Riding Bear Back

HELEN

“What the hell do you mean they’re in trouble?” I yelled at him, loud enough that other students along the quad turned to look at us.

Yet again, I found myself being dragged by Sam. This time it was ~toward~ a direction I didn’t understand rather than ~away~ from one, like that time with the hunters.

“Helen, they’ve been arrested. Their trial is in the morning.”

“Jesus Christ, does this have something to do with bears?” I spat out, frustrated.

Sam stopped in his tracks and turned to me, holding me by the shoulders. He got in my face, deadly serious.

“You can’t just go yelling about that. It’s not safe,” he said, looking around. “Now just get in the Jeep with me, and I promise I’ll explain everything on the way.”

I really didn’t want to be doing this.

~I guess I’m still not over what happened between me and Sam back at the honey farm.~

But if my mom was in trouble, I knew I had to go. She was the only family I had left, and I’d do anything for her.

Plus, I still had a whole ton of questions, and if Sam promised to explain everything, then I was going to hold him to that.

It was a two and a half hour drive back to Bear Creek. I hoped that would be enough time to get everything out in the open.

***

Emma

gurl

Emma

what happened?

Emma

rumor is bigfoot’s cousin showed up

Emma

and dragged you off from the quad

Helen

close

Helen

it was sam, my stepbro

Helen

showed up outta nowhere

Helen

driving me up to bear creek

Emma

again?

Emma

WTF?

Emma

why?

Helen

dunno

Helen

says our parents got arrested

Helen

prob exaggerating it

Emma

too cute

Emma

did someone catch them doin it in the woods

Helen

lol

Helen

prolly

Emma

im sure itll be ok

Emma

say hi to your mom for me

Helen

will do

Helen

be back soon

Helen

i hope 😅

***

I figured Sam didn’t have much experience navigating city streets, so I waited till we were back on the interstate before I started asking questions.

“Alright, motherfucker, start talking,” I said.

“I think it’s sister-fucker, technically.” Sam kept his eyes focused on the road, but I saw a grin creep across his face.

“Ugh, gross. Can you just tell me what’s going on, please?”

“What do you wanna know?”

“For starters, why the fuck were our parents arrested?”

“Because the town elders think your mom’s a spy. And that my dad was somehow helping her.”

“~A spy~?” I said as sarcastically as possible. “Are they serious? What do they think? She’s up there to steal your honey recipes?”

“You remember what happened up there? With the hunters?”

“Yeah, I didn’t quite understand why that was so important.”

“~Because~, Helen… Because Bear Creek is a protected community, on private land. The town council owns everything within 100 miles of Bear Creek, and they’ve explicitly banned hunting and trespassing up there.”

“Yeah, you mentioned something like that the other day. But why? What’re you guys hiding up there? Gold?”

“Well, yeah, actually.”

“What?!”

“I’m only telling you this because you’re family. But yes, gold is part of it.

“Over a hundred and fifty years ago, when my people were looking for a place to live, a sanctuary from the outside world, they stumbled upon a massive gold pocket here in the Rocky Mountain foothills.”

“And that wealth helped us buy the land and make it all private. Not only to protect our source of income, but also to protect our way of life.”

“I don’t know what to say. I’m shocked.”

“Well, what did you think? We bought our giant house just by making furniture and running a honey farm?”

“I guess I didn’t think about it that much. And what do you mean by ‘your people?’ The kind that grow fur on their faces when they eat pussy?”

Sam laughed. “That’s what I like about you, Helen. Your sense of humor.”

“I’m glad you have such an easy time laughing at my misfortune.”

“Tell me what you saw that other day? What do you think you saw?”

“Well, I saw you grow like ten years' worth of hair in about ten seconds. You turned from stubbly Sam into an overgrown teddy bear.”

“Yeah, I guess I did kinda lose control of myself,” Sam said. He glanced at me sideways, eyeing me up and down hungrily. “I just couldn’t resist something so tasty.”

“Okay, so you’re telling me, for reals, that you’re what? A werebear?”

“I'm a bear shifter. And so is my dad. And so were like, most of the people you saw in Hawcroft.”

“And those guys in the bar?”

“They were wolf shifters.”

“You mean werewolves? Like in the movies?”

“You thought all those movies were just fantasies?” Sam chuckled. “Look, we’ve had shifters in Hollywood for decades. We figured the best way to keep our people safe was to convince the rest of you that shifters didn’t exist outside of movies.”

“And I take it my mom knows?”

Sam nodded.

“Nice of you guys to keep me in the dark about this.”

“We were gonna tell you at some point. I guess no one expected for you and me to fall for each other.”

At those words, I caught my breath.

I guess Sam had been having the same thoughts as me.

“Penny for them?” he asked.

“You said, ‘fall for each other.’ I was thinking the same thing when I was driving home the other day.”

“I’m glad to hear that.” He let out a sigh of relief. “When you ran away, I was so scared that everything was over between us.”

“I wondered why you didn’t chase me.”

“I figured chasing you around half-shifted would only make you more scared.”

“So you’re telling me you have real feelings for me? You’re not just trying to fuck me?”

“Yes, Helen. My feelings for you are real. In fact, the moment I saw you, I knew someone special had finally walked into my life.”

I blushed and had to look away. Hearing Sam say that made me feel all shy and cute.

“I really mean that, you know,” he said, putting his hand on my thigh.

