Melted By The Bear: A Paranormal Shifter Romance (3 page)

But now, speed-walking my way over fallen branches and rocks, and through occasional patches of tall grass, I wondered if I really
had
been spared “post-thaw panic.” After all,
fleeing
was exactly what I was doing.

I slowed my steps with my stomach churning a bit, though not with hunger. My massive breakfast had ensured that I probably wouldn’t be hungry again for another day.

After walking a bit further, thinking, I accelerated my pace, stomach now fine. I knew I’d heard what I’d heard when Alice and Jane had been talking out in the hallway, and I knew I hadn’t imagined their behavior earlier that day. I also hadn’t imagined Jane becoming flustered when I’d asked about Commander Blackthorn. It was clear that he was some kind of a man that was undesirable to be with, to the point of a nurse referring to the young woman that had been frozen for that purpose a “poor girl.” For all I knew, Commander Blackthorn could have been a violent woman-abusing psychopath.

Maybe Jane had just been displaying loyalty to her nation’s leader when she’d said he wasn’t cruel. Or maybe her definition of cruel was different than mine; maybe she had a higher bar to consider someone cruel than I did.

At any rate, I felt like any wise young woman would be doing what I was doing. Any wise young woman would flee. If I waited around to gather more information about Commander Blackthorn, or even meet him, it might be too late, and I might be trapped in a very bad situation. I was convinced I was doing the right thing.

I really wasn’t sure what I’d been thinking when I’d volunteered to be frozen anyway. I remembered feeling somewhat like I had nothing left to lose, because my mom and little sister had died in a car accident when I’d been about twenty, six years before the nuclear blast; and then most of my other family members and friends had died when the blast had occurred, or shortly after. During the following months, with the world in absolute chaos, or what was left of the world anyway, I’d fallen into a deep depression for the second time in my life. Once I’d been declared fertile, I’d had the option of remaining with the “survivors” and helping to repopulate the world right then, but volunteering to be frozen to help humanity at a later date had seemed preferable. A nice long “sleep” and an end to the pain without actually having to die had seemed preferable.

But now my decision to volunteer didn’t strike me as the very best of choices. I hadn’t fully thought through the fact that I’d likely be “assigned” a complete stranger to sleep with in hopes of producing a child, and I also hadn’t fully thought through the fact that that complete stranger might be someone I’d
never
want to sleep with, for any reason, like it seemed Commander Blackthorn likely was.

There was no path at all heading north, so I trotted through the forest as quickly as I could while stepping over debris on the ground and occasionally having to stomp down thickets before going through them. Despite the fact that the day wasn’t exceptionally warm, mid-sixties, if that, I was soon perspiring a bit. I didn’t slow, though, just kept heading straight north, even beginning to relax and enjoy the peaceful quiet of the forest, quiet occasionally broken by the beautiful sound of birdsong, as I continued forward.

I’d hiked a mile or so, perhaps more like a mile-and-a-half, before three things hit me nearly at once, in the span of just a few seconds, as if some hidden file containing important information had suddenly finished downloading in my brain. The first thing that had hit me was the realization that I didn’t know when Commander Blackthorn would be returning from his surveillance mission, or from which direction. I hoped he wouldn’t be returning to the village from the north, and soon. The second thing that had hit me was the realization that it was possible that Jane, and perhaps even Alice, would be blamed for not preventing my escape from the hospital. This realization made me stop dead in my tracks, just in time for realization number three.

This
was when I realized that some hazy, coal-gray shape a good distance ahead of me in the forest wasn’t just a shadow. It was a shadow
bear
.

CHAPTER TWO

Of all the different things I’d contemplated on my hike through the woods, the possibility of encountering a shadow bear during my journey to New Sunnyvale hadn’t been one of them.

As I stood stock-still in the woods, my voice came out in a faint whisper, seemingly of its own accord.

“Idiot.”

He’d already seen me, probably had a minute or so earlier, when I’d spotted the hazy, dark gray area a fair distance ahead of me, the area I’d thought was just a large shadow created by a treetop. With it being a sunny day, and with the trees being so densely packed, shadows dotted the forest floor everywhere. None of
those
shadows had eyes, though, eyes that were clearly focused on me. Even from a distance of thirty or forty feet, it had been the glint of those eyes that had first caught my attention. Then, I’d seen that the shadow was in the shape of a bear.

Against a backdrop of trees beginning to turn the light golds and faint oranges of early fall, he was now lumbering toward me, snarling. Now I was going to die, I was sure, and on the very same day I’d been thawed. Jane had said that shadow bears killed just for fun.

Any small shred of hope I had that maybe
this
shadow bear was too shadowy to really get a hold of me and hurt me was dashed when I saw and heard fallen branches being cracked beneath his paws. For a creature that seemed to be made of dark mist, it was clear that, somehow, his form still held weight and heft, just like any regular bear. So, it just stood to reason that his teeth and claws would be just as sharp. Very, very unfortunately for me.

