Bearly Breathing (Alpha Werebear Shifter Paranormal Romance) (25 page)

Mitch grabbed Orion by the hair, dragging him to his feet. “You stupid son of a bitch!” he shouted in his son’s face. “You don’t got
nothing
without the Devils! You ain’t shit!”

He drew back and let a crushing backhand fly. The older bear’s hand crashed into Orion’s face, spinning his head. A trail of blood flew from Orion’s busted lip, and he slumped back down, head drooping, blood dripping to the forest floor.

“What?” Mitch taunted him, lifting his son’s head. “What is it? Stupid titty baby can’t take a punch? Is that it? You a dentist yet, college boy?”

Anger flared in Orion’s dull eyes. He opened them wide, his pale brown irises blazing. “Don’t call me that,” he said in a taut whisper. “You don’t own me anymore.”

Mitch let out a loud, bellowing, overdramatic laugh and struck again. Orion’s head flailed in the other direction, but this time his head didn’t drop afterwards. He stared straight into his father’s face, grinning grimly through broken lips.

Beside the bear show, Sara pushed herself to her feet and, as a tendril of drool ran down her chin, onto the forest floor. Another of the nameless mass of outlaws took a swing at her, but she opened her massive jaws, and bit.

He howled in pain, flailing around with his free hand, delivering useless rabbit punches that bounced off Sara’s half-shifted forehead. She thrashed back and forth, wrenching the hapless biker in one direction, then another. He was howling, she was... grinning? And Orion was death-staring straight into Mitch’s face.

A flash of lightning and then an explosive blast hit my ears, but there was no thunder. Instead, Sara stiffened up, and fell straight over. That little beaver, Celia, climbed up her legs and stood, triumphant, slapping what looked like a cattle prod against her palm.

My confidence in holding Atlas back was waning, and fast.

Snap!

The suspender broke in my hand, rainbow-colored elastic popping and recoiling to slap my upper arm. Atlas, brown Dickies drooping low on his hips, charged.

His one-man stampede was a mixture of loping, running, bear-crawling, and good old fashioned bum-rushing, along with a roar that probably ranks somewhere near the top of the loudest things in the world scale, that turned every single head in the camp.

I followed close behind.

“Uh-oh,” Celia said. Her mouth fell open as the big, green bear ran full-on straight at her head.

She froze, her posture reminding me of a terrified armadillo. I knew the look on her face, because I’d had it more than once. Abject, hopeless, terror. She didn’t bother ducking, didn’t bother raising her oversized cattle prod. She just watched, eyes wide open, mouth hanging slack.

Atlas never even broke his stride. He didn’t have to bother. He just kept running, sort of hopped over Sara and Celia, and slammed right the hell into Mitch’s side. I knocked the shock-stick away, and planted a paw right in Celia’s chest, sending her sprawling to the ground. I followed her down, pinning her squirming shoulders to the forest floor with my forepaws and trying to figure out exactly what the hell to do.

“Atlas? Clea? Sara?” My lynx ears caught Jenga’s far-off voice, and jangling beard.

“Don’t come!” I shouted. “Stay back!”

Mitch tried to swing what looked like either a tree root or a garden implement at Atlas, but the big bear just stiffened his jaw, took the blow, and split whatever it was in half. Grinning, and drooling mightily, Atlas stuck out his fist in a straight punch that didn’t seem very fast, but sent Mitch flying backwards into a tree trunk. He wheezed, he coughed, and then he fell to the ground.

“Mitch!” Celia screamed. “Billie! Someone! Anyone! Answer me!”

“Over here!” a tiny, strangely chipper voice answered. “Do you need anything?”

Considering the circumstances, I couldn’t help but snort a laugh. Celia scowled up at me, evidently not finding it particularly funny. “Call the Dust Devils, or whatever they call themselves and tell them to break the dams! I worked too damn hard for this to all end now.”

“Yes sir!” the squirrel chirped. “Ma’am! I mean. You’re not a—”

“
Do it!
” Celia squawked. “NOW!”

The tiny creature waddled off into the tent and I picked up the sound of a transistor radio zoning in on a band.

“Who’s there?” Jenga called, his voice getting closer.

“Stay back, Jenga!” I shouted again. “It’s dangerous! There’s too much going on!”

Mitch climbed to his feet, and Atlas toppled him again with a double axe-handle style punch, right into the forehead.

