“Wanda, I meant you no harm. I had no idea you felt slighted.”
Wanda withdrew from the driver side wearing a parka over her hospital gown and snow boots on her bare feet. “I didn’t feel slighted. I was passed over so Paddy could hire a family member.”
Lea was really sick of hearing that. And she was well aware these might be among her last words. “Paddy wanted me here to look for whoever was harassing him. You brought this on yourself. “
“Why, you little bitch.” Wanda started toward her.
“Ladies.” Lyle held up his hands. “As much as I’d love to see you two go at it, and I do mean that sincerely, shouldn’t we be getting out of here before someone notices she’s missing?”
“Put her in the back seat,” Wanda said.
“Think about this,” Lea urged. “You know Caleb will come looking for me.”
“Right, I forgot to add ‘whore’ to your list of accomplishments.”
Lyle opened the door and shoved Lea inside. Lea fell over on the seat and was scrambling to right herself when she felt Lyle land beside her.
Wanda stuck her face through the door while Lea sprawled on the seat bench. “Turns out it’ll just be us girls after all.” She waggled her stiletto, the end now bloodied with Lyle’s hair and something darkly sticky.
“You killed the elf!”
“Both of them, actually, stiletto to the base of the skull. Works like a charm. Shoes really are the perfect accessory.”
Lyle’s sunglasses had been knocked off, and he stared blankly ahead.
“Now you sit tight back there and enjoy the ride.” Wanda slammed the door.
How had she missed that Wanda was a whole lot of crazy?
Lea craned her neck around to see a naked Caleb running toward the vehicle. Sensing movement out of the corner of her eye, she spotted Derek running too. The two men rolled in the snow in one fluid motion, shifting into ice bears without losing any speed.
Even if she’d not seen them shift, she would have known Caleb’s ice bear. He was leaner and moved gracefully. Derek was solid and moved with careful precision of a soldier.
Their involuntary growls caught Wanda’s attention. She spun around, gun raised. She took two steps back around the side of the shuttle, improving her aim.
Lea was frantic. Please oh please don’t kill him.
Both back doors were shut. There was no time to try opening them with her hands tied behind her back. She had to distract Wanda from killing again. Struggling to a half stand, Lea realized she could just reach the front seat.
Pushing off with her feet, she propelled herself toward the steering wheel.
In retrospect, it would be hard to say which was more memorable, hitting the horn with her forehead or knocking herself unconscious.
Lea woke up with a terrific headache. It felt as though an entire ice bear family was sitting on her brain. She squeezed her eyes shut in the bright hospital light. She could feel Caleb. He was here.
“Hey, beautiful, how you feeling?” He came to stand by her bed.
“Sore,” Lea croaked. The word came out sounding like “snore.” She lifted one hand to touch her face. The wrist was bandaged, just like her nose.
She could still smell, though. The scent of fresh evergreen filled the room. Glancing around, she saw a completely decorated tree standing in one corner.
“I’m afraid you broke your nose. I’m not sure you can smell the tree, but hopefully you can enjoy looking at it.” Caleb leaned down and kissed her forehead. “Did you realize if that vehicle had air bags you could’ve been killed?”
Neither of them had been killed. It was a miracle.
“Derek?”
“He’s fine. The only thing hurt is his ego. I think he has a crush on you.”
Yep. Caleb was the same.
Her face hurt. “Wanda?”
“In custody. I’m sorry. I know you two were friends for a long time.”
Lea couldn’t think of a thing to say. The pain of betrayal cut deeply.
“As soon as you’re well enough I’ll take you back to New York. I talked to your parents and they said this year Christmas can wait for you.”
He sat down on the edge of Lea’s bed and took her hand in his. She didn’t want him to touch her, but his thumb drawing light circles on the back of her hand felt really good.
Like something a girl could get used to.
15
Caleb
Caleb was in the same room as Lea, and she was talking to him. Although he wanted to gather her into his arms and kiss every square inch of her body, she looked frail and wary. He’d have to wait. And there was a lot to fill her in on about the night’s events. Maybe by the time he was done, she’d forget he’d been such a jerk.
“Please, Lea. Don’t give up on us,” he said. “Let’s go to New York together. God knows they’ve got plenty of hospitals. I could find someplace to exercise my ice bear. You are mine. I’ll always love you with my whole heart and soul.”
“You’d do that for me? Take your ice bear to Brooklyn?”
“In a heartbeat. I couldn’t break this claim even if I wanted to. And the truth is, I don’t want to. It’s not just that I desire you. I do, but something deep inside my spirit underneath man and ice bear calls to you. It’s always been you, but I was just too blockheaded to get it.”
“That does sound like you,” Lea admitted.
“Hey.” Caleb smiled.
“You know how stubborn I am. It takes a lot more than a concussion to change my mind. You’re the best Christmas present any woman could ask for. I love you, Caleb.”
