by M. L. Briers
“Neanderthal.”
“I’m hurt.” He leaned in and whispered sarcastically beside her ear as she passed him by. The near touch of his lips against her, and the way his breath caressed her skin caused her to trip over her own feet.
Chase’s hand shot out to steady her, but she had already righted her footwork and carried on. Her chin a little higher, her back a little straighter and a huff came from her pouty lips, leaving him to shake his head in amusement.
This went against his better judgement, having her on pack land, but it might just be worth any hassle that entailed, just for the sheer pleasure of getting under her skin.
The journey up the mountain was long and arduous. Sharp turns in the road meant he couldn’t just put his foot down and be done with the journey. He shot another look across the cab at his passenger. Her eyes were still fixed outside the window, the same place that they had been since the start of their trek, and she seemed to be revelling in the view of Mother Nature all around her.
He supposed that with her being Fae she also had an affinity with the land. Positioned as she was, in the little cottage just on the outskirts of town, she could sample the best of both worlds. Nature and humanity were both on her doorstep. It just depended on which road she decided to take.
He wanted this collaboration to be over in much the same way that she appeared to. Although Chase was also mindful that the snows would be upon them soon, and the journey back down the mountain could only be done on foot or paw. His eyes sized her up from across the cab. She didn’t look like she would be able to make the long journey across the wilderness that would be needed for her to get home on a good day. So he knew that he needed to make sure she stayed no longer than one night, just in case the snows started.
He had balked at the idea of bringing a Fae into the midst of their pack. When Nathaniel had suggested it, or it would be more accurate to say that he had insisted on it, Chase had been dead set against the idea.
Now with the ominous look of the sky, and the promise of the snow that it held, he found himself wondering if maybe he should have told the old man to get off his backside and go down the mountain to see her himself. Even though in reality, he would never have disrespected an elder in that manner.
The old man had been a good talisman for their pack. His visions had always reaped rewards, even if the methods he sometimes used were questionable.
Chase shot another look her way. He didn’t think she had moved a muscle since the last time he had eyeballed her. Who knew a human could be still for that amount of time? But then she was Fae, maybe they were different somehow to the human’s he knew.
He concentrated on the road ahead and found that his eyes blinked unnecessarily when something small and white touched the windshield. Narrowing his eyes, he tried to still the race of his heart beat within him, preying to the spirits, that he had not just seen- damn it another!
Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Cassidy shift in her seat. She chose now to move. Now when he was concentrating on- damn it. There were more, and it was going to get worse, he could almost feel it in his bones. His wolf was already restless with him at having to spend time in the company of a Fae, and now this. This did not bode well.
“Was that?” Her voice was small, and for a long moment he wasn’t sure if she had actually uttered the words, or if it was his mind playing tricks on him.
Then it started in earnest. What had started as a slow fall, that he had been hoping was a trick of his imagination, turned fierce enough that he needed to turn the wipers on full pelt just to keep the windscreen reasonably clear.
“Go back.” She urged him almost as immediately as the snow came down. But Chase knew it would be better to drive on than try to take her back down the mountain. They had come too far for that.
“Can’t. We wouldn’t make it back down. We keep going, not far now.” He was half caught between explaining their predicament to her, and the other half of his mind focused on what lay ahead. The annoyance flared within him when the damn windscreen kept whiting out on him.
“Oh for the love of…” She bit that thought off. Instead she turned towards him in her seat. He could see from the corner of his eye that she was becoming animated now. He could feel the waves of tension roll from her across the cab, and he knew that she was that worried that she had inadvertently dropped her shields, allowing him to feel her emotions. But he really didn’t need the added complication right now. One wrong move and she would get her wish to be back down the mountain, but not in any way that would see either of them walk away from the car wreck.
“Sit back. Shut up and make sure that your seatbelt’s tight.” He demanded on a deep growl of frustration that wasn’t aimed in her direction, more to the situation that they now found themselves in.
Cassidy answered with a huff as she turned back in her seat and squished herself down into the actual cushioning of the seat itself. The muttered words that came from her lips in answer to his less than gentlemanly commands, was a distraction that he could ignore, somewhat. He still found himself straining his ears a little to try to pick out what she was calling him this time.
“Hold on.” He growled into the cab when he saw the road flash out before him. The wheels spun helplessly beneath them, as the truck started a sideways journey towards the nearest tree trunk, and he heard the startled squeal of fear that left her lips, the sound made him want to reassure her. Shame he didn’t have the confidence in what was about to happen to be able do that.
CHAPTER TWO
Cassidy felt the fear wash through her at the exact moment that things went south and the tyres decided not to follow the damn road ahead of them. The instant she released that squeal, she knew she had mere moments to do something to prevent them hitting the tree. Thrusting her palms out towards the windscreen and the fast approaching tree, she forced out the energy from within, calling with her mind to the spirits to power her spell, she mentally drew a soft aura around the trunk.
