Theirs to Bear: Icy Cap Den #3 (Alaskan Den Men) (5 page)

I
n my fantasy
I hadn’t counted on feeling exposed, but that was exactly how I felt on tiptoe with my ass in the air.

Tristan wrapped one arm around my waist and pulled me against him. His other hand ran down my back. When his fingers reached my panties, he ran them along my butt crack. I shivered. He palmed me, his fingers stroking the front of my panties while his palm pressed into my folds. Instinctively, I closed my eyes and squeezed my legs together in frustration. I needed the release only he could give me.

“Feel that?” His hands grabbed my tits. He kneaded my nipples, tugging on my erect points. No gentle stroking. In the polished chrome kitchen backsplash, I saw myself with Tristan behind me.

He caught my gaze in the reflection. I was restless with desire. I pushed my ass against him.

“Should I go down on you now?” he growled in my ear.

“No! Take me from behind.” I needed him buried deep inside me. “Please, please,” I whispered. “Right here. Right now.”

Tristan’s clever fingers worked me. The only sound in the kitchen was my panting.

“Are you sure this is what you want?”

“I need your cock.” I squeezed my legs, trying to find some relief from the tension building inside me.

Tristan increased the stroking with his clever fingers.

“Every time you’re in this kitchen, you’ll remember me fucking you.”

“Oh, God. Yes,” I ground out. “Please.”

“Please what?”

“Please fuck me now.”

Tristan withdrew his fingers. When I heard his zipper, I wanted to weep with relief. “Come on.” I lay my torso down on the kitchen counter. My palms rested near my head. Words were meaningless. I wanted this man inside me now. Anything else was pointless.

His cock pressed against my cleft. I rose even higher on tiptoe, trying to give him access. He felt hard and thick. I wiggled my ass against him, trying to coax him as the tip of his dick entered me.

“Ahhh.” I straightened slightly, trying to pull him deeper inside me.

“Stay down. You’re going to need to hold on.”

“Why?”

“Because I’m going to fuck you so hard, you might wind up in the next room.”

I shivered. “Try it.”

Tristan thrust inside me, lifting me off my toes. One of his arms encircled my waist, holding me against him. With his other hand, he gripped the counter until his knuckles whitened.

I was lost. I loved smelling his sweat, knowing I was driving him wild. The sensation made me dizzy. “Harder.”

“You feel so fucking good.”

My knees hit the cupboard door every time he thrusted. The banging sound echoed through the kitchen. I was greedy for the orgasm that would send me spiraling into ecstasy.

And like that, we climaxed together.

Afterward, as we sprawled on top of the kitchen counter, the sound of our panting filled the otherwise silent kitchen.

“Better?” Tristan smoothed my curls aside, kissing my neck.

My laugh came out as a pant. “Better. I was worried you’d be all tender and romantic on me.” I straightened but didn’t move out of his arms.

“You’re the kind of girl who only needs a hard fuck.”

“Hey.” I glanced back at him. “You don’t know everything about me. Don’t be so cocky.” I fingered his dick behind me. “Darn. Spoke too soon.”

* * *

I
n the lower forty
-eight states, it’d long since been dark. But up here, when the days lengthen, they do it in a hurry. I’d called Gary and arranged for Leo to stay the night in his guest room, and Tristan and I had moved to my cramped and stuffy upstairs bedroom. At least now I wasn’t surrounded my hair-removal products. That kind of stuff makes a shifter nervous.

We made love off and on throughout the night, pausing to sleep, only to start up again. I could never have enough of Tristan; he was like my drug. Everything with him felt right. Maybe it was missing him for all these years. Now that I was with him, I didn’t want to waste a single minute.

Ted’s sudden death taught me that much, at least. It showed me I was done waiting for things to improve in my life. From now on, I would follow what I needed for my son and myself.

“You miss Ted,” Tristan said.

“Do we have to talk about him now?” I asked. My fingertips lay over Tristan’s heart. I could feel the steady beats, loving their rhythm.

“I don’t want you to feel obligated.”

“To Ted?” I propped my head up on my elbow. “He was your friend. I’m only going to say this once: Leo was the only good thing to come out of that marriage.”

Tristan’s pupils dilated. His lovely mouth set into a tight line. “I thought he made you happy. Did he hurt you?”

“What do you think? You know how much he drank in college. Imagine him with a wife and son in Ohio and nowhere for an ice bear to run around. I don’t waste time grieving over him.”

“That bastard.”

I couldn’t disagree. But I didn’t want to run Ted down. He was gone. I was free. I’d paid a high price for my choice.

“No one is ever going to hurt you again,” Tristan said quietly.

“What about Leo?”

“I have a feeling in a few years that problem will take care of itself. Not many want to tangle with an ice bear shifter.”

“What about you?” I asked.

“You think I’d harm Leo?” Tristan asked.

