by K. Panikian
I moved easily and steadily up, the handholds and grooves supporting my giant body. Every hundred yards or so I paused and switched August to my other arm, bracing my clawed feet into the clinging bits of rock.
I checked on him once and saw his pale, sweating face, his eyes closed, and then ignored my burden. I climbed and leaped, swinging across deep grooves and jumping to and fro across shallow ledges.
I scaled and scrambled until finally, I found the surface. I’d noticed that the rocks around me were gleaming brighter and brighter and when I reached the hole at the top, I tossed August’s limp body into the sunlight, following it with a great, soaring jump into the parking lot.
It was empty.
No emergency vehicles waited; my car and August’s car were gone; and the gravel space was quiet, bright, and still.
August lay quietly by my feet and I let go of my Beast. She slunk back into my wild psyche with a cheerful growl. She’d loved it. The whole thing. She wanted to do it again.
No, thanks, sweetie.
I knelt to check on August and saw he’d passed out. His breaths came steadily so I pulled him a little farther from the hole and started pacing the parking lot. I quaked in the cold air and tried to ignore my raging thirst.
From what I remembered of the GPS when I drove to the mine, the closest town was miles away. My phone’s battery was probably dead. We would need to walk some more.
I strode to each side of the lot, looking for landmarks or trees or something other than grass and gravel. I estimated it was late afternoon, meaning we’d been in the cave less than 24 hours. It felt like a week. I dropped my head back to inhale more fresh air and let the sun warm my face.
August sat up with a groan and I hurried back to his side, trying to pretend I wasn’t nude.
He stared at me for a long moment as I approached before standing, pulling his shirt off, and handing it to me. I smiled and inhaled August’s scent as I yanked it over my head.
“No cars,” I tried to say, though my voice cracked with dryness.
August pulled his phone out, then mine. “Phones are dead.”
“Stream,” I pointed to the north side of the lot and we trudged in that direction. It wasn’t so much a stream, I decided, staring at it when we finally reached the spot I’d noticed, more like a drainage ditch. But it was water and it was clear. I dropped to my knees and shoved my mouth into the cool liquid, slurping down great mouthfuls of it.
I drank deeply until my throat stopped aching and I scrubbed my face free of dust.
Eventually I sat back on my heels to look at August. He’d finished drinking, too, and he watched me.
I flushed, pulling his shirt down lower on my thighs.
“Who are you?” he asked.
My heart sank. “I’m Sienna. I’m the same person I’ve always been.”
August shook his head, avoiding my eyes to stare at his bloody, dirty hands.
In the distance, I heard sirens wailing.
I soaked up the vision of August, alive and glaring at his scratched knuckles, next to me by that tiny stream. I knew I’d never be alone like that with him again. It was over. He’d seen my Beast and now he couldn’t even stand to look at me. The band around my chest tightened hard. I’d known it would happen, but part of me had still hoped. Not anymore.
I packed the vision away and stood, staggering into the parking lot and waving my arms as the police cars rolled into sight.
Chapter 13
A day later I paced my apartment, Darcy and Jordan watching me with wide eyes from the couch. I’d run through the whole escapade in the mine, including how we escaped.
“And now I don’t know what to do about Logan. Is he dead in a ditch somewhere? Was he helping Blair all along?”
“Forget about Logan,” Darcy breathed. “I want to hear more about your hybrid form. How do you do it? Can you teach me?” She poked Jordan. “Is she really bigger than me? I’m pretty big, you know.”
Jordan rolled her eyes. “Sienna’s bigger than you.”
“Whoa,” Darcy said. “Can I see?”
“Maybe later.” I paced more and Jordan nudged my tea in my direction. I ignored it.
“I think I’ve heard of this before, a hybrid form. It’s tugging at something in my memory from when I was a kid,” Darcy said with a frown on her face.
I turned astonished eyes to her.
She stared at the ceiling, biting her lip. “It’s really vague. Let me think.”
