It wouldn’t be long before summer rolled in.
Gods, the thought of long days spent stretched out in the sunshine had him aching for it to roll around quicker.
He wouldn’t say no to skipping spring, didn’t need the damned headache of a gathering wrecking his year.
“It’s beautiful here.” Ivy’s soft voice coming from close to him had him whipping his head towards her. She smiled down at him. “I didn’t mean to startle you.”
She hadn’t. Much.
Her hazel eyes sparkled and he could see in them that she had meant her words, and she thought his valley was beautiful. It was, and it was probably even more beautiful to someone like her, who had likely come from a city life.
She moved away again, snapped a few photographs and looked at each one. Trying out angles?
He tensed when she moved closer to him, and his gaze tracked her as she passed him, stopping only a metre from him. Her fine dark eyebrows pinched, her shell-pink lips pursing.
He was about to ask her what was wrong when she lifted the camera and took another shot. Her eyes lit up when she angled the camera away from her and looked down at it. Happy with the picture?
She crouched again, resting her elbows on her knees, her camera clutched in both hands, ready to lift into place.
He tried to keep still for her, but no matter what he did, he couldn’t stop himself from tapping at his leg as he watched her, the energy coursing through him too much to contain.
Another hour passed, and the mist cleared, and he caught the disappointment in her eyes as she gazed at the river, the sparkle that had been in them dying as she rose back onto her feet and lowered her camera. Her shoulders lifted in a long sigh.
“The bears won’t be coming today,” he said, and she looked at him, the flare of disappointment in her hazel gaze growing brighter as she locked eyes with him.
“Do they really come?” She scanned the river, and the woods on the other side, a look of longing on her pretty face.
Rath nodded. “Sometimes. Something must have spooked them today.”
Him.
He was restless around her. The bears were probably picking up on it and steering clear of the creek.
He should have watched her from the cabin instead, keeping his distance so the bears would show up. He wasn’t sure why he had come with her, had positioned himself in the open, and hadn’t hung back so she could get her photographs.
And go.
A growl curled through him at that thought, his animal instincts rebelling against it in a way that left him cold as something hit him.
His cougar side wanted her.
He wanted her.
It wasn’t going to happen. She was human, a complication, and he wasn’t looking for a female. He didn’t need one in his life.
“Can I stay a little longer?” She fidgeted with her camera, her eyes fixed on it, but they nervously flitted to him when he looked at her. “I drove for days to get here, and then trekked for almost two days, and camped in the woods overnight. I swear, I’ll move on in the morning.”
Rath frowned at the way she said that, making it sound as if she was talking about doing something other than marching her backside to her vehicle.
“Move on where?” He sat up now, a feeling stirring inside him, one he didn’t like.
She looked up river, towards the mountains and the glacier. “This is definitely bear country, and I’m sure I can find some.”
He growled inside at that, his cougar side clawing at his skin, pushing for freedom, the thought of her out there in that wilderness, alone and vulnerable, rousing it and instincts long forgotten—a deep need to protect.
He shoved onto his feet, moving so fast she startled and gasped, and loomed over her, so close to her that she had to tip her head back to keep her eyes on his face.
“I thought we’d been through this?” he snapped. “It’s dangerous that way. You might end up hurt.”
“Attacked?” She swallowed hard and her golden skin paled. “Do you see cougars around here?”
Rath smiled wryly. “All the time.”
“Really?” Her hazel eyes widened and darted around, and he swore her cheeks paled further. “I know how to handle bears, but cougars…”
“It’s not the cougars who will hurt you.” He moved a step closer, just a few inches, but enough that he could feel her heat, drowned in the scent of her, and his damned cougar side stopped frantically clawing at his skull, pushing him to shift and force her to remain. “It’s the grizzlies. It’s grizzly country up that way.”
He was talking shifters, ones liable to attack her on sight, or worse, capture her and keep her.
He looked at Cougar Creek and huffed.
Although, it was a fucking awful time for her to stumble onto his land too.
It wouldn’t be long before the males started gathering, and any available female in the vicinity, even a human female, would provoke their instincts to fight for dominance so they could mate with her.
Soon, she would be in as much danger here as she would be if he let her go upstream towards the glacier and the bear shifter pack that called that area of the valley home.
He dropped his eyes to her and stared at her as she looked at her surroundings.
For the first time in three decades, desire stirred in his chest, tore through his muscles and flowed through his veins, and had his cougar side shifting beneath his skin, hungry for a female.
Hungry for her.
Scratch soon.
She had been in dangerous waters from the moment he had set eyes on her.
Her hazel eyes slowly lifted to his, enormous now as she looked at him, but they were dark too, her dilated pupils and her scent revealing the emotions that flowed through her.
Desire. Need.
They called to him, and damn, part of him wanted to answer.
Her eyes darted away from him, and her voice trembled as she spoke. “I… uh… didn’t see these cabins on any maps.”
