Bearly Breathing (Alpha Werebear Shifter Paranormal Romance)

by Lynn Red

  “Shut up! If I wanted your opinion, Billie, I would pound it out of you! I’ll flood the whole place! I’ll turn that stupid alpha into a waterlogged puppy!”

  The squirrel fell silent and the leader of this unsanctioned water control team stomped around on top of one of the logs she’d just forced into the river. “This is my moment! Celia Maynard hasn’t ever had a moment before, except when she screamed at that jackass alpha in the middle of that stupid art show! Don’t ruin it for me!”

  Listening to the circus unfold, Orion stuck his hand back in his pocket and dragged the smooth worn stones out again. One by one, he rubbed his fingers over each, then dropped it in the weakening river.

  “Sorry,” the squirrel said. “I was just...”

  “Celia Maynard is going to save this forest! All of the woodland shifters will be safe from the townies spreading outward like a bacterial virus!”

  “Uh, wouldn’t that—”

  “Shut up!” Celia barked. “Beavers, squirrels, ground hogs, possums, we all deserve better than a Subway store on every corner and Red Box kiosks! We deserve our woods, and I’ll do whatever it takes to keep them safe!”

  The second squirrel, the one who had yet to say anything, began to clap. The giant, angry squirrel who kept yelling, turned on her heel and he saw her tell-tale, well, tail.

  Beaver, he realized, as the scent hit his nose again. Trees being dragged from somewhere, damming up a river, very beaver things to do. It didn’t make much sense, admittedly, but then again, beavers rarely did.

  Orion counted the stones he dropped. Five, six, seven... And then he paused.

  Number eight wasn’t like the others. He squeezed it between his thumb and forefinger, dropping all the rest of the rocks at once. This one had a bunch of barbs. That wasn’t normal. He held it up in the moonlight, and stared in wonder at the fire dancing in the stone.

  “A diamond earring?”

  A quick glance back toward the excitement revealed Celia and her two squirrels hopping off the freshly delivered logs and probably going to get some more.

  Orion stared again at the strange little stud he’d found. Was this what he’d been looking for? A hint of his... he didn’t want to think mate because that meant he’d have to deal with his own fear, his own anxiety, about dragging someone into his brutal world.

  On the other hand, there’s no denying love. There’s no denying fate. He’d been doing that for far too long, and failing spectacularly at it. Maybe it was time to give up on his charade and get on with life after the Devils.

  He brought the stud to his nose and sniffed. Only the vaguest hint of the aroma of the person who’d worn it remained. Lifting his head to the sky and closing his eyes, he took another, longer sniff. Sticking out his tongue, he touched the back of the stone – the part that would have rested against Clea’s ear – and let her scent and her taste fill him.

  This was it.

  He knew it before he smelled, before he tasted, but afterwards he was sure.

  As sure as the night was dark, and as sure as beavers were bat-shit crazy, he had found his mate.

  Briefly, Orion considered putting the earring back in his pocket, but that was too risky. Instead he wandered back to the riverbank, back to where he kept his very limited worldly possessions. Opening one of his two books – a textbook about Dentistry – he rotated the earring like a tiny drill until it pierced the cover. Then, he mashed it in deep enough that there was no chance of it escaping.

  Immediately, he knew where he had to go. He had to face his fears if he was going to have his mate. He had to return to a place he’d avoided for as long as possible. Living the outlaw life, it was easy – he couldn’t go into many towns at all without raising the ire of the local authorities even though he himself hadn’t committed any horrible crimes. Just being associated was enough, and the fact that he was an enforcer? Hard to explain to cops that he only “enforced” against other gangs.

  He had to face his fears to find his mate – to have what he knew deep in his heart was his fate.

  He had to go to Jamesburg.

  -8-

  “What the hell am I doing? Oh right, I’m forcing fate to do what I want. And if that doesn’t work? No time to think about that. It will. It has to.”

  -Orion Samuelsson

  Slowly, he worked the tip of his knife around the Dirty Devils patch that was stitched into his jacket. Orion checked his work, and found he was about halfway through the surgery.

