Ursanthropy

Jack

With an alarming, throbbing headache, as I didn't had the choice to do this, I had linked my pack that I had made a mistake, that Dennis was still their Beta and that we had resolved our issues. Dennis went out for a while and I went to the back garden, to see how everyone was doing, before I went home and checked up on Doreen. But when I got outside, besides the people who were helping to clean up, everyone had left.

“The things we do for love.” I heard Bertha whisper behind me.

I turned around and looked at her face, which had a gentle smile on it. “What do you mean?” I asked her.

“Really Jack? You don’t honestly believe that I fell for whatever is going on between you and Dennis, right?” She smiled, but I didn’t reply.

Bertha knows me so well, that she can read me like an open book. I sighed, not wanting to tell her anything, as it was not her place to be bothered by my problems.

“He threatened you to turn in Doreen, hasn’t he?” She asked me straightforward, and I looked surprised. I nodded agreeingly towards her question, but didn’t say it out loud.

She then nudged her head, guiding me into the treeline at the end of the garden. “Have you found out, why you can’t catch her scent, all the time?” She continued her questions, once we stood secluded.

I know that she is a wise woman, who has a lot of experience with people and their attitudes. I mean, she had been my father’s secretary before she became the owner of the diner. And there hasn’t been a single fight in her diner, even though there have been a lot of rude customers. Including my own men, who could have a bad day, every now and then. But should I tell her this? Should I explain this to her?

“It’s her necklace, isn’t it?” She then asked me, and made me even more surprised.

“How is it, that you know everything?” I asked her with squinted eyes.

“I have lived long enough already, to notice these little things honey. I might be just the owner of a diner, but due to that, I see a lot of people and hear a lot of things.” She smiled.

I could never become angry at her, as she has never done anything wrong. She has always stood by my side, gave me tips in life when I needed them, ever since me and Vic were still cubs. “You are right. And yes, it’s her necklace.” I said, releasing some tension in my shoulders.

“I thought so. Then I have to show you something. Come and find me tomorrow evening, at the diner, after I’ve closed up shop, alone.”

Doreen

“But if you told Dennis already that it wouldn’t make sense to leave, then why do you want to go now?” Vic asked me angrily.

“Because, when I looked at all those people, at their scared faces, it made me realise that me being here, is never going to work! People will never accept me as their Luna! I’ll just go to my father, and beg for him to not come here. Maybe I can persuade him to leave these people alone, and save them. My own live is worth nothing, compared to all the people of your pack!” I sobbed, as I put the clothes that I got from Jack, in a bag.

“That’s nonsense, and you know it!” She yelled.

“No, Vic! If there even is the slightest chance of keeping you all from facing a war, then I will gladly take it!” I said, while zipping close the bag.

“And then what? You are going to be your father’s successor if he decides to keep you alive?” She snapped at me.

I let myself slump down, and sat myself on the ground, with my back against the end of the new simpler bed that Jack had ordered to be set in this room. I could never be a person like my father, I would never be able to kill and hurt other people, just because they are different. And she was right, somewhere deep down I know that it is nonsense for me to beg my father for this pack to be safe. He truly is a monster, and I doubt that he will stop himself from killing every single person that I have seen this evening.

Tears were streaming freely now, because I don’t have a single clue as to what I could do to keep everyone safe. Vic came sitting down next to me, and grabbed me tight.

“I don’t know what to do, Vic!” I cried. “I should have left when I was able to!” I yelled and hugged her tight.

“No, you never wanted that, and you know it.” She whispered. “Besides, you can’t leave, because I still have to train you, for you to defend yourself against your father’s hunters.” She said.

“Are you serious? How could you think of my training now?” I asked her a little annoyed and confused at the same time. “By the way, how come you know how to fight?”

“Well, I am the sister of the Alpha, so I feel the urge to be at least strong enough to lead the other females, because we didn’t have a Luna, until now. And of course, because I want to be able to kick Jack’s ass in a different way, because he has his strong bear.” She explained.

Well I could understand that, I mean he is the leader of this pack, and he can shift into a really big bear after all. “Well I don’t know how big your bear is, but I can imagine that Jack’s bear could easily intimidate most of the pack’s people.” I said to her, while drying my tears.

Her brows furrowed and she looked at me with utter confusion. She even dropped her shoulders and scratched the top of her head. “My bear?” She asked me “Didn’t Jack tell you that-” She suddenly burst out into laughter and made me feel even more confused than I was before we started this conversation.

“My bear! Oh my goodness, I haven’t had a laugh like this in a while!” She giggled.

I nearly had the urge of using my title, right there and then, to make her shut up and explain to me why she would laugh at me like that. But luckily, she stopped soon before that would happen.

“Doreen, has Jack ever mentioned a woman that could shift into a bear?” She suddenly asked me.

I tried to recall for something like that, but all I could come up with, was the fact that he only mentioned for his fighters as ‘his men’, but I just assumed that he used that word in general, and never thought of females to not be able to shift. But I haven’t seen any woman come into the diner together with Jack either, when their shifts at the lumber company had ended. Not that I ever heard of a female lumberjack before, but we aren’t living in the old ages anymore.

“You mean to say, that there are no female bears?” I asked her.

“No, there hasn’t been one for at least a hundred years, and it had been rather rare at that time as well.”

“Oh, okay…” I said, while thinking more about this. “But, Dennis called me a human, as if it was something foul. So, that would suggest that other females, like you, are not human. Are you?”

“No, apart from me not being able to shift, and to gain the strength that comes with it, I do have a more superior hearing, strength and agility, compared to humans.” She explained.

I knew that I was just touching the base of some new knowledge, when Jack told me that he was able to shift, but learning all these bear etiquette rules, titles and abilities, it was a little overwhelming. Vic then suddenly asked me, at what age I had been given the necklace by my mother, and I told her that I was six.

“And you have never taken it off, since then?” She then asked.

“No, only when I go to sleep, to not break it.” I said. “But I haven’t even done that, ever since I knew what it did to Jack.” Feeling rather ashamed about that, as she knew now that we haven’t had sex yet.

“Yeah, I figured that, because you aren’t wearing his scent. But that would explain why you aren’t used to all this. You are so tiny because your body has been restrained to grow, both in size and in the urge to become stronger.”

Wow… alright, I was not eager to talk to her about me having sex with her brother. But now that I know that I will be wearing his scent after we did, I definitely am not going to now!

But besides that, could I have been taller, bigger, stronger and what not more, if I had never been gifted that necklace? Is there a slight chance that I could regain some of the perhaps dormant abilities, should I take it off? I mean, if Vic was serious about me running really fast, while my necklace was stuck on her shirt, was I really not a complete human then?

And if I’m not, what does that make my mother? Or my father?

“Shit, Dennis threatened Jack to turn you in!” Vic suddenly said, as Jack probably just talked to her in her mind. I looked at her baffled, but then a sudden anger arose within me.

I reached for my head, as a huge pain was throbbing in the front of my brain. But, I have decided to get back to being the woman I was, before I entered this town, so I can’t back down now. I had been trying endlessly to get back to that state, so I’m not going to let Dennis or any other bad man, interrupt my mind about it anymore.

Fuck Dennis! And screw his attitude!

Besides all these questions that I have now, I have decided that I’m going to fight for whatever this is, that I’m living through at the moment. I am going to embrace all these new things, at my own pace, but I am going to accept them. I am going to accept that I’m probably more than a human being!

“Vic, I need your help.” I said with a smile.