Fire & Flesh

by Kerri Carr

  “Girls like long hair now, man. That wolf was into me before those other mutts showed up. God, I’m sorry. I could have sworn— anyway; that was a sweet spot back in the woods. Crap! All of our food was in there. What’s the plan now?” Andre asked, rubbing his hands together, after a slight shiver.

  Paul rubbed his hands together too. Cold was settling on the road like a damp blanket. In their human form, the cold was much more noticeable. Fine goosebumps were already trailing across Paul’s broad shoulders. They were, after all, in Alaska for the salmon, and the discretion.

  Paul loved salmon, and the sooner his brother’s transformation was better under control, the sooner they could return to their ruse of being architects in Olympia, Washington. They needed the cold, so they didn’t overheat during transformations. After his brother nearly disrupted an office Christmas party with his beady, black eyes and claws, Paul knew a winter sabbatical was needed.

  He had to teach Andy how to control it. They were only half brothers, and after Andy had turned twenty-seven, he thought the gene skipped him. Apparently, it was just running a little late to the party.

  “Hey Pauly, where did you go?” Andy asked, putting his sweaty hand on his brother’s shoulder, “You zoned off on me.”

  “Nowhere,” Paul grunted, shrugging him off.

  “I said ‘sorry,' bro,” Andy said.

  “And I’m saying, ‘okay.’ Look, I know this world is new to you, but we only have two weeks before this little vacation is over. No messing with the other shifters, or any other animals for that matter, I mean it. Just cause we can all shift doesn’t mean we’re all friends,” Paul said. He turned around quickly, sniffing the air.

  “Why? Wait, what is it?” Andy said, sniffing the air.

  “Run now, ask questions later,” Paul said, diving onto all fours. His muscles quickly ripped and tore, bulging on new thickened bones. His skin stretched on the new muscle and bone. He was back to being a large, menacing, black bear. His brother followed suit, joining him in his smaller brown bear form.

  *****

  The brothers, still in bear form, gnawed in silence on the salmon leaping violently in the stream. Paul had no idea how hungry he was until the pink and silver morsels leaped into his mouth. Andy was doing a lot better at catching them and finally had a rhythm going. Paul jerked his big, black hairy bear head back, swallowing the last mouthful of fish. His brother still hadn’t slowed down. His body was not used to the bear metabolism yet. If he over-ate and transformed back to his human form too soon, he would feel engorged and throw up.

  Paul ran out of the water, collapsing on the bank. Everything around them was black, no light, no noise. Maybe they could sleep in the open in safety.

  Paul stretched his front and hind legs, shook off the water and let his body collapse back into his thirty-year-old, muscular frame.

  “Oh, that was delicious,” Paul said.

  Andre was still munching away.

  “Easy, brother. We aren’t going into hibernation,” Paul said, throwing a rock at Andre. Andre growled at him before snatching a large salmon out of the air.

  “Suit yourself,” Paul said, laying on the bank.

  Paul stared up at the stars. Orion’s belt was looking back down in the clear blackness. It was peaceful. A far cry from running from werewolves. His mind drifted, thinking about his mother, and his real father. He and Andre had the same mother, a black bear shape-shifter from England. When she met the man that would be Paul’s father, and later Andy’s father, that the shifter gene could be passed on. If it even was a gene. Legend was it was a curse, and so far both brothers had it. Andy’s father disappeared as soon as he found out the truth about Paul, and didn’t want to take a chance on Andy. After all, it’s hard to discipline a step-son who grows claws anytime you yell at him for breaking curfew.

  “Ow! Shit, shit, shit!” Andre yelled, as his body morphed back to a man.

  “I told you earlier. The food doesn’t go anywhere when you transform. Aim for the stream if you need to vomit. You have to eat slow, and eat less if you plan to switch back right away.”

  Andy moaned, and his face looked pale with the strain on what should have been a sculpted six-pack stomach. It was now oddly distended, and Andy was wobbling on his feet.

  “Maybe we should stay in bear form for the night,” Paul suggested, throwing his brother a shirt.

