North Star Shifters: The Complete Series

by Roxie Noir

  “Say, we don’t date outside!” he roared.

  One of the men standing in the circle cracked his knuckles.

  “We don’t date outside,” the boys answered in unison.

  “Why?” he shouted.

  “Dilutes the bloodline,” whispered Boone.

  “Why else?”

  “Humans are beneath us,” whispered Coleman.

  “And?”

  Jake paused, refusing to talk.

  “Why don’t we date outside?” the man shouted, now standing directly in front of Jake.

  Jake turned his head to the side, saying nothing.

  Brock kicked him in the shoulder, hard, sending Jake flying. Jake heard a crunch and a searing pain tore through him as he lay face down on the gravel, gasping.

  He crouched in front of Jake. “Tell me,” he said.

  “Humans are filthy scum,” the sixteen-year-old Jake gasped out.

  The man walked away, but Jake didn’t move. He thought that maybe, if he stayed face-down in the cold gravel, it would be over. He could escape without things getting worse.

  Brock ripped his t-shirt over his head and threw it to someone on the edge of the circle. Jake had a sinking feeling in his gut. He tried to move his arm, but he couldn’t. It had gone numb.

  Brock undid his belt. “Shift,” he said.

  All Jake could hear was Boone and Coleman’s ragged breathing to his left and right. He shut his eyes tighter, tried to slow his own breath. Maybe if they thought he’d passed out...

  Moments passed, and Jake didn’t hear anything but something shifted in the air. Suddenly he smelled the bears: three of them, standing in front of him. He held his breath, hoping they’d leave him alone.

  Then, claws on his chest, raking him deep and flipping him over, hard, so he landed on his other side. His eyes flew open and he gasped in pain, then went up on his good elbow, only to see the blood welling up and pouring out through his tattered down parka.

  A few feet away, a bear growled at him and began to advance.

  Jake had no choice. He shifted, the transformation hurting even more than usual, feeling himself grow fur and stretch and sprout teeth and claws. The flesh on his chest where the other bear had cuffed him still bled, and his arm was useless. In the corner of his eye, he could see Coleman, shifted, getting knocked around by another huge grizzly, and he knew that he didn’t stand a chance: Brock was easily twice his weight, and he was already wounded.

  He still tried, though.

  Brock came back at him, walking fast on all fours, and Jake grabbed onto him and together they rose onto their back legs and before Jake knew what was happening Brock had gotten his neck in his teeth again. Jake cuffed him hard on the head, but that just threw off Jake’s balance and he fell hard, trying and failing to land on his good arm.

  He struggled to stand, and then grapple again with Brock, but this time Brock caught him right on his bad shoulder and knocked him back down, and then when he was on the ground, fastened his teeth right on Jake’s neck, shaking the younger grizzly back and forth, his teeth puncturing deep.

  Jake tried to fight but it was useless; before this, he’d only sparred with the other young bears, not fought with a full grown grizzly. He felt the teeth on the other side of his neck and tried to swipe at Brock, but the other bear was much too quick and clever. Jake felt weak and powerless. All he hoped was that it would be over soon.

  Finally, it stopped. Jake knew he had a broken shoulder and probably broken ribs, plus he was bleeding heavily from the gash in his chest and the deep, torn punctures in his neck. He thought Boone had taken the worst of it and might be missing an eye. As he laid on the gravel, Brock and the other two men shifted back to human. Jake didn’t care. He just wanted them to leave so he could either die or figure out what to do next.

  “You know how to make this right,” Brock said, pulling his pants back on.

  The three boys, still in bear form, didn’t move.

  Brock walked away, right through the middle of the three bears, lying bloody on the ground. All the men got into their trucks and drove away.

  The boys waited a long, long time before shifting back to human. Each wore a now-tattered down parka in the subzero cold, and pulled the threads around them.

  There was a long silence, and finally, Coleman spoke up.

  “I guess we go ask for forgiveness,” he said.

  Jake spat blood to one side and watched it begin to freeze on the ground. “Fuck that,” he said.

