Melted By The Bear: A Paranormal Shifter Romance

MELTED

BY THE BEAR  

A PARANORMAL SHIFTER ROMANCE

AMIRA RAIN

Copyright
©2015 by  Amira Rain

All rights reserved.

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About This Book

In a world where fertile women are now cryogenically frozen in order to help future civilizations reproduce, Aria English finds herself as the latest woman to be
MELTED
after thousands of years in the freezer and she is about to awake into a world that is vastly different from the one she left behind.

Especially since Aria finds that the man who melted her is not even human and is actually a WereBear Alpha named Cormack. He is strong, handsome and dreamy. The type of man that any woman would want to mate with.

However, it seems that Aria was actually melted earlier than planned. Now with no current need for her she might have to work hard to prevent being frozen once again and left for future generations. Especially, since being re-frozen is very dangerous.

Now with her very presence causing tensions amongst his tribe, Cormack has the difficult task of choosing between Aria's life or the life of his people and something has to give...

                                           
CHAPTER ONE

C
HAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER ONE

I’d only been thawed for a day, and now I was going to die.

And actually, it hadn’t even been a
full
day yet; I’d awoken, only slightly cold, shortly after dawn, and it was now only about four in the afternoon. I could hardly believe it, could hardly believe my bad luck. Thawed after being frozen for hundreds of years, just to meet my end before dinner.
Hello again, world. Goodbye.

It was my own fault. I shouldn’t have run.

Possibly because of some anti-anxiety medication I’d been receiving through an IV line, I’d honestly felt quite calm when I’d first opened my eyes. Serene, even. A doctor, a “thawing specialist” named Dr. Moore, who was from a place called DC, immediately asked me if I could recall my name, and I’d stunned her and two nurses by saying that not only did I remember my name, I remembered everything. I didn’t feel as if I’d forgotten a single thing, or had lost a single memory, from my early childhood right up to the time I’d been frozen. Really, I felt as if I’d just woken up from a regular hour or two long nap, with memories just as intact as they normally were after a nap.

After I’d given a very brief, minute-long recitation of my life story, Dr. Moore remarked that I was the first patient out of several hundred she’d thawed to wake up without even the slightest amnesia. One of the two nurses by my bedside said it was astonishing, and the other one concurred.

Dr. Moore said that I didn’t even have any hoarseness typically present in recently-thawed women. “It’s as if you really
did
only take a nap.”

Feeling lucky and kind of special, I couldn’t help but smile a little, though within a second, I was sure my smile had turned to a frown. I’d experienced a hunger pang so intense it had made me feel ill.

Clutching my stomach, I spoke in a voice that held just the hint of a tremor. “Oh. I may not have amnesia, but something just came over me to where I’m suddenly just starving. May I have something to eat, please?”

To my great relief, the two nurses, whose names were Alice and Jane, bustled out of the room to get me some breakfast.

Dr. Moore assured me that extreme hunger upon thawing was perfectly normal. “It’s expected, even. So, I suppose you’re like a typical frozen woman in at least one way.”

After giving me a brief physical exam and then declaring me perfectly healthy, Dr. Moore said she’d now be returning to her home in DC, though the nurses would take excellent care of me. Not seeming to be a woman for conversation, she then gave me a tiny polite smile, wished me luck, and then left the room, high heels clicking on the hard flooring.

Even though they’d been speedy, by the time Alice and Jane returned to the room, each bearing a monster-sized platter of breakfast, I was so hungry my hands were shaking. They left me alone to eat, and I was glad. I ate so quickly and greedily I would have been embarrassed to have anyone witness the scene.

Not long after I’d polished off a tower of strawberry-topped waffles, two ham-and-cheese omelets, a bowl of oatmeal with blueberries and walnuts, and no fewer than five pieces of buttered toast, two of which I’d stuffed with bacon to make a sandwich, Alice returned to the room, asking if I’d like anything else.

I set down a glass of orange juice I’d just drained, shaking my head. “No, thank you. I’m disgustingly full. I
would
maybe like a shower, though.”

