“You don’t know anything for sure, yet,” she finally said. “We still have one tunnel we haven’t explored. There could still be another exit. And we could always go back to the other side of the cave where we came from. There are a lot of exists over there. They’re just really hard to find.”
“Hannah, the other side of the cave is a mess. It’s a freezing wasteland. Honestly, it’s a miracle we made it through a few days over there. If we go back, we’ll lose our easy source of food and warmth. We could wander in circles for weeks with no sign of an exit. And you know as well as I do that the last tunnel over here is only going to lead us to a dead end. Whatever extra exits might have been on this side of the caverns originally, the Blizzards have closed. They aren’t stupid. They want to keep things as secure as they can without having to station guards all over every tunnel.”
“Well, we have to at least look. We don’t know for sure until we try.”
Alan rolled his eyes. “Hannah, come on. You know it’s a waste of time as well as I do.”
“Do you have a better idea?” Hannah asked. She crossed her arms and stared Alan straight in the eyes. She wasn’t going to back down on this one. They had to be sure they weren’t leaving any options undiscovered.
Alan sighed. “Fine. We’ll look tomorrow, if it will make you happy. But don’t think I’m not going to say I told you so when we confirm that I’m right.”
Hannah grinned. Victory! She knew it was a long shot, but she just had a good feeling about the other tunnels.
Alan’s face broke into a smile. “You’re so cute when you’re feeling all self-righteous,” he said. “Come here, you.”
Hannah went over to him and let him pull her down onto their rocky bed. He leaned in to kiss her, and she let him as she relished the feeling of his erection stiffening and pressing against her. They had spent almost every night making love. Hannah had thought the feelings of chemistry and passion would eventually start to fade, but so far they were still going strong. Being trapped in a cave was a pretty depressing situation, and Hannah could not have been more thankful for the nightly distraction. And tonight, especially, she needed the distraction. She closed her eyes and melted into Alan’s kiss, letting everything fade away except the delicious feeling of his body against hers.
* * *
“I told you so,” Alan said, crossing his arms and giving Hannah a defiant look.
“Don’t be a jerk,” Hannah replied, her voice taking on a hollow note. “You can’t tell me that you’re happy about being right in this instance.”
Alan didn’t reply, just watched as Hannah traced her hand along the perimeter of the solid rock wall where the last tunnel turned into a dead end. Of course, he wasn’t happy about being right. But he wasn’t surprised. And, as far as he could tell, they only had one option left. An option he knew Hannah would protest against vehemently.
“We have to storm the Blizzards’ cavern,” he said.
Hannah froze in her tracks, with her hand pressed against the rocky wall. Her back faced him, so he couldn’t see the expression on her face. But he knew whatever it was it wouldn’t be happy. After a few long moments, she turned to look at him, her eyes incredulous.
“Are you out of your mind?” she asked.
“I’m assuming that’s a rhetorical question,” Alan said.
Hannah kept talking without even acknowledging his snarky comment.
“There are only two of us, and a bazillion of them.”
“Bazillion’s not a real number,” Alan said. Hannah shot him a look of death, and he decided to keep quiet and let her talk for a few minutes.
“We’re way outnumbered. And, in case you haven’t noticed, I’m not the strongest of fighters like you are. If we try to go into that room we’re dead meat for sure.”
“Listen, Hannah, just hear me out. We’re not going to fight them. At least, hopefully not. All we need is a decent head start. If we can get out of that door before most of them have time to realize what’s happening, we can get away. The guards are lazy and not very alert. They’re not expecting anything exciting to happen. We’ll just go late at night, when everyone else is sleeping. We’ll count to three, shift, and run like hell. By the time they see that there are two non-Blizzard bears running across the cavern, we’ll be almost to the door. I’m a fast runner. I’m assuming from your small bear size and large calf muscles that you are, too.”
Alan glanced appreciatively down at Hannah’s calves and she blushed.
“Look,” Alan continued. “Staying in here forever isn’t an option. Going back to the other side of the cave isn’t a viable option. If we want to live, our only hope is to take them by surprise and get out of here before they have time to react. The longer we sit around here contemplating what to do, the greater chance we have of being discovered. I don’t think they know we’re over on this side of the cave yet. Obviously, they must know we’re in here. They might have looked in the old cavern where they threw you and saw that you were gone. And I’m sure they’ve discovered the dead Blizzard patrolman who attacked you by now. But, odds are, they think we’re lost or starved over on the other side. We still have the element of surprise. Let’s use it while we still can.”
Hannah looked long and hard at Alan after he finished his attempt at a persuasive tirade. For a moment, he thought she might agree with him. But then she broke the silence by shaking her head at him and snorting in disgust. She took off back down the tunnel in the direction from which they had come.
“You’re crazy,” she called out over her shoulder.
Alan sighed, and started following her. He had to think of a way to convince her to try his plan. Of course it was risky. But there wasn’t exactly a safe option available here. He followed her in silence, trying to come up with different ways to word his pleas that might appeal to her more. But no matter how he planned to phrase it, the end result was always obvious. They were going to run through a den of Blizzards. Either they would escape or be torn to pieces. There wasn’t much of a middle ground here.
