Melted By The Bear: A Paranormal Shifter Romance by Amira Rain Read Free Book Online

me of a ski resort in Aspen. Or maybe a very upscale summer camp. Nestled in a valley sat several hundred houses in roughly concentric circles, each of the houses spaced far enough from the next to afford each of them large front and back yards. Some of the yards were open and grassy, like mini-meadows, but the majority were filled with lush trees just barely kissed with gold and orange. The houses were large cabin-like structures of either one or two stories, all sided with warm-toned wood in various shades of amber and honey.
    Even from a fair distance, I could see that some of these giant cabins had wraparound porches, and my heart did a little flip-flop. I’d always wanted to live in a home with a wraparound porch, finding something about them charming and somehow comforting, but that little dream of mine had never come true. I’d been working on it, actively house-hunting, when the nuclear blast had happened.
    I hadn’t even been aware of doing so, but apparently I’d come to a dead stop, looking at the village.
    Cormack, who’d come up the hill behind me, as if worried I might almost faint again and go tumbling on down, now came to a stop beside me. “The part you can see right now is our residential district, or our largest one, anyway. There are a few dozen other homes in another valley nearby, and another few dozen further south, by our farmland. The ‘town’ part of the village, the part with restaurants and shops and the hospital, and other things like that, isn’t visible from here because of that line of trees to the east of the cabins.”
    I turned from the village to look at him. “Can I see that part soon? Maybe tomorrow?”
    “Well, you can if you’d like, but....” Frowning a bit, he shifted his gaze from my face to the village. “You may not receive the very warmest of welcomes.”
    I wasn’t surprised by this, considering the lukewarm reception I’d received at the hospital. I was curious to piece it all together and find out exactly why I seemed to be so unwelcome, but at the moment, I was just tired. Too tired to wrap my brain around whatever information would surely need wrapping.
    In response to what Cormack had said, I looked out onto the village with a sigh. “It’s fine if people in the village don’t welcome me with open arms. As long as I can find one or two more Janes, I think I’ll be okay.”
    We both fell silent, looking out onto the village. The sun was now setting, filling the valley with fiery light that made everything it touched seem to glow.
    After a few moments, Cormack asked if I was ready to get moving again. “I imagine you might like some dinner soon and then a comfortable bed.”
    “Well, I would, but... where, exactly, am I going to be doing that dining and sleeping? Where am I going to be living?”
    Now it was Cormack’s turn to sigh, and after that, he hesitated in responding for a very long moment, surveying the village, the sky, seemingly anything to avoid having to look me in the eyes.
    “You’ll be staying with me, in my cabin. It’s the largest one and the furthest to the west.”
    I’d seen this one and had thought it was the most beautiful of all the homes by far. With what appeared to be three stories, and a tall, gabled roof, the front of which was filled with massive, wide windows, each probably ten feet by ten feet, at least, this home was certainly the grandest. And as far as sheer size, it was definitely more of a cabin-slash-mansion than any kind of a regular cabin, even a large one. Also, the house had a wraparound porch, certifying its dream-house status in my mind. I was more than a bit eager to see the inside.
    By the time we arrived at the house, though, in the gloom of early evening, I was having a hard time keeping my eyes open for stretches of longer than a second or two. A full tour would have to wait.
    Almost the moment we arrived, a polite yet businesslike, and definitely not warm, woman came bustling out to the foyer, eying me