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CHAPTER TWO

Adrian

I love watching my polar bear in his element.

When I was forced to hide out in Northern Alaska when all that shit went down eight years ago, it was a nightmare. I had to give up everything, but my polar bear didn’t complain once. He loves it out here.

The crisp snow crunches under his massive paws as we take one last spin through the arctic wilderness. It’s a calm spring day, but the snow hasn’t even begun to melt. It stretches out beneath our paws like a blank page. A breathless world. Untouched and undisturbed.

Humans have left their mark on nearly every inch of this planet, but up here, near the North Pole, the arctic beasts like my polar bear still rule the untamed land. And he knows it.

He raises his head and inhales the cold air, loving how it tingles when it fills his lungs.

This is my bear at his happiest.

I watch from inside as he sniffs a frosted branch before moving forward, rubbing his massive body onto a snowbank as he goes.

The frigid wind shifts and he lifts his nose to the sky, nostrils flaring. A caribou passed through hours ago. A lynx, maybe yesterday. The world speaks in scents out here, and my bear listens like it’s gospel.

I can see him looking in the direction of the caribou and then out to the open sea, trying to decide which one to occupy his afternoon with.

The open sea wins out. He plods through the snow, big and slow and lazy, then drops to his belly and slides down a ridge like a kid sledding. I can’t help but laugh at the big happy dumbass.

I wonder if he’ll be this happy in the Montana wilderness. They get snow in winter down there, but nothing like this. And the summers can be sweltering hot.

I can’t believe I’m heading back.

After all these years, I’m heading back to the place I was born.

I’m not sure if my bear realizes it yet. I don’t think he understands. He wouldn’t be this happy if he did.

My polar bear lumbers up to the edge of the open sea and stops. He lowers onto his haunches, chest heaving, watching the small glaciers and chunks of ice bobbing in the dark blue ocean. It’s stupid beautiful out here. I take it all in, knowing it might be a long time before I return.

And still, under all this beauty, under the calm and the quiet and the snow and the ice—there’s this hum.

A tension that never goes away.

A need that’s been burning in both of us for too damn long.

She’s not here.

Hasn’t been this whole time.

We’re mateless up here, and I think both of us know that we’re never going to find her up here in this frozen landscape of solitude.

I’m not totally isolated. Sometimes I do odd jobs—trapping, logging in the summer, one time I even hooked up with a vessel that was raking the ocean floor for King crabs, and of course, I always have my tattooing.

I tattoo the loggers and the locals. No one else is any good up here.

People will travel for miles to get to me, but even then, I usually just do it in exchange for food or beer.

I don’t have much need for money up here.

The land provides everything we need. I just do it for fun and to see the people smiling when I’m finished.

I like leaving a little piece of me on the nice people I meet. It makes me feel like I matter.

Because that’s the hard part of living up here all alone. It doesn’t feel like you matter at all.

My polar bear shakes his body and then slips into the frigid arctic water like it’s a warm bath.

He’s a dumbass, but he’s a badass as well.

When I was fishing for crabs, an errant wave swept me overboard and I felt firsthand how dangerously cold this water is before the guys threw me a life preserver and fished me back out.

But to my bear with his thick hide, it feels like the warm comfort of home.

He swims down low, spinning and playing under the water as my mind drifts to another place in another time.

The memory of her hits me like it always does—out of nowhere and with no mercy. Victoria North. My best friend’s little sister. The girl who always seemed to live under my skin.

I knew her when she was a kid, but she’s all grown up now. That thought keeps me up at night.

My bear hums as I picture her at thirteen years old, bright green eyes always alert as she watched me and Magnus practice our tattooing. She was always watching, always learning, always trying to get a turn on the tattoo machine with her cute cheeks and ink-stained fingers.

I was older and thought of her as a little sister.

But a few years ago, probably when she turned eighteen, I suddenly couldn’t stop thinking about her.

I was wondering where she was and what she was doing.

I imagined what she looked like and whenever I thought about her with another guy, I had to head outside to let off some steam.

I still wonder if maybe, just maybe…

Nah . She can’t be. Magnus would kill me anyway.

My bear pops out of the water and climbs onto a small glacier. It dips under our weight as he sticks his nose into the air and sniffs, like he’s trying to smell for our mate.

Besides, I’m not going back for her. I’m going back for my friend.

Magnus is spiraling bad and he needs my help. He left me a message on my emergency line and I could hear it in his strained voice. His bear is on the precipice. He’s hovering on the edge between sanity and chaos. If he doesn’t find his mate soon, he might turn feral.

I know it’s serious if he’s asking me to return. He knows what it might cost me. What it might mean.

Or, maybe I’m just being paranoid. Maybe it’s all water under the bridge and people have moved on.

Or, maybe I’m walking to my death.

Either way, I’ll do it for Magnus. He’s like a brother to me. I don’t have siblings like he does, so when my only brother asks for my help, you better believe I’m going to deliver.

I let my bear wander around for hours until the sky turns dark and those gorgeous glowing Northern lights start dancing in the sky.

“I hope you enjoyed it, buddy,” I say after I pull myself out, standing barefoot and naked in the snow. I stretch the stiffness out of my limbs as I look up at the green and red lights, wondering if I’ll ever be back to this tiny little wooden cabin in the middle of nowhere again.

Hopefully, something better is on the horizon.

“What do you think?” I ask my bear.

Home , he says from inside.

He doesn’t use words, but I feel it in my bones. The sudden stillness. The pointed look toward the south. The silent, absolute certainty that it’s time.

To go home. To find her.

To be with my mate.

“Whoever she is…”

But the image that pops into my mind is a grown up Victoria looking more beautiful than I can bear.

It can’t be her. Can it?

I guess I’m about to find out.

I exhale slowly and my breath fogs in the freezing air.

“Okay,” I say with certainty in my voice. “I’m ready. Let’s go home.”