged through the forest all the way to the biker camp and back, paying special attention for that ripe, awful stink, but found nothing. I came out of the forest shaking my head. “No go.”

Jenga frowned. “You’ve checked all the other rivers, y’said?”

I nodded. “No sign of a bear. Well, signs of plenty bears, but none of them I want to find. One more to check,” I said. “Greater James. Can you meet me there? It’s only a few miles from here. I’ll run, I’ll keep my nose to the air.”

Jenga nodded slowly. “Will do. We’ll find that boyfriend of yours.”

“Cl...ea,” Atlas groaned, climbing out of his sidecar and shuffling toward me. “Love!”

Jenga rolled his eyes. “I sure am sorry about this, but I promise I know how to fix him. Let’s find them two bears, living or sorta-living, and get this all sorted out.”

“Atlas!” Jenga shouted, as the bear tromped toward me. “Where are you going?”

“With my Cl...ea,” he said.

“Can he keep up?” I asked. “I don’t mind if he follows me as long as he won’t get hurt?”

“Ha! Him? Hurt?”

I shrugged, realizing how stupid the question was. “Come on, Atlas!” I called back. “Let’s go!”

I broke into a hard sprint, blasting off into the forest opposite the one I entered before. It felt good to run, it felt good to have the rain sliding down my back as I went.

“CL...EA!” Atlas was grumbling as he bashed through the trees, crashing this way and that as he followed. “LOVE... CLEA!”

I wasn’t really sure why, except that he was a whole lot like a lost puppy, but I kinda loved him too. I hopped across three stones that formed a makeshift bridge across a creek and looked back to see him, with his arms flailing all over the place, charge right into the water and advance until his head disappeared, then reappeared on the near bank.

That was when I caught the smell of zombie. Earthy, musky and... a little lavender-like? I shook my head, convinced that my nose was playing tricks on me. I paused just long enough for Atlas to catch up with me. A soaking hand reached out and stroked me from head to tail.

“Come on, Atlas,” I said. “We’ve both got mates to find.”

He nodded, his slackened jaws flapping a little. “I love... Clea!”

I snorted a laugh. “I love you too, Atlas, but there’s another one for you, and another one for me. We can always be friends though. Deal?”

In a sing-songy cadence, Atlas started saying my name over and over again, then whistling happily, even though the rain made him sputter more than whistle. I couldn’t help but laugh.

We crested a hill, and down below was what we’d been hunting. The camp was buzzing with activity. Just as I began to watch, a tree fell with a great crackling noise, and was immediately chained to a pair of motorcycles and dragged into place. Immediately, the river began to swell behind the blockage.

“Orion,” I whispered, as I stalked toward the camp. “You’re going to be fine. I promise. For once, I’m saving
you
.”

––––––––

T
here were four of them struggling with something that they seemed barely able to contain. Something large, something very strong, and very... green.

“Sara,” I whispered. “Atlas, come here.”

Atlas shuffled up beside me, his massive, enormous torso dwarfing me – and I’m not a tiny lynx. I pointed at the struggle. “See that? Sara,” I said.

“Sa... ra, Sara is mean.”

I shook my head. “She’s not mean, she just loves you. We all act strangely when we fall in love. A lot of us don’t really know how to handle it.” The lecture I was giving Atlas was really meant for me, but he seemed to understand what I was saying.

“She’s not... mean?”

“No, she’s scared of her own feelings. She’s scared that she’s fallen in love with someone who doesn’t love her as much as she loves him. But you do, don’t you? I can see in your eyes that you do.”

To be perfectly honest, I couldn’t see a whole lot in his eyes, but I
did
recognize the way his voice got all wavy when she came up.

Sara took a swing at one of the bikers and absolutely clobbered the shit out of him. The big biker’s head jerked around from the impact of her fist. His body followed, spinning around halfway before collapsing in a heap.

Two Devils replaced their fallen comrade, managing to wrestle Sara into something resembling a controlled state. They managed to get her arms twisted behind her. Just when it seemed like they were going to conquer her, Sara twisted around and drove her knee up into a biker’s sternum. He howled, fell backwards, and rolled from side to side in the mud.

“They... hurting Sara,” Atlas growled.

I looked back at him, not particularly surprised to see him clenching and relaxing one of his huge, oversized fists. “They... hurting... Sara!”

The gigantic, frat house-smelling bear’s rage was pretty obvious. Also obvious was that he was about to charge straight into a very dangerous camp. He might not get hurt, but they could certainly tear or shoot him apart, which would be very, very bad. I reached out and grabbed ahold of a tattered suspender, which somehow signaled him to chill for a second. “Not yet, they aren’t. I think she’s winning so far,” I growled. “Atlas. Stay put.”

