by Meg Ripley
Next to him, Dov let out a soft trill. Coming our way. Ben sighed; they would have to decide whether it was worth it to risk the panic of a woman encountering two bears in the woods at night, or if it would be better to vacate the area, keep away from the stranger. The Nita clan had lived in the town of Green Tree for as long as it had existed; the original shape-shifters who had formed it had been loggers, just like the majority of the town’s men. Their existence was precarious, however. None of the normal humans in the tiny town knew the true nature of the members of the clan. There were occasional murmurs about some of the stranger behaviors of the “local bears,” but in spite of the occasional sighting of someone coming out of the woods, transformed back into a human, the members of the community seemed content to turn a blind eye; but if they were confronted with the true fact of the Nita clan, there would be consequences—deadly ones.
Move on? Ben rumbled, turning his head and scenting the air, trying to catch the trace his friend had noticed. In his human form, he had better-than-normal senses of smell and hearing; but in his animal form, Ben’s senses were even more acute. He caught the scent that Dov had found: richly female, with the sweet, slightly musk-laden undercurrent of fertility, it was enough to briefly make the promise of even the sweetest, ripest berries pale in comparison. How the woman had managed not to attract every human male in the town—along with the unattached Nita clan contingent—was beyond Ben’s ability to comprehend. A jolt of fiery need shot through him at her smell. Breathing deeply, trying to settle the hormones surging through his body, Ben picked up the answering scent of Dov’s pheromones; he was beginning to respond to the smell of female fertility as well.
Better leave, Dov’s hurried, not-quite-panicked thought reached him, and Ben let out a grumbling growl to confirm his agreement. They moved deeper into the woods together, and as they moved further away from the alluring, distracting smell, Ben felt his thoughts beginning to clear. If they could just keep downwind of the woman, he thought, they would be okay. He sniffed at the air, sorting through the scents that painted crystal-clear pictures on his ursine mind, identifying each one. There was carrion nearby, but he was unmoved by it; there was a tree somewhere close to them that had—to his keen nose—perhaps a few ripe fruits for the picking. He ambled off on all fours, meandering through the underbrush and putting the new woman out of his mind as completely as he could. She was not for him—even if she smelled appealingly like she should be. He would not fight Dov over the right to take her; he would rather lose the opportunity to mate completely than be in opposition to a man he considered his brother, his own flesh and blood. Ben barked a quick sound in Dov’s direction, heading towards the appealing smell of more food.
****
Dov’s mind was not so easily turned away from the woman whose scent he had caught on the breeze. As he followed Ben carelessly, the woman’s pheromones lingered in his nose, spurring the animal arousal that bubbled inside of him. That she was fully human—not a werebear, or even another kind of shape-shifter—was a problem, but even as he tried to focus on enjoying the night’s explorations, Dov’s brain filled with fleeting, flickering images. He had met the new woman around the same time that Ben had; he had taken his cue from his friend, knowing the Alpha’s edicts about mating, and knowing that with the climate within the clan, losing control could spell their doom, but the small, curvaceous woman had attracted his attention nonetheless. Blurred, animal images flitted through his mind: what the woman must look like naked, the shape of her breasts, and the idea of her nestled firmly in his arms. He could imagine the smell of her arousal, the taste of her sweat and fluids on his tongue.
Dov had caught his friend’s pheromones as well; he knew that Ben—in spite of resolutely turning away—had felt that same tug, that same animalistic drive to reproduce. In their current forms, it was more difficult for both of them to suppress instincts. Dov knew that of the two of them, he was the more impulsive; he was the one who had spurred Ben to go on more than one skinny dipping trek when they had been in high school together, and he had been the one who had started their somewhat solitary wanderings in the forest they worked in, telling his clan-brother that there was nothing for them to fear—the other bears in their sleuth would not mind, and there were few things in the woods to harm them apart from the occasional hunter.
