Melted By The Bear: A Paranormal Shifter Romance (4 page)

The green-eyed man’s complexion suddenly went from lightly tanned to virtually white, and he spoke through gritted teeth.

“I suspected it was you who-”

“Whoa. Whoa, brother. I didn’t say
I’d
done it... I said if I were a conspiracy theorist. Which....” The shorter man shrugged. “Nah.”

The taller man spoke through gritted teeth once again. “I should kill you right now. I should-”

“You won’t, though. You’re too softhearted. But nonetheless, I think I
will
take my leave now. Much to do and much to plan. Have fun with your little frozen woman. Or fun
resisting
her, I should say.” Raising his brows, he glanced over at me, then made a low whistle. “With those curves of hers, doesn’t look like it’s going to be easy. Especially since I know you’re going to be keeping her close, probably right in your own house. Best of luck, though, brother.”

With an obviously phony smile, the shorter man clapped the taller man on the shoulder, then strode right by him and began heading north. The taller man didn’t stop him, just watched him go, scowling. The bears still in a ring around the clearing had also shifted into human form by now, and they let the shorter man pass, though scowling at him just like their leader.

The shorter man seemed intent on pushing his luck.

Once he’d gotten just a short distance beyond the clearing, he turned and began walking backward, cupping his hands around his mouth to make his voice carry. “I want this nation, Cormack. I want all this land to be mine, for
my
people, and I’m not leaving. I’m just going to sit back and wait for the prophecy to unfold.”

The taller man, who I now knew with certainty was Commander Blackthorn, began striding north, toward his brother, with a low growl rumbling in his chiseled chest. But after only a few steps, he came to a stop, seeming to think better of a chase.

With his strong jaw clenched, he then turned and began striding south, speaking when he passed me without even looking at me. “We’re heading back to the village, and I expect you to follow.”

Mind reeling from everything that had just happened and everything I’d just heard, I did follow him, kind of to my surprise. I definitely wasn’t used to being ordered around.

I didn’t
follow
him in the truest sense of the word, though. I walked
alongside
him, with his men flanking us at a distance, most of them hidden by the trees. Despite his coldness, I was still grateful to him for saving my life from his brother the shadow bear, but no way in hell I was going to literally follow behind him on his heels, like a dog might. I may have been a little dazed by the events that had just happened, and a whole lot confused by some of the things that had been said, but I still had my pride and dignity, so I attempted to look him in the eyes when I spoke, even though he didn’t even glance at me.

“Thank you for saving my life.”

“I didn’t. My brother wouldn’t have touched a single hair on your head. He only charged you to irritate me and make me tackle him so he could try to injure me and cry self-defense. In fact, if my men and I hadn’t stumbled upon the two of you, my brother would have likely escorted you back to the village with a warning for you to never leave again.”

I wanted to ask why, but we’d now left the clearing and were walking over a short stretch choked with sticks, rocks, and other debris, requiring me to focus completely on my feet and not tripping.

Not long after we’d cleared this patch of rough terrain, Commander Blackthorn caught the eye of a man a short distance to his left and tilted his head to the south in some seeming unspoken command. The man on his left immediately shifted into bear form and began charging off south, and all the rest of the men shifted as well and followed him, leaving Commander Blackthorn and me walking through the woods alone now, and in silence.

I had so many questions. I had what felt like a million of them. I got that my thawing process had been started accidentally, or rather,
purposefully
, but not by the people who were eventually supposed to do it. I got that this was somehow bad, because it was the “tenth year,” whatever that meant. I got that Commander Blackthorn was supposed to resist me for some reason. I just didn’t know why; why
any
of that was.

I also had no clue what Commander Blackthorn’s brother had been talking about when he’d mentioned “the prophecy.” I didn’t recall hearing anything about any prophecy before being frozen, and being that I didn’t have even the slightest amnesia, I was sure nothing had ever been said to me about it.

Commander Blackthorn didn’t appear as if he was in the mood for any questions, though. Still wearing his earlier scowl, he marched with his gaze straight ahead and his jaw clenched. His brother had accused him of being “softhearted” but he sure didn’t look like it to me. He looked like he was the opposite. He even looked like he was the kind of man who
could
be cruel, no matter what Jane at the hospital had said.

Jane
. At the thought of her, my heart sank. She might be blamed for my escape. Alice, too. Maybe they wouldn’t be, though, if I made it clear that they hadn’t helped me in any way and made it sound as if they’d been watching me a little more carefully than they had been.

