Beloved by the Bear_A Shifters in Love Fun & Flirty Romance

by Isadora Montrose

  A rowdy group of teens, barely past first-shift, suddenly appeared, clamoring for a job. Dad was on the verge of ordering them out of the ocean and back to their video games.

  “Hang on, sire,” Serena intervened. “Let’s have them go directly to Cat’s Head.” That point was on the other side of the island and would be the last place the mer-patrol would reach. “They can alert the Rutherfords to get out their boats, as well as check out those rocks below their house. There’s a lot of deep water around the point.”

  Dad’s face grew even grimmer, but after a pause he said, “Very well. You boys stay together. I don’t want this to turn into a search and rescue for you. Understood?”

  “Yes, sire.”

  “Don’t forget Lighthouse Rock. Go,” barked the king.

  They took off, swimming in close formation as if they had been drilling for this occasion. The entire mer community had been mobilized and was working as a single unit. Despite the distressing urgency of this operation, Serena felt great being part of this joint effort. It was great to be swimming beside the king, sharing his thoughts again. Like the good old days.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  Anton~

  “What about the Old Forest?” Anton asked as he and Babcock set off in his truck while Roger vanished with Serena in his. “I understand it’s vast and dense.”

  “Lloyd Furlong and Quinn Drake are doing a fly over,” the deputy said. “They’re both dragons.”

  “O-kay.” This certainly was amateur hour. Search and rescue had a protocol, and random fly-overs were not part of it. “But what about a ground search? The tree canopy isn’t complete at this time of year, but even dragons might miss a small girl if the brush is thick. This town is full of shifters. Have you mobilized them into a search party?”

  “No. There’s no hunting on West Haven.”

  “For Pete’s sake, if someone kidnapped Carmody and took her into the forest, you can’t be worrying about fricking hunting. Or hunters. Do you want that child back or not?”

  “I thought you said that stranger abductions were rare,” countered Babcock.

  “Sure. Statistically she’s likely to be no more than a quarter mile from home, that’s why we’re heading to her house. But the forest should be searched anyway. Just like swimming pools, fish ponds or open manholes. This my turn-off?”

  “Yeah. But we don’t have any way of alerting those hunters tonight. We’ll have to wait until morning,” Babcock said.

  “The hell we will.” Anton handed him his cell. “Hit Gabby’s number. Tell her we want every shifter in her crew doing a shoulder-to-shoulder search of the Old Forest ASAP.”

  Babcock was efficient. He briefed Gabby briskly. Naturally she instantly agreed to organize her crew.

  “What about the townspeople?” Anton pressed. “Surely you have some emergency procedures in place.”

  “Only the sheriff can authorize those,” Babcock protested. “Ah, there’s the emergency siren.”

  “About time.” This island needed to upgrade its basic emergency preparations. Establishing procedures during an emergency was a piss-poor way to run things. “I don’t know about you, Babcock, but my blood runs cold thinking about all the trouble a three-year-old off her leash can get up to in a nanosecond.”

  Babcock pressed buttons on his own phone. “Tell me about it. My Jessamine is in daycare with Carmody. Great kids. Sweet, smart, funny. Only thing is, Trouble is their middle name. Sheriff? Babcock here. Yes, I can hear the siren, sir. The mer-people are searching the ocean, sir. A team of shifters is going to do a ground search of the Old Forest. I’m on my way search the Belfasts’ neighborhood.”

  Hurry up, Anton silently urged.

  “What’s that? Lloyd and Quinn will direct the hunters, sir. From the air, sir. I agree that ground command is better. But Samantha Belfast’s house and surroundings need to be properly searched first. Fact is, Sgt. Benoit has some expertise with search and rescue. He thinks Carmody will be found close to home. Yes, sir. On the double, sir.” Babcock frantically signaled Anton to stop and turn around.

  What the flaming heck?

  “We already searched his cottage, sir. Nothing and no one. Except for Serena Merryman. No, sir. Drinking coffee in the sitting room. Fully dressed. Yeah, Roger was with me. Yes, we checked under the cottage and in the outbuildings. I’m in his truck now.”

