Wild Ride: A Bad Boy Romance (21 page)

They
walked slowly down the stairs. Herbert led the way, his heavy boots clunky
against the creaking wooden steps. He held Roxy’s hand, and she followed him,
like a young doe, being led by a leash.

Outside,
the sun was still out. But it was a little lower in the sky. The sun never set
at this time of year, and it made Roxy feel as if she was in a magical place, a
place beyond the world that she was used to. Beyond the normal world, beyond
jobs, professions, money. Beyond routine. A world of love and adventure, of
romance and mystery.

They
stood together, Herbert’s hand around her back, gazing at the sun. It was weak
enough that they could stare directly at it without hurting their eyes. That’s
how Roxy felt about Herbert, in a way. She felt he was like some fading sun. He
wasn’t any less powerful or beautiful than a full, blazing equatorial noonday
sun. But his fury had left him little by little over the years, making him
calmer. He was like a subtle flavor that could be enjoyed by the person with a
sensitive enough palate. Others might overlook him, looking for the strongest,
most jarring flavors. But that wasn’t Roxy. And, like the Alaskan sun, Roxy
could look right into Herbert’s very being, savoring him, without getting hurt,
without his pasty fury scarring her unintentionally.

Just
then, the peace of the sun and post-sex tranquility was shattered. It was
broken by the two drunks from the bar. They had finally reached a point in
their argument where they could progress no further without actually fighting.

They had
finally tumbled out of the bar door into the alley. The short man fell down,
and the tall man jumped on top of him. He started pummeling him with punches,
hitting even inch of his face and body.

“Oh my
God,” shrieked Roxy. There was blood splattering everyone. The short man was
losing teeth by the second. Two of them flew out and ricocheted off Roxy’s
shoes.

The big
man paused for a minute in his punches. He kept one hand on the short man,
saying “Don’t you dare move. I ain’t finished with you yet.”

The men
had seemed somewhat like harmless drunks earlier in the night. They had seemed
like hardworking men who were under a lot of stress, broken and beaten down by
an unfair economic system, and battered by the Alaska’s harsh and untamed
climate.

Now the
men seemed vicious. Both of them. Even the man getting his teeth knocked out
and his skull bashed. He had a scary, frightening look on his face. He barred
his teeth, and spat blood on the face of the big man, who gave him another
punch to the head. This one knocked him out, and his head lolled to the side,
his tongue hanging out. Blood poured freely out of his mouth, collecting on the
pavement, where it mixed with some dirt and pebbles.

The big
man rose up, towering over Herbert and Roxy. He really was massive. He had
looked a little smaller than his real, monstrous size, when Roxy had seen him
crouched over the bar, sipping his drink.

He wore a
flannel shirt, a skiing cap. His jeans were torn and stained. It looked to Roxy
like he had been out of work for quite some time. He had an awful look on his
face. Roxy had only seen it before on animals. She’d seen that same look on
dogs that had been beaten and been turned vicious intentionally. She’d been to
the dog fights once with her Dad, and the expressions on the dog, and the
vicious way they attacked anything that moved, anything that was living, had
scarred her terribly. The image of the fighting dogs had stuck in her memory
forever. The scary thing to Roxy was that a regular dog’s nature could be
changed so much. It could be turned vicious. It could be made to hate
everything and everyone.

“Hey,
look who it is,” said the big man. He practically didn’t say the words, but
growled them, like some kind of animal. He was sweaty, his hair sticking to his
face. His expression and fury made him look hideously ugly.

“Hey,
Slam,” said Herbert, calmly and slow. “How’s it going?” Herbert made a little
motion for Roxy to get behind him. They were standing about five feet away from
Slam, and his friend that he had just knocked. Roxy wondered whether Slam was
really his real name.

Roxy
moved to get behind Herbert.

“Oh,”
sneered Slam. “You going to protect your little lady, Herbert? Protect her from
the big bad wolf?” While Herbert was certainly strong looking, Slam was easily
three times his size in sheer mass. He was also about thirty years younger than
Herbert. He looked young, fresh, and eager for a fight.

