Bearing The Long Road Home (Ice Bear Shifters 7) (5 page)

When Chloe finished talking, she waited with bated breath for Seth to respond. It had been therapeutic to get all of that off of her chest. If nothing else, at least one shifter outside of the Blizzard clan now knew the truth. But Seth didn’t say anything. He kept staring straight ahead at the road, not so much as glancing over at Chloe. They were approaching the base camp in Yellowknife, and for the last fifteen minutes, Seth drove in complete silence. It was only when they finally pulled up to their destination and he parked the truck in first gear that he looked over at Chloe and spoke. His voice was icy as he looked over at her with an unreadable expression in his eyes.

“Get out of my truck. Now.”

And Chloe did, looking over her shoulder one last time as she left him. This was the story of her life. Always, always, looking over her shoulder.

Seth was so exhausted that he could feel it in his bones as he finally made his way back to his room. He couldn’t bear to look at his face in the tiny mirror above the sink in the bathroom. He felt awful, but he wasn’t even sure why.

Chloe was a strong woman, there was no denying that. Seth had fought back the urge to reach over and squeeze her shoulder as she described the horrors she had seen at the hands of her own alpha. If everything she had told him was true, then she had been through years of pain and agony, just like him. She had just experienced the heartache from the other side.

Seth finally forced himself to meet his own gaze in the mirror. He had dark circles under his eyes, and the stubble he had neglected had almost turned into a full-on beard. His eyes were dark and churning, reflecting the current state of his soul. He was searching within himself for answers. He felt dirty, like he made some sort of pact with the enemy, even though he had said nothing to her, and given nothing away.

All he had done was listen to her speak, and yet he knew he had let her words soften and open his heart. He felt guilty for even considering relaxing his staunch hatred for anyone who was a Blizzard, but how could he hold against her the actions of others which she’d had no control over? Seth had always considered himself an open-minded individual, but he had sworn after the Blizzards killed his clan that he would never forgive any of them, no matter what their excuse.

But that had been before Chloe, and before he listened to her speak for hours about what she’d been through. It had been before he felt his bear growing restless, hinting at the unthinkable.

Seth’s bear actually thought that a Blizzard was his lifemate.

Seth couldn’t comprehend any universe in which this would be a real possibility, but the more Chloe had talked, the more his bear had stirred, roaring within him the way all inner bears do when a fated lifemate is nearby. He had stared straight ahead at the road for most of the time that she had been talking, unwilling to even glance in her direction. He feared that his eyes would give him away, and the last thing he wanted was for Chloe to think that he was interested in her.

Seth splashed cold water on his face, trying to wash away the conflicting feelings swirling just below the surface. He had been on the prowl for a lifemate for so long. If any other woman had come along who had even a fraction of the beauty and spunk that Chloe demonstrated, Seth would have jumped at the chance to get to know her better. But it didn’t matter how wonderful Chloe was. She was a Blizzard, his sworn enemy. He couldn’t just overlook everything her clan had done to him, even if it wasn’t her fault.

Could he?

Seth slowly pulled off his shirt, revealing his muscular upper body. His arm muscles flexed as he reached over his head to remove the sleeves of his shirt from his arms, and his chest slowly rose and fell above the perfectly sculpted six pack of his abs. He looked at his naked upper body in the mirror for the first time in months, taking in fully the marks of his past that would never let him forget how close he had come to losing his life.

Thick, angry red scars ran across his chest and stomach. The long, diagonal marks ran from his left shoulder down to his right hip, a vivid reminder of the Blizzard who had slit Seth’s chest and stomach open and then left him for dead. Seth had a similar set of scars on his back, although he didn’t remember the actual attack on his back. By the time a Blizzard had sliced up his back, Seth had been passed out from pain and loss of blood. If it hadn’t been for the Northern Lights Clan finding him and nursing him back to health, he would have been dead for sure.

Seth stared at the scars for a long time. He avoided taking his shirt off in front of people or in front of mirrors, because thinking about the memory of the attack was too painful. But tonight, he wanted to think about it. He wanted to remember, and he wanted to stir up his anger enough that it would drown out the small fire starting inside of him, burning with affection for Chloe.