Stepping my way over a few fallen branches, I cleared my throat. “All the nurses at the hospital were watching me constantly, you know. I only was able to escape when they turned their backs for a second. So, my escape was really no one’s fault.”

Commander Blackthorn, all long, lean muscle in black boots, battered jeans, and a black t-shirt, didn’t respond, just kept moving forward, gaze straight ahead. It was as if I hadn’t even spoken.

After a few moments, I tried again. “Jane, especially, didn’t do anything wrong. In fact, she was watching me so closely that-”

“None of the hospital staff members will be blamed for your escape. I know how wily frozen women can be when the panic hits.”

Satisfied with this response, I didn’t say anything in return, just kept walking. But a short while later, something started bugging me. The word
wily
. I just didn’t like how he’d used it, and I wasn’t even quite sure why. Maybe because the word implied craftiness and deceitfulness. Knowing it would probably be better if I didn’t, I felt I had to say something. Just had to.

“Do you really consider a woman running out of fear for her own safety to be ‘wily?’ Do you really think that was the very best word choice?”

Now he finally looked at me, still stern-faced. “Maybe I should formally introduce myself. I’m Commander Blackthorn, commander-in-chief of Michiana, and I’m not normally questioned about my word choices.”

“I thought that was a bit incorrect of you, too, and maybe even borderline rude... to not even introduce yourself when you first spoke to me.”

What I’d said had just come out. I hadn’t even given it a moment of thought. If I had, I probably wouldn’t have said it, not wanting to further anger him. But I’d been rankled by what
he’d
said, and despite slight regret about my response, I still was.

His widened eyes told me that he definitely wasn’t used to being spoken to so boldly. But, to my own surprise, he just turned his gaze to the front again without saying a word.

Having to work to keep up with his long-legged strides while minding that I didn’t trip over anything on the forest floor, I walked alongside him in silence, thinking. Being that I’d been kept in deep-freeze to provide children for him at some point in time, even if he was now supposed to “resist” me, as his brother had said, it seemed funny to me that he hadn’t told me I could call him by his first name. Obviously,
Commander Blackthorn
was very formal. Even if he didn’t want me to bear a baby for him right away, for whatever reason, it just seemed strange to have me call him by his official title. It honestly seemed a little rude again. And after a short while, I again just had to say something. Couldn’t
not
.

“So, am I to call you Commander Blackthorn, or may I call you by your first name?”

He didn’t answer or even look at me, just kept his stony gaze straight ahead. After several seconds, I was about to repeat the question when he finally spoke.

“You can call me Cormack, I suppose.”

Now he’d re-rankled me. Thoroughly.

“Oh, you ‘suppose?’ How very generous of you. Well, in that case,
my
name is Aria English, but you may call me just Aria. I
suppose
.”

Other than a quiet snort, he didn’t respond.

“So, what’s your brother’s name? I might try to find him later and beg him to let me join
his
people. Maybe they’re more polite and will invite me to call them all by their first names, no
supposing
about it.”

Another quiet snort from Cormack.

“You would
not
want to join my brother’s people. Their women are treated very poorly. And as to your question, my brother’s name is AntiCormack.”“Like....”

“Like my name with the word
anti
in front of it, yes. No hyphen, no space, just one name, with a capital
A
and first
C
.”

“Well, surely your parents didn’t-”

“No. They didn’t. AntiCormack’s name used to be Jamison, but ten years ago, he started insisting that people call him AntiCormack. So, that’s what all his people call him now, and that’s what I even call him now.”

“But... why? I mean... why did he change his name, and why did he change it to AntiCormack, and why do
you
call him that, even though it’s a name that’s obviously very... well,
anti
you.”

A deep sigh was the first part of Cormack’s response. The rest he issued verbally with a frown, knitting his dark brows.

“The answers to your first two questions require lengthier and more involved responses than I’m willing to give right now. But to answer your third question, I call my brother AntiCormack for one simple reason... to continually remind myself that he is against me at all times, at every moment, and would love nothing more than to see me dead. With as close as we once were, sometimes I’m tempted to forget this, but I can’t let myself. Doing so might cause my people, or me, to be harmed. Calling him AntiCormack reminds me of who he truly is and what he wants.”

“Oh. I think I understand now.”

