Black Bear Rising: A BWWM Paranormal Romance (Black Bear Saga Book 1) (2 page)

“I’ll bring the next five burgers over when they are done,” she said as she jostled the plates on the table trying to make space.

When she left Tom said, “Let me eat first and then I’ll continue.”

By the time Grace had taken a bite from her burger, ate a few fries and had a sip from her shake Tom was already on his third plate of food. As he ate the colour started to come back to his skin, what had only a minute ago looked like he was covered in a layer of fine ash, he was now starting to have a healthy glow to his skin. The change was so sudden that Grace had to stop eating as she watched him devour his food. By the time he finished his fifth plate he looked fully restored with a bright twinkle to his eyes.

“Are you going to finish that?” he asked pointing at her plate.

“By all means,” she said smiling.

He smiled back at her grinning widely. “I’m nearly back to full capacity. You wouldn’t believe how close I was to passing out and hibernating,” he said shoving the last fries from her plate into his mouth.

“Continue about the family,” Grace said.

“So the scout was laying in this dirt hole under the tree that the family had dug out for themselves a hundred years ago if the story is to be believed. He taps on his helmet flashlight and points the beam into the corner. The pale light moves across a tangle of bodies all together in a tight embrace, rotted clothes falling off them. The scout tries to back peddle away into the corner thinking he has stumbled across a mass grave. As he’s scrabbling away the bodies start to uncoil and separate like a pale serpent. The smell of blood has awoken them from their hundred year slumber. Their eyes flicker open and the scout begins to scream as they rise sluggishly from their nest. The family was basically working on auto pilot at this stage. The smell of nearby blood had triggered an automatic response. They were still basically hibernating as they rose and approached the man, eyes wide and yet seeing nothing. The family tore the man to pieces and feasted on his flesh. Only after did they awake from their hundred year slumber,” Tom said and finished off the rest of his shake.

“What happened to the family then?” Grace asked.

“They rejoined the clan. They couldn’t reintegrate back into normal clan life. Everything had changed too much for them. They left the settlement after a few weeks of trying to fit back in. They told no one and snuck out during the night. They were never found again. People think they fled the country. Possibly back to some remote area of Russia where they are probably in deep hibernation again.” Tom said.

“When was that?” Grace asked.

“I think they disappeared for the second time sometime in the sixties. Thats if the story is even true. Our clan has some weird tales that have been passed down. I’m not even sure if I believe most of them.”

The waitress came back and started to clear up the plates. “If you don’t mind me asking are you some kind of body builder? She asked.

“Something like that,” Tom said giving her a smile.

“You sure packed them away,” She said stacking the plates.

“I have a big competition coming up,” he said as she finished clearing up.

When the waitress was out of earshot Grace said, “Where are we heading?”

“It’s a town far north in Canada. A place called Twin rock. It’s a small out of the way town. It was a once prosperous logging town that had fallen on hard times. Most of my clan lives there and it’s just they way my people like it. It’s remote and has very little contact with the outside world. Once we get there we should be safe,” he said.

The waitress came back with more plates of food and refills for their drinks.

“Is it filled with people like you,” Grace asked.

“It is mostly shifters living there but we do have a fair amount of shifter human families in the town. The place is a safe haven for our clan. The town rarely has outside visitors and so we get to live out our lives in peace which is all our clan has ever wanted,” Tom said.

“What about the white bears do they want peace too?” Grace asked.

Tom shook his head and said, “They want peace but only if our clan is wiped out of existence. The white bear clan has always been more interested in accruing money and power. For hundreds of years we stayed in our part of the world as did they and our paths very rarely crossed. That all passed maybe ten years ago,” Tom said trying not to meet Graces eyes.

“What is it?” Grace asked reaching out and taking Toms hand.

“It was a dark chapter in our clans history. I don’t want to go into it now. Maybe some other time,” Tom said as he started on his sixth plate of food. He kept his eyes down and didn’t look in Graces direction as he polished off the remaining plates. Once he’d finished them all he wiped his mouth and smiled. “I feel like a new man,” he said with a grin. Grace could see that the colour had returned to his cheeks and his eyes looked clear and alive again.

