Chapter 2

2

’Twas the week before Christmas and all through the cave

The children were storm-bound but didn’t misbehave.

No stockings were hung, because they were unaware,

Blame their Dada, a grumpy ice bear.

The cubs were wearing their white fluffy fur,

Adorable and cuddly, anyone would concur.

Dada snored soundly with the twins in his lap,

Only they couldn’t settle down for an afternoon nap.

When outside their home there arose a big thump,

The girls sprang from his lap to see what had bumped.

Away to the door they scurried and fought,

Siku flipped open the curtain, and her jaw dropped.

A storm had dumped a new foot of snow,

And a chilly wind took that moment to blow.

Still what to their wondering eyes should appear,

A naked lady with antlers—a reindeer!

Nanook heard the excited shrieks and grumbled. Why, oh why, wouldn’t his darling hellions nap anymore? There used to be a time when they’d all snuggle in a furry big pile, having the grandest slumbers. However, his daughters, having recently turned five, made it clear those days were done.

He rolled from his comfy chair to the floor on his four paws and gave a quick glance around. He could hear their excited chatter but didn’t see them inside the cave. Those precocious brats had gone outside into the nasty storm.

Before he could exit and give them a stern scolding, and see what had their fur in a fluff, they entered huffing and chuffing. Pure white and cuddly, their coats laced in snow, seeing their blatant disregard for his rules led him to shift and bellow, “What were you doing outside without me?” While he encouraged independence, he did require they remain within his sights, given the predators that would gladly take down a still-learning cub.

Siku shifted and clapped her hands as she squealed. “Dada! We found something.”

“Found what?”

The reply came from Sesi, who also transformed. “A woman with horns.”

He blinked, mostly because the statement made no sense. “Do you mean a caribou?” Herds of them inhabited Ellesmere Island.

“Yes and no. You have to help her. She was too heavy for us to lift.” Siku pointed to the doorway with its weighted leather flap to keep out most of the snow and cold drafts.

Obviously, there was a communication issue. While his girls were highly intelligent, their young age made them perceive the world differently than an adult. Still, their claim bore checking out.

“You stay here while I go have a look.”

He swapped back into his bear rather than get dressed. Maybe he could finish that nap before dinner.

Out into the storm he lumbered, the whipping snow reducing visibility and clinging to his fur, not that it bothered him. They didn’t call his kind ice bears for nothing.

He didn’t have to go far to find what had his daughters in a tizzy. He immediately spotted the woman lying in a heap in the snow.

A nude female to be exact, smelling of caribou, with antler nubs peeking from her hair.

He blinked, but the horns remained. Well damn. His daughters weren’t confused after all. But he had a dilemma. What to do with her? Leaving her outside, she’d die for sure. Bringing her inside meant dealing with a stranger. He didn’t like outsiders, or people in general.

In this scenario, he didn’t have a choice. He’d warm her up and set her on her way. He grabbed the female and heaved her over his shoulder. He brought her inside and dumped her naked butt on the wolf skin rug. She flopped onto her back, which meant noticing, despite her frigid pallor, the stranger had an attractive countenance and a fine form.

While not a gentlebear, he glanced away.

Siku clapped her hands. “She’s pretty. Can we keep her?”

“Yes, Dada, can we?” Sesi squealed.

He shifted and grabbed his robe before muttering, “No, we cannot keep her. She’s not a pet.”

“I know that,” Siku huffed, rolling her eyes. Where had she learned that? Probably her cousins whom they’d visited recently when they went to get supplies.

“She can be our mommy,” Sesi declared. She and her twin had been bugging him of late about how they didn’t have one. Apparently, they’d reached an age where they noticed such things. When they asked where their mother went, rather than say off sucking an elf’s dick , he’d muttered, She died. Seemed kinder than explaining the slag abandoned them without a second thought.

“You can’t just decide a random stranger is going to be your mother,” he pointed out, tossing a blanket over the stranger. His logic didn’t deter his stubborn girls.

“Yes, we can,” Siku insisted. “Rory got a new daddy. Rory says his mommy found him when she went to Alert for supplies.” Patty never met a man she didn’t want to bring home, although the most recent one had lasted longer than most at six months.

“How come you never brought home a mommy when you went to Alert?” added Sesi. Alert was the nearest town, if you could call a place with less than two hundred people a town. Ellesmere Island being remote with harsh seasons didn’t exactly boast a huge population. A few hundred people at most.

“Because we don’t need a mother. You have me, the best father ever.”