  A pause while the phone squawked. “If you’ll be searching around the house yourself, sir, Benoit and I will head out to the Old Forest now. Yes, sir. I have a pair of shoes she put on last week. No, sir. They belong to my girl, but Carmody wore them for a couple hours.”

  Anton did a U-turn in the middle of the empty road. “This situation is now officially FUBAR,” he told Babcock through his teeth.

  “Yeah. Sheriff Coleridge said he would go to the Belfast house and search it himself.”

  Anton hit the gas. “Give me directions.”

  “You’re in an awful danged hurry for someone who thinks he’s on a wild goose chase.”

  Anton laughed mirthlessly. “I joined up when I was eighteen. How many thousands of damn fool orders do you think I’ve carried out?”

  Babcock barked a laugh. “Me too. Hang a left at that big fir tree. Follow it until you hit the Old Coast Road.”

  “How would she have gotten this far?” Anton wondered.

  “Sheriff is sure one of you hunters took her.”

  “Naturally.” The sheriff sounded just as irrationally hung up on hunter evil as the rest of the islanders. In the distance the siren sounded repeatedly and continuously.

  “How will folks know that there’s a missing child as opposed to a storm coming?” Anton asked.

  “They won’t,” Babcock said wryly. “They’ll start calling the station.”

  “Slow.”

  “Yup.” Babcock’s lips were pressed together over his buck teeth in the manner of a fellow who had pointed all this out a million times. “Slim will pass the word. The grapevine will do the rest.”

  Muddling what should be a clear message with wild speculation. “So what’s the deal with the sheriff?” Anton ventured.

  “Elected danged official,” returned Babcock.

  “Thought you were on the council, Deputy. Doesn’t that make you the boss of your boss?”

  “Not so much. I sit out deliberations and votes on policing.” The rabbit’s voice was clipped.

  “Ah. This his first term?”

  “Nah. In fact, Otto has been sheriff so long, no one can recall what effective policing looks like,” Babcock admitted.

  “In fact he’s a politician rather than a policeman?”

  “To the bone. He’s a mid-level crystal gazer if you can believe.” Babcock sucked his front teeth. “At least that’s what he admits to. I think he has a lot more talent for politicking.”

  The siren was still screaming relentlessly. “Think the Town has been mobilized to search for the kid?” Anton asked. The truck bounced as he turned onto an unpaved road marked, ‘Old Forest.’

  “If the town is out looking for Carmody,” Babcock said, “It’s because the Mayor has taken charge. Ms. Fairchild gets things done.”

  “Hmm.”

  “Hang a right, Benoit. The team should be just along here.”

  Anton could hear the clamor of excited men. The clearing was full of large predators and men in the process of removing their clothes to shift. He burned to strip and take bear.

  “We’re in charge, Benoit. I have orders, however, that you’re not to shift.”

  Well, of course Babcock did. Anton was apparently public enemy number one. Shift and dang. He didn’t argue. Someone needed to stay in human to give verbal commands. Gabby Zhadanov loped up to him in bear. She roared once. The clearing instantly fell silent.

  “Listen up, people,” Anton used his command voice. “We are going to do an arm’s length search. In long lines. Step forward if you have any search and rescue experience.”

  Several people moved
forward, including Gabby.

  “You experienced folks will lead teams. Break up into mixed groups, people. That way you will be at different heights. Bears, get on your hind legs every third step. Deputy Babcock will be passing around a shoe worn by the quarry. Smells equally of several little girls who have been wearing it in rotation. Lock in on the scent of unicorn.”

  Anton ignored the groans that greeted this news. “Do your best to focus on the scent of unicorn shifter. If the kid is in these woods, she’s likely with an abductor. So we are looking for two people. Sex, age, type of the suspect is unknown. If you catch a scent, let the others in your party know. Team leaders give three loud calls. Stop. Repeat. Got that?”

  Nods all around.

  “One more thing, people. The dragons overhead will give three bugle calls if they spot anything. Pay attention. But only the people closest to them break line. Do your best to remain in formation.”