  “No, man. I hate having to try and translate your growls. Still don’t understand everything yet.”

  “You still can’t hear my thoughts?”

  Andy shook his head, collapsing on the ground. His stomach looked like he was eight months pregnant.

  “You have to focus. We share blood so you should be able to hear me. I can hear you. It’s how I knew you were in danger with the wolves back there.”

  “I don’t know what to tell you. Everything else is too loud. I hear everything. Every cricket, every footstep, every splash of the salmon in the river. I dunno. Maybe I hear you, and you’re whispering compared to everything else.”

  Paul thought for a moment: what would his mother do? His mother taught him everything; not that she had to say much. A lot of it was instinct. His body just jerked to life. He could turn every sense off and on whenever he wanted. This whole time Andy and Paul thought the gene skipped Andy, and now their mother was long gone. It was all up to Paul now to help his brother lead a normal life.

  “You don’t have to take care of me, Pauly.”

  Paul scoffed. “If you maim a client because they don’t like a sketch, we’re screwed. I like to come to the woods as a choice, a vacation. I don’t want to be forced to live out here, bro.”

  “Why? I mean it’s so peaceful, and we’re so powerful out here.”

  “We have power of our own, back in the city. I’m a manager at the architectural firm now, and in a year or three, I might get an executive position—”

  “Yea, yea, and a hairless wife and three fuzzy little cubs? Come on, man. It’s so lame,” Andy seemed to scream, his voice echoing over the lake, “Look at this wilderness! God, I wish I was around when you and mom lived out here.”

  Paul frowned. Andy didn’t know what he was saying. Before moving to the United States, Paul and his mom roamed England with his dad until he was ten. Even today, Paul still had the English accent. The problem was that his dad transformed into a Eurasian Brown bear which had been extinct for over a thousand years. Hunters took his dad as a prize to prove they were not extinct before his dad could transform back. After that, he and his mom just ran and ran.

  “Look, Mr. Mopey, I get it wasn’t all fun, but a desk job? With all of this strength. We could roam!”

  “Yea, roam just like your dad,” Paul said, unthinkingly.

  Andy went silent. Andy’s dad was a “treasure” his mom picked up while they were hiding in France. Paul knew his mom only married him to get them to the United States, to get them to safety. Andy knew it too, but neither liked to talk about it.

  “I don’t know if I can go back, Pauly.”

  “What? Of course you can. You can transform on command now. I can teach you the other stuff from home.”

  “I think this is home for me, man. I mean out here, I’m free, wild! Naked! Ha!”

  Paul shoved his brother and threw on his shirt. They had

  clothes hidden around just in case they ran across people.

  “Be serious, Andy. It’s not all fun, and games. There are hunters and other shape shifters. Like I said, we aren’t all friends.”

  “I want to meet them. The other shifters, I mean.”

  Paul cut a glare at Andy. “That’s not an option, Andre.”

  “Why not? If I’m going to have the full bear experience, I want to know why we’re so segregated. I’m not going to hurt anybody.”

  “They won't make that same promise. Look, the northern parts of every continent have creatures like us. We all need the cold, so we share. Our bodies get too hot from transforming. I told you this. We just stay
out of each other’s way. It maintains order.”

  Andy scoffed. “Are we at the top, then?”

  Paul thought for a second. “I wouldn’t say so.”

  “Why?”

  “Because there aren’t that many werebears. It’s why no one really writes stories about us. Now the werewolves, there are thousands of them, millions maybe. They stick together and are ruthless about protecting each other, and their territories. They don’t share. Ever. So stay away from them.”

  “Have you ever met one?”

  “Yes—they helped the hunters kill my dad,” Paul said, balling up his fist.

  “Wait, what? I thought—wait, how?”

  “The hunters got to dad because we were fishing on wolf land. I was hungry, and we had been roaming for days. The hunters only got to dad because he was cornered. They outnumbered him and pushed him right into a hunting team. I hate werewolves.”

  Andy didn’t say anything.

  “That’s why you got really freaked out back there. You thought—you thought they were going to kill me?”

