BEARing The Frozen Night (Ice Bear Shifters Book 1) (5 page)

Kenzie sat warily at the kitchen table, watching through the window as Ryker paced back and forth with the phone in his hand. She couldn’t make out his words, but she could tell from his expression and hand gestures that the conversation he was having was an intense one.

Kenzie rubbed her forehead and frowned. She was still having a hard time believing that this wasn’t all some weird dream. She pinched herself, and felt the sharp stab of pain from the pinch, just like she had the dozen other times she had pinched herself in the last ten minutes. She was really here, sitting in the cabin of a man who could change from human to bear and back at will. This was really happening.

Kenzie stood up and walked to the coffeepot, deciding to take advantage of the fact that Ryker had made a full pot. She needed to clear her head, but she wasn’t quite sure how to do that. She had a feeling her head wasn’t going to feel completely clear again for quite some time. She poured herself a mug of coffee and then went to stand at the cabin window, holding the steaming beverage between her hands. She watched Ryker pacing, his expression looking pained. But even tired and worried, he looked like the most beautiful creature she had ever seen. She felt drawn to his body. Even now, when she knew that he had some deep secrets, she felt drawn to him. They had a connection. She had heard people talk about this kind of thing before, where you saw someone and your body instantly responded to the sight. She had always thought that was just something that happened in fairy tales, but, here she was, her body growing hot and filling with desire at the sight of him.

Kenzie turned abruptly away from the window and sat down at the table again. This was crazy. She was crazy. She barely knew him, but she was in love with Ryker. She was in love with a bear.

Kenzie jumped as the front door opened suddenly and Ryker reentered the cabin.

“Bacon and eggs okay?” he asked. She nodded, and he set to work making a huge batch of both. He started a fresh pot of coffee, too. He worked in silence, and Kenzie did not interrupt him. She had so many questions, but she didn’t know where to even start. And Ryker didn’t look like he was exactly in the mood to talk, at the moment.

After about fifteen minutes, he piled a generous portion of food onto a plate and set it in front of her.

“You okay on coffee?” he asked, and she waved him off. She had plenty, still. She ate silently for a few minutes, and then looked up as she heard the sound of approaching snowmobiles.

“My friends,” he said. “They’re going to help me explain everything.”

Kenzie set down her fork and looked out the front window. Four men, all just as large and muscular as Ryker, were dismounting from their snowmobiles and walking toward the cabin. Kenzie recognized one of the men, Neal, as the owner of a tattoo shop in town. She had thought about getting a tattoo when she first moved to Alaska, as some sort of commemoration of her grand new adventure. But she had backed off from the idea, mostly because she couldn’t think of anything that she felt passionate enough about to put on her body permanently. The other three men Kenzie didn’t remember seeing before.

As the four men entered the cabin somberly without bothering to knock, Ryker started piling bacon and eggs onto plates for them. There were only two chairs at the table, and Kenzie was occupying one of them. Neal sat across from her, and the other men leaned against the counter, holding their plates up with one hand and shoving forkfuls of food into their mouth with the other. Neal took a long sip of coffee and then broke the silence. He seemed to be the one in charge of this gang.

“Kenzie, first of all, Ryker told me about how you saved his life last night. We owe you a huge debt of gratitude for your courage and help. Thank you, from the bottoms of our hearts. I know you probably have a lot of questions, and we’re going to do our best to answer them for you.”

Neal paused, but Kenzie said nothing, so he continued. “My name is Neal Ray. I think we may have met before at the tattoo shop I own?”

Kenzie nodded. Neal’s eyes were the same shade of violet as Ryker’s. In fact, all of the men had deep violet eyes.

“Over there is Eric Caldwell, he’s an ice fisherman. Next to him is Tyler Cox, a personal trainer. And then Alan Jensen, a writer. He likes to call himself a jack of all trades, which really just means he does a whole lot of nothing.” All of the men except Alan laughed, which mercifully broke up the tension in the room a bit.

“Of course,” Neal continued, “You already know Ryker. Together, the five of us make up the remaining members of the Northern Lights Ice Bears Clan. Are you familiar with shifters, Kenzie?”

“Well, I mean, I’ve heard stories about them before. But I always thought they were just stories, until last night.”

Neal nodded. “Most people don’t think shifters exist, even here in Alaska where folks tend to be a little more believing of myths than most people. But we do exist, as you now know.”

“So, what are you, actually? Bear? Human? I don’t understand.”

