by Tessa Clarke
But he thought of the fire and heat from her body. The way she had thrown her head back in rapture while he fucked her. The sweet smell and taste of her pussy. Her beautiful eyes that had seemed so full of stars last night on the dance floor.
No. He wanted Astrid. He would defend and support Astrid no matter what. He skidded to a stop. He would go back and help his brother take down Gavin and Gabe. He would keep his mate safe.
The sharp scent of cur cut through the crisp morning. He saw the tracks in the snow. The small prints of the real coyotes and the larger prints of Gavin and Gabe.
There were so many prints. They must have raised an army over night.
He turned to head back to the cave. Back to his mate. But all around him the trees started to seethe with grey and tawny bodies. Guttural yips came from all directions, and then as if on cue, the coyotes broke into howls as they emerged from the trees and started to swarm around him, their sharp white teeth flashing and bared.
Then he heard the loud booms of dynamite. Avalanche control had started.
Two larger coyotes cut from the pack and started to nip in at his flanks. Gavin and Gabe, their faces twisted with hatred and their bushy tails low and dangerous.
Chapter Nine: Astrid
The low booms of the avalanche blasts rocked through the cave. Chance still hadn’t returned. Maybe he didn’t love her after all.
She listened to the frequency and distance of the booms. Ski patrol was starting with the Starfall Bowl, as always. They would be moving onto the shoulder where Sweet Susannah was located next. In about twenty minutes, they’d be skiing through these woods. She’d probably skied past this cave many times doing her morning sweep. Half an hour after that, the run would be thick with skiers and it would be very dangerous for a tiger to be sighted.
Sweet Susannah. Had the run been named after Susie, Chance’s first mate? She’d never thought of that before.
Rowan’s face had shifted from confident to concerned when the blasting started. He paced back and forth, peering out of the mouth of the cave every few minutes.
“He needs to get back here before ski patrol is on the scene,” he muttered.
Marika twitched about the cave, making low humming noises, her movements more rabbit-like than human.
“He might have just gone home,” Astrid said. “Down the old miner’s road.”
Rowan shook his head though. “No. I know my brother. He wouldn’t leave you.”
Astrid felt her lips tighten over her teeth. She wasn’t sure about that.
After a few more booms echoed through the cave, Rowan returned inside and started dressing in a very old ski suit. “He can’t let himself be seen. I need to go after him,” he said.
Marika insinuated herself between Rowan and the mouth of the cave.
“No,” she said. “You’re too vulnerable in your human form. Too slow. I’ll go.”
“No,” Rowan yelled. But Marika didn’t wait. Instantly she became a large white hare and bolted from the cave.
Rowan’s face turned ashen and his eyes looked agonized. Astrid’s heart flipped. He looked so much like Chance. Was that how her threat to be bait for Gavin had affected Chance?
No. She was kidding herself. Rowan and Marika had been together for years. They were mates. She and Chance had just had a one-night stand, albeit a magical one. He couldn’t possibly love her as much as Rowan loved Marika.
“I should just go,” she mumbled. “I’ll go to Chance’s house and look for him. Maybe he just went home.” She had already dressed in her ski gear, and she went to collect her skis.
“No,” Rowan said. “You stay here in case one of them comes back. I’m going after them.”
He snapped into Chance’s skis at the mouth of the cave and pushed off, turning gracefully into the trees.
“Damn,” Astrid swore. “Damn, damn, damn.” Where was Chance? Her arms ached for him already.
She went and sat by the fire.
Marika flew into the cave in a flurry of snow and white fur ten minutes later. She flashed into her human form mid-air and tumbled as she came to a stop. “They have Chance surrounded,” she said, her eyes wild. “There’s at least a hundred of them. They’re going to kill him and they’re in the blast zone. Where’s Rowan?”
“He left, looking for you,” Astrid said, her voice thin and tight, and her heart throbbing. Chance. She’d put him in this danger. If she hadn’t been so bull-headed, they’d be skiing down the miner’s road to his house.
