Taming Her Bears: A Reverse Harem Paranormal Romance

by Jade Alters

  “We should, shouldn’t we?” He gave me what felt more like a thank you kiss than anything else and pulled up another chair for me. I settled in for the duration. It may sound strange coming from a transplanted Russian, but I know plenty about wakes. With so many Irish taking ground-pounder jobs, they’ve just about become a state trooper tradition.

  It was a proper wake. My boys became men again, grieving a fallen comrade. They emptied themselves in human form and not in raging bearskins. I was sorry and sad for them. I let them all know how much I felt their pain, raw and purely human.

  In the mid-evening, a draft sprang up and we huddled inside blankets. The lights of Ketchikan twinkled in the distance. “We’re home,” I said. I think my voice sounded a little deflated. “What do we do now?”

  “Make our reports,” said Darkhorse sourly.

  I raised my voice. “About us? All of us?” If there was a little piece of red sun inside me, I hoped it was shining as bright as a police siren.

  Darkhorse tightened the hand he had placed around my shoulders. “There will be a de-briefing. That will take a few days.”

  “And then?”

  “We live on a boat. I don’t know where to keep a mama bear. We’ve never had one before.”

  None of them knew what to do. Even when we retired to the captain’s room and sprawled on the bed, trying to regain some sobriety, none came up with brilliant suggestions that did not involve giving up their careers. That wasn’t something I could accept. Even if they didn’t love their jobs so much, the public needed them. I couldn’t be that selfish.

  Clearly, I was supposed to be the one to come up with a master plan. Other women worked things out with their sea-faring men. I’d think of something. In the meantime, there were a lot of other things to keep us busy. The slave-trader yacht was all over the news. The Canadian guard was at a loss to explain why four bears killed an entire crew, but not the guests. They were reluctant to tell the public what the guests were doing on the yacht, but already rumors were flying. The people of Ketchikan knew the answer. It’s not something you can keep secret long when the town is that small.

  It was a solemn ceremony when we first anchored into the dock. The harbor master and a handful of Coast Guard personnel lined up along the pier, caps tucked under their arms, hands raised in a uniform salute for the pirated Christina and her murdered officers. Once we hit solid ground, people were dancing in the streets. They jostled each other to shake our hands. Every bar was open to us for free drinks. We were heroes, at least for that night, and we made the most of it. We drank. We danced on the tables. We sang as we weaved through the streets, supported by each other’s arms.

  The next day was a different story. Josh gathered us all in the ready room and gave us a sour face—although it was one that wasn’t overly grumpy, just hung over. “The admiral is having a hissy fit, or the governor is having a hissy fit and passing it on to the admiral. They are disturbed by a couple of small items in the report. One of the guests was attacked and almost died. He’s currently in an induced coma. Can anyone explain this?”

  “I might have injured a guest,” said Roy, raising his hand.

  “Would you care to tell me why?”

  “I think he was going for a gun.”

  “There was only one gun in the room.”

  “He was going for that gun, after the Russian dropped it.”

  “I see.” Josh’s brow furrowed a little and thickened. It must be tough to be the rule-breaking captain of a team of rule-breakers. At some point, it’s no longer about chain of command, but just a lot of free-thinking agents. “The admiral is concerned that a member of the Alaskan Coast Guard was killed by a bear. He wished to remind me; military personnel are to be brought in to face trial. Was the lieutenant going for his gun?”

  “No, sir,” said Lee with a military snap to his voice. “He wasn’t quick enough.”

  “But he had a gun?”

  “He had a gun, sir.”

  “He probably would have gone for his gun if he had been quick enough.”

  “I expect he would have if he had thought quick enough, but it wouldn’t have done much good.”

  “Both men had probable cause,” Josh said cheerily. “Darkhorse, work on Lee a bit. Make him”—he waved his hand around in the air as though the words would appear there—“Governor acceptable.”