  He loved the jacket – his mom gave it to him more years ago than he cared to remember. She was sick, and he was around twenty. Life wasn’t particularly good, but it wasn’t all that bad, either. Things were just hard. Money was tight, his father was an asshole, and his mom had finally gotten sick of Mitch’s shit.

  She ran, and Mitch didn’t bother to chase her. He just let them go. That was his last act of brutality against the two of them, his just letting them go. It showed how little he actually cared, maybe, or maybe it showed that he knew Orion would come crawling back.

  Orion popped another stitch, then another. Orion’s running from his father was the event, the exclamation point that led into the next sentence. His plucking the threads out of this jacket, and peeling this damn brand away, this was all the words that set the scene.

  He was out. Like out, out.

  And everything had changed. In the blink of an eye, the time it took for a tree to fall and for me to catch it, every single thing in my world changed. He shook his huge head, sending his shaggy curls back and forth. Not everything. Not the danger from my father.

  “Blood in, blood out,” he read off his Devils brand as he popped two more stitches. “Yeah. But it doesn’t say whose blood.”

  Orion touched the spider web of scars on his cheek.

  “Mom,” he said, staring down at the patch. The pinprick holes in the jacket were just like the scars on his face. A reminder of a time he didn’t want to forget, but that he’d rather die than relive.

  He closed his pale, brown eyes, and watched the scene play out on the inside of his eyelids. Drawing a breath, Orion still smelled the brownies she baked when he felt awful, the way the chocolate chips that somehow didn’t melt completely in the oven popped in his mouth. It wasn’t even imagination – the sensations were real. He remembered how she touched his face after the burn, how she nursed him back to health, and how she never let him believe he was ugly – no matter what his father said.

  I can’t be with her, he thought. Not while my father is still free. He’ll hurt her, he’ll kill her, just to hurt me.

  That girl – Clea – her lithe body against his when he’d grabbed her, the lean, long muscles that made his heart skip a beat. He remembered the gentle, flowery smell of her hair the exact same way he remembered his mother’s shampoo. It was real, right then, in that moment. He was with her in his memory.

  But I can’t stay away. I can’t not track you, can’t stop myself.

  The war in Orion’s heart was already over, and he knew it, even if he wasn’t going to admit it to himself just yet. It had been over the second he looked into those amber eyes with the elongated pupils.

  Clea, the way she dove on top of that cub and protected her, not giving the first damn if she herself was hurt, even killed. It reminded Orion of his mother, jumping in a second too late; a second after his father burned him to teach him some nonsense lesson or another.

  “You’d like her,” he said as he ran his finger along the connect-the-dots where his brand used to be. “I know you would. She reminds me of you. Of how you were so brave, so kind. I can see it in her eyes.”

  He looked down, his eyes burning with memories. A single tear fell out of each eye.

  He’d never allow anyone to see him cry, not even over his mother. Never. But alone, out here in the woods? What was the harm? Who was there to see?

  “I’d let her see me cry,” he told the woods, as a bird chirped overhead and something rustled in the leaves. “She has eyes that I trus
t. But first I have to find her.”

  Swallowing hard, Orion pushed himself to his feet, slinging his leather jacket armor into place, and then tightening the straps on his trusty old Eastpak down snugly against his shoulders.

  And if I’m going to find her, I have to go to Jamesburg.

  The hope was that he wouldn’t run into anyone who recognized him. The Devils, and the Samuelssons for that matter, stayed mostly out of the public eye. Going into town was done at night, if at all, and only very sparingly. Then again, his father had done a lot of nasty things, and Orion’s motorcycle wasn’t exactly subtle.

  But there was no choice.

  If he was going to find her, he had to look where she would be.

  *

  The ride into the dark fringe of Jamesburg didn’t take long. He’d set himself up in a small camp about half an hour from the middle of town, but not consciously. Staying where he’d seen his heart for the first time, he figured she’d come back by at some point. That’s how bears operated anyway.