The front end of the truck still impacted the trunk of the tree, and yet it could have been careering into a fluffy cloud for all the damaged it did to the vehicle. The truck came to rest facing the tree, and she drew a long, steadying breath as she peered out through the somewhat distorted view that the wipers gave her, every second or so between wide swipes. That could have been so much worse.
“Nicely done. Let’s go.” Chase grabbed her pack from the seat between them. His other hand reached for the door as she balked at the idea.
“I’m not bloody going out there.” She heard the audible sigh that came from his lips, his whole body stiffened beside her.
“Fine you stay. Enjoy freezing to death when the car runs out of gas.” He was acting like a jerk and boy did she know the type.
“Look, you got me into this.” She spat back with a little more acidity in her tone than she thought she actually needed right then, but she was just so not happy with this whole situation and it was all his doing.
Chase considered her words for a long moment, before he turned his attention towards her.
“Ok, this is how it goes. We can’t go back, we wouldn’t make it. We can’t drive the truck forwards, because you’d be basically cushioning us the whole way there, like pinball. We need to get out and walk the rest of the way, before the snow gets so deep that we don’t have that as an option either.”
There was a little smugness behind his words, she could just hear it, and yet she couldn’t really argue with what he was telling her, in part because she didn’t know if he was actually over exaggerating their dilemma.
“How far do we have to go?” It was a reasonable question, but still he sighed and that really annoyed her.
“A ways.”
“Oh for the love of… That’s not an answer.” She snapped back as her eyes flicked to the windscreen that had become a complete white out, since he had turned off the wipers.
“I don’t have an answer for you until I get out and see where we are exactly.” He
growled back, feeling a lot less generous with her now that she was wasting both of their valuable time.
“Look, Cassidy, I can shift and be nice and warm all the way home. But you, you’re going to slow us down, so we need to go now.” She couldn’t argue with that either, but when he started pulling her pack apart, she frowned a glare at him. That she could argue with.
“What the hell wolf man?”
He yanked a couple of thick jumpers from inside and handed them off to her. “Put these on under your jacket.” He ordered, as his hands continued to riffle inside. Watching him out of the corner of her eye, she ground her teeth at the thought of having his hands touching her stuff. But she did what he had told her to do and shirked off her jacket. She yanked the first jumper on over her head.
“Stop giving me orders.” She ground out between clenched teeth as she yanked the second jumper over her head, and she heard him sigh again, she was sure she was supposed to.
“Stop being so damn petulant then.” He mumbled back, but she caught his words and she guessed she was supposed to hear that as well.
“You’re a real prince, you know that?” She was trying to yank the zipper up, and it was protesting all the way against the amount of clothing that it was supposed to be able to contain, when she felt the soft woollen hat being dragged down on her head.
When Chase’s fingertips brushed against her cheeks her head snapped up to look at him, wide eyed with surprise as she felt the splinters of electricity shot through her with his touch.
“Do you have gloves in here?” He had quickly snatched his fingers away from her as though her touch had burned him, and turned his attention back to the pack.
When she shook off the flame that was beginning to flicker within her, she held up the gloves like a trophy. She had been already been wearing them, but the heat of the cab had caused her to take them off shortly after she got in.
“Let’s go.” He shot her a look, the one that said, do as you’re told, and although she balked at his attitude, right now, he was the one who could get them to safety, so she chose to comply.
Chase knew that with the higher body heat that he was blessed with, due to his Lycan heritage, he wasn’t going to have much of a problem with the icy winds that were blowing the first snow storm of the season right down upon them.
Cassidy on the other hand was human. He was going to have to keep an eye on her, although if they kept moving at a reasonable rate, it made sense to him that she should keep a lot of her body heat thanks to the four jumpers, she was now wearing.
The skinny rib polo, she had already been wearing beneath the chunky knit that she had turned out in for the trip, plus the two other jumpers that he had made her put on, along with the reasonably deep padded jacket she wore over the top, should just do the trick.
Her real problem was going to be from the waist downwards. A pair of jeans, and probably nothing sensible like thermals beneath them, was not only going to soak up the snow that she was walking through and chill her legs, and it wouldn’t take long for that chill to weight her down. But they were also nowhere near the protection her legs needed against the biting winds.
Add to that the fact that she was a lot slower than he would have liked to travel in this weather. Along with the snow that was already banking in places, making it more of an effort to walk, and he wondered just how much trouble they were in, as darkness closed in around them.
He didn’t want to second guess himself, not now that there was no going back. But still he couldn’t help but wonder if they should have just bunkered down in the cab for the night, hoped that this storm rolled on by leaving calmer weather in its wake, and only the drifts to deal with in the morning.