As it turned out, however, Alan didn’t have to convince Hannah of anything. She could demonstrate her stubbornness quite forcefully sometimes, but she wasn’t stupid. She must have mulled over Alan’s suggested plan and the other available options during their trek back, and come to the conclusion that Alan’s plan was their only real choice. As they settled back at their base camp to eat their raw vegetables, Hannah spoke softly.
“Okay,” she said.
“Okay?”
“Okay, let’s try your plan. Tomorrow night.”
He looked up at her and nodded, then went back to chewing on his bell pepper. No further explanation was necessary. They were throwing all their chips on the table tomorrow, and hoping to win big.
Later that night, as they snuggled down into their rock bed for the last time, Hannah sighed deeply and squeezed her arms around Alan so tightly that she nearly cut off his circulation. He would have liked to make love to her here one last time, but she was nervous and clearly not in the mood.
“Hey,” he said, looking down to nuzzle her nose with his nose. “It’s going to be okay. I have faith that we can pull this off.”
“I just can’t believe that after all we’ve suffered and overcome, it’s going to come down to this. One mad, crazy dash through the middle of hell.”
“I know. But just think of it this way—win, lose, or draw, this will all be over tomorrow.”
She sighed, and buried her face deeply into his chest. “It just seems like there should be some way to get out of this mess without running straight into the waiting jaws of our enemies.
He kissed the top of her head and held her close. “I know. But, sometimes, the only way out is through.”
Chapter Nine
Late into the next evening, Alan and Hannah made their way back to the Blizzard’s main den. They left Alan’s back pack behind, since it would only slow them down, and they wouldn’t be needing it after tonight. Whether or not
their plan succeeded, this was it.
They made most of the walk in silence, but Hannah obviously felt terrified. She kept thinking up scenarios for why things wouldn’t work out.
“What if there are more guards tonight?” she asked.
“Then we’ll wait for another night.”
“What if that door to the entrance is locked?”
“I’ll bash right through it.”
“What if it doesn’t lead to an exit?”
“Then we’re probably screwed. But just keep running. And whatever you do, don’t look back. Don’t stop if they catch me or if I fall. Just run for your life.”
By the time they were close enough that they needed to stop talking to avoid being heard by a Blizzard, Hannah’s questions had exhausted Alan. He tried to remain patient and understanding. He knew that she was trying to work through her fears over facing possible death at the hands of a large horde of Blizzards. But her nerves were rattling his nerves, and he was thankful that she was forced to fall silent as they approached the lair.
Peeking cautiously from the furthest vantage point possible, Alan saw that the same two guards were standing watch tonight. And they looked just as bored as they had the night before. Alan nodded to Hannah, and they silently crept as close as they felt they could without taking a chance at alerting the guard. If their cover was blown, the whole operation would be down the drain.
Several minutes later, they had made it to the launching spot without incident. Alan looked over at Hannah and took a deep breath. He wanted to drink in her beauty in the dim shadows, in case this was the last time he got to see her.
“I love you,” he mouthed at her, and blew her a kiss.
“I love you, too,” she mouthed back. Her eyes had gone from terrified to serene, and Alan took comfort in the fact that she seemed to have accepted that this was what they had to do. He took one more deep breath, and then began executing their plan. He held up his hand and used his fingers to slowly count.
One.
Two.
Three.
When he put his third finger into the air, he and Hannah both shifted. The cave filled with powerful bursts of wind and energy as two polar bears appeared where the two human forms had just been. Alan and Hannah, as bears, ran full speed, knocking over the first guard a split-second after he raised his eyes in shock at the sound of their shifting.
They flew over the sleeping Blizzard clan members, who were all spread out on the floor in human form. A few sat up, dazed and confused as they were smacked by the giant bear paws passing over them. More than one person was crushed by the weight of the running polar bears landing on them.
“Hey!” the second guard yelled. “Stop!”
Of course, Alan and Hannah didn’t listen. Alan barreled through the second guard. He didn’t bother stopping to check whether the door was locked or not. He just smashed straight through it. On the other side of the door, they found themselves in another tunnel, and they ran smack into two more guards, who had just turned around to see what had caused the sudden commotion. The force of the sudden impact knocked the guards unconscious.
Alan fought back disappointment and fear. He had hoped bursting through the door would put them out on the surface again, but they were still very much in the cave. The only light in the tunnel came from the faint glow of the Blizzards’ den that was quickly fading behind them. As they ran, Alan heard the sound of numerous pops of energy behind him. The Blizzards were shifting, and would soon be in hot pursuit. As they had planned, they had a good head start. But a good head start for what? If this tunnel didn’t lead them to an exit soon, they were doomed.
Alan forced himself to focus on nothing but running. He couldn’t afford to waste energy on panicking right now. The roars of the Blizzards echoed down the tunnel from behind him. For three solid minutes, he forced himself to run despite the terror that threatened to overtake him. And then, he felt a glimmer of hope. The tunnel started sloping upwards ever so slightly. After another minute of running, he saw lights. Two flaming torches were mounted on either side of a large hole, which looked out at a starlit sky. Alan wanted to stop and whoop for joy, although, of course, he couldn’t waste time doing that right now. Freedom was in sight! Only a few hundred more feet.
