She glanced over at Dane. She couldn’t help noticing the way his pants pulled around him like groping hands. She envied the cloth.
No. She couldn’t think like this. She couldn’t let her nymph desires come to the surface. There was too much about this man that she liked, that she wanted to know and experience. Aura couldn’t take their relationship any further than they already had. Her heart and his life would be in danger, even more than they already were.
“If we get started making a fire we could probably make it through the night,” Aura said. Unless more wolves attacked them.
Aura followed Dane as he moved around the horses and stepped to Ryan’s side.
Ryan’s eyes were puffy, and the skin on the left side of his face had bad road rash. Clumps of dirt hung to his bloodied cheek, where Aura had attempted to clean, but had given up. Dane pressed his fingers against Ryan’s carotid artery, checking for a pulse.
“He’s alive, I already checked.” She pulled her cell phone from her pocket and held it up, looking for a signal. “I tried earlier to call 911 for help, but I’m still not getting a signal.”
“There must be service somewhere because we’re close to where your sister last had cell service. Maybe we could keep moving up higher and try to catch a signal. Then we can call in a team to get us medevac’d out.”
Aura couldn’t shake the feeling of angst that crawled on her skin like a centipede, its feet tickling her nerves with warning. With Ryan unconscious, Dane hurt, and her arm injured, if they were attacked none of them could fight. They would be walking targets. She couldn’t protect them. Hell, she couldn’t even protect Natalie — a demi-god horse-shifter. She was useless. Tears threatened to spill over. She couldn’t cry. Tears would serve no purpose, they would solve nothing. She blinked them away — she wasn’t weak.
“Are you okay?” Dane stood up from Ryan’s side and wiped off his knees. “Let me see.” He stuck out his hand and motioned for her arm. His face was soft and caring; his gold-flecked brown eyes sparkled with unmistakable attraction. He opened his palm and motioned again.
What was happening? Who was this man standing before her? Why was he giving her that look? He couldn’t have known that she’d saved him from the thundering horse’s hooves. So why all of a sudden did he look at her like she was his? Warmth crept up her thighs, melting away her residual sense of foreboding. Maybe spending the night with Dane in the woods wouldn’t be as bad as she had thought.
She extended her arm and sat it in his cupped hand, submitting to him. The heat of his skin was a shock to her chilled arm. His fingers barely touched her flesh as he pulled back the torn edges of her coat and inspected where the wolf’s teeth had torn at her arm. The edges had already begun to heal and the fresh skin gleamed pink.
“Have you been bitten before?” Dane looked up at her in disbelief.
Aura pulled her arm back and tugged the shreds of her coat down over her arm. He couldn’t know about her. He couldn’t know who she really was; no mortal man could possibly comprehend what it meant that she was a nymph. And love was out of the question. She couldn’t put anyone else in danger.
She stepped back from his overly warm touch. “I had a scar there from horse training.”
He stared at her, but said nothing.
“Let’s go. The top of the mountain isn’t much further,” she said, pointing to the trees around her with their stunted trunks that twisted from the constant bombardment of high-altitude winds.
He nodded. “Let’s load Ryan and get going. We need to get him some help.”
• • •
The rocks clattered down the trail, falling haphazardly as the horses moved up the mountain. Dane shouldn’t have been hiking, but he refused to get back up on the horse. He cussed as one of the icy rocks slipped under his feet.
The trail switch-backed as it moved upward. To her right was a large tree, its surface marred by hundreds of scratches. Clumps of black hair stuck out from what little bark remained. They’d found the bear tree. She pulled the phone from her pocket and looked down at the screen. Two perfect little white bars glowed up at her. Service.
Her hands shook as she pulled the phone for Dane to see. “We need to get you guys taken care of.”
“I’m fine, really. Just a little blood.”
He needed to be seen by a doctor — she couldn’t be responsible for Natalie’s disappearance and then the two men’s injuries. It was as if all she brought to anyone in her life was pain, misery, and death.
Dane ran his fingers through the back of his hair as if he was trying to cover the cut, but she’d already seen the damage she’d inflicted on him. If she hadn’t brought him up here, if she hadn’t let Natalie leave Arizona without her, then none of the people around her would have been in danger or hurt.
There was a tug in her chest as she glanced over to Dane. There was something about him, it could have been her nymph ways, but there was something that she simply could not resist. She desperately yearned to step to him and wrap her arms around him and never let him go. He was hers to protect.
The wind kicked up and its icy breath blew down her neck, drawing goose bumps to her skin. If she was going to protect him, the best thing she could do was to keep her heart as far away from him as possible. Danger came hand-in-hand with emotions.
She scanned the ground around them looking for some sign as she tried to ignore her ever growing feelings for Dane. Natalie was her first priority. They needed to find something, anything that could bring her sister back to her, so they could get out of this place and away from the dangers, both physical and emotional, which seemed to be around every bend.
The thick layer of ice upon the snow glistened in the cold late evening sun. A few bushes and the stunted trees were the only things that stuck out from the field of ice at the top of the mountain.
