Ursanthropy

A/n: Alright, some things are going to be explained here and in the next chapter. Please let me know if you don't understand it!

Doreen

“You did what?! No, you’ve got to be kidding me!” Vic hollered gleefully as she heard my tactic for defeating Maxwell.

“Ssshtt! Don’t let anyone hear it, Jack didn’t understand it either so when I will fight against him, I need it for him to not know!” I told Vic, while checking to see if there hadn’t been anyone around us.

“Yeah, but still I can’t believe you did that! You’ve used your- “Sssht!” I interrupted her, making her lower her voice immediately. “You’ve used your Zumba dance classes to throw him off?” She whispered, and when I nodded my head she couldn’t get up from laughing so hard.

I had figured that every shifter was so caught up in their own way of training and fighting and lifestyle, that they didn’t know anything about the ordinary way of training that ‘normal’ people do. And I guess I had been right! I remembered how some of the dance moves had been like, when I had followed online classes when I was still living at my father’s house, and used them against Maxwell. Score!

“Please! Please let me tell my brother! Please!” Vic begged me and I looked rather serious now. “Nope, Queen’s orders are to keep the secret.” I said with a rather smug face.

“Awwhh you’re the worst Queen ever!” She shouted. “You are taking advantage of your title! It’s not fair!” She wailed and pouted like a little girl.

“Well according to ancient tradition, I could legally throw you off a cliff, for calling me that!” I chuckled. “Wow, seriously?” She asked me.

“Yep, I have been studying the laws and punishments that were used a hundred years ago. Not that I want to introduce them all again, but a certain number of these punishments were rather ingenious to have thought off. Insane, and rather abnormal thought out inventions, but still, they were really creative back in the day.” I said and Vic just scrunched up her complete face in horror.

“And I thought that Giselle had gone mental with her curse-removing-spells… phew… I’m glad I live in the now and not back in the day.”

“I can’t believe you didn’t tell me!” Jack yelled to Vic.

“Sorry, I was about to face royal punishment, should I break my secret vow with the Queen.” Vic said with a complete serious face.

“You what?” He said as he looked at her, but then shifted his gaze towards me. “You little…!!” And he suddenly began to run after me.

I had used the same tactics I had used against Maxwell, in a little duel. I didn’t win the battle against Jack, but that is because he is still stronger than me and he knew that I was probably going to use the same tactic as I did before, so he had the advantage of that. But I did manage to get him worn out and rather exhausted in the end. And I had never given up, until I had to tap the mat, because he had pinned me down.

“Come here!” He yelled laughingly, as I yelped and screamed in joy. Of course he managed to capture me in his big arms, and pulled me up against him.

But our banter was cut short, when we both saw Maxwell’s angry face.

“What is it?” Jack asked and Maxwell nodded for him to enter his office. I wanted to know about it too, so I simply followed behind them.

“I just received a disturbing phone call.” Maxwell said. “And because of it, I’m not sure that we can proceed with the meeting.” He continued.

“Why not?” Jack asked. “Who called you?”

“Your Beta has announced himself publicly, that he has taken the Alpha title of your pack. And he has told every other pack that they should come to ‘his’ pack grounds to celebrate in his honour. And as it seems, he planned this all on the same date as when we were wanting to plan our meeting.”

“But you didn’t invite Dennis to this meeting, right?” I asked him.

“No, that’s the disturbing part of the phone call. There is someone else, that has been informing him. And as the other packs have been invited to this celebration, they started to call me right after to ask me what the meeting was all about, and why I hadn’t invited the new Alpha too.” Maxwell sighed and slumped down in his chair.

I wanted to do the same, but I was determined now, more than ever, to knock Dennis off of his throne!

Jack

“Shit! We can’t let him do this! We have to find a way to interrupt the party. If all the other Alpha’s accept his invitation, as they should when a new Alpha arises, he could use them all to set them up against Doreen and me!” I yelled angrily and Maxwell nodded agreeingly.

No single Alpha would believe me, or Doreen, as they would be told the deceiving story of how I had failed the pack. Dennis is the Alpha now, and my complete pack was standing behind him, whether they wanted to or not. And the other packs didn’t have any other reason to disbelieve his statement that way either!

And through the gifts that he would receive from all the visiting Alphas, he could simply pay off the hunter King, to not be in his debt anymore. And as a result of that, he could easily tell that the hunters were no longer a threat!

“No, let him do this.” Doreen suddenly said, while looking at me. “In fact, we are going to get to this party as well, uninvited perhaps, but we are going.” And I looked rather confused now.

