BEARing The Frozen Night (Ice Bear Shifters Book 1) (4 page)

Kenzie ran out of the store as fast as she could, barely slowing her stride as she reached her snowmobile and hopped onto the seat. She sped off in the direction of Ryker’s cabin, pushing the engine as fast as she could. The fact that this was the second time she had sped out to the edge of town for an emergency was not lost on her.

“Why can’t people just stick to the safety of the village?” she mumbled to herself, gripping the handles of her snowmobile as she bounced wildly over the snow banks. She was driving way too fast, and she knew it, but she couldn’t force herself to slow down. The death in Ryker’s voice had been unmistakable. Whatever had happened to him, it wasn’t good, and Kenzie felt panicked. Thankfully, the drive from the superstore to his cabin was a short one, and in under five minutes she was speeding up to his front door. She killed the engine and hopped off the snowmobile, quickly throwing open the storage compartment and grabbing her medical bag and flashlight. She had no idea whether she would be able to help him. She had handled her fair share of wounded animals, but a dying human was a different matter altogether. But she had to try. As ridiculous as it was, she had fallen for Ryker. He was the one person out in this godforsaken wilderness who warmed her heart.

As Kenzie turned to run into the cabin, she suddenly stopped in her tracks, and felt her heart sink all the way to her feet. She shined her flashlight on the large mounds of fur that had caught her eye.

“Holy hell,” she said out loud. She thought she might vomit at the sight in front of her. Several gigantic polar bears were strewn across the snow several hundred feet away from Ryker’s cabin. Blood covered the snow in unbelievable amounts, and a trail of it led to the door of the cabin. No wonder Ryker had sounded like he was dying. Kenzie had no idea what she would find when she entered the cabin. If Ryker had just tangled with all of those bears, it was a wonder he had even survived to crawl to his home and make the phone call to the superstore.

Kenzie bounded up the steps and threw open the cabin door, not bothering to knock. It wouldn’t have mattered if she had—there wouldn’t have been an answer. Her heart sank as she saw Ryker, wrapped in a blanket and lying motionless on the floor.

“Ryker!” she screamed out, crossing the kitchen in two quick strides and rolling him onto his back. She checked for a pulse, fearing the worst. To her great relief, he was still alive, although she wasn’t sure for how long. She did a quick assessment of his wounds. He was not in good shape. It looked like one of his legs was broken, and he had several deep gashes that would need stitching, the worst of which ran across his entire chest.

“Stay with me, Ryker,” she pleaded as she pulled several sterile cloths out of her bag and started trying to stop the flow of blood where it was still trickling out. She ran some hot water and got some other cloths wet, trying to wipe away enough blood so she could get an idea of what the wounds actually looked like. The water on his skin seemed to revive him momentarily, because he suddenly groaned and jerked one of his arms sideways.

“Kenzie,” he said, his voice barely more than a whisper. “You came.”

“Shhh. Of course I did. Just lay still and try to relax.”

“Can you save me?” he croaked out. “I tried to fight them off, but there were so many of them. So many bears.”

“I’ll do my best, Ryker. I think you need stitches, And you definitely need your right leg set. It’s broken, in more than one place from the looks of it.” Kenzie’s voice shook a little as she spoke. She had never stitched up a human before and she was beginning to doubt her abilities. What if she messed this up? What if she couldn’t do it? She gritted her teeth and took a deep breath. She had to try. She was his only hope. She had no idea where the town’s doctor was, but even if she could get a hold of the doctor right now, there was no time. Ryker needed help immediately.

“What’s wrong?” Ryker asked. His voice sounded so far away. Kenzie bit her bottom lip to keep from crying. It might be too late already.

“Shhh. Nothing’s wrong. Just try to relax.”

“No,” Ryker said, trying to sit up, but quickly falling backwards again and grimacing in pain. “No, something’s wrong. Your face. Your expression. You looked really troubled.”

“It’s nothing,” Kenzie said. “I’m just used to stitching up animals, not humans. So it takes a little getting used to mentally, that’s all.”

Kenzie tried to smile and look brave, but she knew her voice was shaking. She was about to lose a patient. Only this time, it wasn’t someone’s beloved dog at death’s door. It was the man she had fallen for. The man she had been thinking about constantly since he put his hand on her leg at Northwinds Pub last week.

“Would it be easier if I was an animal?” Ryker asked.