  “What else are we going to do?” said Coleman.

  Boone hadn’t said anything. He just looked miserable.

  Jake shook his head. He had no idea what he was going to do, but he knew the first step was to shift back into a bear. Otherwise, he’d freeze to death within the hour.

  “I’ll find a way to survive,” he said. “But I can’t go back there. I can’t ask those people to forgive what I just did. I didn’t do anything wrong.”

  “I think Kaitlyn’s dead,” Boone said, suddenly speaking up. “She wasn’t breathing.”

  The three freezing boys said nothing, but their breath frosted hard in the air.

  “I’ll come with you,” Boone said.

  “Are all bear packs like this?” asked Coleman. He touched a head wound and his hand came away dripping red.

  “I don’t know,” said Jake.

  “I’ll come,” Coleman said.

  They shifted back into bears and slowly made their way into the forest, never to be seen again in Fjords, Alaska.

  * * *

  Jake stopped talking. Ariana waited a moment, staring at him, her eyes as big as saucers, his hand sandwiched between hers.

  “What then?” she pressed.

  Jake shrugged, still staring off at the wall like he couldn’t quite meet her eyes. “We survived,” he said. “We ate grubs and berries and squirrels. Hibernated when we could, moved south, trying to find an area with no pack where we could just... be. By the time I got here I’d been a bear for almost four years straight. I’d practically forgotten how to talk.”

  Ariana fiddled with his hand, running her fingers over his callouses, over the thick dark hair on his muscular forearm. He gripped her, tightly, and finally turned to face her.

  “What about the girl? Kaitlyn?”

  Jake’s jaw worked again.

  “I didn’t know for years,” he said. “But when I got a job with an office, I found the archives of the Fjords newspaper, and I found a story about a girl name Kaitlyn who was attacked by muggers in a movie theater parking lot.” He swallowed, hard, and broke eye contact again. “She was in a coma for weeks before she finally died.”

  Ariana swallowed too, suddenly fighting back tears.

  “All that because a shifter was dating a human?” she whispered.

  “Yup,” said Jake, simply.

  “Where are the other two?”

  “They live around,” Jake said, waving his hand. “I don’t see them much, but they’re here somewhere.”

  “In the restaurant,” she said, “That was Brock, wasn’t it?”

  Jake just nodded. Ariana’s blood went cold.

  “What does he want?” she asked.

  “I don’t know,” he said, simply. “He’s not my pack master anymore. He hasn’t been for fifteen years, not since the day he nearly killed me and I left. He’s got to right to insert himself into my business.”

  “But he might anyway?”

  Jake shook his head. “A pack can be dangerous, like a cult. It can encourage fanatics, total allegiance to one alpha. I wouldn’t be surprised if Brock considers me still an out-of-line pack member.”

  “That’s ridiculous.”

  “It’s instinct.”

  Ariana paused and thought for a moment. “What about your parents?” she asked.

  He shook his head. “True believers,” he said. “They followed him blindly and never questioned anything.”

  “I’m sorry,” Ariana whispered. She touched his shoulde
r, softly, her fingers exploring the hard muscle there.

  “Was it this one?” she asked.

  Jake nodded. “It’s been healed for years and years,” he said. “But I can still feel it when it gets real cold.”

  She walked her fingers to the collar of his flannel shirt and unbuttoned the top button, shifting so she was kneeling on the couch. “Do you have scars?” she asked.

  “Over here from the bite marks,” he said, pointing to a very faint series of dots on his neck and shoulder. Ariana pulled his shirt aside and ran her finger over them. They had faded so much they were pearlescent, barely visible but smooth and warm. She’d never noticed them before.

  Ariana bent over and put her lips on one, kissing it slowly and tenderly, then kissing the next one and the next one his flesh hot under her lips, and she felt him relax. His arm curled around her, finding the small of her back. He smelled so good, and his shaggy hair and stubble tickled at her face as she planted her lips on his neck, over and over.