Herbert
merely nodded. “If necessary,” he said.

Slam
tilted his head back and laughed. “Let’s not mess around, Herbert. You know me.
When I get drunk, I like to do two things; fight and fuck. Now, I’ve already
fought and one tonight. The only thing I go left to do is fuck. Now, you got
yourself a nice plump looking sexy little lady right there that’d I’d like to
have some fun with. Seeing you were inclined to let me, that is.”

Herbert
shook his head. “Absolutely not,” he said. “And don’t talk about Roxy like
that.”

Roxy was
scarred. What was going to happen? A shiver ran through her spine. This guy
looked like he really wanted to fight, and she had just knock his friend out
cold. Herbert did look tough, and she had admired his body during sex, but he
didn’t look like he was really a match for Slam. Roxy decided to counter her
fear by acting sassy. “What kind of a name is Slam, anyway?” she said, in a
mocking tone.

“It’s
cause I do the same do the ladies as I do to my friends. Slam ‘em down,” said
Slam. “So what’s it going to be? I’ve already fought, and I want to fuck. But
if I have to fight again in order to fuck, I’m not going to mind.”

Herbert
shook his head.

“So,”
said Roxy. “You’re going to beat up Herbert, and then just have your way with
me, is that right, whether I want it or not?”

“That’s
about the gist of it,” said Slam. “Yeah.”

“Like I
said,” said Herbert. “Absolutely not.”

“Oh
yeah?” said Slam, approaching Herbert by a few steps. He was only about two
feet from him now. “And what are you going to do about it, old man Herbert?”

“Whatever’s
necessary,” said Herbert, calmly.”

“I’d
think real careful about what you’re getting involved in,” said Slam. “I’ve
been done to send more than few to the morgue. And I can deadlift 1000 pounds.”

“I don’t
doubt you can,” said Herbert, his voice even. “But you’re not touching the
lady.”

“Lady,
yeah right,” scoffed Slam. “I heard the noise you two were making up stairs.
The bed practically came crashing through the ceiling. She ain’t no lady. And
all I’m saying is I want a piece of the action. Now step aside, Herbert, before
I have to hurt you.”

“The best
thing for you to do, would be to turn around and walk away.”

Slam just
grunted. In a flash, he had stepped closer into to Herbert. He swung his
massive right shoulder around, bringing his arm swinging with it. His fist
looked completely massive, and hard as a rock. It came at Herbert’s face with
the speed of a cannon.

At first,
Herbert didn’t seem to react at all.

How was
he going to survive such a powerful punch? was all Roxy was thinking.

What
happened next, Roxy would remember for the rest of her life. Before the punch
could land, something incredible happened. The enormous fist was traveling
fast. It was only an inch away from Herbert’s face. But what happened next
seemed to be in slow motion

Herbert
let out a primal sounding scream that seemed to erupt from deep within himself.
His head tilted back, with the punch still not yet landing, as the scream rose
into the Alaskan sky.

At almost
the same moment, fur erupted all over his skin.

The next
thing Roxy new, Herbert was growing rapidly in size. It was happening so
quickly that his growth looked like stop-motion-photography. One moment he was
his normal size, and the next he was five times as massive, and completely
covered in hair.

Paws grew
where his hands and feet had been. Enormous, massive paws, with long,
dagger-sharp claws.

A snout
grew out of his once-handsome human face.
In merely less than a second,
the transformation were complete. Herbert was gone, and a bear stood in his
place.
Herbert had transformed into a giant bear.

Roxy now
had evidence for her original archeological hypothesis, that a man once upon a
time had turned into a bear mid-step while walking in Alaska. Could that man
have been Herbert? Not only would Herbert’s existence prove that these
transformation took place, but the rapid speed in which the transformation
happened would show that the man could become a bear within a short enough time
that his next footprint would be a bear’s.

But those
types of thoughts were the furthest thing from Roxy’s mind at the moment. She
stepped back, afraid of the giant bear that Herbert had suddenly become. What
had happened to her sweet and protective lover? Only moments before he had been
Herbert. Was this bear Herbert? Was Herbert inside of him? Or had his
personality also become something else?

