by M. L. Briers
“Yeah, yeah, Mrs Magoo … so a clue?” Declan growled back.
He’d seen the tracks going up the mountain and thought that what with there only being one road up and down, he’d have time to go and collect his truck. He’d see her pass him on the road if she was leaving.
Then he had another brain storm. Mick was a barman and barmen knew everything, at least, he thought that they did. Right now Mick barely knew his own name.
“I’m thinking, man,” Mick complained.
He’d been dragged out of bed by the shifter and now he was being put on the spot to make his brain work, and that just didn’t happen until he had at least three cups of coffee inside of him in the morning.
“It’s an effort, I know…” Declan grumbled.
“I think she was here alone,” Mick offered back … “She wasn’t with the good time party that was going up to the winter cabins on the south side, some of those women were …” He grinned.
“Concentrate,” Declan warned.
He might just have been about ready to rip the guy’s arm off and beat him around the head with it to wake his brain up.
“No, wait … she left with you …” Mick offered looking momentarily confused before he offered the man a sly smile.
Declan couldn’t help but give the man a warning growl … he’d thought finding out where she went this way might have been quicker, boy was he wrong!
“Yeah, I know that part, but did she say where she was going off too this morning?” Declan growled back.
He’d more than had enough of the hand holding the man through this, and so had his bear.
He’d rather be out there hunting her than caged up in Mick’s flat, with the scent of stinking feet in the air… and a man that couldn’t stand close enough to a bar of soap for it to do any good.
“Nooo, yes!” Mick bit out, his eyes lighting up with that euphoria of remembering something that you didn’t think you knew.
“Care to share?” Declan growled back.
He’d had the urge to grip the man by the shoulders and shake the answer out of him, but he’d managed to hold onto it.
“She was meeting up with Dougie …”
“Dougie!”
Declan cursed seven ways from Sunday. His beast roared within him, and he started for the door.
“Something about getting some shots from the drop off …” Mick called after the shifter, suddenly becoming Mr Helpful, but Declan was already out of the front door and off on fast feet towards his truck.
When he got hold of Dougie, he was going to kill him.
CHAPTER THREE
~
The closer that Declan got to the city car, the more that he knew it was hers. It was a gut feeling coupled with the fact that the car had been somewhat abandoned near to the wolves land. It was the ideal place for Dougie to meet up with her…
He pulled his truck over, practically bumper tagging her car, and cut the engine. He couldn’t help the growling and muttering that came with knowing that she was with a wolf, and not just any wolf, but that damn wolf…
Declan used his booted foot to kick open his door and hold it in place as he unfolded his body from inside. He was already sniffing the air and finding her scent on it.
He wished that scent was fresh and that she was close, but it came from the car. He slammed the door closed and stalked towards the vehicle. He grunted in contempt for the car; it was absolutely inappropriate for mountain life, but she didn’t live there yet … at least – she didn’t know that she lived there yet…
“You’ve taken to stealing the tourist’s meagre possessions.”
The melodic tones drifted all around him. It was a vampire trick that worked out well for them when you didn’t know which direction the bloodsuckers were coming from in a fight, but it tended to not work out so good for the good guy.
He turned and scanned the area, finding Malachi about two hundred feet away by one of the gnawed and twisted Rowan trees…
“Trust me when I say, don’t mess with me today, Malachi,” Declan’s warning growl rumbled within his broad chest.
He didn’t need a visit from the vampire, today of all days. He had a mate to find and a wolf to kill if the man had laid one paw on her.
“Some would say you rolled out of bed the wrong side this morning, bear – I’d say whose bed?” Malachi returned fire.
He could scent the left over smell of sex in the air, and that made him hungry for a human of his own.
“You seen Dougie?” Declan was already walking away from the man, off in the direction of the drop off, but it would still take a while to get there.
“What’d the wolf do now?” Malachi asked, following on behind the shifter from the ridge above the dirt track.
“He has something I want back,” Declan growled then.
His beast was a lot livelier since Mick had told him that his mate was with the wolf. He couldn’t blame the bear for that – he liked the idea about as much as if she’d run from him.
“Do tell?” Malachi’s voice wasn’t just melodic, it was downright teasing in nature, and Declan really couldn’t cope with the vampire’s strange sense of humour.
When Declan didn’t immediately answer him, the vampire moved faster, dropping down right in front of the man and making him pull up short. Declan’s bear roared within him … eager for the taste of vampire on his tongue just out of sheer spite for the annoyance factor that the man could provide.
The trouble was, Malachi liked to be damned annoying. He found some sort of twisted pleasure in it.
“I’m sorry is my volume turned down?” Malachi’s eyes flashed with amusement, but the fist like a sledgehammer hitting his jaw soon ended that…
“I warned you, damn it!” Declan bit out as the vampire was reeling backwards from the punch and the shifter was shaking the pain out of his hand.
Malachi found his footing and planted his feet in case another fist came in his direction. He lifted a hand and rubbed at his chin as his eyes shone with disbelief…
“You hit me,” he sounded more than a little surprised.
