by Jade Alters
Lee also looked unhappy. “I guess this is the end of the party line.”
I was slowly edging my way toward the exit, but Josh stopped me. “Oh, come on, white boy. You’re part of the team. All of you. You’re being ridiculous. We’ve already been on our first date.”
He huddled us into a group hug. The champagne bubbled desperately under Natalia’s thumb. Once freed, it exploded in a grand shower of release. This was how the state troopers partied—spraying more champagne on the outside than on the inside, screaming at grade D jokes, jumping up and down to erratic music that faded in and out of the radio. As Lee would say, they party better than Davy Crockett.
All our laughing, hugging, and spraying each other with champagne gave us a desire to lie down. I threw myself across the bed, mildly aware this was the captain’s bed, large and comfortable, and this was his room, the most spacious on the ship. My ribs hurt the way they used to when my sister would tickle them too long. I was sweaty and sticky, although I had just had a shower, but I didn’t care. I felt deliriously happy.
Our heads were all touching in a circle, but Natalia soon became the central focus. With no fresh women’s clothing to give her when she arrived on board, she had been handed a standard set of seaman’s clothes, with a button-up shirt and buttoned trousers. Natalia was a tall woman, around five-foot-nine, with broad shoulders supporting very perky breasts, a tapered waist, and hips just broad enough to balance out her shoulders. She placed curves and swells into that outfit we had never seen before in seaman’s clothing.
I watched as Josh slowly slid toward her and began unbuttoning her shirt. I felt hazy and bubbly and could only watch as she turned her head and smiled at him. He peeled back the top to reveal she was no longer wearing a bra, but a men’s ribbed tank. Her breasts pressed against the ribbing, the nipples straining the fabric. Idly, he ran his hand over the top of them, then slipped it under one thin strap, circling the breast and rolling the nipple. Her head lolled back, and she breathed deeply.
From above her, Darkhorse laid on his stomach and kissed her face. He took the tee-shirt and pulled it up over her arms, then pulled her arms across the back of his neck while he continued kissing her. Her exposed breasts spread below her raised arms, milky white with puffy, pink centers.
Still with a strange sense of lethargy, I slipped downwards until my knees were on the floor and turned so my head was facing her lap. Slowly, with fascination, I began unbuttoning her pants. Each tiny unveiling exposed a new treasure trove of remarkable, sun-ripened flesh, firm and energetic with country life, heaving with anticipation. I lifted her buttocks and sat underneath her to finish my slow unveiling, then laid back with my knees over the edge of the bed, pulling her down on top of me, my cock standing proud and tall between her legs.
Josh was going down on her. I cradled her breasts from behind, my thumbs and forefingers finding the lovely, upright nipples and rolling them while gasps of pleasure escaped from her throat and her breasts swelled larger and became a more bluish pink around the engorged tips. I felt the most astonishing sensation of the head of my cock nuzzling right up against her clit, the soft beaver hair wrapped around it and a tongue licking and sucking at the edges. I was the first to lose my wad.
I collapsed, my enterprise drained, Natalia’s wonderfully rounded ass grinding in frustration against my unfulfilled promise. I held on to her tits, as firm as melons, the nipples throbbing. Josh climbed between the demanding legs, spreading them wider so that they draped over my knees. She raised her pelvis and he drove his hot, throbbing member into her. She moaned and tried to raise herself to embrace him, but I pressed her down as he pumped rhythmically. Screams of ecstasy burst from her throat, yet her hot little cunt remained dissatisfied.
She was held back from wrapping him up in one gigantic orgasm. While I embraced her from behind, my hands teasing and torturing her breasts, Lee and Roy held her with their ankles locked firmly against my calves, licking and nibbling at her inner thighs. When Josh came, she was still being held wide open, squirming and heaving, her crotch held high, begging for more.
Lee slipped a finger inside her and she sucked in her stomach, raising herself higher. He squeezed her little joy box. She wriggled. He opened the lips of her vagina and nuzzled the stiff, upright clit with his cock. She thrashed. “Motherfucker. Give it to me.” He slid inside, eased halfway out, then buried his shaft again while she bumped and ground against him.
