Bearing the Black Ice (Ice Bear Shifters Book 4) (8 page)

Hannah awoke to the sensation of Alan’s lips on her lips. She peeked open her eyes, and saw him grinning at her before he leaned in to give her another peck on the lips. His lips on hers filled her with a delightful, familiar warmth.

“I’m sorry if I woke you,” he said. “I just couldn’t stop myself from kissing that beautiful mouth.”

Hannah smirked at him. “Oh really,” she said. “Well you better be careful kissing me like that.”

Alan’s eyes danced at Hannah’s playful tone. “And why is that?”

“Because you’re turning me on, and I love morning sex,” Hannah said, then she rolled over and pushed Alan onto his back. She shimmied on top of him and put her mouth over his, kissing him deeply.

Alan didn’t seem to have any complaints. He happily returned Hannah’s kiss, and she could feel his dick stiffening beneath her as their tongues met and slid over each other. Hannah felt her entire body warming as Alan pulled his hands up and placed his palms gently on her cheeks as he kissed her. They kissed hungrily for several minutes, and Alan used his thumbs to stroke her cheeks. Then he pulled back and gave her a mischievous look.

“I think you’re the one who better be careful,” he teased. “Because no one likes morning sex better than
me
.”

Hannah shrieked and giggled as he pushed her off of him and onto her back, then started tugging her sweater over her head. They had never bothered to undress last night, so they were both still fully clothed, but Alan was about to remedy that situation. After pulling off her shirt, he trailed his hand down her navel to the top of her jeans. He gave her a seductive look as he unbuttoned the top button and then slid the zipper down. He pulled the heavy denim material off and over her feet, leaving Hannah wearing only a lacy black bra and panties.

He paused for a moment to pull his own shirt over his head, putting his muscular, chiseled abs on display. Then he unbuttoned his own jeans and slid both them and his boxers off, throwing them onto the growing pile of clothes across the room. Fully naked, with his ample penis standing at attention, he returned his focus to removing Hannah’s clothes. He straddled her on the bed, reaching behind her to unclasp her bra. Slowly, teasingly, he slid each strap down over her shoulder and then tossed the garment aside. Her nipples were alert and hard, waiting and longing for his touch. Alan knew how to give Hannah what she wanted.

She moaned as he leaned over and slowly started drawing little wet circles around each nipple with his tongue. Every now and then he would throw in a gentle nibble, closing his teeth over the hard pink flesh of first the left nipple, then the right. He cupped each breast under his hand and massaged the undersides as he continued to tease the nipples with his teeth and tongue. At one point he pushed her breasts together so the nipples were almost touching. Then he ran his tongue back and forth from left to right, sending a shock of warm ecstasy through Hannah’s body as he hit each nipple over and over in rapid succession. She could feel her the moisture between her legs growing as Alan drove her wild with his exploration of her breasts.

He began moving his tongue down, tracing a sensual, wet line from her breasts to her navel. He circled her bellybutton with his tongue, and she shivered in ecstasy at the warm, tickling sensation. Then he reached her panties. He grabbed the top edge with his teeth, and started pulling them off. He reached up and used his hands to help him strip away that last article of clothing, tossing it aside and quickly returning to straddle Hannah.

She breathed heavily as he slid into her. He pushed himself all the way in, and leaned his bare chest against her bare breasts. Hannah panted as he filled her, his pressure inside of her sending little tremors of ecstasy through her being. He moved his hips against her in a circular motion, then raised himself up slightly on his elbows so he could rock back and forth, forward and backward inside of her. As he moved slowly, steadily, the little tremors grew. Warm, wet passion filled Hannah, building in pressure until she exploded like a crescendo. She cried out his name as her body erupted into a full blown earthquake. The orgasm came quickly, and the intensity grew until it felt greater than anything Hannah had experienced before. As the tremors of passion passed through her, over and over, she felt Alan stiffen his whole body and then let out a groan as he let himself come into her, his large, rigid penis pulsing in concert with Hannah’s own spasms. When the action had subsided, they lay together, breathless and satisfied, until Alan raised his head to give Hannah a sweet kiss on the lips.

