Melted By The Bear: A Paranormal Shifter Romance (9 page)

With his eyes seeming to have darkened from his recollections, Cormack looked across the room for a moment longer before once again returning his gaze to my face. “Laurel soon died from the injuries that she’d received, but not before getting the chance to speak to me and quickly tell me some things. And some of the things she told me directly concern you. You and
us
.”

CHAPTER EIGHT

I fought the urge to grab Cormack by the shirt and beg him to immediately tell me what Laurel had said. Instead, I spoke in a voice that I hoped didn’t sound excessively demanding and desperate, even though I was. “What did Laurel say? And how does it relate to
us
?”

Swirling the remaining whiskey in his glass, he sat back in his chair with a deep sigh. “After briefly describing what had happened with AntiCormack and his men, she told me she’d cursed them. She’d cast a spell that would make them forever appear as shadows while in shifter form, as a sign to the world of their dark, shadowy hearts, and a permanent reminder to
them
of the shameful thing they’d done. Then, Laurel went on to make a prophecy, saying that ‘spirit’ had given her a psychic intuition during the attack, which was something she’d never experienced before.”

“And what was her prophecy?”

Cormack took a deep breath through his nose, jaw clenched. “She said that ten years after the splitting of us shifters into the Blackthorn bears and the shadow bears, a frozen woman would be thawed to mate with the leader of the Blackthorn bears, meaning me, and she prophesied that this mating would lead to ruin.”

I just sat for a moment. “And those were her exact words? Just that our mating would lead to ruin?”

“Yes. Those were her exact words. Overcome by a coughing fit, a death rattle more like, unfortunately, she could say no more for a while. But then she was able to regain just enough breath for a few more words. She clutched onto my sleeve, pulling me close, and said, ‘To have hope, keep her close once she’s thawed.’ She then said, ‘Let me’ and some word that my men and I thought sounded like
explain
, but it was too late. She’d stopped breathing, and her eyes had become fixed. All attempts to revive her were unsuccessful.”

“What do you think she meant exactly by ‘to have hope, keep her close’?”

Giving his head a shake, Cormack snorted. “I wish I knew. My advisers and I had no way of puzzling out if that meant keep you close to
me
, specifically, or just the town in general, and if the former, how close? Within my arm’s length at all times? Within a hundred feet of me twice a day? No way of telling. And if she meant the latter, that begs questions as well. Is keeping you ‘close’ within village limits enough to have ‘hope,’ or does ‘close’ mean within a hundred miles of Blackthorn City? We’ll never know, so I’ve erred on the side of ‘fairly cautious,’ keeping you in my house, sleeping in the bedroom right next to yours, and having frequent contact with you by having dinners together. I just have to hope this is enough to have ‘hope,’ whatever Laurel meant by that. I have no way of knowing if that ‘hope’ means that the prophecy can be fought against and overcome, or what; though I have to admit, it does seem a bit counter-intuitive to keep a person close when I’ve been told that mating with that person will lead to ‘ruin,’ presumably mine and my people’s.”

“So, this is why most everyone seems to hate me.”

A faint wince flickered across Cormack’s face.

“I don’t know that anyone in town
hates
you, but I
do
know that people are very scared, especially the women. They’re afraid that you’re going to make me tumble into bed with you, leading to the fulfillment of the prophecy. They’re terrified that everything and everyone that they know and love will come to ruin, and maybe everyone will even die.”

I breathed a sigh, relieved to finally understand. “They probably
shouldn’t
be scared, though, right? I mean... a prophecy? Are people really that superstitious around here?”

I’d never been very superstitious myself, though maybe not entirely
without
superstitious tendencies; but at any rate, being terrified because of a prophecy made by a dying woman who’d probably been delirious at the time, maybe even hallucinating, struck me as really going overboard. Cormack’s expression, though, told me that
he
didn’t think there was anything absurd at all about taking it very seriously.

“Laurel was the last in a long line of sorceresses, the first of whom somehow developed powers shortly after the nuclear blast. These powers passed down her line from daughter to daughter, until Laurel, who had a son. Laurel’s female ancestors made many prophecies during their days, and all of them, every single one of them, Aria, came true. So when Laurel said that me mating with a frozen woman in the tenth year after the splitting of us bears would lead to ruin, people took it very, very seriously, and still do. That’s why I don’t intend to mate with you... I won’t cause the downfall of my people, maybe even everyone’s deaths, just for a night of pleasure.”