Hell, he could have kept her warm with his own body heat throughout the night, and the idea of being trapped inside the cab with her pressed against him, wasn’t lost on either his sense of irony, or his awareness of her on a sexual level.
But if they had hunkered down, they might have been trapped for days, and a hungry, angry, antsy witch wasn’t going to be good company for anyone.
What he never should have done was to listen to Nathaniel in the first place. He should never have gone and gotten the witch to start off with. He wondered briefly if the elder was losing his grip on reality, and seeing things in his visions that weren’t entirely right. How else had he not foreseen this?
Chase’s hearing picked up her tired squeal once again, as she slipped backwards down another bank of snow. His hand shot out to grasp her padded wrist. Her gloved hand closed over his as he pulled her back towards him, and she gripped his jacket with a vengeance as she reached the top of the bank.
Her eyes were fixed firmly downwards away from him. No fire burned within her now. She looked fearful, and he didn’t think it was entirely due to the fact she had just slipped.
He needed to get her to safety. It was his duty to protect her. He had told her that he would do just that when he asked her to come to his land with him. Although he had not foreseen this damn weather as an obstacle in his way to making sure she stayed in one piece.
Chase was sure of one thing. He was going to have words with Nathaniel.
“Are you ok?” He used his large frame to shield her from the icy winds and the blanket of snow that was lashing the mountain, and made sure that his lips were as close to her ear as he could get, so she could better hear him through the hat and those winds.
“Keep going.” He could tell by the breathlessness of her voice that she was starting to struggle, but he didn’t know what else to do but press on. It was hard to judge exactly how far from reaching the main cabin they were. Due to the poor visibility he couldn’t see that far ahead of where they stood, but his best guess would be that they had quite a few more miles ahead of them, all of those miles were over rough terrain, and he had serious doubts that she would be able to make it without his assistance.
“Let me help you.”
“I’m fine- Just keep going.” She shouted back to him this time. A little more fired up, and he saw a slight spark within her when she raised her eyes to his this time.
That apprehension that he had seen before, the fear that had come from knowing that she was in trouble and not knowing what to do about it, was still there, and it sparked something deeply protective and possessive within him. He would damn well get her out of this if he had to carry her the last few miles.
“It’s going to get worse underfoot up here. Will you just grab a tight hold of my jacket, so you can keep your footing?” He tried to keep the command out of his tone, because he knew how well that would go down with her. Instead offering her a plea that he hoped she wouldn’t take the wrong way, and would instead just comply with his wishes.
When she nodded her head, he turned his back to her. Now wasn’t the time to gloat that he had managed to succeed in getting her to do something against her need to kick out at his natural authority. When he felt her hands grip his jacket at the back, he started off again, noting the way she was slightly pulling against him.
She was tiring, more than he had anticipated, and soon she would just be dead weight, unable to go any further under her own steam.
That time came faster than he had expected. When the bank of snow that his long legs had just cleared, gave way under her feet, she went down onto her knees, her hands tugging at his jacket to try to stay upright.
By the time it took him to turn towards her, she was falling sideways back down the snow bank. He managed to thrust his arms out to stop her fall. Catching her around the waist he closed his arms around her, pulling her towards the solidity of his chest and holding her there, shielding her from the biting weather around them.
For a long moment she just held onto him, too damn tired to do anything else. He could feel that her strength had faded substantially, even from what it had been when she’d grasped his hand to get up the snow bank earlier, and he growled his annoyance at his own stupidity for allowing her to continue under her own steam.
“The hell you are…” She started to protest, even as he reached down and wrapped an arm around the back of her knees, his other arm sliding around her back and he lifted her easily against him, finding that she didn’t protest by wiggling and squirming, which he was more than grateful for.
“Just for a little while, just so you can rest a bit.” He assured her as he started off across the rough terrain, giving her no other option but to comply. She wrapped an arm around his neck with a lot less force than he would have expected. She really was damn tired.
“What about you?” She shot back, and he managed to grin down at her, although he wasn’t entirely sure that she could see it through the weather, which caused her to constantly blink against the fast fall of snow.
“I’m Lycan.” It was the only explanation he needed to give her. She had to know what that entailed, strength, balance, speed, agility. He would easily be able to carry her all the way back from here. Damn it, from the way she looked, he probably should have done it sooner.
She made no move to answer him, and he concentrated on covering the ground as quickly as possible, because the one thing he could feel that worried him more than anything else was the way she was shivering, and right here and now, he couldn’t do a damn thing about it.
By the time he saw the lights of the main cabin blazing through the trees, she had taken to shaking uncontrollably. He had tried to keep his mouth close to her neck, and hoped his hot breath would give her just a taste of warmth to cling onto. But he had needed to keep lifting his face away to be able to negotiate their path.
Chase had used his mental link with his brother to tell him what he needed. When he saw the dark figure coming towards him out of the trees, he almost heaved a sigh of relief.