Out Cold (Bramble Woods #1)

Chapter 1

ASHER

The ice gave a low groan beneath my bear's weight, and I froze. Not from fear or the cold. The lake was solid and had been for weeks.

But that deep crack traveled from the present to the past and brought back memories from long ago.

My polar bear was annoyed at my silliness when fish swam in circles below the surface. He didn’t remember that time because he’d done the surviving, and I was left with memories that were as vivid as if it happened yesterday.

I was six years old when my stepfather took me ice fishing.

My father was the Alpha of our den, and he was away on den business. Our den had a dispute with a grizzly clan, and he had to be there. Before he left, he’d kissed my forehead, and I remembered his beard scratching my cheek. He’d told me to be good and to listen to my stepfather.

I’d tried so hard to make my stepfather like me, but I’d always failed.

My stepfather, Kipp, smiled with his whole face, except his eyes.

Father never picked up that it was fake, and when I was alone with Kipp, his eyes were hard and cold and his mouth was set in a hard line.

His scent changed, and while I’d been too young to understand the hardness that reminded me of the ice that didn’t quite thaw, I knew enough to be wary of it.

Kipp had mated with my father only eight months after my omega dad died. I hardly remembered him, just the sensation of soft white fur and a scent that reminded me of being surrounded by snow. His voice soothed me to sleep when he read my favorite stories.

“Asher, come.” Kipp had stood in the doorway of my room that morning. He was dressed in heavy furs that told me he was going out in human form. “You need to learn how to fish properly.”

I’d scrambled out of bed and got dressed. I was so excited because he’d hardly spoken to me in the weeks since Father left. Maybe things would be different and he would see me as his son.

Being six, I was desperate for his approval and for a sign that he loved me as he adored my father.

The walk to the lake took an hour. The brittle snow snapped under our boots, and it was loud enough that I could still hear it today. My legs ached from trying to match Kipp’s longer stride.

He didn't speak much but rather pointed out tracks of an arctic hare, a fox, and the grooves in the snow where a seal had dragged itself between breathing holes.

I chattered to fill the silence because I was nervous. Craving his attention, I questioned every word out of my mouth. I rambled on about how I wanted to participate in the den’s hunts and how I couldn't wait for my first shift, though it was years away.

Kipp placed a hand on my shoulder when we reached the lake's edge. But this wasn’t a loving touch. His fingers dug in hard, and my eyes filled with tears, but I glanced away, not wanting him to see me cry.

“You talk too much.” There was no emotion in his voice, not that that was unusual. “A good hunter knows when to be silent.”

I nodded and pressed my lips together in case any words escaped, before following Kipp onto the ice. I avoided his gaze by studying my boots.

We walked out farther than I'd ever been. I wished I could have held his hand, but instead, glanced over my shoulder at the white landscape and cave entrances that were the dark blotches against the snow.

My toes were numb, and as we continued walking, that iciness extended to the rest of my body and my heart. Something wasn’t right, but I was too fearful of my stepfather to speak up.

“Right here.” Kipp stopped and dropped the gear. “This is a good spot.”

I didn’t question him because I didn’t know enough, but in the years since then, I pieced together that the ice was thinner there because the underground currents kept it from freezing as solid as it should. And I suspected he had scouted out the place and waited for Father to leave.

He chipped at the ice with his axe. That lonely sound was the only one in the empty space, and I imagined that axe being pitched into my heart. I kneeled beside the hole and peered into the dark water as chips of ice floated into the current.

“Can you see any fish?” He was behind me.

I wanted to, but there was no sign of any. “If I wait a little longer—”

His boot hit me in the back, and I didn’t scream.

There was no time between me being on the ice and then plunging into the freezing water.

It was so cold, I felt my heart stop. I couldn’t breathe or even understand what had happened, but there were bubbles darting up to the surface.

I thrashed in the water as my heavy furs became saturated and they dragged me down.

There was a moment when I broke the surface, and my fingers grabbed the icy edge but it crumbled. Kipp’s cold, unsmiling expression was what I saw through the water streaming over my face.

“You should have been more careful.” His boot came down on my head, and I plunged under the water again.

From that moment, the memory was in tatters because my world was pain and cold. My lungs screamed for air as I tried to grab the ice. My eyes were closing, and as young as I was, I understood this was my fate, to drown here in the dark and lonely place.

But suddenly, I wasn’t alone, and I was no longer me.

My polar bear roared to life from deep inside me.

Even at six years old I was aware this was too early.

He wasn’t ready, and this wasn’t supposed to happen.

It might hurt him, and my body wasn’t big enough to tolerate a shift, but he cared about me more than himself and roared to life.

The shift was agony because I was drowning and transforming for the first time.

I opened my mouth to scream, and it filled with water.

Was I still Asher or a beast? I was smaller and also bigger.

I had paws with claws that didn’t lose their grip on the ice.

And I was no longer sinking into the darkness.

My polar bear, like me, was a cub. He should have been sleeping inside me, but instead, he’d emerged to save my life.

My stepfather had vanished when we reached the surface, and my beast dragged himself onto the ice. He had used all his energy in shifting and climbing out of the water, and he lay in the ice, unable to move.

But we both caught a scent at the same time.

It was a wolf, and it was headed toward us.

Maybe I should have been afraid, but a man who was supposed to look after and care for me tried to drown me, so a wolf approaching didn’t frighten me, even though I was vulnerable if the wolf was hunting.

Neither my beast nor I had enough energy to be scared.

The wolf was huge, twice my beast’s size, and he sniffed my bear’s wet fur. He shifted, and I stared up at a man about Father’s age with scars on his shoulders.

“Gods, what happened to you? You’re little more than a baby.” He was naked and shivering, and I worried he’d die and leave me here to the same fate.

“Don’t shift back.”

I couldn’t, and he picked me up, saying there was a hunting cabin nearby where he had clothes, furs, and could make a fire.

He must have picked me up because my next memory was being covered in furs on the floor of that cabin and him making soup.

I was in human form, but every part of me ached, and I drifted in and out of consciousness.

When I’d regained some strength, he carried me on his back to his pack, more than an hour away from where he found me.

Pack members told me I was safe and asked what had happened.

I told them using my six-year-old words, and a man, not the one who rescued me, but the Alpha, said I had a home with them.

The ice cracking beneath me brought me back to the present. My bear didn’t want to share any memories he had of that day.

Aaron, who’d rescued me, had died a few years ago, but the wolf pack was my family. They were home.

I often wondered if Father had grieved for me and what Kipp told him about the so-called accident. But that was the past, and I had survived despite what my stepfather wanted.

The ice groaned as I caught a salmon and headed home.