Bearly Breathing (Alpha Werebear Shifter Paranormal Romance)

by Lynn Red

  It was similar to a town hall meeting, except that instead of everyone sitting around and falling asleep while other people talked about how they wish their neighbors would mow the yard more often, everyone screamed.

  A lot.

  This was the ebb and flow. For a time, people would just be called for their turn to speak and then present whatever hopelessly banal problem they had before the town council. Whichever town council member was most familiar with the issue at hand would speak up, and then a decision reached.

  But then someone would dredge up some shit about a cheating ex-mate who decided to run off and literally join the circus and then come back to town a year later, expecting to still have a place to sleep.

  Chaos. Like real chaos, not like a college on the first day. Like fire and brimstone, hell raining from the skies, dogs and cats living together, chaos. It never failed.

  “Anyways,” Leon, the town drunk-cum-salamander, slurred. “I never meant to fall asleep under Jimmy Atwood’s shrubs and I surely didn’t know I did it on his worm bed.”

  I said quiet! Erik wanted to shout, but he knew that would just make them all shout. Just like running a kindergarten, he guessed, or training a puppy.

  “Damn it, Leon,” Jimmy Atwood, an honest-to-God jackass shifter, said. “I told you four times that day when we was drinkin’ that you couldn’t stay over on account of my wife getting home from her Junior League dance marathon and wantin’ to go straight to bed.”

  The door opened and someone came in – someone short enough that no one at the back of the room could see who it was. But, whoever just entered didn’t bother to say anything, instead just blending in with the crowd. Probably just another hoople-head with a stupid complaint.

  Erik sat back, thankful that at least it was just two idiots shouting at each other. At the same time, he couldn’t quite believe what he was hearing. He really was, like really, listening to a jackass and a drunken salamander have it out as to who should have to repair the donkey’s hobby worm bed.

  He lowered his Sea World coffee mug out of sight and poured about three healthy slugs of whiskey into the cup. The next sip he took was a lot better than the one before. He looked over at his mate, Izzy, and shrugged. She scooted her chair closer. He looked past her gorgeous curls, to Professor Duggan, who was sitting with his arms crossed over his big belly.

  It looked like the old hedgehog had actually fallen asleep somehow, but it was hard to tell with him. Duggan was in charge of the notifications and permits section of the town government, which suited him well because Duggan’s favorite thing in the world was a tie between economic history books so dry they could light Leon on fire, and a perfectly prepared, correctly filled out permit form.

  To Erik’s left sat Jamie Ampton, the leather-clad werebat who served currently as the town’s community outreach officer. She had been recently pining over some new guy she met – apparently an incredibly rich blood drinker – and generally acting like a love-sick puppy. Jamie rhythmically tapped the heel of one of her knee-high leather boots on the tile floor, and then dragged it between the cracks.

  All the way at the end of the table sat Ash Morgan, the single bear in the normally hyena-only Jamesburg Police Department. He was lucky enough to have been named the community liaison for the JPD, so he got to come to all these things as well.

  “Now I swear it’s true,” Jimmy Atwood resumed. “I done told him six times he couldn’t stay over, and so when he was all good’n drunk – which by the way, he got snookered off my liquor – I said to him goodnight, and he said to me the same, and I closed the door. I expected he’d go on his way but instead he had the gumption to go right to sleep on top of my goddamn worms!”

  Erik sensed that things were about to get heated again, and he was just tipsy enough that if it happened, he’d throw a lectern. Izzy – she wasn’t just his mate of course, she was also the town controller of finance – informed him that there was only enough for three more lecterns in this year’s budget. He couldn’t waste one on Leon.

  “All right,” Erik cut in, raising his hands in a universal “please shut up” sign. “So, how much is this worm bed actually worth? Like are we talking ant farm money or... shit, I don’t even know. I feel stupid just saying this stuff.”

  At that, Duggan stood up. Apparently he had just been resting his eyes. “They can get very expensive, especially if the worms were a mature breeding garden. I used to keep them myself.”

  “Yeah!” Jimmy Atwood said. “This was a five year old bed. One of my worms won the worm size, girth, and color contest in Bait & Tackle. He was the champion for three years running!”