  Ariana drew back and put one hand on his chest, snuggling in.

  “Where else?” she whispered.

  Jake looked at her for a long moment, like he was deciding whether to trust her, like he was about to reveal some deep, dark part of himself. Then he pointed to another spot, on the other side, right by his collarbone. Ariana kissed those scars too, one by one.

  She drew back and looked at Jake, questioningly.

  “Here,” he said, pointing at his chest.

  She swung one leg over him and straddled Jake, then unbuttoned his shirt slowly, one button at a time until it hung off his shoulders, pushing him back on the couch, marveling at how this absolute mountain of a man yielded under her fingers. More like a kitten than a grizzly bear, at least where she was concerned.

  There they were: long thin, white strips, practically invisible underneath his thick chest hair. Ariana placed her lips at one end of the topmost scar and planted kisses all the way across it, from side to side, her hands holding onto both sides of his muscular torso. Then she did the same to the next, and the next, and by the time she was on the fifth and last scar she found her hands on his abs, then sliding down, tugging at his belt, the space between her own legs beginning to ache desperately.

  Planting kisses down his belly, Ariana undid his belt, sliding off of the couch and to her knees in front of it. She unzipped his pants and slid them down his legs, along with his boxers.

  Acting on instinct and desire, she slipped one hand around his cock, his hands on her shoulders.

  “Ariana—“ he said, but without waiting for him to continue she flicked her tongue over the underside of the head of his cock, and his sentence finished in a gasp.

  Ariana smiled, and Jake went totally hard in her hand as she moved her mouth over the tip of his cock, tasting the salty precum that was already there, swirling her tongue around the hard ridge between head and shaft.

  Above her, Jake moaned and gripped her upper arm harder, though not hard enough to hurt, and she moved her lips down his shaft, slowly. She loved when she could make him moan like that, losing the control he usually had — God knew he made her lose control often enough.

  He reached the back of her throat and Ariana swallowed, sucking just a little, and heard another moan, a low guttural sound, and pulled her head back up. His cock was thick and long, so she slid her fist down it as she sucked on him, a trick she’d learned long ago from Cosmo. Down, swallow, up, lick, swirl.

  Jake was groaning steadily now, a sound of pure need and pleasure, and Ariana knew she was gushing wet. As her lips reached the very tip of his cock she felt a tug on her shoulder, and he pulled her off of him. She wiped her mouth on the back of one hand as Jake pulled her to standing, then set to undoing her jeans.

  They slid off of her full hips and she kicked them away, following them with her panties, as Jake’s fingers dug into her ass, pulling her onto him. As she straddled him, his cock hard against her lower belly, he tugged her shirt off and her bra straps down, finally undoing the hooks properly and getting it off before kneading her breasts in his hands.

  “You’re so beautiful,” he said, his eyes covering every inch of her. Without waiting for her response he closed his mouth around one nipple, sucking at it gently and flicking it with his tongue.

  Despite herself, Ariana moaned, the sound tearing out of her chest. Jake’s hand moved down her belly and between her thighs, just brushing up against her wetness, teasing her. His lips left her nipple.

  “I need to be inside you,” he whispered. “Please.” Now his hands were everywhere: her back, her hips. With one hand she reached down to steady his member and positioned the head right against her slick opening, his torso tight between her knees. She was nearly quivering with anticipation, her heart beating fast, her breath panting.

  Then, slowly, she let herself sink down onto that magnificent cock, feeling herself expand a little with every inch. Her eyes drifted closed and she hung onto Jake’s strong shoulders as the pleasure threatened to take her over, going lower and lower until finally she was fully sitting on him, his whole cock inside her.

  He pinched her nipples lightly, rolling them between his fingers, and Ariana moaned again, shifting her hips forward and back, moving him inside her. Jake held onto her hips as if for dear life, his flannel shirt still down around his shoulders.

  Her hips felt like they were moving of their own accord — Ariana couldn’t think, much less act, or really do anything besides moan and writhe. She was there with Jake, having sex with Jake and he was okay — very okay, from the feel of things — and even as she tried to hold out, she felt the pleasure swelling inside her, like a balloon. She bit her lip, getting ready to come.