Even though my stuffed stomach was making me feel like I wanted to stay in bed a while longer, maybe even take a nap, my long blonde hair was crying out for a thorough shampooing. I’d run a hand through it and had found it somewhat greasy and knotty, as if it had been a while since it had had any attention. Of course, it had actually been hundreds of years, not counting if one of the nurses had maybe sponge-cleaned it while I’d still been out.

Jane helped me out of bed and to the bathroom, saying that my muscles and joints might feel extremely stiff for a while, but they honestly didn’t, even a bit.

My shower was nothing short of blissful. During my exam, Dr. Moore had told me that the anti-anxiety medication I’d been given through my IV was fast-acting, something that worked as soon as it hit the bloodstream, and it tended to wear off not long after dosage had stopped; however, I didn’t think I’d hit that point just yet, because while I washed beneath the warm water, reveling in the feel of it and the fresh scent of a bar of hospital-issued soap, the sense of serenity I’d had earlier only increased. I washed my hair in a daze of relaxation, humming.

After my shower, I dressed in a pair of navy blue sweatpants, a gray t-shirt, and some standard-issue white underthings that Jane had given me while saying that I may as well dress in “going home clothes” instead of redressing in a hospital gown, since I’d likely be leaving the hospital after they kept me for just a few more hours of observation. I didn’t even know where the “home” was that I would be going to, but I was too tranquil to care about that just yet.

When I emerged from the bathroom, I found Alice and Jane standing in my room, looking as if they were having a serious discussion about something. Speaking in hushed tones, they were both knitting their brows, and both slightly frowning as well.

For a second, I wondered if it were possible that there was something wrong with me physically that they weren’t telling me, or if there
would
be something wrong with me, like maybe a frozen woman
not
having amnesia, joint creakiness, or hoarseness was an indicator of poor health, or some kind of a physical ailment yet to come. Though almost as soon as this thought crossed my mind, I dismissed it. Dr. Moore hadn’t seemed concerned about anything in the least; she’d given me a clean bill of health and she hadn’t struck me as the kind of doctor to hold anything back. So, that being the case, I really didn’t have a clue what Alice and Jane could be speaking so seriously about, not that it even mattered. I realized they could be talking about the condition of another patient, or something else completely none of my business.

Almost as soon as they saw me, they stopped speaking and gave me the smallest and weakest of polite smiles, which was the only kind of smiles they’d been giving me since I’d woken up. Smiling politely in return, I made my way to the bed and got in, a little self-consciously because it just seemed odd to climb into a bed in front of two near-strangers, and also because of the quiet of the room, with no TV on, and no one speaking, and Alice and Jane just kind of looking at me. But I didn’t know what else I should, or was supposed to, do. Besides, being as stuffed and relaxed as I was, I was starting to feel a little sleepy and the bed was calling my name.

Being that neither of my two nurses seemed especially friendly, I sort of hoped they’d just leave right away. I didn’t imagine conversation would come easily to the three of us, and I didn’t really feel like trying right then.

Maybe I’d thought I would receive a warmer welcome from the people in wherever it was that I was. After all, as a woman who’d been found fertile after the nuclear disaster and resulting fertility crisis, I’d agreed to be frozen for the good of humanity, and apparently, that
good
was now specifically for the
humanity
of whatever place I’d been thawed in. So, maybe I’d expected a genuine, full smile from someone, and a welcome to whatever city or town or other place we were in, or maybe a
we’re happy to see you
or a
we’re happy you survived your thawing
. I’d been told before being frozen that it was distinct possibility that not every woman
would
survive. Because of this, maybe I’d expected to be fussed over a bit.

Maybe I was just tired. It really wasn’t like me at all to actually
want
to be fussed over and fawned over in any way. In fact, in my “previous” life before the nuclear blast, I’d had enough of that to last me two lifetimes. Or ten. Having people treat me like some kind of a hero had eventually led me to crave solitude and anonymity and a life without fanfare.

After a few long, awkward moments of Alice and Jane glancing from me to each other, both of them frowning again, even
wincing
almost, as if they thought that one of them should maybe talk to me but neither of them particularly wanted to do it, I figured I’d put them out of their misery.

