Delaney thought he was joking, and laughed. “No, but seriously.”
“Seriously. I can smell it,” Eric said, then started walking faster, as if trying to get ahead of Delaney and away from her questions. Delaney decided to keep her mouth shut for a little while.
After thirty minutes of brisk walking, Eric seemed satisfied with their location. Delaney wanted to tease him and ask if it “smelled okay,” but she didn’t want to piss him off. In the distance, Delaney could see the water now. Patches of loose ice floes bobbed in the water like puzzle pieces that didn’t quite connect.
Eric pulled a giant, metal tool that looked like a screw out of his pack. It must have been the auger. Delaney wriggled out of her backpack and found her camera.
“Do you mind if I take pictures?” she asked.
“Knock yourself out,” Eric replied. Then he started cranking the ice auger around and around, drilling down into the thick whiteness. Delaney watched him through her camera lens, snapping shot after shot of him as he bored into the ice without even breaking a sweat. He looked like he was drilling through slush, not through solid, rock-hard ice. Delaney shook her head in amazement. Eric’s arms were strong. Scarily, superhuman strong. He finished the hole in just a few moments, and stuck a tape measure down into the frigid water.
“Eight inches,” he said, seeming pleased. “Plenty thick enough to be safe.”
He pulled out various fishing supplies, setting up a line and baiting it. Delaney snapped pictures as he prepared everything and explained the process to her. Finally, he pulled out and unfolded two folding chairs. They had been folded down to take up almost no space in his pack. Delaney was impressed by this whole operation. She took a seat in one of the chairs when it was completely unfolded, and Eric sat in the chair next to her.
“Now what?” she asked.
“Now we wait,” he said. “Sometimes the fish bite right away, sometimes you wait all day before finally getting something, and some days you just get nothing. We’ll try for a few hours today, then head back. I want to make sure we get back to the shelter in time for you to get your sunset photos.
Delaney nodded, and settled down further into her folding chair. Eric didn’t seem to be much in the mood for talking, so she silently watched the ice floes bobbing in the distance. The wind had died down now, making the air almost eerily silent. A few minutes later, the silence was broken by the sound of soft snoring, and Delaney looked over to see that Eric had closed his eyes and fallen asleep. Delaney rolled her eyes. So much for the chance to get to know hunky Mr. Outdoorsman better today. Apparently a nap was more exciting than a chance to talk to her.
But Delaney couldn’t blame Eric too much for drifting off, because when she sighed and closed her own eyes, it was only a matter of minutes before she drifted off to dreamland, too. Some time later, she awoke with a start to the sound of loud beeping. Disoriented, she sat up straight and almost fell out of her chair and onto the ice. Eric also looked a little dazed, but he recovered quickly. He reached out near the hole he had made and grabbed the fishing line. After a few moments of struggle, he pulled a large silvery fish out of the water and onto the ice. It flopped around like crazy for a few moments, then Eric put it in a giant, insulated zip bag he had brought.
“Catch number one of the day,” he said proudly. He looked over at Delaney and laughed at her confused face. “Sorry about the beeping. I tend to fall asleep a lot out here, so I rigged up an alert to sound if there’s pressure on the fishing line. That way I don’t miss a fish.”
“No offense, but this seems kind of boring. You sit out here for hours, usually by yourself, and you get a fish or two, maybe. What’s the appeal?”
Eric shrugged. “I tend to have a lot of heavy thoughts on my mind. I like to come out here and have a chance to think. A chance to clear my head. You get to think a lot when you’re all by yourself fishing at a hole.”
“Heavy thoughts?” Delaney pressed. But Eric didn’t answer her. His face suddenly looked concerned. He looked around, and his look of concern grew. His expression registered a mixture of confusion and disbelief.
“How long did we sleep?” he asked.
“Um, I’m not sure. Why?” Delaney asked, trying to keep the fear out of her voice. Whatever was bothering him was clearly a big deal. His expression grew darker by the second. He pulled his gloves and parka sleeve back and looked at his watch. Whatever time he saw didn’t seem to help his confusion any. He stood and slowly sniffed the air in all directions. Delaney felt her apprehension growing. He was acting so weird, almost like a wild animal. And even though he wasn’t saying anything, something was obviously wrong. He breathed deeply in all directions, then suddenly stopped. He swung his face around with a savage look in his eyes.