The girls eyed each other and used that secret twin connection they’d been born with to say in synchronization, “We want one.”

“This one,” Siku emphasized.

“The answer is no. It’s not up to the kids to choose a mommy.”

“Who chooses then?” Sesi cocked her head as she asked.

“Is there a store to find a mommy?” his other innocent daughter asked.

Was he really going to have to tell them about the bears and the bees? “You can’t buy a mommy, or a daddy for that matter.” Then, because they were opening his mouths to bombard him, he added, “What usually happens is a man and a woman will meet, and if they really like each other, they might decide to live together and be a family.”

“How can you meet someone when you don’t go anywhere?” Siku pointed out.

“And you hate everyone,” Sesi stated.

His girls knew him all too well, and they raised valid points, which he didn’t want to address, so he diverted their reasoning. “Has it occurred to you that maybe this woman doesn’t want to be a mommy?”

Again, the twins shared a secret look before saying, “Why wouldn’t she want us?”

Siku’s lower lip jutted. “Are you saying we’re not cute?”

“Are we not perfect?” Sesi’s eyes brimmed.

“Of course, you’re cute.” And excellent at using it to their advantage. “And perfect.” Perfectly capable of driving him up an iceberg.

“Then she will want to be our mommy and tuck us in and read us stories?—”

“And bake cookies!” Sesi declared, interrupting her sister.

Nanook held in a sigh. He’d been doing that more and more often of late. It began when his cubs learned to speak and had been snowballing as their bright little minds grasped more than they should.

Who knew what they’d start demanding once they started school? They’d turned five, and while they didn’t have to attend kindergarten by law at that age, he knew they’d have to go to school eventually, which meant moving from his very remote cave to a place with people.

He disliked most people, but he loved his daughters, hence why they’d be relocating in the spring so they could start school in the fall. Not in Santa’s Village, though, even if they had an excellent scholastic program. He still couldn’t see or hear about anything Christmas without getting into a snarling rage.

“Tell you what. Once we move to the cape, I will hire a nanny who can bake and read stories.” A good compromise in his mind.

“A nanny is not a mommy,” Sesi stubbornly insisted.

“Close enough. Now enough of that kind of talk. I think she’s waking.”

Indeed, the woman stirred, rustling the fur blanket covering her lush frame.

A body he surprisingly admired. How long since he’d paid any attention to the opposite sex? He blamed his daughters’ big idea for his ogling. Making this random stranger their mommy, indeed. Never again. He’d sworn off relationships after the fiasco with Anjij.

The stranger opened her eyes, blinked at him, and murmured, “Please don’t eat me, Mr. Bear.” Her sense of smell must be working.

Siku giggled. “Dada doesn’t eat people. His favorite food is whales.”

“Which are blech.” Siku stuck out her tongue. “Burgers are better.”

“Er, what?” The woman blinked and sat up, holding the blanket to her chest as she glanced around. “Where am I?”

“In our house,” Sesi chirped.

“And your house is where, exactly?” Asked as she stood. The stranger put a hand to her head and swayed on her feet. “Oh, peppermint sticks. I must have crashed hard.”

“Were you driving a snowmobile?” Siku asked. “Uncle Arnie broke his. Aunt Kira said he crashed it ’cause he’s a dumb bear who rides too fast.”

“No, no snowmobile. I was flying,” the woman murmured.

“You’re a bird?” Sesi’s nose wrinkled, and Nanook understood her confusion. The woman’s scent was the distinct one of a caribou… but caribou didn’t fly. It hit him then. Oh, frozen shitsicle.

“You’re a reindeer!” Which, for the confused, was the European name for caribou. Why the difference, he couldn’t have said.

“I am. And you’re a polar bear. Now that we’ve gotten that out of the way?—"

“You’re one of them ,” Nanook harrumphed, glaring at her.

“Excuse me?”

“One of the reindeer on his team,” he growled, avoiding the S word.

“I am.” Her chin lifted. “Dancer Lightfoot, second lead. And you are?”

“Not interested in dealing with you. Buh-bye.” He stood by the door and gave a scooting gesture.

She pursed her lips. “It’s still storming outside.”

“And?”

“While I’d love to accommodate your request, it would be foolish of me since I can’t get my bearings until it stops.”

A valid point. “Fine, you can stay until it dies down, but then I want you gone.”

“Goodness. Someone is a Grinch,” Dancer huffed.

“What’s a Grinch?” asked Sesi.

“Someone who hates Santa,” the woman replied.

