Taming Alaska (So Not Prince Charming Book 1)

by Diana Downey

  I’ve barely laid my head down next to Cyn’s when rustling in the nearby brush makes me reach for my gun. I unzip the tent to peek outside. Two greys and one sable colored wolf stalk around McKenna’s tent. Damn him. All that blood attracted them.

  Before I get off a shot, one of the larger wolves pounces on his tent, ripping through the nylon mesh. I scrabble out of my tent without disturbing Cyn.

  All three wolves jump onto McKenna. He cries out, fumbling for his knife, while one grips his arm bound in fur. He wears the damn skins to bed, but for the moment, they’re protecting him from being torn to shreds.

  My hand shoots out to grab a wolf by the scruff of its neck that gnaws on my friend’s leg. I pull it off and shoot it in the head before it lashes out at me. The sable wolf drops its hold on McKenna wrestling with the beast. It darts behind me and bounds into my tent. As it is about to latch onto Cyn’s foot, I tackle the female wolf to the ground, wrapping an arm around its throat.

  Spittle flings from the wolf’s mouth as I lock my arm against its windpipe. The powerful animal writhes in my arms.

  McKenna gets off a wild shot, thankfully hitting a nearby fir tree. The other wolf’s ears prick, spinning around toward me. It tucks its tail between its legs, catapulting over the tent and into the woods.

  Cyn’s struggles upright, her eyes blinking while she rubs the sleep away from them. I barely hold onto the wolf fighting me, its bared teeth sinking into my flesh. In her tired, half-awake state, her upper body totters forward into the wolf’s reach. Its fangs lash out for her unprotected face.

  Chapter Nineteen

  Cyn

  In a daze or maybe a dream, a wolf snaps at my face. My head wobbles while I blink away the fog in my head. I fall backward and watch Shane strangle this animal. His muscular arms bulge from restraining the wolf, his bare chest taut and his neck veins protruding. God he’s strong and stunningly magnificent. Wow, he looks so scrumptious. I must be hallucinating.

  I lie on the sleeping bag where I sleep next to this good man every night, this very sexy man. But he’s not sleeping. He’s strangling a wolf. Oh my God. My hand flies up to my mouth.

  His jaw clenches while his arm squeezes the life out of the wolf. It chokes and struggles against his grip but then stills, its eyes bugging out and its tongue lolling from its mouth.

  McKenna slaps Shane on the back. “You didn’t get a mark on that nice hide. You’ll need stitches and rabies shots for those bites though.”

  How can he worry about the hide when that wolf could’ve killed us?

  Shane drags the wolf out of our tent, and I still can’t believe this is real. When he returns, he plops down beside me and folds me into his arm.

  “You’re safe, Cyn.”

  “I was so stupid,” I mumble, gazing up at him, my eyes at half-mast. “I should’ve gone out with you years ago.” Did I just say that aloud?

  “Yes, you were foolish, Princess.” He kisses me so softly its like butterfly wings brushing against my lips.

  The heavy weight of my lids drags across my eyes, and I start to doze off again.

  “God, I think I’m actually falling for you,” he whispers.

  “You are?” I say sleepily, unsure if I heard him right.

  His nose nuzzles my hair. “You’re supposed to be asleep.”

  “Then I’d miss all the good stuff.”

  Shane pulls me closer. I never thought I’d fall for a man like him. He’s not at all what I expected.

  * * *

  McKenna trails behind me, his sour body odor drifting up toward me. Fur drapes over his bulk, so I know he’s warm because nothing’s warmer, not that I’d wear one, unless I was freezing. Several paces ahead of us, Shane scrambles over stones and brush, the terrain growing rockier and more treacherous. My body feels a little more rested today, but my calves and thighs burn.

  “Did you bewitch that boy?” McKenna asks while chewing on hardtack, some of which collects in his unkempt beard.

  I laugh. We’re having sex, though Shane says it’s not. “Not hardly. He could barely stand me before this adventure.”

  “He wrestled and killed a wolf for you, and he’ll have to confront his brother—all for you. He hardly hates you.”

  Was Shane being honest with me last night when he thought I was asleep? Or are we just comforting each other in the wake of the storm? “I…it doesn’t matter because we’ll probably be dead in another hour.”

