“We can’t help,” Dakota murmured to Calian. “He’s too sick.”
“Go find Renee. I’ll stay with him,” Calian said.
The twins shifted and raced after Matto.
Gunnar wheezed, his breathing labored. “Tell my boys…tell Sax I love him. I’ve watched them work…” He coughed weakly, groaned. “Proud of them all. So proud.”
Calian grasped the elderly shifter’s hand and squeezed. “I’ll tell them,” he promised.
Gunnar’s breath rattled. Once. Twice. Three times. Then he didn’t breathe at all.
Calian murmured a short prayer before he stood. A shiver worked through him, the chill from the snow much worse when he stood in human form. He envied the polar bears who, as he’d observed, transformed with their clothes. Nature’s way of survival since polar bears lived in cool regions while werewolves generally inhabited warmer climes.
After a swift shift, Calian charged after his brothers. He ran through the towering spruce trees, following their tracks and scent.
Gunnar had implied she was injured. How bad?
Urgency had him running at full stretch. The stench of fuel struck him first. Next, he registered the wreckage of the helicopter, which had landed in bits and now littered the landscape.
“Over here,” Matto called.
Calian found his three brothers—all naked—hovering over Renee. He shifted again, his crazy race through the trees having warmed him.
“She’s breathing, but she’s not conscious,” Matto said in a terse voice. “It looks as if she tried to get to the helicopter. There’s a blood trail.”
“Bullet wounds?” Calian asked.
“Not major. She has scrapes, it looks as if a bullet grazed her left arm and her right arm is broken.” Kansas brushed a snowflake from her cheek. “We need to get her to the lodge. Her skin is cold as an icicle. I’ve no idea how she managed to avoid worse injuries. The helicopter is a mess.”
The snow wasn’t falling as heavily now. In fact, it had stopped, and the snowflakes striking them were falling from the towering spruce.
“Is it safe to move her?” Calian asked.
“If we don’t, the cold will kill her.” Kansas stood. “Damn, it’s freezing. My balls are trying to crawl into my body.”
“We’ll take turns carrying her,” Matto said. “While the rest of us run as wolves. No point us all dying of the cold.”
“There must be a First-Aid kit someplace,” Calian said. “With one of those emergency blankets.”
“I’ll do a search,” Matto volunteered. “You guys start back to the lodge.”
“What about the bear?” Dakota asked.
“Dead,” Calian said. “The Hallsten brothers’ father. He gave me a message for them before he died.”
“He was sick.” Kansas sighed. “His flesh was rotting inside. A cancer of some sort.”
Calian nodded. “We’ll retrieve him in the morning.”
“I’ll carry Renee,” Dakota said. “Kansas after me to speed her healing.”
Calian stared at her still form. “Will she make it?”
“As long as we warm her up fast,” Kansas said. “Let’s move.”
The trip back to the lodge seemed to take much longer than the outward trip. Exhaustion clung to Calian, and one glimpse of his three brothers told him they suffered as much as him.
It was with relief that they reached the lodge.
“Kansas and I will warm her in the shower,” Dakota said.
Calian wanted to protest, but the twins with their healing powers were the best option. He and Matto stoked the fire in the kitchen and another in the lounge. They manhandled a mattress from the nearest bedroom and placed it in front of the fire. Once they’d done that, Calian heated several cans of beef and vegetable soup.
He and Matto were drinking soup when Dakota and Kansas carried Renee out to the lounge. They placed her on the mattress.
“Grab the First-Aid kit for us,” Kansas ordered.
Wordlessly, Calian followed the order.
Dakota knelt beside Renee’s still form. “We will set her arm and bandage it. It’s best she remains asleep. Her breathing is better now, so we’re not too worried. Grab a shower to warm up. Once you’re done, we need to change to wolf and sleep on either side of her. She couldn’t have crashed in a better place. It was more sheltered from the wind, and the polar bear had given her his jacket, or at least that’s what I presume. The jacket reeked of bear.”