Cormack had slowed his pace while speaking and had even looked at me a few times, but he now abruptly picked up his pace, extremely stony-faced again, and changed the subject, as if afraid he’d shared too much. “Anyway. When you escaped from the hospital, had they finished treating you yet?”

“I guess so. Dr. Moore gave me a clean bill of health, and I was supposed to be discharged later today. But back to AntiCormack... when he mentioned a ‘prophecy,’ what exactly-?”

“And are you suffering from any amnesia?”

I ground my teeth, once again irritated by him. It had taken him wanting to change the subject for him to ask anything at all about my well-being.

“No. I don’t have any amnesia at all. I remember everything about my past.”

If I’d actually thought he was going to ask me anything about that past, I would have been disappointed, because he didn’t. A gruff
good
was all he said. The gruffness in that single word also told me that he was done speaking for the time being, so I didn’t say anything further.
I
was kind of done speaking for the time being. My legs were starting to feel strangely rubbery, and my mouth was parched. I was sorry that I’d left my plastic hospital bag of supplies, including water, back at the clearing, but as hastily as I’d followed Cormack, I just hadn’t remembered to pick it up.

For several minutes, the two of us walked along without speaking. Birdsong and the sound of our feet crunching twigs were the only things that filled the silence. Occasionally, a stiff breeze rustled the green and yellow leaves of the trees around us.

My stumbling and almost falling in a near-faint kind of came out of nowhere. Or maybe not, since my legs had been weirdly rubbery for a little bit by this time, and I’d been extremely thirsty for just as long.

I wasn’t sure if I’d stumbled on anything other than my own feet, probably not, not that it even mattered. All I knew was that my feet had done something funny beneath me, and I was now falling forward in some kind of dizzy slow motion, a moment that seemed to last forever as the ground became closer and closer.

CHAPTER THREE

        I didn’t hit the ground. Strong arms caught me first, and I clung to them instinctively.

“Sorry. Sorry, I’m just a little....”

I was just a little dizzy, and thirsty, and rubber-legged, though my mouth was too dry for me to get the words out, and even if it hadn’t been, I was too tired to finish the thought anyway. I wasn’t too tired, however, to not notice and fully appreciate a heavenly scent emanating from the hard chest I was leaning against, or more like
slumping
against, cheek against one very well-defined pectoral muscle. The scent was woodsy and leathery and clean, with faint notes of citrus and soap. It was a scent I could have breathed in for hours, days. It was ending, though, to my disappointment. Cormack was sitting me down on a tree stump or something, I really didn’t even know, withdrawing his arms and chest from me.

“Is this better?”

Sitting on a stump was
not
better than being in his arms, breathing in his scent, though I supposed it was better in the sense that my dizziness was lessening.

Scooting back on the stump to sit with my back resting against a slender birch behind it, I nodded. “Yeah. I think I’m okay now. Just got a little dizzy. I think I might still be adjusting to life as a non-frozen human being again, and then with what happened back there in the clearing....” Recalling the desperation I’d felt throwing rocks at AntiCormack while he slowly advanced, I suddenly buried my face in my hands, shuddering. “Oh my gosh. I thought I was going to die. I really thought I was going to die.”

My full-body trembling, which had mostly stopped, now started right back up again, and I felt sick to my stomach.

Moving my hands from my face to wrap my arms around my middle, I tried to focus on keeping my breathing slow. “Oh my gosh. I thought I was living my last moments.”

Out of nowhere, my eyes welled with tears, and I quickly raked the back of my hand across them. “Sorry again. It’s all just kind of hitting me or something.”

My eyes welled once more, and I raked a hand across them once more, irritated with myself. I was determined not to cry in front of a man who was still pretty much a stranger, and a stern one at that. A man who I wasn’t quite sure about yet.

“I should have known I’d have some kind of a spell on the way back to the village. I’ve always been such a delayed reaction sort of person.”

It was true. Sometimes my subconscious seemed to need some time to process things, whether that be minutes or months.

While I began taking deep, steadying breaths with my nausea and shakiness easing, Cormack looked like he might have some kind of a “spell” himself. Raking a hand through his thick, dark hair, his expression was a near-comical mix of concern and something that resembled anger or impatience. Though actually, it wasn’t so much a
mix
of these expressions; it was more as if his face was cycling
between
these expressions every second or so, as if Cormack was torn between emotions. Apparently, he feared that the sight of me would make things worse for him, because he seemed unable to look at me, like he had during most of our hike. He simply scanned the nearby trees, as if they held the answer to some question he was struggling with.