  “Surely... that can’t be true,” Erik said. “Right? Worms don’t live that long. Right? Someone back me up, someone make me feel like I’m not actually the single sane individual in an entire sea of insanity.”

  Izzy started in-laughing, and Jamie arched an eyebrow. Ash cracked his knuckles so loudly that the crack was audible over the growing din of noise. Humorously, that calmed everyone down a little bit.

  “Well look,” Leon finally said. “I sure am sorry for what I did to my friend’s worms, especially the long, thick one that kep’ winnin’ fights or whatever he said. But fact is, even if I wanted to pay, I can’t. I don’t have a plug damn nickel to my name. I ain’t getting paid until Friday next.”

  “Can’t squeeze blood from a salamander, I guess,” Erik said under his breath, in Izzy’s direction. “Wait. No, you can. That doesn’t...”

  Just in time to stop either of them from talking any more, Erik stood back up. “All right,” he pronounced. “Since Leon’s broke until a week from Friday, and no one has any clue how much worm beds cost anyhow, would it be all right if he just helped you build a new one? Or dig one, or... whatever you do to make a worm bed?”

  “Ah!” Duggan cut in. “Actually it’s a combination of digging, plowing the soil to make it nice and moist and oxygenated, and then you have to do what they call ‘seeding’ the bed. That means you have to get some worms to start off with establishing the colony and then you—”

  Erik raised his hand. “Right, yes, thank you professor. I’m glad we sorted that out. So,” he said, turning back to the crowd. “Will that work for you, Jimmy?”

  Jimmy Atwood looked like he’d just been asked to explain special relativity to a four year-old. “Jimmy?” he asked again.

  “Oh, sorry,” Jimmy said, closing his slackened jaw. “I was thinkin’ about somethin’.”

  “Sure you were,” Erik said. “So, the deal? He helps you build a new bed and then buys some worms when he can afford it? Will that work?”

  “Yeah,” Jimmy said. “I guess that’ll be about the best I can hope for.”

  The two friends sat down, friends once again.

  Erik shuffled his papers and rubbed his forehead with the first knuckle on his left hand. “Okay, good,” he said. “Moving on.”

  “No you are not!” Someone said from the back of the room. Someone who was pushing between the audience members to try to get to the front. “There is no next except Celia Maynard!”

  He didn’t recognize the name, but the voice was familiar. It took Erik a second to place it, but when he did, it struck like a tetanus shot in the muscled part of his ass.

  “Oh,” Erik said. “It’s you.”

  “Now wait just a damned minute,” Jenga protested, waving his arms in the air for attention as he stood up from his bench. Atlas followed soon after, with a very pleasant smile on his face and a long tendril of drool that went from his lip to his belly. Some sort of pungent, high school dance type scent wafted off his skin. “I been sittin’ here for the last three hours waiting my turn and I’m not one to be upstaged by a four foot beaver!”

  Celia, for the first time possibly ever, was dumbfounded. Speechless at what she witnessed, she just stood there, watching the jangly-bearded, rickety old man and the giant zombie approach the front table.

  “Now all’s I need is for one of you to sig
n this permit.”

  “Why do you always come to court to get this done?” Erik asked, at once irritated but also thankful for the few seconds reprieve before he had to deal with that crazy woman again. “Don’t you realize you can come literally any time at all and have these permits signed? What’s this for anyway, another zombie?”

  Jenga smiled his yellow-toothed grin. “Yes, well, if’n I come other times, you have more of a chance to read it all.”

  Duggan pushed himself to his feet, visibly excited. “A permit?” he asked. “Oh please, let me have it. Hand that over here.”

  Erik sighed, Jenga frowned, and Atlas drooled, all with varying levels of enthusiasm. Celia, for her part, was just shaking her head, not sure what to make of any of this.

  “What’s this for?” Duggan asked, pushing his glasses back on his forehead and squinting at the paper. “Why do you need another zombie? And where are you going to get the... er... parts?”

  Jenga shook his head. “Already taken care of. It’s totally on the up and up, I swear. I got this pile of papers here if’n you really want to look.”