Calian and Matto headed for the shower. The warm soup and the hot water helped to chase away the chill lingering in his bones.
When he and Matto returned to the lounge, Kansas and Dakota lay in wolf form, one either side of Renee. They’d stoked the fire and covered Renee with two woolen blankets.
Calian checked the kitchen fire and added more wood to that one too. The empty soup pot told him the twins had eaten. One more thing to do before he slept. He’d try the sat phone. The sky appeared clearer now, and he might get a call through to Sax.
The call went through, and to his relief, Sax answered almost instantly. “Did you find her?”
“Yes,” Calian said. “We’re at the lodge. The twins are healers, and they say she has a broken arm along with bumps and contusions and a close run-in with a bullet. She’s unconscious but they say she will recover. We have another woman who is dead. We think she was an assassin.”
“I’ll let everyone know this end. What do you need?” Sax asked.
“A helicopter out as soon as possible. My brothers heal by touch, but I’d like a human doctor to check her over.”
“Understood. I’ll let you sleep.”
“Wait,” Calian said. “There’s something else. Your father. He saved Renee from the assassin. I’m sorry, but he died of a gunshot wound.”
The line went quiet, but the connection hadn’t dropped. Sax’s steady breathing still drifted down the line.
“Gunnar?”
“Yes. He told me to tell you he’s proud of you and your brothers, that he loved you all.”
“He saved Renee?”
“He mauled the woman before she could get to Renee. He said he’d been watching the lodge and the woman setting up her gun, ready to fire on Renee. You will want to take him home too.”
Sax remained silent for a beat. “No, we’ll do a ceremony there. He loved the lodge. I think he’d like to wander the tundra in the afterlife. I’ll sort everything this end. Weather permitting, we’ll be there in a few hours.”
* * * * *
Warmth filled Renee—a decadent heat and a sense of wellbeing. She tried to move and moaned at the pain in her arm. Her eyes flicked open, her gaze drawn to the embers in the nearby fireplace.
A head lifted to her right. One to her left.
She blinked several times, but the sight was clear enough in the light from the fire and the daylight creeping through the windows.
Dogs surrounded her. No, not dogs.
Wolves.
Her heart attempted to leap up into her throat.
Had she bumped her head too hard in the crash?
Polar bears. Polar bears changing to men. Wolves.
She closed her eyes and opened them again. Nope. Not her imagination.
One of the wolves stood, its golden gaze on her. Renee stared back at the huge gray beast, trying to trudge through the syrup of confusion that was her mind.
The facts: she was indoors. The lodge?
Wolves. Four of them.
Polar bears. None.
Status—alive.
She observed the standing wolf.
Alive for now.
As she stared at the wolf, its furry outline wavered. A male body formed. A naked male body. A familiar, naked male body.
“Calian?” She swallowed. “I don’t understand.” Not quite true. She’d heard whispers, observed strange things since arriving in Churchill and told herself to mind her own business. Much safer that way.
“Yes, how are you? Aches? Pain?”
“Sore.”
She counted heads. Three wolves. All awake and watching her intently, intelligence glittering in their golden eyes. Hunter had mentioned wolves one time when he’d been drunk and missing his wife. She’d thought he was crazy, his assertion that men could change into wolves, one of fiction.
“You’re safe now. You have nothing to fear from us,” Calian said. “Will you let Dakota and Kansas check you? They have the healing touch.”
Renee hesitated. She’d slept with these men. Hunter had married their sister. She nodded. How had they got to her? Heck, she couldn’t get over the fact they were here.
At her agreement, the three wolves moved. Two stepped away, and she gaped while they transformed to human. “Does that hurt? It doesn’t sound attractive.”
“The first time hurts.” Calian smiled. “Now the shift is merely uncomfortable for a few seconds. You have nothing to fear from us. I’ll protect you to my last breath.”
A naked Dakota glanced at her in concern. “Your color is better.” He lifted the blankets off her while Calian stirred the fire to life.
“My arm isn’t as sore. I thought I’d broken it,” Renee said.