Seth didn’t feel the same anger he normally felt as he stared at his scars. He felt confusion instead. Lifemates were fated before a shifter was even born. In another life, he would have been thrilled to have beautiful Chloe for his lifemate. But this wasn’t another life. It was this present life, here and now. It was his scar-filled existence, and no matter how strongly destiny tried to pull him toward Chloe, he would never be able to trust her enough to look at these scars.

Seth sighed and put his shirt back on, then started getting ready for bed. He didn’t even feel like going to the dining hall to grab dinner. He might run into Chloe, and he was afraid of seeing her.

He was afraid of the way she made his heart beat faster.

* * *

The next morning, Seth woke up at 4 a.m., ready to get started on his next load. But when he got to the dispatch center, he learned that all of the trucks were parked for the day. The weather forecast included a severe blizzard right along the ice road route, and the higher ups had decided it wasn’t safe for anyone to run loads that day.

Lest Seth worry that he would have nothing to do on his unplanned day off, the dispatcher let him know that he needed to fill out an accident report to assist with the investigation of Chloe’s moose collision.

“Don’t worry, you’re not in trouble or anything,” the dispatcher hastily assured him. “But for insurance purposes they’d like a witness statement from you to either confirm or contradict Chloe’s story. You know those insurance companies are always looking for a reason not to pay.”

Seth nodded slightly, then ventured to ask about Chloe. “How is she, by the way?”

“Chloe? She’s okay, I guess. Medical checked her out and kept her at the hospital for overnight observation. Seems like they want to make sure she doesn’t have any latent concussion symptoms or something like that. She seemed pretty upset when she reported back here last night. It was hard to get her to really talk about what happened.”

“I imagine it was not her best day ever,” Seth said, trying to keep his tone light. But he secretly wondered whether part of her bad mood had been the way he kicked her out of his truck as soon as they got back. It had been kind of an asshole move. But he had needed to get away from her as soon as possible. He hadn’t been able to handle the feelings she was stirring up inside of him.

Seth took the accident report and a clipboard from the dispatcher and sat in one of the rickety chairs in the office to fill it out.

“You don’t have to fill it our right this minute,” the dispatcher said. “You can always take it to your room and bring it back later, after you’ve had time to complete it.”

Seth shrugged without looking up from the form. “I’ve got time now. Might as well get it done,” he said. “I hope this damn storm blows over quickly so I can get back to work.”

“Don’t worry,” the dispatcher said. “It happens now and then, but these blizzards usually blow over quickly.”

Seth bristled when he heard the dispatcher say “blizzard.” He had purposely avoided using the word, but others had no idea what kinds of bad associations it stirred up in his minds. He finished the form as quickly as he could, and then handed it wordlessly back to the dispatcher before leaving the office.

He shivered as he stepped out into the cold. Despite his warm layers of clothing and his parka, he still felt the chill. This kind of weather was something you never fully got used to. You just learned to cope the best you could. Seth made his way back toward his room, trying to figure out how he was going to pass the time today. He had meant to go into town and buy some new books before training ended, but he had never gotten around to it. Seth looked up at the sky. It didn’t look like the storm was too bad here in Yellowknife. Maybe he could borrow a pickup from someone and head into town.

Thirty minutes later, Seth was behind the wheel of a borrowed pickup, heading to the local shopping mall. He searched for a book but didn’t find anything that particularly drew his interest. Not wanting to go home empty-handed, he grabbed a few at random and hoped one of them might prove interesting. He did find quite a few things that drew his interest in the shopping center’s smokeshop, and he spent quite a bit of time choosing cigars. By the time he was done shopping, it was nearly lunchtime, and he decided to eat while he was out, just for a change of pace. He had a heaping plate of sweet and sour chicken from a Chinese restaurant, which he thought was surprisingly good. With nothing further in town drawing his interest, he got back into the pickup and started heading back toward the trucking base.

But as he turned the engine on, a little seed of an idea took root in his mind: he should go to the hospital and visit Chloe. As soon as the thought crossed his mind, he pushed it away, horrified. No matter how attracted his bear was to her, she was a Blizzard. And no matter how little responsibility she’d had for her clan’s actions, he couldn’t be friends with someone like her. That was that. Seth resolved to head back to his room and start reading one of his books. He would do whatever he could to make sure his path crossed with Chloe’s as little as possible over the next three months.