On maybe his fourth hair-raking, he finally spoke, turning his gaze to me with what appeared to be a little difficulty. “Would you like me to carry you back to the village on my back while I’m in bear form? It might make all this... quicker.”

With my dizziness now gone, I just looked at him for a long moment, contemplating his words. After a final deep breath, I then stood and began stepping through a patch of tall grass, heading south. “No, thank you. If having to hike through the woods with me is such nightmarish hell, then I actually want it to go on as long as possible.”

I knew he probably hadn’t meant his words the way I’d instantly taken them, but his obvious discomfort and impatience with my “spell,” my brimming eyes, and the things I’d said, had made me want to lash out. Ordinarily, I might have inwardly chastised myself for not having the self-control to bite my tongue, but on this particular day, I almost thought I deserved a pass. I’d awoken after being frozen for hundreds of years; I’d escaped from a hospital in a panic; I’d faced an otherworldly-looking shadowy bear; and I’d thought I was going to be killed. Besides, it wasn’t like Cormack had exactly been all sweetness and light to me, either.

We walked the rest of the way back to the village without either of us saying another word.

I wasn’t quite sure what I’d been expecting, maybe gray cinder-block structures as cold and stoic as Cormack’s personality, but the village was lovely. Beautiful, even. I hadn’t been able to see much of it at all from the hospital, even once I’d gotten outside.

Viewing it from the top of a gentle yet tall hill we’d crested once out of the forest, it immediately reminded me of a ski resort in Aspen. Or maybe a very upscale summer camp. Nestled in a valley sat several hundred houses in roughly concentric circles, each of the houses spaced far enough from the next to afford each of them large front and back yards. Some of the yards were open and grassy, like mini-meadows, but the majority were filled with lush trees just barely kissed with gold and orange. The houses were large cabin-like structures of either one or two stories, all sided with warm-toned wood in various shades of amber and honey.

Even from a fair distance, I could see that some of these giant cabins had wraparound porches, and my heart did a little flip-flop. I’d always wanted to live in a home with a wraparound porch, finding something about them charming and somehow comforting, but that little dream of mine had never come true. I’d been working on it, actively house-hunting, when the nuclear blast had happened.

I hadn’t even been aware of doing so, but apparently I’d come to a dead stop, looking at the village.

Cormack, who’d come up the hill behind me, as if worried I might almost faint again and go tumbling on down, now came to a stop beside me. “The part you can see right now is our residential district, or our largest one, anyway. There are a few dozen other homes in another valley nearby, and another few dozen further south, by our farmland. The ‘town’ part of the village, the part with restaurants and shops and the hospital, and other things like that, isn’t visible from here because of that line of trees to the east of the cabins.”

I turned from the village to look at him. “Can I see that part soon? Maybe tomorrow?”

“Well, you can if you’d like, but....” Frowning a bit, he shifted his gaze from my face to the village. “You may not receive the very warmest of welcomes.”

I wasn’t surprised by this, considering the lukewarm reception I’d received at the hospital. I was curious to piece it all together and find out exactly why I seemed to be so unwelcome, but at the moment, I was just tired. Too tired to wrap my brain around whatever information would surely need wrapping.

In response to what Cormack had said, I looked out onto the village with a sigh. “It’s fine if people in the village don’t welcome me with open arms. As long as I can find one or two more Janes, I think I’ll be okay.”

We both fell silent, looking out onto the village. The sun was now setting, filling the valley with fiery light that made everything it touched seem to glow.

After a few moments, Cormack asked if I was ready to get moving again. “I imagine you might like some dinner soon and then a comfortable bed.”

“Well, I would, but... where, exactly, am I going to be doing that dining and sleeping? Where am I going to be living?”

Now it was Cormack’s turn to sigh, and after that, he hesitated in responding for a very long moment, surveying the village, the sky, seemingly
anything
to avoid having to look me in the eyes.

“You’ll be staying with me, in my cabin. It’s the largest one and the furthest to the west.”

I’d seen this one and had thought it was the most beautiful of all the homes by far. With what appeared to be three stories, and a tall, gabled roof, the front of which was filled with massive, wide windows, each probably ten feet by ten feet, at least, this home was certainly the grandest. And as far as sheer size, it was definitely more of a cabin-slash-mansion than any kind of a regular cabin, even a large one. Also, the house had a wraparound porch, certifying its dream-house status in my mind. I was more than a bit eager to see the inside.