He refused to completely satisfy her, either. While he rode her, he continued to massage her clit while I kept her breasts erect and yearning. He pulled out just before he came, leaving her gasping and cursing. She was a red-hot tomato now. Every sensory gland in her body was screaming for release.
Darkhorse mounted her last. It was deliberate. We had each only taken a taste of her, so there would be enough to go around. She was so hot; her pussy was pulsing. He eased her frenzy, first taking her breasts and sucking at each tit until she sighed and cradled his head between them. He pulled her up into a sitting position and wrapped her legs around his back. As he entered her, she locked her legs tightly at the ankles, her back bowed. They were still on top of me. I felt her soft, round butt gliding back and forth along my limp member until it began to wake back up and ask for more.
We spent the entire night absorbed in pleasure. When we no longer had the energy to fuck, we simply curled around her, nuzzling her and fondling the beautiful, abundant parts of her, sniffing her wild honey hair and happy for a new clan member. Though she wasn’t really clan. She was human, but a lot of shapeshifting bears have had human clan members and they had turned out all right.
Darkhorse
To tell you the truth, I’ve always been a little anxious about proving myself. Although I was treated as an equal, there was one way I was an outsider and that way couldn’t be changed. I wasn’t born in Alaska. Even Roy, as white as the fresh-driven snow, could one-up me on that. There was another way that shouldn’t bother me at all, but it did. The Alaskan big bears were considerably larger than Rocky Mountain Grizzlies. Lee wasn’t that much bigger. It’s probably why I’ve always felt a close rapport with him. The Denali brown bear isn’t much different than a grizzly. Lee isn’t extremely fond of diving into the ocean, but he loves to run, and he loves doing dangerous things. See? Not much different at all than a grizzly.
But Kodiaks and polar bears? Holy motherload! I’ve heard the shape-shifter circle debate sometimes over who would come up winner in a competition. Polar bears swim better, and pound for pound they are well-matched in size with the Kodiak, but for sheer ferocity, I’d say the Kodiak would come out on top.
Roy kept his calm nearly all the time. He calculated, but his calculations were too slow. For all his firecracker temper, Josh went straight for the jugular vein—without hesitation, without thought. That may sound reckless, except Kodiaks don’t have a vulnerable spot on them. Their layers of fat are so thick, it would take a hand grenade to do real damage.
Fortunately, at a young age, I began to understand respect didn’t depend on size and strength as much as it did courage, perseverance, and the willingness to help others. Before I finished high school, I knew what I wanted to do and joined the Coast Guard right after spring graduation. I never regretted it. I needed something that could make use of my special abilities and the recruiter who dealt with shapeshifter placement knew just what to do.
Alan McCarthy had been my trainer. He wasn’t a shapeshifter, but he had worked with them. I liked to show off around him just to see him roll his eyes and tell me someday I was going to take a nose-dive into shark-infested waters. He liked to hope for the worst, believing it would inspire me to do my best. When I heard he was dead, I wanted to shred the island to pieces. It wouldn’t have done any good, but my bear instincts still rumbled to knock over some dead trees and tear up a few hills. I was glad to hear the captain had killed the two slave traders, but I still seethed with my own taste for revenge.
Natalia saved me. I was going to d
rink myself silly with a bottle of Jack Daniels that I kept in the closet, with no intention to sober up until we arrived at port. I was preparing myself for this long deliberation with the dark spirits when Natalia waltzed in. She was freshly showered, her hair pulled back in a loose ponytail, her eyes sparkling. She was half-drunk. Rather than climb inside a bottle and pull the gloom and doom in with me, there was a shiny and spontaneous new life right ahead.
She saved all of us. We were vibrating with anger. Even the skeleton crew, all familiar with our shape-shifting ways, were uneasy around us. It’s probably why Pete surrendered the champagne so willingly. He understood. Coast guard was family and he was angry, too, but at least he didn’t have to worry about uncontrollably breaking out in fur and claws. Anything to make the shifters happy was a logical course of action.