“Not a bad way to start the day, huh?” he said, grinning from ear to ear.

* * *

The day only got better from there. In fact, the weeks only got better from there. One month later, in November, Alan and Hannah held a simple, but meaningful life mate ceremony. Neal officially welcomed Hannah into the Northern Lights Clan, and gave his blessing to the new couple. The day was filled with bittersweet happiness for Hannah. She had found a new family, but her heart ached that her old clan was not there to share in this special life event with her. Alan understood her sadness. He gave Hannah space to grieve whenever she needed it, even on the day of their life mate ceremony.

Hannah settled in to life with the Northern Lights Clan, spending most of her days helping Kat and Delaney take care of Kenzie and the new cubs. Hannah had always loved children. In her old clan, she had spent much of her time helping to care for the clan’s cubs when their parents needed to attend to other clan business. And Hope and Calum were two of the cutest, sweetest cubs Hannah had ever met. As their red, wrinkly newborn face started to transform into the smooth, chubby baby skin of early infancy, Hannah often thought that it wasn’t possible for two babies to be any cuter. The combination of human and bear genes gave them a unique, almost mystical appearance.

The Northern Lights bears continued to stand guard over Kenzie and the cubs, fearing a Blizzard attack. But two months after the cubs’ birth, the Blizzards had still not shown up. Hannah thought this was good news, but Neal doubled up efforts to watch over the babies, fearing that the Blizzards were attempting to trick the Northern Lights bears into letting their guard down. Neal frequently sent his bears out in pairs to conduct scouting missions. He wanted to see if he could figure out why the Blizzards remained in hiding even though December had arrived and the cold weather offered the perfect climate for the Blizzards to go on the offensive. The sun had gone dark for the winter again, and snow piled higher and higher as the temperatures dipped far below zero.

Several of the scouting excursions occurred without any sighting of Blizzard activity. One freezing day in mid-December however, Eric and Tyler discovered two wounded polar bear shifters, both in bear form. The bears were too weak to move, but they weren’t Blizzards. Eric and Tyler rushed back to the cabins and got Kenzie’s snowmobile, which had a stretcher for wounded animals on it, since she worked as a veterinarian. With Neal’s permission, they went back to the wounded bears and loaded them on to the stretcher to bring back to the cabins. They had to move them one at a time, since each bear took up the entire space of the stretcher, but they managed to drag them both into a large storage shed behind Neal’s cabin. The polar bears were too weak to shift back into human form, but Kenzie used her veterinarian skills to treat their injuries.

When Alan and Neal came to look at the bears, Alan’s eyes grew wide.

“This is exactly what Hannah looks like in bear form,” he said, his voice sounding tense. “Neal, I think these bears are from her clan!”

“Where’s Hannah?” Neal demanded.

“She went to town with Delaney,” Kenzie said, never looking up from her work as she stitched up a large gash on one of the bears. “They needed to pick up some supplies, but they should be back soon.”

“I want to know the minute she gets back,” Neal said. “We need to have her look at these bears in case they are from her clan. We should try to warn her first about the condition they’re in, though. These injuries don’t look pretty.”

Alan nodded his head in agreement, but before he could reply, a loud, shattering sound rang across the room.

Hannah stood in the doorway, a bag of groceries dropped at her feet with its contents spilled over and rolling across the floor. Delaney ran up behind her, breathless.

“I tried to tell her to wait,” Delaney panted, “But Kat and her big mouth mentioned the bears and I couldn’t hold Hannah back for even a second.”

Hannah didn’t say anything, just ran across the room and grabbed one of the bears around the neck in a huge embrace. Then she started sobbing into the bear’s bloody, matted fur.

“I think we have our answer,” Neal said, watching Hannah weep. “It looks like we’ve found Hannah’s clan. What’s left of it, anyways.”

Hannah confirmed that the three bears came from the Frozen Claw Clan. And for the next two weeks, Hannah stayed by their sides constantly. She only left for short breaks here and there to see Alan or to give Kenzie’s cubs a quick kiss on the cheeks. The bears were James and Seth, two of the younger bears from Hannah’s clan—barely more than teenagers. Hannah desperately wanted a chance to ask them what had happened to them, and if they knew where the rest of the clan was, but the bears were too weak to talk.