He was advancing slowly, gaze locked on me, as if relishing my reaction to his approach. I wasn’t sure how good a shadow bear’s eyesight was at a distance, but if they had sharper-than-usual sight, like I’d heard many shifters did, this particular shifter was likely enjoying the sight of my pulse pounding in my throat. I was sure it was visible. With my heart beating like a drum, I could feel my pulse like a butterfly wing fluttering against my skin from the inside out.

At least ten long seconds had ticked by since I’d first realized what the shadow bear was, and during that time, I hadn’t been able to move a muscle for some reason. The bear, however, had covered at least ten or fifteen feet, lumbering along as if he had all the time in the world to do whatever he wanted to do to me, which really, he did. There wasn’t a soul around to save me, I had to save myself, I realized. Not like I had any clue how I might attempt to do
that
, though. Since I knew that even regular bears could easily outrun humans, I had no doubt that any kind of shifter bear would have no problem at all. Even at a hard sprint, I probably wouldn’t make it three feet, let alone all the way back to the hospital, a mile and a half or so away.

However, adrenaline surging through my veins was now urging my muscles to move, to do
something
. If I was going to die, I didn’t want to go out without a fight. Being frozen for hundreds of years only to
allow
myself to be killed would seem like some sort of insult to the universe.

Suddenly, as if I’d been animated by some force outside myself, I was moving. Without taking my gaze from the snarling, shadowy form approaching, I was stooping low to pick up a good-sized rock from the stony ground at my feet. I hadn’t even been aware of making a plan or initiating the movement of my body, but it was now happening. I was going to try to defend myself as best I could, for as long as I could.

After standing and pulling back my arm, I hurled the rock at the bear. “Get back!”

I missed. And not only did the bear not get back, he didn’t even pause in his slow, lumbering approach.

I grabbed another baseball-sized rock and let it fly. “Stay away!”

Again, I missed. By several feet, actually.

“Don’t come any closer!”

The bear, only twenty feet away now, if that, made some sort of deep, throaty noise that sounded like a chuckle.

Not wanting to retreat and show weakness, I resisted shuffling backward, willing my feet to stay put. “I’m warning you!”

Another chuckle-like noise from the bear told me that he didn’t think much of my warning.

Sweating buckets and with my breathing fast and ragged, I grabbed another rock and launched it. And this time, it met its mark, hitting the bear right between his eyes with a thunk. Like I’d thought when I’d seen that he was snapping branches beneath his feet, it was clear that somehow shadow bears were physically solid, even though they appeared to be made of nothing but dark mist. Too bad for me.

Also too bad for me, being hit in the head with a good-sized rock hadn’t even seemed to phase the shadow bear. He’d barely even flinched and was still ambling toward me, less than fifteen feet away now.

Trembling, I took a lightning-fast look at the trees around me, seeing that none of them had any low branches, not a single one. And I knew I wasn’t athletic enough to shimmy my way up ten or fifteen feet of bare trunk. As it was, I was in some small clearing within the forest, and the nearest tree, though fairly close, was still a good enough distance away that I knew the shadow bear would likely have me within its jaws before I even reached the tree.

Determined not to meet my death running, screaming, or crying, even though panic had me within a hair of doing all three of those things, I picked up another rock to hurl it. If I could at least wound the bear on my way out, even slightly, that would be good enough for me.

But before I could let fly the grapefruit-sized stone in my hand, something curious happened. The shadow bear came to a sudden stop about ten feet from me, one paw frozen an inch or two above the ground. I
might
have thought that me preparing to hurl a larger-sized stone had given him pause in his approach, but he’d cocked his head to one side, as if listening to something, as if there was someone or some
thing
making noise in the forest that he could hear but I couldn’t. All I could hear was the sound of my heavy, rapid breathing. The birdsong that had filled the forest during most of my hike had gone silent just before I’d spotted the bear.

Taking advantage of his apparent distraction, I launched the large rock at him, and like my last one had, this rock met its target, knocking him right upside the head. Though instead of roaring in pain or falling to the ground as I’d hoped, he just gave his head a brief shake, as if only mildly annoyed. He didn’t even pull his gaze from a copse of trees at the edge of the little clearing.

I knew this might be my only chance to live. With the bear so distracted, maybe, just maybe, I could start running and get enough of a head start on him that he wouldn’t be able to catch up. I at least had to try.

Not wanting to waste a second, I whirled around, already lifting a foot to tear off at a sprint, but I didn’t quite make it to that action. There was movement in the shadowy spaces between the trees around the little clearing. Large black bears, many of them, were stepping out onto the sun-dappled grass, growling. These black bears were completely opaque, obviously not shadow bears, though I couldn’t tell if they were shifter bears or regular all-animal bears. Not that it even mattered. All that mattered was that they were blocking my escape.

I whipped back around in the direction of the shadow bear, thinking I could maybe zip around him and then run my way back to the hospital while the other bears were attacking him,
if
that was even what they were going to do. For all I knew, they were his friends and they were growling only at me.

I couldn’t zip around the shadow bear, though. Non-shadowy black bears were now coming out from the trees behind him and on either side of him, too. They had us in a ring. It didn’t seem like either of us were going to be able to escape now.