“Lets hit the road,” Tom said standing up, “we have a good bit of driving ahead of us,” he said as they paid the bill and left the diner. The road unspooled ahead of them as they made their way North, towards safety, towards home and maybe towards a better life.

The black bear stood on his hind legs and sniffed the air. His huge head tilted to the side as he breathed in the scent of the forest. The loamy rich aroma of the soft forest floor and the fragrant smell of the forest canopy above filled his snout. There was something else mixed with the familiar smells of his habitat, a smell the bear knew to avoid from a young age, a scent that always signified change in the bears life. It was the smell of burning. The bear had been on the move for two weeks now. The burning forest constantly at its back, pushing it forward and into unknown territory. Food had been scarce since the great fire started and the bears dark fur hung slack across its back and shoulders. This should have been a time of great bounty when the bear hunted and ate a range of animals as it increased its body mass in preparation for the cold winter. Instead the bear had been on the run.
 

It had been surviving on berries, wild fruits, the occasional small mammal, grubs and beetles. The bear would stand on its hind legs in front of a tree and rake its claws into the bark and strip off chunks of bark. As the bear ripped the strips off it reverberated around the forest sounding like someone breaking a bundle of sticks over their knee. The bark would fall to the ground and the bear would lick up soft bodied grubs and crunchy tunnelling beetles. These minuscule amounts of food were enough to keep the bear moving forward but as each day went by his power was waning.
 

A moss covered fallen tree lay across the bears path and he reached his paw into the hollow end to fish out any sleeping prey. His paw came out empty and the bear stood tall and bellowed into the still forest air.

The bear heard something behind him and turned. He saw a movement between the trees, four or five patches of dark brown darted between the boughs and then disappeared. The bear stood on his back legs and roared again. Something was wrong and the bear could feel it. There was a time when he was feared by all other bears in his wide expanse of territory. He had cowed and defeated many a young pretender to his throne and his dominance had allowed him to sire many young. He would have charged at the shapes hiding in the woods but for the first time he felt something different. The bear looked back and then charged through the woods in the opposite direction of the mysterious shapes watching him.
 

The bear tore through the scrubby underbrush of the forest, ripping through the undergrowth as branches snapped back behind him. The bears muscles ached and his already weakened body could not sustain the pace. He slowed down sniffing the air again. The fire was closer. Gone was the smell of the forest and it was now replaced with an acrid sting of smoke. Trees could be heard crackling in the distance, a trunk exploded like a bomb as it caught fire and moisture escaped explosively.

The bear was pushed onward into territory he was not familiar with. Strange smells filled his senses, the sounds of the forest were different here. Nothing was the same as he was used to. The forest began to thin out and the bear pushed on. The soft spongy ground of the forest changed to swaying grass as the bear left the tree line. He looked back over his shoulder and felt a yearning for the safety and cover of the trees. He pushed on knowing he could not exist anywhere the burning fingers of the fire reached.
 

The bear stood in the tall grass and surveyed his surroundings. North of him was another forest off in the distance and across the swaying sea of grass. From the West and carried on the wind he caught a new odour, something he hadn't smelled in a long time. Mixed into the smell of the burning forest he caught the metallic scent of blood and flesh. Long white strings of spittle ran from his maw as the bear turned and ran in the direction of the enticing stench.

The bear crossed the plain with speed, his muscles finding a renewed strength brought on by the smell of carrion. All other thought, all other sensations were background noise to the bear as it pushed on. Filling its belly was the overriding concern for the emaciated beast.

The bear ran on all fours, his soft paws kicking up sprays of dirt as he loped across the plain. Off to his left a flock of birds flew out of the tall grass with a squawk and flew high above. The bear didn't even notice them. His world was pinpointed to the rich aroma of flesh being carried on the breeze.