Even right then, sitting at the table with Cormack, having a very serious discussion, I wanted to
mate
with him. I wanted him to make love to me until I cried out in ecstasy. But, obviously, I didn’t want a night of passion to lead to anyone getting killed.

“So... does this mean that...” With my face warming up a little, I cleared my throat. “Does this mean that we can
never
sleep together, or...?” I cleared my throat again. “I’m just thinking that since I was frozen to provide children for someone, it might be a complete waste not to...”

Children were actually the furthest thing from my mind right then.

Seeming to sense that I wasn’t going to finish my thought, Cormack went ahead and spoke. “This is precisely why, as I’m sure you picked up on in the forest the day you were thawed, I was intending to wait to thaw you until at least eleven years had passed since the splitting of us bears, making Laurel’s prophecy void, since you
wouldn’t
be thawed ten years after, like she said. I probably would have waited until the twelfth or thirteenth year after, just to be safe, to be honest. But as I’m sure you gathered, AntiCormack foiled that plan and began your thawing himself, wanting to set the prophecy in motion. I refuse to let it unfold, though. But to address your thoughts...”

Now it was Cormack’s turn to clear his throat, seeming as if he was suddenly having difficulty maintaining eye contact with me.

“I’m not going to lie and say that I wouldn’t love to mate with you. I think you’re....” He paused for another throat clear. “I think you’re absolutely gorgeous, and I don’t think it would be a very burdensome task to mate with you in the hopes of producing children. That being said, I cannot let this happen. Not in this tenth year after the split. Not since you were thawed ten years later, just as Laurel predicted. That doesn’t mean
never
, though.”

“Well, what do you mean?”

“I mean that I think we could be free to mate once AntiCormack and his men are all dead. They’re our only threat right now, the only enemy that could lead to our ‘ruin.’ I’m positive of it. Had she been able to speak further, I’m sure Laurel would have gone on to confirm this. So, once AntiCormack and his men are all dead, we’ll have nothing to fear from the prophecy. We will have made it coming true impossible.”

I took a sip of my wine, mental wheels turning a mile a minute. “How long do you expect it’ll take to kill AntiCormack and all his men?”

Cormack sighed. “I can’t even give you a rough estimate. We’ve picked dozens of them off here and there over the years, in the course of defending nearby villages from their murderous attacks. But the majority of them always seem to escape us, including AntiCormack, of course. He and a few of his men even made an attempt to kidnap some women here in Beaumont City a few years back, and like a complete fool, I
let
AntiCormack escape with his life, intentionally
let
him go, in some sentimental moment of remembering that even though he’s a murderer, he
is
my brother, and at one time, I loved him.

“But, as you heard me tell him in the woods, he’ll get no more warnings or acts of mercy. I would have and should have killed him right then, but I didn’t want to make you see such a sight, and I’m sure he was well aware of that fact. He’s also well aware of the fact that I’ll never attack him and his men in their little village, Stonywood, because they have women and children there who could be injured. So, as I said, I can’t even give you a rough estimate of when I and my men might be able to do away with AntiCormack and his shadow shifters. It might be months, years, even. Although I have a feeling it won’t be that long. Knowing he’s set the prophecy in motion, and knowing that I have to keep you close, I think AntiCormack will soon assume that I’ve been unable to resist mating with you, and he’ll attempt some sort of attack on Blackthorn City to complete the prophecy and bring ‘ruin’ to everyone here.”

“But if we don’t sleep together, you don’t think he’ll be able to accomplish that?”

“I
know
he won’t. If we don’t mate, Aria, the prophecy
can’t
come true. Laurel pretty clearly said that it would be our mating that would lead to ruin. And like I know you’ve probably gathered by now, we take prophecies very seriously here. We’d be fools not to, knowing that every single one of Laurel’s ancestors’ prophecies came true.”

With a little sigh, I picked up my wineglass and took a long drink, one probably far longer than was ladylike, before setting my glass back on the table. “So, for whatever reason, to have ‘hope,’ you need to keep me near you indefinitely, but we can’t sleep together, also indefinitely, until AntiCormack and all his men are killed, which will be at some indefinite point in time. Do I have all this correct?”