“Well, it was that or let my bear shake loose, and I think you prefer the fist to the bear’s claws,” Declan growled and grumbled.
He’d warned the man that he was in no mood for his antics, and now he’d more than proved his point.
“But, you hit me,” Malachi restated the obvious.
He was still trying to wrap his head around Declan’s problem as he continued to stroke down his aching, but fast healing, jaw.
“I know I damn well hit you, and if you don’t get out of my way it’s gonna happen again until you do,” Declan growled back.
“Geez, I know they say a bear with a sore head, but it’s not an ideology to live by, a dogma to follow, a lofty goal to aspire to…”
“Cut the crap and get out of the way, before I move you myself,” Declan growled.
The shifter’s hands were still fisted at his sides. His muscles were tensed so hard that he wondered if they might just snap, and he had an ache inside of him that was filled with trepidation for what that damn wolf was doing with his mate…
“You only had to ask,” Malachi said. That air of amusement, of teasing was back in his eyes as he sidestepped to let the shifter walk on by…
“I thought I had,” Declan growled back.
“So, this female you’re tracking…?” Malachi said and watched the shifter ground to a halt again.
“Stay away from her,” Declan growled a warning.
“Me?” Malachi lifted his hand and inspected his fingernails…
“She’s not up for grabs…”
“Hmm, you don’t want the wolf near her, you don’t want me near her…” he offered and Declan felt the hard clench of his stomach muscles as the vampire neared the truth of it…
“Drop it,” He growled and stalked off again.
“That can mean only one thing…” Malachi called after him, but Declan wouldn’t be sidetracked this t
ime. He wanted his mate and he wanted her now…
“Get over yourself, Malachi,” he called back over his shoulder, and there was the damn vampire again, right in front of him.
“You found your mate!” Malachi said with mock enthusiasm and wide amused eyes that made Declan want to sucker punch him again … although, he reckoned that the vampire would be expecting it if he tried.
Declan dropped his head on his neck and grumbled another growl as he steamrollered towards the vampire, giving the man ample warning of his intent.
If he didn’t move then he was going down.
~
~
~
Lucy framed the perfect shot of the rolling mountainous landscape through her lens. She could feel heat to her back, heat that shouldn’t have been there on such a crisp winter day, and as the hairs rose upon her skin, she recognised what that heat was … Dougie was close.
Too close.
When he leaned in over her left shoulder she felt his hot breath against her ear and tried her best to stave off the shiver that ran her spine.
“You felt good within my arms.” His deep voice felt like sandpaper against her nerves, and she closed her eyes only briefly against the sensation, before she turned and took a step back away from him.
“I’m really not interested in anything but the sights,” Lucy offered back, trying to keep the wolfman in his place so that she could get on with the reason that she was there.
She’d hired him to do a job. Period. Nothing more, and there definitely wasn’t going to be any more mistakes like she’d committed the night before … that had been an error in judgement to last her a lifetime, and she was sure that it would, because she’d always have the scars…
She’d gotten drunk and let her guard down. The man was a stranger and a bear shifter for goodness sake, and she should have known better.
Too much Scotch.
Too much of that hunky guy that had enticed her to go to bed with him, and hey presto! Disaster.
The man had clawed her shoulder up pretty good. Oh, he’d healed the wounds alright, she didn’t know how exactly, but those scars were there, etched into her skin for the rest of her damned life.
She’d been an idiot, and that wasn’t going to happen again.
No more getting drunk.
No more shifters in bars.
No more anything that just didn’t feel right … although, it had felt right at the time … but maybe that was just seeing things through Scotch flavoured glasses.
She was on the mountain to get shots of the scenery, not to take in the local shifter population, and definitely never to see that damn big bear man again.
“Funny, I smell a bear on you,” Dougie offered back.
His eyes had darkened the same way that Declan’s had the night before, and she just had to hope that it wasn’t for the same reasons … that would be very, very bad.
Lucy could have kicked herself right there and then. There she was in the middle of nowhere with a strange guy … and not another damn soul about…
Way to go, Lucy!
If they gave out awards for stupidity, you’d be the first in the queue…
“That was a drunken mistake,” Lucy informed him.
Even when a slight aching hole within her said otherwise, and butterflies took to flapping their wings inside of her when she pictured Declan in her mind’s eye … no, she wouldn’t listen to her body; the shifter had been a mistake.
“Well, make a sober one with me,” Dougie said, giving her the kind of wolfish grin that her mother always warned her about. Little did she know about real wolf shifters at the time.
“Not going to happen,” Lucy informed him.
She started to sidestep the man, but he reached out an arm and encircled her waist, keeping her there in place. Her eyes snapped to his and she saw something that she didn’t like there … hunger, desire, and a whole lot of man lust.
“So you’re a bear groupie…” he bit out as if he had a sour taste on his tongue.