  There was more nodding before the search team formed a long wiggly line. Dead straight was ruled out by the terrain and the enormous trees. There was less underbrush than Anton had expected, but fewer trails. Babcock tugged on his sleeve.

  “What is it, Deputy?”

  “We gotta ask permission first.”

  “Huh? From who?”

  “The trees.”

  “For real?”

  “Yup.” Babcock marched over to a towering specimen. The sequoia’s topmost branches were lost in the night. Babcock bowed respectfully. “I hope you will forgive us barging through your dominion, Old One. We seek a child. A small girl. A unicorn. If you and yours will assist our search, we would be grateful.”

  The tree did not speak. At least not any way Anton could comprehend. But the breeze sighing through the bare branches grew more sibilant and the nearby firs rustled. It sounded eerily like speech.

  Babcock’s watery eyes half-closed and his head tipped sideways. “We will tell them.” He clapped Anton on the shoulder. “You heard the Old One. Let’s make sure the team knows they are not to damage any trees. And that the dryads have not spotted any youngsters tonight.”

  “Huh?”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  Serena~

  Afterward she was never sure which of them had had the thought first. She and her father were swimming in mutual accord, checking on their squads. Looking at the scant finds. They stopped at the same second to gaze into each other’s eyes in shared consternation.

  “That pool at the top of Ghost Hill needs to be checked out,” Dad told her, ashen-faced. “A little kid could be face-down in the spring and no one would know. Think Samantha has looked there?”

  “Probably not. The spring is hidden behind the fence.” It was. A ten-foot high board fence had been erected precisely to keep children out of danger. Did Samantha even know that her cottage backed onto the spring? Or was the overgrown fence a case of out of sight, out of mind?

  “It’s up to us, daughter.”

  They started by searching Sweetwater Bay where the river that began as a stream up on Ghost Hill emptied into the ocean. This small estuary where the sea and freshwater met was thick with shellfish and plants. Barely navigable. They thrashed around clumsily, poking at the swampy vegetation. Nothing. Not even the smell of little girl.

  Of course, Carmody could be anyplace from the spring right down to the Pacific.

  “I’ll go,” Serena said. “You need to remain close to the patrol, sire.”

  “Yeah.” For a wonder her father did not warn her that she would be virtually naked when she returned to human to get through the estuary and the places where the river went underground.

  “Hang on.” He handed her the royal trident. “You had better go armed, daughter.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  Anton~

  He was stationed at one end of a line of shifters, Babcock at the other. Cougars, bears, wolves and lynx moved almost silently through the forest, detouring around tree trunks. Investigating bushes. He and Babcock took turns calling Carmody’s full name. If she was conscious, she would hear them.

  It was slow going. Every hollow in the ground had to be sniffed. Every tree trunk examined for evidence of someone climbing it or brushing past. And at every third pace they halted the line while the bears pulled themselves fully erect and sampled the air above their heads.

  Each time some debris was located, or a scent detected, he or Babcock had to make a note of its GPS coordinates and take a photo. Babcock’s evidence bags made a bulge on the rabbit’s hip. Not that there was any real reason to believe those empty soda cans, foil chip bags, and gum wrappers were evidence of anything other than littering.

  But that was the hell of this kind of search. You had to be thorough. You had to be systematic. You had to move slowly and deliberately, even when you got bored. Even when time was of the essence.

  Of course it was a little easier for those who had shifted, they were enjoying being in the woods and breathing in the scent of the forest. They might be on task, but they were also employing their animal senses to the fullest. Always a rush.

  The howling siren finally hushed. Had they found Carmody? Or had someone turned it off before it drove the entire town mad? A big vehicle came charging down the unpaved road, lights flashing, siren blaring. News had arrived. Maybe.

  “I’ll go,” Babcock said quietly. He loped toward the newcomer, dodging trunks, and leaping over roots.

  Anton turned his head. There wasn’t much to see with the trees in the way. Babcock soon disappeared. However, fragments of the newcomer’s bluster drifted back to the team which straggled to a halt. Babcock waved his flashlight, beckoning him.

