by Debra Dunbar
I nudged his hand, and when he cut off another piece and handed it to me, I pushed it with my nose up toward his face.
“Thanks.” He alternated feeding me and himself, then wrapped the remaining half of the sausage log back up and returned it to the bag. I trotted off into the woods a ways to take care of business, then returned, stretching and eyeing him with a questioning head tilt.
“Let’s go.” His voice was tight, his mouth a grim line as he looked out into the woods. Neither one of us wanted to be doing this, but we couldn’t let a rogue run free. I dropped my nose to the ground and picked up the scent, leading the way. Within a few hours the smell of blood hit my nose and I broke into a fast jog, slowing as the scent grew overwhelmingly strong.
“Brina, slow down,” Karl hissed behind me. I dropped to a trot, not wanting to burst in upon a rogue grizzly feeding.
We didn’t find the rogue in the clearing up ahead with smashed brush and gouged trees, but we did find a dead bear—a wild grizzly bear, not a shifter.
I skidded to a stop, staring open-mouthed at the slaughter. Wild bears fought over territory, but seldom to the death, and never with this level of carnage. The non-shifter bear would have conceded the fight and run for it long before he’d lost his life. Which mean the shifter hadn’t allowed him to run. Instead of reacting defensively, then letting the wild bear retreat, he’d held him there, forced him to fight to the death, then mauled him.
Eaten him.
Bile rose in my throat. I was an omnivore. I didn’t have anything against hunting. Actually I enjoyed a good hunt myself, and the entire pack benefited from the meat from our kills. This wasn’t a hunt; this was a murder. And to eat the bear raw, in the field… I suddenly had an image of that fish from last night, of Karl crunching the whole thing down. Maybe this was a bear shifter thing? Maybe I shouldn’t be such a bigot, quick to judge others by my ways. Maybe I shouldn’t be such a princess.
Karl walked past me, his hand brushing the fur along my back. “This bear didn’t have to die.” He carefully turned the body, examining the bite wounds, gouges from claws, and the chunks of missing flesh. “I’d hoped we were wrong, but this is truly a rogue we’re tracking.”
I nodded, sniffing the body to get a better lock on the rogue shifter’s scent. That’s when I noticed it. On the wild bear’s claws was blood, and that blood held a cloying scent that made my lip curl in revulsion. I’d never smelled anything like it—hot melted plastic and rotted bananas was the closest I could come to a comparison.
Karl did the same thing, frowning as he touched the blood on the claws and rubbed it between two fingers. “What the hell is that?”
I shrugged. Karl dropped my duffle onto a clean spot of ground and pulled out a plastic bag, carefully wiping the blood onto a napkin and sealing it up. Good idea. I had a pretty amazing scent memory, but it would be good to have a strong sample just in case this trail went cold and we needed to expand our search outward.
That done, Karl shouldered the bag and I once again put my nose to the ground, feeling bad about leaving the bear carcass behind, but knowing that the wildlife in the area would make short work of it and appreciate the easy dinner.
The shifter had picked up his pace after the kill, not bothering with stealth as he tore through brush and saplings off the existing animal track. It slowed me down to have to struggle through brambles and thick grasses, but I managed. Karl had a more difficult time on two legs, carrying the duffle, and he fell farther behind as I pressed on ahead. After the rogue’s meandering, practically staggering-around-the-landscape trail, this was straight, direct. Had killing the wild bear given him a return to some sanity? Was his den somewhere ahead and he just wanted to get home? I didn’t know why, but this rogue seemed to suddenly be moving with purpose and speed toward something.
The sun was dipping low on the horizon and my stomach was growling when I hit pay dirt. Fresh scent. The shifter was ahead, and by my nose he was only a half-mile away. I paused, waiting for Karl to catch up. He must have fallen farther behind than I’d realized because I could no longer hear him tearing through the woods like an elephant, cursing each time some bramble snagged the leg of his jeans. I held silent, waiting, because there was no way I was going to confront this crazy shifter on my own, especially after I’d seen what he’d done to that grizzly.