“It is,” Kansas agreed, approaching her as cautiously as her brothers.
Their restraint astonished her, their care with her. No one—apart from her stepfather—had worried about her wellbeing. Certainly not her mother, although she’d settled after meeting Jamie Paulson.
“Why so guarded? Aren’t you the ones who bite?” she asked. “My teeth aren’t sharp enough. Besides, I’m not strong enough to swat a midge.”
Kansas’s mouth rounded. Dakota appeared equally stunned while Matto, still in wolf form, offered a doggy grin.
Calian chuckled at the twins. “With those wide mouths, a midge will think you’re extending a welcome.”
“We set your arm,” Dakota said.
“How?” They weren’t doctors, yet the nagging pain in her arm had subsided a fraction.
Kansas placed his hands on her upper chest. “We’re not sure how our healing works, but if we touch you at the same time, we sense parts of the body and can tell how or why a person is sick or injured. It works best on wolves but we helped you. It looks as if a bullet grazed your left arm, but that should heal well.”
Dakota placed his fingertips on her bandaged arm. It ached, but nowhere as bad as earlier.
“Relax,” Kansas ordered. “Keep your breathing normal.”
Renee complied. Warmth emanated from their fingertips and palms. After a while, it tingled while heat spread inward, relaxing her muscles and relieving the lingering pain.
When they lifted their hands, her eyes popped open. Both Dakota and Kansas appeared pale and drawn.
“I’ll make us something to eat,” Calian said.
Dakota and Kansas curled up, one each side of her. This time the heat coming from their bodies held comfort and friendship. She glanced left to Dakota, and her breath caught. She searched Kansas’s face too. Wonder filled her on seeing his expression.
Love.
So much love in their features, along with relief and gratitude.
She cleared her throat. “How did you get here?”
“We ran in our wolf forms,” Kansas said. “Just about killed me. City living has made me lazy.”
“You ran?” The idea stunned her. These men had risked their lives for her.
“All the way from Churchill. It took over four hours to get here and find you.” Dakota sighed “It made me realize I need to pay more attention to my wolf.”
“I can’t believe you braved the storm for me,” Renee murmured.
Calian entered the lounge with a tray of what smelled like soup. “The last thing we wanted to do was hang around Churchill and worry.”
“It concerned us when you failed to arrive back after your flight.” Matto helped her to sit up and handed her a mug of soup. “We care about you.”
“I-I thought you would leave Churchill.” Renee shrugged. “I didn’t mean to get serious, but I did.”
“You noticed how stubborn we are?” Calian said. “We persisted when you didn’t want to go out with us.”
Renee took a sip of her soup. “Yeah.”
“There was no way we’d have left without making sure you knew we were committed to you.” Calian’s gaze remained on her face. “My brothers and I are all in, and when we thought you might be dead… That was the worst moment of my life.”
“The woman tried to shoot me. I was able to get away, but a lucky shot took out my tail rotor. I don’t know how they tracked me down. I’ll have to get in touch with my contact. Maybe move again.”
Calian cleared his throat. “Let’s worry about the important things first.”
“Yeah,” Matto said. “One of us intends to marry you, then we’re all gonna live together, happy ever after.”
14 – Found: Bumps And Bruises
Two helicopters landed around ten-thirty. Sax, Ran and Tate Hallsten arrived with a bag of clothes.
“Thank you,” Calian said. “I was wondering how we’d manage to get back to Churchill. I hated the idea of sneaking into town naked.”
Sax laughed. “Didn’t fancy the run back to town?”
“Not this morning,” Dakota said.
“Renee needs a checkup at the hospital. Dakota and Kansas, you want to go back with Renee?” Calian shot them a big-brother warning. Keep her safe.
Their inclined heads told him they’d received his silent order and understood.
The twins trotted inside and returned not long after with Renee. The pilot of the first helicopter strode over to them and spoke to her. Calian watched the greeting for an instant before turning away and following Sax and his brothers.
“We’ve eaten quite a few of your stores. We’ll make sure we replace them,” Calian said.
