Bear Shifter Games: A Four Story Paranormal Shifter Collection

Coaching the Bear-2

Walter’s eyes nervously flitted around the obstacle course Katherine had set up in the woods. It was really well done, as good as any of the courses Lola had set up for the official games. He thrust his hands into his sweatpants pockets to hide how they trembled. The training didn't worry him, but...

What the hell am I doing? He thought. I'm a professional adult responsible for the livelihoods of thousands of employees and I've put everything on the line for a stupid bet with my oafish brother. He pressed his hands flat against his thighs, forcing himself to focus.

I'm never drinking again.

"This is ridiculous. We shouldn't be doing this," he pleaded to Katherine as she finished setting down the last hay bale on the course. "I'll talk to Raymond, he'll be reasonable."

"Oh yeah?" She raised a perfect eyebrow at him and he felt the trembling in his hands subside. Just being around her filled him with the feeling that everything would work out somehow.

Katherine was tall, with strong curves visible under her dirt-covered sweatpants. Her wavy, brown hair was pulled back into a ponytail, the smooth curls brushing the nape of her neck. The way the sun hit her skin made its natural glow more radiant, like she was lit from within. He shied away from the thought, all too aware of the stakes they were up against. This wasn't the time to think about asking his coach out for a date, no matter how much he wanted to take her into his arms.

She paced in front of him, her hands on her hips. "I’ve been researching your brother, finding out everything I can about how he runs the company. Reasonable is not an option with him." She beckoned Walter towards the course. "Besides, you two both signed a Binding Quire; you’d need a witch and both of you in agreement to undo it now. It’s no skin off my back if you turn into an elephant man. But…" she let the word hang for a second, "It’s unlikely your brother will back down. We need to make sure you're in the best possible position to win this race."

Katherine had a point. If Walter lost, the thousands of employees of Bellwether resorts were as good as unemployed. As much as he wanted to believe that his big brother would start taking his responsibilities seriously, it was highly implausible. In the last year since Raymond took over the company, the financial health of Bellwether resorts went into the toilet. If the business had any chance of survival, someone was going to have to start making some bold changes soon, and it sure didn't look like that person was going to be Raymond.

Katherine clapped her hands and Walter focused back on her. She gave him a stern look and crossed her arms over her chest, a move, he noticed, that pushed her breasts higher along the top of her tank top. He walked towards the starting line and looked over the obstacle course to keep from staring.

"I watched you at the race last week and you're not bad,” Katherine said. "I need to see how you run this course so I can assess your strengths and weaknesses. From there, we can set up a training regimen to target specific areas of improvement."

Walter sprinted off the starting line, leaping over hay bales as high as his chest, then bounding towards the thick ropes dangling from a tree branch. With one hand, he grabbed the rope and pulled himself up toward the branches, where the course continued. His feet slipped a bit on the thin tree branches as he dashed along, and Walter steadied himself by grabbing hold of the leafy twigs above him to keep from toppling off the thirty-foot drop on either side.

He reached his mark and dove out into the open space, nearly knocking the wind out of himself as his chest struck the trunk of the neighboring tree. He gripped the rough bark as tightly as he could as he climbed towards the ladder nailed to the side of the tree, before shifting to bear form. The larger form embraced him like a hug, his arms and torso bulking up with familiar strength. He shimmied down the tree with ease, his sharp claws guiding his rapid descent. His heart beat a merry rhythm as the ground hurtled towards him.

Walter felt optimistic as he approached the next obstacle: rope netting stretched above a wide pit about forty feet across. The crisscrossing ropes were set far enough apart that he would have to step carefully to not fall into the ten-foot deep pit beneath. He used his powerful hind legs to spring as far as he could onto the netting, shifting back to human form in mid-air. His fur receded, smooth skin replacing his rough pelt as his transformation completed. His lighter human form flew on the momentum from his jump as a bear, and he landed nearly at the far side of the netting. The rope cushioned under his feet, but he missed his footing, grabbing ahold of the rope at the last minute. For a moment, Walter hung so far down, the tips of his toes brushed the bottom of the hole. He gripped the rope and climbed out of the pit, resenting the time he was wasting on such a little mistake. Maybe I do have balance issues, after all.

Walter scrambled to his feet as quickly as he could, but he knew his fall would have cost him the win in an actual race. He picked his way across the rest of the ropes, then completing the course by jumping across the creek, scaling a boulder, and finally sprinting as fast as he could back to where Katherine was waiting with a stopwatch in her hand and a grim expression on her face.

His sides were burning, and his breath came in quick pants, as he lurched to a stop. "I know that sucked," he gasped. "I shouldn't have shifted in mid-air. It was stupid." He pulled out some exercise shorts and a shirt from his gym bag and pulled them over his n***d body. He glanced over to see if Katherine was watching, but her eyes were critically scanning the course.

