Page 28 of Taming Her Bears

“When we hit the deck, I want you fierce. I want you to be the most terrifying thing they’ve ever encountered. I want them to be so terrified, they drop their drawers and shit, but remember: We don’t care about the buyers. Law enforcement will take care of them. All we care about are Denisovich and his men. We get them, and we get out.”

“How do we know law enforcement will come?” asked Lee, his mind still going over the miles of unpatrolled waters.

“Believe me, Lee. If you’re doing your huffing, puffing best, somebody’s going to sound an alarm. They aren’t going to stand around with a dozen shredded bodies and wait for someone to show up.”

“And the girls, boss? What about the girls?”

“We’ll stay close by until we hear someone. The girls will be all right, Lee. I’ll notify the admiralty as soon as we’re back with theUrsa. Nobody wants an international incident; not Canada, not Russia, not us.”

It’s not very difficult to be terrifying when you’re twelve feet tall and weigh two thousand pounds. I was a little shorter than Josh when I was in bear form and had a narrower head, but these small differences didn’t register in the mind of someone faced with a roaring animal towering over them. Terrified people freeze. They panic. They do stupid things. And they would be scrambling like rats to get off a sinking ship.

The anticipation of putting the fear of the almighty in some of these black-hearted scoundrels had me pumping so hard, I was shaking. I kicked off my shoes and unbuckled my pants. Natalia breezed over with her forever scent of wildflowers and slipped her hands inside the loose trousers, squeezing my buttocks. She pulled me close, so my chest rubbed against her. “Come back safe. I want all my men.”

I kissed her, exploring with my tongue and would have done a little exploring of my own inside her pants, but Josh pulled us apart. “Natalia,” he said sternly, gripping her arm. “I need you to promise me. You will not intervene.”

“I won’t intervene,” she said, looking up at him innocently. “I’m just giving each of you my personal blessing.” She snuggled up to him to prove it.

He took her arms and held her back. “You will stay on the boat. If the boat leaves, you will leave on the boat. Promise me.”

“I’ll stay on the boat,” she echoed, making a face. “I promise.”

Notably, he still buttonholed Pete as we filed out. “Hold her to her word.”

“Yes, sir,” said Pete.

As naked humans, we climbed over the guardrail and down the ladder. As bears, we slipped into the water. It was the warmest ocean I had ever been in while in bear form. It felt strange; as though I had just landed in the tropics. I swam languidly. I knew the others weren’t as comfortable in the wide, open sea as I was, and I didn’t want to look like I was showing off in front of them. Darkhorse and Lee were the most unhappy. They held their heads up stiffly, dogpaddling. Josh was an islander. He was farther south than usual, but these were still islands. He swam confidently, almost keeping up with me.

The yacht had a metal ladder to one side of the stern. Josh led the way, with Darkhorse right behind him. He paused and peered over the edge. Beckoning to us, he scurried onto the deck and ducked behind the stairs leading to the next level. When it came my turn, I halted. Someone was crossing the floor. I held my breath as muffled steps strolled to the far end guardrail and a man looked over the bow. After lighting a cigarette and taking a few drags, he tossed it overboard and returned to the main party.

Quickly, I slipped over the edge and joined the team with Lee at my tail. Josh indicated in bear sign that we were each to go in a separate direction. My way led me through a service door left partially open. I calculated the number of steps I needed to reach the door several feet to the right of the stairs, in an exposed area. A shadowy figure flicked by at the far end, then a moment of unbroken silence passed. Staying close to the wall, I walked rapidly to the open door and slipped inside.

The lighting was poor. Only a single bulb lit a hallway with pantry shelves on either side. Ahead were the sizzling pots and the clangs of a kitchen. I wandered into a galley filled with thick cooking smells, remaining in the shadows and crouching behind counters and stoves.