“Shit,” he said, his voice filling with anger. “Shit, shit, shit. I told Neal they weren’t all gone for the season.”
“Who wasn’t all gone?” Delaney asked. She was starting to feel all-out panicked. Why wouldn’t he tell her what was going on. She turned and looked in the same direction as Eric. She almost fainted at what she saw.
Several hundred feet away, a massive, white bear stood on its hind legs, pawing the air. As Delaney watched in horror, the bear dropped to all fours and bared its teeth, letting out a huge growl. Even from a distance, Delaney could see its black eyes glittering.
“Oh my god, Eric. A polar bear,” she said, her voice shaking. “Please tell me you have a gun.”
“I don’t have one here, but the bear is by himself. He won’t attack me when he’s alone.”
Delaney looked at Eric like he was insane. So much for him being a handsome, rugged outdoorsman, wise in the ways of the wild. “What do you mean he won’t attack because he’s by himself? In case you haven’t noticed, he’s a little bigger than you. And his teeth are definitely a little bigger than yours.”
Eric frowned, but didn’t look at Delaney. “He won’t attack me alone. He doesn’t stand a chance. But we have bigger problems than that bear.”
“Oh, goody. Really? Because I’m not sure what could be more frightening than facing a giant, angry polar bear while unarmed.”
“We’re out to sea,” Eric said quietly.
“Out to sea?”
“Look over there,” Eric said pointing in the direction of the bear. Elise followed his finger and her heart dropped at what she saw. There was a gap, about twenty feet wide between the ice they were on and the ice the polar bear was on. The ice they were on had separated from the mainland. Delaney looked around, trying not to panic further. She forced her mind to slow down and think clearly. The worst thing you could do when you found yourself facing unexpected trouble in the wilderness was panic.
“We should walk east or west,” she said. “We can probably find a spot where it’s still connected and cross over. Of course that still doesn’t solve the problem of the angry bear over there.”
Eric shook his head. “No. The ice is all disconnected. I promise you. It was too thick to have separated on its own like that. It’s too early in the season for an ice floe this close to the mainland to have separated. The bear purposely cut us out to sea. He used a wide radius, so we wouldn’t hear him doing it while we slept. So we’re on a very large ice floe, but an ice floe nonetheless.”
Delaney let out an exasperated sigh. “The bear did it? Are you out of your mind? I thought you were some experienced outdoorsman, and you’re sitting here telling me a polar bear deliberately set us out to sea.” Delaney looked over at the bear warily. He was on all fours now, but he had an eerily human expression on his face. He almost looked like he was laughing, which was weird.
“I know everything I’m saying right now sounds crazy. But I promise you, I know what I’m talking about. Look. See? The bear’s leaving. I told you he won’t attack. Not by himself. But he knows that I can’t leave you alone on the ice here and swim back, so he cut us out to sea.” Eric ran his fingers through his hair.
“You can’t swim back just
because I’m here? Um, okay. I don’t know how well you think you can swim, but that water is freezing cold. I’m as good a swimmer as the next person, but even Michael Phelps couldn’t make it across alive. Even if you get back to the mainland, then what? You’re soaking wet in freezing cold weather. You’ll die from hypothermia in a matter of minutes. There’s no way you’d make it back to the shelter. Impossible.”
“Who’s Michael Phelps?”
Delaney let out an exasperated sigh. “Michael Phelps? The Olympic swimmer? Never heard of him?”
Eric shook his head no.
“It’s not important. Is that really all you took away from that tirade, anyways? Do you not realize we’re in big trouble here? We need to go check if there’s a place we can get across without getting in the water.”
“There’s not.”
Delaney considered herself a patient person, but she was losing it. Eric wasn’t making any sense, and they needed to act quickly. If there was a spot to cross, they needed to find it before the stress of the gap in the ice grew and cracked any remaining bridges to land.
