Inside the cave he could see no stars, no souls waiting to be joined in slumber. But he could see her physical form, lying on its side, curled into something large and white. Me, he grinned.
“Riley, are you here?”
The body before him began to glow and the glow coalesced into a spark, which rose and floated up in front of his face. He extended his hand, awed. Choosing to enter the dreaming from a wakeful state was a rare gift, and apart from himself, he'd only known a few Medicine Men who could do it. Riley's dream-self rested on his palm and the cave streaked away, leaving him inside their perpetual igloo, where she sat at his feet.
This time, Russ pressed his advantage, sinking to the floor and drawing her into his lap. She went without a struggle.
“Are you all right?” he asked, running his fingers up and down over her back.
“I am,” she replied, more confident as always when she wasn't awake.
“Oh good, I was worried when you wouldn't answer,” he told her.
“I think my lips were frozen,” she replied with a dry chuckle. Then she glanced down. “Thank you for saving me.”
“Of course,” he said. “I told you you'd be safe with me. I promised you that.”
“Instead, I put you in danger. I'm sorry, Russ.”
“Hey,” he said, rejecting her apology. He lifted her chin with one finger so he could look into her eyes. “It's okay, Riley. You know, the extra fifteen minutes you spent getting the kids ready would not have gotten us to Golden. That ice storm moved faster than anyone predicted. This was inevitable. The only question was where we would have put down. We should have stayed in Lakeville.”
“Why didn't we?” she asked, not with pointed sarcasm, but as a wide-eyed genuine question.
“I guess I wasn't thinking straight either,” he replied. “Now as I said, the storm moved faster than predicted. I thought we might have a shot of getting to Golden, or at least getting close. I'm not sure if you were aware, but behind this wintry mix there's a blizzard coming. I think both towns will be snowed in at least until the end of Thanksgiving break. I didn't figure you'd want to spend all that time with old Grandmother Carroll.”
A ghost of a smile crossed her features. She smiled so rarely, as though the weight of whatever kept her subconscious in this frozen prison made a smile too heavy to bear. And yet, when he did manage to elicit a grin, it turned her already pretty face into something irresistible. I won't be able to control myself around her much longer. I hope she's ready when the time comes.
“So, Russ. Did I see what I thought I saw, or was I dreaming?” she asked, and his control took another battering as a spark of mischief flared in her eyes.
“I don't know,” he prevaricated. “What do you think you saw?”
“I think,” she replied, “that I saw my friend Russell Tadzea strip himself naked in front of me… and turn into a bear.”
Russell took a deep breath. “You're not wrong. You weren't dreaming. Can you accept that?”
“Here I can,” she replied. “I know I'm dreaming. I can pretend shape-shifters are just figments of a lonely girl's imagination.”
“Do you really think it's necessary to pretend that?” he asked. “I've wanted for quite a while to tell you the truth. To let you see who I really am.”
“Why?”
“You know why, Riley.” His hand still lingered on her face, and so it was easy to lift her chin and lower his lips to hers.
Riley inhaled sharply though her nose. Though this was technically a sort of dream, she would be able to feel the sensation as though it were real.
He kept it light and undemanding, though his beast urged him to lay her on the far too perfect floor of the ice cave and claim her. Can't press too hard. Can't scare her if I want her to be mine. And he did want that. So to soothe her ever-present nerves, he ended the contact quickly. His bear roared in protest.
Riley's eyes had grown so huge, she almost resembled an owl. Her fingertips brushed her lips as though in disbelief. “Russ?”
“I want you, Riley,” he said, his voice lowering to a growl against his will.
“You… you want…. me? How can that be? What do you mean, Russ? You want to do what with me?”
“Everything,” he replied. The beast urged him to show her and he squashed it down, struggling to communicate coherently. “There's something between us, Riley. You have to know that. Tell me you feel it too.”