Some nights, they would hunt together, skulking through the woods quietly until they came upon a deer. Other nights—like this one—they simply wandered, browsing the bushes and trees for treats, enjoying the freedom that their fearsome bodies provided them. Ever since the night when their Alpha had rescued a human female from a pack of wolves, the pack had been wary of impinging on the bears’ territory, keeping their predations to the perimeter. There would be problems from the pack in the future, but Dov looked forward to dealing with the wolves; the battle would bleed off some of the testosterone charging through the ranks, and it would be instructive for some of the younger members of the clan, just coming into the full flush of their adult forms.
In spite of the joint resolution to avoid the woman, Dov caught her scent again, once more coming closer to them. He turned his thoughts towards his clan brother. Let her see us, he suggested. She might scare. Run away. That would solve both of their problems, after all; if the woman left, then there would be no more tempting, warm-sweet smell to distract him, and Ben’s worries about dealing with her would be moot.
Ben snorted into the underbrush, turning a bright-eyed gaze towards him, and Dov received a series of impressions from his friend’s mind, images tinged with bear-like emphasis: screaming woman, panicked, possibly armed, going back into the town and telling the others about bears in the woods. Possibly shooting them. Messiness. Questions. She’s not armed, Dov countered, his thoughts becoming more and more human as he struggled with his animal impulses. Do you smell a gun? Ben snuffled at the air, rising up onto his hind legs for a better vantage point, for a better scent to catch. Dov chuffed and barked, twisting his head from side to side. He knew there was no gun; he knew the woman was unarmed. She would be frightened by the sight of two bears, but there would be no other problems—she would likely run back into town, and never come into the woods alone at night again. More’s the pity, he thought fleetingly, imagining—briefly—the possibility of changing back into his human form, of bearing the woman down onto her back in the soft leaves of the forest floor and taking her. It is not to be, he reminded himself firmly.
****
Daphne wandered aimlessly, looking around her as every step carried her more and more deeply into the forest, hands trailing on tree trunks, pinching off the occasional leaf after a quick visual inspection confirmed it was non-noxious. The smells of the velvety-soft evening filled her nose, calming something she hadn’t quite known was coiled tightly inside of her, relieving some stress she hadn’t realized she bore. Every step into the woods seemed to drag more of the weight off her shoulders, lightening her feet, making her hands wander more carelessly over the plants that caught her eye.
She had taken the job in Green Tree on an almost-whim; there was nothing for her in her hometown, hundreds of miles south of the little logging town, ever since her fiancé had been abruptly wrenched out of her life in a chance, tragic accident. He had been driving from his little college town to meet her, when a semi-truck had overturned onto his fragile, lightweight sedan, crushing it to almost nothing, and killing him nearly instantly. When Daphne had gotten the phone call, it had felt as if she herself was being crushed, as if the walls of her apartment had come tumbling down onto her. After she had done what she knew was required of her: attending the funeral, putting her lover to rest, discarding the wedding dress and the other items she had already started bringing together, Daphne had decided that she needed to get away. Not just from her apartment, full of memories with Aaron, but out of her town altogether—as far as a decent job opportunity would take her. When she found the job posting for an administrative assistant in a logging company, she had im
mediately submitted her resume, and had eagerly driven up for her interview, accepting the position the moment it was offered.
Now that the dust had settled, now that she was slowly building a routine—getting up early enough to get in a little exercise, taking a shower, going to work, coming home—Daphne felt a deep, gnawing kind of hunger. She hadn’t given much thought to forming any friendships within the small, tight-knit community, but she felt lonely. She needed to be out of her lonely, empty-feeling house at the corner of the town, she needed to wander, and clear out her mind. Daphne had been warned that there were both wolves and bears in the forest, but in spite of the danger she knew was present, she couldn’t resist the draw of the expanding, oddly welcoming woods, less than a mile away from where her home sat.