“I love you, Lea. Merry Christmas.”
Epilogue
Christmas Eve in Icy Cap, one year later
Everyone said she was a beautiful bride.
“I look like I swallowed a pony.” Lea grimaced at the mirror. The white dress puffed out over her sizeable abdomen. She’d always wanted to wear white for her wedding. Now it seemed more appropriate than ever, since this was Icy Cap during Christmas.
“You look beautiful. The way my mate carrying my cubs was made to look.” Caleb’s arms circled her belly. He kissed her neck. She could feel his interest stirring against her lower back.
“Oh no you don’t, buddy boy. I’m not being late to my own wedding to answer your booty call.”
His fingers drifted up to the neckline of her gown and dipped inside. “Not even if it’s mutual?”
Damn, her nipples hardened at his touch.
She was almost to term in her pregnancy but determined to marry on Christmas Eve. It was a year ago that she almost lost everything, only to realize how much she had right in front of her.
“How can you possibly find me attractive now? I haven’t seen my feet in months.”
“I’ve never desired you more.” Caleb kissed down her neck until he nuzzled her shoulder. “For the record, it’s not your feet I’m thinking about.”
“Grr. Grr.”
Elvis twined his way between their legs. He’d become a part of their growing family. She wondered what he’d think of the twins fitting in the trailer. They’d have to find a bigger place eventually, but here was cozy. Home.
Outside a horn blasted.
“That would be your subtle brothers urging us to move along.”
Lea met Caleb’s eyes in the mirror, drinking in his love and desire. It’d been a year of changes, for sure, but not bad ones. She’d stayed in Icy Cap. Best decision she ever made.
After the Wanda-elf incident, Lea developed a new appreciation for her surveillance skills. Paddy hired her to oversee security at the club. The wolf shifters were still the muscle, but she made the place safer overall. No more troll ménages in the coatroom or selling of steaks from the kitchen door.
Paddy and Vera had married the previous New Year’s Eve, much to the delight of the entire S&S, with Caleb and Lea as witnesses. Her uncle and Vera bought an RV to travel around Alaska during the summer months.
In other g
ood news, her uncle retired the Christmas spectacle program, replacing it with a vampire jazz quartet titled “After Dark” in one theater and a female troll mud-wrestling venue out back. Attendance at the club was at an all-time high. Everyone was happy. But no couple more so than Lea and Caleb.
Sneak Peak at “His to Bear” Icy Cap Den #1
Five Reasons why fucking Dr. Meg Chambers is a bad idea:
1) She is a vampire. This far north of the Arctic Circle in January, all we have is night. Come spring when the sun touches the horizon? Not good.
2) She is a physician to both humans and paranorms. In order for this fledgling community to grow, Icy Cap needs her.
3) If she has a personal relationship with anyone, the medical review board can stake her.
4) She rents my spare bedroom.
5) My badge says: Ash Barlow, Sheriff/Mayor of Icy Cap, AK. Yep, I’m her boss.
I only finish writing number five on my list before my pen freezes. That’s what I get for sitting here in my truck during a blizzard.
Ever since Meg showed up in Icy Cap two months ago, fresh out of training and looking for a place to set up her medical practice, I’ve been fighting the urge to claim her as my mate. Now, with the winter’s biggest blizzard bearing down on us, I’m going to be trapped in my cabin with her during the full moon. That time of month, my shifter spirit is strongest.
All shifters need to claim a mate. Sometimes that process is easy: two shifters fall in love, fuck each other into exhaustion, then repeat the process, creating little shifters.
Then there’s the hard way. Or, as my family would say: Ash’s way. Honestly, I don’t set out trying to make my life difficult. But one look at Meg’s heart-shaped face, curvy ass, and sassy mouth is all it took for my ice bear spirit to know she should be my mate. And that’s a dangerous proposition for her.
Meanwhile, trying not to claim her these past few months has been driving me to distraction.
Especially because she enjoys taunting me by leaving her bedroom door ajar when she’s changing. Or I find her panties and DD lace bra hanging on our shared bathroom door hook. That sexy little vamp has a twisted streak that I’m dying to taste.
However, if Icy Cap is going to progress beyond some backwater hamlet upon the Arctic Sea, we need services. And a physician vampire is a boon to a place like Icy Cap. It was bad timing that there was no place for her to stay except with me upon her arrival. The inn I’m renovating won’t be finished until spring. Renting out my spare bedroom to her made good business sense. Tired of thinking, I cut my truck engine and kill the headlights.
Even with whiteout conditions and subzero temperatures, there is no missing the rotten-egg odor of dark magic.
Visible between gusts, the outline of my log cabin ahead is a beacon after a day of renovations and, even worse, struggling with building codes. My cabin is five miles away from the Icy Cap Inn. Besides the aforementioned inn, right now the entire town consists of a taxidermy shop, gas station and several empty buildings.
