by Isa Hunt
While Damon was transforming back into his primary form, the ball slipped out from between Kalin’s paws. Rolling on the ground, covered in acidic dragon saliva, the ball had burned Kalin’s paws and was rapidly sinking into an oblong shape. Kalin batted the flattened egg toward the other side of the room and bounded after it, doing his best to ignore the searing pain on the skin of his paws.
Damon was furious and began sprinting over toward the other side of the court. The ball was malformed at this point and it was difficult for Kalin to utilize his practiced techniques in order to tame the ball’s trajectory. Both Shifters seemed to be engaged in a wild chase for the ball until Damon’s trajectory was modified — ever so slightly.
“Oh no…” Coral whispered. “He’s going after Kalin.”
Sure enough, Damon’s pattern of movement was headed straight for Kalin’s body — his wounded shoulder no less. Kalin made a dive toward the ball and Damon made a dive toward Kalin’s neck. The trajectories of their movements were different, though. The bear’s dive was with his paws stretched outward toward the sphere while the dragon had inverted his body during the course of the flight.
Both of Damon’s heels connected solidly right between Kalin’s injured shoulder blade and his spine. The fact that Kalin’s paws were outstretched for the ball made the bear all the more vulnerable to Damon’s attack. Kalin was giving the game everything he had, but since all of his attention was on the ball, the strike went hard and deep. Kalin’s chest was pummeled into the floor. Damon allowed his weight to fall after the strike and put the bear in a choke hold.
The Aryan’s muscles flexed and gripped tight, cutting into the thick fur. Pain shot through Kalin’s left arm, and a temporary numbness seized his limb.
A cry sounded out from the Bear Clan while a cold-blooded, shrill screech came from the Wyvern Clan. Kalin strained his other paw to grab a hold of Damon. He wanted to rake the skin on the Aryan’s back, to cause blood to pour out onto the clay floor beneath them, but Damon was too quick. The Wyvern had already moved into a partially shifted state once more, causing his skin to be sheathed in a thick collection of magical scales.
Claws dug into either side of Kalin’s spine and the edges of the scale formed the equivalent of a dull knife blade at the Bear Clan member’s throat. Damon hissed a taunt of victory in Kalin’s ear and clenched his hold on the bear even further. Kalin struggled, arching his back and pushing himself off of the ground, but the key strike had served its function and the reptilian had wedged his position of dominance into the melee. Knowing that he held a defensible position and feeling the bear weakening within his grasp, all Damon needed to do was exercise some patience and he would have Kalin’s submission.
The crowd roared in Kalin’s ears, though it was difficult to tell the difference between the crowd and the rushing blood which coursed through his veins. He struggled alternatively to scratch Damon and throw him off, but neither attempt succeeded. The Wyvern could only dig his claws into the bear so hard, but the dragon had managed to find key points in the nervous system of his victim. Kalin’s struggles climaxed and he shifted back into his human form — a sign of conceded defeat while under the pin of another Shifter.
Damon leaned in toward Kalin and whispered something demoralizing in the draconic language. After retracting his claws from Kalin’s back, and spanking his ass with a barbed tail, Damon cleared the floor. Rising up on his hind legs, he shifted back into his human form. Coral was uncertain that the look was directed exclusively at her, but Damon definitely turned one slitted eye toward the Bear Clan and winked before walking back to his own Clan.
Coral noticed that Damon’s cock was erect.
Probably gets off on dominance and humiliation, Coral thought, looking at Kalin’s fallen body on the warehouse floor.
The image of what his cock might look like while in his dragon form gave Coral a deep sense of revulsion. The members of the Bear Clan had all left her now and were surrounding Kalin in a supportive way.
Coral felt terrible.
She decided to let the other Clan members take care of Kalin and made her way back to their room. There were other matches to be held that night, but her mind was drowsy and she could hardly focus. She may not have managed to find her way there twice. By luck and intuition, she made the right turns and ended up back at her seat. She tried to rest her head on the table because she had already worked a full day. Coral was tired and wanted nothing more than to be in her own bed. The noise from the crowd following the game bled through the walls. The sounds of the crowd’s raised voices faded into black and Coral fell asleep.
Chapter Five
Coral’s nap lasted a long time. She had no idea how tired she was. All the excitement from the night before wore her out. When she woke up, the game was long over. All of the other Bear Clan members had gone home. Only Kalin remained behind, waiting for her to get up. Coral woke up with a yawn. One of the cards stuck to her cheek when she raised her head. The card drifted down onto the floor, and she picked it up. Absently, she stared at the card. The image on the card was of a queen who held a sword. The queen wore an imperious expression. Her eyes looked like she could pierce through any problem.
Kalin raised a tired eyebrow. He had tried to stay up all evening. With a brutal game and a street fight under his belt, he was beaten. The sound of Coral awakening had brought him back to consciousness. He wasn’t the type to fall asleep ‘on the job’. Whether he liked it or not, she had become his ‘job’. All he had to do was get her home safely and he could get some real sleep. Bears need to hibernate and Kalin was no exception.
