Courtney nodded and kept her fingers tightly wound around his. Despite everything, he still felt the warmth from her touch, and it helped push back the worry filling his thoughts.
Marcus pulled their coats from the rack on the wall and helped her slide into hers. His fingers brushed the soft material of the dress as he did so. The little touches were just another drug to him. The more he did it, the more he wanted to.
It’d been a mistake to go with her. Every second he spent close to her, the more her scent and very presence ensnared him. He wanted to doubt it, but it was hard to ignore the Vestal truth as it seeped into his body and mind.
Clearing his mind, he opened the front door. Cold air beat against his face as snow swirled in front of them, making it difficult to see their way to the car.
"Maybe I should drive," he said and glanced to where she stood behind him.
Even if he wasn’t the best driver in the world, he could pull out his contacts, providing him with far superior vision. If he kept their speed slow, his superior reflexes should help them avoid any serious trouble.
He stopped and removed his contacts. After placing them back in the case, he stepped outside.
Courtney handed the keys over to him as they made their way to the car. He watched her climb into the passenger side, and then paused when he got to the driver side door.
For a fleeting moment, he caught the scent of something in wind. A second, if that. He wasn’t even sure what it was. Maybe the still lingering scent of the blood from Mr. Martin. It was hard to tell at that moment.
Marcus shook himself and slid into the front seat closing the door behind him. Whatever it had been, it wasn’t his problem. The snow and wind would protect Mr. Martin for now until he could be dealt with properly.
At that moment, he just needed to get them back to the hybrid community, where he knew they’d both be safe. From there, they could deal with the rest.
Chapter Seven
Snow beat down heavily on the car as they drove away from the cabin, and the gusting wind whistled past them.
Courtney glanced at the rear-view mirror. From a distance, the little cabin looked normal, if not peaceful in its blanket of snow, seemingly undisturbed despite the gruesome death that had taken place there. There would never be a reason to suspect anything awful had occurred.
Poor Mr. Martin. He hadn't done anything to deserve dying. It was all so senseless.
She couldn’t help but wonder what had killed him. Animal attacks in the area were rare.
Sure, they had wildlife, but even when it wasn’t winter, the bears and mountain lions tended to stay deep within the wooded areas. It’d been years since any animals wandered into town.
Granted, that was town. She supposed Mr. Martin's cabin stood more than a little into what could be called wilderness.
She was no expert on wildlife, but she wondered if some animal hadn’t gotten trapped and was starving. She knew that not every large animal took it easy during the winter.
She bit her lip. She needed to just not worry about it. The police could contact the county or the state and get the proper people to look into it.
In the end tragedies happened. Just because she hadn’t personally encountered something shocking before didn’t mean it was inherently worse than any of the other deaths that had happened in the area.
She glanced over at Marcus as he concentrated on the road in front of them. His brow furrowed in concern, his bright blue eyes watching carefully. She could feel the car slide every so often and grabbed a hold of the door handle to help calm her nerves.
"You're safe with me," he said quietly.
Despite everything, those words still carried weight with her. She did feel safe with him and knew he would protect her. With the snow and the darkness, she’d be all but blind, but his superior senses would protect them.
Her body jerked against her seat belt as the brakes squealed.
"Fuck," he said.
Marcus unbuckled and tossed his body over hers as the vehicle spun out of control.
The car fishtailed as it careened off the side of the road into a ditch. She lurched forward as they slammed into a snowbank.
Her head rested against something hard and warm. She wasn’t quite sure, but thought that even with the seat-belt, she would have hit her head without Marcus moving to protect her.
"Are you okay?" he said.
Courtney opened her eyes to find his face right in front of her own, filled with worry. His bright blue eyes stared deeply into hers.
She gave a small nod. She watched as he relaxed back into his own seat to assess the damage. He glanced over to where they had been on the road.
“What happened?” she asked quietly. She peered back at the road, but couldn’t make anything out but falling snow.
