Not the polite kind of stillness you get when you think you left the stove on and just need to go back inside to turn it off.
This was the primal, instinctive kind that lives in your bones. The kind of awareness that whispers:you are not the biggest thing out here right now.
Carson shifted slightly in front of me, not touching me yet, but close enough that I could feel a sort of gravity around him. His head tilted, listening.
Really listening — the way only someone who’s spent too many years in wild terrain can.
“What is it?” I whispered.
“I’m not sure yet,” he murmured, eyes scanning the trees. “But stay behind me.”
I bristled. “I can handle—”
The third sound cut me off.
A low, rolling chuff.
My heart slammed into my ribs.
“Oh,” I breathed. “Oh no.”
Carson didn’t move except to widen his stance. “Yep.”
“Mama bear.”
“And she’s not alone.”
A smaller, higher noise followed.
The distinct mewling whine of a cub echoed through the air.
Cubs.
Plural.
Which meant this wasVery Bad.
Black bears weren’t generally aggressive in winter unless disturbed, and even then, nine times out of ten, they chose retreat over drama. But mothers with cubs? That was a different rulebook entirely.
Carson kept his voice level. “We back away. Slowly. No sudden movements.”
“I know the drill,” I whispered.
“I know you do.”
But he stayed in front of me anyway.
Which, under normal circumstances, would have annoyed me.
Under these circumstances?
It made something warm and tight coil low in my stomach.
We stepped backward along the compacted snow. Each crunch of ice under our boots felt too loud. Too obvious. Too alive in a forest that had gone silent except for the faint shifting in the underbrush ahead.
A patch of shadow moved, and I held my breath.
But a bulky black shape stepped between two pines, snow dusting the fur on her back, breath fogging in the cold air.