The cooks bustled in and out the swinging doors, attending the guests in the dining room. Through the swinging doors, I saw little glimpses of that other world, a world of chandeliers, crystal, tall windows and plush seats. When it swung in the other direction, there was this: an overcrowded space teeming with overflowing dishwater, bubbling oil, grease-splattered floors, smoke and steam.

As I became accustomed to the dim lighting, the crowded conditions and the confusion, my attention was caught by something that seemed to be completely apart and separate from the rest of the dining preparations. A thick brocade curtain partitioned off the entrance to another room in the farthest, darkest corner of the kitchen. One gentleman, in full chef’s uniform, went in and out, bringing delicacies inside and returning with empty dishes. Only one chef—the others pretended he didn’t exist.

This kindled my curiosity. With all the discretion that can be squeezed into two thousand pounds of fur balls, I slithered under a table and inched my way up to the doorway. Daringly, my heart pounding, I slipped through it.

I don’t know what I expected at a slave trade, but I didn’t expect this. I was visualizing the girls chained up in cages in the cargo area, not passed out in a room lavishly furnished in scarlet and gold. A huge matching set of settees, armchairs, cushions, and daybeds were scattered around, and complemented by ornate, round tables. There was champagne, chocolates, and finger foods laid out on the little tables and a handful of upper-crust male citizenry with silk suits that would feed the homeless for a month and jeweled rings that would put your eyes out. These elite, well-heeled gentleman stopped at a table now and then to eat a cracker with stuffed crab or a chocolate-covered strawberry and look over the merchandise.

The merchandise was the twelve girls. They were all nude. They all seemed sound asleep as they were poked and prodded, yet never once stirred. They also appeared to have been arranged in their positions. Some were sitting up, their heads lolling against the back of their settee, one leg stretched in front, another on the floor. Some were stretched out with an arm over their heads, legs thrown in wide abandonment.

They barely moaned when a prospective buyer lifted their arms to smell underneath, felt their breasts and their velvety little snatches, then turned them over to examine their bottoms. There was something sickening, unreal, and totally macabre in the way they would dispassionately run their hands down the soft, unresponsive bodies, as though examining prize livestock. My stomach churned and I felt a bitter, burning taste in my mouth as I watched in horror and agony, unable to look away, unable to prevent these young girls from being violated until I received the signal.

A thirtyish young man with a long face and cruel ferret eyes wriggled his fingers inside the newly-blossoming triangle of a girl who was arranged on a sofa with her head resting on her arm, one leg bent at the knee and propped on the couch, the other dangling. “Too loose,” he announced. He had a high, nasal voice. He sniffed his fingers. “Doesn’t smell that good, either.”

I heard someone laugh. “Pick another.” The voice had a thick Russian accent. I swung my head in the speaker’s direction. It was one of Denisovich’s men. I felt a lightning bolt hit my brain and I rumbled deep in my chest. I was supposed to wait. We were all supposed to stay quiet until Josh found Denisovich, no matter what the situation. With each passing minute, the bile boiling up inside became more bitter, the sheer magnitude of what these men had done more unbearable, the rage rumbling like a volcano.

“How’s this one?” asked the author of my blazing torments. He pulled up a young, half-Native girl by her limp arms from off a chair. Oddly, she had been placed in the least compromising position, barely noticeable among the blatant display of village girl treasures. Her skin was light as snow, her hair slick and black. She looked like a child, no more than fifteen. “Nobody’s laid a hand on her,” he said, picking her up and spreading her out on a roomy daybed. He smoothed the hair away from her face, set her arms by her side and opened her legs to expose a silky triangle of black hairs that had barely begun to sprout. “We think she could be a virgin.”

Mr. Prick for a Nose ran a hand up the inside of her thighs. “Tight as a drum.”

“Don’t break it. She’s our main attraction.”

“How do I know she’s not a druggie?”

“No, no. They’ve been on drugs only two days to keep them compliant. We were clean about it. No drugs. No sex with them. Just make them ready for the market.”

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