Just as Alan had started to feel confident that they would make it, two heads appeared in the opening. Even from the distance, Alan could see the glittering, jet black eyes of the two Blizzard guards. The roaring from down the tunnel must have alerted them, and when they realized that two foreign polar bears were racing toward the entrance, they wasted no time in shifting. The gusts of powerful wind as they changed form slowed Alan slightly, but he kept moving his limbs as fast as he could in their direction. He could take them.
As he burst through the exit and onto the snow covered ground, he dragged a claw across the muzzle of one of the guards. Then he tackled him, rolling over a few times and closing his teeth across his neck in a death grip. He looked over to see Hannah struggling with the other guard. Leaving the first guard limp, he roared and went for the jugular of the second guard, who went limp moments later as well. Quickly, Alan sniffed in all directions, trying to catch a whiff of town. As soon as he smelled it, he started running full speed in that direction. He had no idea what side of town they would end up running toward. If they were heading toward the west side, where the Northern Lights Cabins graced the outskirts, that would be perfect. They could find shelter and assistance from his clan members.
But even if they were heading to one of the other sides of town, if they could just make it close enough to Glacier Point, they would be safe. Even the Blizzards wouldn’t risk a fight in the presence of so many humans. The last thing any of the clans wanted was to prompt a bear hunt by the humans.
Alan kept running, even though his lungs burned and he could feel himself growing tired. He wanted to turn around and make sure Hannah was still following him, but he couldn’t afford to slow himself down even for a millisecond. He had already lost too much precious time when he had to fight off the two additional guards. He could hear the Blizzards’ roars behind him, even louder and closer than before. All he could do was run for his life, and trust that Hannah was doing the same. They were so close to escape, if only they could hold out a little longer.
After several more minutes of running, Alan started to recognize landmarks on the moonlit countryside. He saw a familiar giant boulder with a dead pine tree leaned against it, and he realized with a flood of relief that they were indeed on the west side of town. That giant boulder marked the beginning of a path that wound through the forest and ended up at the outskirts of town where the five cabins for the Northern Lights Clan stood.
Alan sacrificed a quick second to look back and check on Hannah. She ran behind him with a tired, desperate look. He gave her an encouraging roar, then ran forward with renewed strength. The sound of the Blizzards behind them grew quieter, and Alan realized that many of the bears had probably dropped off the chase by now. It sounded like less than ten still followed them. As they drew closer to the Northern Lights cabins, Alan let out a few roars at the top of his lungs. He wanted to wake up his fellow clan members, and alert them to the fact that he would be there soon. Hopefully they would hear him, and understand that they needed to be ready for a possible fight. Even though he was in bear form, Alan almost cried when he heard Neal’s familiar roar in reply. His alpha had heard him, and would certainly be standing ready to defend him.
The Blizzards must have heard the roar as well, because the sound of their footsteps running behind him abruptly tapered off. A few minutes later, Alan burst into the clearing where the Northern Lights cabins stood. He turned around, ready to fight any Blizzards to the death, but the only bear that came running up behind him was Hannah, panting, but unharmed. The Blizzards had abandoned the chase, and Alan and Hannah had escaped the Black Ice Caverns alive.
Neal had been standing in the clearing with a rifle in his hands, ready to shoot or shift as
the situation required. Behind him were Tyler and Eric, two of Alan’s other clan members. When Neal realized that Alan was back, and safe, and that Hannah wasn’t a Blizzard, he dropped the rifle and ran running up to Alan. Neal threw his arms around Alan’s big furry, polar bear neck and squeezed him tight.
“Welcome back, buddy,” he said. “Tonight is full of miracles.”
Chapter Ten
After making doubly certain that no Blizzards had trailed them back to the cabins, Alan and Hannah shifted back into human form, then went into Neal’s cabin where they both got new clothes and a huge plate of homemade chili leftovers. Alan briefly introduced Hannah, then scarfed down two huge bowlfuls of food. After nearly starving, and then subsisting on raw vegetables, the reheated chili tasted like a slice of heaven.
Alan quickly learned that Kenzie had gone into labor several hours before they arrived, which would explain why her life mate, Ryker, hadn’t also been outside to help fight off any Blizzards. He was staying with Kenzie, both for moral support and to protect her. Eric had gone back over already to help guard the cabin. Eric’s life mate, Delaney, and Tyler’s life mate, Kat, were both with Kenzie as well, assisting with the labor and providing moral support. Alan hadn’t seen Neal with such a genuine smile on his face since most of the clan had been lost to poisoning.
“This night is incredible,” Neal said. “A new cub is being born into the clan for the first time since the poisoning. Not only that, but we thought by now that you were dead. Yet here you are, alive and well. What happened to you? Kat came back to get help, but when we headed back we couldn’t find the entrance to the hole where you fell in. At first, we thought she must have just miscalculated where she left you. But we searched high and low across the tundra and couldn’t find anything.”
“It’s a long story,” Alan said. “But I’m sure you’re going to want to hear about this.”
Bearing the Black Ice (Ice Bear Shifters Book 4) Page 5