I’m so close to home, sitting here in my truck with my list scrawled on the back of a supply order.
Now this.
Climbing out of the truck, I kick the fresh snow aside with my work boots. Sugar-like granules puff into showers. The snow will soon freeze into a dense mass. I have to work fast. Not only don’t I want to smell that odor all winter, it would hardly be confidence-inspiring to the rest of the paranorms living around here for my place to reek of dark magic.
Icy Cap is nothing special to look at now, but it’s going to be a community far north of the Arctic Circle where ice-bear shifters and other paranorms can live year-round. That’s the way it was when I was growing up, before everything went bust.
My plan—along with my silent partner and twin brother, Dane—is to build an inn with a restaurant and bar. Following the “if we build it, they will come” logic, I’m hoping that guides, photographers, nature buffs, and hunters will discover Icy Cap. Visitors need shelter, food, and clothing along with souvenirs and entertainment. The tourists’ visits during the three months of endless summer days will bankroll the paranorms’ other nine months of hard-earned solitude.
But getting that dream to a reality is taking a hell of a lot of effort. I devoted most of my thirty-odd years to hockey. When my bear spirit refused to be suppressed any longer, I had to figure out a way to live as a man and an ice bear shifter. Coming back to Icy Cap was the only thing that made sense. Unfortunately, it meant rebuilding the community. That is not something life as a star hockey player prepared me for.
Times like this, when rotten-egg-smelling dark magic shows up, I miss my ordinary pre-shifter life. Inside me, a growl begins. My bear resents my reminiscing when there’s work to be done.
When I stand outside my truck, the snow blows in my face. The air smells damp, even with the freezing temperatures. More heavy snow is headed this way. So why am I standing around out here?
A few kicks and my boot hits metal. I squat, carefully brushing the loose snow aside. An arctic hare’s fine long ears and white fur are almost cut in half by the bear trap’s metal teeth. Only a slight dark stain mars the snow; the hare’s blood froze quickly. Some twisted bastard’s trap has sawed off one of the animal’s legs.
My bear spirit snarls. The growl escapes my chest into the night. This trap was within my property. All that I hold dear is in my cabin two hundred yards away; I will not let her be harmed. And this isn’t the first time I’ve been faced with an enchanted trap.
I have to find whoever is setting glamoured bear traps around my Icy Cap community. Hunting is a way of life three hundred miles north of the Artic Circle. But this trap, like the others, was set to cause maximum suffering before death. And for what? To harvest a “lucky” rabbit’s foot? Certainly, from the hare’s perspective nothing good came of it. No, there was some deeper purpose, but I don’t yet know what.
After separating the victim from its snare, I carry both toward my cabin. Even though it is hidden behind thick clouds, the full moon’s tug on my bear spirit is there. No doubt about it; I want to kill the perpetrator. It’s all I can do not to shift right now and begin my search. But first I have to stop by the cabin. If only to reassure myself of Meg’s safety.
Around the side of my cabin, I hang the trap on a high hook. Disposing of the hare is a bigger problem. This amount of ill magic is no threat to my bear, but I don’t want small scavengers sickened by the tainted meat. I’ll carry it with me to the sea and dispose of it there. With any luck, the weather will break in the next day or so. My bear spirit strains for release. Keeping it tethered drains me.
As I round to the front of my cabin, the hair on the back of my neck prickles. Another ice bear charges out of the blizzard, heading straight for me. The bear somersaults forward, shifting from four legs and eight hundred pounds of ice bear to two hundred pounds of my cousin, Tristan.
With his muscular build and strong jaw, Tristan carries the Barlow family traits of arrogance and impatience. No doubt this is why he’s an excellent law student down in Fairbanks most of the time. Since childhood, his once fair hair has darkened to light brown. Maybe there’s hope for the rest of him to grow up too. Or maybe not.
Show-off.
But Tristan wouldn’t be here tonight unless there was trouble. Neither the hare nor I is having any luck today.
***
To keep reading Book 1 His to Bear (Icy Cap #1) My Book
About the Author
Thank you so much for reading my Icy Cap stories! I love to write about shifters, vampires and assorted other paranormals from my home in the Pacific Northwest. I write sexy heroes and sassy heroines because that’s what I like to read! While I don’t live with any paranormals I do have teenagers and dogs which are also strange life forms.
This is my fifth story set in Icy Cap. Here’s a link to the box set of my first three stories: Icy Cap Shifters Box Set (Books 1-3) and if you’d like to check in on how life is going with Gary the Ghoul (
Icy Cap #4) try Paranormals Never Wear Plaid www.amazon.com/dp/B01M1SQKP2
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Take Care,
Jennifer Hilt
@jenehilt
jennifer.hilt.3
www.jenniferhilt.com
[email protected]
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A Christmas Spectacle to Bear Page 10