Bearing the Black Ice (Ice Bear Shifters Book 4) Read Online Free Page A

you roaring. That Blizzard was massive. One of the hugest I’ve ever seen. And your bear is pretty tiny. Although quite feisty, from the sound of it. You were blacked out already when I got there, but before that you were putting off quite a chorus of roars and snarls.”
    Hannah felt her cheeks flushing from a mixture of embarrassment and pleasure. Alan’s comments about her feistiness sounded like a compliment, and his praise sent a little thrill through her body. For a moment, she forgot about the fact that they were stuck in a death trap of a cave, and enjoyed the gorgeous view in front of her. His face was covered in dirt, which the uneven shadows from the flashlight only emphasized. His dark hair was mussed up from the fight, but the unkempt look only added to his sexiness. He had lost his thick jacket when he shifted, making his defined arm muscles even easier to see.
    He seemed to notice her staring at him, because he abruptly turned away and started rummaging through his backpack. He handed her a protein bar and his water bottle.
    “Here. I know it’s not the most delicious or filling meal, but it’s better than nothing. And you need to drink to replenish all the fluids your body has lost.”
    “Thank you,” Hannah said as she gratefully took the food and water from him. “How many of those do you have in there?”
    “Ten more. Five for each of us. Which isn’t going to last very long, but, hopefully we can figure out a way out of here soon.”
    Hannah quietly munched on her protein bar for a few moments. It tasted like stale peanuts, but compared to the junk the Blizzards had been feeding her, it actually wasn’t that bad. She didn’t bother to point out to Alan once again that she thought the chances of them escaping were zero. He already knew she thought that, and, from the defeated look on his face, it seemed he was starting to accept that reality as well.
    She wondered why he had saved her. It didn’t make much sense. They barely knew each other, and she had ridiculed him and left in a huff. And, quite frankly, having her around did slow him down. Not to mention it cut his available food supplies in half, since he seemed to be so generously sharing with her. Maybe, like her, he didn’t exactly want to spend his last few days alone.
    But as she watched him lay down using his backpack as a pillow, and turn his face away from her, she couldn’t reconcile his antisocial attitude with the idea that he wanted company for his final days. Maybe he really was crazy enough to think they could make it out of here. Hannah swallowed her last bite of protein bar.
    “So what do we do now?”
    “Now we sleep. I’m exhausted, and you need your rest to recover,” he said. Then he killed the flashlight and the cavern went dark.

Chapter Five
    Alan stared into the darkness as he heard Hannah sigh, then finally lay down. A couple moments later, her steady, rhythmic breathing told him she had fallen asleep.
    Sleep wouldn’t come so easily for Alan. It never did. A never ending loop of disturbing images played through his mind whenever he tried to drift off to dreamland. He always saw Tessa’s face, laughing with delight as she threw her arms around him and told him that she was expecting. Then he saw his child, a son. Even though the baby had never had a chance to be born, Alan’s mind had somehow conjured up an image of the child. The boy had Alan’s face and build, but Tessa’s golden tresses. Laughing, the boy would run off, his silhouette growing smaller and smaller until he disappeared into a puff of smoke. Then Alan would see Tessa’s face, looking up at him with a desperate, pleading look as she writhed in pain from the silver poisoning. She would blink a few, final times, and then vanish. Every night, when Alan went to bed, this stream of mental images played over and over in his mind. No matter how hard he tried to think about something else, the same playback reel repeated itself. Tonight, however,