Werebear's Nanny_A Paranormal Romance

by T. S. Ryder

  “Maybe they think I’m one of them…” she thought to herself while heading toward the small grouping of the Bear Clan.

  Sean rolled his eyes at her approach, but Ryder came over and put his arm around her shoulder.

  “You know, you’d be better off if you let one of us mark you,” he said in a casual tone.

  “You might be right,” said Thomas, though it seemed as though he wasn’t personally invested in the process.

  “I thought they might think I was another Shifter…” Coral offered, trying to maintain her straight spine and broad shoulders.

  Ryder laughed, his body hanging from her shoulders and causing her frame to sag slightly under his muscle mass.

  “Sorry hun,” he replied, “but you’re pheromones are a dead giveaway. I’m actually surprised you made it over here without getting gang raped by those boars over there.”

  “Heard that, Ryder!” shouted a gruff and obstinate voice not twelve feet away.

  “Just sharing some safety concerns with the lady!” Ryder called out. “I forget how sensitive your Clan is…”

  “If you’re tired of those ruffians,” the nearest boar addressed Coral. “You may come and spend time with us. Unlike the unsavory members of the Bear Clan, we know how to treat our mates with dignity.”

  Ryder rose to respond, but Sean put a hand on his shoulder and caught him.

  “Shut it, Ryder,” Sean warned. “The woman being here is enough of a liability.”

  “We don’t want another Tiger Clan experience on our hands,” Thomas warned.

  “Look, that was diff…” Ryder began.

  Thomas punched him square in the chest. Ryder’s eyes looked up, slightly hurt, but he decided to stop. With a peaceable expression on his face, Ryder waved an apology to the Boar Clan. The gesture was intentionally ignored and Ryder considered that to be sufficient amends for his jibe. He nudged Coral in the side with his elbow and leaned in toward her ear.

  “Your boy’s up,” Ryder remarked while pointing to a space that was clearing out in the center of the warehouse.

  The crowd was all respectfully making way for the game to begin. The noise in the room calmed down from a roar to a near dead silence. Kalin and a tall, pale club resident remained in the center. Kalin stood with a stoic expression on his face. Over Kalin’s left shoulder, the Aryan type man stood with a smug grin on his face. Kalin’s skin was considerably tanner. Another point of differentiation was that while Kalin’s tattoos were tribal and matched the types of tattoos that the other members of his Clan shared, the Aryan’s tattoos were different in style.

  The skin of Kalin’s opponent was pale, that much was true, but it was also nearly covered in geometrical patterns that reminded Coral of cellular structures and DNA. She felt a cold shiver run across her skin while she looked at the man. There was warmth in Kalin’s eyes that simply wasn’t present with this man.

  A volunteer referee came forward. Standard practice was that the referee should be from a Clan which had no affiliation with the two who were currently in competition. Not every Shifter in the slums was present because not all were interested in the game, but there was a diversity present which made it easy to find neutral parties to moderate the game.

  The referee produced a small rubber sphere and placed it on the floor between the two opponents.

  “Kalin Mae’ve of the Bear Clan!” the referee roared, “And Damon Vira from the Wyvern Clan!”

  Each member raised their hands into the air during their announcement, though Damon held his up for considerably longer. The crowd seemed to be in favor of Damon and it was evident that he was aware of the fact. Compared to his opponent, Kalin looked worn and haggard. The bandage on his shoulder reminded Coral of her own contribution to Kalin’s less than optimal state.

  She felt a slight pang of guilt and gulped slightly.

  Ryder apparently noticed because he gave her a warm pat on the shoulder.

  “He’ll lose,” Ryder said with a confident tone. “But he’ll put up a hell of a fight. You should enjoy the show.”

  Sean punched Ryder in the shoulder without turning around to see him.

  “What?” he asked, actually slightly hurt this time, if only emotionally so. “Vira’s got wings and Kalin has a busted shoulder. I don’t exactly see this as rocket science.”

  “Nothing is a foregone conclusion,” Thomas remarked.

  Ryder was about to respond, but his voice was drowned out by a roar from the audience. The match had begun.

  Chapter Four

  Coral watched as the ball was thrown into the air, firmly between the two combatants. Damon grinned and leaped up into the air with an eager look on his face. Coral watched as Damon’s tattoos seemed to grow and stretch along his body. Kalin leaped forward and hooked his injured arm around Damon’s neck. In mid-shift, Damon was too pre-occupied to throw Kalin off, which gave Kalin time to adjust his position.

  Wings sprouted from Damon’s shoulder blades and his neck elongated up toward the ball’s position in the air. The throw had been firm and the ball’s arc had nearly reached the top of the vaulted warehouse ceiling. The Wyvern’s jaws enclosed around the ball as the two soared upward through the air. The first contact had been made.

  The entire premise of the game involved obstructing the opponent's ability to navigate the open space, all while successfully attempting to centralize the ball between a series of marked circles on either end of the room. There were no nets, as in traditional hockey, and because the players were Shifters, the rules were much different as well.

  Essentially, there were no rules, except that you couldn’t fatally injure anyone in the place. This meant that all bad blood had to stop at the end of the game and it also meant that all of the members of the crowd needed to look out for themselves. This was the primary reason why the rule of ‘no spectators’ had been established, though there were significant other reasons for the guideline as well.

  Hefted up into the air and soaring downward now on the back of the Wyvern, Kalin held on with incredible poise. Coral noticed that even though the Wyvern was executing barrel rolls in order to throw Kalin off balance, his focus was exclusively on securing the ball from the mouth of the Wyvern. The two hurtled toward the arcane circle on the corner of the warehouse designated for the Dragon Shifter to score. All the Wyvern needed to do was place himself within the context of the circle and wait there for one complete breath.

  The crowd was up in arms and invested in what was happening on the court. The Bear Clan was silent in suspense — even Ryder had no words for such a quick match.

  Just as the Wyvern was about to land within the circle, Kalin managed to shove both hands inside of the Wyvern’s mouth. Just then and not a moment too soon, he shifted. The transformation finished just as the referee was about to blow the whistle. Kalin’s transformation pushed the ball down the throat of the Wyvern, forcing him to transform back or choke to death.

  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 wer
e 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.