Lycan Contempt

by S. K. Yule

  She sighed. “My, oh my, was he ever big.”

  She’d had to reach up quite a way to find his chest, and it had been wide with hard, muscled shoulders. She’d longed to touch his face, to learn what her mystery dream man had looked like, but he’d abruptly stopped her. But why? Some people simply didn’t like for someone to touch their face.

  Maybe he was one of them.

  She frowned and remembered how rough the fingers of his right hand on her wrist had felt in comparison to the left. If both were like the right, she would have simply thought them to be caloused or roughened from work, but it was strange that only the right fingers were rough.

  She suddenly remembered his scent. She took a deep breath and swore she could stil smel the faint clean masculinity of it. She tensed, though, as she remembered a hint of something else, something she’d never smeled on a human before, something that seemed vaguely familiar. She couldn’t recal the scent no matter how hard she tried, and it irked her because smels and sounds were things she did not often forget.

  She shrugged and got out of bed. Lucy jumped up, eager to go to work like any other morning. She patted her on the head. “You get to take it easy this week, girl. I’l need you off and on, but for the most part, I just want you to be a dog for the next few days and enjoy.”

  She hugged Lucy before sifting through the drawers to find her favorite jeans and a soft sweater.

  Thick socks, underwear, and bra completed the outfit, and she slowly made her way to the bathroom to shower.

  “I’l only be a few minutes, Lucy. Then we’l go out, and you can do your business.” She patted Lucy again before shutting the bathroom door.

  Twenty minutes later, Georgia was clean, dressed, and ready to go. She put her dirty clothes in her room and attached the harness to Lucy. As she walked through the house, she found it strange that she was up and Henry and Joey weren’t. She was the one who usualy slept in. She smiled as she unlocked the door and gave Lucy the forward command. Maybe the fresh air was going to be a good thing for al of them.

  She gave Lucy the command to do her business and stood with her face up to the sky. It was something she did quite often as she enjoyed the feel of clean air on her face. But the enjoyment quickly died when a particular nasty gust of cold made its way up her backside and under the coat she’d puled on as she’d gone out the door but hadn’t bothered to zip.

  She shivered and wrapped her arms around her middle. When Lucy was finished, they made there way back inside where the aroma of coffee hit her hard as she came in the door alerting her that Henry and/or Joey was up.

  She hung her coat up on the peg beside the door and released Lucy from her harness.

  “Morning, sunshine,” Henry said as Georgia went to get a cup of coffee.

  “Good morning. Where’s your better half?”

  “Oh! I’m so hurt,” he said dramaticaly before chuckling. “He’s in the shower. Should be about done by now. Cups are on the counter.”

  “Thank you. The coffee smels wonderful.” She poured a cup took a tentative sip. “I thought the forecast caled for clear skies for the week.”

  “It did. Why?”

  “I don’t know. The air outside feels heavy, and the wind is picking up and getting colder.” She shivered again at the memory of the cold blast she’d received up her backside.

  “I think your superhero senses are shorting out in the fresh air,” Joey said from the living room.

  She smiled. “Maybe. I don’t know. I do know I don’t want to be stuck up in here in a snowstorm.”

  “Everything wil be fine, Georgia. You’re such a worry wart sometimes,” Joey scoffed.

  Joey came into the kitchen where Georgia was leaning against the counter drinking her coffee, poured himself a cup, and Lucy brushed Georgia’s leg as she got comfortable beside her on the floor.

  “Yeah. Don’t worry, Georgia. Besides, we made a huge list of food and wil be heading for the store shortly. If we do happen to get a little storm, we’l be wel prepared.” Henry proceeded to read her the list.

  After Georgia added a few things to it, she turned to place her now-empty cup in the sink to prepare for the trip into town. But as she turned, her elbow caught something on the counter and it crashed to the floor with a loud shatter. To avoid tripping Georgia when she quickly stepped back, Lucy jumped out of the way and promptly yelped.

  “Lucy! What’s wrong?”