  Jake put his hands on her head and brought her face down, gently, to his own, stalling her movements for a moment. She breathed hard and opened her eyes, then started moving her hips again, just a little, back and forth.

  Ariana whimpered a tiny whimper, down in her throat. It felt so good, and it was such torture—

  “Ariana,” Jake said, his face deadly serious as the pleasure swelled inside her. Their foreheads touched, their faces half an inch apart. “Whatever happens, I promise to protect you.”

  She gasped, her breath ragged with desire, and nodded, unable to find words.

  “Jake—“ she managed, but then the pleasure balloon inside her popped and she came hard enough to see stars, her hips moving furiously as she gasped and moaned Jake’s name, his face against hers. Her fingernails left little half-moons in his shoulders and when she finally finished, panting, she felt Jake’s hands holding her down, tight to him as he pumped himself into her, growling into her neck.

  Even when they were finished, they stayed like that for a long time, before Ariana kissed Jake on the lips and slid off of him, curling into his side against the couch. It was so safe and warm here with him — how could she ever doubt that?

  “You’ve still got your shirt on,” she said, somewhere between sleepy and teasing.

  “It’s your fault,” he said. “You got me so excited I forgot to take it off.”

  Ariana giggled and snuggled down even more.

  Chapter Three

  Jake dozed on and off for a few minutes, holding Ariana tightly to his side, both still on the couch. But then, just as he felt himself drifting deeper into sleep, something woke him up.

  He sat up on the couch, making Ariana tumble a little against the cushions.

  “What?” she said, sounding half panicked and half sleepy.

  “I heard something, I think,” Jake said.

  “You think?”

  He shook his head, trying to clear it. “I was almost asleep and something woke me up. Sometimes it’s hard to tell,” he admitted.

  Then, there it was again. Distinctly the noise of a grizzly, scratching a tree not a hundred yards off. His heart beat faster. Was it Brock, coming to tell him he wanted to talk? Or was it either Boone or Coleman, coming to see what was going on?

  �
�I need to go,” he said, standing. Ariana looked up at him, her hair a halo around her head, her beautiful curves soft and warm.

  “Where?” she asked.

  “One of the other bears is outside,” he said carefully, not wanting to make her worry. “We need to talk about this.”

  “One of the other escapees?”

  “Right.”

  She stretched against the couch, and even though they’d just had sex, Jake felt himself stir a little at the sight. He cast it from his mind, bending over her, and kissing her lightly on the lips.

  “Be careful,” she said, a little concerned.

  “Lock the door behind me,” he said. “You’ll be safe.”

  Ariana looked skeptical but didn’t argue.

  Jake stepped out of his back door buck naked, walked a few steps, and started to shift. In bear form all his sense were heightened: he could smell every leaf, every tree.

  He could smell the Lebanese food in the oven. He’d completely forgotten about it, and his stomach rumbled.

  There was the scratching sound again, and just beyond the tree line he stood on his back legs and sniffed the air. With surprise, he registered two other bears — both Boone and Coleman. Strange.

  They were both standing next to a big tree, barely visible in the light. All three sniffed each other and gave a few, playful swats before turning back to human, slowly.

  “Brock’s here,” said Boone, getting right to business. “What the fuck is he doing here? I never wanted to see him again.”

  “It’s my fault,” said Jake. Both of the other men looked at him, their eyes piercing. “I’m dating a human,” he admitted.

  Boone ran one hand through his shaggy blond hair and looked off to one side. He still had a long scar across one cheek, narrowly missing his eye, and Jake knew that his arm still hurt in the cold, too.

  “What the fuck does he even care?” Boone finally said.

  Coleman shook his head. He had dark hair and a beard, partly to hide the scar he’d gotten fifteen years ago. He’d somehow escaped with no broken bones, but had a massive scar right across his stomach, where one of the pack elders had come perilously close to gutting him.