“We aren’t fully bear, but we’re not fully human, either. We’re caught in a world between. We tend to spend most of our time in human form, but sometimes our inner bear demands to be let out. And we hunt in bear form, as well. The Arctic used to be full of polar bear shifters, better known amongst ourselves as ice bear shifters. But many humans have tried to kill us off, thinking we’re dangerous and evil. Which isn’t true at all. We try to keep to ourselves as much as possible. Rivalry between the ice bear clans has done quite a bit of damage to the ice bear population as well. Most clans, like the Northern Lights bears, have been reduced to less than ten members. The only clan left with a large number of bears is the Blizzards. The Blizzards are weaker bears, physically, but they’re smart. They have a knack for sneak attacks, and they’ve been able to kill off quite a few clans that way. They almost completely eradicated the Northern Lights Clan through poisoning. But the five of us managed to survive. Now, they’re trying to finish us off completely. We had laid low and evaded them for a while, but it looks like they found us.”

Understanding dawned on Kenzie. “So those dead bears last night—those were all Blizzards?”

“Exactly,” Neal said. “Luckily, they weren’t able to take down Ryker. But we’ll have to be more careful. They’ll likely be back.”

“So, all of you here can change into bears?”

“Yes.”

“How… how does it work? And is it contagious?”

Neal laughed. “It’s not contagious. It’s not a disease. And it’s not as magical as some people make it out to be. It’s a genetic mutation. Millions of years ago, whenever humanity was first evolving from animals, some animals didn’t completely lose their animal DNA. Their cells evolved in such a way that they were able to switch back and forth between human and animal form at will. It’s actually a dominant gene, so the offspring of a shifter and a human will have shifter capabilities. But the shifters are dying off because we tend not to mate with humans that often. Full humans tend not to like us, if they know who we are. Like I said, they’re afraid of us and try to kill us off. So we stay away.”

Kenzie sat back in her chair and tried to process everything Neal was telling her. “But, you guys must be pretty hard to kill. I mean, Ryker fought off five or six bears on his own. And he was so badly wounded last night that I thought he wasn’t going to make it. But, today, all he has to show for it is a nasty scar on his chest.”

“Yes, bear shifters are difficult to kill. The Northern Lights bears, especially. Our clan had an additional genetic mutation that allows for lightning-fast healing during sleep. But we do have some weaknesses, including a vulnerability to silver and silver weapons. That’s how the Blizzards killed most of our clan. Silver poisoning.”

Kenzie stared down at her plate for several moments. She felt overwhelmed, and she had no idea what she was supposed to do with all of this information. Neal seemed to sense her confusion.

“Look, Kenzie, the reason we’re explaining all of this to you is that, since you obviously saw Ryker shift, you knew something strange was going on. And we didn’t want you to go back into town blabbing to everyone about how there are man-bears running around. That’s how these bear hunts get started, that force us to run off and find a new town. We don’t want to hurt anyone. We just want to live our lives peacefully, and stay out of everyone’s way as much as possible. We’re asking you, for our sakes, to please,
please
just keep what you’ve seen to yourself.”

Kenzie looked up at Neal. He looked back at her with pleading eyes, waiting for her response. She looked over at Ryker, but he was staring at the floor. He had seemed pretty uncomfortable since his friends walked through the door. Kenzie briefly wondered whether this meant that she and Ryker could never be together. She sighed, and put her head in her hands. Of course, things would turn out this way. She finally thought she had found a man in Alaska who was sexy, and interested in her. And he turns out to be half bear. She looked back up at Neal.

“Don’t worry. I won’t tell anyone. I have no interest in causing trouble for any of you.”

Neal’s face visibly relaxed, and Ryker finally looked up at Kenzie. Kenzie held Ryker’s gaze for a few moments, then stood up.

“If you’ll all excuse me,” she said, “I need to head back into town. I have a lot of work to get done, and I think I’ve done everything I can to help here.”

Ryker started to move toward her, but he stopped in his tracks at a warning look from Neal. Kenzie wasn’t sure what the look meant, but she didn’t want to stick around and discuss things anymore. Right now, she just needed some time and space away to process everything she had experienced in the last twelve hours.

Life in Glacier Point was turning out to be an even bigger adventure than she thought it would be.

Ryker let out a low whine as he watched Kenzie speeding away on her snowmobile. His inner bear was furiously trying to claw its way out. He wanted her. She was his. Even though nothing had physically happened between them, he felt bonded to her. But he would not challenge his alpha on the human mate issue again. If Neal wanted them to remain alone, the Northern Lights bears would remain alone. Loyalty to the alpha was the most important thing.