“Don’t be silly,” Kenzie said, as she started to pull stitching supplies out of her bag. But she couldn’t focus. She dropped a small box of antiseptic wipes, and when she picked them up her hands were shaking. How was she going to stitch him up with shaking hands? And where were the nerves of steel she usually had when working? She had to get past this mental block about Ryker being a human patient.

“Would it be easier if I was an animal? A bear?” Ryker asked.

Kenzie gave him a frustrated look. “I guess, it would be easier if you were a bear. But you’re not, so we’ll have to make this work anyways.”

“But I am a bear,” Ryker said weakly.

Kenzie bit back the tears that were threatening to fall. He was completely delirious. She was losing him. “Shhh. It’s okay. If you want to be a bear then we’ll pretend you’re a bear.”

“No,” Ryker said, his voice momentarily growing stronger and more urgent. “It’s not pretend. I
am
a bear.”

All of a sudden, Kenzie was thrown backwards by some sort of explosive wave of power. Her medical bag was thrown across the room, spilling half of the items into a haphazard mess on the floor next to it. Kenzie sat up, disoriented. What the hell had just happened? Then she screamed. Lying in front of her was the biggest polar bear she had ever seen. Had it just burst through the side wall or something? Where did it come from?

“Ryker, there’s another one!” she yelled, scrambling to her feet and looking around for her gun. Damn it, she had left it strapped out on the snowmobile’s sled! She had to get to it! And where was Ryker?

Where was Ryker?

Kenzie swung her head back and forth, panicked. But the dust settled and she realized that the bear wasn’t moving, except to slowly turn its head toward her. Its eyes were the same shade of violet as Ryker’s eyes. In fact, they eerily held the same expression as Ryker’s eyes did. As Kenzie stood there transfixed, unable to move or process what was happening, the bear slowly lifted one of its front paws in her direction, and let out a low whine.

Suddenly, everything came into focus for Kenzie. The bear in front of her not only had the same eyes as Ryker, but also was wounded in exactly the same places as Ryker had been. There was a deep gash across the bear’s chest, and its back right leg was clearly broken. Kenzie couldn’t believe her eyes. Ryker had just changed into a bear, right in front of her. Gingerly, she walked toward Ryker, er, the bear. Her heart pounded with a mixture of fear and incredulity as she reached out and stroked the matted fur on the bear’s head. Those deep violet eyes looked up at her mournfully, and she could see just a hint of a familiar yellow glow around the edges. There was no doubt about it. Somehow, Ryker had morphed into a polar bear.

Kenzie took one more deep breath, and then got to work. She had never treated a bear before, but stitching up a bear seemed much closer to stitching up dogs than stitching up a human did. Over the next thirty minutes, Kenzie shaved the fur off of Ryker’s bear chest, and skillfully sewed the large gash there shut. She set his broken leg, and then cleaned up several of the smaller wounds. She brought him water in a huge pot she found in his kitchen, and let him drink. He looked up at her with those big, violet eyes, his gratefulness evident in his expression even though he was a bear. Kenzie tried not to think about how bizarre this situation had turned out to be. She just took care of her patient as best she could. She wanted to give him a sedative so he could rest, but she didn’t think she had anything in her bag strong enough for a polar bear. As she dug through her bottles of medicine, trying to find something that might work, Ryker fell asleep on his own.

Kenzie rubbed her forehead and let a huge sigh of relief. Ryker, or the bear, or whatever he was, had a long road ahead to a full recovery. But at least his condition had stabilized. Kenzie grabbed her flashlight, then slowly tiptoed over to the cabin’s door and creaked it open. She didn’t want to go out into the black night when there were obviously violent bears out there, but she didn’t want to sit in here without a gun, either. Kenzie looked around as best she could in the darkness, sweeping the flashlight’s beam back and forth in large arcs. Satisfied that, at least for the moment, there were no creatures lurking outside, she dashed to her snowmobile. She unstrapped the gun from the sled trailer, and then dashed back inside.

It occurred to her that being trapped inside the cabin with a polar bear might not be all that safe, even if that bear was Ryker. Or formerly Ryker. Maybe that’s part of why she wanted her gun. But she sure as hell wasn’t driving home alone on the deserted snow paths right now. She wanted to wait until the early morning hours when more people would be out and about. At least then she wouldn’t feel so alone out there, even though the darkness would still be there. But she wasn’t quite sure if she could trust this bear that was passed out on the kitchen floor. She wondered if he was permanently a bear now, or could change back. She had heard legends of shifters, who could morph back and forth between human and animal form at will. But, until tonight, she had thought such legends were just that—legends. The stuff of myths and folklore.