Wincing slightly, Cormack picked up his glass, then drained the rest of his whiskey in a gulp and set the glass back on the table. “Please believe that I....” He paused, swallowing. “I
do
want you, Aria. I think things might have gotten off to a....” He paused again, face coloring just a shade. “A very mutually satisfying, happy start for us had you not been thawed when you were. Now I only wish I’d thawed you to be my mate right away, when my people were first gifted with our frozen women from the United Free States, but that was only a couple of years ago; and for some reason, the timetable being so close to the tenth year after the split just made me feel that it wasn’t the right time. ‘Better to wait until we’re well past the tenth year, or AntiCormack and all his men are dead,’ I thought. I’m starting to regret that now, because I really do...” He sighed, pulling his gaze from mine and raking a hand through his thick, dark hair. “I really do want you, Aria. Badly. But I know I have to resist. I
have
to.” He abruptly stood, raking a hand through his hair yet again. “So, to that end, I think I’ll say goodnight now. Maybe you’ll have dinner with me again tomorrow night.”

With that, he began striding from the room, leaving me all alone at the long, polished dining table. All alone and entirely frustrated and disappointed. The sight of his tight rear as he walked away was almost more than I could take. Once he’d disappeared from view, I turned back to the table and drained the rest of my wine, thinking that another dinner with him would be similar to torture.

CHAPTER NINE

A week went by, and then two. I helped Abby in the shop a lot, I babysat Natalie a lot, and I had a few nice visits with Jane and Cook. Everyone else in town remained chilly to me, though, obviously convinced that I was going to eventually sleep with Cormack and bring about their ruin. I really couldn’t blame them for thinking that way. I wanted Cormack just as badly as he’d said he wanted me, to the point that I was having nightly dreams about him, dreams so erotic that I frequently woke up drenched in sweat, and drenched with wetness in places other than my skin, too. And every time, I’d fight an urge to punch my pillow, knowing that he was just next door to my room.

Cook was still firmly of the thinking that prophecies were mysterious, and they played out the way they wanted to, and the way they were meant to. During one fairly personal chat with her, I asked her if that meant that she thought that Cormack and I shouldn’t even bother struggling not to sleep together.

She shrugged. “I didn’t say people should try to
hasten
the fulfillment of a prophecy. But let’s just say that if you and Commander Blackthorn do mate, I don’t exactly think the shadow bears are going to come storming in a minute later to kill us all.”

“So, do you believe in the prophecy or not?”

“Of course I believe in it! Of course I do. Laurel’s mother and grandmother were always, always right in their prophecies. Always.”

“So, you think Cormack and I shouldn’t sleep together until AntiCormack and all his men are dead.”

“I didn’t say that. You sure love to put words in my mouth, don’t you?”

“Well-”

“We, not being magically inclined ourselves, can’t see the end of a prophecy. We don’t know what
ruined
means. Ruined for a day so that we can become something even greater as a people? Ruined for all time? All dead? Ruined for just a week, so that we can rise in some different, better way? We just don’t know. It doesn’t help things that Laurel died before she could clarify or expound upon the things she said. So, because of that, we just have to sit back. Just sit back and let the cake rise in the oven. Not
try
to make it rise faster than it should by turning the temperature up, but not
prevent
it from rising by turning the oven off. Just let... it... rise. Just let it do what a cake will do, because you and I don’t know all the ingredients that went into that cake. Do you understand what I’m trying to say?”

Just then, a timer on top of her commercial oven began dinging, and she began bustling over to shut it off. “Cake’s done! Want a slice when it’s cool?”

I wasn’t quite sure how to answer.
She
thought prophecies were mysterious, and I thought her
thinking
was pretty mysterious and undecipherable at times. I also wasn’t quite sure if she
really
had a cake in the oven, or if she was just continuing to use
cake
as a metaphor for the prophecy.

Jane also believed in the prophecy, but her thinking about it was a bit more straightforward. She thought I should
not
sleep with Cormack. Begged me not to, actually, pointing out that the prophesied
ruin
might affect Natalie. She absolutely thought that prophecy fulfillment could be prevented, unlike Cook.

