Alpha’s Prey: A BBW Bear Shifter Romance

by Rose, Renee

  For the next couple of hours, I continue gathering my samples. With the snow, it’s hard to stay on the trail, but I’m fairly confident I have. It doesn’t much matter—returning to the cabin will be easy. All I have to do is follow our footprints in the snow.

  I’m about to stop and have a snack when the wind whips up. I didn’t realize the clouds had moved in, blotting out the sun.

  Damn. No time for a break. We need to get back to the cabin before the storm hits. I whistle for Bear. Wind blasts my face and cuts through my clothing. It whips around in gusts, making it unclear if it started snowing or if it’s just stirring up the snow that fell yesterday.

  I mutter in my David Attenborough impersonation, “Weather patterns are susceptible to great change in the mountains. Warm days—enough to wake a hibernating bear—followed by drops in temperature that precipitate winter storms—” A sharp wind cuts across my throat, and I give up the mini documentary gag. It’s cold as hell. I need to get out of here.

  Up ahead, I hear Bear going crazy—barking and growling at something.

  “Bear! Here, boy!” I make my voice sharp with command, but Bear doesn’t come running.

  What in the hell is out there?

  Panic smashes through me. What if it’s the bear from last night?

  Oh God, don’t hurt my dog.

  As if on cue, the wind streaks through the trees, and this time, I’m sure it’s snowing. Precipitation pelts my face—hard.

  I break into a run, following the sound of Bear’s barks. “Bear! Come here! Bear, come!”

  Terror races through my veins when he still doesn’t come and his growls and low barks continue. I catch sight of him, only to see him tear off into the distance, like he’s chasing something away.

  Shit.

  “Bear, no! Bad dog,” I yell in my deepest, maddest voice.

  He’s usually an extremely obedient dog. Maybe a little spoiled, but he always comes when called. Now, though, I see snatches of him through the trees as he chases whatever he was growling at.

  Damn dog.

  It’s not even like this is our first foray into the woods.

  “Bear! Bear, come back! Now!”

  Finally, he stops. In the distance, I see him turn and look in my direction, then back the way he was going.

  “No! Come here!”

  He gives one more long look away, then trots back to me, tail tucked, slinking a bit from the growl in my voice.

  I scold him when he arrives and turn back to find the path.

  Fuck.

  It’s snowing so hard our tracks are almost already obscured.

  I start running.

  “Come on, Bear. We have to move fast,” I pant. The altitude up here kicks my ass on a good day, but add to it freezing air, and my lungs ache just from breathing. I push on, trying to stay one step ahead of my rising panic.

  If I get lost out here, I have no way to contact anyone to help. Bear and I will freeze to death before anyone finds us.

  My feet push through the snow. I stumble on something under the powder and pitch headlong, face planting in eighteen inches of cold wet flakes. Bear trots back and licks my ear as I scramble to my feet.

  No time to waste. We have to keep moving. I run even harder, which, of course, means I trip again.

  And again.

  Crap, I think I’m just getting clumsy from the cold.

  I start running again, only to realize I just reversed directions—I’m following my fresh tracks rather than the old ones.

  Holy fuck. Where are the old ones?

  I spin around, panic fully gripping my throat. A pathetic whimper comes from my mouth.

  “It’s okay, Bear,” I mutter. “We’ll figure it out, won’t we? Do you know which way is home?” I scan the area for anything that looks familiar, but it’s all blanketed in white. I don’t have a clue where we are or even which direction we came from. “Go home, Bear,” I try but he just cocks his ears and wags his snow-crusted tail, not understanding me.

  I attempt to take a deep breath, but my lungs reject the cold air. I can do this. I can figure this out. Downhill.

  We need to head downhill, right? When we got on the trail we were on an incline, so as long as we’re going downhill, we must be moving in the right direction.

  Where is the river? That would help me figure out where we are.

