Bear Brother (Bear Lodge Shifters Book 2) Page 2

  Quiet broke across the table, and even Graypaw tilted his head and slowly set down his fork.

  “It's not natural for a bear to love a woman. That's the way it's always been. Each species keeps to their own. But this particular bear kept dreaming of being a man, and of going to this woman in her little cottage, and tilling the land around that cottage and bringing up children with her. And the more he had this dream, the more he wished that it was true.”

  Anna felt a big, warm hand settle on hers and knew it was Jake's. She squeezed his fingers in her own, feeling a lump in her throat. She had never managed to fully reconcile herself to the fact that the love of her life was as much bear as man. It just didn't seem possible to her. He was a man who could take the shape of a bear. He wasn't an animal himself — any more than one could say of any human, anyway. But then along had come Graypaw, whose mother was an actual bear, and who for all his primitive savagery seemed, if anything, even more powerful and vital than his half-brother. And ever since learning of him, she had wondered. Would she raise children with Jake that were not in fact super powered humans, but hybrids with bear's blood in them? And if that was so....

  “One night when the moon was high and round, he called out to the Goddess who ruled over it, and asked that he be made a man. Not for power, or to join their domains. Not for wealth, though many of his descendants would be blessed with it. But simply for the sake of one woman, for whom he would cross over into the land of men, with all its perils and confusions.” Helga looked around at them, her solemn expression touched with sadness.

  “The Goddess listened to his prayer, and told him that if he wished to walk the path of both man and bear, she would give him this chance. But when her full moon was high in the sky, he would return to his true nature, as a reminder of the debt he now owed her.”

  She went quiet. The crowd around the table rustled, a few down at the end murmuring to each other. Anna held Jake's hand, and wondered how true the story was. She, for one, didn't really believe in deities. But she hadn't believed in bear shifters either, and she had been quite ridiculously wrong about that. So, in the end... who knew?

  Graypaw cocked his head slowly. “Grand-mother, what did he... feel for this woman, that would make him want to stop being a bear and go to her?”

  Helga chuckled fondly and picked her fork back up. “That you will only really understand when you feel it for yourself, Gray.”

  He nodded slowly, but his shaggy brow was knit together in pure confusion. In that moment he looked almost... charming.

  But I can't forget what he did — what he did with such ease, even if he was compelled to do it.

  Helga brought the three of them into her office after dinner, while Graypaw spoke shyly with the few Lodge members who would dare approach him. He stayed close to the door, and Helga propped it open so he could catch her reassuring scent. “He's still very attached,” she explained quietly as she settled behind her desk.

  “You're the only person who has consistently been kind to him, it's understandable,” Anna commented. She was still holding Jake's hand almost constantly. It wasn't just the tension in his face and body from having to deal with his strange half-brother. She found herself powerfully affected, as well, by the story Helga had told. Something about it had left her heart aching, and her body craving time alone with Jake. That bear's loneliness and heartache, his desperation in the face of an impossible longing. Or nearly impossible: the desire of a bear to walk as a man, and love a woman. In reality, there was no one capable of leading a beast toward humanity.

  Except, perhaps, for the old bear shifter before her. She looked at Graypaw, and wondered. Would this creature, who had once feasted on human flesh, ever be able to pass for one of them? Would he be capable of living among them in peace? Or would he end up a hopeless case? She glanced toward the door, and saw Gray peering in at them worriedly. “He knows we're talking about him. Will he be all right?”

  “Better than you think, I suspect.” Helga resettled her wire-rimmed glasses on her nose. “I understand that the three of you have a negative history with him. However, you are also in a unique position to understand what he has gone through, and possibly, what he needs in order to join us as part of the Lodge.”

  “...Wait.” Darrin's eyebrows rose almost into his hair. “You're going to offer him Lodge membership? Graypaw. Jake's father's experiment, who used to eat—”

  Helga held up a silencing hand. “I am very aware of the atrocities committed at the orders of his father. Gray has nightmares about them to this day.”