Natalia put out the fire. The anger was still there, crackling at the backs of our minds, but our heads were cool, our bodies exhausted. Instead of fury, we slept in the sweet innocence of pleasure. You’ve got to love a woman like that. You’ve got to love the way she loves us.
If we weren’t the most polite and civilized people on the planet by the next morning, at least we were loud, cheerful, and had hardy appetites. This relieved everyone in general. By noon, the tiny port town of Sitka was shining in the distance. In this part of the Panhandle, the islands are like exquisite jewels laced together for a necklace. The wildlife was so intense, it made my nostrils flare. I sneaked off the boat once just to dive with the seals. I had become so accustomed to freezing temperatures that I didn’t need to shift in order to swim these warmer waters. All I needed was my wetsuit.
When I had dressed and returned to the Captain’s deck, Josh was contacting the harbor master. After sending him his identity code, he asked if there had been any news concerning Captain McCarthy. The answer was given in the slack voice of someone who was enjoying the lazy winter traffic. “McCarthy? He went on vacation. I haven’t seen him in about three weeks.”
I stood intently beside Josh to listen. “Has his boat been out?” Josh asked.
“No, I don’t think so.” I could hear the squeak of a drawer opening, the sharp shuffle of papers, then a tapping sound. The harbor master cleared his throat. “This is odd. A Lieutenant Rawlings took it out two weeks ago. No return dates. The documents are all signed and stamped. I don’t know how I missed this.”
Josh was clenching and unclenching his fists. I could swear the curly hairs on his chest were growing longer and thicker. I took the mic so he wouldn’t sprout fangs. “Harbor master, can you tell us where McCarthy was vacationing?”
“Sure. That’s a no-brainer. He has a lodge just a few miles outside Ketchikan. Real nice place. He and a few other officers were going there for rest and recreation.”
I glanced at Josh. The sweat was trickling down his brow, but he had calmed down. “Harbor master, we’re docking at the Coast Guard auxiliary pier. Can you meet us at fourteen hundred hours? Bring the documents with you.”
The boat docked into a nearly deserted port. Everything slowed down in winter; tourism, commerce. Some locals strolled the piers and others dropped crab traps over the side, taking advantage of the peaceful slow season when the sea life crept under the docks to scavenge scraps left by the fishing boats.
We met in the ready room. The cook had been instructed to set out coffee and sandwiches as a gesture of our hospitality. That’s one thing I admired about Josh. He was a hell of a diplomat. He always knew just what to say and do to keep information channels running smoothly.
The harbor master was as lean and gnarled as the old growth willow that twisted and turned in the wind. He had long, grey hair that straggled out of a ponytail, and shrewd, blue eyes. He was a seaman, through and through. Josh studied the documents in front of him, rubbing the stubbly beard he had failed to shave away that morning. I never understood why he could grow a full beard when I couldn’t, as Jews were not known for their hairlessness. Josh wasn’t full Native, I knew, but I still considered it a mystery.
Josh clasped his hands together and managed to look very sad and regretful. “Harbor master, I need to fax these documents to headquarters. They could be counterfeit.”
The harbor master was a smoker and wanted a cigarette badly. He tapped two fingers against the table and said, “Honestly, I don’t remember how they got there. I don’t remember logging out ‘Christina.’ The documents are all there, but I swear I didn’t sign them. That looks like my signature, but it isn’t.”
I could feel the harbor master’s discomfort so much, I felt bad. I shoved the plate of sandwiches at him and he took one, nibbling at it without interest. His eyes down, Josh muttered, “We have a hand-writing expert on board.”
He turned the paperwork over to Pete to be faxed. The harbor master had torn his sandwich apart in bitter pieces but had not eaten much of it. “Go ahead and have a smoke on deck,” invited Josh. “There will be a record with the admiralty if Christina was authorized to travel under a lieutenant commander. In the meantime, you are not to discuss this with anyone.”
The harbor master nodded and went outside, lighting up with obvious relief. I followed him out, as much out of sympathy as wanting to get a measurement of his loyalty. “Do you know McCarthy well?”