  Paul started to speak, but something cut through the night sky: a long low howl. Paul jumped up and helped Andy to his feet.

  “Crap,” Paul seethed.

  “I thought this was fair ground,” Andy said, stretching out his limbs. He was ready to transform.

  “It is. Humans live around here so no shifter can claim it. It’s too risky to live here because you can be seen. Don’t shift! Not until we have a plan. I can’t risk you not understanding me.”

  “Well, speak faster,” Andy said, his eyes darting around.

  The howl was coming from every direction. They were surrounded.

  “Remember when I told you that pack of wolves were regular wolves?” Paul asked, climbing down to all fours.

  “Yea? Why?”

  “I lied. Run!”

  Paul ripped out of his clothes, bulging sinewy muscle stretching in all direction. Andy joined him, and they took off in a full sprint into the forest.

  *****

  Paul jerked his black, hairy head left, signaling his brother deeper into the woods. Andre growled with understanding, climbed a broad redwood tree just off the beaten path, and Paul followed up, branch by branch. The tree groaned under the weight of two large bears, but it held them. The two waited, perched about forty feet off the ground.

  Paul transformed back to his human form, panting. Andre was shaking on the branch next to him but didn’t transform. Paul hung his head. He knew the werewolf that caught Andre’s eye. He just didn’t want trouble for Andre.

  “Can wolves climb trees?’ Andre asked, changing back.

  “No, but they can hear. Be quiet,” Paul whispered. Andre muttered something under his breath but obeyed. Paul listened to the howl cut through the cold air. They were circling the wood, drawing nearer. They would just have to wait. Even through the chorus of howls, Paul could hear her: Amelia. He would know that howl anywhere. Another reason he hated wolves. Of course, her brother’s pack would roam here. The elks were primed for their hunting season. She would be with them, her own kind.

  Paul and Amelia had a fling, a wild summer of roaming right before Paul got the job at the architectural firm. He was just wandering through Canada right after his mom died, and there she was, drinking naked at a stream. Of course, she transformed into a wolf and attacked him, but they made up in more ways than one.

  That summer, he lost count of how many times he woke up naked, tangled up with her under the aurora lights. She said she was a lone wolf, that she had no pack. She looked at him with that crescent moon beaming back in her left eye and said she had no one but him, and he believed her. Every night in the snow, he told her body that it was not alone. Every night his lips found her lips, her breasts, her stomach, her womanhood.

  She was the most delicious, sexy creature he had every seen. He would kiss her so hard at times he was sure he would devour her. Sometimes he would fuck her so hard he would transform, and have to shove her away so he didn’t kill her by accident. He made her howl, made her whimper. And she … well, she had that effect of bringing out both the man and the monster in him.

  “Do I still have to be quiet?” Andre asked, whispering a little too loudly

  “No,” Paul said.

  “Why did you lie about the wolves?” Andre asked.“Because I wanted to avoid hiding in a tree in subzero weather,” Paul said, growling.

  “Now what?”

  “Now, we wait,” Paul said, sniffing the air. Something was wrong.

  “Oh shit,” Andre groaned, “what now?”

  “You smell that?” Paul asked.

  Andre sniffed the air, and a sheepish grin spread across his face. “Hell yea. It smells like—”

  “A woman,” said a warm, silky voice from the bottom of the tree.

  Paul’s eyes jerked down, quickly adjusting to the darkness. It was her. Stark naked with wild, auburn hair cascading down two full breasts. She had a singular lock of white hair, almost hidden save for a gust of wind. Paul swallowed, studying her. He would know that smell anywhere. She always smelled of pine trees, and freshly fallen snow, an oaky goddess, one with the woods. And as usual, she hated clothes. She was much more wolf than woman in her mind, though now—she looked delicious.

  “Won’t you come down Pauly, and have a drink at the stream with me?” she asked, leaning on the tree.

  “You know her?” Andre demanded.

  “Oh, yes. In the Biblical sense,” she answered from below. “You boys are safe. I led my brother and his idiots the other way. Should give us a moment to chat before it gets ugly.”

