5
Hannah
“Don’t move.
Not a step, not a centimeter,”
Gleb growls as he dumps me onto the sand.
He punctuates his words with a full body shake that snows ice shards over me.
I cower into a ball.
My teeth chatter.
I can’t stop them.
My hands and feet shake with cold.
What hurts the most is watching Gleb return to the water. Is he diving for my Ouija board cup? It has sentimental value, not monetary value. Why would he risk his life for a cup after rescuing me from the same fate? I didn’t realize how strong the current was and got swept under the water. What’s his excuse?
His powerful arms slice the current with ease.
I hold my breath when the surf rises over his head, exhaling when he appears between waves.
My face splits into a smile when he dives to the bottom…the jokester claps his feet like a synchronized swimmer.
I almost died and he not only rescues me but goofs around in the same environment. Is he proving I can’t take care of myself in the Arctic? Because that’s a waste of energy, I know I’m a walking disaster. Or is he playing because the Tundra is his playground?
Playground.
The infuriating man prances out of the water with my cup balanced on his head like a crown.
I rock with giggles at his antics.
He stops a foot from me and bends at the waist.
My cup tumbles from his head, down his outstretched arm, and into his palm. The gesture is adorable, but I’m distracted. His fur goes translucent when wet…everywhere. If he’s that hung after swimming in frigid water, his bed partner better be made of elastic. A weapon like that could split a lady in half…
But what a way to go…
“Is this your treasure?”
He asks when I’m too hypnotized by his junk to act like a well-mannered human being.
“Oh yes, I can’t thank you enough for saving it. Why—”
As soon as I take the cup from his hand, he sweeps me off my feet and carries me inside.
While my feminist sensibilities hate that he didn’t ask to pick me up, I can’t help but love how cherished I feel in his embrace.
“We must get you out of those wet clothes—not that I’m trying anything—I just—”
“Hypothermia,”
I reply, to save him from himself.
“I get it.
I can nap before we travel.”
“As much as I love having you in my bed, sleeping when frozen can kill you.
You can wear my bed furs while I make you better clothes.
Oh, after I make soup.
Warm fluids.”
He’s verbally organizing my care, deciphering the door lock puzzle, and carrying me in one arm after swimming in deathly cold water with man-eating aquatic mammals.
Gleb is invincible.
“Why did rescue me again? When are you going to decide I’m not worth it?”
He looks at me with wild eyes that make me feel small.
Of course, a morally balanced person would save another, no matter the cost.
My upbringing in the eat-or-be-eaten upper class has my moral compass spinning.
“Forget it,”
I say, waving my hand between us.
He nods without saying more, which makes me feel worse.
Is his behavior beyond what one human being does for another? Besides his superhuman ability to swim and withstand the cold, is he normal? I know I’m messed up—I have the psychiatrist bills to prove it—but am I too gone to recognize decency?
My intuition says it’s not me.
It’s Gleb.
He doesn’t set me down, but grumbles about my lack of self-preservation in an adorably grouchy growl.
If I’m a perfect stranger to Gleb, why does he treat me like a long-lost family member? It makes no sense. He took me from the rest of my tour group to personally nurse me to health. Why didn’t he leave me with the disaster cleanup crew? It’s not like he didn’t trust them. In his explanations, he gives most of the people involved monikers like clansman, clansmate, or clansman’s mate , so it’s not like they’re strangers. He trusted them with Madison, but not me…why?
He must know about the money…
“I’m building a fire.
Lay your clothes on the rack beside it once you cover yourself with furs.”
“You don’t think I should walk around your home naked?”
I ask to test him.
If seduction is his game, he’s after my money.
“Seriously? You will freeze to death! Furs! Dry! Warm! Now!”
I don’t know what’s cuter.
His blush, flustered expression, or the way he slams the door on me.
There’s no way he knows how much I’m worth in dollars…he’s isolated in the Arctic.
My clothes stiffen with icy pellets in the weave as I remove them.
When I join Gleb in his main room, he’s scooping thick brown stew into my favorite cup.
I’m the evil one if I suspect Gleb of kidnapping me for my money.
He’s just nice. Who would chase me into the Arctic Ocean, drag me to shore, and feed me soup while making new furry clothes after the second time they rescued me? That’s too much trouble for money. Jack always accused people of getting close to me for my parents’ money, and he was always wrong.
Where is Jack? How could he leave the beach without me?
At least Jack isn’t here to bicker with Gleb, as he does with everyone who tries to get close to me.
There are good people in the world, and Gleb is one of them.
The way he curses himself for not making me warmer clothes sooner is as sweet as the dried berries he provides for my dessert .
If he awaits a ransom call from my parents’ lawyer, why bother making clothes? Why take me outside?
“Why did you rescue my cup?”
He startles from his task at my question.
I raise my favorite plastic cup.
The soup swishes around inside it.
“After you set me on the beach, you dove back into the water for my cup. Why would you risk your safety for a cheap five-dollar cup if the ocean is so dangerous that you forbid me from stepping near it again?”
I can’t help but smirk at the last part.
His tirade as he carried me inside was hilarious.
Something about how some people swim like fish, but I’m not one of them.
Cracked me up! My parents paid for the best private swimming instructors in Beverly Hills. His mumbles filled his home as he towel-dried my hair and stripped a thin fur off his bed. I changed into the furry sheet, so my turtleneck, jacket, and jeans dry on the hearth. I sip my soup beside the warm bright fire as he sews in the shadows.
“The cup was more important to you than your life,”
he says with a shrug.
“But not important to you,”
I tease.
“Normally, if one person puts themselves in danger for a worthless object, the other stops them.”
“I’ve watched your eyes go from crying on the beach to smiling at your cup of soup.