Daphne paused, not quite certain of what precisely had made her steps come to a stop. Breathing in deeply, she caught an unmistakably musky smell—a wild animal smell, clean but earthy—and a spurt of something like fear flowed through her. Whatever kind of animal she smelled, it had to be big; Daphne doubted that a rabbit or a weasel would put off such a strong scent. She licked her lips, thinking. She had tucked a can of bear-mace in her pocket as a basic precaution before leaving the house, but she hoped—she prayed silently to herself—that she wouldn’t have to use it. Most bears, she remembered, were generally fairly peaceful; grizzlies would kill a person as soon as they looked at them, but if she did stumble upon any of the other species, she could possibly carefully back away, imitating submissive behavior, and get out intact, without having to give the poor thing chemical burns to the face.
She took a deep breath and decided to risk it; wolves, she thought, would be barking, or howling—something—in response to her presence. And maybe, she considered hopefully, it was a deer, something like that. Just because the animal was big, didn’t mean it had to be an omnivore or carnivore.
Daphne stepped forward, making her way towards a clearing she could barely make out through the silvery moonlight that shone down in dappled flecks, filtered by the branches and leaves overhead. Somehow, a clearing seemed safer. A clearing would give her the chance to see any approaching animals, take evasive action by climbing a tree before they could reach her. There are animals that can climb trees. Animals that live in trees. Daphne pushed the thought aside; it wasn’t very helpful. She strode forward, keeping her ears as alert as possible to any movement she might be able to hear, occasionally sniffing to catch that elusive animal trace that had alerted her to the fact that she wasn’t quite alone in the depths of the forest.
Stepping through a tangled veil of overgrown vines, Daphne’s foot crunched on dead leaves and then rustled faintly as she came onto the grass. She took a deep breath, exhaling on a sigh as relief flowed through her. She glanced around, appreciating the island of light and calm in the otherwise busy nocturnal life of the woods. She had begun to sink down onto a conveniently placed, flat rock when she heard rustling a few feet away. The sound was followed by a chuffing, slightly stuttering growl, and she was on her feet once more.
Before she could even think of finding a tree to climb into, a pair of bears—huge, to her night-frightened eyes—emerged from the tree line, communicating to each other in trills, barks, and growls. They came to a stop just a few steps away from the edge of the woods, barely in the clearing, and seemed to both look up at her at the same time, staring at her watchfully with soulful, yellow eyes. Somehow—though Daphne couldn’t say how or why—she started to feel her fear ebbing away. There was something like recognition in their body language; there was almost a sense of gentleness. “Hey, boys,” Daphne said, her gaze flicking down to catch sight of their genitals as the two bears stood upright on their hind legs. “I’m sorry I interrupted your foraging.” She smiled, trying to project a nonthreatening demeanor. “I’ll go away, if you want. Do you want that?” One of the two bears looked straight at her and let out a low, querying trill. The other barked an almost-question at the first bear.
This is getting stranger by the moment, Daphne thought, staring watchfully at the two bears. She couldn’t just run away; if she did that, they might take it as a reason to run after her. She had to carefully, slowly, back off. She had to somehow make sure she didn’t resemble either prey or threat. Daphne’s heart beat faster. Oh great, now they’ll smell my fear. That won’t mark me as prey, not at all.
And yet, neither of the two bears gave a signal that they were about to pursue her. They simply watched her curiously, tilting their head this way and that, murmuring low bear-like questions to each other. Fascinated, almost hypnotized, Daphne felt as though she was frozen in place, watching them watching her. “What do you want me to do?” she asked quietly, knowing that desperation tinged her voice, but unable to think of anything else to do.
****
Dov glanced at Ben; he knew his fellow werebear was receiving the signals of the woman’s pheromones, the same as he was. Standing there, only a few yards away from them, she was absolutely impossible to ignore: her hair was out of its accustomed tight, neat bun, scattered about her shoulders, a frame for her oval face; instead of her usual strictly professional skirt-suit, she was wearing a tight tee shirt, her breasts straining at the fabric, and a pair of soft, clinging pants that hung down to her ankles. Dov could smell the mixture of fear and underlying fertility in Daphne’s scent—but the fear was beginning to recede, as moments passed without he and Ben attacking. She had no idea, of course, that the two bears were people she had met.