  The state troopers were still up in the air about me. I had been working on their clock, without their authorization once I had received the opportunity to return to Valdez and turned it down, but I had helped solve the biggest missing persons case of the year. The state troopers didn’t mind bending rules either, when it brought results. I wondered now how many had met up with shapeshifters; and even, how many were those strange between-world characters.

  Our issues were minor and quickly resolved through a few secret phone calls. Canada wasn’t as lucky. It had far more to explain to the public than a mysterious attack by bears. When the helicopters first hovered over the yacht and saw the blood-stained deck, they knew this was going to be a tough one. They had rappelled down in full riot gear, expecting enemy fire. All they saw, beyond the scattered dead, was a group of wealthy, well-connected, international businessmen. Extremely terrified businessmen. Some of them drooled and spoke gibberish.

  If one perplexing question wasn’t enough, another came into view after a search of the vessel. Why were twelve naked young girls crashed out on drugs in one room? The survivors were too far in shock to answer. They were evacuated from the boat and taken into Vancouver for processing.

  Once the girls had come out of their drugged state enough to give their names and where they were from, the worst question of them all was put to the businessmen. Why were all the girls on Alaska’s missing person’s list? Within twenty-four hours, lawyers, diplomats and journalists were popping up in Vancouver like roaches.

  Canada got the collar, the glory, and the nightmare of closing the book on an international crime ring. Alaska got its girls. We got our revenge. The bear question was shelved for the more serious ones of criminal proceedings. There wasn’t much you could proceed against with bears. It’s not exactly like you can pull them from a line-up and state positively, “That’s the one.” You can’t make laws for them. Canadian Parks responded by putting up ‘beware of bear’ signs and even placing brochures in the harbor master’s office. This satisfied the public.

  The Canadians were anxious to send the girls home quickly. They even encouraged the Alaska Coast Guard fleet to come get them. I think they were afraid Seattle would swoop in on the girls first and create a big sensation in the city. The Coast Guard responded by sending two helicopters into Vancouver for the victims and bringing them to Ketchikan.

  I was cleared to see Rhoda the day after she got back. She was pale and had lost weight. She looked older in some ways. Her eyes no longer flashed merrily with mischief; she no longer spoke in a rush. She was sitting up in bed, chasing around a lump of Jell-O, when I walked in. At first, she didn’t recognize me, then her eyes brimmed over with tears.

  We had a good, long girl cry. All this time, I had been worried about her and all this time, she had thought I was dead. Reunions like this do things to you. They wipe up all the messes you made in the past, giving you a clean slate with each other. “I’m sorry I didn’t listen to you,” she whispered finally. “I’m sorry I wasn’t braver.”

  I pushed back her hair and looked into her eyes. “It doesn’t matter now. You’re here. I’m here. We’re safe. We survived.”

  She nodded and sniffled, rubbing at her nose. “A state trooper was in here earlier. He asked me some questions. I didn’t want to answer. I don’t want to talk to him, but I’ll talk to you. You’re still a state trooper, aren’t you?”

  I rolled my eyes at her, the way we did when we got caught red-handed doing something. “Maybe. They haven’t decided yet. I went AWOL.”

  “Natalia! You’re dedicated to the troopers.”

  “I was!�
� I sat close to her, no longer trying to obtain information on the most painful episode in her life but wanting to fill her in on the days we’d spent apart. “I still am, but I found I was more dedicated to you. I went into Canadian waters after you.”

  “You were with the Canadian Coast Guard?”

  “Not quite.” I winced, realizing I had already told her too much. I hedged, trying to come up with a plausible story. “How much do you remember about your last day on the yacht?” I asked testily.

  She laughed and bumped up against me. “Girlfriend! There was enough of that drug inside me to rape an elephant seal!” She straightened slowly. “Wait, though. I did see something. I thought it was a hallucination, but it was on the television, so I know it’s real. I saw a bear.”

  “Do you think it was strange the bear didn’t kill you?”

  “Maybe the bear thought we were dead. We were a bit comatose.” She pushed aside her food tray. “What I want is a milkshake. When can you get me out of here so I can start binging?”