She made a small tsking sound. "Shifting like that was a bit flashy, but I've seen much worse. You have the strength and speed to win this. It's mainly your balance we’ll need to work on. If we can improve that, you can move faster through the trees and keep your footing over the ropes."

He nodded. "Okay, but how do we improve my balance? Isn't that a natural talent?"

She shook her head. "No such thing, anything can be trained. It's just going to take time and effort on your part. You ready for that, rich boy?" Her smile took a little of the sting out of her jibe, but he could tell she meant it. She didn't think he had the discipline to follow through.

She thinks I'm like Raymond. The thought was like a punch to Walter’s chest.

He straightened up, steadying his heartbeat and flexing his muscles so the definition showed. "I can handle anything you throw at me."

Katherine smiled. "Good. We're going to start with something simple: one-legged balances. Stand with your feet together." He clicked his bare feet together. "Now close your eyes, and slowly raise your right foot forward, heel down."

Walter wobbled a bit as he discovered keeping his balance with eyes closed was harder than he thought it was going to be. He flailed his arms and clenched his core as he adjusted his weight, trying to stay upright.

"Picture a string attached to the top of your head pulling you upward," Katherine said, her voice low, like she was guiding him through a meditation. Tension he hadn't realized he was holding dissipated at the sound of her voice, and he found he could raise his leg a little higher. "That's it. Now, without lowering your leg, move it to the right side so that it's stretched out next to you. You’ll have to compensate for the change in weight distribution, but don't forget the cord pulling you up, keeping you aligned all the way through your vertebrae."

He followed her instructions, the muscles in his thighs beginning to scream from holding his leg so high for so long. "Having fun over there?" He said through gritted teeth, trying to distract himself.

"A little. It's not every day I get to make a Bellwether sweat."

His eyes flew open. The image had popped into his mind before he could stop it: Katherine under him, his c**k furiously thrusting into her, their bodies' sweat intermingling as she held him close and he felt her shuddering o****m around him.

She's your coach, he told his c**k, concentrating on picturing the faces of his friends who were closer than family at the resort. She's going to help you keep the people you love safe. He didn't have time to think about Katherine in that way. He didn't have time to think about how her eyes gleamed when she was telling off his brother at the bar, or how he admired how quickly she'd jumped in to help him pull off this mad scheme. She had as much as he did riding on the outcome of this race. Walter couldn't think of her as a woman, just as his coach.

Her gaze traveled up and down his body and he felt the fine hairs on his arms and leg prickle as she looked at him. He knew she was assessing his body as a professional, but it was so tempting to think she was checking him out. He tried not to wish the way she pursed her mouth and ran her tongue lightly across her bottom lip was because she was considering doing all the naughty things to him that he was thinking of doing to her. That was a dangerous train of thought.

This is too important. Don't think of her as a woman.

"How many more reps, coach?" he said.

"Switch sides, other leg. Straight out, then to the side."

Walter gritted his teeth and followed her commands, going through a series of other balancing exercises, swinging each leg back and forth, first while standing on the ground, and then while standing like a tight-rope walker, the balls of his feet on the knotted rope course. Sweat soaked through his shirt, the fabric clinging to his aching muscles, but he continued on.

Katherine finally called for a break after an hour, handing him a bottle of water and a towel. "I gotta' say, you're taking this much more seriously than I thought you would."

Walter shrugged. "It's for the resort."

She studied him, her expression unreadable. "You make it sound so simple, but I doubt your brother would say the same. How did you two end up so different?"

He took a long swig of water. "Raymond and me, we didn't grow up together."

"How so?"

Walter chuckled. "It's all so messed up.” He sighed. “I shouldn’t have made that bet. It was so stupid. If I lose and Raymond runs the company into the ground, so many people’s lives will be ruined. I should have found a better way. Raymond just makes me so angry sometimes."

He clenched his hand around the water bottle, bending the plastic between his fingers so far it almost broke. He looked down at the bulging plastic and placed the bottle on the bale of hay next to him.

"It's a long story." Walter studied her. Her expression was curious, but how much could she really care about his family's drama?

"I'd still like to hear it," she said.

"When we were kids, Raymond got to travel with Dad while I was left with a rotating door of nannies at the flagship resort. He was the oldest, heir to the company; it made sense that he would study at Dad's knee. I doubt the old man actually allowed Raymond to see any of the business in action, though. My father was a very hands-off kind of parent. From what I've heard, Raymond barely saw him more than I did.”

Walter ran the towel over her face. He usually hated talking about his family, but somehow Katherine was different. “Raymond became the stereotypical trust fund kid, running wild, wrecking everything he could get his hands on. It probably started as a way of getting our Dad's attention, but eventually I think it changed who he was: to understand something, Raymond always wants to know what it would look like broken. My toys, his toys, they all ended up shattered. It was the same with his relationships. After our father died, I hoped he would sober up and take the business seriously, but every day it looks like he’s trying to see what the whole company will look like in pieces."