"There's a huge branch in the road," he said. "It must have fallen while we were at the cabin."
Marcus tried to place the car in reverse, but the wheels spun in place. There was no way they were getting the car out of there at the moment.
Maybe if the snow stopped falling, he could use his hybrid strength and some sort of makeshift tool. Unfortunately, the weather didn’t look like it was going to cooperate anytime soon.
He pulled out his phone, and she did the same. No bars.
“Shit,” he said. “We’ll have to walk back to the cabin.”
She worried her lip. “What about what got Mr. Martin?"
“While I’m with you, no creature will harm you,” he declared.
She blinked and stared at him, his words echoing in her head.
Marcus frowned after a second and shook his head.
“It doesn’t matter.” Marcus shook his head. "It's not ideal, but we don't really have much a choice," he said. "We either stay here and hope the snow lets up, or we had back to the house and wait for things to die down. If it doesn’t let up, it’ll bury the path and make the walk back to the cabin difficult.”
She watched the increasingly furious snow falling. Courtney let out a long sigh. She was in a dress for a party, not exactly the best winter hiking gear.
She climbed out of the car, shivering as the frigid air struck her, and made her way through the heavy snow to try and find the branch in the road. She couldn’t spot it. Even in the dim light of the early evening moon and stars, she thought she’d be able to see it. Apparently, the snow had already swallowed it, not a good sign.
Then she looked up to see where it had fallen from, but couldn’t spot any nearby trees. She frowned. If there were no nearby trees, it suggested a bad gust of wind may have moved the branch. Another bad sign. This was looking less like a snowstorm and more like a building blizzard.
As uncomfortable as the idea made her, the only sane choice was to go back to the cabin.
She walked around to the trunk of the car and popped it open. She grabbed a bag from inside. When she looked over to where Marcus stood, he stared at her quizzically.
"Gym clothes," she said. “I need to change.”
She still wasn't sure he quite understood what she was doing, but there was no way she would be able to make the walk back in the dress and shoes she was wearing.
After trudging her way back to the passenger seat, she took off her beautiful brown suede boots. The high-heeled boots had looked great with the white dress, but weren’t going to be what she needed to get through the snow.
She pulled out sweatpants and slipped them on under her dress. Courtney’s face heated when she noticed Marcus staring at her from the driver side. Now was not the time for modesty, and she doubted he’d even seen anything.
After she slipped on her sweats she tied on her tennis shoes. Still not the best for climbing in the snow, but much better than her high-heeled boots. She’d have plenty of time to warm up at the cabin.
Courtney grabbed her hat and placed it firmly on her head. Now was not the time to worry about hat hair. The snow continued to pile up, and the wind grew only fiercer.
She gathe
red as much of her things as she could into her black bag and closed the passenger side door. Then she walked over to where Marcus stood at the back of the car.
She squared her shoulders. "I'm ready.”
Marcus took the black bag from her hand and heaved it over his shoulder with ease. He had to admit he liked the fact that she came prepared.
Preparation, after all, was key to winning against enemies. Even if this enemy happened to just be the snow.
Sticking close together, they quietly trekked their way back through the blowing snow. It clouded their vision and slapped their faces. It made travel far more difficult than he would've expected. He’d done patrols in bad conditions before, but this was some of the worst weather he’d been directly out in for a while.
It didn’t help that he had a little human with him. If it were just him, he could make good time, but Courtney could barely move forward. Often, he found himself holding onto her arm just to keep her going through the thick snow.
That might have been the least of their problems, though. The further they moved back to the cabin, the more certain Marcus became that they were being followed.
He kept the thought to himself so as not to alarm Courtney, but what started out as a rustling in the woods that could be mistaken for the wind, now became a certainty. The faintest hint of breathing, the faintest hint of a growl swallowed by the howling wind.
He’d expected a bear or mountain lion, but now he wondered if a wolf was after them, or maybe even a pack of wolves. Who knew what lurked deep in the mountain?