By this point we’d just turned off the highway and onto the dirt road that would take us to Bear Creek. And right at the moment that Sam took his attention off the road, the Jeep hit something.

I heard the tire blow and then a series of clanging sounds.

“Shit,” Sam said. He brought the Jeep to a stop.

We both jumped out to take a look at the tire. It was flat alright, but it had some kind of metal contraption clamped onto it.

“What’s that?” I asked.

“That, my dear, is a bear trap,” Sam said through gritted teeth. “Those goddamn hunters.”

He kicked the tire, cursing.

I was frightened to see him like this. “Sam, calm down, please.”

“I can’t, Helen. Don’t you understand? The hunters…they don’t come up here to hunt animals. They come here to hunt us.”

“Shifters? Werebears?”

“Yes! It’s like they’re testing our defenses, trying to find a way in. So far we’ve been able to repel them and beat them back, but if they keep going like this we’re gonna have real trouble.”

“Is Bear Creek in danger?” I asked.

“It’s always in danger—you’ve seen how small it is.

“We have good defenses and a loyal citizenry, but if enough people hear about what’s going on here, we can only do so much to defend it.

“If a hundred hunters show up, we can fight back, but I’m not so sure what we can do against a thousand.”

“Wow, it’s all starting to make so much sense.”

It was pitch dark out now, and only the lights from Sam’s headlamps illuminated the way.

Unfortunately, we couldn’t drive with a bear trap stuck to the wheel, and it was definitely too dark for Sam to try putting on a spare.

“So I guess we walk from here?” I asked.

“I have another idea,” Sam said, with a mischievous look in his eye. “You ever ride bear back before?”

“Of course I ha—” I swallowed the words as they were halfway out of my mouth.

That wasn’t the kind of bareback Sam was talking about.

“Are you serious? You want me to ride you?”

“Do you think you’re ready to see me in my true form?”

I swallowed, feeling slightly nervous. “Yes, Sam. I’m ready.”

“Okay, stand back a bit.” Sam moved out into the middle of the road, directly illuminated by the headlights, and began to strip off all his clothes.

“What are you doing?”

“These are my good pants,” he said. “I don’t wanna shred them.”

Seeing his shredded bod again, I could easily imagine that happening.

Giant pecs sitting atop a rock-hard six-pack, massive tree trunks for legs, and as his underwear came off, I got a glimpse of Sam’s oversized cock.

Hanging there in its resting state, it would dwarf most of my ex-boyfriends’ hard-ons.

Seeing Sam there in the middle of the road, naked as nature had made him, I couldn’t help but suck in my breath.

“Now watch this,” he said, raising his arms up to the sky and letting out a giant growl. Instantly, the hair began to sprout everywhere along his body: thick brown fur.

Sam dropped to his knees, lowering his head to the ground, and I could hear the sound of bones crunching and muscles snapping as his limbs contracted and his spine expanded.

The most painful part to watch was his head. It inflated like a balloon—to the point where I thought it would explode—but all that happened was that two cute bear ears popped out and a giant snout appeared where his mouth and nose had been.

The whole transformation took less than a minute. One moment, there was naked, gorgeous Sam standing in front of me, and the next moment, a giant, hulking grizzly bear, breathing heavily through its nostrils.

His transformation complete, the bear looked up.

I was standing behind the headlights, so he had trouble locating me with his eyes. Then I saw him lift his snout and sniff, and just like that, he locked onto my scent and started trundling over to me.

It took all my strength not to take off running through the woods.

Either way, I sensed that I had no way of evading this giant beast. I just had to believe that Sam was somewhere inside there, and that he’d meant what he’d said about having feelings for me.

The bear gently moved close to my body, as if he could smell my nervousness and wanted to reassure me. He sniffed my armpits and rubbed his snout along my breasts. I giggled at the thought of a giant grizzly bear and me getting to second base.

“Oh Sam, you’re so beautiful!”

I put my hand on his bear face. Amid the dark brown fur, there was a lighter patch of chestnut that ran down his snout. I started rubbing the side of his face and scratching behind his ears. Sam made pleasured grunts, and I felt so happy to share this with him.

After a few moments of getting to know each other, Sam made a mewling noise, gesturing for me to get on.

“Okay, Sam, I don’t know if you can understand me, but you gotta bend down so I can climb up there.”

Right away, Sam flattened himself on the ground and, grabbing onto handfuls of fur and stepping on his shoulder blades, I climbed up on my stepbrother’s bear back.

And then we were off, flying through the woods at a speed I didn’t think possible.

In the dark, I couldn’t see anything except green branches whipping at me at the last moment, so I just tried to hold on and keep my head down.

With his bear eyes, Sam seemed to see perfectly. We took the off-road trail, going straight through the undergrowth, right through bushes and over fallen logs.

It seemed like no time at all before we made it to the front porch.

Sam came to a stop, and I jumped off.

“Oh my God,” I screamed, jumping around excited, “that was so much fun!”

Sam sat back on his haunches and growled at the full moon hanging in the sky.

“Now, Sam, you’re not gonna go into the house like that, are you? I don’t think you’ll fit through the door.”

Sam began to shift back. The process was more peaceful this time, less of a struggle and no more sounds of flesh being torn apart.

In a few moments, human Sam was back there before me, kneeling naked on the ground, bathed in sweat and moonlight.

Seeing him like this, I thought to myself…

~I don’t care if he’s my fucking stepbrother. I want him. Right now.~