Marika scurried around the cave in circles as if she were still in her rabbit form. “What are we going to do? What are we going to do?”
Astrid tried to pull together her racing mind. Her cell phone was dead, but she had her ski patrol radio in her pack. She might be a party girl, but she was a responsible party girl.
She snatched it out and flicked it on, her hands shaking. She turned it to the private channel that just went to the dispatcher. “It’s Astrid,” she said. “Who’s there?”
“Bentley,” came a young-sounding voice over the radio. “Still recovering from the party?”
“You could say that,” she said. “Listen Bentley, I need you to close the shoulder from Sweet Susannah all the way to Sam’s Slides. Call off the blasting. We have a casualty on the run, and the snow’s about to slide.”
“What?” Bentley’s voice sounded panicked. “How? The run’s not open yet.”
“Some friends and I skinned up this morning,” Astrid said. “To get fresh tracks. One of them fell. I can do the evac. Just call off the charges, and don’t let anyone down the run. The snow will go for sure.”
Bentley’s words came in an onslaught. “How are you going to get them out without a sled? You know skinning up the avalanche zones is against the rules. I’m going to have to report it. They’re going to want to know why I’m calling a closure. I need to okay it with the patroller in charge. You could lose your job, Astrid.”
Astrid made her voice crack with authority. “I have seniority over everyone on today, Bentley. If I’m on the hill, I’m in charge. We’ve made a makeshift sled. Just keep the run clear. That’s an order.”
She hung up before Bentley could reply.
She swung the dial to Dylan’s private channel. She doubted he’d even be awake after a night with his new mate. But he was known for sleeping with his radio on, and he, Cade, and Flynn were the only ones already up on the hill.
Maybe they could get to Chance in time.
Chapter Ten: Chance
They’d come at him from all sides, their maws gaping, and their eyes wild. Dead coyotes lay in the snow all around him, but there were so many of them. They just kept coming. He bled profusely from bites and gashes in his flanks. Gavin and Gabe had disappeared, leaving their brethren to finish the job they’d started. Only Lothoren and his some of his cronies remained up in the nearby trees, watching over the massacre.
He was conscious of them pushing him over to the center of the run, to the base of one of the cliffs, right in the middle of the avalanche path. Ski patrol would be dropping charges off the cliff in a few minutes. They wouldn’t be able to see what was happening below. Then he and the coyotes would be blown to smithereens. Right in the middle of the run he’d named after Susie.
He concentrated on what he was doing, dispatching coyote after coyote with his claws and teeth, efficiently, relentlessly. The snow ran a river of red, and Chance’s jaw ached. But every time he killed a coyote, another came to take its place. They hung off his sides and clambered up on his back, biting and clawing.
Even if the charge didn’t get thrown over the cliff, the coyotes would take him down eventually. He would tire and they would get the edge. He thought of Astrid waiting back at the cave for him, about how he had stormed out.
She’d been right. They had to do something about Gavin. But now he was stuck in the dog fight of his life, literally. He would have laughed at the irony if he had been in his huma
n form.
The smell of dead cur was starting to make him sick. The dynamite still had not tumbled off the edge of the cliff, still had not blown, still had not ended this.
The howling and yipping of the coyotes crescendoed and Chance turned his head to see another tiger join the fray, tossing cur after cur into the air. Rowan was fresh and eager for the fight and cut a vicious and aggressive line through the pack. But the coyotes didn’t back down, and he too was soon surrounded.
Chance refocused on his attackers, trying to stave off his own execution, but his blood went suddenly icy. Where had Gavin and Gabe gone? If Rowan was here, were the two women back at the cave unprotected? But in his animal form he couldn’t ask this question. He could only give his brother a white-eyed look, and continue to fight for his life.
Astrid. Tris. He hadn’t even told her he loved her.
Chapter Eleven: Astrid
“They’re on their way,” Astrid said to a quivering Marika after she put down the radio. “Dylan roused Cade, and they called Flynn. They’re going to go help.”