  “I can probably get you released tomorrow. Where did you want to go, Rhoda?”

  “Not back to Valdez.” She frowned. “You didn’t answer my question. You skirted around it. How did you track me into Canadian waters?”

  I quickly retrieved the official story. “I was on an Alaskan Coast Guard vessel looking for the Christina, the vessel the kidnapping ring pirated.”

  She gave me an agonized look. “Then you saw the murdered crew?”

  “You saw them, too?”

  I grasped her arms and her hands went around my wrists, tightening as she spoke. “They made us look. They said it was part of our training.” Her voice broke and her grip tightened.

  I pressed closer to her on the bed, sharing her pain. I loosened her grip around my wrists and held her hands in mine. “Tell me what happened after we separated.”

  She frowned and stared at her lap, then looked up with a cunning smile on her face. “Only if you’ll tell me what you were doing on a Coast Guard vessel. That’s not quite state trooper regulation.”

  “I told you. I was looking for you.”

  “Girlfriend, you had something going to pull that one off. ‘Fess up.”

  “Okay. I’ll confess. I was falling in love.”

  She looked surprised. “Well, about time. I wondered if you were ever going to get turned on by anybody. He must be a senior officer, for you to pull strings.”

  “Two of them are.”

  “Two of them? Now you do have to tell me everything.”

  I spent a lot of time with Rhoda over the next few days. The team had been put on shore leave, although they still had a mountain of official documenting to do that would have kept them grounded a good two weeks, anyway. This meant they spent their days between leisurely strolling around town and filling out forms on a computer.

  What they weren’t allowed to do, though, was spend all their time on the boat. I made sure of this. We rented a two-bedroom suite in a hotel. There was a queen-sized bed in each room that we pushed together for one super-gigantic king size. They grumbled about not being able to feel the sway of the boat, but they really liked the sleeping arrangement. We spent long hours talking about our day and how easy it would be to just settle down and live in one spot. The last part was a fantasy, but while we were recovering, it was a pleasant one.

  Rhoda began to tell me her story. As she did, I relayed it to the team. The girls had been bound by their hands and shackled together with ropes when they were transported over to the coast guard vessel. They were carried like gunny sacks, dropped to the floor of the deck. They were instructed to stand and watch as the lodge was torched. A man who they were to refer to only as “drill master” told them this was part of their training. He told them they had no hope. There was nothing left behind of who they were and where they came from.

  Rhoda was placed in seamen’s quarters with two other girls. They each had a bunk, and there was a toilet and shower. Three times a day, the guards came and took them to the galley for a communal meal. Three hours a day, they went through training under the drill master.

  The drill master was medium height, but very box-shouldered, with a thick double-chin and a scar near his left eye. “Oh, I killed him,” volunteered Lee, interrupting.

  “Did you really?” I asked, pausing in my story. He was laying with his head in my lap, with Darkhorse on the other side, both looking up at me as expectantly as children.

  “Yeah, he looked like a nasty sort and he was crew, so…” He shrugged.

  I adored everything about Lee, from his short ponytail to his playful spirit, but what I loved most was his candidness. He was as artless as a child. I rested a hand on his head as I continued. “The drill master worked on breaking them down. The girls never knew what hour of the day the drill master would come in, or which girl he would choose first for training. He only took one at a time. He would pair her with one of the other girls, but never the same one twice. When he would come for one, he would put a shock collar around her neck and lead her out with a leash.”

  A submerged rumble started in Josh’s chest and spread to the others. “If you’re going to turn into bears,” I warned. “I won’t finish telling you the story.”

  Josh grumbled but battered a pillow, then plopped it close to my head so he could snuggle his brow next to mine. I gave him a kiss and continued.

  The drill master had turned the ready room into a private theater. Two tables had been pushed together to make a stage, with the deck chairs gathered around it. Disco music played in the background.