“No problem. You told me our father helped Renee,” Sax said.
“He saved Renee’s life,” Calian corrected. “As far as we can work out, thanks to your father, Renee survived when the assassin came after her. It looks as if he killed the assassin, taking a bullet to stop the woman from getting to Renee.”
“Who was the woman?” Sax asked.
“I’m not one hundred percent sure.” Calian scanned the tree line to his left, marveling at the blue, cloudless sky and the sun glinting off the pristine snow after hours of wind and sleet. “My theory is she was doing a hit for Jason Vega, a drug baron from Florida.”
“A hit on Renee?”
“Yes. Matto and I will come with you to collect Gunnar and the woman.” Calian changed the subject even though he trusted Sax.
Sax blew out a breath. “My brothers and I saw our father in Churchill around two months ago, late one night. We assumed he’d see us the next day, but he disappeared. We haven’t seen him since. He told us he was sick and hadn’t long to live. When he didn’t make a reappearance, we thought he’d returned to the tundra to die. Gunnar told us that was what he preferred.” Sax swallowed. “How did he look?”
“Thin. The twins intimated that cancer riddled his body.”
Sax nodded and consulted his brothers. Calian stepped away to give the polar bear shifters privacy.
“Do they want help?” Matto asked.
“I think so.” Calian’s satellite phone signaled an incoming call. “Yes.” He listened for a time. “Thanks for letting me know.”
Matto studied him. “Good news?”
“Jason Vega is dead. Hopefully, that will be an end to Renee’s problems.”
* * * * *
“Can’t I go home?” Renee asked the white-coated female doctor who was currently surveying Renee’s chart.
“You have quite a bump on your head, and you told me you blacked out. I want to watch you overnight.” With a stethoscope flapping around her neck and her black-rimmed glasses, the young doctor projected calm and efficiency.
Renee sighed, sensing the doctor’s mind wouldn’t change.
“I can’t b
elieve how fast you’re healing.” The doctor frowned at the mottled bruises on Renee’s torso. “Your arm is also healing well. Both arms. You say you crashed yesterday and were out in the storm?”
“Yes.”
“I can’t believe you don’t have any frostbite.” The doctor tapped her right fingers on the chart, her frown still in evidence. “Well, despite the rapid improvement with your injuries, I still want to watch you overnight.”
Kansas let out a loud yawn. “She’ll stay.”
The young doctor sent Kansas and Dakota a piercing look. A faint flush grew in her cheeks, and Renee’s brows squeezed together. Jealousy. Good grief. Renee gave her head a hard shake and wished she hadn’t. A flurry of cutting pain assailed her skull.
“Headache?” the doctor asked, her tone sharp enough to stir another wave of pounding.
“Yes,” Renee admitted. At least the doctor wasn’t ogling her men any longer.
“You two need to sleep. Depriving yourself of rest won’t make your friend get better quicker,” the doctor declared.
Renee gritted her teeth and glared. She caught Dakota sniggering.
“Dakota. Kansas. Are you still here?” Calian asked, long strides taking him to Renee’s hospital bed. “You both look as if you’ll collapse. Matto will give you a ride back to the hotel.”
“My patient needs rest too.” The doctor replaced the chart at the end of Renee’s bed. “Five minutes.”
Calian nodded. “I’ll be out in a few minutes.”
His brothers plus the doctor left, and Calian pressed a light kiss to her lips. “You’re lucky you survived the crash.”
“I know.”
“Jason Vega is dead.”
Renee swallowed. “What? How? Are you sure?”
“The person who informed me is reliable.”
“Who?”
Calian met her probing gaze without difficulty. “A friend. Check with your police contact if you don’t believe me.”
Renee opened her mouth then shut it with a clink of teeth. “If he’s dead and his son is dead, it’s unlikely the hit on me will continue because there’s no one else left to pay an assassin’s fee.”
“That’s right, sweetheart.” Calian leaned closer and kissed the tip of her nose. “We’ll come to pick you up in the morning.”
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