Rain pounded harder, coming down in soaking sheets that matted my fur, and deadened my hearing. My sense of smell, too, was weaker, drowned out by the hushed scent of freshly watered forest.

The jingling beard was still coming though. “Whassat?” he shouted. “Can’t hear you, Clea! Too much rain!”

“Atlas?” he called as soon as he got close enough to the camp to see what was going on. “Atlas! You put that... er, that giant, dangerous looking biker down. Or don’t?”

I shook my head at him, as soon as I caught his attention by flicking a stick with one of my back feet.

“Clea?” he asked, and then turned to Atlas. “No! Never mind, keep it up!”

Mitch took another swing at the zombie. His huge paw slammed into Atlas’s ribcage, but big green just smiled as Mitch screamed in agony, apparently having hurt himself.

“I knew reinforcin’ them ribs with fence posts was a good idea,” Jenga said. “At first it was just to keep him upright with all that weight, but, hell, looks like it’s good for other things, too. Oh,” he looked down. “Who’s this, then? Oh, you’re that tiny thing what keeps trying to flood the town, hum? Guess you got what was coming to you. Say, Clea, you seen Sara? She’s—”

Big, shaky legs drove into the ground. Massive, twitching arms grabbed Atlas’s calves and pulled up.

Thunder throbbed and then crashed overhead, but it was hard to tell if it was the sky protesting the storm, or the two massive zombie bears grunting. Sara grasped the overgenerous waistband of Atlas’s work pants, pulling them down and herself up at the same time. She stuffed her hand into the ass part of Atlas’s khakis, ripping them down the middle.

Atlas took another massive swipe at Mitch, except this time, his arm wasn’t the only thing flailing. It was almost hypnotic to watch his, well, zombie-hood, flopping around all over the place.

“Really?” I asked, looking in Jenga’s direction.

He shrugged innocently. “It’d look funny if it was smaller.”

Sara managed to get herself to her feet, apparently not even noticing the amazing sight inches away from her face, and tromped over to Orion.

“I help! Be-bo-bo-bo-la-la!” she cheered, grabbing the irons between his ankles. She strained, her muscles bulging, and gritting her teeth.

“Is she ripping that apart with her bare hands?”

“Of course,” Jenga said. “What other kind does she have?” he giggled to himself as the metal creaked, groaned, and then burst. Orion looked just about as surprised as I must’ve, although with the blood running down his face, he looked about ten grades more bad ass.

His giant chest, his heaving muscles, and those tattoos around his eyes seemed to play off the scar on his cheek a little more than usual. Rain, mixed with blood, ran down Orion’s face. He stared
straight
at me as Sara took his wrist irons in her giant hands and squeezed until they broke.

In my absolute astonishment, I got a little careless with my ward. I lifted a paw toward Orion. Underneath me, Celia let her fur down. Her legs shortened, her teeth grew longer, sharper, and yellower. The first I knew of her tail is when she arched her back and slapped me with so much force that I somersaulted forward before I got my balance.

My legs throbbed from the impact, and I darted forward to try and knock her cattle prod away again, but it was too late. She grabbed the stick and brandished it with such seriousness that for a second I was convinced she was Errol Flynn reincarnated. And, you know, with giant buckteeth and a beaver tail.

She waved the tip of her stick at me, and raised her other arm into a rough approximation of a fencer’s stance. “Come on!” she squealed. “And Billie! Did you break the dams yet?”

At some point, the tiny person had emerged from the tent, but stayed quiet. She was standing behind and to the left of Celia, so I was able to shoot a glance in her direction as the beaver lady lunged at me with her electric Excalibur, and I retreated. The poor thing was shaking.

“Got some bad news, Celia,” she said in a halting,
I-don’t-want-to-say-this
way.

“Spit it out! I’m in a fight to the death! This is the worst moment possible for bad news, but it’s great for dramatic effect!”

In a way I almost admired her.

I shot a glance at Orion, who was squeezing his fists, releasing them, over and over. Blood, and with it, color, was coming back into his face.

“The, uh, the hyenas, they...” Billie trailed off.

“Spit. It. Out!” Celia screeched, lunging at me again. I lifted a leg, ducked away and then came back at her with a swipe that cut a red track across her left arm. She recoiled, but made no sound except a pained
hiss
.