  “Nightmares.” Jake almost sounded relieved. “So, he's starting to understand that what he was doing was wrong.”

  “He was starting to understand that a month ago, after interacting with you, Jake.” Helga stared at him pointedly, and Anna scooted closer to him in a supportive gesture. Helga looked between them both. “Your mental contact with your half-brother challenged everything that your father had taught him. He had never even been exposed to any alternative point of view before that time.”

  Jake looked startled.

  “I never realized his brainwashing was that extreme.”

  “He was kept isolated in cages for most of his life, seeing only your father and whoever was thrown into his cage for his 'practice'. Obedience alone got him time out in the sun, and it had to be unquestioning and swift. By the time he graduated to the behavior that you condemn him for, your father's hold on him was so complete that he barely saw anyone else as fully real. Given that he is so young, he was especially impressionable.”

  That's right. She had said that Graypaw is barely two years old. Long enough to be a physical adult as a bear, but nowhere near long enough to learn about life as a man.

  “How long will it take him to... unlearn... being Anthony's monster?” Anna asked softly.

  “I don't entirely know. But as you can see, he has already made great strides.” Helga smiled briefly and then folded her hands. “What I want from you is quite simply, interaction with Gray. You are kin to him, Jake, like it or not, and the three of you are in a unique position. You know enough about him to be wary of him, and also enough to be, I think, at least a little sympathetic.”

  Darrin swallowed and Jake shifted uncomfortably in his seat. Anna wrestled with some very conflicting feelings for a few moments, then said slowly, “He did try to kill me. How do I know he's finally gotten it through his head that his father was wrong, and that humans are not for hunting?”

  “Or eating,” Darrin pointed out, and Jake nodded, looking sick.

  “You have my guarantee of that. I have trouble getting him to eat any meat at all until he starts craving it. He's worried that someone will try to trick him into eating human again.”

  “So he's traumatized,” Jake ventured.

  “Oh, very much so.” Helga sipped from the cup of tea on her desk and looked up at them. “He could easily be equated with a child soldier, one who was led into committing atrocities and only learned after the fact that they were atrocities. He is dealing with the shame, and the pain and fear. His only real desire at this point is to learn some kind of life beyond that which traumatized him. You are the first one to challenge his assumptions about the world, Jake. One of the main reasons he gave me for learning to speak was that he wanted to talk to you.”

  Anna stroked Jake's arm, feeling him tense even more beside her. This couldn't be easy on him, she fretted quietly. He was a good-hearted man, but his father had turned into a monster on him in his later years, and Graypaw was a product of that monstrousness. If he couldn't get past what his half-brother represented and look at him for what he actually was... there would be no chance he could help Graypaw. She started to wonder if she should volunteer herself for the effort, to give the others a push. She had no way of defending herself against the gigantic bear shifter (man shifter?), and her stepping up first would put things into context for the others. They would have to follow her in, or admit she was the bravest of the three. An
d knowing Jake, that was not going to happen. “I—”

  “What do you think we can do for him exactly?” Darrin challenged. Jake stayed frustratingly quiet.

  “He knows nothing of the world. He needs to practice everything — speaking, reading, dressing properly, using a fork... it just goes on. It's a bit like raising a child, or perhaps helping someone whose brain has been damaged to regain old skills. Fortunately, he is a very fast learner.”

  Jake's eyes closed, and Anna saw the strain in his face a moment before he stood up. “I'm going to have to think about this,” he said in a tight voice as he looked around at them. “Can we talk again at dinner?”

  Helga's face fell a little, but she nodded patiently. “Of course. We will reconvene here after we fill our stomachs.”

  When they left, Anna looked back at Graypaw and saw him watching them quietly. Their eyes met... and he was the first one to look away.