  The seat closest to the table was the captain’s plush armchair, pulled from his cabin. The drill master flopped down in the deep cushions and swung a leg over one arm while the crew members filled the deck chairs. Rhoda recounted her first training session. She and another girl she had not seen before were made to get up on the table. “Dance,” commanded the drill master, and Rhoda tried moving to the feverish beat. An electric shot jolted her, like the unexpected shock of touching a live circuit. “Dance better. Do man hump.”

  She tried again. The drill master grunted and pointed to the other girl. “You. Take off her clothes. Dancing. Man hump.”

  They did the bump and grind, the strange girl slowly pulling Rhoda’s sweater up over her head, revealing her black-lace bra. One of the viewers cheered, “Take it off!” The girl unsnapped it from behind, letting the fabric fall to the floor. The audience demanded the girls peel away each other’s clothes, item by item, while dancing provocatively to the music. When they had stripped, Rhoda was ordered, “Kiss her.” Rhoda kissed the other girl hesitantly on the lips.

  The drill master leaped up on the table, grabbed Rhoda by the hair with one hand, and by the tit with the other, stretching them both as far as they would go. He squeezed the nipple. “Are you hot, yet? Are you hot?” He grabbed the other girl’s breasts. “Do these look hot?” He squeezed them until she cried out. “Be hot!” he warned the two menacingly. “Be hot!”

  She kissed the girl again, this time, open-mouthed. “Finger her! Kiss her breasts.” Swaying to the rhythm, Rhoda sucked and kissed at the girl’s breasts, while her fingers slid inside the girl’s crotch, massaging her moistening clit. The girl moaned and threw her head back involuntarily to the cheers of her audience.

  During their days on ship, the girls were electro-shocked, their breasts pinched, and their hair pulled, but no physical marks were ever left. They were forced to give blow jobs and to dance erotically on stage, but they weren’t fucked by the crew. The day before they docked at McCarthy’s lodge, one of the girls rebelled. While going down on a crew member, she bit his shaft so hard, it bled. He howled, grasping his wounded dick, leapt to his feet and kicked her. When the drill master saw what she had done, he ordered all the girls out on deck and dragged the poor child to the center.

  “This is what happens to willful disobedience,” he announced, then wrapped his leather belt in his hand and punched her in the face. When she we
nt down, one of the crew kicked her. Another joined in. They kept kicking her until there was nothing left but a mass of blood and tissue. They rolled her up in a blanket and threw her overboard.

  There was a long silence in the room when I finished. All four of the boys were curled up so close, I couldn’t tell if they were trying to comfort me or if I was supposed to be comforting them. I wasn’t quite ready to get Rhoda’s suffering out of my head, though. “They were made to watch Amy’s rape, you know. I’m glad this will never come to trial. They never want to relive it.”

  Josh made a sound somewhere between a dry chuckle and a growl. “With Denisovich and the girls safe, Russia will be distancing itself from any knowledge of wrong-doing as fast as it can. We may have dumped a nightmare on Canada’s lap, but we saved them from a nightmare more horrible than they can imagine.”

  I murmured close to his ear. “Rhoda thinks Denisovich and his men deserved what they got. She’s very grateful.”

  “Does she know?” asked Josh, sounding a little alarmed.

  I sat halfway up in bed. “Of course, she knows. She’s in Ketchikan. She has a room on the next floor. Who in Ketchikan doesn’t know?”

  Josh put his fingers over his chest, drumming them. “It wasn’t the harbor master. It wasn’t the shaman. It must have been the nurse. Yep, I bet it was the nurse.”

  Lee

  Mama Bear talks straight up. I don’t know why it doesn’t work as well for me as it does for her. I’m always being told what I should and shouldn’t say. Darkhorse says it’s because I have too much of a bear brain. He should talk; I’m not the one who once threw a dead log at a poacher. These things are supposed to be left up to fish and game, but there you are. Bear brain.

  Josh behaved like a sacred commandment had been broken when he learned Rhoda knew we were shapeshifters. It’s like Natalia said, though. The whole town knew. Some places, the ones that still did the dancers and practiced traditions, were like that. They could see straight into people, even summon their demons if they have any, and talk to the creatures inside them.