He turned back and looked at me with the saddest, droopiest eyes I’ve ever seen. “But hurting... Sara?”

“Ba-be-be-ba-la-la-lo!” Sara bellowed from across the camp as she lunged at another unsuspecting biker and just about took his head off with a shoulder tackle.

I swallowed, hard. Still hadn’t seen any trace of Orion, but like Jenga said – if we found Sara, we’d find Orion.
He’s here
, I told myself.
Just believe. Just believe in him, like all the other things you’ve learned to believe in the last few weeks. Stop questioning, follow your heart.

Thunder rolled overhead, and somewhere in the near distance a bolt of lightning crashed to the forest floor. I felt the heat, but it wasn’t near enough to worry me; just my lynx senses picking up the tension from the electricity in the air. I lifted my nose and inhaled deeply.

The first thing that hit my nose was the powerful scent of... well, of whatever unnatural things go into Atlas’s college-boy cologne. But behind that cloying scent of fake musk and faux-manliness I smelled something much more familiar. Leather, sweat, and just a little grime from the road.

“Orion?” I asked no one in particular, squinting through the undergrowth at the camp and holding on to Atlas’s suspender at the same time. “Is that you?”

“Where... Or...ion?” Atlas groaned. His voice was taking on something of an irritated, angry tone; the words were tighter in his throat, and he spoke faster and more tersely than I’d heard him do before.

I shook my head as though he was looking at me. “I don’t know,” I said. “I’m trying to see him, trying to—”

The next thunder that met my ears wasn’t thunder at all, thought it
was
familiar. The rumbling, throbbing, blasting made me long for Orion. What crested the hill opposite where Atlas and I sat though was pretty much the worst thing I could imagine. “More of them?”

Another handful of outlaw bikers descended to the camp, and one of them – the biggest, most scarred up and tattooed bear I’d ever seen in my thirty-one years of life, stepped off his bike and just shoved it to the ground.

“Get out here, Celia!” he roared. “Get out here right the hell
now
!”

Sara unwittingly approached him as she fought at the others. She took two more to the ground with a swipe of her massive, slightly green head. She swung a leg, trying to take out the new guy, but he just stepped to the side and swiped the other one out from under her.

“What is this goddamn mess?” he demanded. “You!” the big bear grabbed one of what I guessed were his lackeys. “Take this thing to a cage or the river or something. It smells awful. I’ve got shit to take care of. Where is my son?”

The man grabbed Sara as ordered, dragging her away – albeit slowly – and shook his head at the question.

That must be Mitch
, I thought.
He’s every bit as ugly as Orion promised, although quite a bit bigger
.

My claws slid out of my fingertips, presenting themselves on instinct. God I wanted to drive them into the bastard who hurt my Orion. I wanted to claw him, tear him, rip at him until there was nothing left. Realistically though he was probably four times my size and just about that much stronger.

Still, I’m scrappy. And what’s more? No one messes with my family.

It hit me square in the stomach.
Family
, I thought.
I said it. I admitted it to myself. Family. That’s what he makes me feel – like he’s the one I never had, but the one I always cried for. Every night when Liam called me fat or stupid or a goddamn-waste-of-space, Orion’s the guy I wished to find.

And there he was.

Led out of what seemed to be the largest tent in the camping area by a squat little woman holding a leash, was Orion.

He was stooped, his hands bound in iron, his ankles shackled in the same. He could barely take an eighth of his normal stride with the restraints in place. Around his neck was some sort of collar that made him wince every so often.

He raised his head, saw his father and lunged.

The little beaver cackled, dramatically mashed a button on a hand-held device she had on a lanyard around her neck, and sent Orion crashing to the ground. “Zap!” she cried out, before she started to cackle. “God I love this thing!”

Atlas tightened his suspender. “Hurting... Orion!” he said. He yelled the first word but when I yanked on his leash, he lowered his roar to a tight whisper. “They... hurting Sara! And they... hur...ting Orion!”

He tugged on the leashing suspender again. I wasn’t going to be able to hold him much longer, and if they did anything else that hurt either Orion or Sara, there was going to be a rampaging hulk loose on this camp. I’m not sure what would happen. And I’m not sure if even
they
could handle it, no matter how many there were.

Atlas threw his head from side to side, shaggy hair and Axe body spray flinging every which way. “Need to save... friends!” he growled.

I held on for dear life. He was straining, and even with my claws dug into the forest floor, I wasn’t going to hold him much longer. It felt like I was trying to keep a pissed off moose from getting at his moose girlfriend in the middle of November.