Grizzly Sleuth (Project Therianthrope #3)

Prologue

Before Idris escaped…

The day started like every other since Idris’ incarceration by General Davidson—the morally lacking asshole who thought he had the right to perform medical experiments on soldiers.

The lights in Idris’ cell illuminated supernova bright and woke him. As he blinked away spots, the slot in his door opened and someone shoved his daily breakfast of slop through it. Foul-tasting clumps of what used to be oats that no amount of brown sugar would have fixed.

After he choked it down, he hit the floor to get in some pushups, only to end up face-planting before he hit a hundred because his captors gassed him. No warning. No pillow for a soft landing. From awake to knocked out in seconds.

Idris regained consciousness strapped to a table. The shit-stains in the lab didn’t trust him to behave as they conducted their next round of tests and injections. Fucking right, he wouldn’t be a nice Canadian about it. Had his hands been free, he would have cracked their heads together.

Dr. Levy—the scientist leading the experiment and the asshole Idris dreamed of punching—stood across the room murmuring with General Davidson while his lackeys scurried to do his bidding.

Blood pressure checked. Penlight shone in his eyes.

Stethoscope pressed to his chest to listen to his ticker.

The regular routine since he’d been turned into the military’s guinea pig.

Things took a turn when they tried to draw blood.

The white-coated male with the syringe should have paid more attention in class because he had no clue how to poke a person with a needle without causing pain.

Idris sucked in a breath and closed his eyes, only to quickly open them as General Davidson broke off his conversation with Dr. Levy to exclaim, “I’ll be damned! ”

Both the general and Dr. Levy stared in astonishment at Idris, and Idris wondered why.

It took a few seconds for Idris to realize his hands had turned into massive paws tipped in claws.

A glance at the rest of his body showed it covered in fur, head to toe.

Real fur, not his usual thick body hair.

He tried to say, “What the fuck,” only the sound emerged as a snarl.

His confusion deepened as Dr. Levy gleefully announced, “We have our first bear.”

A bear? Where? Idris spun his head left and right, only to realize he was the bear.

His mind whirled, trying to understand—and failing. This wasn’t possible. I’m a man, which might have been more believable if not for the paws.

His paws. He lifted the left one, waved it, controlled it like a hand.

What had they done to him? A thought quickly followed by the realization he’d snapped free of the restraints holding him prone and currently sat on the floor.

I’m free!

In the time it took that thought to filter, everyone, including Dr. Levy and the general, had fled the room to avoid the gas that filled it, a sleeping agent strong enough to knock out… a bear.

The next time Idris woke, he found himself still in the lab, this time wearing chains. Not golden-linked ornate ones like the local Ginos used to wear to impress the girls. Nope. His were solid steel and restricted his wrists and ankles. They even went across his wide chest and his neck.

General Davidson, along with Dr. Levy—the prick who’d apparently done more than make Idris puke with his daily rounds of toxic serum—paced around Idris, studying his new shape, not bothering to hide their glee.

Idris’ transition into a bear must be the reason behind the injections he’d been subjected to since the beginning of his incarceration.

“I am somewhat surprised a simple needle prick caused him to change,” the general stated. “Usually, it requires more drastic measures.”

Dr. Levy frowned. “That was unexpected.”

“We’d better not have another defective therianthrope on our hands,” grumbled Davidson.

His tone irritated, especially since the man had yet to speak to Idris directly.

Then again, no one did. The most conversation he’d gotten since his capture involved “Run faster,” “Piss in this cup,” or “Have you always been this hairy?” To the latter, he replied yes.

Some men had to deal with five o’clock shadows.

Idris usually managed an hour or two before the stubble began.

He used to get in trouble for it during basic training because the military liked their soldiers clean-shaven.

As for when he took off his shirt… Only one idiot had ever mocked him with Chewbacca noises.

Harry had drunk through a straw for months as his jaw healed.

“It could be the transition happened so easily because the subject is more in tune with his animal side and his body was finally ready,” the doctor surmised.

“If that’s the case, then he should be able to shift on demand.” Davidson finally fixed Idris directly with a hard glare. “Change back into a man.”

“Hunh?” A query that emerged as a grunt.

“Change now and you’ll get a cookie as a treat,” the doctor offered.

Snort. While Idris would love a cookie—because the gruel they kept feeding him sucked balls—he didn’t have the slightest clue how to go from a bear back into a man.

“If a needle prick was enough to swap him, let’s see what a little tap does,” Davidson stated, leaving Idris puzzled.

What did he mean by little—

Ow.

The fist smacked Idris square in the snout, and the sharp pain of it made him blink. To his surprise, the throb in his nose went instantly away.

In even better news, Idris was no longer a bear and his restraints loosened as he resumed his normal—human—size. Apparently, the change was bad, since Davidson went on a rant.

“I can’t believe we’ve got another useless fucking failure.” Because a bear who turned into a man at even the slightest discomfort didn’t make a good therianthrope soldier.

In the days following Idris’ first transformation, he spent a lot of time in the labs.

Could he handle a punch if it didn’t hurt?

Yes, thank his hard noggin for that. Stinging paper cut?

Nope. What about stomach cramps? Also nope, and he didn’t appreciate the fact that the laxative they gave had him shitting through the eye of a needle for hours while flipping back and forth from man to beast. A beast without cushiony soft toilet paper.

As time went on, and it became obvious Idris wasn’t what Davidson and Levy had hoped for, he spent more and more time in his cell. Doing pushups. Wondering what would happen to him. Death, most likely, since he couldn’t see Davison agreeing to his release.

When Captain Barrett Wilson came to the rescue—almost earning himself a kiss of gratitude—Idris was more than happy to escape, even as he realized he’d never be truly free.

Unlike his friends who’d undergone the same protocol, Idris had to be much more careful, lest people notice his difference.

It proved almost impossible. He couldn’t prevent accidents like when he stubbed his toe in the grocery store.

He instantly shredded his clothes and, to the screams of those shopping, ran out the door.

Thankfully, no one caught his shift on video.

Still, the incident led to him relocating from Thunder Bay to Toronto, where he managed to live for a while until an altercation on the subway—that he didn’t start!

—had him bear-ing it all. Once more, he got lucky, with the only eyewitness being the drunk who’d accosted him.

Still, it led Idris to the realization that he couldn’t live his life like this.

Surely there was a way to control or cure his condition. Google didn’t offer much help, and no matter what terms he used, his searches only provided links to legends featuring ursine shifters. Was there truth in those old fables? He decided to find out.

After acquiring a fake passport, Idris flew to Sweden to see if he could find out the truth behind the most promising lead, the mannbj?rn, AKA the man-bear.

Sweden, while pretty, turned out to be a bust. As were the surrounding European countries.

During his search for others like him, Idris sought to achieve a measure of control by repeatedly injuring himself in the hopes he’d stop reacting to even the slightest pain.

It worked and didn’t. While he no longer shifted when he smacked his funny bone, it still didn’t take much.

Just look at what happened to him in Norway. Twisted his ankle on an uneven piece of sidewalk and bam: instant bear—who unfortunately got caught on camera.

Seeing himself go viral on social media—thankfully with his face not fully visible—made Idris realize he needed to live somewhere a bear wouldn’t seem out of place. Where he could become a recluse and not draw attention. A country that seemingly loved bears.

Now if only he spoke Russian.