“They’re all hidden by the trees.” Was that his voice, so rough and deep, strained and raw? He tried to tear his eyes away from her, but couldn’t, was powerless against her pull as her scent curled around him, her beauty branded itself on him, and her soft curves inflamed him.
A blush climbed her cheeks. “There’s a lot of cabins. Do you run a business here? Like vacation rentals?”
Was she thinking of checking in? Fuck, he probably wouldn’t turn her away, even when he knew he should.
“They’re all family cabins. I just look after them.” He mustered the strength to rip his focus from her and pinned it on the cabin nearest the river. The sight of it acted as a bucket of ice down his crotch, instantly cooling him off as he remembered that the family who owned it were coming soon, and so was his brother, and then most of the eligible pride males would hit the creek. “I’m meant to be refurbishing one.”
“I’m sorry. I’m getting in your way.” She glanced at the cabin and then back at him, and he resisted looking at her, felt her frown and sensed the shift in her emotions, darker ones emerging. His coldness had upset her, and damn, she was quick to bring up a wall around herself and hit him with the same cold front he was showing her. “I’ll just get my things and go.”
It was for the best.
But he found himself lunging for her, seizing her wrist as his heart froze in his chest, the thought of her leaving propelling him into action before he could think about what he was doing.
She looked down at his hand on her arm.
“You can stay one night.” Fuck, he was going to regret this, he knew it, but for some damned reason he couldn’t bring himself to let her go just yet. “You can’t photograph anything that might give away the location, or me… or any of the cabins. You have to stick to the river and the wildlife, and do not wander out of the boundary of the village.”
That seemed to scare her, and her eyes leaped to the mountains, her pulse picking up in his ears as she stared at them.
&
nbsp; When she finally looked back at him, that pulse kicked faster, echoing in his own chest as she smiled at him, one that reached her stunning eyes.
“Thank you,” she murmured, and then added with a frown, “I just realised I never got your name.”
“Rath,” he uttered, falling under her spell again, feeling a little hazy from head to toe as his cougar side purred at her, had him wanting to rub against her to mark her with his scent.
To make her his.
She tipped her head back, looked deep into his eyes, and rocked his entire world on its axis with three innocent words.
“Thank you, Rath.”
Chapter 4
Rath couldn’t concentrate for shit. He growled as he hit his thumb with the hammer for what must have been the millionth time, lifted the sore digit to his lips and sucked on it as it throbbed. The female responsible for his predicament wandered the riverbank, blissfully unaware of his plight and the damage she had done with three simple words, breathed in a voice that had been far too fucking sultry, had made his name on her lips sound like the sweetest drug, one that had instantly intoxicated him.
One that had made him crave more.
He sank back on his ass and huffed as he set his hammer down beside the pile of shingles and braced his left leg against the roof so he didn’t slide down it.
His gaze immediately strayed to the curvy female wreaking havoc on him, a strange sense of calm washing through him the second his eyes landed on her, the restlessness he experienced whenever he focused on his work and not her easing and leaving him at peace.
Gods, she was beautiful.
She moved around his territory as if she belonged there, fitted right in with her practical clothing of natural coloured hiking gear. The browns and beiges suited her, seemed to bring out the hint of a tan in her complexion and the rich chestnut of her hair that tumbled in silky waves from her ponytail.
He studied her as she lifted the camera, moved it around, her finger working the button, and then tilted it away from her and gazed down at the photographs she had taken.
Did she know she had a habit of taking four different shots at a time, all of them a slight variation?
She would take a landscape one with the lens zoomed out, and then another zoomed in a little, and follow those by tipping the camera to take two similar shots in portrait.
Rath canted his head, warmth curling through his chest that became heat as she removed her dark cream jacket, revealing a fawn-coloured woollen jumper beneath that hugged her breasts and the slight roundness of her belly, and stretched tight over her hips and ass.
Damn.
He dragged his eyes away from her as a need to drop from the roof, prowl over to her and sweep her up into his arms and show her just what she was doing to him slammed into him.
He scrubbed a hand over his mouth and paused with it on his throat as he growled at himself for getting caught up in her. It was just the season. His instincts as a male cougar had been roused, and it was affecting him, making him view her as a female in need.
One he wanted to satisfy.
He shook that desire away and forced his focus back to his work, moving onto his knees on the roof and picking up his hammer again. He reached into the back pocket of his jeans for another nail and positioned the shingle, slipped it into the hole he had drilled in the top left corner, and hammered it into place.
He fell into an easy rhythm, made swift work of a row of fresh shingles, almost managed to forget the human wandering around his territory.
Until she moved closer to him.
His senses sparked again, her proximity making him hyper-aware of her as she walked around behind him, pacing the shore, stopping from time to time to take pictures. He could see her moving around without needing to look at her, could chart her exact position and the fact she was facing away from him, and his hearing sharpened as his focus switched to her, allowing him to hear every click of her camera’s shutter.
Every sweet breath she drew.
Every damned sigh she loosed as she admired her work.
And his territory.
She had called it beautiful.
Gods, that made him want to puff his chest out like some damned peacock.