Then I heard a gunshot and a scream—a human scream. It was the type of scream that someone could have heard a half-mile away with or without shifter auditory senses. I yipped for Karl then ran, not caring about the noise I was making or that the airflow would bring my scent to the rogue. There was a human out here in the middle of nowhere, alone with a rogue shifter who had killed five humans and torn a wild grizzly to bits. If I didn’t get there in time, this person would wind up dead as well. Actually even if I did get there in time, they might not survive. Karl, hustle your furry ass up.
I raced into the clearing, taking the situation in with a glance and throwing myself between the human and the rogue. The human was holding a pistol. The shifter had a bloom of red on his chest. I sent up a quick prayer that the human wouldn’t shoot me, then squared off against the grizzly, and snarled.
He’d attack. And I’d lose without Karl to back me up. The only chance I had was to keep alive and keep this guy occupied until Karl had time to shift into his more lethal animal form. That could take twenty minutes. It’s not like I had a choice, though. I couldn’t stand by and watch this human get mauled while Karl changed form.
The shifter hesitated, recognition sweeping across his glazed eyes as he realized I wasn’t a wild wolf. It made me hesitate too. A true rogue would have just killed anything in its way, but it seemed like this guy was fighting against it.
There was another gunshot. I winced at the deafening sound so close, expecting the pain of a bullet tearing through me, but the hiker had shot the bear again, another splotch of red spreading on his shoulder. The bear roared and charged, leaving me no time to consider strategy or do more than give a quick howl to warn Karl.
Ducking low, I danced to the side, sinking my teeth into the bear’s lower leg then spinning out of reach. He whirled on me and swung with his right, claws barely missing my shoulder as I hopped back. Before he had time to swing with the other paw, I’d darted in for another solid bite, then danced away. Out of the corner of my eye I saw the human back out of the clearing and take off into a run. Good. It was never wise to show your back and run from a predator, but the rogue’s focus was on me, and I’d fight with more concentration if I knew the hiker was safely away.
The shifter gave up the free use of his front paws and dropped from his upright position. Not that I would have tried to go for his exposed belly and risk being wrapped tight into a crushing grasp, but he’d been less stable on two legs than four. Now he’d have less reach, but he’d have those jaws in position to bite down on my back and snap my spine, and he’d be faster and quicker to maneuver like this.
I hopped back, ducking and darting as I evaded his attack. Seeing an opening I dove in to bite his muzzle then jumped back. I moved a hair too slow and a giant paw slammed into my ribs. Claws dug deep furrows and the force of the blow lifted me clear off my feet and flung me ten feet away where I crashed into the trunk of a tree. Down I went and stayed, winded, feeling the wetness of blood seeping from the gashes in my side. Five seconds. That’s all it had taken for this rogue to take me out. Five seconds wasn’t long enough for Karl to change form and get here, or for the human to be a safe distance away. I’d failed.
And I couldn’t fail. Not when so much depended on me to keep going. Struggling upright, I ignored the pain and snarled. I was too hurt to do my dart-in-and-out routine. I was going to go for the jugular and hope I could pierce the bear’s throat before he crushed me. The grizzly charged and felt a stab of shame for not being able to hold my own against this rogue for less than a minute.
I leapt on him, my jaws wide as I sank them through a thick ruff of fur. Powerful arms wrapped
around me, pressing my ribs. I heard a crack, then something hit the grizzly with the force of a wrecking ball spinning him away from me. I dropped to the ground, my mouth full of fur, and I shook my head, struggling to stand and attack once more.
A roar shook the trees. My eyes widened to see two bears rolling across the clearing. When the tangle of fur separated I saw Karl. Or not-Karl. If I hadn’t caught his familiar scent, I wouldn’t have even recognized him. He’d been an oversized grizzly yesterday when he’d come back with the fish, but this time he was something else.
Fighting the rogue was an animal of legend, an animal I’d only seen in books and plaster bone-casts in museums. The bear facing off against the rogue was some prehistoric monster. He was double the size of the massive grizzly he’d been yesterday, weighing close to two thousand pounds, and at the shoulder he was about seven and a half feet. On two legs, the guy had to be close to fifteen feet tall. He was monstrous. He was terrifying. The same fur darkened on his lower legs and paws, but those legs were thick as tree trunks. Claws ripped chunks from the earth as he dug in. The rogue stared at him, eyes glittering red, then he roared.