Dov sank down onto all fours, lowering his head until he was looking up at her, as unintimidating as possible. Behind him, Ben let out a warning, worried trill. What are you doing? Dov felt the combination of concern as well as irritation in Ben’s mental voice—he knew that Ben was beginning to respond to the alluring scent of Daphne’s almost-arousal and sweet-warm fertile pheromones.
She isn’t afraid, Dov thought in Ben’s direction. She’s curious. Dov approached Daphne, keeping his head lowered, showing all the hesitation and wariness that a regular human would expect of a slightly tame bear. He chuffed happily as she stepped forward to meet him in the middle of the clearing, extending a hand. He sniffed at her skin, breathing deep of her pheromones; he would now know her anywhere in the world—if he needed to, he could track her anywhere she went. He butted her hand with his forehead, leaning into Daphne’s touch as she began to tentatively pet him. Dov glanced back at Ben, who was watching, wary.
Dov let out a low, pleased growl as Daphne began to pet him with greater certainty. She’ll pet you too, you know, he thought in Ben’s direction. Ben answered with a grumble behind him—just loud enough to make Daphne start slightly, pulling back until Dov made a reassuring trilling sound. Ben came slowly forward, and Dov growled his amusement as Daphne began to pet his friend with just as much certainty and ease as she was petting him. “Yeah, you guys aren’t monsters, are you?” her voice was pitched low and sweet, the sound caressing Dov’s ear as she scratched along his jaw. “You’re just a couple of sweeties, aren’t you?” Daphne relaxed more and more by the moment, the brittle, burned gunpowder smell of her fear receding completely, and the sweet, spicy warmth of her natural scent rolling through Dov’s nose and brain like a persistent fog. She wasn’t aroused by the sight of the two bears—that would have been slightly off-putting, even in his current state—but Dov could tell that Daphne would be easy to arouse. He could also tell that she had no idea what her proximity, what her attentions were doing to the two male bears.
We should go. Ben’s thought came into Dov’s head. Dov could feel his friend’s growing desire, matching his own. The unspoken undercurrent of the thought was that they should go before their mating drives brought them to the edge of fighting with each other. Bears were territorial—even werebears had a tendency to sometimes fight when it came to competition for a mate.
She would let us share her, Dov countered. If she knew what we were really like. She feels open. She smells horny. He watched his friend sniff at Daphne�
��s hand, felt Ben’s silent agreement of the assessment.
Dov made a decision. He groaned, taking a step back from Daphne and settling into a comfortable position on his hind legs. Daphne stared, the fear-scent rising just a little bit once more as Ben trilled a nonverbal question. Dov exhaled slowly, bringing the change back onto himself. In a matter of moments, he felt the crackling, tingling force of the change running along his bones, through his nerves. Dov groaned again as his bones began to shift and change within his body, as his fur began to recede. It would likely startle Daphne, what she was about to see—but he had to count on his perception of her openness, on her general calm. Dov shuddered as the change worked through him, rearranging everything in his body, transforming him from a bear into a human.
****
Daphne stared at the figure in front of her, so utterly shocked that it did not even occur to her at first to scream. The bear—the gentle, curious bear that had approached her—was unquestionably turning into a human being. The second bear shifted under her hand, making a reassuring noise, but Daphne’s heart was beating faster in her chest. In a matter of moments, where a bear had stood there was a naked man. Not just any naked man—one of her new coworkers. Almost irrelevantly, Daphne tried to remember the man’s name.
As she was trying to understand what had just happened in front of her, the second bear disappeared as well. She glanced in his direction as her hand fell away from the bushy, fuzzy head, only to watch the same foggy mist surround the bear. Daphne took an instinctive step backwards, staring wildly at the two figures in front of her. “Wh-what…what the hell is going on here?” she asked, more startled than truly afraid. Where two bears had stood, there were now two naked men, watching her with faint traces of wariness, waiting to see how she would react. “You—you’re people?” Daphne frowned. “But you were just—you’re bears. You were bears. What—what are you?”