By the time we arrived at the house, though, in the gloom of early evening, I was having a hard time keeping my eyes open for stretches of longer than a second or two. A full tour would have to wait.

Almost the moment we arrived, a polite yet businesslike, and definitely not
warm,
woman came bustling out to the foyer, eying me for just a split second before giving Cormack a polite smile. “Welcome home, Commander Blackthorn.”

Cormack thanked her, then introduced this woman to me as Hazel Clark, head maid of the house, and introduced me to her simply as Aria English. Fortunately, he did not identify me as “frozen woman escapee I just retrieved from the woods,” and Hazel made no query as to who exactly I was.

Once she and I had exchanged tepid pleased-to-meet-yous, Cormack asked her to please show me to my room. She then ushered me away from Cormack, and through the airy, polished wood-planked foyer, and then down a long, polished, wood-planked hallway to a spacious bedroom she said would be mine. Immediately spotting a clear, lidded pitcher of water and a glass on one of two nightstands, I asked if I could help myself, and she said of course.

While I drained a glass of water, trying not to rudely chug it, she gestured to a wide dresser that looked like it was made of oak, polished to a high shine.

“In the dresser and closet, you’ll find everything you need as far as clothing, shoes, accessories, and the like, and the bathroom is fully stocked with just about every kind of toiletry imaginable. Now, as far as dinner, I heard you haven’t had anything to eat since this morning, so I’ll bet you’re starving. Would you like a tray sent to your room, or would you like to eat in the dining room or the kitchen?”

Cormack hadn’t called his house or anything to let staff members know we’d be arriving, and yet Hazel hadn’t seemed surprised at all when Cormack had shown up with me in tow. And now she’d somehow “heard” that I hadn’t had anything to eat since that morning. In order for her to have gleaned
that
info, I guessed that she had to have a pal or two at the hospital. And as far as her not seeming surprised that I’d arrived with Cormack, I guessed that maybe word had traveled fast when his men had returned to town ahead of us bearing news of finding me in the woods.

In response to Hazel’s question, I asked if I could please have a tray sent to my room, and she immediately left to go get one, saying she wouldn’t be longer than ten minutes.

She actually made it back in five, bearing a tray that she set on a caramel-colored polished wood writing desk that sat below one of several wide windows in the room. All business and zero small talk, she pulled out the desk chair for me, took the silver lid off the plate on the tray, and asked me if there was anything else I needed. I was getting so tired that I was having trouble thinking, but I said no, I didn’t think so.

Hazel, who was a petite woman probably in her mid-fifties, dipped her head in a nod.

“All right, then. If you
do
need anything, you’ll find a new cell phone in the top left drawer of the dresser, and you can call or text the number listed as
staff
, and whatever you need will be brought to you, day or night. As far as your dinner tray, you can leave it on the desk if you’d like when you’re finished, or set it outside the door if you prefer, and someone will get it tomorrow. Goodnight.”

With that, Hazel turned and strode out of the room without so much as a hint of a smile. Her voice hadn’t held an iota of warmth at any time, either. I was going to need to find more Janes soon, hopefully at least one of them a member of Cormack’s staff, if I was ever going to survive in a house with such a chilly head maid.

Realizing that I
was
hungry, despite thinking that morning that I wouldn’t want to eat for another day or two, I soon tucked into the dinner on the tray. The meal consisted of herb-crusted chicken, some sort of vegetable casserole, and buttery mashed potatoes with bacon, cheese, and chives; in a word, it was phenomenal. I’d dined in some of the finest restaurants in New York City and Paris, but I’d never before had chicken so perfectly tender, vegetables so flavorful, or potatoes so creamy. Even the plain white and wheat dinner rolls that accompanied the meal were amazing, as was a small salad with crisp greens, plump cherry tomatoes, and a tangy vinaigrette dressing.

I had a feeling that I might gain a pound or two if I stayed in Cormack’s cabin-mansion for any real length of time, which would be fine. I’d always had curves, as far as fairly full breasts and hips, but with a small waist that had only gotten smaller in the chaotic, nightmarish months after the nuclear disaster. Adding an extra pound or two wouldn’t kill me. Besides, I’d always thought that gaining a little extra weight as a result of exceptionally good food could never be a bad thing, within reason. The nuclear blast, and even the years before then, had taught me that life could be very unpredictable and very short, so pleasures should be enjoyed while they could be.