“What’s a Santa?” was Siku’s next question.

“Wait, how do you not know who Santa is?” Dancer sounded shocked.

Nanook had to act fast. “Girls, if you don’t mind, I’d like a private chat with our guest.”

“But, Dada, we found her,” whined Sesi.

“Finders-keepers, remember?” Siku reminded.

“That doesn’t apply to people,” he snapped as he grabbed Dancer by the arm and dragged her from the main living area to his bedroom. Before he could explain she needed to keep her Santa nonsense to herself, Dancer exclaimed, “This is the nicest cave I’ve ever seen. It’s so big. How many rooms?”

“Five. Now about?—”

“Five? It’s a veritable mansion. Did you carve it out of the mountain yourself?”

“Parts of it, yes. Now?—”

“This is very impressive.” She dragged her fingers over the smooth wall, chiseled in his spare time.

The compliment puffed his chest but did nothing for his attitude. “Forget about my house. It isn’t important. You are not to mention Santa or anything Christmas to the girls.”

“Why ever not?”

“Because Christmas is banned in my home.”

“Banned?” She ogled him. “Isn’t that unfair to your daughters?”

She zeroed in on the guilt he kept stuffing down—deep down. Not everyone celebrated that dreaded holiday. His girls were doing just fine. “They can’t miss what they don’t know.”

“But what about their presents? I’ll bet they’re on Santa’s good list. You’re depriving them of?—”

“Nothing. They have everything they could need. A roof over their head. Food for their bellies. Books to read.”

“What about toys?”

“They have some, but then again, who needs fabricated items when there’s a world outside to explore?”

“Glad you’re not my dad,” she muttered.

So was he because his body’s reaction to the very attractive reindeer would have been wildly inappropriate.

“Why are you out in a storm, anyhow? Shouldn’t you be at the village getting ready for the big day?”

Her lips turned down. “Usually, yes. However, we’ve been invaded. Krampus has taken over the village and appears to have captured everyone, including Santa.”

“Krampus isn’t real.”

“That’s what I said, but Joe?—”

“Who’s Joe?” he interrupted to ask, wondering at the fact his fists clenched.

“A puffin. He saw it go down. Apparently, this person who ambushed the village and took everyone hostage is calling themselves Krampus. I was on my way to fetch some help to free everyone when the storm hit.”

“Get help from where? There’s nothing this far north on Ellesmere Island other than FARTZ.” The name for the research camp, which stood for Furry Arctic Research Team of Zoologists.

“Ellesmere Island!” Her voice squeaked. “I was aiming for the FUC outpost in Greenland.”

He snorted. “Yeah, not even close. Storm must have turned you around.”

“Oh, that’s not good,” she muttered. “I ran out of flying dust. How will I get to Greenland now?”

“You won’t.”

Her lips pinched. “That’s not helpful.”

“But it is honest.”

“Surely there’s a way from here to there.”

“Alert’s the place you would go to for transport off the island, but this time of year, those flights are for military personnel only.”

Her brow creased. “Is there no other way?”

“There’s Charlie. He’s got a chopper, but he doesn’t come cheap.” And she obviously had nothing to her name, not even clothes.

“Can I borrow your satellite phone?”

“Don’t have one.”

“You can’t be serious.” She stared at him in shock.

“Said by the lady who doesn’t have one either.”

“I left it in my cabin when I went to the party last night.”

“Must have been quite the party if no one noticed this Krampus attacking.” Santa had defenses to protect the village from outside forces. Someone must have fallen asleep on the job.

“I’m not sure how they got close with no one noticing. I woke up while the attack was in progress. I might have had too much to drink and passed out in a snowbank,” she muttered ruefully.

He couldn’t mock her because he’d had that happen a time or two or three. “Maybe someone else made it to Greenland or managed to call FUC and reinforcements are on their way.”

“Maybe.” A doubtful reply.

“Once the storm lets up, you can head into FARTZ?—”

“Why would I walk into a stink?”

“FARTZ is a scientific settlement of shifters. Think of it as a very mini town. Folks there will have a phone you can use. Someone might even be willing to take you to Alert or help you out with Charlie.”

“I guess I don’t have a choice.” She glanced down at her state of undress. “I realize I’m imposing. However, do you have anything other than a blanket for me to wear?”

While his wardrobe proved limited—he tended to spend mostly on his daughters—he did manage to loan her a shirt that hung on her like a dress and some flannel pants that she had to knot at the waist. Add in socks for her bare feet and she was covered in the ugliest, baggiest outfit, yet remained attractive.