  “Wait, Georgia.” Joey grabbed her arm. “It was my coffee cup. I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have set it so close to you without teling you. Let me guide you around the pieces of glass.”

  She let Joey help her around the broken pieces of the cup and quickly knelt to the floor in the living area. “Lucy, come.”

  Upon examining Lucy, she found a gash on her front right paw pad. “Henry, Joey, does it look too awful bad?”

  “No. I think it wil be okay if we clean it good and bandage it. She’l be fine in a couple days,” Henry answered after a few moments.

  “I’m so sorry, Georgia.” Joey laid his hand on her shoulder

  “It’s okay, Joey. Things happen. You can’t always tiptoe around me.” Georgia patted Lucy’s head. “Can one of you get me a rag, a bowl of water, some soap, and something to wrap her paw in?”

  “Sure,” Henry answered.

  Twenty minutes later, Georgia had Lucy’s paw cleaned up and wrapped with a bit of help from Henry and Joey.

  “Thanks. Why don’t you two go ahead into town?

  I’m staying here with Lucy. I don’t want her to be on her foot any more than she has to be for the next couple days, and getting in and out of the car might be hard for her right now.” Georgia got up with the bowl and leftover supplies and headed for the kitchen to clean up.

  “One of us can stay, Georgia,” Joey said. “I don’t want you to be alone.”

  “Me? Psh. I’m blind, not an invalid. I assure you I wil be fine here until you two get back. Don’t worry about me. Besides, I have Lucy if it comes to it.

  She’l protect me from the deep, dark woods.” She chuckled as she washed out the bowl before washing her hands in the sink.

  “Are you sure? We wil probably be gone for about three hours or so,” Henry asked.

  “Go. I’l be fine,” she assured them.

  “Okay. We’l hurry though,” Joey said.

  “Do not hurry. Take your time and do not speed. I wil not be responsible for a wreck because you two are breaking your necks to get back to me. Do you hear me?”

  “Yes, Mother,” Joey and Henry said in unison before they al laughed.

  “Do you want me to give Lucy some food in a bowl before we take off? I put her bag of food by the front door in the corner,” Henry said.

  “If you don’t mind. You can put it next to her water by the fridge. Thank you.”

  Ten minutes later, she was ushering the boys out the door. “Get going. I’l see you later.”

  “Bye,” they both said at the same time.

  She stayed on the porch until the purring of the engine faded off into the distance as they drove away before turning to go back inside.

  “They’re wrong, Lucy. We are going to get a bad snowstorm,” she muttered as she made her way to her room.

  She fished her MP3 player out of her bag and carried it back to the living room before settling on the couch with a warm throw she found draped over the back. Lucy made her way over to lie down beside the couch. Georgia could tel that Lucy’s gait was off from her injury, but she was confident her companion would be good as new in no time.

  “You’l be better soon, girl.” She rubbed Lucy on the head with one hand while she pushed the power button on her player. She then selected an audio book and began listening to the mystery unfold.

  Kish had just finished packing the bags of groceries in his truck when the green SUV puled into the lot and parked beside him. Before the occupants stepped out, large snowflakes began dropping from the gray sky in a thick flurry. He frowned at the vehicle. I
t did not have four-wheel drive, and he didn’t recognize it as belonging to a local.

  Must be out-of-towners. I hope to hell they aren’t staying far away . He looked at the thick, white flakes, which in a matter of seconds, had already coated the ground with a light dusting. The two men got out of the SUV as he walked around to the driver side of his truck. They both had medium builds, but one looked to be a bit under six feet with blond hair while the other was taler and dark.

  “I hope she’s okay up at Frank’s,” the blond man said.

  “She’l be fine. It’s just a little snow,” the darker one answered.

  Frank. Who the hell was . . . wait a second.

  Kish rubbed at the back of his neck. They must be talking about the house about an hour west of his place. He fired Baby up before snorting.

  “Idiots,” he muttered. How could they have left a woman by herself in the middle of nowhere during a snowstorm?