  “Hold the line,” Anton ordered quietly. He strode back through the trees toward the SUV. A stout grizzled man in khaki was demanding to know what the hell was going on. Apparently it was Babcock’s fault that the kid was not in her house or backyard.

  “We’re conducting a search of the Old Forest as instructed, sir,” Babcock said. His jaw muscles bunched.

  “Is this the best you can do?” shouted the other man. “What’s the use of letting a bunch of danged hunters loose if they aren’t at least following their noses? At this rate the kid will be ready for high school before you find her – if you ever do.” The speaker turned his red face to glare at Anton. So this was the sheriff.

  “This is Anton Benoit, sir. Sheriff Coleridge.” Babcock was as rigid as a poker and about as happy.

  “Good evening, sir,” Anton said. “The search team is walking the forest slowly so as not to miss possible clues. We’re treating it as a crime scene. So far we have collected every man-made article we have encountered, just in case. No one has scented Carmody. May I tell the team she has not yet been located elsewhere?”

  The sheriff’s round face turned from red to purple. “Damn fool waste of time. I’ll tell ‘em myself.”

  His eyes ran up and down Anton insultingly. “We don’t need your help, Benoit. Apparently you can’t even be bothered to take bear,” he declared as if he had not given contrary orders himself. “You take yourself off. I’m taking charge of this search.”

  The sheriff marched off without a backward glance. His exit was spoiled when he had to duck under a branch but they both heard him shouting at the team to gather round.

  “Go back to the house,” Babcock pleaded. “Coleridge seems to have only looked where Samantha already didn’t find her daughter. He didn’t search the neighborhood.”

  “Spread out,” roared the sheriff. “Quarter the forest until you find her.”

  The silent beasts sprang instantly into hunting mode. They began to rove over the forest floor. Likely their slow casting about would not make Coleridge any happier. But if Carmody was in the forest, it would locate her. And trample any evidence that would convict her abductor. Always assuming she had been abducted.

  That glory hound had decided to take charge of the Old Forest search because he was married to his hypothesis that the kid had been snatched. It was far likelier that
Carmody was still around her neighborhood. Or that if she had been abducted, her kidnapper was a local. Anton drove slowly away.

  The Belfast house didn’t look special. Even in the moonlight, the sagging, mossy roof and peeling paint spoke of poverty. If someone had taken Carmody, it wasn’t for ransom. A woman with disheveled hair and frantic eyes came out onto the porch. The mom. She was wearing house slippers with her jeans and what looked like a pajama top underneath a man’s windbreaker.

  Excited, gabbling neighbors were talking in clusters instead of beating the bushes. From the looks of them, they had mostly been dragged out of bed. Pajama bottoms were tucked into rubber boots. Hair was uncombed, and dentures missing. Why the heck hadn’t the sheriff organized this bunch?

  “Sorry, ma’am,” Anton got out of his truck. “We have no news. I’m a bear. Trained in search and rescue. If you have something with Carmody’s scent, I’ll track her, assuming she left on foot. I understand the neighborhood has not yet been searched.”

  “The sheriff looked in my yard,” Samantha said despairingly. She hesitated. “He thinks some off-island bear took her.”

  “That would be me,” Anton admitted. The buzz of conversation got closer and more hysterical. “Unfortunately he’s wrong. Right now he’s leading the search of the Old Forest. But she is just as likely to be around here.”

  The unicorn’s eyes narrowed, but she didn’t comment. Her neighbors buzzed angrily. Whether at the idea of a bear leading the search, or the ineptness of their sheriff wasn’t clear.

  “What about those outbuildings?” Anton indicated two unpainted clapboard buildings in Samantha’s side yard.

  She shook her head. “My daughter is too little to get into the garage, and the shed is locked.”

  Sure. Carmody couldn’t get in alone. But an abductor might have found indecent privacy there. Or being a kid, Carmody might have found herself a secret entrance just large enough to trap her.

  “I’ll take a look, ma’am, if you’ll give me your keys. While you fetch me something of hers.” He kept his voice matter of fact and reassuring.