  The trouble is, it’s hard to tell what’s downhill and uphill right now. I can hardly see five feet in front of me. The wind swirls at all kinds of crazy angles, pelting my face with snow. I do my best to orient myself to the mountain and pick the most logical direction. I can figure this out. If we just keep moving, eventually we’ll either hit town or the river or something. And we won’t freeze to death unless we stop.

  It’s idiotic but that Finding Nemo song Just Keep Swimmin starts playing in my head. Great—just what we needed—a theme song for this trek.

  An hour later, I’m exhausted, my jeans are frozen to my legs and I’m starving. I call to Bear, stopping to pull some food out of my backpack. I eat a granola bar and feed him one, too. “We’ll just rest a minute and then we’ll keep going, okay, boy?” I lean my back against a tree. It feels so good to stop. Funny, but it’s not that cold anymore, either.

  I let myself slide down to sit. God, yes. I just need to rest for a little while. Rest and warm up here under this tree. Maybe the skies will clear up in a bit and it will be easy to find our way back.

  Or the snow will melt…

  Bear nudges me. Licks my face.

  Then he barks.

  “It’s okay, boy,” I mutter.

  I’m suddenly so very sleepy.

  I hardly notice that Bear has started to bark louder and louder…

  * * *

  Test Subject 849

  Female. Female in the woods and I lost her.

  Damn dog.

  We need the female for our tests. Our very important testing. We need to measure how much pain she can withstand to determine what stressors trigger the change.

  No, not the change.

  These females don’t change.

  Why don’t they change?

  Perhaps with the right stressor they can find their inner animal. With enough injections of the serum.

  The way mine manifests in moments of extreme danger or fear.

  Or partly manifests.

  If I’d had enough testing, enough practice, I might have learned to control the wild animal within me. The rage. The terror.

  I need to develop the serum to fix my animal. So I can fully transform.

  That’s why I have to help these women. Give them more tests. More trials to endure. More pain. Soon they will become the animals they long to be.

  Soon we will get the results we’ve been working for.

  * * *

  Caleb

  There’s a raging snowstorm outside. My bear should want to hunker down and sleep, but something pulls me out of the cabin. The same bad feeling I had yesterday, but amplified. Maybe I’m just going nuts.

  It’s always there. That possibility. I spent too much time in bear form. My human reasoning has been affected. My self-control.

  I pull open the door and a gust of wind stings my face with snow. I’m in human form, but I lift my nose to the air, anyway, sniffing. I hear something. It’s faint, but a dog barks. There’s a frightened timbre to the bark that I pick up, even at a distance. It’s a warning bark—an emergency bark.

  Fuck.

  My skin itches, the urge to shift right upon me. Any sign of danger and my bear wants to rush forward. It’s why I’m hardly fit for human company these days.

  Right now my bear’s on edge because I know exactly whose dog is barking, and I’m terrified to find out why. I dive back into the cabin and yank on my boots and a jacket and hat, then head out into the snowstorm.

  “Keep barking, dog. I’m coming,” I say out loud. As long as he keeps it up, I should be able to locate them. I’m hoping it’s a them I’m rescuing and not
just him.

  I’m hoping it’s the storm that threatens them and not something—someone—else.

  My long strides turn into a run the more my mind whirls around all the things that might have gone wrong. The heat of the shift is right at the surface. I want to take my bear form so I can cover more ground, get there quicker, but I resist the urge. I won’t be of much use to the lovely scientist in bear form. Not unless she’s under direct attack.

  The memory of finding Jen and Gretchen dead comes flooding back, and I nearly lose control.

  Please, no.

  Don’t let that happen again.

  When I get close, the dog charges, running at me, growling viciously. He stops halfway between me and her, sits and just barks. The poor beast isn’t sure whether to protect his mistress from me or lead me to her. His instincts are going haywire right now with the need to survive and to help his owner.

  Poor creature. I ignore him, showing my dominance. He whines as I pass, probably catching my scent and realizing I’m not human. At least not completely.