“And what do you have in mind, my little vixen? Are you going to dance there as well?” I asked her, with a little smile on my face.

“Maybe…” She said and then she tilted her head sideways, letting me know that she was thinking again. “Let me do some reading, because I have a strange feeling about this. Whatever Dennis is planning to do, something doesn’t add up.”

Doreen

“Have you found whatever it is you were looking for?” Vic came sitting at the same table where I had some books splayed out, open at different pages.

I had several pages filled with notes about what I had read, and half empty coffee cups were standing here and there, in between the books and papers.

“Well, have an open mind please, because this is going to sound crazy.” I said to her.

“Sure, you look like Einstein already, so whatever comes out of your mind, must be crazy as well.” She said as she pointed at my wild hair and I chuckled. I must have scrunched it up in frustration or confusion, whatever of those two suited the situation.

I had come to find out about several things, but there were also some things that couldn’t be answered, so I tried to connect some of the dots, to figure out what it could have been, by using other books to fill in the blanks.

The book, which Maxwell had shown me at first, was laying close by and I showed Vic the royal bloodline. I had doodled my mother in the oval frame that had been empty underneath my grandmother’s one, and then I had drawn my father next to her and finally me and Jack underneath them.

“Here, this is how it should have been. My grandmother apparently has never been crowned as Queen, as there is no golden crown drawn above her frame, and the reason behind that is still unknown to me. But as far as I could tell, about ninety percent of the male mates that became King, had been an Alpha of their own pack.” I started, and watched Vic if she was still following me.

“Yes, so?”

“Well, what if my grandfather never wanted to leave his pack? What if that could have been the reason that he didn’t want to become King? And that his mate, my grandmother, didn’t become a Queen?”

“That’s preposterous! Look,” Vic shifted a page or two back. “see? This Queen had been alone, I know this because a friend of mine told me that she never wanted to become alone like Queen Agatha. So, I had searched that up and it seems that she rejected her mate for not becoming a King, and raised her four daughters alone. There never had been a situation where the Queen didn’t choose to fulfil her destiny!” Vic said, a little annoyed.

“Yes, I know, but through the years, there weren’t many female bears alive, even the cousins had been perished and my grandmother was alone. It must have been a huge burden to follow up on that role.” I sighed.

“So, why didn’t your mother pick up the role then?”

“I don’t know! There could have been a ton of reasons! Maybe even the same!” I said a little angry now.

“I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have said that.” Vic apologized. “You know, in the first few years that we didn’t had a King and Queen anymore, things have been a little chaotic through the lands. Small packs have been overrun by bigger ones and the more money you got, the more you were secure of your place in the food chain. The laws, which you have been so thoroughly researching about, don’t apply anymore and it just seems so selfish of the females to not have chosen their purpose in life.”

“Yeah, I figured that, that’s why it’s so important to take the lead for me. But I’m also scared to pick up the pieces of the rubble now.” I admitted.

Vic put her hand on top of mine, and assured me that I wouldn’t have to do this on my own. I have Jack, her, Bertha, Erol and Giselle as well. And not to mention Maxwell’s pack, as they believe who I am already too.

“So, what about this one here? Who is the supposed mate of your grandmother?” Vic changed the subject, to a question I couldn’t answer.

“Well that’s where I am stuck. If we would know who this person is, we might know what Dennis is up to.” I said.

“Huh? How did you come up with that connection? It’s like your saying that an airplane can fly because pears are blue! You don’t make any sense!”

“Yeah, I know, but it’s something that he is trying to do, that doesn’t make sense either.” Vic looked at me in a strange way, urging me to continue my thoughts. “Why does he want all of the Alpha’s to come to his place? Why didn’t he just show up here? It must be about what he said in the barn.” I continued but it still didn’t make any sense to Vic.

“Before I went all berserk and slaughtered all of the hunters, Dennis had been asking about where the leader of the big hunter had been. It was as if Dennis wanted my father to be there, as if his plan was a failure because he didn’t show up. And now that he wants a party at his place, where every single Alpha has to attend to, I’m afraid that he is up to something big.”

“As if he is using all the Alphas to lure your father to a specific spot.” Vic reasoned with my stream of thoughts. “But why?” She said then.

“Yeah, that’s the million dollar question. Although I still have a gut feeling that I’m missing something, that the link is right here on this table, but I just can’t seem to find it.”

“So, all we have to do, is find the blue pear?” She asked then, and I chuckled. “Yes, all we have to do is find the blue pear.” I smiled at Vic, while she was already with her nose in a book.