  Duggan took a glance at the first one, winced, and then patted the stack. “I’m sure you’re telling the, uh, truth,” he said. “But I have to ask, again, why do you need another one? I thought Atlas was—”

  “Not...him,” Atlas groaned. A wide, slightly disquieting grin spread across his face. “I...need.”

  Opening his mouth to respond, Duggan’s voice hitched in his throat before saying anything. “You’re speaking very well, Atlas,” he said with a slight smile. “You... need a zombie? That seems a little socially tricky, I...”

  “Girl...friend,” he said slowly. “Want some...one to smile...at.”

  “Ah,” Duggan said, “I suppose we all want that. Yes, well, uh, I can’t imagine any reason to deny you the pleasure we all enjoy on a daily basis,” he said with a glance at Erik. “Or in some cases, much more than daily, and generally at the most inappropriate possible times.”

  “Thank you, now just go ahead and sign that permit, and... there we are.” Jenga smiled, collecting his papers and backing away from the table. “Very good, very good.”

  “Oh,” Duggan said, looking back in his direction. “You’ll have to pay the permit cost of course. That’ll be,” he pulled out a Palm Pilot – like an actual Palm Pilot – and started scanning through something. “Ah here we are. Right, so, zombie permit past the first zombie is... oh, that’ll be a slight discount from the one you got when you made your other, er, friend.”

  Jenga pursed his lips and pulled a checkbook out of his loose-hanging Hawaiian shirt. This one had 1957 Chevrolets on it instead of hula girls. “How much?”

  “Six hundred, fifty dollars for the base permit. And then... how large do you estimate she’ll be?”

  “Not...nice,” Atlas said. “Ask...ing a lady... about her weight.”

  Erik, Izzy and Jamie all started laughing at once. “He’s got a point, Professor,” Jamie said. “How about height, instead?”

  “Oh, um, sure,” Jenga said. He grabbed a notepad out of his cargo pocket and started flipping pages, listing off whatever it said. “Head circumference, arm length... leg length – she’s a leggy thing,” he said, elbowing Atlas in the ribs. “Going to be, I mean.” He cleared his throat.

  The two of them laughed like frat boys for a second.

  “Oh, here we are. Yes, well, she’ll be six foot six. Just a little shorter than her main squeeze here.”

  “Very good,” Duggan said. “So, base permit, plus height. Right, total comes to eight sixty-five. And thirty eight cents.”

  Jenga shook his head, beard jangling and clanking, as he wrote the check. “Highway robbery!” he said, though he was laughing a little.

  “Yeah! Highway robbery!” He had set off the other crazy person in the room. Or rather, the other crazy person who had started talking out of nowhere. There were plenty of crazies around.

  “You’re killing the woods, Danniken!” Celia started in. Jenga and Atlas, along with about half the audience, filed out the door in the back of the courthouse. Apparently after what happened last time, the townspeople who were normally fine with sitting around for four, five hours to have their complaints heard, they weren’t willing to listen to a pissed off beaver.

  “Wait just a second,” Erik said. “This is the second time you’ve started yelling at me about this, and I don’t even know your name. Or if I did, I forgot it.” He flashed one of his easy smiles, but Celia wasn’t interested. He turned it to Izzy because he couldn’t let a grin go unappreciated, but she was nervously pulling at the cap on her pen.

  “You don’t need to know my name, because when my plan comes together, you’ll remember it forever,” Celia hissed.

  “Wait,” Erik said. “That doesn’t really... I mean if I don’t know it right now, then how will I—”

  “I’m going to ruin this town, Danniken,” Celia said. “I’m going to dry up all the water, and then flood it all! Just wash the whole thing down the drain. You’ll be sorry for never listening, you’ll be sorry for promising to take all sorts of measures to preserve the forests and keep the water clean. You’ll be sorry,” she paused for a moment, “for crossing Celia Maynard.”

  And with that, she spun on her heel, pushed between the few people remaining in the meeting hall, and swished out the door.

  “Huh,” Ash Morgan intoned. “That was... different.”

  “Right,” Erik said. “I remember now, her name’s Celia. But I’m still not sure what she’s so pissed off about. I mean, we put solar panels on some of the stoplights to keep them from needing electricity. What does she mean about my promises to do... whatever? I don’t remember any of that at all.”

