Alan proceeded to tell Neal about falling into the cave, then seeing Hannah get thrown in, after which the entrance was closed off and hidden. He talked about wandering the cave and almost dying, finding the underground greenhouse, and finally escaping right through the stunned group of Blizzards.
Neal shook his head in amazement throughout the story. “No wonder we’ve seen so many Blizzards around lately. They’ve been hiding right under our noses. I’m worried about what their plans are once Kenzie’s cub is born. They’ve been suspiciously quiet in the last week or so. We’ve been taking turns guarding Ryker’s cabin, and we’ve all been staying close, ready to fight at a moment’s notice. God help me if one of those Blizzards lays a hand on that new cub. I will personally tear out every last one of their hearts and feed them to the wolves.”
Neal slammed the table for emphasis, his eyes turning dark. For several long moments, no one spoke. The joy of the soon-to-come new cub was tempered by the knowledge that the Blizzards were hell-bent on harming him or her.
“Anyways,” Neal said, standing and grabbing the empty bowls on the table. “I know you two must be exhausted. Why don’t you go back to your cabin, Alan, and get some rest. I’m so thrilled that you’re back. And Hannah, you’re welcome to stay here as long as you want. We’ll provide you with shelter and protection. Any enemy of the Blizzards is a friend of mine.”
Hannah, who had barely said a word that evening, merely nodded.
Alan said goodnight to Tyler, who was getting ready to go take a turn guarding Ryker’s cabin. Then he and Hannah made their way over to his cabin. When he walked in and turned on the lights, he could have cried. The sight of his familiar kitchen table, and the familiar old couch and TV in the living room, overwhelmed him. He had tried to be brave during the whole ordeal, but seeing the home he had thought he might never see again filled him with a flood of emotions.
“Come here, you,” he said to Hannah, and pulled her close to him. She had been silent all night, holding back the emotions as well. But, here, in the warm solitude of Alan’s cabin, she finally let the tears come. She leaned against him, sobbing into his chest. The relief consumed them both.
“Shhh…” Alan said, stroking her hair and kissing the top of her head. “Shhh. Everything is okay. We’re here. We’re safe now. We made it through.”
Hannah still said nothing. She just nodded, and then allowed Alan to pull her over to the bedroom and onto his king sized mattress. After so many nights of sleeping in the cave, the luxury of a soft bed and warm blankets made them feel like royalty. Alan wrapped his arms around Hannah, and within moments they were both asleep.
* * *
The next morning, Hannah awoke to bright sunbeams streaming through the window and directly into her eyes. After so much darkness for so long, the light was jarring. It took Hannah a few moments to gain her bearings, but once she did, a huge smile crossed her face. She looked over at the other side of the bed. It was empty now, but a slight impression remained in the mattress from where Alan’s body had been not long before. The warm smell of roasting coffee and sizzling bacon drifted into the room, and Hannah had to pinch herself to make sure she wasn’t dreaming.
She rolled over and buried her face into the soft pillow, savoring the simple joy of the moment. She hadn’t realized how long it had been since she woke up in a proper bed, to the smell of breakfast and the sight of sunbeams. And the sound of your true love singing, she added to herself, as the sound of Alan’s deep baritone came from the kitchen.
She knew danger still lurked in the shadows. The Blizzards would be furious over her escape, and they were determined to get Kenzie’s cub. The threat of an attack hung heavy in the air. And Hannah still had no idea where her other clan members were, or if they were even alive. But, at least, no matter what new trials and tribulations came, Hannah knew she wasn’t alone in the fight anymore. She had Alan by her side, and Neal had offered her the protection of the Northern Lights Clan. Things weren’t perfect, but they had taken a huge leap in the right direction.
Hannah rolled out of bed and padded out to the kitchen, excited to pour herself a huge mug of coffee.
“Morning,” she said to Alan, who had his back turned to her as he worked at the stove.
He turned around and grinned at her. “Morning, Beautiful. I didn’t wake you, did I?”
“No, the blinding sunlight in my eyes woke me up. Although, I’m definitely not complaining about that. I’ll never take a sunrise for granted again.”