  Chapter 3 -

  Ties to Humanity

  Back at their suite, she watched Jake pace back and forth in front of the window wall that overlooked the gorge. The suite was not the cavernous master that his father had occupied; that place still had Anthony's scent, and Jake avoided it. These rooms were modest by comparison, tucked away at the end of a guest wing that was usually empty. Normally it was big enough for both of them with room to spare. But as she watched Jake stride around agitatedly, Anna started to feel just a little claustrophobic.

  “Sweetie, do you want to talk about it?” she finally asked worriedly. She always tried to give him at least a little space to brood on things and sort them himself, but this was getting harder and harder to watch.

  Jake took a deep breath and turned to her. His brows drew together — a strangely Graypaw-ish gesture, she realized, suddenly seeing the kinship between them in Jake's face. Finally, he shook his head. “I'm not sure I have the right words,” he admitted. “He's my closest living relative, he was raised to be a man-eating monster by my own father, and he wants acknowledgment. He wants a brother. I... I don't know if I can do that.”

  “I don't know if I can do that either,” she admitted as she came over and slipped her arms around him from behind. She leaned her cheek against his broad back and felt him relax against her little by little. “But I'm thinking of volunteering to help socialize him anyway.”

  He startled and turned in her grip, looking down at her.

  “What?”

  “I love you. If you're going to do this, and I think you should do this, then I can't let you do it alone. I have to help you. And if that means I break the ice for you because it's too awkward for someone in your position, I'll do it.” She slid her hands up and down his belly soothingly, and felt the rippled muscle shiver under her touch.

  “Baby... he's dangerous....” But his voice was going a little breathy and his eyes a little hooded as he turned and his hands settled on her shoulders.

  She kept petting him, feeling his heartbeat pick up as his breath got a small shake to it. He drew closer, looming over her. She smiled up at him. “You're all dangerous, sweetie, on that score. His only real problem was what Anthony did to him. If someone like Helga had raised him—”

  He sighed through his nose. “Well, someone like Helga didn't, and now Graypaw is walking around carrying what my father taught him. Which was mostly nightmarish anti-human propaganda, from what I have seen.”

  “And now he's starting to realize that. You saw what we all saw, Jake. He was trying as hard as he could to act like a man out there, and fit in with the others.” Her hand slid up over his chest, the other toying with his belt. “Come on. We can give it a try, and—”

  “And if it doesn't work out, he could kill you.” But his voice had a thoughtful note to it.

  “That won't happen. Besides, even if he got violent I have you around to protect me, right?” Her fingers found the bottom edge of his turtleneck, and slid up the lightly haired skin beneath while he let out an appreciative grunt.

  It wasn't really fair, what she was doing, but in the end, she knew that he needed to get his mind off the potential disasters of working with his half-brother. Between Helga's tutelage and ready presence, and her help, along with Darrin's, she was confident that Jake could not only help this strange (terrifying) hybrid shifter, but maybe even make a connection with him on a family level. It would be weird and awkward in spots, but... after dealing with his sociopathic father, Anna thought that a traumatized, recovering involuntary cannibal was actually a step up.

  And as for Jake... He was panting now, as she pulled his shirt off in front of the window and started kissing his chest. “Can we... talk about this later?” he mumbled, cradling her against him, one hand cupping her skull in gentle encouragement.

  “Sure.” She smiled up at him and then calmly stripped out of her sweater and thermal top, standing there in a black satin bra as she dropped the intervening fabric aside. He stared down at her, chest heaving and a little shiver in his breath. His eyes gleamed. She held out her arms to him — and he lifted her against him bodily, his kiss hungry and so lingering it felt like it might smother her.

  They didn't make it to the bed. She realized this would happen when his hands closed on the beltline of her jeans and yanked them down, hard enough to break the zipper. Skin stinging slightly, she stared up at him and saw the wildness rising in his eyes, and knew she was in for it.

  He yanked over the alpaca rug that covered the living area floor and settled her onto it as he stripped her roughly. He left her panting, shaking, the torn strap from her panties hanging off one hip and the snapped satin bra bunched under her as he started kissing every inch of her exposed skin.