Jordan and I waited expectantly for a long moment before she shrugged. “It’s not coming. It will though.” She tapped her forehead. “Steel trap.”
I rolled my eyes as she continued, “And August didn’t say anything about it? He didn’t say thanks for saving me, or wow, you’re really strong, or hey, will you help me gain control of my pack again and in return I’ll love you forever.”
I grinned reluctantly at her. “No, none of those things.”
“Bummer,” Darcy whispered, leaning back on the arm of the couch.
“What are the police saying? How’d they find my car?” I asked Jordan.
She shrugged. “You withheld the identity of the bomber to keep it within shifter justice. Everett said they’ve got nothing to go on. He’s going to try and trace the C-4. Logan’s not an official missing person for another 24 hours. Your car was just at a trailhead a mile away from the mine.”
I nodded and clapped my hands. “Okay, time to refocus. I can’t do anything about Logan until either he or Blair contacts me. I’m going to talk to Daniel’s roommate, Mike, and see if I can get anything else about what Daniel was into in Jackson.
“You two,” I pointed at the two sets of blinking eyes on my couch, “are following the money. Figure out who is benefitting from the extra elk meat in their distribution system.”
I flopped down and took a big sip of my tea.
I remembered Daniel’s dorm address from Nick’s police report and drove to Old Faithful to try and find the roommate. When I knocked on his door though, no one answered. I stuck my nose in the crack and took a big whiff, but smelled only human scents.
A throat cleared behind me and I stood up straighter, turning to see Nick standing in the hall, watching me.
I froze for an instant before schooling my features, despite my suddenly thundering heart.
“Sienna,” he said gravely, “why are you here, knocking on Mike Boyle’s door?”
I stepped away.
“Walk with me please.”
I followed Nick’s straight shoulders and slim hips down the hall and outside into the parking lot, wracking my brain for an excuse. I couldn’t think of anything to explain why I was knocking on the door of an 18-year-old student volunteer, a door that also happened to belong to a murder victim.
In the weak, autumn sunshine, Nick’s gaze penetrated the lies flowering in my brain. I swallowed.
“Are you okay?” he asked. “I heard about the mine. What were you doing there?”
I smiled feebly. “Sightseeing?” Restraining myself from toeing at the gravel, I said, “I’m fine. It was just a scary accident, I guess.”
“Yeah, that’s not what I heard.” Nick shook his head at me, his eyes disappointed and grave. “Messing around with explosives. What, were you trying to blast out some gold?”
I gaped at him before closing my mouth. “Yes?”
“And today?” he asked.
My mind scrambling, I offered, “I ran into a friend of his in Jackson. He wanted me to pass along a message if I was in the area.”
Nick rocked back on his heels, considering me. I felt pretty proud of that excuse.
Watching me for another long moment, Nick’s face softened. “I’ve missed seeing you,” he said quietly.
My chin trembled before I caught hold of myself. I’d missed him too. Nick was a peaceful balm to my raging psyche. Around him, I could pretend I was a regular woman, on a date with a nice man, without a care in the world. But he’d been right to break it off, th
ough not for the reason he thought.
My time in the mine with August had solidified things for me. If a shifter alpha couldn’t accept me, no way could a human.
My phone started buzzing in my pocket and I checked the screen. Logan. I backed away from Nick. “I have to take this. I’m sorry. You were right though, about us. It was the right decision. I’ll see you around, Nick.” I turned and hurried away.
After a few steps I answered my phone.
“Logan, are you okay?”
“Sienna!” Logan’s voice echoed loudly in my ear. “Oh, thank God. I swear I had no idea what Blair was up to. She told me she had a plan to get rid of August. That was it. I didn’t know she tricked you too.”
“Where did the blood come from?” I asked.
“She sucker punched me. Got me right in the nose. I bled everywhere. Then she locked me up in her cabin for the past two days. I just got out. Where are you?”
Alarm bells rang in my head. “Where’s the cabin?”
“I don’t know. I was in the mountains. I got to the highway and a trucker picked me up. I’m calling from a gas station in Jackson.”