“Mhff…” he grunted.
Kalin’s muscles were stiff. He got up and did some stretches to warm up his body. Coral watched him from over the edge of the card in her hand.
“Gonna be a diviner?” he asked her.
His body lunged into the ground. She watched as his thighs and calves bulged. He descended from a lunge into a plank position. She wanted to get on top of his back. Coral knew it was an immature notion, but it looked like so much fun.
“Diviner?” she asked.
Coral blushed. She knew she had been gawking at him. She placed the card down on the table and shook her head.
“No,” I don’t believe in that kind of stuff.
“What kind of stuff?” Kalin asked.
He did push-ups with even breath. Each rise he would inhale. Each fall he would exhale. She was amazed at his stamina. He seemed to go on forever without getting tired.
“You know,” she replied. “Magic stuff.”
For a moment, he was silent. He continued his work out until he had done enough push-ups to wear out his chest. Coral watched as he sat down on the floor and began to do sit ups. Kalin was facing the wall. His boots were posted up on the wall as an anchor for his exercise.
Coral thought about her statement.
“Magic,” she thought to herself.
She looked down at the card again. Her attention drifted. She couldn’t help but let her thoughts wander.
“I guess before yesterday I never really thought about Shifters either,” she confessed.
“You think there’s some link between magic and Shifters?” he asked.
“Well, I can’t turn into a bear,” she replied. “So, yeah, it sure seems magical.”
Kalin continued in his exercise routine.
“Fortunately,” he began, “your cognitive dissonance is common.”
“What do you mean?” she asked.
“It’s really simple,” he replied. “When people don’t understand how something works, it is classified as magic. When people have a working theory about how something works, they call it science.”
He paused for a moment. Each breath was a grunt and his pace for each crunch slowed.
“Nobody knows how the cards work,” he concluded. “However, plenty of people have theories about genetic mutation and Shifters.”
When he was finished with his workout, Kalin sat up. Tiny
beads of sweat were on his forehead. Color was in his face and he looked healthy. The scratches and bruises on his body were less evident.
“How do you heal so fast?” she asked.
“Magic,” he replied. “Are you ready to go?”
He stood up and stretched his arms to the ceiling. His presence in the room was enough to set Coral’s heart on fire. He hadn’t been too kind to her. He hadn’t even made any attempts to flirt. Actually, he was kind of an asshole. But when his arms flexed like that, when he was so casual and so attractive, she had a hard time keeping her eyes away.
“You’re kind of a dick,” she offered.
She stood up to go and raised her eyebrows a bit. She wanted to see if she had got him. If she had struck a chord. He brushed her comment off and threw on the jacket he stole the night before.
“That’s no way to treat a knight in shining armor,” he replied.
His tone was flat. She got the impression he was making fun of himself more than her. Her spirits fell a bit. Coral decided that maybe it would be best if she were more grateful. She decided to change the topic.
“Good game last night,” she commented.
“I lost,” he said.
“At least you tried,” she replied. “It’s not every guy who can go into an intensive match like that and stick it out for as long as you did — especially against a thing like that.”
He didn’t turn around when he spoke to her. The two of them walked through the empty warehouse toward the exit. The empty warehouse looked strange to Coral. Last night everything seemed so exotic and vivid. Today, the colors on the walls looked dull. The whole place was quiet and abandoned. Strange creaks in the walls replaced the roars from the night before. The absence of people was surreal. The doorman remained.
He was relaxed, this time, leaning up against a wall. He had a cup of coffee in his hand. His outfit had changed, Coral felt. She imagined that last night, he had been wearing a tight white tank top. Today, he had on a leather jacket and some cutoff jeans. He looked just as ugly, but he was more polite.
“How was the game, doll?” he asked.
“Never seen anything like it,” she replied. “It was more of a fight than a hockey game.”
“What do you expect when you have Shifters involved?” he laughed and then sniffed.
“I suppose you’re one of those girls who says she’s tough, but really just wants to be handled right,” he said. “Have fun with that.”
He winked at Kalin.
“Sorry to hear about your game last night, Kalin.”
The man sniffed again.
“And that little encounter of yours on the street,” he continued. “If you need anything, you know where to go.”
“Straight to hell,” Kalin replied.
The man laughed uncontrollably. He spilled his coffee on his lap and then cursed to himself.
“Later Maurice,” Kalin offered, dismissively.
The two of them left the warehouse while the doorman tended to the stains on his pants.
Chapter Six
Coral ended up living about ten blocks away from the club. The location was fortunate, in that Kalin didn’t have to be an escort for much longer. There was also an element of misfortune in the location. The Hockey Club was located in the most anarchic part of the slums. In fact, the only reason the club was able to stay in operation was because of its seedy location. A few blocks away from her house, Coral started to get uncomfortable. She clung closer to Kalin’s side. He noticed that she was less confident in her walk. She was scared.
Kalin grabbed her by the hand and brought her against a wall. His other hand braced her head from the impact on the bricks. Coral’s eyes were wide with surprise. Kalin leaned in like he was going to kiss her on the neck.