“Neither of you should feel like you have to talk with me or stay with me or anything. I’ll be perfectly fine on my own. I’m probably just going to take a nap.”

Alice, who appeared to be somewhere around forty, making her the younger of the two nurses by about thirty years, looked visibly relieved.

Jane, however, just frowned harder, little nuances in her expression somehow making me think she was struggling with a curious mix of shame and angst. “Oh, I’ll stay and talk with you. I want to.”

She actually looked like it was the very last thing she wanted to do. The welcome I was receiving, or
wasn’t
, rather, wasn’t just surprising me and maybe even wounding me just slightly, it was perplexing me. If I’d had any body odor or something upon being thawed, I was pretty sure I’d rinsed it all down the drain in the shower; so I couldn’t understand what could possibly be making Alice and Jane feel like talking to me would be such an unpleasant chore.

I studied Jane’s softly-lined face, trying to further decipher her expression. “I really think I
am
just going to take a nap. You really don’t
have
to stay and talk to me.”

Now her funny expression of seeming shame or embarrassment and angst turned to one of grandmotherly exasperation.

“Oh, don’t be ridiculous. Like I said, I
want
to stay and visit with you. Really, I do. We can just chat for a bit before your nap.”

Perplexing me even further, Alice gave Jane some sort of warning look that Jane just ignored, if she caught it at all.
I’d
definitely caught it; it had been a look that had clearly said, “Now, don’t you go doing....”
something
. Don’t you go doing
something
, Jane, but what that something was, I couldn’t imagine. It seemed like it almost had to be that I wasn’t to be visited with, which begged the question
why not
. I began to wonder if the people of whatever place I’d been thawed in were just unfriendly, inhospitable people, a troubling thought.

After her warning look had been ignored by Jane, Alice said she should be going, charts to file or something like that, and she breezed out of the room without so much as a
bye
in my direction, let alone a
have a nice nap
or something.

Jane pulled a folding chair over to my bedside, sat down, and then just fidgeted for a second or two, so I spoke first.

“Jane... can I ask you something?”

“Oh, sure. Sure.”

“Okay, well it’s this. Do I... have body odor or something?”

She laughed, actually laughed. Laughed with the edges of her pale blue eyes crinkling. It was the first expression of warmth I’d seen all morning. It so heartened me that I gave her a big grin in return before speaking again.

“You can answer me honestly. I promise I won’t take offense. Maybe a few hundred years in a cryogenic tank dulled my sense of smell, and I just can’t smell a really offensive odor on myself or something. And maybe I didn’t wash it all off in the shower.”

I thought it was at least a possibility.

Jane smiled, more warmth, though mixed with something like pity now. “You don’t have any kind of an offensive odor, and you didn’t even before your shower.”

I smiled, relieved, but at the same time further perplexed. “Well, good.”

We both fell silent briefly, and Jane’s expression turned to a serious frown before she spoke again.

“We’re not rude people, you know.”

I wasn’t quite sure what to say.

“Okay.”

Studying my face, she didn’t respond right away. “At least most of us here aren’t. You just happened to... well, catch us at a bad time, you could say.”

“What do you mean exactly? Because I kind of got this vibe from you and-”

“Would you like to know where you are?”

Now it was my turn to not answer right away. “Sure.”

“You’re in a place that, during your time, was the state of Michigan.”

My time
. It was so strange to hear, because
my time,
to me, at least
my time
post-nuclear disaster, felt as if it had only been a nap ago. I didn’t have a sense at all that
my time
had been hundreds of years earlier. That reality just hadn’t sunk in yet. I was going to have to get used to the fact that to the people of my new community, the nuclear disaster was ancient history, having been centuries and many generations earlier.

Crossing one thin leg over the other and leaning back in her chair, Jane continued. “After a few wars and other troubles, Michigan eventually became part of the United Free States, ruled by dragon shifters. But recently, the whole area, along with a sliver of Indiana, where you said earlier you’re from, was given to our leader, Commander Blackthorn, to establish a new nation he named Michiana. So, that’s where you are now... in southern Michiana. In the capitol of Blackthorn City, specifically.”