  “Red may be former Special Forces, but Shane is very conniving. He knows his way around the interior and he’ll figure a way out.”

  “Conniving, huh? By putting us in the line of fire?” We should just go over the pass and avoid his brother altogether.

  “Loki’s bum leg will hold them back. He’s getting older and Julian cannot keep up with either of them.” McKenna scrambles over a ridge while helping me maneuver around a craggy ledge. “Red and Shane’s younger sister Julie were the wild ones, always scaring up trouble, but Shane was the sensible one, quiet, always using his head.”

  “Now, he talks too much,” I say, nudging Shane from behind.

  Shane tugs me up the rocks by the scruff of my jacket. “Just enough to keep you in line, Princess.” The warmth of his smile whittles away at my heart. I don’t normally like beards, but my eyes drink in his ruggedness.

  I more than like Shane, and when’s the next time, we’ll have sex? A goofy grin splits my face. I have never been this happy in bed or this aroused.

  Shane leans into my ear as he helps me over the boulders. “You were too tired last night.”

  “Can you read minds?”

  His beard grazes my cheek, sending flashes of heat into my skin. “You’ve got that damn sexy grin.”

  “Don’t you have any embarrassing stories about Shane?” I ask, squeezing up to Shane as he pulls me over the ridge.

  He presses his nose into my hair and inhales deeply while my stomach does a little flip. We stare at each other for several heated moments, and McKenna laughs.

  Shane draws me close, and I stumble in his embrace. “McKenna doesn’t have anything on me.”

  “Yes, I do,” he starts. “Red taught Shane to pee outside while they were hiking, so everywhere Shane went, he’d pee outside instead of using the toilet. His mom had a fit. He did this until he was eight. Good thing there were no cops in Tonakwa. He took a piss on one of the trapper’s sleds once and had a hearty laugh over it.”

  Shane blushes, and I laugh out loud. “I stopped that when I was three,” he says.

  As McKenna heaves himself over the boulders, he breathes heavily. “No, eight. Some of the little girls you went to school with saw your little man.”

  Shane tugs on the waist of his pants. “It’s not that little.”

  “I can testify to that,” I mumble, and both of them laugh.

  A yawn forces my mouth open, while exhaustion creeps up on me. We don’t have much further to go before we head northeast to the town.

  “And what about all those girlie magazines under your bed?” McKenna ribs me.

  “So I like women, unlike some men.” Shane gives me a dirty look.

  I grimace and McKenna continues, “He’d spend hours in the bathroom and his room. Red knew what he was doing, so he told Lindsey when she stopped by to go right in. Never heard so much cussing and screaming. I think that’s why she chased Shane. She must’ve seen the famous wiggler.” He lets out a raucous laugh.

  McKenna’s beady eyes twinkle. “But the sweetest O’Flannery was Skyler. He was a good kid—smart like Shane.”

  Shane’s shoulders tense.

  I can’t help but notice the word “was” being used. “What happened to him?”

  “The bear Shane is hunting got him.”

  Shane is unusually quiet. He turns around to help me up, and on the ridge, I can see the teal Yukon flowing below us. Tall fir trees border both sides but then the river disappears behind a river of rock.

  When we reach the river, Shane makes us stand beh
ind the trees while he surveys the opposite side with binoculars. A light wind whistles through the trees as if they’re moaning, jolting me with shockwaves.

  McKenna kneels to the ground. “Wolf tracks.”

  “The wolves have been following us,” Shane says. “I’ve never seen them so bold.”

  “They’ve been tracking me for days. Want my furs I suspect.”

  More like his hide, I think.

  “We should move now while we can,” Shane says. He walks to the ridge of rocks flanking the river. The water flows through the gorge flanked by walls of rock.

  I stare at the stone towers topped with fir trees rising out of the river. “How do you know they’re not here?”

  Shane examines the rock face in front of us. “We don’t, but I don’t see any indications of them so far. We’ll have to take our chances, and I’ll go first.”

  McKenna helps me to my feet. “Come on, Little Lady.”

  I think I hate Little Lady more than Princess. With what little strength I have, I stagger to the ridge. The climb itself will kill me, even though it’s not completely straight up, but large, sharp rocks will need to be scaled to reach the top and over.