That’s enough.
My clan dives into that ocean every niibin for narwhal.
At least your cup wouldn’t try to stab or bite me as I captured it,”
he says, chuckling at his sewing.
He drops his voice to a whisper when he adds.
If I wasn’t a master at lip reading, I’d miss it.
“What’s between us isn’t normal, so I want to make you happy more than live.”
“Thank you,”
I say, taking another sip because I don’t know what to say.
In a world where most guys don’t pull out my chair at dinner, Gleb risks his life to make a new friend smile.
“I bought this cup with the money I earned at a lemonade stand as a kid.
My friend from school had one in her yard and we sold lemonade all weekend to buy matching cups.”
“No wonder you love it,”
he replies as he rearranges the furry suit on his lap.
“I treasure what I make much more than what’s given to me.”
“Exactly—”
I slam down the cup on my chair arm in my excitement.
The bedsheet wrapped around my body slips until I recover the panel tucked under my arms.
“My parents were appalled their daughter sold lemonade on the corner.
They forced me to break off my friendship with Katie—my friend with the lemonade stand—and threw away the cup. The Ouija board pattern on it added fuel to their fire. I fished it from the trash and hid my treasure until I moved out.”
“It’s a trophy—”
“Yes, I had a weekend of independence, and the cup is my trophy.”
“My first narwhal hunt, I partnered with Kiril.
Sergei was hurt.
I wanted to dive without him to prove myself, and he let me go after we argued.
My pride demonstrated what I learned from Sergei instead of allowing him to keep me safe.”
He pauses his story to wander into another chamber.
He returns with a white, hollow tusk.
“I shouldn’t touch this,”
I say when he tries to hand me the delicate piece.
“I want you to.”
There’s no arguing with the hardness in his eyes, but they crinkle with smile lines once the tusk hits my palm.
The pink and light blue swirls are gorgeous, like a unicorn’s horn in a storybook.
Although this horn is too large for a unicorn…at least the unicorns I envisioned as a child…this horse’s head would have to be massive to carry the three-foot horn.
“Kiril and I almost died that day.
Instead of Kiril jumping onto the animal’s tail and my jumping on the neck to subdue one animal, we jumped on two different animals.
He thought I was securing the jaws, so he couldn’t be bitten.
I thought he was tying the tail to our ice sheet to keep the narwhal from dragging me into the deep. We were both wrong.”
“How awful? Did you go to the deep? Did Kiril get bitten? Don’t tell me he’s dead.”
“Kiril is fine.”
“Don’t look so jealous.
I asked about a man I don’t know.
I know you lived because you’re sitting here with me.”
“I’m not jealous,”
he replies with pink tinting his cheeks under the fur.
Wait, he would need a fierce blush to show through the suit, right? Can technology make the suit blush? He turns his back to me to finish his sewing before I can examine him further.
“You can probably guess.
Sergei dove in and saved our izvadnitsy —sorry asses—from the beasts.”
“Both of you? Sergei must be a superhero.”
“Yeah, he’s something.”
“Ooh, you do have a jealous streak!”
I’m consumed by giggles.
Like I would pick a bigger or stronger furry over Gleb when I’m in a relationship…with Jack.
I pull the bedclothes tighter around me and gulp the rest of my soup.
It’s not right for me to impose on Gleb’s hospitality—especially if he’s growing possessive. He has no hope of breaking up Jack and me…right?
“You changed.”
“What? No, I haven’t moved.”
Not only does Gleb get me, but he’s learning my ticks and expressions.
How many times did Jack criticize my loud face? With my secrets, I must control my face and not piss off Gleb.
“You closed your heart,”
he replies with a shrug.
“The thought fluttering through your mind isn’t a happy one.
I want to help.”
“You can’t help,”
I blurt out.
“In fact, that’s the problem.
I shouldn’t accept so much from you—as you sit there making me a fur suit that probably costs thousands of dollars.
Ugh, I have a boyfriend and we’re serious.”
“I know,”
he says, “Jack, right?”
He cuts his thick thread with a snap of his pointy fangs.
Was his bite aggressive or am I adding emotion to his actions? Why do I get butterflies in my belly when I think of Gleb being jealous of Jack? Where are my red flags and alarm bells?
“How do you know?”
“He told me—”
“You talked to him and yet he let you take me away from him!”
There are those alarm bells.
My tongue is too big for my mouth.
I gulp for air as panic rises in the back of my mind.
“We talked to me on the iceberg,”
he murmurs.
Why did his voice go quiet? “Jack told me he thought you were his—”
“But he didn’t protest when you took me from the crash?”
“He wasn’t healthy enough to protest—neither were you,”
he mumbles.
The redness to his face is back, and I can’t suppress my curiosity.
Dragging his furs across the stone floor, I leave my warm spot by the fireplace.
He’s larger than life as I stand between his knees, as tall sitting as I am standing.
I cup his cheeks in my hands and lift his face to mine.
His eyes widen with shock.
He holds his breath. I should be terrified that someone so large kidnapped me. Maybe I have Stockholm Syndrome or, as a kid, I watched too many princess movies where she chooses the beast.
“Did Jack ask you to take me?”
Gleb closes his eyes with tears in the corners.
“Everyone I know, and love asked me to leave you behind, but nobody in your group said anything.
I’m sorry.”
“Nobody wanted me—”
“Stop that!”
He growls and flashes those fangs.
They feel too real against my thumbs.
“Hannah, I’d trade all the stars in the sky to make you happy.”
“Then take me south.”
He lowers his head, shaking free of my grasp.
It hurts him that I want to leave his care, but his feelings scare me.
No matter how much he understands me, protects me, and makes me giggle, he’s a stranger—a stranger who could be grooming me…