Karl opened his mouth wide and returned the threat. As he bellowed, lips curled back to reveal savagely huge fangs. With no more than that quick warning he was on the grizzly, tearing, biting, and slashing.
As a smaller animal, my technique had been to bite-and-run. It was a pack method of bringing down larger animals and brutally effective in a group hunt. Solo, when the intent was to actually take down an animal, it wasn’t as effective. Given time and enough maneuverability, I could possibly have worn the grizzly down enough to get in a killing bite, but the odds were stacked against a lone wolf in this fight.
Karl had better odds—far better odds. In his huge form he had the advantage of greater mass compared to his opponent, his only disadvantages were lesser speed and, strangely enough, not as long of a reach.
They came together with a crash, grappling as necks twisted and teeth snapped. Both bears sank their claws deep into the other’s back, holding tight. The rogue bit down on Karl’s shoulder, blood staining the dark blond fur a bright red.
They spun, giving me a chance to see Karl’s face. There was a huge grin stretching his mouth—not a grimace of pain but a smile. His eyes had lost everything remotely bear-like, or even shifter-like, his irises an unworldly glowing gold.
He was enjoying himself. He was purposely holding back, letting the rogue bite deep into his shoulder because he liked it. We all got stoked from the adrenaline of the hunt, of a fight, but this was beyond that. Karl was lost in a strange kind of bloodlust where the joy of inflicting pain, of killing was all wrapped up with a very intense joy of his own pain.
I’d been crouched, watching and waiting for an opportunity to assist by hamstringing the rogue or attempting to distract him with small bites, but Karl’s expression froze me in place.
His mouth opened wide, coming down on the top of the rogue’s head, then he bit. I heard a crack of bone. The rogue yanked his claws from Karl, pulled his fangs from the other bear’s shoulder, and shoved, trying to push the bigger bear away.
And Karl let him, opening his mouth and hopping backward with a few easy strides, not at all moving like a bear with jagged raw flesh at the shoulder and stripes of red along his back. The rogue shook his bloody, misshapen head, one eye unfocused, one side of his jaw slack, then with a twisted snarl, he charged.
They dropped, rolling and wrestling on the ground as I tried to stay clear, splintering the trunks of small trees and flattening saplings. Karl let the rogue bite and scratch him, holding himself back, all with that terrifying smile on his face. Then the giant prehistoric bear got serious.
The rogue’s attack quickly turned to defense, then to panicked attempts to get away, but Karl held him in place, tearing with claws and teeth, bleeding him a little bit at a time, until the bear’s struggles grew weak. Then he opened his mouth wide, and this time he sank his teeth deep into the rogue’s neck. Blood gushed and I heard the crunch of pulverized bone. The rogue went limp, eyes unfocused, twitching paws slowing then hanging still.
Not content to just leave the dead bear, Karl stood up on his hind legs and shook the rogue like a rag, blood painting the nearby tree trunks. Then he dropped to all fours and ran over to one of those trees, bashing the shifter’s body against the trunk. He was so powerful, and so deep in bloodlust that I should have been frightened, but instead I found the whole thing funny. So I laughed.
Yeah. Because I was in a lot of pain, and I’d just watched something out of Jurassic Park Caveman Edition toy with and take down a grizzly shifter with a disturbing amount of glee. None of this was amusing, but I was probably bordering on hysterics because laugh, I did.
Laughing as a wolf sounds kind of like a cross between a whine and a cough. Karl froze at the noise, his head swiveling. He loped over to me, letting go of the dead bear halfway. I dropped down, ready to roll over and play submissive, but the gold glint in his eyes receded and he sniffed me, licking my wounds with his nasty, bloody, gore-filled mouth.
Ewww. I didn’t know much about bear shifters, but this wasn’t cool. I tried to push him away with my front paws, letting out an involuntary whimper as the motion pulled on my injuries.