He knew she did. He could smell her arousal, could feel the spike in heat every time he approached her. Her nostrils flared in his presence. Her eyes widened. In short, every sign of awareness in a human female manifested in Riley whenever he was around. He knew she desired him. What he didn't know, and needed to learn, was whether she realized it.
“I feel it,” she admitted, breaking eye contact as he had expected. Then her head shot up. “Russ, are these dreams real?”
“They're dreams,” he replied. “This place does not exist. It's a projection of your mind.” Her shoulders sagged in obvious disappointment. Ah, she doesn't like that it's not real. He continued to explain. “But I'm really here, or at least my consciousness is.”
She stiffened with a gasp. “So you remember these conversations? They're not just in my head?” she demanded.
“They're in your head, Riley. And yes, I do remember them.”
Riley slipped from his lap and drew away from him, curling into a ball in the corner of her prison.
He approached slowly and laid a gentle hand on her shoulder.
Riley shook her head. “All this time I thought there was something wrong with me, the way I kept finding you here. How can you feel anything for me? You're handsome, mature, and confident. I'm nothing but a little mouse.”
“You're not,” Russ insisted. “You have a lot of fears, especially in the physical world. Believe me, I've noticed, but there's more to you than those fears. There is a smart, funny, fascinating woman underneath. A woman I want to know better. As… something more.” Russ knew the words humans used to describe relationships. Girlfriend. Boyfriend. Couple. None of them made sense to him. He wanted her for his mate, but knew she was not ready for that.
When Riley regarded him over her shoulder, tears shimmered in the corners of her eyes. The sight set him burning so strongly that his bear's body grew aroused on the floor of the cave.
“Do you really mean that?”
He nodded.
“Russell, you swear to me this conversation is real, that you're really in it, and you'll remember it when you wake up?” She grasped his shoulder, and the fingers felt warm, no, hot. She was practically burning him with her delicate touch.
“Yes, Riley. I'll remember.”
“Then tell me when we're awake. I want to know this is real.”
He nodded. There was sense in what she said. Remember she's human, Russ. She's been trained to doubt her feelings. I think this girl more than most. “All right. We'll wait out the ice storm, and when it breaks, go to my house. It's not far from here. We can talk then.”
Riley nodded. “Okay. So what do we do in the meanwhile, and will you know when it's time to move?”
“Of course,” he replied. “My bear is quite sensitive to the weather. Would you rather wake up now?”
She shook her head. “I don't feel the cold here.”
“You won't awake either. You're currently cuddled up in the coat of a polar bear. It doesn't get much warmer than that.”
She turned to face him, and he saw that her lips had twisted into a strange expression.
“What's that look?” he asked.
“Do you have any idea how odd that sounds?” she shot back. “If anyone cuddled up with a polar bear, they'd probably end up as lunch.”
He didn't bother to explain to her that bears didn't eat people, that they were merely territorial and aggressive. She knew, and was only making a quip. At least she can joke about it.
“Riley,” he said, changing the subject, “I need to know something. Why are
we here?” He indicated the cave around them, then caught her staring at his claws. I wish these damned things didn't pop out every time I enter the dream. Taking control, he willed them back into his fingers. “At first I thought it was a prison, that you were trapped in the ice, but that's not really it, is it?”
She slowly shook her head. “It's not to keep me in. It's to keep everything else out.” She swallowed and her lip quivered.
“I didn't want to push you to share more than you were comfortable with, but this isn't healthy, Riley. What are you trying to keep out? What memories are you protecting yourself from? You seem… your reactions seem… like you've been abused. Did someone hurt you? A lover maybe?”
She laughed, a humorless chuckle. “No. No lover. My brother. He hurt me most every day of my childhood. And now he haunts me, even though he doesn't know where I am.”
“I think I need to know about this brother of yours,” Russ replied.
“Why?” she demanded. “I don't want to tell you about him. It's all in the past. I want to forget.”
“Riley, love,” he said gently, stroking her cheek with big, rough fingers, “if you can't even face your own dreams, it's still affecting you. If you want to start over, first you have to let the past go. That probably means talking about it, freeing the pain, rather than squashing it down inside.”