Seth’s resolve lasted all of about three minutes. His bear’s demands were too strong, and Seth’s heart was somehow tangled up in knots over Chloe Powell. He turned his vehicle toward the hospital, telling himself he just needed to make sure he had detailed everything accurately on the accident report. Yeah, right. He was falling for Chloe and he knew it. He hated himself for parking in front of the hospital and walking up to the receptionist’s desk to ask if she was able to have visitors. But he couldn’t stop himself.

The receptionist called up to Chloe’s room, and Chloe apparently gave her the go-ahead to send him up. After donning a sticky nametag with his name and the word “Visitor” scribbled on it, Seth headed to the room number that the receptionist had written down for him. When he reached the room, he took a deep breath and knocked on the door. He had no idea what he was going to say. This whole situation was nuts. What was he, a Northern Lights shifter, and former clan member of a now completely wiped out clan, doing knocking on the hospital room door of a Blizzard?

Chloe’s voice called for him to come in, so he pushed the door open and closed it behind him, standing awkwardly next to it as though he might need to bolt and run at any moment. Chloe was sitting up in bed, looking much less frightened then yesterday. Her hair, which had been pulled back into a tight bun the last two times he had seen her, now hung loosely around her shoulders in a beautiful, curly mess. She was stunning. Absolutely stunning. Seth told himself for the thousandth time to get a grip, but his self-admonitions were useless in the presence of such a magnificent woman.

“Hi,” Chloe said, breaking the uncomfortable silence. “I’m surprised to see you here.”

“Yeah, well. I, uh, just wanted to tell you that I had to fill out an accident report. Um, so, yeah. I did that,” Seth said, trying unsuccessfully not to sound like he was rambling. He thought he saw a hint of amusement pass across Chloe’s eyes.

“Okay,” she said. “Hopefully you were in a better mood when you filled it out than you were last night.”

“Yeah, sorry about that,” Seth said. “I guess that’s kind of the real reason I came by. I feel badly for storming off like that. It’s just a lot to process, you know? I never expected to run into…one of your clan out here. And I certainly didn’t expect to hear a story about how your alpha was an insane dictator. It was, uh, quite an interesting day yesterday, to say the least.”

Chloe nodded. “Well, if it makes you feel any better, I never expected to run into a shifter from the Alaskan clan wars out here. I came here to get away from that mess. I understand if you hate me. I guess I’d probably hate me, too, if I were you. But I’ll do my best to stay out of your hair. I’m only here to make enough money to get far, far away from Alaska. Farther away than here, because this isn’t far enough, obviously. I hope you can just forget that I’m here and let me be. I promise that as soon as I have enough funds to start over somewhere, I’ll be long gone.”

Seth nodded, but inside his bear was going crazy. He wanted to tell Chloe that he couldn’t forget her. He wanted to tell her that she should have yelled at him, and told him he could go to hell if he thought she actually had anything to do with the bloodshed the Blizzards had caused. He wanted her to make him feel ashamed for treating her the way he had, so that he could tell her she was right, and he was sorry, and did she think they had a chance?

Damn it all, what the hell was wrong with him?

Chloe sat looking at him with a neutral expression on her face, waiting for him to say something. She was probably hoping that he was going to leave, and tell her that he wanted to avoid her, too. But for some reason, he couldn’t tear himself away. Instead, he felt a confession bubbling up inside of him, and inexplicably making its way to his tongue. Before he could stop the words from leaving his mouth, he said them.

“I have a lot of scars. No matter how far I run, they will always be there.”

Chloe stared at him silently, seemingly unsure of what to say. Seth decided he had done enough damage here. He was babbling, and telling her things about himself that were painful and deeply personal. He turned to leave, but paused briefly with his hand on the doorknob when he heard her speak. Her voice sounded sad, and resigned.

“I have a lot of scars, too. You can’t see them, because they’re on my heart, not my body. But I’ll never outrun them, either.”