His stomach clenched in on itself, making him sway. In a rush, he ate every last bite down to the chicken bones. His body wasn’t working right as his fingers fumbled with the zipper of his backpack. He was shaking now, from cold or from whatever the medicine was doing to him. Where was his bear? He tried to reach the animal with his mind, but there was nothing there. Only him. Only the man. She’d done it. Hope bloomed in his chest as he struggled into his warm clothes. His body wasn’t even emaciated yet. He’d probably lost fifteen pounds at the most.
He fell three times onto the unforgiving and jagged cave floor as he dragged his jerky body out of the cave, and when he stumbled out into the muted sunlight, he fell to his knees again, unable to push himself farther. His shins were bleeding and warming the legs of his jeans.
Dalton stared at him, head canted, and naturally dark eyes blazing silver. “You still smell like a bear.”
“Dumbass,” Chance muttered, his blond brows jacking up at his cousin. “He was a bear not more than half an hour ago. Of course he still smells like fur.”
Link pulled a sweater over his bare torso, then smiled at him with that lopsided half-crazy grin of his. “It’s good to see you human again.”
“Why are you naked?” Tobias slurred, his mouth feeling numb and his words coming out hoarse.
Chance picked up Tobias’s backpack and shouldered it. “See, you made Link swear not to bring Vera out here—she’s going to maim you, by the way—so he got around the swear by bringing us for backup instead. Only we had to search every damned den on Kodiak Island since you gave us zero clues to where you hibernate, so Link had to go wolf and sniff you out, since we don’t know your bear smell. Me and Dalton brought the food and supplies.” Chance gave Tobias a slow grin. “And medicine.”
“She really did it,” he said slowly, shocked that he was kneeling here in two feet of snow talking to a pack of snarky werewolves instead of sleeping inside the cave as a bear. “Why am I numb?”
“Vera said that’s normal. She calls it ‘the thaw.’ It’s a side effect, but it’ll wear off soon.”
“When is it? What month?”
“You’ve been asleep for six weeks,” Link said, pulling his own backpack onto his shoulders. “It’s mid-November.”
“Oh!” Dalton said, digging in his pocket. “I brought a love letter from your mate.”
Chance snorted, but Tobias didn’t get the joke.
Dalton unfolded a piece of thick paper and cleared his throat. “Dear stupid, twit-nugget, pigheaded, pickle-dick, marker-sniffin’, fart-faced—”
“I get it,” Tobias gritted out.
Dalton arched a dark eyebrow and continued in a dramatic reading voice. “You’re in big trouble for leaving me with a fucking goodbye note, and you are in double big trouble for telling Link I wasn’t allowed to wake you up. Come straight home so I can yell at you like I want. You should be frightened. Sincerely and angrily yours, Thistle.” Dalton folded the piece of paper and offered it to Tobias. “So you can keep it forever.”
“Yeah,” Chance said. “Frame that shit.”
With a grunt of effort, Tobias took the letter and clutched it in his shaking hand.
Link pursed his lips sympathetically. “She’s definitely going to bite you.”
Tobias tried to growl but couldn’t. At least he was getting a warm tingling feeling back in his body now. That was a good sign. He hoped.
“Hurry up and get moving, Silver,” Dalton said, nervously looking around. “Kodiak Island gives me the creeps.”
A werewolf outdoor guide was afraid of Kodiak Island? Tobias looked around, but it felt completely safe to him. Though, now that he thought about it, Kodiak really wasn’t the haven it once was. Not now that he couldn’t call on his bear to protect himself. He pushed upward and stood on locked, splayed legs, unstable as a baby horse.
Link ducked under his shoulder on one side, Dalton did the same on the other, and then they half-dragged him down the steep hill.
And somewhere around mile two, when Tobias could finally walk on his own, it hit him. He skidded to a stop in a deep snowdrift and spun in a slow circle.
“What’s wrong?” Link asked from up ahead.
“I haven’t seen winter since I was fifteen.”
Link trekked back to him, lifting his feet high to get over the snow. He gripped Tobias’s shoulder. “Silver, you got lucky with your mate. She’s worked night and day, and not just for you.”
“What do you mean?”
Link ducked his chin and gave him a loaded look. “Your brothers haven’t seen winter either.”
Tobias let off a shaky breath, then swallowed over and over to control the overwhelming emotion roiling through him. His eyes burned as Link shook his shoulder slowly.
Link’s gray eyes were rimmed with moisture as he dragged Tobias in for a rough hug. He clapped Tobias on the back hard enough to rattle his bones, then shoved him back to arm’s length. Link cleared his throat and wiped his cheek on the shoulder of his jacket. “Come on, Tobias. Let’s go wake up your brothers.”
Chapter Nineteen
It had been four damn days with no radio contact with Link and the Dawsons. There had been no call from a satellite phone to say they were still alive or let her know if they’d found Tobias.