Death for young woman by way of being attacked by other bears while trying to ward off initial attacking shadow bear.
The thought would have struck me as funny had my situation not been so dire. In the span of a second or two, I’d gone from having a sliver of hope that maybe I’d live to see another day, to wondering just how badly being mauled would hurt.

A second or two ticked by, and since it was now obvious that the growling bears surrounding us were
not
friends of his, I would have thought that the shadow bear would be displaying signs of the same fear I was feeling. To my surprise, though, he was just surveying the other bears with seeming contempt, lip curled into an almost human-looking sneer. But then he turned that sneer to me. And suddenly began charging.

Though I didn’t want to die screaming, I couldn’t help it. Hands flying reflexively to cover my face, I screamed so loudly that my throat instantly hurt. I knew this pain was soon to get a lot worse, though, probably within an instant. An instant came and went, though, and I felt no further pain. My scream tapered off, and I heard the growling all around me suddenly turn to roaring, followed by the sound of a thud that I felt more than heard. A near-imperceptible quake had rippled through the ground beneath my feet. I could only assume that the shadow bear had been tackled, and I was next.

But another instant came and went, then another, and another. And although the volume of the roaring all around me had even increased, making me think all the bears were even closer to me now, I didn’t feel myself being knocked off my feet, or clawed, or bitten. After another few seconds, I dared to take in a lungful of air, realizing I’d stopped breathing. Another few seconds after that, I dared to open my eyes, praying that the sight I’d see wouldn’t be that of a bear charging me, jaws wide.

I
didn’t
see that. In fact, none of the bears were even immediately near me. Most were still in ring formation around the clearing; a few were just inside, and the shadow bear and a massive black bear were fighting on the ground, rolling and clawing at each other, about twenty feet ahead of me.

Wondering if an escape might still be possible, I glanced behind me but saw that bears still blocked the way. There was nothing for me to do but watch the two fighting bears, hoping that the others would continue to hold their positions and not attack me.

The fight moved the bears closer to where I stood, maybe just ten feet away from me, but it didn’t last long at all. With the non-shadow bear being much bigger, and surely stronger, than the shadow bear, he quickly gained the upper hand, slamming the shadow bear on his back and holding him there. The shadow bear struggled, growling, but the other bear kept him pinned. The shadow bear couldn’t even escape when the larger bear lifted one paw, looking as if he intended to slash the shadow bear’s face with his long claws, which glinted in the sun.

I thought I was about to watch the shadow bear get killed, though I couldn’t look away. Doing so would have forced me to look at the other bears still surrounding me in a ring around the clearing, and I was afraid the action might anger them. But soon, to my astonishment, the larger bear didn’t go about trying to injure or kill the shadow bear. Instead, after a long moment just hovering above the pinned shadow bear, paw held aloft, he lowered it and shoved himself off the shadow bear with a growl. And then, within a blink, he was standing. Not as a bear, though, not on hind legs, but as a human man. A tall, muscular, devastatingly attractive human man with dark, nearly black, hair, and eyes that even from eight or ten feet away, I could see were a deep, dark jewel green. I had an idea about who this man might be, and my heartbeat, which had slowed a degree or two, now accelerated, once again hammering in my ears.

*

Folding his arms across his broad chest, the green-eyed man fixed the shadow bear with a glare. “Had enough?”

The shadow bear, who was flipped on his back like a turtle, now shifted into a completely solid, non-shadowy man as well, rolled onto his feet, and then stood, massaging his neck. “I have to admit, big brother, being slammed on my back like that really hurt. Very uncalled-for of you. What would our dearly-departed parents think?”

With dark, blackish hair and a similar build and square jaw, this man looked a lot like the green-eyed man, though he wasn’t quite as tall, and his eyes appeared to be gray. Though he was undeniably handsome, he wasn’t nearly as handsome as the green-eyed man. Not even close.

In response to what the shorter man had said, the green-eyed man just glared even harder and spoke in a low voice full of menace. “This was the final time, and this will be your only warning. Brother of mine or not, if you come within five miles of Blackthorn City ever again, I will kill you.”

The shorter man frowned, shaking his head. “Mm...I’m not too sure that that’s the way things are going to play out. See, in all my taking little peeks around your village over the past several years, I’ve never seen the girl standing just a few feet from us. She’s brand-new, isn’t she? And from the way she was heading
away
from the village when I came upon her, I’d almost guess that she’s a frozen woman who awoke in a bit of a panic. I know many do. I also know from things I’ve heard here and there that as of very recently, you only had one frozen woman left... the very last one, who you were saving all for yourself, to thaw at just the right time, which you and I both know, is
not
right now. Not in this tenth year. Which makes me a bit surprised that you went ahead and began her thawing process anyway. Unless you
didn’t
. If I were a conspiracy theorist, I might think that some enemy was able to sneak past the guards at your cryo tank storage building one night, and damage this particular woman’s tank so that all the liquid nitrogen leaked out, causing her to begin thawing before you could catch it or reverse the process without killing her.”