  I find the young scientist slumped against a tree. Her eyes are open, but she doesn’t seem terribly aware. She’s probably in some stage of hypothermia.

  Christ.

  What the hell happened to her out here? I sniff but don’t detect any scent but hers and the dog’s.

  As soon as she recovers from this mess, I’m going to turn her over my knee for even being out on a day like this.

  Okay… that was a weird thought.

  I would never do anything like that.

  With any female.

  ...who wasn’t my mate.

  Lord, I’ve been living up here alone too long. I shouldn’t be so affected by the first female who comes around. Especially when she’s human.

  I reach down and pluck the scientist from the ground, tugging her to her feet first, then bending and slinging her over my shoulder.

  She mumbles something incoherent, but I ignore it. The danger isn’t over and I still have to get her back to my cabin and warmed up. I would run, but I’m afraid it would jostle her too much. I don’t want to snap the fragile human’s neck. I settle for long, hurried strides.

  The dog runs along beside me, trying to jump up and lick his master’s face.

  We reach my cabin and even though I don’t keep the gas heaters turned up, warmth seems to blast us.

  The human whimpers as I tip her to her feet. It occurs to me I ought to say something to her, something reassuring, but those kind of words are long forgotten. I hardly speak to anyone these days, and when I do, it’s not pleasantries. I don’t do polite. Or chit chat. Definitely not friendly.

  Soothing is so far out of my wheelhouse it’s in the next kingdom.

  I pull off her backpack and dump it behind the door. “Come here,” I grunt, taking her elbow and propelling her to my bathroom. She stands there, disoriented and docile as I fill the tub with tepid water.

  I shuck her soaked leather gloves from her hands, then unzip her jacket and tug it off. Her eyes widen slightly, but she seems incapable of speech just yet.

  “Gotta get your body temperature up,” I growl, peeling her sweater off next, then the sexy pink tank top I saw her in last night.

  Her bra is also pink, and as much as I try not to look at her tits, I’m fucking dazzled by them when they tumble out. They’re big and bouncy. Creamy white with a smattering of copper freckles across the tops and between them.

  The nipples—fuck, the nipples are perfection. A rosy-peach and harder than glass.

  She has the wherewithal to cover her breasts—at least she tries, but her fingers aren’t working yet, so she holds them loosely in front of her face, like her fingers are broken, and uses her forearms to cover the nips.

  After taking off her boots, I unbutton her jeans. She just stands there and lets me. I don’t know why the fuck she didn’t have snow pants on if she was going out in this blizzard.

  I don’t know why the fuck she went out in this blizzard at all, but I intend to find out.

  Later.

  When she can speak.

  Her jeans are frozen to her legs. I wince peeling them off her chafed red skin. I hope to fates she didn’t get frostbite.

  “W-who are you?” she manages to say as I steady her hips and pull off her socks. Thank fuck they’re wool. Toes still look intact.

  “I’m the guy who saved you from freezing to death.” It’s a shitty answer, but grouchy is my M.O.

  When I try to pull down her panties—cotton, also pale pink—she catches them, or at least tries to.

  “Fine,” I snap. “Leave them on.” I lift my chin toward the tub. “You’re getting in there.”

  I steady her elbow and direct her into the bath. She yelps in pain when her foot comes in contact with the warm water. I was careful not to make it too warm, but I’m sure it still burns like hell.

  “I know. It’s gonna hurt when the blood comes back into the area. Take it slow.” There. I can be somewhat civil.

  She grits her teeth and leans on me to step her other foot in, sucking her breath in across her teeth.

  “Now sit down in it. I have to deal with your dog.”

  Her eyes fly wide. “Bear? Where’s Bear?” She tries to peer around me, which is cute, because I’m way too big to see past.

  Her dog’s right behind me—totally underfoot. He gives a soft whine when he hears his name.

  “Is he okay?”