Fear filled Aura’s heart. The ground had been stripped clean of any traces of her sister. Natalie was gone.
Chapter Eleven
The sun slipped over the horizon, casting long shadows over the ravines and valleys that rested around the mountain. The blades of the helicopter chopped through the air as the EMTs loaded Ryan onto a stretcher and into the bird.
One of the male life-flight nurses turned to Dane. “You sure you don’t want a ride out? We can send someone for the horses.”
Dane shook his head. Aura had been adamant about staying with the horses and getting them down the mountain and back to some level of safety.
“Hell of a day you picked to come up on the mountain. Didn’t you hear there’s another storm coming in?” The man looked at him like he’d lost his mind.
Hell, maybe he had lost his mind. He’d spent his day on the frigid peak of a mountain, looking for a woman that was more than likely dead. The shit he did in the name of a good looking woman … What was wrong with him?
Aura was sitting on a stump away from the chopper’s wash; she slumped down and kept glancing over, almost as if she was afraid of the helicopter. A woman was looking at her arm. The EMT shrugged as if she too was just as confused with the state of the new wound. Aura smiled and pulled her arm back and shoved her tattered coat’s sleeve down. His officer senses kicked into high gear. Something about her was just wrong.
“Did you hear me?” the EMT yelled.
He shook his head and looked back to the man standing at his side. “What?”
“You and your friend need to get off the mountain as soon as possible. They’re giving a winter storm warning. I bet this place will get three feet of fresh snow by morning.”
Any goddamned evidence that hid under the snow would be hidden until the spring now. Their odds of finding a trace of Natalie up here was as likely as his brother deciding to not be an asshole — which wasn’t ever going to happen.
“We’ll get down the mountain as soon as we ca
n.”
The pilot pointed toward the horizon where the sun had disappeared, but a thin line of light still permeated the evening. “You sure you can get out in the dark? I don’t want to be back up tomorrow on a recovery mission where we try to find your bodies.”
The man was right, it would be precarious heading back down the steep mountain trail in the dark, but he had a flashlight and blankets if they were forced to stop. He was a Montanan and a former Boy Scout — he didn’t go anywhere unprepared.
“We’ll be careful packing out. If we aren’t out by mid-day tomorrow send in the cavalry.”
The man smiled. “Will do.” He motioned for the other nurse.
Dane walked over to Aura and put his hand on her shoulder. “You okay? You sure you don’t want to ride out with them? I can get the horses out on my own, you know.”
She glanced over at the helicopter. “There’s no way I’m getting on that damned thing. At least not while I’m alive.”
If they didn’t get out before the storm broke it was possible that she would be getting the ride she didn’t want. They needed to get moving.
He watched as the EMTs boarded the bird. The pilot gave them a thumbs-up as the bird lifted straight up off the ground, hovered, and then moved toward the North, and the nearest hospital. Aura had been right in her assumption that Ryan’s leg had been broken. From what the EMT had said, it sounded like he would need more than his fair share of pins and needles. The poor kid.
The pebbles of snow pelted his face as the copter’s wash cleared away the snow on the peak. The helicopter skimmed over the next mountaintop it’s lights flashed over the windswept peak. Something reflected the light, catching his attention.
Had they found something?
He moved as fast as his sore body would allow. The EMT had given him a few butterfly strips for his cut, but they hadn’t done a thing for the pain that radiated up from his hips and back. The fall had been harder than he’d thought, but at least he wasn’t as bad off as Ryan.
“What’s that?” Aura said in an excited voice. Her footsteps crunched on the icy snow behind him as the thump of the helicopter’s blades drew quieter and it disappeared from view.
On the ground, just beneath where the helicopter had landed sat a buck knife. It was folded in half, blade closed safely inside the handle. Dane stared at the handle, where he could just make out some writing.
Aura pushed past him and picked up the knife and spun it in her fingers.
“Aura, that’s evidence. Fingerprints?”
She gave him a look that was sharper than the knife in her hands. “Have you looked around? There isn’t a crime lab for miles. We’re on our own. No one is going to magically come down and give us the person who has my sister.”
In a manner of speaking she was right. It wasn’t likely that there would be any trace evidence or fingerprints on the knife; at least none that hadn’t already been washed away by the snow.
“Look!” Where the blade folded was a small piece of torn purple fabric. Aura pulled the fabric out of the crack in the knife and, as she opened the cloth, there was a single strand of long brown hair attached to the fabric. “Someone tried to hurt Natalie.”
She lifted the hair for him to see.
“How can you be sure that this belonged to her?”
Aura lifted the cloth to her nose and took in a long breath. Her eyes darkened as she took in the cloth’s scents. “This carries her smell. Whoever this knife belonged to, that’s who brought Natalie to this place.”
Her gaze slipped back down to the knife in her hand. “At least there is no blood.” She flipped the blade over. “But wait, there are someone’s initials.”
He stared down at brass-plated handle of the knife where it read ‘M. J. P.’
“You know anyone with those initials?”