Marika had gone to rouse some of the other wild ones while Astrid tried to get through to Dylan, which had taken four tries and a confusing conversation with Jolene before Astrid had gotten Dylan on the line.
Marika shifted back to her human form and spoke in a hurried voice. “Grayson, Demeter, and Tyler are all heading to Sweet Susannah. Grayson is a wolf, Tyler is a stag and Demeter is a bobcat.”
“Will that be enough?”
Marika wrung her hands. “I don’t know. Gavin and Gabe are huge, and I don’t know how many other shifters are working with them.”
“Should we go too? Can we do anything? Do you have a gun?”
Marika swung her head from side to side. “We’ve tried to give up as many of our human dependencies as possible.”
Astrid swore and paced around the cave. It felt absurd staying in this cave, not doing anything. She was accustomed to being on the scene of emergencies. She should go, even if she did nothing other than wait in the trees hoping there was someone left to patch up when this was all over. She collected her pack.
“Can I borrow some of your first aid supplies?” she said.
“Going somewhere?” came a chillingly familiar voice. Astrid heard Marika’s gasp, but she didn’t have to turn to know that Gavin stood in the entrance to the cave.
He was naked, his cut body shockingly impressive and terrifying. Ribbons of tattoos wound around his legs and torso. His cock bounced gargantuan at half-salute. Astrid stared at it, as a pit of fear took a claw hold in her heart. What were his intentions? His brother stood behind him, equal in size and fitness, his expression dark and unreadable, but there was an odd strain on Gabe’s face as if he might be not quite right in the head.
“This is very convenient. The mate and temporary girlfriend of our local immigrants together in one spot,” Gavin said. “Nobody seems to get that this mountain is ours. We were here first. We belong here. They don’t.”
“Get over yourself Gavin Summers,” Astrid said, even though her voice emerged as a shaking, tinny thing. “You’re going to terrorize and murder people just because you want this mountain to yourself?”
Gavin’s amber eyes seemed to burn into her. “What they’re doing isn’t natural. Them being here isn’t natural.” He smiled. “Besides. I’m okay with killing. So it’s a win-win.” He strode forward, his cock swaying out in front of him like a weapon.
“Stay away from us,” Astrid ordered, backing away, pushing Marika behind her. She darted her eyes around the cave for anything she could use to fend him off. She bent and snatched up a burning piece of wood from the fire and held it out in front of her.
“Well at least you have more balls than your little sister,” Gavin said. “She was as docile as this little hare here. I wonder what you’d be if you were a shifter, Astrid?” Gavin stroked his chin as if he were contemplating. “Probably a wolverine. Fierce. But not super attractive. Just a night of diversion for our poor heartbroken shifter.”
Her cheeks had flamed, and it felt like she had two burning holes in them. She waved the burning torch in front of her.
“Such a deep blush. You couldn’t possibly have thought you’d be any more to him than a one-night stand,” Gavin said. “Astrid, the party girl? Wolverine is a good name for you.”
“Shut up,” Marika said. “She’s his mate.”
Gavin threw his head back and laughed. “Well neither of you will be anybody’s mate when we’re done with you. Since Rowan and Chance are pretty much being ripped apart on a ski run right now, I’ll show you both what it’s like to be party girls.” He advanced and easily caught and wrenched the stick out of Astrid’s hand. He tossed it aside and it skittered across the floor into the woodpile.
He shoved her backwards onto the hard floor, his cock jutting against her thigh, and his hand clamped over her mouth. He wasted no time in starting to tug down her ski pants, while she kicked and writhed beneath him. Gabe had similarly overpowered Marika.
Astrid drove her knee up into Gavin’s groin, but didn’t connect. She bit at his hand, smacked him with her fists, pulled at his hair, and thrashed around underneath him.
“You are a feisty one, Wolverine,” he said. “But I know you want it. You always want it. That’s why you wear such short skirts.”
Astrid hauled back and slapped him across the face as hard as she could. Gavin growled and showed his teeth, then slammed her head against the rock floor of the cave. Stars flashed in her eyes, and a sharp pain shot through her skull. Her sister had been unconscious when Gavin had raped her, likely a victim of the date rape drug. She could not let herself pass out. She gritted her teeth and redoubled her efforts to fight him off.
