Total pages in book: 123
Estimated words: 119597 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 598(@200wpm)___ 478(@250wpm)___ 399(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 119597 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 598(@200wpm)___ 478(@250wpm)___ 399(@300wpm)
“Did she?” I hurry to catch up. “Or did your father?”
“I don’t have a father. What are you getting at?”
“There’s too much coincidence here. I mean, you and Leo have names connected to your mother’s address. Makes me think she’s the link. What do you know about Kaya Knowles?”
“I know what you know. Her address, her age, how she died, her Inuit heritage…that’s it.”
“According to the birth date on her driver’s license, she was twenty-one when she had you and twenty-three when Denver took her. When she died. She was so young. I’m sorry. It’s just…when I first started putting all this together, I was convinced that you were Denver’s missing brother.”
His nostrils flare.
“Denver, Montgomery, and Kodiak,” I go on, “all locations. But Denver and Monty are twenty-five, twenty-six years older than you. I think Denver is your biological father.”
“Why me? Why not Leo or Wolf?”
“I don’t know. Do you think Leo was named after Port Lions? Did Denver go there before you were born, get your mother pregnant, then hunt her down two years later in Utqiagvik? Looking for you?”
“He said he took me because he hated me. Hated me with every breath. Doesn’t sound like a father who’s desperate to unite with his child.”
“No, but maybe Kaya rejected him. Scorned him. He said he hated you until he couldn’t. Until he loved you most of all.”
He pulls in a slow breath and releases it on a snarl. “You’re reading too much into this.”
“You can’t deny the correlation between your names.”
“What about Wolf? I bet there’s a U.S. city with his name.”
“Not in Kodiak Island. I just wish I knew how you are all related. It’s driving me crazy.” I stare up at the starless sky. “Did you know that Kodiak bears are a subspecies of the brown bear, and they live exclusively on the islands in the Kodiak Archipelago where your—?”
He stops abruptly, his back stiff as a board, his eyes fixed on the shadows stretching ahead.
My heartbeat thunders in my ears.
Shifting his gaze to mine, he holds a finger to his lips then slowly extends it toward the horizon.
My eyes thin, focusing on the darkness, searching for movement. Then a shape materializes. At first, it looks like branches suspended in mid-air. But no, those are antlers.
Holy shit, it’s a moose, massive and stately, and it’s staring right at us. If it charges, we have nowhere to go, nowhere to hide, nothing but vast, uninterrupted tundra.
Prowling forward, Kody doesn’t share my fear as he lifts his crossbow and loads a bolt without making a sound.
I stare at my snowshoes. One waddling step, one unstealthy crunch, will ricochet like a bullet, alerting the entire Arctic of our presence.
No thanks. I’ll stay right here and watch my beautiful man do his thing.
Several yards away, he slows, peers back, and gestures me forward.
I shake my head.
He gives me a look. Not just any look. The look.
I grit my teeth and lift my foot.
Be soft like snow. Light as a feather.
As I slowly ease into the first step, a faint, almost inaudible whisper tiptoes through the silence. Like the tentative creak of a door hinge.
Did I do that?
“Wait!” He thrusts up a hand, the moose forgotten, his face paling into stark horror. “Don’t mo—”
A loud, sudden fracture cleaves through the air and detonates into a series of sharp, echoing snaps. The thunder of cracking ice grows louder and more frantic, spreading like glass shattering under stress.
The noise reverberates through the frozen landscape.
Then it stops.
My lungs pant so violently it doubles me over. But I don’t dare move my feet.
He doesn’t, either.
Knees bent, wide stance, and crossbow slung over his back, he stares at me from too far away.
Three strides would put me safely in his arms.
One stride might send me through the ice.
“Kody?”
“Shh.” His eyes sweep over the surrounding snow, his jaw clicking so hard I worry he might break his teeth.
With each second, the tension in the air thickens as if the very atmosphere holds its breath, bracing for the worst.
There are no visible cracks around us. Nothing moves beneath our feet.
He meets my eyes. “Stay still. I’ll come to you.”
Before he moves a muscle, the surface of the lake gives way, the crust of snow and ice collapsing beneath my feet.
One moment I’m on solid ground, and the next, I’m plunging into the icy clutches of the lake.
“Frankie!”
The shock of the frigid water swallows his roar and takes my breath away. Its chilling grip yanks me under, and the weight of my gear drags me down deeper.
Panic flares, and a wild, desperate instinct takes over. My limbs fight the pull of the water, but my movements are sluggish, the cold so fucking sharp it’s paralyzing. My body temperature drops rapidly, dangerously, making every attempt to swim to the surface feel like I’m battling through mud.