Bearing the Black Ice (Ice Bear Shifters Book 4) by Sloane Meyers Page B

rattling his nerves, and he was thankful that she was forced to fall silent as they approached the lair.
    Peeking cautiously from the furthest vantage point possible, Alan saw that the same two guards were standing watch tonight. And they looked just as bored as they had the night before. Alan nodded to Hannah, and they silently crept as close as they felt they could without taking a chance at alerting the guard. If their cover was blown, the whole operation would be down the drain.
    Several minutes later, they had made it to the launching spot without incident. Alan looked over at Hannah and took a deep breath. He wanted to drink in her beauty in the dim shadows, in case this was the last time he got to see her.
    “I love you,” he mouthed at her, and blew her a kiss.
    “I love you, too,” she mouthed back. Her eyes had gone from terrified to serene, and Alan took comfort in the fact that she seemed to have accepted that this was what they had to do. He took one more deep breath, and then began executing their plan. He held up his hand and used his fingers to slowly count.
    One.
    Two.
    Three.
    When he put his third finger into the air, he and Hannah both shifted. The cave filled with powerful bursts of wind and energy as two polar bears appeared where the two human forms had just been. Alan and Hannah, as bears, ran full speed, knocking over the first guard a split-second after he raised his eyes in shock at the sound of their shifting.
    They flew over the sleeping Blizzard clan members, who were all spread out on the floor in human form. A few sat up, dazed and confused as they were smacked by the giant bear paws passing over them. More than one person was crushed by the weight of the running polar bears landing on them.
    “Hey!” the second guard yelled. “Stop!”
    Of course, Alan and Hannah didn’t listen. Alan barreled through the second guard. He didn’t bother stopping to check whether the door was locked or not. He just smashed straight through it. On the other side of the door, they found themselves in another tunnel, and they ran smack into two more guards, who had just turned around to see what had caused the sudden commotion. The force of the sudden impact knocked the guards unconscious.
    Alan fought back disappointment and fear. He had hoped bursting through the door would put them out on the surface again, but they were still very much in the cave. The only light in the tunnel came from the faint glow of the Blizzards’ den that was quickly fading behind them. As they ran, Alan heard the sound of numerous pops of energy behind him. The Blizzards were shifting, and would soon be in hot pursuit. As they had planned, they had a good head start. But a good head start for what? If this tunnel didn’t lead them to an exit soon, they were doomed.
    Alan forced himself to focus on nothing but running. He couldn’t afford to waste energy on panicking right now. The roars of the Blizzards echoed down the tunnel from behind him. For three solid minutes, he forced himself to run despite the terror that threatened to overtake him. And then, he felt a glimmer of hope. The tunnel started sloping upwards ever so slightly. After another minute of running, he saw lights. Two flaming torches were mounted on either side of a large hole, which looked out at a starlit sky. Alan wanted to stop and whoop for joy, although, of course, he couldn’t waste time doing that right now. Freedom was in sight! Only a few hundred more feet.
    Just as Alan had started to feel confident that they would make it, two heads appeared in the opening. Even from the distance, Alan could see the glittering, jet black eyes of the two Blizzard guards. The roaring from down the tunnel must have alerted them, and when they realized that two foreign polar bears were racing toward the entrance, they wasted no time in shifting. The gusts of powerful wind as they changed form slowed Alan slightly, but he kept moving his limbs as fast as he could in