"Growing up the way you did, so far away from your family, how did you turn out so…" she waved a hand across him. "Well adjusted."

Well adjusted? Walter grinned at the compliment.

"I lived at our flagship resort, and found my own family there. I grew up around the maids, gardeners and receptionists, and became part of this huge family, surrounded by the same familiar faces every day. The staff of the resort always had time for me, even if my Dad didn’t. They threw me birthday parties and cheered when I walked at graduations. They invited me to join them for Christmas and sit with them during Fourth of July parades. I didn't have a single Mom or Dad, I had dozens of aunts and uncles who all counted me as one of their own." He pushed down the familiar, quick stab of disappointment at missing out on having supportive parents, although he knew he couldn't dream of replacing the circle of love he grew up with. "They taught me everything I know: not only about the ins and out of running a resort, but also about respect, responsibility, duty, and caring about your work." He scratched the back of his head and directed his gaze to the dirt. “That sounds super cheesy when I say it out loud.”

Katherine smiled. “It’s a little cheesy, but I get what you’re saying. It was the same for me with the staff at the Maui resort. My mom was a single mom, who took me with her when she was a maid at the Maui Turtle. The staff there became my nannies and tutors, helping me with homework and encouraging me to pursue the fields I was interested in. After my mom passed away, the resort was my sanctuary, it’s where I could feel closest to her memory." Katherine's voice was low. For a second, Walter thought she might start to cry, but her eyes were dry and her jaw was set hard. "Since the resort closed, it’s all gone; my family is scattered trying to find new jobs. All because of your brother."

"Ray was just really unprepared to run the company." He knew it sounded like an excuse, but couldn’t help but defend his brother. "We all thought we had another few decades before Raymond would have to step up. Dad's accident shocked all of us."

Katherine opened her mouth like she was going to say something, then shook her head and paced a short distance away. She turned back. "Are you sure your brother is trying to help the business succeed? You said he likes to break his toys. This is the biggest toy he’s ever had. Do you think he could be driving this company into the ground on purpose?"

"Ray’s is an irresponsible hothead, but he's not a bad person." I hope. The thought popped up in Walter’s mind, uninvited. He barely saw his brother growing up, and their interactions as adults was mostly at the shifter games once every month or so. How well do I really know him? "He’s just unfit to run this company. When I'm in charge, I'll place him in a position where he can learn how to do more of the basics before entrusting him with more power."

Katherine bit her lip. "If Raymond is embezzling, would you help find the proof?"

Water frowned. "If he was embezzling, I would help. I don’t think that’s what’s happening; Raymond isn’t slick enough hide stacks of cash and get away with it."

"Fine," Katherine said, her tone implying the matter was far from settled. "So let’s say you win. Are you qualified to run the business? What will you do to turn the company around if you become the new CEO?"

Walter grinned. "Don't worry, I’ve been learning about the business all my life. I have degrees I can show you if you’re interested.” He chuckled, excited to have somebody to talk with about his ideas. “For the past few years, I’ve been putting together a comprehensive overhaul of our current client experience. I was hoping to pitch it to my Dad this year but...” He let the thought hang. “I'm going to rebrand the resorts. All of them. Instead of keeping them as high-priced luxury playgrounds affordable only to the super rich, we're going to open our doors. We’ll provide low- and mid-priced packages so people of all income brackets will be able to enjoy a resort." He sat forward, gesturing wide as he continued to describe his dream: full-time daycare and more children's play areas, investing in a wider variety of entertainment, more rooms in different sizes to increase capacity. "I’ve put together a whole action plan, approved by the company accountants and lawyers, ready for how we can not only save the resorts that are on the verge of closing, and also reopen the closed resorts in Maui and Hong Kong."

"That's fabulous!" Katherine cried, reaching forward to hug him.

Her body pressed against his and for a second his mind flashed back to a surround-sound, sexy, sweaty fantasy of pressing Katherine back against the hay bales, spreading her legs, diving his face between her legs and l*****g her cunt until he could feel her shudder in release. He kept perfectly still, carefully holding himself back from turning his head and pressing his lips against hers.

"Inclusivity as good business. I love it so much." She let go of his shoulders, but her face was still so close, all Walter could think about was kissing her. "I underestimated you. You’re not just another spoiled rich boy." She leaned forward half an inch and for one breathless moment, Walter thought she was going to kiss him.

I have to win this game. The thought splashed against his brain like a bucket of cold water.

He leaned back, got to his feet. "So...what's next, coach?"

She smiled and jumped up. "Squats."

He groaned, she laughed, and they got back to work.