“Are you a counselor or what?” she demanded. “What qualifies you to perform surgery on my soul?”
Surgery. Of course! The bear in Russ awakened and he allowed it to take control of only one arm. Long, thick claws sprang from fingers that were quickly spreading into a white paw with black, leathery pads. Russ took aim at the wall of the igloo and slashed. The fragile structure shattered, leaving them standing in the yard of the bungalow he'd once seen Riley in with her father. A tall, thin boy in his mid-teens held a much smaller girl, her arms tight behind her back. She struggled and wept, pleading in tiny, wordless whimpers as a bigger, burlier boy about the same age as the one who held her stepped forward.
“Danny, no,” she sobbed. “Please.”
The boy raked his fingers through a mop of black curls and set strange, ice-blue eyes on the child. Full lips twisted into an evil smirk. He laughed, low and menacingly, and then balled up a fist and drove it into the girl's stomach. Her breath expelled in a whoosh and she made a low, gasping sound as she tried unsuccessfully to draw in air. The boy laughed again, and this time the sound held a hint of manic wildness. Then he hit her again. And then again.
Russ stared in disbelief. “Riley, what?”
“My brother, Danny. Or rather, my half-brother. Father married his mother – our mother – when he was eight. I was born about a year later”
Russ gulped and turned away from the beating. Riley stood staring at him with haunted eyes. “Did this really happen?” he demanded.
She nodded.
“Why?”
She shrugged. “I was seven here. What did I know? I never knew why. I think he just… enjoyed it.”
“What was he hoping to accomplish?”
“In this instance, to make me throw up. That was one of his favorite games. I stayed as far away from Danny as I could.” Her expression and tone were bleak in a way Russ could never remember before, not from anyone.
Russell reached out his arms to Riley and she stepped close, allowing him to embrace her. She rested her head against his shoulder. Though she didn't cry, her body trembled.
“Is he the reason you came to Alaska?” Russ asked.
A movement in the vicinity of his shirt pocket suggested a yes. Then Riley lifted her head and showed Russ the most gut-clenching sight. Her big amber eyes had taken on a haunted, painfully sad expression. Without thought, Russ lowered his lips to hers again.
Outside the dreaming, at the edge of the cave, the quality of the daylight changed.
“Time to wake up, love. We have to get out of this cave before the blizzard hits.”
Riley shuddered. “I'm not sure I'm ready to face the real world just yet, Russ.”
“Ready or not, princess, here we go.” He released the dream and opened his eyes. Lifting his ursine head, he watched as Riley stirred, stretched and rose to her feet, regarding him uncertainly.
“It's still me,” he thought, projecting the sound of his voice into her head.
She jumped. “You can read minds?”
“No, of course not. That's unethical. I would never do that to you, but I can send you a thought. Forgive the intrusion, but this mouth is not made for forming human words.” He sent a pointed look toward her pile of clothing on the floor. “Better get a move on. We don't have much time. I don't want you to get frozen again.”
“Right.” Riley quickly pulled on her shoes and outerwear. “Are you going to dress?”
“If I have to, but I have an idea that will get us to my home much faster,” he thought. “Can you try to trust me?”
“I have no choice at this point,” Riley replied. “What about your clothes?”
Russ looked longingly at his garments. “I can come back for them later. Though if you'd like to layer my coat and gloves over yours, it would probably be beneficial for you.
Riley considered the pile. “I have a better idea.” She pulled on his coat, and then stuffed his pants, boxers, sweater and socks inside. She zipped his shoes into the pockets.
“Genius,” he sent to her. “Now, time to be brave, sweet girl. Up on my back.” He crouched down until his belly touched the floor.
“You're serious?”
“Come on, Riley. Let's get moving. We can sort it all out later.”