  “What the hell, Pauly?” Andre asked.

  Paul didn’t answer. He just transformed and darted down the tree with a growl. Andre followed, transforming quickly, muttering low growls asking for an explanation in his weak bearspeak. It was pointless since no matter what Paul said, he would barely understand.

  Andre’s dialect was rough, and his sentences were backward, his inflections were wrong, and his tone mispronounced. Paul shook his head when he got to the bottom, ridding his mind of Andre’s gibberish.

  “His bearspeak is dreadful,” Amelia said, leaning her cheek in for a kiss.

  Paul stayed stiff. He wasn’t falling for it this time. He knew she only used him to get information on the werebears, to see how many were in the America Northwest, to see if they were a threat.

  “Is anyone going to explain?” asked Andre, rising to his feet.

  “There is nothing to explain,” Paul grunted, “We’re leaving. She can’t be trusted.”

  Andre gave Amelia a once-over, and his male brain seemed to be finally registering what Paul feared: he realized that Amelia was hot. Beyond hot. She was curvy, and deeply tanned with large almond-shaped gray eyes that stood out prominently in her face. In human form, she looked more like a fairy than a wolf.

  “You’re the wolf from the lake aren’t you?” Andy said, stepping closer, “I’m Andre by the way, but the big guy calls me Andy.”

  “Guilty as charged. You might speak like a two-year-old werebadger, but you are as perceptive as you are handsome,” Amelia said, smiling wickedly at him.

  “Enough, Amy!Why did you help me—us?” Paul asked.

  “Old habits,” she said, shrugging, “And it feels good to be called Amy. No one’s called me that in ages.”

  “Good grief, did you break his heart or something?” asked Andy, looking at Amy and then back to Paul. Paul clenched his jaw and then fist. His emotions were betraying him, and he could barely hide how furious he was.

  “Quite the opposite. Andy was it?” she purred, looking at Andy.

  Paul grabbed Amy’s arm and led her away from Andy. Andy yelled something at them, but Paul could barely hear. He was fighting the creak in his spine, the growl deep in his lungs telling him to transform and rip this woman apart.

  Amy jerked out of his grasp, and stood defiantly, staring at Paul.

  “What was that about?” she s
hrieked, her low sexy voice gone.

  “So, you are still in there! This sex kitten bullshit is disgusting. Stop teasing my brother,” Paul said, pointing a finger at her.

  She planted her hands on her full hips and stuck her tongue out at him.

  “You used to like it when I role played,” she said, then bit her lip. Her voice was rich and bubbly now. “I just wanted a dramatic entrance. I could smell your scent on your brother. I knew you had to be nearby. I just wanted to see you. Is that a crime?”

  “Just how close were you to Andy that you could smell me? Whatever, I don’t care. Just leave us alone. It’s hard enough, trying to teach him our ways.”

  “You taught me just fine, back in the day. Had me almost convinced I could be both werebear, and werewolf.”

  “We all make mistakes.”

  “I never left you.”

  “You never mentioned that everything I told you was going straight to your brother’s ears. Corion, your brother, is a hunter wolf! He kills every werecreature that he sees as a threat! So, technically, I never left you because I was never with the real you! I was with your brother’s pawn.”

  Amy blanched, looking at him through watery gray eyes.

  “Hey!” said Andy, running over, “Hate to break up the happy reunion, but we have company.”

  “I know you hate me, Pauly, but let me help you. There is a cave not far away. Corion and his pups will never follow you into caves. He hates them, always has. Please trust me,” Amy said, collapsing on all fours and transforming into a large, powder-white wolf. The crescent moon in her eye glistened brightly against her fur, and Paul watched Andy gape at her.

  “Let’s move!” Paul said, dropping on all fours.

  Andy nodded, and the two brothers followed Amy deep into the forest. Paul shook his head to banish thoughts of ravaging her right there in the snow.

  *****

  “My brother has been gone for hours, Pauly. You can stop skulking about. Goodness, for someone who hates his animal side, you sure look like a big, old bear right now,” Amy said, huffing.