  Shane puts some sort of harness between my legs that cradles my butt. When he cinches it, he grins at me, and thermal heat rushes into my chest. “I have you.”

  His hands grip my shoulders, and all I want to do is to collapse into his arms and sleep. “Climb up slowly, but I’ll hold onto the rope to guide you. If you climb up this, I’ll give you so many orgasms, you’ll have to take drugs to come down from them,” he says only to me.

  That wakes me up. I can do this.

  Shaking the fog from my brain, I watch Shane scale the ridge while keeping one eye on the opposite shore. It takes him no time, and then he hauls up all our packs.

  “You’re next,” he says to me, holding onto the rope.

  Letting out a long breath, I climb slowly up, my arms and legs shaking from the effort. McKenna clambers up the rock face with ease, which from his bulk, surprises me.

  I slip on the rock, smacking my chin. The metallic taste of blood tingles on my tongue. With more slow breaths, my fingers curl around the rock and I pull myself upward. “I’m so going to kill my personal trainer when I get back.”

  About halfway up the thirty-foot wall, McKenna heaves in shallow breaths and sweat rolls off his forehead into his beard, so I catch up to him. I don’t really like that he traps animals, letting them suffer in those steel jaws. He should at least outright kill them.

  Making slow progress, I cling to the rock, my fingers gripping the cracks while the toes of my boots search for leverage.

  The report of gunfire rings in my ears and echoes in the gorge, so I flatten against the rock.

  Blood sprays in my face. It’s not mine. It can’t be mine. McKenna’s eyes grow wide with shock, his body goes limp, and he tumbles downward, catching on bushes spawning from the rock. His limp body sprawls on the ground. He’s dead, and I’m alive. Move. Now. I pull myself up, adrenaline shooting in my veins.

  “I have to cut you loose,” Shane says, then I free fall to earth.

  My arms windmill, catching only air. Another shot explodes and hits the rock where I just was. Every muscle tightens with fear, coiling my stomach into hard knots.

  My legs jar when the impact of earth bursts into my boots. My ankle twists and my body goes down hard. Despite the pain in my ankle, I scramble to the trees, my heart banging in my chest. Another shot blows into a nearby tree, sending bark and pine needles scattering.

  Like ghosts, the wolf pack pads through the forest, emerge from it, and lope to where McKenna’s body lies still. They tear into his flesh, ripping him apart. I gasp and dig for my bear spray, my hands trembling. I yank it out while listening to the savage, guttural gnawing and growling, my stomach roiling to upheave.

  The pepper spray falls from my tenuous grasp. My fingers fumble for the nozzle to release the safety latch. Before I can unlock it, the black wolf stops, swivels around, and stalks toward me. It licks its jowls, pacing back and forth in front of me.

  As I ready the spray, I shake so hard my bones rattle and I drop the can. The wolf glances back at what’s left of his pack. I fumble for the spray, and if the wolf lunges at me, it better work. The wolf gives me one last look then trots back to McKenna.

  From the way they tear him apart, I believe the pack knows he traps them. I never wished him dead, and my heart scrapes open for him. The wolves’ ferocity while ripping him apart terrifies me. That could’ve been me.

  Shane throws our stuff to the ground on the other side of the trees where I am. On the opposite bank, two rifles jut out from the rocks. Julian’s blond head pokes up between the boulders.

  When a gun goes off above me, I scramble backward, my ankle screaming in pain. Shane is pointing his powerful rifle at Julian just before he falls from his perch, slamming against the rocks and into the river. His head bobs in the water, twisting and turning.

  Screaming and crashing through the trees echo through the gorge as Loki scrambles down to the river. Shane pops off another shot, and Loki cries out before ducking back into the cover of the trees.

  Oh mi madre. I hide behind the tree, the blood throbbing in my temple.

  “I’m going to kill you, Shane,” Loki yells.

  “Like you weren’t planning on that already?”

  Shane fires another round, and Loki’s curse travels across the water.

  “I don’t plan on giving you the chance to kill me, Loki. How’s your arm doing? That must hurt like hell.”

  “You mother fucker, Shane. I’m coming for you.”