“They’re here, aren’t they?” he whispered.
She could feel an edge in his voice. Coral was frightened. The fact that Kalin took the threat seriously only increased her concern.
“I saw one of the guys, I think from last night,” she replied. “He turned a corner just as we walked by.”
“You’re not telling me everything, and I’ve got a bad feeling about this,” Kalin said.
Coral broke.
“Look, my brother, he’s kind of an addict. He disappeared a while ago and I think these people lent him some cash. Really, that’s all I know,” she confessed.
“And you said that they know where you live?” he asked.
She got flustered.
“I don’t know why this is happening,” she said.
She was crying now. Kalin kissed her.
There was nothing tentative about the kiss. He dove straight in and connected with her. His presence helped to ease her anxiety. His hands wrapped around her waist. Their bodies were pulled together. For a moment, she forgot entirely about every problem that had plagued her mind.
Then the kiss was over.
“Follow me,” he whispered. “Stay close.”
Kalin knew that they needed to find a way to end this problem. He couldn’t afford to be this woman’s bodyguard day in and out. Besides, each time he got caught up inside of this conflict he knew he put his Clan at risk. The type of person who tracked down women like Coral obviously had no moral conscience. The fact that the leader of this group had at least six men willing to do his bidding was also problematic. Hired men cost money. So did bullets and cars.
Kalin’s mind raced through the problem set that was presented.
“It costs a lot of cash to front an operation like this. If he's connected with the drug trade he's likely to be one of the kingpins of the area,” Kalin reflected.
This meant that even if there was another fight, things wouldn’t stop. The man who had issued the order to capture Coral would need to be confronted directly. Otherwise, she could be stuck without any safety. They would wait until she was alone. Then they would take her. Who knows where she would go. What she would be made to do.
Kalin had heard of women being drugged and taken outside of town. There were reports of missing women throughout the slums. Kalin knew a thing or two about the drugs in that part of town and figured that there was probably a connection between the drugs and the sex trade.
“This is getting too big,” Kalin said out loud.
His senses were on high alert. He had not gotten much more than an hour's worth of sleep on the last day. Kalin’s body was running on pure adrenaline. His hand tightened around Coral’s hand. Fighting the urge to break out, he continued toward her house.
He brought her close once more and placed an open hand on her ass. Kalin wanted to give these people the impression that he was just a guy who got lucky. The kind of guy who was hoping to get some action when they got back to Coral’s house. If Coral was right and they were being followed, then there would likely be a group of people staking out the house.
“Follow my lead,” he whispered, kissing her neck once more.
He laughed and lifted her into the air. He spun around briefly so she would fall on his back. He pretended like she weighed a lot and that he was focused on carrying her forward. In reality, his strength was more than sufficient — he could have carried her all day. Coral was a natural. She laughed and smiled as though nothing had ever been wrong in her life.
“That’s the same type of car,” she whispered.
Her message was delivered with a kiss on the cheek. Kalin noticed the vehicle was on the other side of the road. The car's windows were tinted. Kalin knew that if he showed any interest out of the ordinary, they would probably shoot him on site. His only hope was that they valued the girl’s life enough not to risk shooting her as well. That was one of the motivations for putting her on his back.
The two strained to keep up the image of the happy couple while they approached another identical car on their side of the street. Kalin smiled and looked down at his feet. He held Coral in his arms.
“Hold on,” he whispered.
Kalin grabbed Coral’s legs with a firm
grip. He hunched over slightly and began to sprint.
Coral screamed. She tried to make it sound like a laugh, but she was too startled. Terror widened her eyes. They were headed right for the car. She saw movement inside of the car, the doors began to open. When Kalin was 10 feet way, he leaped into the air head first toward the car’s windshield. In the middle of his flight, Kalin shifted.
His body swelled beneath Coral. She held onto his chest as tightly as she could. Coral was terrified and overwhelmed. His size tripled mid-flight. By the time the two landed, Coral was holding onto the back of a grizzly. Her fingers clutched his fur for dear life. Their landing had smashed the windshield through the car and damaged the hood. The car would likely never start again. A huge commotion broke out as the other nearby car witnessed the transformation.
All pretenses were gone. Shots were fired and then a call to hold off stalled the first shots.
“Not while the girl is on his back!” someone shouted.
The shots ceased. None of the bullets had hit home, though they had come dangerously close. Kalin pounced off of the car and onto the man who had escaped his initial onslaught. The man was stumbling backward over his feet, trying to escape. He failed to escape and was soon crushed under the weight of the bear.
“Take him down!” a voice commanded from the car behind them.
Coral turned around with wild eyes. She wanted to catch a glimpse of the man who had shouted those words. She wanted to know what threat was coming next. The command had come from a man in a suit. He wore dark glasses and a coat with a fur collar. Two men were advancing toward them on either side. They were stripping off their clothes and grinning with hunger. Kalin turned around to observe their approach. Then fear rose like lightning along Coral’s neck.