The men in the room all stood silent, waiting for Neal to speak. The Blizzard attack, while not wholly unexpected, was not a welcome development. Neal rubbed his forehead, then stood and paced the room. The men waited patiently for several more minutes, as Neal paced and pondered the situation. Finally, he looked up and addressed his bears.

“I think it goes without saying that I want you all to be on highest alert. We are stronger than the Blizzards, but they outnumber us. Be careful when you’re by yourself, especially when you’re on the outskirts of town. The Blizzards are more likely to attack if they aren’t worried about humans being nearby.”

The men all nodded. These instructions were expected. There wasn’t much they could do to prepare for a Blizzard attack, other than be as alert and aware as possible.

“Also,” Neal said, “If you are attacked, the first person you try to call is me. Then the other bears if you can’t get a hold of me. We’ll get the doctor or whatever help is needed. But I don’t like how I didn’t even know about this attack until several hours after it happened. I’m not angry with you, Ryker. I know you weren’t thinking very clearly. But that’s why I want to drill into all of you now, while you’re alert and aware—call your clan first.”

Again, the men all nodded. Then Neal let out a deep sigh, and said something none of them had ever expected to hear from him.

“Finally, I’ve decided to change my stance on taking human mates.”

Ryker’s eyes widened as his gaze shot up from the floor to his alpha’s face. Had he really heard Neal correctly?

Neal sighed again, and looked meaningfully around at his bears. “We almost lost Ryker last night. Then what? We would have been down to four bears. And we would have been even weaker as a clan than we already are. And, seeing the way Kenzie reacted to discovering that Ryker was a bear has reminded me that not all humans automatically hate us. So I’m giving you all the go ahead to find a human mate, if that’s what you want. Hopefully, we can rebuild our numbers slowly through some new cubs. Just make sure you run your potential mate by me first, so we can be sure she’s someone who will not expose our clan’s secrets to the town.”

Ryker’s face was not the only one registering happiness at Neal’s announcement. All of the bears had been struggling with loneliness. Bears weren’t meant to live alone, with no mate and no cubs to love. The relieved expressions of his bears weren’t lost on Neal.

“I’m sorry that I took such a hard stance before. I realize now that this was the wrong approach. Just know that I did it for our clan’s safety. I have always only had your best interests in mind. And, Ryker, because I already know you’re going to ask, Kenzie is an acceptable mate. Just take it easy on her. She’s been through quite a bit in the last day.”

Ryker nodded, but he was already halfway across town in his mind, planning how to convince Kenzie to be with him. He knew if he could just persuade her to give him a chance, they could be so happy together. For the first time since the poisoning tragedy had struck his clan, Ryker felt a tiny glimmer of hope stirring within him. If he could make Kenzie his mate, then life might actually feel worth the living again. He would go to her tonight. He wasn’t going to waste any more time away from her.

* * *

Kenzie wrapped up her work for the day and closed down the small clinic. She should have been exhausted, given everything she had experienced in the span of the last day, but she felt strangely energized. Maybe her emotions were still riding high from the thrill of saving Ryker. Or, maybe, she was actually a little bit thrilled to realize that shifters existed beyond the pages of storybooks. Whatever the reason, Kenzie was feeling too pumped to just go home and reheat leftovers for dinner. She decided to go to Northwinds Pub and have a few beers. She at least deserved a couple drinks. She slid into her usual barstool and nodded her head when the bartender asked if she wanted the usual. She should really branch out and try one of the other three beers this place had on tap, but the White Moose Ale was so good. Besides, she’d had enough interesting experiences for the time being. Better to stick with her tried and true favorite.

When the bartender slid her drink across to her, Kenzie asked him if she could also have a burger and fries. He nodded, and ten minutes later Kenzie was indulging in some good old fashioned comfort food. Halfway through her meal, the bell over the door jingled as Ryker walked in. Kenzie didn’t react as he walked over and took the barstool next to her, then ordered a White Moose Ale. She stuck another fry in her mouth and chewed slowly, waiting for him to say something.

“How are you?” he asked. Kenzie knew the question was meant as more than just a social nicety. Ryker really did want to know how she was. He wanted to know how she was dealing with the fact that she had just discovered that humans who turned into bears actually did exist.