In the middle of the third week, however, Hannah got her wish. James finally recovered enough to shift back to human form.

“Hannah,” he croaked out. “We thought you had died.”

“James! It’s so good to see you. What happened to you? Where is everyone else?”

“We found the entrance to the Black Ice Caverns while we were out looking for you and the other lost bears. We had been searching for months, and could hardly believe our luck at finally finding them. We attacked, trying to get to you guys. But the Blizzards were too strong. They killed everyone, Hannah. Even chased us down after we started retreating and killed all the women and children.” James voice caught in his throat as he spoke, and it didn’t take long for the tears to start spilling down Hannah’s face as well.

“Those bastards!” she said. “So everyone is gone?”

James nodded. “Seth and I were the last two. They left us for dead, I guess. We took down dozens of their bears, but we weren’t strong enough to completely stop them.”

James looked over at Seth, who was sleeping at the moment.

“How is he?” James asked.

“Not good, honestly,” Hannah said. “I’m surprised he made it this long. But he’s a fighter. So are you. I thought for a while that we were going to lose you both.”

“Where am I?” James asked, looking around. “What is this place?”

“It’s a long story,” Hannah said. “I met a bear from the Northern Lights Clan in the Caverns, and we escaped together. We ended up becoming life mates, so I’m part of their clan, now. These cabins belong to them. Let me go get their alpha, Neal. He’ll want to meet you. He asked me to let him know the minute you woke up.”

James nodded wearily, and Hannah set off to find Neal.

Neal had been in town, working at his tattoo shop, so it took about an hour for Hannah to find him. When they finally got back to the cabins, Seth had woken up, too. The two bear shifters, now in human form, sat in the cabin looking exhausted. Hannah explained the story of how she and Alan met, and how they escaped the cave. Neal asked if the possibility remained that any more of the Frozen Claw Clan remained alive, and James and Seth sadly shook their heads.

“No,” Seth said, his voice breaking. “We made a big dent in the Blizzards’ defenses, but in the end we just weren’t strong enough. We watched every last one of them be killed before our eyes. The only reason James and I survived is that they left us for dead. Which, we would have been if your clan members hadn’t saved us.”

Tears rolled down Hannah’s face as Seth confirmed her worst fears. She had long suspected this, but having the near total loss of her clan confirmed tore her heart open anew.

James and Seth looked up at Neal, their young faces registering confusion and fear.

“What happens to us now?” Seth asked. “We have nowhere to go. We have no clan members left, except Hannah.”

“Stay with us,” Neal said, putting his hand on Seth’s shoulder. “Join our clan, and we will shelter you and be your new family. I know it can never replace the clan members you lost. Trust me, I know that all too well. But just because you lost the most precious people in your life doesn’t mean you’re destined to be alone. Life will be different, but it can go on.”

James and Seth nodded gratefully, and Hannah’s tears started anew at the happy realization that her last surviving clan members would be joining her new clan.

Neal stood to leave, and gave James and Seth each a meaningful look. “And trust me, we will have our revenge on the Blizzards. I was wondering why they hadn’t tried to attack our new cubs yet. Now I know. They were too weak after your clan fought them. We will finish the job. We’re going to figure out a way to go on the offensive and end this threat once and for all, so that the Northern Arctic clans can finally live in peace again. And when we attack them, you can be there with us, avenging your lost clan members. For now, just rest up. You’re going to need your strength.”

Neal gave James and Seth each a curt nod, then turned to leave. After making sure the young men were comfortable and had everything they needed, Hannah decided to go spend some time with Alan. She hadn’t seen him much in the last few weeks, since she had been so busy taking care of James and Seth. Now that they both seemed to be on the road to recovery, Hannah went to snatch up some much needed time with her life mate. She could hardly wait to tell him that Neal had offered James and Seth refuge with the Northern Lights Clan. It gave her peace to know that at least her remaining clan members could stay together.

Life hadn’t been easy lately, but it had its brief moments of redemption.