  About a third of the way home, he realized that he should have warned the two out-of-towners about the storm because there was no way in hel they were getting back up here without a four-wheel drive today. Baby was even struggling a bit. The wind beat at the sides of the truck, and the snow was nearly too thick to see through. It was going to be a bad one.

  Three hours later, Kish was home and had eaten a huge steak, but unease had settled hard in his gut.

  Fuck. There goes the evening. After cleaning the kitchen, he knew he couldn’t delay the inevitable any longer. He had to check on the woman who’d most likely been stranded by her two briliant boyfriends.

  Boyfriends? Could it be? Maybe they’d al come up for an orgy. He laughed at his overactive imagination.

  Even Baby was going to be chalenging to drive in this shit. He could get to her in half the time by cutting through the forest in wolf form, but if the woman was in distress, he couldn’t very wel carry her out on his back. He shrugged into his coat and made his way out to the garage. The snow was stil coming down at an alarming rate and was over three feet deep now.

  As he fired Baby up, he realized this was one time he was not looking forward to driving her.

  Chapter Five

  Georgia nervously tapped her fingers on the coffee table. The boys should have been back by now. She was worried something had happened to them, especialy after realizing the severity of the snowstorm. She hadn’t known it had been snowing until she stepped out of the warmth of the house onto the freezing porch. When she’d felt the snow pelting her face, she’d eased to the two stairs that led down to ground and was startled to find the snow was already nearing the top of the porch.

  She’d tried to cal Henry and Joey several times, but as predicted, her phone had no signal. It had been a little over four hours since they’d left. She tried to rationalize that it would take them longer in the storm, but logic told her that they’d never make it back without four-wheel drive. She sighed when she remembered back two years when the boys had bought the SUV. Henry had wanted to get four-wheel drive, but Joey had insisted they didn’t need it and preferred to save the extra money it would cost to get it.

  Henry would never let Joey live this one down.

  Hel, she might not either, except Joey had probably been right. Under normal circumstances, they would have never needed four-wheel drive. How was he supposed to know that the three of them would one day out of the blue take a trip to Frank’s cabin and get caught in a blizzard?

  Her stomach growled and reminded her that she hadn’t eaten anything al day. She wasn’t a big breakfast eater, and by the time she’d decided to take a break from listening to her book, hours had slipped by her without notice so engrossed she’d been in the mystery being unwoven. She made her way to the kitchen and scrounged through the cans.

  The good thing about canned goods was that they lasted forever. The bad? She had no idea what was in any of them.

  She blew out a breath in frustration and decided to rummage through the fridge. It turned out to be a lost cause, which didn’t surprise her. No one kept a fridge stocked in a vacation house.

  “Okay. Let’s do this then.” She found a can opener and opened can number one. She nearly gagged when she sniffed at it. “Yuck. I hate olives.”

  Can number three turned out to be the winner.

  Oranges. She could handle that. She also found a box of oatmeal and heated some clean water in the coffeemaker. Soon she was settled at the kitchen table with a bowl of hot oatmeal and oranges in another. It wasn’t the best meal she’d ever had, but it was far from the worst, and it was filing.

  After she ate and cleaned up her mess, she figured it was time to let Lucy go out and do her business once again. She hated the thought of going out in the storm, but there was no helping it. She bundled her coat around her and zipped it up to her chin.

  “Lucy, come.” She immediately obeyed as usual, even though Georgia knew her paw had to be sore.

  “Let’s get this over with, girl. Then I’l get you cleaned up and bandaged again.” When she opened the door, the bluster of cold air stole the breath from her lungs. “Good grief. It’s freezing.”

  She gave Lucy the command to do her business and felt bad for the dog for having to go into the deep snow, which would likely reach her bely or further. A couple minutes later, Georgia turned her head to the side and listened. She smiled when she heard the distant hum of an engine.

  “Wel, wel. The boys finaly made it back.”

