Page 13 of Polar Destiny
“Whatabout?”
He stares at me. “Are you seriously askingthat?”
I shrug. Luckily I don’t have to come up with an answer, because the bear brothers arrive. I avert my eyes as they grab their trousers from the floor. When I look up again, they’re standing in front of us, looking like schoolboys caught doing something naughty behind the teacher’sback.
"What do you say?" Torben stares them down until they both look at the floor, their heads hanging inshame.
"Sorry."
"Sorry."
"Louder!"
"We’resorry."
"I'm disappointed in you both. I thought you had your tempers under control - what if one of you had hit Isla? What if you had crashed her against the wall? She's human, for bear's sake! She'sfragile!"
"He dropped her," Ràn growls. All eyes turn to Húnn, who's looking down at the ground, his brows pulled together in a guiltyfrown.
"He did what?" Torben's voice is low, dangerous. A stalking predator staring down hisprey.
"Only after you shifted and charged!" Húnn saysquietly.
"Because you banged her against the door frame!" I've never heard Ràn say this many words in one go. He must really beupset.
"It was an accident," Húnn mumbles, still looking at thefloor.
"Whatever happened, you do not shift in the presence of a human, especially not inside the house!" Torben thunders. "You could have killedher!"
Now Ràn is hanging his head in shame as well. Finn looks uncomfortable, even though he wasn't involved atall.
I feel like I have to get involved to prevent Torben from ripping them apart. "It's ok, nothing happened. It was actually quite cool, watching themfight."
"You call them biting each other bloody 'cool'?" Torben asksicily.
Now it's my turn to look ashamed. "No, of course not. I just... can we just forget it and moveon?"
"No, we can't," he snaps. "You could have died, and I wasn't there to..." His voice falters. He turns and storms out of the cabin, the door crashing shut behindhim.
"So," Finn murmurs. "How about agame?"
* * *
Drunk bears are fun bears.A drunk human girl is not so much fun. At least not for the girl. My head is foggy and my mouth seems to grin a lot. Compared to the guys I've not even drunk all that much, but I'm not used to alcohol. And they seem to be. They drink it as if it's water. And make fun of little drunk me in theprocess.
The bottle stops pointing at Finn. "Dare."
Húnn grins. "Lift Isla over yourhead."
"No," I protest, but Finn has already jumped up - without the slightest stagger despite half a dozen empty bottles behind him - and lifts me in his arms. I squeal, trying to escape his grip. He's hugging me close to his chest, his breath tickling my throat. "Don't struggle, or you'll hurt yourself," he whispers with a wicked smile. I glare at him. If he hurts my ankle I'm going to kill him. Or get one of the others to doit.
Finn adjusts his grip, then I'm lifted, the ceiling coming closer. I scream as he seems to drop me for a second, but he just laughs; apparently, that was his idea of a joke. So not funny. My heart is racing. I don't likeheights.
"Let me down, you big hairybigfoot!"
He laughs even harder, and I can feel the vibrations flowing through his arms into my body. "You want to getdown?"
"Yes!"
