Page 22 of Taming Her Bears

It was a weak loophole, but one I knew the Canadian government would back. This wasn’t about fish. It was about criminals. If necessary, we would turn to Interpol, but in matters this delicate, it was better to keep as few people involved as possible. I hoped I wouldn’t have to involve anyone else at all, but I knew Canada may not be as eager for our form of justice as the harbor master and the shaman. Not that I consciously planned to maim, maul, and kill anyone, but these things happened in the course of violent confrontations.

With the clock running down, we needed to take bolder action. I sent Pete and Darkhorse up in the chopper, instructing them to stay within U.S. airspace. “But keep your eyes peeled,” I warned Darkhorse, shaking his oversized binoculars. “As long as the traders remain on that boat, they are on American territory.” That was my way of telling him if he saw the boat in Canadian waters, boundaries be damned—we were going after it.

Natalia stood beside me on the helicopter pad, watching the chopper clear the deck then swoop over the tangled tree line, following the Tongass. I liked the way she had done her hair—all loose, with only a part of it pulled back and curly tendrils framing her face. The ocean breeze rippled it so that strands tickled her lips. There was a dark, troubled look in her eyes. Amy had haunted her. Amy was the victim she could have been. I wrapped my arm around her waist, inhaling her milk-and-honey fragrance. “We’ll find the girls,” I promised. “We won’t abandon them.”

“And Denisovich?”

“I’ll get the son-of-a-bitch!”

“Hmm, keep your hair down.” She leaned against me, gazing at the thunderous old-growth trees crowding up to the shores of the island. The rain was lightly pelting. These drizzling showers were just a normal part of an islander’s day and didn’t bother them in any way, shape, or form. “Tell me what it’s like to be a shapeshifter,” she asked dreamily.

I was still distracted by her fragrance and had to return to earth to consider her question. “It hurts a bit, but in a way it feels good. It’s like we are naturally huge inside and when we get excited, we just start exploding outward. Sort of like an orgasm.”

She bumped against me with a laugh. “That’s why you are all such teases! You like the exploding action!”

I grabbed a handful of sweet, perfect ass and nuzzled her neck at the same time. “You’re a good mama bear. You can take it.”

“Mama bear.” She moved my hand back to her waist. Glued to her like that, when she started walking, so did I. “I didn’t mean about the change so much. Of course, it would hurt. Obviously, it would hurt, your bones are doing all kinds of weird things. But what’s it like to be both bear and human? Are there other types of shapeshifters?”

“To be a bear…” I chuckled. “We all have a spirit animal, Natalia. It’s just that not everyone can transfer into it. Which answers the next question. There are a lot of different animal shapeshifters. They are who they are. The caribou are shy. The wolves are family-oriented. The beavers are contractors. And us bears… we know a good mama bear.”

“You think my spirit animal is a bear?”

We had reached the ready room. Lee and Roy were still poring over the maps, trying to guess Denisovich’s next move. “Nah,” I said, sitting down with them at the table. “Maybe a wolverine or a porcupine.”

She slapped my head, which felt as glorious as a kiss.

“What did you do to deserve that?” asked Lee.

It probably wasn’t a good idea to provoke another attack with serious business at hand. “Never mind. Any thoughts?”

“Yeah,” he said. “How would they hold a slave auction? They couldn’t just port in Vancouver and start the bidding.”

“It would be exclusive,” agreed Roy. “We’re talking big money. I think they would stay off-shore.”

“They have a yacht,” said Natalia suddenly. “Big money. Exclusive entertainment. They’re holding the auction on a yacht.”

I hit the com button. “Second Lieutenant, tell my team to keep their eyes peeled for a yacht.”

“Yes, sir,” the answer automatically snapped back.

I gave Natalia a perturbed look. She was right. Every instinct I had told me she was right.

Darkhorse

Captain Josh was a shit. I saw the way he held on to Natalia as the chopper rose into the air and the two of them shrank smaller and smaller. That was okay, though. I knew enough about that apple-pie darling by now to know that her heart was big enough for all four of us. That was important to a clan. You didn’t break up a clan; you joined it.

Pete didn’t understand. For a while, he’d thought she was our pass-around girl and that when we became bored with her, we’d pass her on to someone else. Maybe that worked in his circles, but not in ours. We were hers for the duration. We played by Alaskan rules.

Pete was a good guy, but he had a bit of Seattle influence. Despite being on the sea for fifteen years, there was something urban about his thinking. He hated my method of scanning from the open chopper door, a single carbineer securing me by a nylon rope to the welded frame, stretching out as far as my arm would allow me without falling out. One foot on the struts, my binoculars in one hand, I had a clear, sweeping, unobstructed view. Pete mumbled about safety regulations, but he knew Captain Josh wouldn’t give a damn.

Even when you’re one-hundred-eighty human pounds of brawn, you can’t hold that position long. I started to go back inside when I saw something flash in one corner of the binoculars. “Commander, swing her around about twenty degrees and follow the southwest spur. I saw something.”

He turned the chopper as I instructed. The rain turned sideways, splattering against my binoculars and dribbling down the lenses. I gave them a quick wipe on my jeans. I was right! The tiny speck began to glimmer and grow larger. “Keep your bearings, Commander!”

I pulled myself back in and flopped excitedly in the passenger’s seat of the cockpit. I grabbed the standard field glasses and looked through the window like a regular person. “There it is. You’re coming up on it, sir. TheChristina.”

It caused a lump in our throats to see her abandoned like that, huddled into a small, hidden cove, the reluctant conveyor of dishonor and treachery. A terrible splotch on the record of a vessel that had given fine and noble service. Pete switched on his mic to call it in, but he had barely more than identified himself before Josh broke through. “You found it? Pete, stay in pursuit. I want you to look for a yacht.”

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