“Do you have a better plan?” she asked, her voice laced with anger.
“I need to make a phone call,” Eric said. “I keep a satellite phone for emergencies.”
“Well, thank goodness for that. And that’s the first thing you’ve told me in the last ten minutes that makes sense,” Delaney said.
Eric started digging through his backpack looking for the phone. Delaney couldn’t squelch the feelings of exasperation that were bubbling just below the surface, so she decided to take a walk. She needed some space between her and crazy Eric.
“I’m going to walk a little while you make your phone call, to see if there’s a spot to cross,” she said.
“Suit yourself,” Eric said, pulling out his phone and powering it on.
Delaney rolled her eyes and stomped off. All of her feelings of admiration for Eric had flown out the window. If they made it out of here alive, Eric would still need to watch his back, because Delaney was already starting to fantasize about strangling him. Some tour guide he had turned out to be.
Chapter Four
Eric watched Delaney stomping off toward the east, looking for an ice bridge he already knew she would never find. He wished he could explain things better, but he couldn’t come up with an explanation that would sound plausible. And even if he told her the truth—oh, by the way, I’m a polar bear shifter—it wouldn’t make things better. She wouldn’t believe him, or she’d be terrified. Or both. She was already starting to think he was crazy.
So what’s new, he thought. He listened to the phone ringing in his ear, waiting for Neal to pick up. Eric had spent his entire life dealing with people thinking he was crazy. It was hard to live among humans and keep a secret as big as his.
“Neal’s tattoo shop,” came Neal’s voice on the line.
Eric took a deep breath. He knew his alpha was not going to be pleased with the ice floe predicament. “Neal, I need some help.”
“Okay. What’s wrong?” Neal drew out the word “okay,” and Eric knew that Neal was already suspicious of why Eric was calling.
“I’m stuck on an ice floe. With a girl. A human girl. We fell asleep while ice fishing, and a Blizzard cut us off from the mainland. I need someone to come rescue us. Obviously, I can’t exactly just shift and swim back with her here. The Blizzard knew that. He’s probably been trailing us and waiting for an opportunity to do something like this. He’s alone, so he couldn’t attack me by himself without facing certain death himself.”
Neal let out a frustrated growl. “Why is this the first I’ve heard about this girl? I thought I gave specific instructions that any potential human life mates had to first be approved by me.”
“I’m sorry, Neal. It’s not anything serious. Tyler dared me to ask her on a date. And this wasn’t even a date, exactly. She’s a photographer, and wanted someone to show her some good spots to get some sunrise and sunset spots. So I took her out to the ice fishing shelter, and she came ice fishing with me today. I wasn’t intending to mate with her or anything like that. I was just fulfilling a silly bet I lost with Tyler.” Eric purposefully left off the fact that Delaney was the most beautiful woman he had ever seen, and had been the first person to truly awaken the bear within him since Gina had died.
Neal growled again, but now he sounded less angry and more concerned. “Are you sure it was a Blizzard that did this?”
“Positive. I saw him. Jet black eyes and all.”
“Shit. I thought they were all gone with the warmer weather rolling in.”
Eric kept his mouth shut. It didn’t seem like the right time to point out that Eric had tried to tell Neal that there were still Blizzards around.
“Alright. Hang tight. I know you have an inflatable rescue boat in the shelter, right?”
“Right.”
“I’ll get one of the other bears and head out right away. We’ll grab the boat and get you and the girl out of there. Should be about an hour.”
“Okay, Neal. We’ll be waiting.”
As Eric hung up the call with Neal, he saw Delaney stomping back across the ice, looking defeated. He couldn’t really blame her for being upset. In her eyes, he was probably an irresponsible wacko who had taken her out on dangerous ice. She had trusted him to know the ropes out here, and he had failed her. He couldn’t explain to her that the ice they were on was still way too thick and solid to have broken off on its own. He had been overly cautious about staying on safe ice with Delaney around. But the ice wasn’t the problem. The Blizzards were.