Gingerly she slung a leg over his back and slipped her arms loosely around his neck. He could feel how tense she had become, but there was no time to soothe her worries. Already the patch of afternoon sun was beginning to darken, and he wanted to be in his snug cabin with a fire in the fireplace and something hot bubbling on the stove before the snow started. Rising carefully to his feet with his dainty burden clinging along his spine, he sent another thought, this one to the bear sleeping in the back of the cave. “Thank you, Brother. Be well.”
He received only a snore in reply, and then he stepped out into the cold.
Riley inhaled sharply as the icy air hit her, but there was no time to adjust. Russell's instincts told him which way to go. East by southeast, away from the rock. What sun still shone through roiling gray clouds stood a bit behind them, indicating midafternoon. He began to walk, making sure Riley had a secure hold on him and wouldn't fall. Then, as he entered the tree line, he changed to a trot along trails made by deer, widened by the broad paws of his kindred over untold centuries.
The air hung still and cold, with an eerie sense of heaviness to it. His trot became a comfortable lope that ate up the distance easily. No need for superhuman speed, and he didn't want to strain Riley too greatly. That she had climbed onto his back instead of panicking spoke well of her resiliency. In fact, the more they ran, the more she seemed to relax. Her body molded to his and her hold on his neck didn't tighten to a strangling force. She simply allowed him to carry them away from the killing storm to a place of true safety.
The trees overhead had caught the brunt of the weather, with snapped tops and branches lying here and there, but the ground was mostly clear of ice. Not that it mattered. His paws were well adapted to moving across ice with speed and surety.
The trees surrounded them in a green and fragrant cocoon through which he wove easily without ever slowing his pace. His cabin called him like a beacon. The temperature dropped as he ran Riley through the uncharted forest, and he could feel her body stiffen and begin to tremble. Praying she would be able to hold on, he dared increase his speed slightly. Only a quarter of a mile to go. We can make it. Easy, easy does it. Hold on, Riley, we're almost home.
A fat white drop landed on his nose and stung as it melted. Other flakes drifted lazily past his face. First snowfall of the year. It will take a while to become a problem. An eighth of a mile left. A tenth. A
few yards. He burst through the trees into the clearing he shared with Mrs. Tomei. A quick glance showed her nowhere in sight, but the lights glowed in her cabin windows and smoke drifted from her chimney. Russ used a burst of extra speed to hurry them out of the line of sight of her kitchen window and around the far side of his cabin, where he finally stopped in the snowy yard. Crouching, he allowed Riley to slide from his back. She rose to her feet, though not entirely steadily, and stared in awe at the snow.
He nudged her with his nose. “Watch from inside,” he said into her mind. “You've gotten chilled enough for one day.”
She nodded and followed him to the front door. From here, Mrs. Tomei might be able to see him, but it was unlikely.
“Open the door. The key is under the lower left brick, second from the bottom.”
Riley examined the wall by the door and ran a finger along the shattered mortar. Then she slipped the brick from its place and reached inside. His oversized gloves hindered her quest and she caught one finger between her teeth, yanking it off and trying again. This time she was able to grasp her quarry and extract it from the crevice, fitting it into the lock with ease.
Opening the door, she quickly returned the key and then the brick before slipping through. Once she was inside, Russ spared another glance at Mrs. Tomei's house, but his ursine eyes were not quite strong enough to see if her frail form stood at the window. Shrugging, he drew his bear inward, into the center of his being and became a man again.
The cold stung his bare skin, and he hurried inside, shutting out the cold and the storm.
Chapter 4
Russell flipped on the light switch, thankful the power was still on… for the moment. Riley gasped.
“What?” he asked.
“You… you… you're naked,” she burst out, turning her back on him as though examining the wall with great intensity.
“Oh, right. Sorry. I'll be right back.” Grinning, he stalked through his great room and into the bedroom, where he pulled out a pair of lounge pants and a sweatshirt. Might as well be comfortable. When he returned to the living room, he found Riley still standing by the wall, looking nervous.
Polar Heat Page 4