Kenzie walked over to Ryker’s bed, and sat down on it. She set the gun down on the floor next to her. She pointed the gun in the bear’s direction, but kept the safety on. She would try to stay awake and watch her patient, both for his safety and hers. But she was so exhausted. She didn’t know how long she could keep her eyes open.

The answer was “not very long.” Only a few minutes after sitting down, Kenzie slowly leaned over to lie out fully on the bed, and drifted off into a deep sleep. She tossed and turned in her sleep, as creatures that were half-men and half-bears chased her across her dreams.

Ryker, back in human form, watched Kenzie sleeping soundly across the room from him. The irony of the situation was painful. After all the times he had wished to see her lying there on his bed, that wish had been granted. Just in a completely different way from what he wanted. Ryker wasn’t sure how long she had been sleeping. He wasn’t sure how long he had slept, either. His memory of the night before got fuzzy after he switched to bear form. He still couldn’t believe Kenzie had stayed after he switched. When she had screamed, and a wild, terrified look had filled her eyes, Ryker had thought she was going to take off into the night. He would have certainly died, if she had. But she hadn’t. She had stayed, and sewn him back together. He owed her his life. And he owed her an explanation.

He was sure she had a thousand questions. She had brought her rifle in, and it didn’t escape his notice that she had fallen asleep with it pointed in his direction. He couldn’t say he blamed her. She was going to be astounded at the fact that he was nearly fully recovered from his wounds, too. The Northern Lights bears all had a genetic mutation that allowed their bodies to heal at a super fast speed when the bears were able to sleep for a stretch of several hours uninterrupted. This mutation was one of the reasons the Northern Lights Clan had been so powerful, and so hard to kill. The silver poison the Blizzards had used with the seals had been strong enough to act with lightning speed, purposely avoiding the possibility that the poisoned bears would be able to sleep enough for their bodies to repair themselves before dying. It was also the reason why, when a Northern Lights alpha wanted to punish an insubordinate clan member, he made sure to keep that bear from a long stretch of sleep. Otherwise the wounds from the bear’s beating would just close up in a day or two at most, defeating the pain of punishment.

Ryker was wearing a pair of jeans and a button down flannel shirt, but he had left the shirt unbuttoned for the moment. The cabin felt incredibly warm to him, although that might just be because he was still on adrenaline overload from the events of the previous evening. He glanced at his watch. It was after 8 a.m. now. Ryker stood and went to the front window. The bodies of the Blizzards he had killed the night before were gone. Other Blizzards would have come at some time during the night to remove them for proper burial. Ryker was lucky that they hadn’t tried to attack his cabin, although he realized that they probably didn’t know how badly he was injured. After losing six bears in one night, they might not have been in the mood for another fight.

Ryker heard a stirring behind him and turned back from the window. Kenzie had woken up, and was looking around the room in confusion. He watched her face slowly registering where she was, and he saw her look at him with suspicion.

“Ryker? Did I drink too much last night or something? I had the weirdest dream, although I swear it felt so real. But you were nearly dead in the dream, with a huge chest wound and a broken leg. And… other stuff. But you’re sitting here in front of me looking pretty healthy right now, so that couldn’t have actually happened.”

Ryker watched Kenzie shake her head in confusion, as if trying to settle all of the confusing fragments of memories into some sort of coherent form.

“Kenzie, it wasn’t a dream. I have a lot to explain to you.”

Kenzie narrowed her eyes at him. “Did we sleep together?”

“No! I was at death’s door last night. As lovely as you are, mating with you was not exactly my priority.”

“Mating?” Kenzie looked at him like he had lost his mind.

“Sorry, sleeping together. I forget mating is a weird term for humans. Look, I have a lot of things to explain to you but I can’t do it alone. I need some help.”

“Okay. I don’t know what’s going on here, but I must have had a lot of booze last night because I dreamed you were a bear. I know that sounds ridiculous. I promise my imagination isn’t usually that crazy. And now you’re acting really bizarre. I think I need to get home.” Kenzie threw off the blanket that was covering her and stood up.

“Kenzie, I was a bear last night.”