  Her head fell back. Her hands buried in her hair and she moaned, the gorge and its falls swinging past her vision, the steep cliffside across from the window blurring into a mix of greens and browns. His mouth was at her nipple and she arched and sobbed under him, starting to thrash when his fingers found her other nipple and rubbed and pinched softly in time to his mouth's movements. Her legs tangled with his; she clutched at his hair and shoulders, her voice gone to semi-coherent gasps.

  “Don't stop... good... so good....”

  His thigh worked between her legs and rubbed against her crotch firmly as he caressed her, pinning her deliciously against the furs.

  She stared out at the wall of green while she squirmed under him, whimpering in protest when he drew his lips off her nipple. But then his hot mouth engulfed her other one, and she cried out and pushed against him eagerly.

  In moments like this there was no room any more for doubt about who or what he was, or how their relationship might go in the long term. No room for worries about Graypaw, or the Lodge, or anything outside that tiny bubble of sensation that enclosed their two bodies.

  She felt the faint scratch of beard stubble as he kissed his way down from her breast to her side, and then over her hip. She felt his hands grip her thighs and then gently part them, and the soft brush of his hot breath over the trimmed curls between them.

  He parted her with his fingers, and then hooked her thighs over his shoulders, holding them firmly as he bent his head to kiss her. She gasped and squirmed but his strength was too great; he held her in place while he kissed her, then started to dart and swirl his tongue against her.

  Time started to blur as she dug the back of her head into the furs and moaned and sobbed loud enough for it to echo off the walls. The pleasure edged on pain in its intensity, coaxing up a sweet ache deep inside her that grew stronger and stronger and hungrier with every soft, rasping lash of his tongue. She thrashed in his grip, sobbing and crying out hoarsely as if he was torturing her. But he knew her body after a month, and how hard she would fight her own pleasure sometimes, and so held on and made her take it until she was shaking all over.

  Something moved in the green blur that was the far gorge wall. It barely registered for her as her toes curled and she felt her body ramping up toward ecstasy. She wanted him inside her, gasped his name wit
h everything she had — and he didn't let her go, wouldn't let her go, kept kissing and licking her until the dam broke and she screamed from sheer pleasure. Electric spasms ran through her from her core to the roots of her hair, and the breath she drew into her lungs felt like a strange and delicious fire. Her hoarse cries went on and on as he kept tonguing her, still refusing to let up for even an instant.

  She collapsed, panting, even as her body started to tighten and shudder toward orgasm again. “Jake... Jake please... I....”

  He growled against her skin and tightened his grip on her, his caresses growing rougher and more insistent. Beard stubble scratched the insides of her thighs as his mouth worked her into another trembling, moaning frenzy. Her feverish pleading broke up into gasps, and then she went away somewhere, her nervous system going off like a rocket as her voice went yes... yes... yes... without her bidding, and pleasure rolled through her in burning waves.

  She settled back into her body, warm and relaxed, as he backed off from her finally and started working the belt of his jeans. He grunted in frustration, hands fumbling a moment — then undid the catch and yanked his zipper down. He shed the jeans and crawled up over her, his eyes ferocious with lust.

  Jake was big, and always needed to take time to prepare her, but now, after driving her into a frenzy twice, he slid in without the slightest pain. He gasped aloud as she engulfed him, and she wrapped him in a soft embrace of limp, warm limbs as he started to thrust.

  She whimpered in a mix of pleasure and contentment and moved weakly under him, feeling his whole body taut with need as he drove his erection into her over and over. Each thrust drove the air from him in a hard gasp of pleasure, until he was panting like a runner. Sweat beaded on his skin. Each thrust sent tingling waves of aftershocks through her, which grew stronger and stronger until they weren't aftershocks at all but instead slow hard spasms that drove her closer to another peak with each movement of his hips. She crooned in his ear, head rolling back on her shoulders as he moved faster and faster. His breathing grew ragged and harsh, his muscles trembled... and she felt his back starting to arch uncontrollably.