“I don’t.” He thought for a second, but no one came to mind. “Do you think it’s possible that Natalie was involved with someone else besides Shawn and Ryan? Maybe with a man with the initials M. J. P.?”
She pulled her arms tightly around her body, as if his question had struck some kind of nerve. “Look, my sister didn’t tell me much. I guess it could have happened. But no one I know has those initials.”
It was possible that they were going after a person they’d never met, never heard of, and would probably never catch — not unless the suspect made a grievous mistake. There had to be something he was missing.
“We’ll figure this out.” He took her chilled hand in his. “We’ll find your sister. I made a promise. I intend to keep it.”
If we’re really lucky maybe we can even find her alive.
She stared down at their entwined fingers. Unconsciously, he leaned in, breathing in the scent of flowers, fresh air, and horses from her hair. Then one-by-one she released her fingers and drew back from him. “We just need to find who ever has those initials. Then we’ll find her.”
She had complained that he was tough all the time, but now here she was acting like a judge in a packed courtroom. This had to be affecting her.
Aura reached up toward him, but before her fingers touched him, her hand dropped to her side.
“Let’s get out of here. It’s getting dark.” She spun on her heel and almost sprinted away from him.
He followed behind her and tried not to watch her ass as she walked away. Everything about her was so goddamned perfect, even her ass was perky. Why couldn’t there be something about her that was less than? But no, even her boots looked good. Her butt wiggled a little too much as she moved toward the horses. Was she doing it on purpose? Was she trying to drive him mad?
The horses nickered a soft welcome as he untied them and stepped up into the saddle, holding onto Ryan’s horse’s lead rope. He took the front, slowly making the way down the trail, but kept looking back over his shoulder to make sure Aura was doing okay. Each time, she was looking anywhere but at him. He couldn’t build up the nerve to talk, he just wanted to get out of the woods and away from the uncomfortably beautiful woman he was with. There was no way she would want to be with a man like him. She was only after one thing — Natalie. She didn’t want him.
They didn’t make a sound as they passed through the little stretch of trail covered in blood. There were no new fresh tracks in the snow. Hopefully that meant that there would be no more wolves.
He kept checking over his shoulder, wondering if he should say something, but there was nothing he could think of to make up for the fact that he had let her fight alone. He had let her down. She probably resented him for it. Was that why she’d pulled away from his touch?
Should he apologize? Or was he just acting stupid? It hadn’t been his fault he’d gotten thrown. It could have happened to anyone, and he’d never been much of a horse guy — not even growing up on the ranch. He’d always been more of a four-wheeler guy. He hadn’t meant for her to be endangered.
About half way down the mountain the snow began to fall. Big, heavy wet flakes coated the horses and blanketed the trail, making it hard to see. “Whoa,” he said, pulling back the reins. He turned around. “I think it’s best if we get down and hike the rest of the way.”
He hated to think what would happen if one of the horses stepped on an icy patch. Dane wasn’t willing to put Aura at risk more than he already had.
The horse pulled at the lead rope as he moved back to help her down out of the saddle. He moved to grab her hand, but she waved him off. “I got it.”
She stepped down and ran her hands down the gelding’s neck. “Shhh … It’s alright, Dancer.” The horse leaned into her touch, almost as he had done on the top of the mountain. Did she have the same effect on everyone?
“What are you doing? The horse is fine.”
She jerked and glared at him. “He’s afraid. He’s not used to this type of work. This is h
is first time taking a rider on a trail.”
“How do you know that?”
Her face softened and she looked away, but not before he noticed the guilty look on her face — a look he had plenty of experience identifying.
Aura pressed her forehead against the horse’s neck. “Ryan told me. This is the horse Pat was trying to train when I had a falling out with your brother.”
“Falling outs are easy to come by with Zeb,” he said, half under his breath. “How long have you been working with horses?” He recovered, trying to bring it back to her. He needed to find out what she was hiding.
She moved away from Dancer and started down the trail. He followed behind. “I don’t know. A while.”
“How’d you get into working with horses?”
“I don’t know,” she said with an exasperated sigh, as if he was pushing too hard in trying to find out who she really was.
The horse’s hooves creaked in the wet snow. “I won’t stop asking questions. So it’s in your best interest to start really answering them.” He could play bad cop if that’s what she needed. “I know you’re hiding something. I won’t stop until I find out what you’re keeping from me.”
Aura’s shoulder pulled tight and her head shrank down, like she was covering her neck from attack.
“Stop.”
His mare huffed next to him and Aura stopped and turned around. “What? What don’t you already know about me? I like horses. I’ve worked with them for a long time. Forever. When I’m not training, Nat and I try to stop the BLM roundups of the wild horses. But we’re not making much of a difference. I’m a goddamned failure in keeping them and my sister safe. But I’m not the one you need to be worrying about. You need to be focused on Natalie. I’m not a goddamned suspect … no matter how badly you want me to be.”
“Is that what you think? That I want you to be someone I can arrest?” He stepped toward her and put his hands on her tense shoulders. “That is the last thing I want. I just want to know more … To learn who you really are.”
The Nymph's Curse: The Collection Page 29