Alan leaned over and kissed her cheek. “There are mugs up there,” he said, pointing to a cupboard at the end of the kitchen. “Help yourself to coffee. Bacon and eggs will be ready in a few minutes.”
Alan must have showered this morning, because any traces of dirt, sweat, and grime from their cave ordeal were gone. He had combed his dark hair neatly into place, and his violet eyes sparkled with new life. He smelled faintly of vanilla. Although he had definitely lost a few pounds over the course of their ordeal in the caverns, his physique and muscles seemed to have remained largely intact. Hannah suddenly felt self-conscious of her messy, dirty appearance. She sighed and went to grab a mug from the cupboard Alan had pointed toward. She couldn’t wait to take a shower.
Hannah poured herself a generous helping of coffee, then took a seat at the table to wait on the rest of breakfast. As she took a small sip of the dark, hot liquid, she heard the sound of distant moaning coming from the direction of Ryker’s cabin.
“I guess Kenzie is still in labor,” she said.
Alan nodded. “Yeah, poor thing. I went over and checked on things about half an hour ago. This is her first cub, and Ryker told me labor and delivery is usually the longest with first time moms. She’s been in labor almost twenty-four hours now, so they’re hoping it won’t be too much longer before the baby is born.”
“What time is it, anyways?” Hannah asked.
Alan chuckled. “One p.m. Not exactly breakfast time, but whatever. We needed the sleep, and I needed some bacon.”
Alan loaded two plates up with scrambled eggs and bacon, and then set one down in front of Hannah. They ate in silence for a few minutes, hungrily devouring the food. Even though they’d had plenty of chili the night before, they both still felt like they were running on a nutritional deficit. It felt good to eat to satisfaction after the meager food options they’d had in the caverns.
“I got you several outfits from Kenzie and Delaney. They’re both about your size. Glacier Point is the main town around here, and they have a few stores where we can buy you some clothes of your own. But Neal wants everyone to stay around the cabins for now, until we figure out what the Blizzards’ plans are for an attack on the new cub.”
Hannah smiled gratefully as she swallowed down the last few bites of her food. “Thank you. I’m just happy to have clothes again that aren’t sweatpants and several sizes too big.”
Alan laughed. “You looked adorable in my sweatpants.”
“I looked like I was wearing a potato sack.”
“You did not. You’re beautiful, no matter what you’re wearing.” Alan stood and kissed the top of Hannah’s head. “I need to go help guard Kenzie’s cabin for a while. You can stay here and relax. The shower here is awesome. The water gets very hot and the water pressure is great. I’ll be back in a few hours, but make yourself at home. I got a bunch of food by raiding the kitchens of the other clan members. And, if you like to read, I have a pretty big collection of books in a wide variety of genres.”
“Sounds good,” Hannah said. “Don’t worry about me. I can entertain myself. And this cabin is like an amusement park compared to the empty, dark caves where the Blizzards left me for days on end. I’m sure I’ll find plenty to do.”
Alan smiled and kissed her, on the lips this time. Then he took off in the direction of Ryker’s cabin.
Hannah definitely wanted to take Alan up on the offer of a shower. She sifted through the outfits he had brought over for her and chose a pair of d
ark wash jeans and a soft gray long-sleeved sweater with a v-neck. She laid the clothes out on the bed and then went into the bathroom. After turning on the water and finding a towel, she looked at her reflection in the mirror while she waited for the water to heat up.
She shuddered at the sight. She hadn’t seen her own reflection in months, and she hardly recognized herself. Her cheeks looked gaunt and hollow, and her skin appeared pale. She must have lost close to thirty pounds, making the outline of her ribcage easily visible. Her oily, dirty hair had lost its sleek black shine. Smudges of dirt appeared at random across her body. How could Alan look at her and see beauty? She only saw a starving, dirty shell of a woman.