But he was stronger than she was. So much stronger. She was not going to be able to hold him off.
Something orange flashed through the air, and Astrid was thrown hard to the ground as Gavin was ripped off of her as a bloodied tiger rolled over on him, its teeth flashing and red with death. A second tiger had had its teeth in Gabe’s shoulder. Gavin and Gabe both shifted immediately and the cave became a flurry of teeth, blood, and fur, the orange and the tawny intermixing.
Astrid crawled away into a corner of the cave and curled her knees up to her chest and wept. Marika found her way to her side, and Astrid curved her arms around the other woman and held her. The stick Astrid had grabbed earlier had ignited part of the woodpile, and the flames licked in and out of the stacked wood, filling the cave with smoke.
Gavin and Gabe were large for coyotes. They were also fresh and uninjured, and in addition to his obvious gashes, Chance seemed to be favoring one paw. But Rowan and Chance were bigger and stronger, and soon Gavin and his brother were as bloody as the tigers, their responses growing more labored. With one last thrust of his powerful back legs and a rollover, Chance pinned Gavin, his teeth falling to Gavin’s throat.
Astrid sucked in her breath.
Chance stopped just before striking the killing blow and shifted back into his human form. Gavin surged up at Chance, his teeth bared in fury, but Chance punched him in the face and leapt on top of him.
“There’s been more than enough killing today. I want you to go straight to the police and turn yourself in for raping Astrid’s sister, and I’m going to report you for attempted rape here. I want you and your sick shifter friends to pack up and move off this mountain and never come back. If you do come back, I will kill you.”
Rowan had a paw pressed to Gabe’s neck. He looked at Chance and gave a low angry roar, his desire to simply dispatch Gabe evident. The fire in the woodpile had grown and swallowed a quarter of the cave, the smoke blinding.
“In fact, I’ll take you down the police station myself.” Chance said.
Gavin shifted and gave Chance a sneer of disgust. “For Lilly? Lilly wanted it. She was as much of a party girl as Wolverine here.”
Astrid shot to her feet. “Don’t you dare t
alk about my sister that way.”
Chance turned to look at her, his face wreathed in concern.
How could he consider her his mate? He must just feel sorry for her. And yet she’d fallen for him. Hard and irrevocably.
Gavin whirled, leapt, and shifted midair, his teeth aimed at Chance’s jugular. Chance shifted, but not before Gavin got a stranglehold around his neck. Chance brought back one giant paw and sliced at the coyote, then they rolled over and over on the cave floor, closer and closer to the fire, Gavin never letting loose his hold on Chance.
Astrid heard herself screaming, crying, and yelling Chance’s name and the word no, over and over.
The two shifters neared the edge of the fire, and went over one more time, and the flames enveloped them.
Astrid fell to her knees. Chance. No. No.
A tiger leapt out of the center of the fire, his fur in flames. He bolted out of the cabin to roll over and over in the snow, his injuries marking the snow with streaks of red.
She ran to him and threw snow over him, rubbed it into his fur and then eventually threw her arms around him as he stopped to pant in the blood covered snow.
He became Chance again, and then she was in his arms, burying her face in his broad chest.
“I’m sorry I took off, Tris. You were right. We did have to do something about Gavin and Gabe. I love you. If you hadn’t called Dylan when you did, Rowan and I would be dead for sure. Are you okay, did he hurt you?”
“Is Gavin?”
“He’s gone,” Chance replied shortly.
“You love me?” she repeated dumbly.
“Of course. I should have told you last night. But I didn’t want to scare you. And I wanted to be sure.”
“But why me?”
He looked into her eyes with his shocking green ones. “Haven’t we reviewed this? Because you’re Tris, super-biologist, ski-patroller supreme, and goddess in bed, and because you’re one of the most beautiful women I’ve ever met. Tell me you’ll ski down the miner’s road with me to my house and spend the rest of your life there.”