Kenzie stood still and just stared at him, like she wasn’t sure if it was him or her that had lost their mind.

“This is all too weird,” she finally said, then grabbed her medical bag and started walking toward the door.

Ryker hesitated. Should he just let her go? If she thought she had dreamt the whole situation, and didn’t realize that he actually was a bear, then his cover had not been blown. Maybe he should just let her think she had imagined the whole thing. But what if she talked? What if she told someone familiar with shifters about her “dream?” There were plenty of Alaskans familiar enough with shifter legends to become suspicious of Kenzie’s story. And besides, the bear bodies might be gone, but the massive blood splotches across the snow were still there. If Kenzie saw those she was going to freak out and realize that at least some part of last night hadn’t been just a figment of her imagination. And Neal would never forgive him if he let Kenzie loose in the village to potentially let everyone else in Glacier Point know that there were shifters among them. He had to convince her to stay.

“Kenzie, wait,” Ryker said. “Look at me. Look at my hands.”

Kenzie sighed, but paused by the cabin door and turned to look at Ryker. He held up his hands, and then morphed them into giant bear paws. Kenzie’s face was overcome with an expression Ryker couldn’t quite pin down, but she definitely looked a little on the frightened side.

“Now do you believe me? Please, stay. Let me explain everything.”

“But, you were horribly wounded. And had a broken leg.”

Ryker pulled the two sides of his flannel shirt back so that Kenzie could see his chest. She took in the long, bright scar that traveled across his ribcage in a diagonal line.

“I was wounded. I’m better, now.”

Kenzie set her bag down. “Okay,” she said warily. “I’ll stay. But I’m so confused right now. You have some serious explaining to do.”

“I know,” Ryker said. “I know. Let me call a few of my buddies who can help me explain, and then I’ll get you some food while we wait for them to get here.” Ryker grabbed the cordless headset from the kitchen counter and headed for the cabin door. “I’ll be back in a minute. There’s coffee in the coffeepot and mugs in the cupboard directly above it. Help yourself.”

Ryker stepped outside, and as far away from the cabin as the cordless phone’s range would allow. He wasn’t sure how this conversation was going to go, and he didn’t want Kenzie to overhear him getting a verbal beating from his alpha. Neal answered on the first ring.

“Neal’s tattoo shop.”

“Neal, we have a big problem,” Ryker said.

Neal let out a low growl. “Tell me this problem’s name is not Kenzie,”

“Well, it is. But it’s not what you think. Let me explain.”

Ryker gave Neal a complete rundown of the night before, starting with the Blizzard’s surprise attack, and with his inability to contact the town doctor. He explained that he thought that Kenzie might be able to help, so he called her. Then when she arrived, she was worried that she only knew how to treat animals. Ryker had been desperate, so he shifted to a bear, hoping it would give her the confidence she needed to save his life.

“I’m sorry, Neal. I didn’t know what to do. I was on the verge of dying, and my instincts kicked in. I was delirious, and I wasn’t thinking about anything else except surviving.”

A long pause followed Ryker’s explanation. Ryker wanted to say something else to convince Neal that the shift had been necessary. After all, they were allowed to shift in emergency situations, and last night had surely qualified as an emergency, right? But Ryker kept his mouth shut and resisted the urge to over-explain things. After what felt like an eternity, Neal finally spoke.

“I can’t say I’m pleased with this turn of events. But I understand why you did what you did. And it sounds like you owe Kenzie your life, so we’re all in her debt. But you should have called me last night.”

“I know. I’m sorry I didn’t. But, honestly, Neal, I was so far gone mentally at that point that the only thing I could think about was trying to stay alive.”

“I understand. But we have some damage control to do now. You said Kenzie is still at your cabin?”

“Yes.”

“Good. Keep her there. I’m going to call the others and we’ll meet you there. All we can do now is lay out the whole story for Kenzie and hope she’s one of the rare humans who is willing to keep our shifter secrets. Otherwise, we might be moving on to a new town, again.”

“Don’t worry, Neal,” Ryker said, conviction filling his voice. “Kenzie will be understanding, once everything is explained to her. She’s different from most humans. She’s special.”

“I hope you’re right, Ryker. I really hope you’re right,” Neal said, and then hung up the line. Ryker sighed and went back inside to make some bacon and eggs for his guest. Don’t let me down, baby, he silently pleaded to her. Please, don’t let me down.