Page 31 of Taming Her Bears

“Didn’t she trick him during a spirit dance?”

“No. Spirit dances are sacred, but in ancient days, shapeshifters weren’t always reliable. Sometimes, when they shifted, they would return to the wild and forget about their human part, especially if they were young. This happened to a young man the first time he shapeshifted at a dance. He ran into the forest and didn’t return. They searched for months before giving up on him.”

“The girl found him?”

“Don’t spoil my story. I heard this straight from a Native American elder.” He adjusted his wounded arm, either for sympathy or because it really was uncomfortable. Maybe a little of both. He had been stalwart. “The village forgot about the young man. It had been three years since his disappearance. One day, a family was traveling across the tundra when they were faced with a sudden storm. The storm was so thick and furious, they couldn’t see two feet ahead of them. They huddled together to ride it out, but when the sky cleared, they discovered they were missing their sixteen-year-old daughter. All that could be seen for miles around was an unbroken blanket of snow.”

I had heard, throughout my life, at least a dozen stories about shapeshifters, but they’d all had an urban legend quality to them—until now. Now, the stories all seemed to be true, except a few that had been warped and twisted for scaring children into behaving. According to Roy, there are a lot of things we should believe but don’t, and a lot we shouldn’t believe, but do.

I watched the team through the galley windows. Their expressions were softening; their brows weren’t so heavy. In full human form, Lee and Darkhorse didn’t even have beards, and very little body hair. Their skin was like velvet. Right now, though, they looked like hairy mountain men. I turned my attention back to Pete. “So, he found the girl.”

He leaned across the table, tapping his finger at my coffee cup. “My story has a point. You should listen closely.” He cleared his throat, as though teaching in a classroom. “The parents searched a long time for the girl, then went to the nearest village for help.”

“The same one that had lost a young man.”

“Yes. The girl was lost and alone in the tundra. She called on the caribou for help, but the caribou ran away. She called on the raven, who took the tiny red ball of the setting sun and handed it to her. She put it in her mouth and ate it just as the new sun was coming up. The red sun in her stomach attracted the shapeshifting bear. At first, she thought he would kill her and was terribly frightened, but he picked her up and carried her to the edge of the forest. There, he changed back into a human for the first time in three years and guided her to his village.”

Pete took a final sip of coffee, deciding his break was over. “The legend is, the tiny red ball in her stomach tamed him. From that day forward, there were those who were able to summon the shapeshifting bears and keep them human when they started to go wild because they carry a piece of that tiny red sun. The team believes you carry a piece of that sun.”

I gave a short laugh that sounded quirky to my ears. “You don’t have to believe it,” he said, returning to the pilot’s cabin. “The thing is, they do.”

I wasn’t sure how I was supposed to take his story. The whole idea of a tiny red sun glowing inside my belly that only shapeshifting bears could see was ridiculous. But what wasn’t ridiculous was how I felt for them, and how they felt for me. Maybe it was some sort of strange magic, and maybe I should take advantage of it. It was silly not to go out into the nice weather. The guys didn’t look grumpy anymore. Just sad. I leaned over Josh and ran my fingers through his hair. It was dark brown and thick. When I buried my hands in it, it sprang up between my fingers like the lush hair of a fur-bearing animal.

“Is it about McCarthy?” I asked, and he nodded. I cradled his head close, swaying thoughtfully with the ship. “We should hold a proper wake.”

“We should, shouldn’t we?” He gave me what felt more like a thank you kiss than anything else and pulled up another chair for me. I settled in for the duration. It may sound strange coming from a transplanted Russian, but I know plenty about wakes. With so many Irish taking ground-pounder jobs, they’ve just about become a state trooper tradition.

It was a proper wake. My boys became men again, grieving a fallen comrade. They emptied themselves in human form and not in raging bearskins. I was sorry and sad for them. I let them all know how much I felt their pain, raw and purely human.

In the mid-evening, a draft sprang up and we huddled inside blankets. The lights of Ketchikan twinkled in the distance. “We’re home,” I said. I think my voice sounded a little deflated. “What do we do now?”

“Make our reports,” said Darkhorse sourly.

I raised my voice. “About us? All of us?” If there was a little piece of red sun inside me, I hoped it was shining as bright as a police siren.

Darkhorse tightened the hand he had placed around my shoulders. “There will be a de-briefing. That will take a few days.”

“And then?”

“We live on a boat. I don’t know where to keep a mama bear. We’ve never had one before.”

None of them knew what to do. Even when we retired to the captain’s room and sprawled on the bed, trying to regain some sobriety, none came up with brilliant suggestions that did not involve giving up their careers. That wasn’t something I could accept. Even if they didn’t love their jobs so much, the public needed them. I couldn’t be that selfish.

Clearly, I was supposed to be the one to come up with a master plan. Other women worked things out with their sea-faring men. I’d think of something. In the meantime, there were a lot of other things to keep us busy. The slave-trader yacht was all over the news. The Canadian guard was at a loss to explain why four bears killed an entire crew, but not the guests. They were reluctant to tell the public what the guests were doing on the yacht, but already rumors were flying. The people of Ketchikan knew the answer. It’s not something you can keep secret long when the town is that small.

It was a solemn ceremony when we first anchored into the dock. The harbor master and a handful of Coast Guard personnel lined up along the pier, caps tucked under their arms, hands raised in a uniform salute for the piratedChristinaand her murdered officers. Once we hit solid ground, people were dancing in the streets. They jostled each other to shake our hands. Every bar was open to us for free drinks. We were heroes, at least for that night, and we made the most of it. We drank. We danced on the tables. We sang as we weaved through the streets, supported by each other’s arms.

The next day was a different story. Josh gathered us all in the ready room and gave us a sour face—although it was one that wasn’t overly grumpy, just hung over. “The admiral is having a hissy fit, or the governor is having a hissy fit and passing it on to the admiral. They are disturbed by a couple of small items in the report. One of the guests was attacked and almost died. He’s currently in an induced coma. Can anyone explain this?”

“I might have injured a guest,” said Roy, raising his hand.

“Would you care to tell me why?”

“I think he was going for a gun.”

“There was only one gun in the room.”

“He was going for that gun, after the Russian dropped it.”

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