  My bear likes that she’s more worried about her dog than herself, but I’m not surprised. I already got the impression they’re tight. And that she’s an animal lover.

  “He saved your fucking life,” I tell her.

  “That’s not what I asked.” Her teeth chatter as she lowers herself into the tub, crying out when her butt hits the water.

  “I don’t know. I’m trying to get your ass thawed out first.”

  “Charming,” she mutters, gasping and wincing as she sinks in deeper.

  As soon as I’m sure she’s not going to drown or anything, I grab a towel and throw it over her dog. It doesn’t do much good, because his thick fur is matted with ice and snow, which isn’t yet melted.

  Fuck.

  Somewhere, I think I have a hairdryer. It was Jen’s, but I kept it because it comes in handy on occasion. Not for hair, but for fix-it projects, like drying glue or wet plaster. I find it under the sink and plug it in.

  “Dog,” I say sternly. The dog cowers.

  “Why is my dog scared of you?”

  I glance her way. She still appears shell-shocked. Barely alive. Confused. It irritates the fuck out of me because it’s clear how close she came to dying. If I hadn’t heard her damn dog…

  I glance down at the reason she’s still breathing. He tucks his tail and drops his head submissively. “Because he recognizes me as alpha,” I say. And as a giant fucking black bear. Poor dog must be scared as hell, knowing on some level what I am.

  I turn on the hairdryer, which discourages further questions. The dog stands there and takes it, hunching against the noise and blast of hot air. I keep it up until the snow has melted off him and his wet fur stinks up the bathroom.

  It takes all my effort to avoid looking over at the naked scientist in my tub. In fact, I’m not even sure why I stayed in the same room with her. My concentration is being sorely tested. I should not be ogling her full breasts when her well-being still hangs on the line. Especially because it brings my ever-present bear even closer to the surface. Shit—my eyes are probably glowing yellow right now.

  And then I do look over, because, yeah—beautiful breasts—and I realize she’s not recovering as quickly as I’d expected.

  Of course, I know dick about human females, but I didn’t expect her teeth to still be chattering, or her body to be shaking so much.

  Fuck.

  My bear snarls as if Death is some real foe it can defend her against. I shove him down—I can’t fucking think if I’m half-crazed with animal thoughts, and I need to think. I have to
figure out how to save this female.

  I abandon the dog—his fur is close to dry now anyway—and march over to the tub.

  “Out,” I order.

  She doesn’t move. Not even her eyes. It’s like she’s in shock.

  Damn.

  I grasp behind both her elbows and lift her to stand. “Out you come,” I attempt to order again. I need her help or I’ll have to resort to tossing her over my shoulder again.

  She just stands there, shuddering.

  Dammit. I grab a towel and wrap it around her shoulders, then scoop under her knees and swoop her up into a baby carry. “Let’s go, princess. Gotta get you warm.”

  “I’m c-c-c-cold,” she chatters.

  “I noticed,” I say drily, carrying her out to the living room, dog at my heels. I lay her down on the couch and finish toweling her off, patting the skin that’s bright red from the elements gently. Her damp dog sits beside the couch, watching everything. Still alert in case she needs help.

  And she does. This human needs medical attention. A hospital, or some other kind of emergency help. I don’t fucking know, because shifters heal on their own without a doctor’s interference.

  A sleeping bag!

  That’s what I need.

  I remember hearing it’s one way to raise a person’s body heat. You zip them up in a sleeping back with another body. Uh, preferably naked.

  Shit. I am so screwed.

  My cock gets hard just thinking about lying skin to skin with the lovely scientist. My bear twists just under my skin, antsy. Always antsy. Always ready to come screaming out and tear his claws and teeth into something.

  Especially for a threatened female.

  She’s not even a bear, I want to tell him. Calm the fuck down.

  Maybe he’s lost reason, too. We’ve both gone mad. Me with too much time in animal form. My animal with too much… fuck if I know. Misery? Grief?