Snowbound (Arctic Station Bears Book 1) (3 page)

“He’s amazing,” Liam said. “Here we are.” We stood in front of two glass doors. Inside was a multi-level room lined with shelves. Each shelf was stuffed with books and journals. At a table on the second level, I could see a man sitting next to a stack of books. Liam turned to me and smiled. I’d be lying if I said that I didn’t melt a little. “You ready?” he asked.

“Hell yeah,” I said.

“Then let’s go meet the Snowman.”

T
he Snowman looked human, aside from a slightly larger head and an enlarged brow. He was handsome. I approached him like he was made of glass and the slightest vibration caused by a heavy step could make him shatter. He looked up from his book. When he spoke, his speech was stilted, but I understood every word.

“You are. Alanna Mac Ready?” he asked.

I grabbed the back of a chair, half because I wanted to sit down and half because I thought I might fall over from excitement. “MacCready,” I said. “Do you mind if I sit?”

“I would like it,” he said. “My name is Calder. I saw it in a book.” He extended a hand and I was momentarily struck dumb. His hand looked large and heavy, and his fingers each ended in what looked like a retractable claw. He saw my surprise and looked at his hand, and as I watched, his fingers transformed to have more recognizable pads and nails. He smiled, almost sheepishly. “Sorry,” he said. “Easier to turn the pages with claws.”

“You’re a cat shifter?” I asked. His hand closed around my own and I was shocked by his sheer power. He could crush every bone in my hand without a second thought, but while his handshake was firm, he did not hurt me. “It’s nice to meet you.”

“A cat from my time,” he said. He held my hand a little longer than I was expecting and never broke eye contact with me. I had to pull away a little before he let go. “A saber-tooth tiger is what you call it?”

“And you can partially shift?” I asked.

“I can.” He pulled back his hand, and as I watched, it transformed into a gigantic paw. The bone and muscle structure in his arm changed. Fur grew from his skin. He was a man with a cat’s forelimb. He extended his claws — two inches long at least and brutally hooked. Then as quickly as it happened, his arm was suddenly normal again.

“I’d like to talk to to you later if that’s okay,” I said. “I have so many questions.”

Calder smiled. “I would like it.”

Back in the common area, I took a cup of coffee with a trembling hand. “Thanks, Donny,” I said.

“Sure thing,” Donny said. “I hope you like it strong and black.”

“Is there any other way?” I asked, and he laughed.

“Glacial and microbial analysis suggests that the ice we pulled the Snowman out of is at least a hundred thousand years old,” Donny said. “The exact time is proving difficult to pin down. We have some better equipment being shipped in, but the ice makes things slow.”

“Plus they don’t trust me enough to fly in anything expensive,” Ben said. Donny and Ollie laughed.

“What am I? Expendable?” I asked.

Ben just grinned. “Not at all, doc,” he said. “Prettiest passenger I’ve had in years.”

I rolled my eyes and turned my attention to Liam. He looked lost in thought, but something was gnawing at me after our conversation with Calder. “So what happens to the Snowman?”

“We’ll keep him here for study,” Liam said.

“As a prisoner?” I asked.

Liam looked hurt. “Of course not.”

“So he’s free to leave when he wishes?”

Liam turned his chair to face mine. “Alanna, surely you see the scientific value this subject has. We can’t just let him go.”

“That is such bullshit. You’re shifters. You might not be old enough to remember the zoos and the freak shows, but I’m sure you’ve all read history books. You’re planning to just keep him here and study him?”

Liam’s face darkened. “You don’t need to tell me anything about that time in our history. It’s a big part of the reason we try to just blend in.”

“I warned you about her bleeding heart, Liam,” Ollie said.

“Fuck you, Oliver,” I said. “You flew me all the way to the frozen asshole of the Earth because I thought you wanted me to weigh in on the biological effects of the therianthrope progenitor. A virus I thought you pulled out of the ice — not out of the blood of a man I just talked to. Which, by the way, was a nice conversation. When did he learn English?”

“Yesterday,” Ollie said.

“You’re shitting me.”

“We’re not,” Liam said. “He is learning things faster than any of us ever expected. He consumes books and even seems to grasp the content.”

“He even knows how to work that fancy coffee maker in the kitchen,” Ben said. “Donny’ll be out of a job, soon.” He grinned. I smiled and Donny laughed, but Liam was fixed on me. I could feel the energy rolling off of him, like waves of heat.

For a moment, we just stared at each other, like seeing someone familiar after a long absence. Did I know him from somewhere and had forgotten? Even sitting down, Liam’s presence was powerful. Every muscle in my body wanted me to jump into his lap, but instead I slid backward in my seat.

Liam seemed to realize his own intensity. He broke off eye contact with me and sat up a little straighter. “We always assumed that ancient humans were less intelligent based on their tools and what we know of their society through evidence of burial grounds and trade routes, but what if they just didn’t
need
anything else? We don’t know if he’s dangerous. We don’t know if the
virus
he’s carrying is dangerous.”

“Can you at least promise that if we decide that he’s
not
dangerous, we come up with a plan to reintroduce him to the world?”

“At this point, I can’t promise anything.” Liam said.

I sighed. “A big cage is still a cage.”

Calder watched the human female and the bear shifters leave. He was overjoyed that she’d accepted the offer to join their team, and closed the book he was reading. Biochemistry. Finally, he could begin to put his plan into action. They understood so little, and Calder could not trust them. He would stay underestimated. Speak in easy sentences. Mispronounce words.

There was so much research on the progeny of his bloodline, but fortunately that research did not exist in eons past. If only his tribe had known the effect of silver on shifters, they might not have been content to leave him a prisoner in the ice. They just couldn’t figure out how to kill him. The warriors of his tribe had tried, absolutely. Blades. Fire. Drowning. Calder had left them no choice. He understood that. They were afraid. Calder closed his eyes. If only he alone had been the lone victim of their fear.

Hopefully history would not repeat itself. Hopefully the people of this time would welcome a return to nature. A connection to the world in which they lived.

The shifters in this time were weak. They might need to be culled to make way for the new, purer breed. They were unable to partially shift. Unable to truly call upon the strength of the animal and the man at will, and to have control over both. Liam had said that the bears changed only during a full moon, and if they did shift at will, the animal held sway over the man. Their lack of control was pitiful. And the change was a thing to be celebrated daily, not endured as a monthly hardship.

But not all of the bears were useless, he reminded himself. There was one with potential. He would help Calder bring the plan to fruition. He could be redeemed. Calder smiled. It would begin so soon now. He just needed to understand a little more about the world in which he now found himself. He opened another book.

I
stared out of the huge windows in the common room. It was night, although outside the sky was the same purple-blue twilight as it was when I arrived. It really was beautiful. I should have brought a camera along, because my cell phone pictures just did not do it justice.

“You okay?”

I almost jumped out of my skin at the sound. I spun around and there was Ollie, holding two cups and looking like he thought he might get decked. If my hand didn’t ache from the cold, I might’ve actually punched him.

“You scared me shitless,” I said. “You know I fucking hate it when you sneak up on me.”