She sighed, and stepped into the shower. The first step in fixing this mess was to get cleaned up. She moaned out loud as the steaming hot water hit her skin. She couldn’t even remember the last time she’d had a hot shower. The Blizzards certainly hadn’t offered her any creature comforts while they held her prisoner all those months. And, before that, she had been on the run with her clan for so long. She might be part animal, but she was still a woman. She still loved a relaxing, warm shower. She grabbed a bar of soap from the side of the shower and started lathering up. It smelled like vanilla, the same way Alan had smelled in the kitchen earlier. Dirty, soapy streams of water ran down her body and disappeared through the drain, erasing the evidence of her long days and nights in Black Ice Caverns.
Hannah wished that her lingering fears and worries could be washed away so easily. She didn’t know what the future held. She knew she had bonded to Alan. They hadn’t discussed it, but she was fairly certain that he felt it, too. There hadn’t been much point in making plans to become life mates, though, when they thought they were going to die in the caverns. Now, the prospect of an actual future stretched out in front of them. If this morning’s display of affection gave any indication of his feelings, he still considered her beautiful and special. But did he want to make the leap of committing to her for all time? And would his clan members accept her?
And what about her own clan? Where they still out there? Had they given up looking for her. Were the other two clan members who had been taken prisoner still alive? She feared they had been killed, since she hadn’t seen or heard anything about them for a very long time.
Hannah wondered if the rest of her clan had escaped the area alive. Was her alpha still alive? Would her clan’s alpha be willing to agree to an alliance with the Northern Lights alpha, Neal? Usually, when two bear shifters from different clans decided to become life mates, the alphas of the different clans would make an agreement to form an alliance. Each clan would pledge to protect and support the other clan. But the rules for clans were changing, since so many clans had been wiped out or reduced to a handful of bears. These days, given the dwindling number of many clans, more and more bear shifters were taking human mates. And bears who found shifter mates were going through the life mate ceremony quickly, forgoing the formalities of joining two clans together. Since Hannah didn’t know if she would ever see any of her clan members again, odds were against there ever being an alliance between the Frozen Claw Clan and the Northern Lights Clan.
Hannah lathered shampoo into her hair and, for the first time in a long time, allowed tears of grief to run down her face. She knew she had to accept the fact that her clan, like most of the other Northern Arctic clans, had either been killed off completely by the Blizzards, or had slunk away into the shadows, never to be heard from again. She knew the best course of action was to go forward with her own life. But her heart broke for all the lost bears. This madness had to stop. Someone had to stop the Blizzards from their quest to violently take over the Arctic. The pain of losing clan members never left you, and almost every polar bear shifter in the Arctic Circle had now felt that pain.
Hannah let the steaming water wash away the shampoo, and continued to stand under the soothing stream long after the last suds were washed away. Water somehow cleared her mind and helped her think. She knew Alan would be asking her soon if she would be his life mate. She wanted to say yes, but she felt as though doing so, without trying to go find her own clan first, was disloyal. Hannah closed her eyes and tried to imagine what advice her alpha would give, if he knew the situation. And then, the answer became clear.
Her alpha would want her to be happy. And being with Alan made her happy. She and Alan had survived so much together already. She knew they were bonded to each other—emotionally, physically, and spiritually. Every aspect of their being blended into one, in the deepest of bonds.
Hannah killed the water and stepped out of the shower, wrapping herself in a large, fluffy towel. She found another towel to use to vigorously rub her hair as dry as she could. Alan didn’t seem to have a hair dryer, so she had to do the best she could with the towel. Luckily, the air inside the cabin was warm and toasty, so her damp hair didn’t bother her too much. She finger combed her hair and let it fall loosely around her shoulders. After staring at herself in the mirror for a few moments, she smiled approvingly. Her appearance had already improved, just by washing away the dirt and getting the tangles out of her hair. The gaunt look on her face would need a little time to go away, but positive changes had already started.
