Submitting to the Bear Shifter

Chapter 1-2

Peacemaker paused in reaching for a cookie, one slender-fingered hand hovering above the plate. “But we haven’t even told you where you’re to be posted yet. You might be pleasantly surprised to learn—”

“Doesn’t matter. I don’t care where I’m ‘to be posted.’ I’m not going.”

Resuming the process of taking a cookie, Peacemaker frowned. “But please consider that you’re to be posted in a place that’s not very far away at all. You won’t have to move to an entirely new state, and adjust to a new climate, or wait to have all your possessions shipped, or—”

“I’m sorry, but it still doesn’t matter. I’m still not going.”

There was something about Peacemaker that made me feel just a tiny bit bad about the brisk demeanor I was displaying. I wasn’t even sure what it was. Maybe the fact that he was a stern-faced government agent yet hadn’t been afraid to admit he was cold. Or maybe it was a look of genuine confusion and disappointment in his eyes that what he’d said hadn’t swayed me in the least. Maybe it was just that he seemed appreciative of my setting out the cookies. Whatever it was, it had prompted my I’m sorry before I’d said the rest of what I had.

Before he could respond, Platinum Blonde Lady jumped into the conversation, setting her mug of steaming black coffee on the table. “Well, can you just answer me something? Why, exactly, are you so hesitant to go to your post? We’ve done our homework, and we’ve learned that you’re a healthy twenty-seven-year-old woman who is unmarried, no children, no immediate family to speak of, and no job. We’ve also been able to learn that you’ve primarily been living off credit cards the past several months, and that you have exactly two hundred dollars left in your bank account. So, needless to say, it doesn’t seem like things here in Ridgewood have been going great for you, to say the least. So, why are you so averse to moving to your assigned post to help protect the nation with your gifts? It would be a complete fresh start for you... a whole new life. One where others will see you as a hero.”

Things in Ridgewood certainly hadn’t been going great for me. I’d moved to this sleepy little former copper mining town in northern Michigan, population a scant five thousand, about a year earlier, after accepting a job as an art teacher at the local high school, replacing a teacher who’d decided not to return to teaching after her maternity leave. Because I hadn’t been able to find a teaching job right after college, and because the small art gallery I’d opened instead wasn’t even remotely turning a profit, I’d been thrilled to be hired. I didn’t even mind that Ridgewood didn’t have all the hustle and bustle of Chicago, where I’d been born and raised. In fact, I’d quickly grown to love the slower pace.

But then, almost immediately after I’d moved, The Takeover had happened. That was what most people called what had happened, anyway, even though The Failed Takeover, or The Partial Takeover would have been more accurate.

In a nutshell, an American sorcerer named Alistair Jordan had performed a spell in an attempt to enslave every single person on earth via mind-control. Being that most people in the world at that time didn’t believe in the existence of the supernatural, a sorcerer casting a spell that had devastating consequences had been a bit of a shock. As had what had happened right after.

Whatever dark magic Alistair had used, his ill-fated spell hadn’t exactly worked as he’d intended. Thousands of people had fallen victim to his mind-control, but when they’d shown signs of mentally breaking free from his hold after a few days of being controlled to commit horrible acts, including murder, Alistair had killed them with yet another spell, casting it on live television after taking over a station. But then, Alistair himself had suddenly died, people could only assume from overtaxing himself by casting spells.

The world was by no means safe after Alistair’s death, though. He’d instructed his followers, all sorcerers themselves, to see to it that the world be conquered by the Angel Coven, which is what Alistair had called his group, thinking of them all as dark angels and not the evil murderers that they were.

Right away, Alistair’s successor emerged, a sorcerer named Maxwell Bliss. Using dark magic, he and several hundred members of the Angel Coven took over various global territories for their own. Their end goal was to conquer the entire world, killing or enslaving all humans, and panic spread far and wide, because it looked like they might ultimately be able to accomplish their goal. Bullets were useless against members of the Angel Coven, as they seemed able to deflect them with magical shields. Various other weaponry used by different nations had no effect, either. When the Canadians tried to destroy one of the dozens of Angel Coven factions around the globe by using tanks, the Angel Coven sent the tanks flying miles through the air. Not even bombs worked. The Angel Coven quickly claimed territory in every nation on earth.

However, within just weeks of Alistair’s death and Maxwell’s rise to power, it became clear that one group could stop them. As some completely bizarre “side effect” of Alistair’s initial failed spell, thousands of regular human men had been turned into creatures everyone began calling shifters, men able to morph into animals at will. Their first morphing had occurred the day of Alistair’s first spell, and had simply happened, stunning all these poor men nearly to death.

There were bear shifters, lions, and wolves, all over the world, and they all quickly divided into groups, determined to try to stop the Angel Coven if they could. And, to the world’s relief and elation, it soon became clear that these shifters had power far beyond any man-made weaponry. They were able to kill some of the Angel Coven members in a fairly gruesome way, by decapitating them with bites to the throat. And the kills weren’t easy, and many shifters were killed and hurt by Angel Coven members, but at last, there was a way to fight the Angel Coven and stop them from taking more territory.