“And I know you
will
prevent it, because I know you’re strong enough to resist Commander Blackthorn, and he’s strong enough to resist you. I just wish that in the meantime, everyone here in town would start being a little nicer to you. I’ve told them time and again that glaring and staring is not very nice or polite, but they all seem determined to view you as some bringer of doom. They don’t have faith in Commander Blackthorn and you like I do. They all want to continue acting as if you being thawed when you were was somehow your fault.”

That was
exactly
the vibe I’d been getting. But, as much as this annoyed and irritated me, even hurt me at times, I was determined not to lash out in an attempt to set everyone straight, because I knew reacting in anger wouldn’t make them feel any differently about me. I didn’t even lash out when Hazel, the head house maid, pretended not to hear me, not once, not twice, but three times when I asked her to tell me about her family while she was dusting in the kitchen one day and I was enjoying a mug of tea.

Instead, I took a deep breath before repeating myself for the fourth time. “Hazel, please tell me about your family. I’d like to know more about you. And I can repeat myself all day if you’d like, or until you’re ready to acknowledge that ignoring a person who’s trying to be your friend is rude.”

She’d been dusting a ledge with her slender back turned, and she suddenly whirled around to face me, her chocolate-brown eyes like slits. “You want to know about my family? Well, there’s this. I have a grown son who’s a member of Commander Blackthorn’s army, and I love him with all my heart, and I want him to stay safe. I don’t want him to come to
ruin
in any way, shape, or form.”

After slamming her feather duster down on the counter, making it release a mushroom cloud of dust, she stomped out of the room.

Like most everyone else, she was clearly terrified about the prophecy coming true. I felt awful about having pressed her for a response, as if having been thawed when I had been really
had
been my fault.

Abby thought the prophecy was “absolute hogwash” and “superstitious nonsense.” She didn’t believe in it “even one percent.” And she thought I should sleep with Cormack with “reckless abandon” if I wanted to. As for Laurel’s ancestors’ prophecies all coming true, she said it was “pure coincidence, nothing more.”

I wasn’t exactly sure what
I
thought. On one hand, I was inclined to agree with Abby. But on the other, I thought that if there was even a chance that my sleeping with Cormack might cause the prophecy to be fulfilled, then I should fight tooth and nail to
not
sleep with him. It really didn’t matter what I thought, though, because he seemed completely committed to
not
sleeping with me. Our nightly dinners, which we’d begun eating in the casual kitchen instead of the formal dining room, had become more strained than I’d even thought was possible. We barely spoke, which was maybe because we both seemed intent on not looking at each other for longer than a split second. We’d even stopped making polite comments about the food, except for one of us saying something maybe every third night.

I’d been the one to suggest that we start eating in the casual kitchen instead of the dining room, and I’d made this suggestion because seeing Cormack in dress pants and collared shirt every night had begun to almost physically hurt me. The way his shirts highlighted the breadth of his strong shoulders, and the way he always left a button or two undone, revealing a tantalizing glimpse of his muscular chest, made me have to exert every ounce of my will not to stare. I thought seeing him in the jeans, t-shirt, and boots he wore when heading out to lead his men on patrol in bear form everyday might be easier for me to take, and I also thought that
he
might appreciate not having to see me in a form-fitting dress every night. But I was wrong, about me seeing him in jeans and a t-shirt, anyway. With him looking rugged and sexy beyond belief in battered jeans that hung low on his slim hips, and t-shirts that gently hugged the contours of his chest and chiseled abs, I quickly realized that I’d made a mistake. Seeing him in any form of clothing was torture for me, so we may as well have stuck to the dining room and formal dress.

One night about three weeks after I’d been thawed, I began to see signs that frustration was clearly taking a toll on him as well. Dark circles made shadows under his heavy-lidded eyes, and he cut his chicken like it wasn’t already dead and he needed to kill it. And when our fingers briefly touched near the end of the meal, when we’d both reached for a carafe of ice water at the exact same time, his frustration finally seemed to get the better of him.

Gritting his teeth, he poured water for us both, set the carafe on the table with a bang, and then rested his head in his hands, tearing at his hair more than raking his hands through it. “Goddammit. I wish I could have just immediately sent you away to DC or something. Sent you as far away from me as possible.”

Although I understood his reasoning, I couldn’t help but feel hurt. It just wasn’t an easy thing to hear that the man I was deeply attracted to and deeply lusting after, the man I was supposed to mate with and have children with, wanted nothing more than to send me away, as far away from him as possible. Not knowing what to say, though, not knowing how to put my hurt into the right words, if there were any, I said nothing.