Time
seemed to be froze for a moment. These thoughts were pounding through her head.
Now that she reconsidered it, being a giant bear was being pretty protective,
actually. What could protect her better than a giant bear with its giant and
ferocious claws? Maybe it was because Roxy had already convinced herself back
in New Jersey, academically speaking, that some type of man / bear shifter or
transformer was possible, and that’s why now she wasn’t so astounded at seeing
a man turn into a bear.

Surprisingly,
Roxy seemed to be the only one who wasn’t astounded by Herbert’s
transformation. Slam had jumped back as Herbert had transformed. If he hadn’t
he would have been thrown back by Herbert’s massive and sudden increase in
mass. But he stood only about five feet away from Herbert The Bear, looking
fairly calm for someone in his situation.

When
Herbert had transformed, he had fallen on all fours. Now he rose up, many feet
into the air, so that he stood on his hind legs. He roared, a tremendous roar,
his snout opening to display what seemed like a thousand glistening sharp
teeth. He was a particularly powerful look bear. When standing up, his enormous
and massive muscles could be seen stretched taut, on his hindquarter, his
chest, and everywhere else.

Roxy felt
a great sense of peace with Herbert there as a bear. She didn’t feel in the
last bit scared. Seeing Herbert roar like that, she had an innate sense that he
was still Herbert. He might be little different as a bear. He might act a little
differently. But he was

still
Herbert. And she knew he had transformed into a bear in order to protect her
from this drunken alley brute, Slam.

Herbert
The Bear’s ferocious roar echoed throughout the alley, nearly piercing Roxy’s
eardrums. To her great surprise, Slam barely moved an inch when the full force
of Herbert’s roar hit him. It hit him like a glad force wind, blowing his hair
and shirt color back, and ruffling his beard.

“Well,
well, well,” said Slam, looking right into Herbert The Bear’s ferocious eyes.
“We got ourselves a bear. We used to have ourselves a Herbert. But now we got
ourselves a bear. I’ve been waiting for this, Herbert.”

Herbert
didn’t seem to be able to talk in bear form. He got back down on all four paws.
The force of his weight hitting the pavement actually seemed to shake the
entire alley. He must have been bigger than an average bear for this year,
thought Roxy to herself. She looked at him kind of proudly, in an admiring sort
of way. Yes, she thought to herself again, he was certain a bigger and stronger
bear than most. Plus, he could turn into a human when he wanted. So he had that
going for him.

“We’ve
been waiting a long time for this, Herbert. Or should I say, Herbert The Bear?
Or Herbert in bear form? Yes, Herbert, we’ve been looking for you. We’ve been
watching you. We’ve been following you? You think we’re just a couple of
pathetic drunks. But we’re much more than that. We’re hunters. And this is a
hunt we’ve been on for a long, long time. You’ve finally met the hunter that
you can’t beat, Herbert The Bear. Why do you think we keep coming to this
crummy bar of yours? For the atmosphere? Come on? And tonight, we knew we had
you. We knew that the way to finally draw you out was a lady. But we had to
wait, and wait, and wait until you had one. And then she became our own
unwilling bait. Yes, that’s right Herbert. The whole thing was a trap. No, it’s
not what you were thinking. She wasn’t in on it. And no, I don’t want a piece
of her in the least bit. No offense, hon, but I’ve had hotter and better and
I’m sure wetter. We staged the whole fight in the bar. All for your benefit,
Herbert. Herbert The Bear.”

Roxy
didn’t know what to say. So she spat at him. The spit hit him in the chest.
She’d always been a pretty good spitter, with good accuracy and a long reach.

The spit
just made Slam laugh harder. He tilted his head back and laughed and laughed, a
great big cackle.

Herbert
tilted his great big bear head to the side, the way Roxy had seen some animals
do when they were puzzled. She knew why he must be puzzled. He could easily
have destroyed Slam with one swipe of his paw. Slam didn’t have a gun, let
alone a rifle big enough to hurt Herbert. He didn’t seem to have any weapons on
him at all.