Plenty of people, cougar shifters, had admired his territory. She wasn’t the first female to call it beautiful.
But fuck, she was the first one who had affected him with those words.
And the first female in a long time who had affected him by simply saying his name.
It was the season. The damned season. Just because his role during the gathering was that of protector, and overseer in a way, it didn’t mean he was immune to its effects. He had needs too, but he didn’t need a female in his life.
He didn’t want one.
Ivy moved closer still, and he felt her eyes on him as a shiver down his spine, one that spread heat through his veins and stoked his need, birthing a desire to look at her.
He kept his eyes on his work, ignoring her, doing his best to shut her out and pretend she didn’t exist.
The sooner she got a damned photograph of a bear and left, the better.
It had been a mistake to let her stay, worse than a mistake to agree to her remaining on his property, close to him, overnight.
He should have made her leave.
He breathed a low sigh of relief when she took her eyes off him and moved away, and he relaxed again, that heat she stirred washing out of him and allowing him to focus back on his work.
Another row of shingles went down quickly, and he was falling back into a nice tempo.
Ivy gasped loudly.
Rath whipped around to face her, a bolt of fear shooting through him, worry that hurled a hundred images of her in danger at him and had him ready to spring off the roof of the cabin and shift to fight whatever had startled her.
To protect her.
He stilled.
She leaped backwards, out of the stream, grimacing as the pebbles on the shore bit into her now-bare feet, and shivered, muttering obscenities to herself beneath her breath.
Her mouth snapped shut and she tensed, and every instinct he possessed said that she had felt him looking at her, was aware a predator watched her, a beast who wanted to fight, seethed with a need to attack.
She slowly turned to look over her left shoulder at him, a pink stain on her cheeks. “It was cold.”
That was all she had to say?
She had almost given him a fucking heart attack, had pushed him close to shifting in front of her, a human, revealing his kind to her, and all she could say was it was cold?
He growled at her, “What did you expect? It comes from the glacier.”
He pushed out a slow breath, trying to steady his racing heart and purge the adrenaline that had shot through him at the thought she was in danger, and ignored the way she scowled at him. No way he was going to apologise for the bite that had been in his tone.
Who the fuck walked in a glacial river in spring without testing the temperature with their hand first?
He huffed and vaulted from the roof, landing in a silent crouch on the deck, and pushed onto his feet to stride towards her where she stood sheepishly beside the river, her eyes on it now.
Maybe scolding her had been a bit much.
That tight, squirming feeling kicked off in his chest again and he did his damnedest to ignore it as he reached the river, pulled a cloth from his back pocket and crouched beside the crystal clear water. He wetted the handkerchief and rubbed it over his brow and neck, wiping the sweat from it. The water was particularly cold today, more so than normal. The warmer weather was probably melting the snow on the mountains and bringing it down into the river.
He glanced at her feet, at her pinkened toes, and then back at his cloth as he lowered it in front of him.
“You okay?” he said gruffly, sort of an apology, but not an outright one, because he didn’t need her getting comfortable around him.
Because he shouldn’t be getting
comfortable around her.
“Mmhmm.” She shuffled along the bank a few inches, away from him, and busied herself with her camera, and that feeling in his chest grew worse, had him wanting to rise onto his feet and apologise to her.
Rath looked down at the water, shoved his damp cloth back into his jeans pocket, and scooped some up, drinking it from his palm. Her eyes landed on him, and he could sense her interest as she watched him, her curiosity as she turned towards him and the spark of anger and irritation he had detected in her faded. He scooped another handful of water up and drank it, sighed as the coolness of it washed through him, chilling that spark of fire in his blood that she kept igniting.
He eased back, pushed his hands against his knees and rose to his full height. “It’s clean. Pure. There’s nothing but forest and mountains between here and the source.”
She still looked wary, and he could understand why, but his cougar senses would warn him if the water was infected with something, and in all his years at Cougar Creek, he had never had a problem drinking directly from the river. Even with his constitution, it was possible for him to become ill if he downed enough bacteria.
“You’ve never gotten sick from it?” She glanced at the water.
“Never.” He kept his eyes locked on her, studying the subtle ways her expression shifted as she considered drinking from the river.
“I’ve done it once or twice before.” Her eyes darted to him and then away again. “I always worry there will be something in it though that will make me ill.”
“You won’t get sick.” When he said that, her hazel gaze leaped to him and she searched his eyes, as if looking for the truth in them, or maybe the reassurance she needed to go through with it.
She must have found it, because she stooped, and his eyes dropped to her as she cupped her hands and scooped water into them, and lifted it to her lips. Her eyes drifted shut as she drank it, and he almost groaned as beads of water chased down her chin and her throat. His cougar side purred in deep appreciation of the sight of her, looking for all the world as if she was made to walk in his one.
She lowered her hands and looked up at him, her gaze catching his and holding it, and as the sun bathed her face, made her eyes sparkle and brightened them, he lost himself in charting every fleck of gold against the hazel of her irises.
Shifters Gone Wild: A Shifter Romance Collection Page 17