“Fine,” Kenzie said. She couldn’t really muster up a better explanation than that. She was doing okay, considering. And, after the initial shock of seeing a human transform into a bear right in front of her, she was actually pretty alright with the idea of it. What she wasn’t alright with was the way her heart started beating faster every time Ryker came near her. His muscular figure was sending her into an emotional tailspin even as they spoke. She knew she should ask him how he was doing, too. But all she could focus on at the moment was the pounding of her heart against her ribcage, and the heat spreading through her body as every fiber of her being responded to the sound of her voice. Kenzie forced herself to look away from Ryker and take another bite of her burger.

Ryker sighed. “I’m really sorry about everything. I know that must have all been a pretty big shock to your system. Did Neal’s explanation answer all of your questions?”

“Pretty much, yeah,” Kenzie said. “And don’t be sorry. You can’t help being who you are.”

Ryker looked down at his hands and smiled. “I guess you’re right. But in an ideal world I would have had the chance to get to know you a little better before springing the whole ‘Oh, hey, I’m a bear’ thing on you.”

“Yeah, well. Life’s rarely ideal.”

“I guess not,” Ryker said, then pointed at Kenzie’s drink when the bartender asked him what he wanted, indicating he’d have the same thing as her.

“So, how are you feeling?” Kenzie asked. Ryker shrugged.

“Pretty much as good as new. Other than a huge new scar across my chest, you’d never know that last night happened.”

Kenzie shivered. “I have to say that seeing six bear carcasses and a trail of blood leading up to your cabin was pretty terrifying. I wasn’t quite sure what I was going to find when I opened that door.”

Ryker looked contrite. “I’m so sorry. That must have been a very scary moment, and you didn’t even flinch. You might be the bravest woman I’ve ever met.”

Kenzie threw back her head and laughed. “Oh, trust me, I flinched. I’m not sure brave is the right word to describe the way I acted last night. It was more just instinct taking over. Sometimes in life situations present themselves, and you don’t know how you even do it, but you somehow find it in yourself to just do what needs to be done. Last night was one of those times.”

“But not everyone has the strength to do what needs to be done in a tough situation, and you did. That’s bravery.”

Kenzie looked down at her hands and blushed. Ryker’s praise was making the warm feeling that was spreading through her body burn even hotter. Finally, she raised her eyes and looked into Ryker’s violet eyes. “You know what, damn it,” she said. “You’re right. I am brave. And I’m pretty damn proud of myself for not just running off screaming into the night last night and leaving you to die. I stayed, and I saved your life. That was pretty brave.”

Ryker grinned. “That’s the spirit,” he said, reaching over to put his hand on Kenzie’s knee. Kenzie felt like a jolt of electricity hit her where his hand made contact with her body. She held Ryker’s gaze, and his eyes turned a deeper, darker purple. Then they started glowing yellow around the edges again.

“Why do your eyes do that?” she asked, her voice low and full of desire. The more she was around him, the more she realized that the fact that he was half bear just made him even more mysterious and attractive.

“It’s another genetic mutation, unique to the Northern Lights bears,” Ryker said, never breaking eye contact with her. “When a male Northern Lights bear sees a woman he wants to mate with, his eyes start to glow yellow. It’s actually why our clan was named ‘Northern Lights,’ because the glowing yellow against the dark violet is reminiscent of the real Northern lights glowing in a dark sky.”

Kenzie giggled nervously. “Kind of like an erection of the eyes,” she said.

“Yes,” he answered, but he didn’t laugh. “Like an erection of the eyes. Although, I can tell you that my eyes aren’t the only place I get an erection when I see you.”

Kenzie stopped laughing, and slowly let her hand creep over to Ryker’s knee. Then she moved her hand up his thigh until it reached the point where his leg connected to the rest of his body. She glanced around. The pub was deserted, and her hand was well hidden by the roomy bar top. Before she could convince herself to stop, she let her hand slide over between his legs. She gasped at what she felt there. His erection was rock hard, and, from the feel of it, his dick was larger than anything she had ever experienced. Ryker let her feel, never breaking her gaze. The yellow in his eyes burned brighter and he licked his lips as she slowly traced the outline of his shaft that was pressing against his jeans.

“My place is just a short walk from here,” Kenzie said, her voice barely above a whisper. “Would you like to see it?”

Without a word, Ryker pulled some cash out of his pocket and threw it down on the counter.

“Let’s go,” he said, grabbing Kenzie’s hand and pulling her down off the barstool. She followed him out of the bar and then led him and his glowing eyes through the dark night toward her apartment.