Those goddamn Blizzards. They were the scum of the bear shifter world. Shady, underhanded cowards, too afraid to fight to your face. They were infamous for pulling tricks like this—for waiting until your defenses were down and poisoning you, or setting you out to sea, or some similar, spineless attack. They were determined to wipe every other polar bear shifter clan from the face of the Arctic. And, so far, they were off to a pretty good start. None of the other shifter clans really wanted to fight. They all just wanted to live in peace, giving each other space and carrying on with their own lives. The Blizzards were different. They were out for blood. And while the rest of the bear clans sat back and tried to diplomatically solve things, the Blizzards were slowly picking off any polar bear shifters that weren’t Blizzards.
Even Neal, the hotheaded alpha of the Northern Lights Clan, was reluctant to go on the offensive against the Blizzards. Despite his anger over the death of his father and the majority of the clan, he didn’t want to fight. He said it wasn’t the bear way. He insisted that bears were noble animals, meant to live in peace. Eric agreed with him on that point, but he kept trying to tell Neal that bears shouldn’t be afraid to stand up and fight when an enemy left their families unable to live their lives without constantly looking over their shoulders in fear.
Delaney arrived back at the fishing hole, glaring at Eric as she sat back down in her folding chair with a huff.
“Well I hope you’re happy,” she said. “Because you’re right. We’re completely surrounded by water. We’re on an ice island. No way off.”
Eric resisted the urge to say he had told her so. Instead he gave her the news about Neal coming to get them. “I got a hold of my buddy. He’s bringing a rescue boat to come get us. Should be here in less than an hour.”
Delaney nodded, but said nothing further. She was pissed. Eric almost laughed. There was not going to be a second “date,” that’s for sure. At least, once they got back to town, he’d have another good “I told you so” to throw at Tyler. Human women just didn’t mix well in their lives.
They sat in silence for a few minutes, and Eric decided to set up another bait line. If they were stuck out here for another hour, he might as well try to catch another fish. Delaney made no comment or movement while Eric set up the line. She had lost any interest in taking pictures of their little fishing expedition. After the line was set up, Eric leaned back in his folding chai
r and breathed in deeply, and let out a deep sigh.
Then he sat up suddenly. He didn’t like that smell. He breathed in deeply again, then looked up at the sky, which was quickly turning gray.
“Oh, what now?” Delaney asked in an exasperated tone. “Don’t tell me you smell another bear or something.”
“No. It’s not a bear,” Eric said, still looking up at the sky, which seemed to be growing darker by the second. “It’s snow.”
“Really, Eric? Have you completely lost your marbles? In case you haven’t noticed, there’s snow everywhere out here. We’re in the far north of Alaska.”
“No, it’s more than just the snow on the ground. There’s a snowstorm coming. A big one.”
“Okay. If you say so,” Delaney said. She gave Eric a longsuffering look and settled back into her chair, closing her eyes and furrowing her brow.
But Eric couldn’t close his eyes now. He watched the sky with a worried look on his face. A few minutes later, a few flakes started falling. The flurries came faster and faster, until they were beating down with such fury that Eric could barely see Delaney through the whiteness, a few feet away. He could smell her, though. She smelled like fear. And with good reason. This was the worst blizzard Eric had ever seen, and he was willing to bet it was the worst one Delaney had ever seen, by a long shot.
“Eric?” she yelled. Her voice was muted and hard to hear through the thick snow. There was no anger or sass left in her voice. Only fear. “How much longer do you think it will be before your friends get here?”
Eric took a deep breath. Neal wasn’t going to come in these weather conditions. He wouldn’t survive them very well as a human, and if he shifted to a bear, well, what was the point? Then their cover as bear shifters would have already been blown. And even a polar bear would have a hard time finding them in these conditions. There wasn’t much of a scent to go on when the snow hung so thickly in the air.
Eric had no choice but to shift. Neal wouldn’t be happy about revealing their true identity to another human. But there was no other way out of this without leaving Delaney to die, and Eric sure as hell wasn’t going to do that. Nor would Neal expect him to. Eric stood up and trudged the few feet over to where Delaney was sitting.
Bearing the Whiteout (Ice Bear Shifters Book 2) Page 3