  He had made a promise to find her, a promise he’d had to work up his courage to make good on, but as he sped toward town, the wind whipping through his hair, and the moon fat and yellow overhead, Orion was ready.

  Once he was sitting in the middle of town, one leg on either side of his huge, chrome steed, he realized another problem entirely – he had no idea where to start.

  Orion’s stomach growled. Once a bear, always a bear. His stomach had got him into trouble on more than one occasion, but with the town being as apparently empty as it was, he felt fairly confident that no one would see him. That might’ve been hunger talking, but without quieting his grumbling gut, he wasn’t going to get anything else done.

  And with no particular idea what in the world he needed to do to find Clea, he figured he could do a lot worse than filling his stomach. If nothing else, he’d need the energy.

  Slowly, he began to trundle around the abandoned city square. Nothing was open, and no one was around, but he figured if he wandered long enough, something would come his way.

  He looked east, then west, down the abandoned main street running through town. A single gathering of lights tipped him off, and Orion headed toward them. At the end of his short trek three bars and two big food trucks – one selling tacos and one pushing paninis – sat.

  Sniffing the air, he found something else hanging there. Something tantalizing and tangy. Something he hadn’t eaten since the Devils went full outlaw and took to the wilds.

  Barbecue. He pushed through the jangly double doors, and took a deep breath, filling his nose.

  With the few dollars he had, Orion ordered as much brisket as he possibly could and sat down in a booth toward the back of the dirty, peanut shell-covered building and sat. He chewed, he swallowed, and he wished that somehow, this would turn out easier than he imagined.

  But then again, finding a needle in a haystack filled with needles? Not the simplest thing in the world.

  Finishing his food, Orion wiped his mouth carefully, making sure to get all the sauce, and also making sure not to leave any traces of anything behind – hair, quickly growing beard stubble, fingerprints – nothing.

  It was probably more than a little crazy, especially since he’d never actually done anything wrong in Jamesburg, but the fear his father put in him was hot and fresh and right next to the surface of his skin.

  “Thish is a damn big fella,” someone said, emerging from the restroom behind Orion. “How did I mish you?”

  Orion narrowed his eyes, squinting at the slight, watery-eyed man who rounded to the front of his table. “I don’t know,” Orion said, helpfully. “I’m not looking for company.”

  Not this kind of company, anyway.

  “No, no, of coursh not,” he said. “Shay, I’m Leon, and this joint’s about to cl... cl... shut shop. Want some company, mishter?” He sat before Orion could say anything else. The man smelled like a mixture of stale beer, nacho cheese, and onions.

  The onions were the worst part of the mixture. It’s a bear thing – for whatever reason, onions and bears just don’t mix.

  “What’s your shtory?” the funny looking stranger pulled out a pack of cigarettes, and stuck one between his lips. Orion plucked the smoke from the man’s mouth, tucked it back inside, and returned the pack to the table.

  “I’m allergic,” he said, smiling uncomfortably, and then said nothing else, just dead-eyed staring straight ahead.

  “Oh, yeah,” Leon said. “Sure, I, uh, forgot to ask.”

  “Hum.” Orion swallowed, watching his new best friend sweat.

  “So, want a beers?” Leon asked. Standing up on wobbly legs. Something about his helpless cantor made Orion get up, and then push the little guy back to the bench.

  “I’ll buy,” Orion said. “You stay there.”

  For some reason he couldn’t explain, Orion actually went and bought two – one large for himself and a smaller one for his new friend, who very clearly did not need a twenty-four ounce beer.

  When he returned, the little man was slumped over. Orion slammed the glasses down a little harder than absolutely necessary.

  “Ho there!” Leon sat up straight. “Oh, it’s jusht you.”

  Orion slid the short beer across the table, and took a very long draft from his own.

  “Why are you being sho nice?” Leon licked his lips and took a gulp. Orion noticed his eyes were slightly bugged, but it didn’t seem like it was out of place. They moved independently, scanning around the room with a frenetic intensity.