  “I’ll be waiting.” His voice is dead calm.

  “Shane, if you give us the girl, we’ll leave you be,” Red says. “We’ll have plenty of time to get away. Come on, she’s just a piece of tail, and I know you’ve got plenty of it chasing you with all that money.”

  I feel my ankle to see if it’s broken. It feels sprained.

  I can’t stay here. I have to move farther into the cover of the trees. Electricity fires in every nerve, driving me to my feet. Seeing McKenna’s corpse on the ground and Julian floating downstream give me renewed energy.

  “Well, she’s mine right now.” Shane shimmies down the other side of the rocks, exposed and vulnerable. A few bullets ping off the rocks, but he manages to get down safely.

  “You okay?” he asks, pulling me into him.

  “A sprained ankle.”

  His face pinches with concern. “Can you walk on it?”

  I nod, shouldering my pack. Leaning on Shane, I hobble through the trees, and when we come to a clearing, mountains rise up to the north of us. My body is shaking, and the tears fall freely.

  “They’re going to kill us,” I cry, my sanity slipping away.

  Shane sits and pulls me onto his lap. “Shhh. It’s okay. We’re going to be fine.”

  “We’re not.” If Red and Loki don’t kill us, the animals will. They’ll take us in our sleep. They almost did last night.

  Shane strokes my hair, pressing his nose into it. “We have to keep going.”

  “I can’t,” I repeat over and over, the sobs overwhelming me. “Red tried to kill me.”

  “Actually no. My brother doesn’t miss at that close range.” He lifts my chin up to kiss away my tears.

  My lips tighten, keeping me from racking sobs. “I don’t think I can make it any further. The wolves tore your friend apart. It was horrible.”

  “Under the circumstances, you’re doing great. If we get over that mountain, I promise to let you sleep.”

  A smile almost breaks out, though my body is crying in pain.

  He undoes my boot to study my ankle. “It’s a sprain.” He tugs out tape and wraps it around my ankle.

  “Thank you,” I whimper while I watch dark puffy clouds scud over the white peaks, most of them hidden.

  “We’re going to climb over that,” Shane says, licking his parched lips. “It
’ll save us almost 20 miles. The pass is around twelve to thirteen thousand feet, and we need to get over it before the storm breaks.”

  Snow covers the peaks, and dark clouds now shadow and cover the tallest ones. “It doesn’t look that bad.” I can do this. Maybe. “Why didn’t we take it before?”

  “It’s cold and windy at the summit, and I only have enough winter gear for one of us. The other problem is that ridgeline is famous for avalanches, and there’s already a lot of snow on it. When that storm breaks, we’re screwed.”

  Shane digs through his pack to pull out gloves and a hat. “Put on your long underwear and wool.”

  I strip down to my panties and socks and tug on the silk long underwear Shane told me to buy. He stares admiringly at my nearly bare butt.

  He lets out a breath, his hand gliding over it. “If we get out of this alive, I will fuck you hard.”

  I shrug on the wool sweater over my flannel shirt before pulling on my down jacket and shell. “If I wasn’t so terrified, I’d look forward to that.”

  “Being frightened will help keep you alive.” He grins. “I can’t wait to put you to bed.”

  I wish I had his confidence because mine has been stripped away.

  Shane lets me keep his waterproof pants while he tugs on a pair of jeans and his Carhartt pants over his long underwear. We both don gloves and hats.

  He detaches the snowshoes bungeed to my pack that I insisted we bring from his campsite. “Put these on.”

  “What about you?”

  “I’ll manage.”

  “You weigh more than me.”

  “Put them on.” His voice is stern, like he’s dealing with an insolent child.

  In my fatigued state, I almost snap at him, but there’s no point arguing with him. I don’t know what I’m doing, and he does.

  Near the base, the snow is light, but as we ascend, it deepens, and Shane sinks sometimes up to his thighs. The dark clouds rumble over the mountain. I’ve never seen snow and thunder, and this sends an unwanted thrill into my chest.

  After three hours, we near the summit of the pass. My breathing becomes labored, and the exhaustion catches up to me. I’ve been hiking at this altitude in the summer, but I’ve never had to climb up it. I stop and drink water and so does Shane.