  A couple more minutes and Lucy was back on the porch with Georgia, but Georgia now frowned. The engine did not sound like Henry and Joey’s SUV, and as it came closer, she was certain it was not the boys.

  “Inside, Lucy.” Whoever it was, she did not want to be caught outside with someone in the middle of nowhere that she did not know. She at least wanted a solid door between her and her unknown visitor.

  Georgia locked the door, shrugged out of her coat, and hung it beside the door. The vehicle came closer and closer until it was right outside. She wasn’t normaly a nervous ninny, but right about now, she was feeling extremely helpless. The engine shut off and a door closed shortly after. A knock sounded on the door within seconds and startled her even though she’d expected it.

  “Yes,” she said through the door.

  “Ma’am, I live about an hour east of here, and when I was in town earlier, I think I crossed paths with some male friends of yours. They were in a green SUV and I overheard them talking about being worried for leaving you up here at Frank’s place alone.”

  “And?”

  “By the time I left, the storm had already taken hold, and I noticed their vehicle was not equipped with four-wheel drive. After getting halfway home, I had high doubts that they would make it back up here in the bad weather. I thought I’d come check to make sure you were getting along okay.”

  “Oh.” She was okay, wasn’t she? Yes, other than being a bit shaken up about being unintentionaly abandoned and worrying about her friends. Just as she was about to tel the man—the one with the most amazing voice—that she was okay, the house became eerily quiet.

  She cocked her head to the side and listened. No fridge, no hum of a water heater, nothing. Shit. The power was off.

  “Um, my power is off.”

  “Yes. I see that. If you’d like, I can check to see if you have a generator around back. If you do, I’l have to come in and flip the electric panel over to the generator before I start it up. Would you like for me to do that for you?”

  Did she have a choice? She had no idea how to start a generator. If she didn’t let him establish power back to the house and ran out of firewood, she’d have no way of keeping warm. She blew out a breath of resignation. This was one of those rare times that her blindness made her feel weak, and she hated feeling that way.

  “Okay.”

  “I’l check to see if you have a generator first. I’l be right back.”

  Lucy stood by her left leg at alert. She hadn’t growled at the stranger, which was a good sign, but she remained unusualy tens
e.

  “There is one out back. It doesn’t have any gas, but I have a can in my truck.”

  A few minutes later, he tapped on the door.

  “Yes?” she caled out.

  “I need to come in and flip the switch over to the generator.”

  “Okay.” She unlocked the door and hesitantly opened it.

  The first thing that hit her was his scent. She swayed in surprise when she realized he had the same scent as the man she’d dreamed of last night. That’s weird.

  Kish’s knees nearly buckled under him when the woman who’d been a mystery up until that very moment swung the door open. It was her. Georgia.

  The woman from his dream. And just as the ful realization hit him of what this meant, her scent slammed home the reality, daring him to try to deny what fate had just dropped into his lap. His mate. The one woman on earth destined for him. She had two scents. The main scent that al lycans could smel and the mated scent, which only a destined mate could detect.

  And there was no denying that she was his. Son of a bitch. I’m not going to go through this again.

  No fucking way was he going to let this woman hurt him. Yeah, he’d argued with himself in the dream that she wasn’t like the other women he’d been with, but here, face to face with her in reality, was a whole other balgame.

  He caught his breath as he took her appearance in.

  She was as gorgeous in person as she’d been in his dream. Her golden skin was flawless, her eyes were as richly colored as precious emeralds, and her hair was honey blonde with waves that tumbled past her shoulders. Her purple sweater outlined her ample breasts, her jeans hugged her gently flared hips, and his fingers ached to caress both. His eyes darted back to her face when her tongue danced out across her lips.

  He nearly groaned as the need to taste her hit him like a basebal bat.

  “Are you al right?” she whispered.

  That’s when he noticed the slight tremble in her hands, and the huge Rottweiler standing next to her gazing at him, warning him that if he harmed a hair on her head, it would have no trouble taking some chunks out of his hide.