Hannah slipped on the clothes that the women of Alan’s clan had loaned her. They didn’t fit perfectly, but they would work well enough until she had a chance to get some of her own. Since her hair had mostly dried at this point, she put it up into a smooth bun. Alan had brought her a few pairs of shoes. Half of them fit her, so at least one of the women in the clan shared her shoe size. Hannah felt a little ball of nervousness in her stomach when she thought about the other women in the clan. She hadn’t had a chance to meet them yet, since they had been helping Kenzie during her labor. She hoped they would all like her. Alan had told her that the women were all human. The idea of being the only female shifter in a clan felt strange, but as long as the other women didn’t get weird about it, Hannah didn’t see any reason they couldn’t all be friends. And, oh, how she longed for close female companionship again. She missed the days of sitting on a front porch on a lazy summer afternoon, sipping lemonade and sharing the latest clan gossip. She missed spending winter afternoons baking batches of cookies with friends, all while sipping on homemade hot chocolate. Hannah would give almost anything to enjoy happy moments like that again, and she hoped that the women of the Northern Lights Clan would welcome her in and let her be a part of their crew.
As Hannah sat there daydreaming about happier times ahead, Alan suddenly burst through the front door. “They’re here!” he shouted, his voice full of excitement.
“Who’s here?” Hannah asked, confused.
“The cubs! Kenzie had her cubs—twins! A boy and a girl. No one near Glacier Point does ultrasounds, so she had no idea! What an amazing surprise. Not just one, but two new clan members were born today!”
Hannah grinned from ear to ear. Even though she hadn’t yet met Kenzie, she was overjoyed at the news. She knew the good news of a double blessing would buoy the spirits of the Northern Lights bears, who had been through so much with the near annihilation of their clan.
“Alan, that’s fantastic! Kenzie must be thrilled.”
“She’s over the moon with excitement, although she’s exhausted. But she’s asking to meet you. Would you like to come meet her and the new cubs?”
“Right now? Doesn’t she want to rest up first?”
Alan shrugged. “I guess she’s on a bit of an adrenaline high at the moment. And she was so excited to see that I was back and okay after they had given me up for dead. I told her about you, and she insisted that I come get you.”
“Wow, really?”
“Yes, really. Throw on a jacket and come with me. Kenzie’s one of the nicest people you’ll ever meet.”
Hannah grinned. “Okay,” she said, grabbing the hand Alan offered and standing up. It appeared that her question over whether the women of the clan would accept her had just been answered.
/> Chapter Eleven
Hannah timidly followed Alan into the cabin that belonged to Ryker. The front room was crowded with excited clan members. Neal, Tyler, and Eric—whom Hannah had already met—stood in the kitchen, leaning against the kitchen counter and sipping steaming mugs of coffee. They talked in excited, hushed tones, and greeted Alan and Hannah with friendly nods when they entered the cabin.
Two women sat at the kitchen table, and they rose to greet Hannah. The first woman had honey brown eyes, and hair of the same color pulled up in a bun. With her slender frame and olive skin, she looked like a model.
“You must be Hannah,” she said. “I’m Delaney, Eric’s life mate. I’ve heard so much about you! It’s so good to meet you.”
Delaney reached over and gave Hannah a warm hug. The gesture took Hannah off guard, but she returned the hug.
“All good things, I hope,” Hannah joked.
“Of course! Alan can’t stop talking about you.”
Hannah glanced over at Alan, who blushed and gave her a sheepish shrug. Seeing the cheeks of her tough guy shifter turning pink was kind of adorable.
The other woman was curvier, with shiny blonde hair and sparkling blue eyes. Her porcelain skin glowed with beauty and happiness, and she gave Hannah a big hug as well. “I’m Kat, Tyler’s life mate,” she said. “Delaney’s right, we’ve heard such good things about you. And we’re happy to have another woman around. I don’t like having the guys outnumber us.”
“It’s true, they get too superior when there aren’t enough of us around. We have to work too hard to keep them in their places,” Delaney said, with a small giggle. Out of the corner of her eye, Hannah saw Neal rolling his eyes.
“Listen,” Kat said, “I know you’re busy settling in and recovering from your awful ordeal in the caverns, but as soon as you’re feeling up to it we’d love to grab lunch with you. We can take you into town and show you the sights in Glacier Point. There isn’t much to see at this time of year, since a lot closes down when tourist season is over. But you should still get to know the place a little bit.”
Bearing the Black Ice (Ice Bear Shifters Book 4) Page 6