After a few moments, Cormack stopped his hair raking-slash-tearing and looked up at me. “We killed three of the shadow bears while out on patrol today, you know. I killed two, and David, my top lieutenant, killed one. We caught them creeping around just a mile or so past the village limits, probably sent by AntiCormack to try to get near the village to spy.”

After taking a sip of water, I set my glass down, startled to feel a bit of unexpected water in my eyes. “Well, that’s good. Three down, and... how many left now? Eighty or something? Ninety? So maybe we can finally sleep together in about forty years. And until then, I’ll just look at you and be tortured every night. That seems fair for a woman who gave herself up to be frozen for the good of humanity. While all the rest of the women in the village are apparently
not
being tortured for any great length of time at all, judging by how many pregnant women I keep seeing walking around. And, yet,
I’m
the bad guy.
I’m
the one who everyone stares at, and glares at, and thinks is going to get their loved ones killed by fulfilling some stupid prophecy that I’m not entirely convinced is something everyone should even be concerned about.
I’m
the one who is hated. I’m the one who you wish would just... disappear.”

A hot tear rolled down my cheek, and I swatted it away. I was suddenly so angry I would have
slapped
it away if it wouldn’t have hurt my own cheek.

Before Cormack could respond, I all but leaped up out of my seat, slamming my napkin on the table. “God damn you, Cormack. I...” So angry I was nearly dizzy, I paused for a second while my heart hammered in my ears and another damned tear rolled down my face. “I just... God damn you for everything.”

Not wanting him to see me cry, and have him know just how much his rejection was hurting me, I flew from the room and down the hallway, half-colliding with Hazel, who was carrying a stack of clean towels somewhere. I only
half
-collided with her because only my elbow caught her, not my whole body. Still, I knew I’d accidentally jostled her good. Tears now streaming down my face, I didn’t even stop, though, just kept on tearing down the hallway and into the foyer, just glancing over my shoulder at her.

“Sorry! And I really mean that! But at least now you have something to truly hate me for, instead of something that really isn’t my fault!”

I kept running through the foyer, and down a short hallway, then down a longer hallway, until I reached my room. There, I slammed the door behind me, flopped on my bed and cried like a teenage girl whose crush had broken her heart. Which was a situation I found all-too-relatable right then.

Even the reasons I was crying struck me as reasons a teenager might cry. Everyone hated me and the “boy” I liked didn’t like me back. Or, he
did
, but he couldn’t show me that in a physical way out of fear of bringing about the ruin of his people because of some prophecy. I supposed that last part wasn’t quite exactly typical teenage stuff.

Nonetheless, I’d discovered that rejection hurt at any age, even if the person hurting understood
why
she was being rejected. The knowing
why
certainly didn’t make my tears dry any faster. At least a few minutes went by before they finally slowed to a stop.

With my face hot and oddly prickly, the way it always felt after a good cry, I soon headed to the bathroom and got in the shower, holding my face under a spray of water set as cold as I could stand it. After washing up and shampooing my hair in warmer water, I shut off the shower and toweled dry, thinking that I was hearing knocking on my bedroom door. I wrapped the towel around my body and then just stood, listening, but didn’t hear anything for several seconds, so I just continued out to my room.

I’d just taken my towel off to put on pajamas when the knocking sounded again, this time clear as a bell. My first thought was that maybe Hazel had come to demand a more thorough apology and a promise from me to watch where I was going, and a tiny guilty part of me wondered if I’d even truly injured her. So, wrapping my towel around myself again, I called out to her that I’d be right there. But when I answered the door, it wasn’t Hazel standing outside. It was Cormack, whose eyes instantly got a little wide as he raked his gaze over me, from my dripping wet hair to my body just covered by a towel.

*

If he’d been startled by my attire, or lack of it, Cormack recovered quickly, clearing his throat. He then lifted his gaze to my face and kept it there. “I just wanted to tell you I’m sorry... sorry for everything. I’m sorry that you were thawed under terrible circumstances, and I’m sorry you’ve been made to feel unwelcome in Blackthorn City, even by me. And, really... I’m especially sorry that you’ve been made to feel unwelcome by me. I’m ashamed, actually. I should have...”