He nodded, inhaling deeply and letting it out through his nose. “He likes to play cribbage. On quiet nights, he’ll come over to the office and we’ll play cribbage. He brought me a nice scrimshaw cribbage board one year. Still have it. I keep it on the shelf up over my desk. Beautiful board. It has caribou carved on it.”
“Did he say anything about missing girls?”
“There’s been some discussion. You hear it. A girl missing here. One there. It’s common talk, though, lieutenant. I don’t know how much stock McCarthy put in it.”
“And you?”
The harbor master put out his cigarette and threw it in the trash container. “I don’t know. They run off and sometimes, they don’t want to be found. But then, sometimes, they need to be found. How am I to know the difference? I’m not a detective.”
When we returned to the ready room, Josh was waiting. Indicating we should sit back down, he asked, “Ensign Stevenson, what do you have?”
Roy looked up from a magnifying glass. As much as he likes to tinker with things and pays mind-numbing attention to small details, I should have known he’d be a handwriting expert. “This log-out doesn’t match the other harbor master signatures. It’s good, but the harbor master’s lowercase letters have long, sharp points. The forger tried to make them as long, but hesitated before finishing the loop, so that it wriggles instead of one straight mark. Also, the letter “a” is slanted toward the left. The harbor master makes his a’s consistently upright. It’s a forgery. The forger probably broke into the office after hours.”
The harbor master’s face was starting to grow as grey and grim as his hair. His eyes narrowed into cold, blue slits and his lips turned under as he spoke. “Has something happened to McCarthy?”
Josh stood up impatiently and walked briskly toward the door, waiting for an answer from Pete, then wheeled back around and placed his hands flatly on the table. “We think he’s dead.”
The poor man had to know the words were coming, but his face still blanched. “The ornery old cuss. What did he get himself into?”
Josh continued to brace himself against the table. “I don’t think it’s a matter of what he got himself into as it is what someone got him into. We have reason to believe he was murdered.”
I didn’t think the man’s face could grow any whiter, but it did. He whispered in an awful voice, “And his mates?” He noticed us giving quick glances to each other and cleared his throat. “There were three of ‘em went out to Ketchikan: the captain, his commander, and his first lieutenant. Isn’t none of them been back.”
Three top-ranking Coast Guard officers from the cream of the fleet. If we didn’t put out the fuse quick, this could turn into an international incident. Pete�
�s smart, hard-heeled officer shoes rang over the steel-reinforced floor. “The Coast Guard left no instructions for Lieutenant Rawlings to take out cutter #374. The boat has gone AWOL. Uh, they request that you pursue, sir.”
For once, making himself useful, Lee was jumping around, refilling the coffee cups. I sipped at mine cautiously. Piping hot and bitter black, just the way I liked it. The harbor master was trying to regain his composure. He sat erect as a soldier; his hands clasped in front of him. “What can I do to help, Captain?”
Josh, however, had already wandered from the room, probably to speak to the admiral himself. I sighed and shoved a clipboard in front of him. “Start by giving us the exact coordinates to McCarthy’s lodge and a detailed description of the land layout.”
While he was drawing out his maps, Josh returned with two zip-lock bags and set them on the table. “We’re tracking a ruthless killer who abducts village girls and sells them on the black market. This is the evidence we have on them to date. This key belongs to a member of a fake motorcycle gang who lured young women into the back woods. This silver bracelet belongs to one of the victims.”
He gasped when he saw the bauble, meant for a slender, feminine wrist. Tears rolled down the harbor master’s face. “I have young daughters. I’d kill the man who hurt one. I want you to get those bastards. Our babies…” His voice broke and he added savagely, “I want you to get them for McCarthy, and mostly, for those little girls. How did you find out? About McCarthy, I mean?”
I patted him on the back consolingly, giving him a grim, ironic smile. “A remarkable stroke of luck. We were on an island when we ran into two of the slave traders. They had been mauled by bears, but they made a confession before they died. Karma can be remarkable.”
The harbor master grunted and wiped at his eyes. “With a little luck, they’ll all get mauled by bears. Tell me who to look out for. I can put together a citizen’s patrol in an instant.”