I squinted at the sky. My gut told me Logan was a big, fat liar and in this plot up to his eyebrows. “How can I help?”
Logan’s voice thrummed with relief. “Come get me. I’ll tell you everything.”
“Sure.”
SITTING across from Logan at the truck stop restaurant, my coffee steaming the air in front of me, I found myself observing things about him that I’d never noticed before. He wouldn’t hold my gaze at all. I tried to think back ten years to our college days and I didn’t think he liked to look me in the eyes then either. I’d thought he was perpetually bashful but maybe even then his puma had known which of us was more dominant.
It would explain why my Beast never respected him. She liked August, an alpha with an intense amount of power. Logan was a beta with a chip on his shoulder. He wanted to lead a pack, but he’d never be able to pull it off. He was weak. He needed me. And he knew it. He’d known it all along.
I sipped my bitter coffee and scalded my tongue. The sharp pain distracted me from the dull ache in my chest as I revisited my old heartache.
I understood him and what he was trying to do with me. I didn’t like it, but I understood it. I wondered if he’d been grooming me all those years ago—to rely on him and his shifter knowledge, to keep me safe from the rest of our kind by hiding me—getting me to the point that I would follow wherever he led me. It must have been such a shock when I finally showed him my Beast and he realized she would not fall in line.
I wondered how he’d found me again. I didn’t believe that he’d been driving to the different parks. I didn’t believe that he decided to call me out of the blue a few months ago. Someone told him about me. Blair? Was she bad-mouthing me on some kind of shifter website?
Logan leaned forward, his eyes wide and earnest, “Sienna, I—”
“What’s your deal with Blair?” I asked. “How did you hook up with her?”
A tic worked in Logan’s cheek.
“Why did you decide now was the perfect time for a reunion?”
He closed his mouth with an audible click.
“Are you involved in the poaching and the arson too?”
Shaking his head quickly, Logan darted a look around the diner. He learned forward and whispered, “I’ve got nothing to do with the elk.”
I rolled my eyes.
He stretched his hand toward me across the table. I noted that for someone supposedly tied up in a cabin, who then escaped through the woods, his hands looked very clean and well-groomed. I wondered if Blair was in the diner, too, listening and watching. I inhaled deeply, but scented only human and food smells, plus faint puma odors from the man across from me.
“I have a Google alert on your name. In the spring, it pinged for the first time. Your name was mentioned in relation to a serial killer attack in the news.”
I sat back. Hmm. That was plausible.
“I generated a business reason for my alpha to send me here, and I came. I found out immediately that this pack is a mess and that Blair’s been trying to cause trouble for August and for you. I met with her only to get information so I could help you. She told me she had a plan to get rid of August and I went along because, Sienna, he’s bad news. But I never wanted you to be hurt.”
I rolled my eyes. He couldn’t have been that naive. Maybe he wanted to be a white knight and rescue me himself. I bet he’d been astonished when Blair knocked him out too.
Logan continued, “That’s it. Whatever politics and battles are happening in August’s pack have nothing to do with me. I’m just here for you.”
“To bring me back to California and help you challenge your alpha.”
Logan shifted in his chair.
“I won’t go.”
“Sienna, I love you. I’ve loved you forever. What happened in the desert and how I reacted to it, we still shouldn’t have fallen apart like that. Let me fix it. If you come back with me, I’ll make you a queen.” Logan bit his lip, his eyes earnest and beseeching.
“No, you want me to make you a king.”
Waving his hands, Logan said, “It’s the same thing! We’ll help each other, love each other, and we’ll be together forever.”
I waited for the pang, for the heartache, for a sign that part of me longed to hear those words. But I felt nothing.
I shook my head at him sadly. “It’s too late for us, Logan.”
His face hardening, Logan clenched his teeth and hissed, “I’ll tell everyone what you are. How you’re a murderous, savage monster.”
There it is.