“I meant be his friend. He needs someone to learn from.”

“My job is to protect the residents of Icy Cap. I’ve no problem with that. Being a mentor, though, is not in my skill set. From what I’ve seen of Leo, he’s completely Ted’s kid.” He yawned.

“Now what’s
that
supposed to mean?” I scooted away from him.

“Leo’s a little wild. Like his dad.”

“He’s ‘a little wild’ because he’s four years old and already shifting into an ice werebear.” Reason had left my brain. This man who majorly rocked my world had just criticized my son.

That felt bad. Wrong.

Even worse, there was a place deep inside me that knew Tristan was right. I’d hoped just being here would be enough. But I had no idea how to be a parent, let alone to a shifter.

Still, I didn’t need it called out. And right now was horrible timing. My body was still quaking with aftershocks. I was not interested in a commentary on my parenting. Talk about a mood killer.

T
he morning
after our fuck-fest was a mess. Literally. A blizzard snapped the neck of our spring thaw. The wind howled. The windows frosted from the inside in Liv’s house, as I’d predicted. A sticky snow covered the new grass. Visibility was zip. It was a great day to be an ice bear. A human? Not so much.

My bear spirit woke me up, wanting to get outside. I resisted, knowing some cuddle time would be high on Liv’s list after our recent activities. I wasn’t opposed to that at all. But my ice bear spirit paced inside me, yearning to get out that door.

Maybe that was why I’d said the stupid thing about Leo. I didn’t mean it how it sounded. What I meant was, instead of Leo being “all boy,” he was “all bear.” And of course I knew Ted was Leo’s dad; I’d meant the power of werebear genetics was clear to me now in a way that I’d never really understood before.

I’d be a liar if I said I didn’t want Liv to be my mate. I’d thought I missed that chance, but now I had a new opportunity. I’d love her to bear my offspring someday. Fucking her felt so right—and judging by her eager participation last night, she felt it too.

Leo was a handful. More than she could deal with on her own, but not out of lack of love or instinct. Her son was a shifter; she was human. She could try her hardest and never understand what it felt like to shift or have your bear spirit deep within call to you.

I had to get out of there. Clear my head. I threw my clothes on. Our disagreement had dropped the temperature in Liv’s cramped bedroom faster than the Arctic chill outside. She’d rolled over, giving me her back and not speaking.

Opening her back door, I narrowly missed colliding with Gary.

“Is Leo here?” he asked.

“He spent the night with you.” I said. The hair on the back of my neck rose.

“He did, but this morning when I was making breakfast, he snuck out.”

The fresh snow had called the cub. For me the pull was strong, but Leo had no idea how to balance it.

Liv appeared seconds later. He mussed hair and her bare feet made me want to march her back to bed. Her eyes, though, were wide with terror. She eyed Gary, then me. “Where’s my son?”

“He’s gone,” Gary said miserably, sweeping his arm out to the backyard.

The three of us trooped outside. Icy Cap was back to winter. No birds, no breezes—instead, bitterly cold temperatures and snow. And worst of all, no sign of Leo. The snow fell so fast his tracks had filled in.

Gary’s Taxidermy was the second-largest building in town, after the newly rebuilt lodge. Its exterior was an old metal warehouse. I hadn’t been inside before. Turns out it was more than just a taxidermy studio.

The ground floor studio/showroom was locked up. We climbed the stairs that led to Gary’s apartment.

“This is where you live?”

“People ship me their kills from all over the world. I’m the best Dall sheep taxidermist in Alaska.”

“I never doubted your talents, but this is not what I expected.”

“A ghoul in Icy Cap appreciates quality as much as anyone else.”

The hardwood floors were polished and warm, and the sloped roof sported skylights. The windows facing the street were regular size, in line with the ones on the lower level. But in the back, overlooking the fields beyond town, was a massive picture window.

I swallowed to keep myself from asking “You had Leo here?” but then I noticed that the expensive electronics were buffered by padded edges and impressive wall anchors.

“I was making us pancakes. He loves those. He wanted them shaped like bears. I swear I turned my back for thirty seconds and he was gone. I checked all over, then went downstairs. I found the door to the backyard ajar and sets of paw prints on the back step, which is more protected from the wind and snow. After he entered the yard, the snow filled in his trail.”

“Show us,” Liv said.

Gary grabbed her a long coat and boots, which she adopted without expression. She appeared wooden now, almost frozen. When I slid the coat around her shoulders, I understood. She was terrified past comprehension.

“We’ll find him, Liv. Gary and my ice bear will both track him. The best thing is for you to wait at home.”

“No!”

“Listen, most likely he’s taken a romp in the snow and then he’ll be home to you. You should be there for him. I’ll get some radios for us to communicate.”

“If anything happens to him—”

“Nothing is going to happen. Young paranorms do this kind of thing all the time. Scares the crap out of their families, but they come home fine. The things Gary and I could tell you . . . right, Gary?”