  Silence fell for a moment. The five of them sat in the quiet, each trying to puzzle out for themselves, what had just happened.

  Finally, Jamie spoke up. “Don’t suppose she’s talking about this, do you?” She produced a very official looking manila envelope with two brads at the top.

  “What’s that?” Erik asked.

  “Energy report. You know, every so often we have to measure how much energy we’re using in all sorts of different ways. How much fossil fuel versus wind energy and all that. Anyway, if you look at it, it shows that we’re operating way over what we should be using. Also, if you look at the other side, it shows degradation in the forests all around Jamesburg. Logging, no controlled burns, it all adds up.”

  “Jesus,” Erik said. “I guess I should pay more attention to this stuff. Well, let’s do something about it then. That beaver might be right. So, uh... let’s pass a new mandate!”

  “A... mandate?” Izzy asked, clicking her uncapped pen against the desktop. “You want to mandate that the forest just get better?”

  “Well, I meant more like a mandate that we had to cut back on all the bad stuff, and take better care of the forest. It’s either that, or let that crazy beaver hatch out whatever stupid, Joker-like plot she’s come up with. We don’t even have a Batman to fight her with.”

  Ash chuckled. “We got a bat girl right here, does that count?”

  “Ha-ha, calendar hunk. Very good,” Jamie said. “But back to the salient point, a mandate is good, but there are specifics, particulars. Like – where do we come up with all the energy? We can’t just slap solar panels all over the place and hope for the best.”

  “There goes my first idea,” Erik said. “Why not?”

  “Have you seen the budget?” Izzy piped up. “No, no, don’t answer, I’ll just get mad. Point is, there’s no money. And also? We live in the middle of a forest. Wind and solar are right out. At least in any kind of volume.”

  Erik waved his hand. “This is Jamesburg, we’ll come up with something. It might not make any sense, but we’ll come up with something. The most important thing right now is keeping that psychopathic set of buckteeth from actually managing to flood the city. Or take away all the water. Or... actually I’m not quite sure what her t
hreat was, but it sounded serious this time.”

  “Tell you what,” Ash said, pushing away from the table and standing up. “I don’t really know what she was on about, but I do know that it’s against the law to bust into a public meeting and make terroristic threats. At least, I’m pretty sure it is, even here. Can I get a law check, professor Duggan?”

  Looking very serious, Duggan flipped through whatever he kept looking at on his actual Palm Pilot from, like, the late nineties, and then looked up. “It is,” he said in the gravest, sternest voice ever. If the whole situation weren’t halfway between ridiculous and terrifying, everyone would have laughed.

  As it was, the tension had settled in deeply, like an ache in the muscles right between the shoulder blades that you can’t quiet knead out, this rogue beaver had – against all odds – actually made a point.

  “Right,” Ash said. “I’ll go try to find this Maynard person and ask her a few questions.”

  “Where are you going to look?” Jamie asked.

  “I’ll start with the rivers. Seems like a good place to find a beaver.”

  A snide look crossed Erik’s face. He had a joke. It was right on the end of his tongue.

  Somehow, he managed to keep his mouth shut.

  “You know what I’m thankful for?” Izzy asked as soon as the room quieted.

  “My dashing good looks and suave demeanor?” Erik shot back, giving her a wickedly naughty gaze.

  She snickered, and shook her head. “No, even though those things are true. I am thankful that you finally quit wearing those damn yoga pants.”

  -15-

  “You never really know someone until you see them with eight shifter babies climbing up their legs.”

  -Clea

  “I’m... not so sure about this,” Orion said, as he swept his massive leg over the saddle on his motorcycle and took a slow, almost tentative step toward my front door.

  I’d been waiting for him since he sent me a text that he was on the way. Oh, and by the way, a half-wild bear first buying a no-contract cell phone and then learning to text? I’m not gonna say it’s the cutest thing ever, but... it was real close. I sat on the front step just before dawn sipping my dark Italian roast and fiddling with a crossword puzzle that I ended up filling out with lovey-dovey words instead of bothering with the actual clues.