  “Tell you the truth? I’m not so sure. I’m looking for someone I doubt I’m going to find, and—”

  “Who? I’m good at finding folksh.”

  Orion grunted a laugh. “Right,” he said. “Leon, you said, right?”

  “That’sh... yeah, that’sh me.” There was a certain curious pride in the droopy-eyed man’s voice.

  “Do you know anyone named Clea?” He figured there wasn’t any reason not to try. “She lives here. At least, I think she does. Runs some kind of school?”

  “Clea... uh... Kellen? She’s a... cat, yesh? She’s got some... good...”

  Orion interrupted him with an inadvertent growl.

  “Uh, right, shorry. I don’t... Cubby Hole. That’sh her place. Ain’t too far from here, but,” Leon sputtered his lips. “No point going tonight.”

  “Why?” Orion frowned.

  “Past midnight on Friday. Weekendsh, you know.” Leon pushed himself to his unsteady feet, and somehow made his way to the door. “Shorry,” he announced. “Getting late!”

  “You ain’t driving, are you, Leon?” the bartender shouted.

  “Naw, Pat,” Leon said back. “My handsh... they stick to the wheel.”

  He stumbled out and the door clanged as it closed behind him.

  Orion dumped his friend’s beer into his own, and then drained both of them in one go. With a loud sigh, he wiped his mouth with the same napkin from before.

  Outside the bar, Orion looked north and then south. The stars overhead twinkled, and refreshed, he felt a little better than before. It wasn’t just nourishment and good food. Thoughts of Clea danced in his head – of her soft hands, her fragrant hair, the way light danced in her eyes.

  It wasn’t much, but at least he had some sort of lead.

  After waiting this long, two more days won’t kill me, he thought, no matter how hard it was to believe himself. Two more days for eternity? I’ll live.

  He straddled his bike, kicked the throttle.

  Halfway down the road, back to his old campground, he felt a twinge in the back of his head, and spun his bike in a donut, then raced back the other way. If there was one thing his father told him that was of any value at all, it was to never stay in one place too long.

  -9-

  “Sometimes a dream is just a dream. Other times, a dream is a blaring air horn telling you to jump on a guy and gyrate until you scream. Sigmund Freud said that. Sort of.”

  -Clea
>
  Dreams are kinda funny things, huh?

  So often I just ignore them, tell ourselves there’s nothing to ‘em even when every single shred of my soul know that isn’t true. Try to convince my brain to listen to my heart though, that’s about the hardest thing in the world.

  Almost harder than waking up at half-past two in the morning with a little bit of a red wine hangover and a loud exercise machine infomercial blaring in your face.

  I gotta start remembering that whole drink a pint of water thing, I thought as I half-pushed, half-rolled off the couch and stood. Stretching my arms above my head got my shoulders popping one after another, then my elbows, then my fingers when I crooked them.

  A slow bend from the waist made every single vertebrae crack as I settled into a deep stretch, grabbing my ankles and pulled my head between my knees. Being me, I stood up way the hell too fast, got a little woozy, and had to sit back down for a second.

  The guy on TV was a big, muscled-up sort of dude. Nothing like my Orion, though.

  Long blond hair pulled into a puff-ball ponytail of curls bobbled every time he took a stride on the elliptical he was trying sell me for six easy payments of only one-ninety-nine, but my mind was in another universe.

  The throbbing in the back of my skull settled down into a slow, thrumming ache that was easy to manage by taking a couple aspirin and chugging the pint of water I should’ve drunk before I passed out.

  A few minutes later, safely curled up in bed and completely naked because that’s what I do and no one is ever gonna tell me to stop, I found myself watching the ceiling fan whip around.

  “Are you really out there?” I asked the ceiling as wind howled outside. “Or were you just saying things to try and get away from me and a bunch of cubs?” I took a deep breath and sighed. “That’s it, isn’t it? You just wanted to get away, so you said whatever you thought would calm me down, and then went on your way.”