I leaned forward and felt my eyes begin to glow as my Beast rose to the surface. “I’ll kill you. You know I will.”
Logan flinched and his tone switched again, turning wheedling and sweet, “Sienna, don’t you remember how good it was?”
I nodded. It had been good. Logan stretched his hands for mine again, palms open.
“I know it hasn’t been like that for me since then. Have you met anyone that could make you feel the way I did?”
I stared at his hands.
“Well, this is cozy,” a deep voice announced near my shoulder. I shivered at the growly tone and shut my eyes briefly. I wasn’t ready to see August; my hurt at the way he turned from my Beast was still raw.
“I see he’s not dead. Or hurt. That must be such a relief to you, Sienna.”
I looked up at August and noted his white-knuckled fists and the tight muscle ticking in his jaw. His jeans hugged his muscled thighs and his wild, raw scent tantalized my Beast. She wanted to lick his stubbled cheek.
Across from me Logan shrank a little, his shoulders tense.
“I want to know the answer to his question too. Have you met anyone that makes you feel good, Sienna?”
I blinked at the question, confused. August flushed and stuck his hands in his pockets.
“Logan was just leaving,” I said, ignoring the question. “He’s got to get back to California. He’ll be out of your territory by tonight.”
Logan’s face crumpled. “Sienna, if I go back without you, I—”
“I don’t care. You shouldn’t have come. Don’t call me again.”
Logan stood abruptly and his chair skittered back. He spoke over my head to August, “She’s a monster. Don’t trust her. She’ll turn on you. She changes her shape into—”
“You asshole,” I breathed. “You utter and complete asshole. Did you just out me to an alpha? Out of some kind of vindictive impulse?”
Logan paled, stricken. “Sienna, I—”
I shoved my own chair back as I stood. “Joke’s on you. He already knows. How do you think we got out of Blair’s trap?”
Logan stepped back as I jabbed my finger at him. “We’re done. You stay away from me. You know what I’ll do to you.”
Logan swallowed audibly and gazed at my feet with hunching shoulders.
I turne
d to August, “If you share what you saw yesterday with anyone else, you’re dead too. If you don’t believe me, ask Logan what happened in the desert.”
I stormed away, my heart pounding. I immediately regretted my words to August but I couldn’t take them back. I had no choice anyway. Either my secrets would be kept, or I would have to kill them all.
Outside of the diner, August caught up to my long strides.
He grabbed my arm and spun me to face him. I was not in the mood. “Stop grabbing me,” I snarled at him.
“Then listen when I call your name,” he snarled back, leaning close enough that I could see his amber eyes storming with tiger rage.
“We have to talk about what happened. We have to talk about what you are.”
I stepped back. “So you can use me too? You’re just as bad as Logan. At least he spent four years romancing me first. You, you only want help taking control of your pack. You couldn’t even look at me yesterday, you were so disgusted.”
August shook his head hard and I ignored it. My heart raced too fast—my skin felt tight and my stomach rolled. I knew he couldn’t possibly want me for any other reason.
“So back off. Keep your mouth shut. I have nothing else to say to you.”
Wrenching my car door open, I dropped into the seat and slammed the key into the ignition. My hands trembling, I spun out of the lot, ignoring the alpha watching me with crossed arms.
As I drove back to the park, I tried to calm my storming emotions. I felt full to the brim—rage at Logan for actually betraying me and heartache that my suspicions about him had finally been confirmed. He’d set me up from the beginning.
And I felt despair at seeing August again—to meet his eyes and see anger and indecision. I wanted him so badly and now that he knew my secret, I couldn’t trust his motives in pursuing me. He thought I was monstrous. He would try and use me like Logan if I gave him a chance. So I wouldn’t give him a chance.
Chapter 14
In Yellowstone again, threatening clouds boiled in the sky to the east. A storm approached. The sky grew darker as I wound through the empty roads and I decided the ominous backdrop suited my mood perfectly for a run. I pulled off at a vacant trailhead parking lot, stripped, and left my clothes and phone in my car.