“Thank you…” She paused. “I don’t think you’ve told me your name.”

“Nanook. And the girls are Sesi and Siku.”

“You’re raising them by yourself?” Kind of obvious, given the bedroom held nothing feminine, not even a scent.

“Yeah.” He didn’t add anything more.

“Dada!” The demanding bellow could have been either cub.

“Excuse me while I tend to my daughters.” Nanook exited his room to see the girls standing side by side with matching expressions that screamed twin trouble.

“What is it?” he asked, already dreading the reply.

“Dancer is lost,” Siku began.

“Wait, were you eavesdropping?” he interrupted with suspicion.

“No. You’re just loud. We heard her. She needs help,” Sesi stated.

“And?” he asked with a scowl.

“We’ve decided you have to help Dancer.” A dual announcement.

He arched a brow. “You have?”

“Yes. She needs a hero, and you’re a hero, so you have to help her,” Sesi explained as if he were an idiot.

“I’m not a hero.” More an ornery man.

“Yes, you are,” Sesi insisted.

Siku nodded. “You save us all the time.”

He did because his cubs loved to explore and find trouble. “That’s being a father, not heroism.”

“It’s okay, girls. While I’m sure your dad is great and all, I need someone with actual fighting experience. I don’t suppose this FARTZ place has any QUEEFS?” Dancer queried.

He startled at the word until he remembered what it stood for. “No elves live on the island.” He’d have eaten them if they tried.

“And no FUC agents either, you said. Surprising.”

“Dada is a FUC,” Sesi announced.

“Was FUCDD,” he corrected. “Special ops branch but I retired a long time ago.” FUCDD being the Furry United Coalition Department of Defense. Their military branch.

“I wanted to join, but these”—she indicated her horns—“made it so I couldn’t leave the village.”

“They’re permanent?”

Dancer nodded. “I’m a bit of a freak. When I was young, the other reindeer used to laugh and call me names. But I showed them. I trained hard and worked my way up the ranks until I became my boss’s number two.”

He appreciated the fact she avoided using his name. Not that he had a problem with Santa. The big guy had been great to work for.

“What’s your job?” Sesi inquired.

A hesitating Dancer glanced at him before murmuring, “Transport logistics.”

He snorted and then coughed to hide his amusement. “Girls, Dancer is probably hungry and thirsty. Why don’t you make her a snack?”

“Yes, Dada,” they chimed in synchronization and scurried off to the area set up as a kitchen. A misnomer since it had no fridge, cupboards, or even a stove, unless the hearth counted. He used the space to store their dry food supplies, along with his dishes.

With the kids out of earshot, his curiosity had him asking, “When you say this Krampus took everyone hostage, how? Were they that fearsome? Did they have powers like Santa?” The big guy could do things that defied explanation. It wasn’t a stretch that someone calling themselves Krampus might as well.

“I don’t know much since I fled before I could be captured. What I do know was the village was overrun by walrus and wolverines. So many of them. Blew right through the QUEEFS.”

“I’m surprised those two species are working together.”

“That’s not the only surprise. I didn’t think anything could defeat Santa.”

“Are you sure he was captured? You said you left right away. For all you know, the big guy mounted a counteroffensive.”

Her lips pursed. “You raise a good point. In my haste to escape, I assumed the worst.”

“Meaning you might be panicking for nothing.”

“Maybe. You really don’t have a phone?”

“I don’t. Then people might try and talk to me.” He grimaced.

“Not the social type, eh?”

“Nope.”

“Then I guess I really need to be thankful you’ve let me stay here out of the storm.”

Before he could reply, his daughters returned with their idea of a snack.

Hot mug of milk—made from the powdered stuff—and puffed blubber. Essentially fat slow cooked until it got crispy.

“Whale crunchies and milk!” Sesi chirped.

Dancer took the offering, and her lips quirked. “My favorite. Thank you, girls. While getting lost in a storm wasn’t on my holiday bingo card, I am so glad I bumped into your mountain.”

He glared at her use of the word holiday. She didn’t seem to notice.

“What’s bingo?” Sesi asked.

“A game,” Dancer replied. “A fun one where you get to scream if you win.”

Sesi’s eyes lit up. “Oooh. Can you show us?”

“Might as well since that storm isn’t letting up anytime soon. I’ll need a few things though.”

And that was how Nanook went from a nice nap to listening to his daughters holler as they yelled Bingo.