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But now, we don’t have the benefit of that voice or that protection. The land somehow never makes it to the Sierra Club, and though Mitchell’s grandson has no way of knowing the harm his actions will cause, the fact remains that without their protection, we will lose our land and our way of life.
See, I can stop this development but in stopping it, I will end up drawing attention that will mean we’ll need to leave anyway. For all of my scolding of the other bears for acting in a way that draws negative attention to us, there’s no real way for me to prevent this from happening that doesn’t lead to the same result.
Humans are, if nothing else, persistent. When they want something, they take it. This isn’t a new development in their evolution. From the earliest days of humanity, humans have always been determined when it comes to gaining the things they want.
See, bears—black bears, at least—evolve in a world of plenty. The forest provides more than enough for all bears. Black bears have never been endangered and natural black bears have suffered far less from human encroachment than their larger cousins. They’ve adapted so well to the existence of humans that many natural black bears even take advantage of human closeness. One need only google black bear videos to find them digging through human garbage for food or even sneaking into backyards to steal fruit. Humans themselves rarely fear black bears, knowing that the shy animals will simply retreat if confronted unless the humans happen to stumble across cubs, and then, cubs are rarely brought near human settlements.
The point is that black bears don’t evolve to suffer the same hardships that many animals face, so they don’t have the same drive to take what doesn’t already belong to them or expand their wealth beyond that the forest provides. Bear shifters have inherited the same mindset. That’s a large part of the reason why there doesn’t need to be a bear shifter ruler the way there are human rulers. The idea of needing to protect one’s territory from other bears is foreign. Why would we want someone else’s property when we have our own and what we have is more than enough?
Humans, in contrast, evolved from apes who lived in the ancient African wilderness. Those apes evolved in a place that was hostile and bleak. There wasn’t enough to go around, and what little did exist was fought over by multiple species of animals.
Humans weren’t apex predators either, not at first. They were preyed upon by large cats who roamed the wilderness and actively hunted the medium-sized apes for food.
So humans had to contend with danger and famine from all sides, and they evolved to do so in a fashion that other animals might consider brutal while others would relate perfectly well.
Humans weren’t large enough to be strength-dominant predators. Nor did enough plenty exist for them to be ambush predators. Humans who waited for food died waiting.
Humans evolved with a drive to hunt and to take, to constantly look for more. They needed to. The land they evolved in didn’t have enough for them.
So, they became pursuit predators, following herds for thousands of miles, never tiring, waiting for their prey to literally collapse of exhaustion or for stragglers to fall behind so they could swarm and kill in hunting packs. They are very much like wolves in this way, and it’s truly no surprise that wolves were domesticated. Both species achieve great advantages from working together.
The quest for territory is a relatively new human development but the vicious way in which humans take and keep territory can be tied directly to their evolution. Humans are thousands of years removed from the time when their choices were to take or die, but deep within the human brain is the instinct to take. Whether humans realize it or not, the greed that they themselves abhor was once the only way they could guarantee that their offspring lived on.
This tendency lingers, and the only way to stop humans from taking what they want is to take away what they want or take the humans away.
The second option obviously isn’t an option. We can’t go around killing humans. That’s a very quick way to attract the attention we don’t want and can’t afford. Not to mention that while humans might seem brutal to other humans, to bear shifters, they are only acting on their instincts. It would be no more moral to kill them than to kill a spider for hunting an insect. Or rather, it would be perfectly moral to kill them as prey is perfectly justified in defending itself from a predator, but unlike other predators who will flee prey that can kill them, humans will just call other humans and remove the threats.
The other option is to take away the thing they want. That’s just not achievable. Even if I could make the land somehow unable to be developed, the process would also render it unsuitable for bears.
I just don’t know what to do. I hate that.
A part of me wishes that bears didn’t shut ourselves off from the human world the way we do. If we had more understanding of the world, more resources that we could use to protect ourselves from encroachment, we could avoid situations like this. Wolves live in similar environments as bears, but they have representation in the human world that allows them to protect themselves.
“What should we do, Alpha?” Jacob asks.
I take a deep breath and let it out slowly. “I need to think over our options,” I say. “Come back this time tomorrow, and I will have an answer for you.”
There’s not even a hint of doubt in their expressions as they nod and strip out of their clothes so they can shift and leave. Their alpha has promised them an answer, and he will have one.
Except I have no idea how on Earth I can provide them an answer that I don’t have myself.
I leave to find Melody, and when I find her, she looks at me and smiles weakly. “I’m sorry that humans are making things so difficult for all of you.”
I shake my head. “It’s not your fault. It’s not the human’s fault either, really. It’s just the way life is.”
“Will you be okay?” she asks.
I speak with a certainty I do not possess. “We will,” I promise.
Chapter Eight
Melody
I whisper in his ear, "Tell me everything will be okay, Russel." I feel like it's a pretty silly thing given I'm underneath him and his cock is moving inside of me. I mean, it just seems, I don't know, really childish or something.
He pulls his head back and stares at me with those perfect, piercing eyes of his. "Everything will be okay, Melody," he says. He's believable, and I nod, but as believable as his tone of voice and the power of his gaze makes things, how can it be okay?
I don't know how it is that I accept this whole thing so easily, but other people won't. If civilization encroaches on this forest, Russel and all of his people will be at risk.