Karl’s snuffling grew frantic, and he made a noise that sounded an awful lot like Chewbacca. My remaining fear vanished. Silly guy. I was a shifter. I’d survived worse than this. Since I wasn’t doing a good job of communicating to him in my wolf form, I closed my eyes to concentrate and began the process of shifting back.
4
It took longer than usual. It was more painful than usual. And when I was finally human again I realized that Karl was also human and was cradling me against his chest, my naked rear on his very naked lap.
My first thought was how the heck does he change forms so quickly? My second thought was this dude has a serious boner going on right now.
A boner. I had angry red gashes and a host of bruises around my ribs. They hurt. Even with Karl’s gentle touch, they hurt. And they were sticky with blood and bear saliva. And human saliva. “Karl, cut it out. Stop licking me.”
He paused, then nuzzled my ear. “Thought you liked me licking you, especially down—”
How could he be sexed up right now? I knew a lot of wolves who wanted to get it on after a fight, but this was a bit extreme. And was I just as twisted that his words were making me want to forget about my injuries, turn around, and straddle him?
“Yes, yes,” I interrupted hastily. The boner against my butt was becoming insistent and now I was remembering how very talented Karl was with that tongue of his. “I do like you licking, but not when you’re a bear, and not on my injuries. I’m a shifter. I’ll heal just fine without the help of saliva.”
“Wasn’t healing. Was tasting.” His breath was warm and soft against my skin. And thankfully it didn’t still smell like blood and gore. “That bear was sick. Still can’t get the taste out of my mouth. Wanted to make sure you didn’t get infected.”
Sick? Beyond the melted plastic/rotten banana smell that we’d smelled in the shifter’s blood before, I hadn’t considered him sick, just a rogue, a crazy bear. The rogue had tasted pretty horrible, but I’d never bitten a rogue before. And I’d never been a huge fan of blood in my mouth anyway. Medium rare. Not alive and kicking. Obviously Karl knew what rogue grizzly shifter blood was supposed to taste like. It made sense. They fought a whole lot more than we did, and their skirmishes were usually brutal. Grizzlies weren’t as social as most bears, and they tended to fight over food, territory, someone parking in their favorite spot. We fought too, but not quite to their level, and once our hierarchy was established, everything was good. But come to think of it, if I bit a werewolf who was infected, I’d probably be able to detect it. I hadn’t risen to second in the pack without my share of brawls.
“Real sick. It ain’t normal. Shifters don’t get sick.” Karl shook his head, his hair brushing along my s
houlder with the motion.
Sick. It made me think. “Do you think this sickness, the weird smell of his blood, the fact it didn’t clot might be related to the shifter killings up in Kenai? Those hunters were using magically tainted bullets that forced a shift to beast and hindered the ability to heal the wound. If he was shot with one of those bullets and didn’t get it out right away, he might wind up susceptible to illness.”
Karl grunted. “Maybe. Didn’t taste right. You think someone shot this guy with tainted bullets, and he went crazy?”
I thought, the pain beginning to subside to manageable levels as my body healed the wounds. “Could be. The bear killed up in Kenai was a grizzly shifter, and the hunters with tainted bullets nearly killed two werewolves. Maybe if that scientist was using something a little different, a version 2.0, it made the bear go crazy along the way to killing him.”
The other alternative was that there was now some virus floating around that turned bear shifters into crazed killers. There wasn’t anything I could do to battle a virus. Although I wasn’t sure there was anything I could do to battle hunters with magical bullets. Or scientists with magical bullets. They still hadn’t caught the guys responsible up in Kenai, and the police, although helpful, had given up, calling it a fluke.
It wasn’t a fluke. A bear died. Two werewolves almost died. One of those hunters got away and I was pretty sure that behind the hunters was someone supplying them, organizing the trips and profiting from our deaths. But they’d seemed to vanish in the wind and we’d had no further incidents since this past spring.
“Do you think this guy going rogue is somehow connected to what happened in Kenai?” I asked.
“One way to find out.” Karl slid me off his lap and stood, walking over to the body he’d discarded and carefully searching through the bear’s thick fur. Throughout our entire sober conversation, he’d maintained that erection. He still had it. Crazy bear.