The ghoul looked tentative at best. Luckily he understood that the question wasn’t meant to be answered.

F
earing
for my son’s safety was paralyzing. My body felt frozen, but my heart and brain pumped panic into overdrive to compensate. I wanted to scream, but that wouldn’t be enough.

I mindlessly stacked shampoos, conditioners, and hair gels. I had to stay here. Leo couldn’t have gone far. Likely he’d come home any minute. If he didn’t see me here he’d worry—or worse, go out looking for me.

I rearranged the bottles on the shelves by height. I pulled them all down and began again, this time by the color of the bottle.

Three crisp raps on my back door startled me. I flung the door open without even pushing the curtain aside. Rika huddled on my doorstep. The blowing snow blocked her face behind a scarf, but the long fur coat was the same. Her dark eyes blazed like coals over her scarf.

“May I come in?”

Snow drifted across my slippered feet into the kitchen. It wasn’t Leo. My boy was still out there.

“I’m sorry. Now isn’t a good time.” I started closing the door, but Rika’s arm shot out. She stopped it before it latched.

“That’s why I came. There’s no time to waste. I found your son.”

I opened the door fully and stood on the step, searching for Leo. “Where is he?”

“He’s in a trap.”

My knees weakened, and I grabbed the metal rail on the steps to brace myself. The cold seeped into my fingers and palm.

“I have to tell Tristan—the deputy.”

“No time. We need to leave now. With the two of us, we’ll get him out in a jiffy. Grab your jacket and your boots,” Rika said.

In mere seconds I was ready. It was only me and Rika on my back step. “Are you sure you can find him again? Was he badly injured?”

“One thing at a time.” Rika reached inside her fur coat. Muttering, she dug around, eventually producing a small leather pouch. It was stained and worn soft.

She reached into it and pulled out a pinch of what looked like green moss. I’d never seen that shade of blue-green before. Interesting as it may have been, I was only intent on finding Leo.

“Take a closer look.” She raised her palm up to my face.

I bent closer to humor her. When I did so, she blew the moss right into my face.

I sneezed. My eyes itched terribly. “What the fuck was that?”

“I’ll tell you, since you’ll never remember it: memory loss moss.”

Before me, Rika shimmered. She tucked the pouch away, then set her bare hand on my forehead. I smelled an awful burning odor. It stung my nostrils. Then, incredibly, I was a snowflake being carried on the wind.

There is no sense of time in being a snowflake. There is only being in the now of the blizzard. I tried to open my eyes. Surely I might spot Leo this way. But I saw nothing. Instead, it was like riding a rollercoaster in the dark.

I tried to call out to Tristan, but I had no mouth.

Then suddenly I was back in my body, cold and wet. The wind chafed my face.

“Time to wake up,” Rika said.

I struggled to open my eyes, but they felt glued shut. I finally pried them open when Rika kicked my side. The pain lifted whatever she’d given me that had made me so sleepy.

“What was that?” My tongue felt coated with carpet.

“You don’t remember?”

I shook my head slowly because it hurt to move it. “What have you done with my son?”

“That’s not very gracious, after I brought you to him. But I forgive you; that potion can make one irritable.”

“Who are you?”

“Rika. The succubus.”

I let this creature in my house. She had my son. Now she had me.

Tristan, help us. Please.

“Leo? Leo?” I glanced around wildly, but all I saw was snow. It fell from the sky; it whirled around me. Beyond a few feet, it was white-out conditions.

No answer.

Leo, please be alive. I’ll find you.

“Where is he?”

“That part was a fib. I don’t know. I can’t smell him. Usually I can smell bears a mile away. I know his scent from that day at your house. Did you kill him?”

I’d scrubbed Leo up in my soap. That’s why she couldn’t smell him. I prayed Tristan and Gary would find him before harm came to him. I wasn’t a monster like her. I’d never harm my son. However she was another story.

I launched myself at Rika. I would’ve knocked her over, but she waved her mittened hands and I smashed into an invisible wall. My hands flew to protect my face—too late. My fingers came away bloody. Even with my eyes closed, stars danced before me.

The fall knocked the air out of my lungs. I gasped for breath, crawling forward, then stopped. Pain wracked me. I tried to speak but the breath had been robbed from my body.

“Wh-why?” I managed.

“Why what, dear? There are so many things to wonder, a simple why doesn’t begin to cover it. Let’s start with a what instead. I’m going to level Icy Cap.”

I gaped at her.

“As a human, you are my witness. You will tell the world that I have reclaimed Icy Cap. With no goods and services there, no one will come to town. Its ruination will serve as a example for those that dare confront me.”

“You don’t want my son?”

“I want him dead, just as my children are. I want you to know he’ll never grow up. Now get up or you’ll freeze here. Moving will keep you warm. We’ll move higher up the slope so you can have the best view.”