At about the same time that the shifters began assembling into an army of sorts, with different bases all over the world, another group of heroes emerged, making it clear that Alistair’s bungled spell hadn’t only affected human men. Hundreds of human women, most of them young, had developed supernatural powers, seemingly overnight, and these powers first manifested even without the young women doing anything. Some young women just suddenly began shooting beams of light from their hands, beams they quickly discovered were lethal. Others discovered they could levitate people and objects, and still others could levitate and shoot beams of light. These women quickly came to be known as Gifteds.

I’d discovered that I was a Gifted who could levitate when a pencil I’d been reaching for had suddenly flown into my hand. Then, shocked, I’d found that I could lift other objects just by thinking about it. Unlike most other Gifted women, though, who’d happily volunteered to join the shifter encampments to help defend their various nations against the Angel Coven, I’d kept my power a secret. I knew I was no hero. I was just an average woman who never wanted the world to find out what a coward she was. Just an average woman who wanted to live the life she’d been planning on before The Takeover had happened. However, that wasn’t to be.

After The Takeover, a lot of state and federal money reserved for public education was immediately diverted for national defense, and my position at the school had been cut. I’d worked exactly twelve days. Since the entire city of Chicago had been taken over by the Angel Coven, I couldn’t exactly go back home. Not that I had anyone to go home to, anyway. I’d never known my father, my mom had died when I was eight, and the grandparents who’d raised me after that had both passed away while I was in college. And all my close friends in Chicago had thankfully managed to flee the city before the Angel Coven had moved in.

So, I’d remained in Ridgewood, not knowing what else to do. Now unemployed and without friends in town, I’d fallen into a deep depression, which was made worse by conflicting feelings about my determination to keep the fact that I was a Gifted well-hidden. On one hand, I felt like it was the most cowardly, selfish thing imaginable to continue to keep my power a secret. But on the other hand, certain that I could never be heroic and actually help by using my power, I felt that I was doing the right thing.

Although most Gifteds discovered their gifts shortly after Alistair’s initial spell, some didn’t, and over the next year, the government remained on the lookout for these “late bloomers,” sending agents to interview them and bring them to the various defense posts around the nation. Not all Gifteds had to go, though, and same with the shifters. Gifteds and shifters who were married or had children didn’t have to do a thing. They had the option of declining to serve, or they could serve with frequent family leave, or they could even bring their families to live at the various defense posts along with them. From what I’d heard, though, hardly anyone did this, because it was just too dangerous. Most defense posts were right on the line of Angel-controlled territories.

A lot of Gifteds and shifters were obligated to go to the defense posts to defend the nation, though, because since it had happened that since most shifters were fairly young men, and since most Gifteds were fairly young women, many were single and many were not yet parents. Like me.

In response to what Platinum Blonde Lady had said about my life in Ridgewood basically being in the toilet, and how moving to my assigned post would be a “complete fresh start,” I lifted my shoulders in a slight shrug. “My life here in Ridgewood is actually looking up. Over the past nine months, I’ve attended the local college by taking online classes, carrying a course load of the maximum allowed eighteen credits a semester, and just this past week, I earned a degree in business administration. I’m actually set to start a new job as an office manager this Monday.”

It was all true, though I wasn’t exactly excited about my new career path. But it wasn’t like I’d really had much of a choice to take it. With the education cuts, no new teachers for any subjects were being hired, and as far as art-related jobs went, they were nonexistent in Ridgewood. It had been a radical career change or eventual eviction and starvation, I’d figured.

“So, my life in general is on the upswing. Once I start my new job, my finances will get straightened out, and everything here in Ridgewood will continue to be just great for me.”

Platinum Blonde Lady took a sip of her coffee, then asked her next questions just as casual as you please. “And how about your dating life here in Ridgewood, Miss Clark? Has that been going ‘just great’ for you? The demographics of this town reflect that most men are older, and married, so I can’t imagine—”

“My dating life is none of your business. And I refuse to talk about it.”

Primarily because in talking about it further, I’d have to admit that my dating life in Ridgewood had not been going “just great.” In fact, it hadn’t been going any way at all, because it had been virtually nonexistent. After a single date with a long-haul truck driver shortly after arriving in town, I’d kind of given up on dating indefinitely. He’d spit tobacco juice on the floor of the run-down bar he’d taken me to, and his friends had all done the same. To make matters worse, I later discovered that he was engaged to be married.

In response to what I’d said, Platinum Blonde Lady shrugged and opened her mouth to say something, but Deep Male Voice/Snorty beat her to it, setting his mug on the table with a near-bang.

“We’re wasting time, here. Miss Clark, it doesn’t matter if your life here in Ridgewood is great, not great, or what. Doesn’t matter what degrees you’ve earned, or what jobs you’re set to start. We’ve come here to take you to your assigned post, and that’s what’s going to happen.”