He cleared the tall grass and stopped as he stood in a large circle with the grass cut back. In the middle of the clearing lay a deer carcass split open. His entrails spilled out in front of him and steam rose from the guts. The bear paused and sniffed the air once more. In the distance and of no current threat he could smell the burning forest, the most overpowering smell was the deer carcass mixed with something the animal had never smelled before. The bear raised up on its hind legs and sniffed the air, its ears plastered to the side of its head. The strange scent was gone. The bear could not hold back anymore. It charged into the centre of the circle and snapped its jaws, ripping a chunk of meat off the deers hind leg.

The group of eight men stood in the tall grass watching the bear approach the deers carcass. The men where all naked and caked in a layer of red mud. Their eyes looked like marbles peering up from the earth as they stood in silence. The tallest of the men looked at his companions in turn. The oldest of the group stepped forward and rubbed his fingers across the tall mans closed eyelids, across his throat and his stomach. When the old man finished the tall man turned and walked out of the tall grass and into the cleared area. He walked forward a few steps and the bear continued to wrench at the deer carcass, blood, spittle and tufts of fur flying as he ripped at it his massive incisors.

The man took another step forward and raised his hands above his head. His hair was slicked back with mud and one side of his skull was completely hairless with a jagged scar running from front to back. He clapped his hands together loudly in quick succession. The claps sounded unnaturally loud in the grass circle. The bear wheeled around, a chunk of flesh hanging from its jaws. The bear reared up on its hind legs and growled deep in its chest. It had never seen an animal like this before and appraised the mud covered creature before it.

The tall man took another step forward, his eyes fixed on the bears every movement. The bear took two steps forward still on its hind legs. The tall man could feel the earth vibrating beneath his feet. The man took another step forward and was within arms reach of the bear. The bears stinking breath blasted in the mans face and he voided his bladder without noticing, and it splashed onto his feet and legs. The bear sniffed the air and with his right paw swiped at the mans head and raked his claws across his face.

The blow knocked the man to the ground. A huge flap of skin folded back from his chin to his ear and he coughed and spluttered bubbles of blood. A new smell filled the bears nose and it intoxicated him. The bear slammed his front paws down and one pinned the mans arm which snapped like a twig as the claws dug into the flesh. Blood ran down the mans chest from his gaping facial wound and yet he stayed still as the bear stood over him. The bear opened its mouth and roared into his face, blood and foam spraying the mans face. The rotten smell of flesh and decay filled the air around them. The man looked into the unknowable dark eyes of the bear and for a moment no longer than the beating of a hummingbirds wings he thought he could see some secret nature of the bear.

The bear opened his jaws wide and snapped them shut around the mans head. The sound of bone grinding and cracking filled the mans ears as his skin shredded between the bears teeth. A breath like the furnace of hell had opened, blasted down on him and the man screamed in agony. The bear held the screaming man by the head and stood up shaking him like a rag doll. The screams stopped as bone shattered between the bears teeth. The bear dropped the body and ripped open its torso. The bear stuck its snout into the hole and pulled out a mouthful of viscera. Thoughts of the forest fire or the unusual scent were gone as the bears mind was clouded by the feast of blood and flesh before it.

The man dreamed. He was in a lush green forest. Figments and phantoms moved behind the tress. He would turn and they would dance out of his vision always tantalisingly close. The man smelled the air. He knew there was a deer nearby. He could smell the burning forest on the wind and if he really concentrated he could tell another man, a younger man had passed through here not long ago. He looked around and he could see steam rising from the ground and moving off into the distance. The man knew this is where the younger man had gone. If he wished he could easily follow his path. He looked around undecided.
 

The man heard movement in the trees, the sound of rustling and breaking branches coming from every angle. He spun around wildly. He wanted to call out but his throat seemed sealed shut and produced no noise. Something stepped out from behind a green and leafy part of hanging canopy and looked at him. The mans first instinct was to run. He did not give into it and stayed his ground. He recognised the figure before him. It was another man. He heard more rustling and more men appeared from out of the woods, each watching him silently.