“The hyenas showed up. I haven’t the foggiest how, but they came and are presently disassembling the dams. Slowly. Like too slowly for the town to flood.”

Celia stabbed wildly, and I caught her with another scratch. “Who cares?” she asked as she circled. “Doesn’t matter, this...
this
is my coup de grace. Break the dam! Break this one! It’ll still wipe out the town center, especially with all this rain.”

Billie’s lips were trembling. She was holding the receiver of her radio array in her hand, but not pushing the button. Not giving any orders.

Celia swung again this time catching me with a glancing blow that gave me a hell of a shock even though it hardly connected. One of my arms and one of my legs seized up, and before I knew what was happening, I fell to the side, into the mud.

The earth stung my eyes, and the pain coursing through my clenching muscles took up all my thought real estate. The electricity tricked my brain into retracting my claws, and pulling my legs back into a state halfway between human and lynx.

I looked over at Orion, who shook his head and shouted my name. “Clea!” he roared. “Where are you? Clea!”

“Over... over here,” I said, weakly, summoning all my strength. My half-shifted lungs could barely make any noise at all, but apparently he heard me. From about fifty yards away, he turned in my direction and starting to take halting, stuttering steps toward me.

He’s leaving his father,
I thought.
The revenge he’s wanted all his life, and he’s turning his back on him to come for me?

“No,” Billie squeaked. “No, Celia, this isn’t right. I... I don’t want to hurt anyone.”

“What are you,
crazy
? Gimme that!” Celia left me in the muck, stomped over to her goon and gave her a sharp backhand, before grabbing the radio. “Break the Great James dam!” she screamed into the handset. “It’s time, go!”

Something garbled came back over the speaker, but whatever it was apparently satisfied Celia, because she threw the handset in the mud and returned her attention to me. “Oh! Your boyfriend’s on the way, huh? Good, I can shock his ass again. Only this time he’s a lot wetter. I imagine he’ll cook up
real nice
.”

I swung at her uselessly with a fist I couldn’t close. She took a step closer so I could make contact, but she just kicked my hand away.

Sara had come to whatever sort of senses she had, and was trumpeting something about helping again when she noticed Orion had gotten away from her. She tromped after him when he was about ten feet from me, so close I could almost touch him. When she closed on him, Orion stumbled, falling to one knee, before she helped him up.

“Go help Atlas,” Orion said in a halting, pained voice. “He needs your help. For me?”

Sara cocked her head to the side, but apparently, hearing that was what Orion wanted was enough.

Celia wasn’t paying a shred of attention. The look on her face was victorious, triumphant. She looked so self-satisfied that I sorta didn’t want to break the news that she was about to get jumped by two bears.

Almost.

“Hey Celia?” I asked, with a little slur in my words. “You might want to turn around.”

“I’ll take that,” Orion said, snatching the cattle prod from Celia’s stunned fingers, and flinging it backward.

It arced, end over end, farther than I imagined he’d tossed it. A peal of thunder rumbled through the forest, and another flash of lightning – the storm was much closer than I thought – blasted.

“Holy
shit
,” Orion said, looking in the direction of the flash. “That was—”

“Atlas!” Jenga shouted. “Sara! No! It can’t be, I—”

The old man emerged from the small pit he’d dug himself to hide. Sprinting across the forest as fast as his rickety old legs would work. Still sailing end over end, the cattle prod landed, tip down, jabbing into Atlas’s chest.

He got a very cross look on his face, frowning and drooling, but apparently the thing was still working, because his arms just shook violently when he tried to move them.

Another roll of thunder broke the night.

Sara reached up, apparently trying to help her friend remove the cattle prod like she was pulling a burr out of a dog’s fur. She grabbed the handle, and in the instant before she pulled, another brilliant flash split the sky.

The smell of burned lilac and burned... fraternity house, I guess, filled the air.

“Oh no,” Jenga cried, falling to his knees. “Oh, no, no, no...”

Mitch, Celia, Orion and I, not to mention the handful of spare biker goons and the curious onlooker squirrels, all froze in various stages of attacking each other, and turned our attention to the unique-smelling pile of bear.

All of us expected something; some kind of sign of life, or maybe an explosion or maybe something completely unheard of, so we all just stared at the two bears.

Orion shook his head, Jenga wrung his hands together, I bit my lip, and Atlas groaned.