Alarm bells were certainly ringing within her mind. It felt as if she’d stepped out of the frying pan and into the fire … the trouble was, she wasn’t sure how she was going to get out of the mess that she now stupidly found herself in…
“Get your damn hands off of her.” The hard deep growl that came from the top of the ridge, some forty feet away, snapped her mind to attention and snatched their heads around to find Declan standing there glaring down at them.
His eyes were jet black. His shoulders were set, and his large hands were fisted at his sides.
The man looked fit to kill.
CHAPTER FOUR
~
Lucy’s eyes took the bear shifter in. She didn’t know whether to be relieved or as scared as hell that there were now two of them, and she was still only one person; who couldn’t really defend herself against much of anything, especially the supernatural type threat that was looming over her.
“You had your turn last night, back off, bear!” Dougie snarled, and that started those alarm bells ringing inside Lucy’s head at an alarming rate and intensity.
It didn’t help much when another man appeared … that one she was almost certain was a damn vampire…
What the hell had she stumbled into?
~
~
~
Declan came down the ridge fast and furious. He headed right for Dougie and Lucy. Dougie immediately sensed the writing on the wall, and let Lucy go, putting her away from him fast enough for her to lose her footing on the uneven terrain.
She gasped as she fell. The sure fire knowledge that the hard ground was coming up to meet her backside, but her eyes stayed firmly fixed on the big, growling, bear shifter that was still coming hard and fast towards them…
Declan’s eyes snapped towards her as she went down. He couldn’t make it to her in time to save her pride from hitting the ground, but in his mind it was just one more thing to beat the hell out of the wolf for…
Lucy took the fall and went to scramble to her knees; when her eyes encountered his … her brain stopped working as a jolt of something like excitement mixed with trepidation shot through her, and she was held in place by his dark eyes until he chose to look away…
There was a low, deep, rumble that rattled around her. It sounded like the kind of angry thunder that you got just before a particularly nasty storm front came in, but it was all him … the big growly bear man that she’d gone home with the night before, and she knew it…
Her ears seemed to lock onto that sound, recognising it even though she’d never heard him in the kind of a rage that bubbled and boiled inside of him now. She didn’t have a clue why her mind and body seemed so attuned to him, it just did, and she wasn’t sure why that seemed to thrill her senses so much.
One moment; Declan was running the ridge, the next he was stalking towards Dougie like a man on a mission to kill, and psyching himself for up for it with every step, and what felt like the very next moment, he had launched his body towards the wolfman as Dougie rushed forwards to greet him right back…
She’d like to say that the fur flew, but that thought was too close for comfort. In truth, the two men were locked together like boxers in a ring, their arms around each other, as they threw punches back and forth as and when they could…
“What the bloody hell…?” She muttered to herself, shaking off her inaction, as she pulled her body up onto her knees and started to push upwards…
Lucy yelped out in surprise when they both came at her at once … falling in her direction as her mind froze and all thought of self-preservation was lost as she remained fixed to the spot like a doe caught in the headlights…
One strong arm came about her waist and she was unceremoniously hoisted up into the air. Her arms and legs flayed, looking for something solid to grab on to, but there was nothing. The world around her spun and turned at an alarming rate and she could do nothing to stop it.
Lucy felt the solid ground ben
eath her hands and knees once more, and could have done her best Pope impression, kissing the damn ground. But being back on terra firma once more didn’t stop her head from continuing to spin.
She felt the rise of nausea within her and bit down on the urge to paint the snow with last night’s booze and food…
“You’re entirely welcome.” Malachi’s enticing melodic tones reached her ears, and she didn’t know how exactly, but it seemed to have a soothing effect of her body and mind and for that she might have been a little bit grateful…
Lucy tentatively raised her eyes to look up his body at him. He was looking back down at her with an air of amusement; like she was some sort of performing seal or lesser being that was placed there for his sole enjoyment of that moment…
She opened her mouth with the intention of spitting out a good few curse words for his benefit, but the loud snarl from one or the other of the shifters snatched her attention back down the ridge.
She’d give the vampire his due; he’d managed to give her one hell of a view of the fight that was still raging between the two men…
Declan’s solid arm swiped backwards and she could have sworn that she heard the thud that took Dougie off his feet and sent him flying backwards towards the drop off.
Lucy’s heart flew into her throat at the sight of the man that she didn’t like very much, but didn’t want to see dead over that cliff edge, falling backwards.
His feet couldn’t seem to find purchase on the snowy ground, and he threw his upper body forwards as he lost the fight to stay away from the edge…
Chunks of rock went spewing downwards, and the man’s lower body followed … it was only his hands that grasped around the withered tree trunk that she’d hugged not that long ago. Only his claws that he managed to embed deep into the decaying trunk that had saved him from disappearing from sight over the edge.
Lucy pushed up to her knees on the ground. The urge to help him streaked through her like lightning, and yet, she knew that even if she’d made it down the ridge in one piece … she still wouldn’t be fast enough to save his life, or strong enough to pull him back from the edge the way that he’d done for her…