It was out there. Whatever had attacked Mr. Martin was stalking them, just outside the range of his senses, as hampered as they were. His blood quickened, but not from fear, from anticipation.
He wasn’t some old man. He was a hybrid, better than any human or animal.
Indeed, animals knew their place. He assumed the only reason the beast didn't attack was that it sensed the killer inside of him. Maybe his smell triggered an ancient instinct that told it that the monster that raged inside him was a far greater threat than any other animal it had ever encountered, two-legged or four.
His lack of personal fear didn't stop him from putting a protective arm around Courtney as they continued to move along. Confidence was good, but overconfidence got people killed.
Her shallow breaths and exhalation of warm air kept the rest of his attention as they closed on the cabin. Each step grew increasingly labored for Courtney. It was slow-going, and he could tell the cold was taking a lot out of her, especially given she was just in gym clothes, but he respected the effort.
She slipped, and his arms tightened around her, pinning her hard against his chest. He looked down at her. The blowing snow had caught in her lashes and hair, making her look like a frozen angel.
Her cheeks were pink and rosy from the exhausting walk.
"Thank you,” she all but whispered.
A little puff of air came out of her as she spoke. He could still smell the sweet scent of cookies on her.
The wind didn’t smother the sound of a branch snapping in the woods nearby. The hairs on the back of his neck stood, and he knew he didn’t have time to discuss their options.
When he looked down at Courtney, she stared back up at him, her eyes wide with fear. She’d heard it, too. She realized the animal was near.
He lifted her into his arms and rushed through the snow, pushing his legs harder than he ever had before. Courtney let out a quiet yelp but didn’t say anything else.
The snow and ice challenged his balance, as did carrying the woman, but he didn’t stop. Something was very wrong.
He couldn’t hear the animal following them or smell it, but he didn’t trust his senses under these conditions. He also didn’t trust the beast. The more he thought about the attack, the more he worried about it being rabid or otherwise deranged.
It’d killed Mr. Martin, but it hadn’t eaten him. This wasn’t a starving beast. It was almost like it was killing for sport. And now it had new prey.
That didn’t sit well with him. He was willing to take it on, but he wasn’t going to do it when he was at a disadvantage. No matter how crazed this animal was, in the end, it was still an animal, and a locked door would keep it out.
The snow crunched underfoot as he continued running. Courtney kept silent, other than her ragged breathing. Finally, Marcus reached the front door of the cabin. He swung the door wide open, rushed in, and slammed it hard behind him.
Still holding her in his arms, Marcus stared out the window of the door, half expecting the animal to be pacing there. Instead, all he found was snow.
Though his heart still pounded with the anticipation of battle, that gave him some relief. Maybe the animal had lost interest.
“We’ll make sure the doors are locked.”
“Are we safe?” Courtney asked, her voice barely a whisper.
Marcus looked down to the scared woman in his arms. “For now.”
Chapter Eight
They listened in silence from the house for some time. Courtney had taken off her wet shoes and sweats. She placed them in the bathroom where they could dry some. It was still very cold in the house, but wearing them was just making her colder. At least her dress hadn’t become totally soaked.
She watched as Marcus paced between the windows in the house, peering out into the dark snow-filled night with his bright blue eyes, but otherwise not letting her leave his sight for longer than a minute or two. After some time, he settled into the living room and just watched outside.
"Do you think it's still out there?" she asked.
Marcus turned in the window and shook his head. "No. No matter how hungry or interested in us it must be, the snow’s picking up, and it doesn’t make sense to stick around and freeze to death.”
“Wouldn’t it want to come some place warm?”
“In that case, we’d heard it already trying to get in. It’s an animal. It’s not going to pick a lock and sneak in. It probably has a cave or a burrow or something it’s retreated to.”
She nodded a few times. That made sense. Courtney didn't really know much about animals and their movements, but she figured if anyone did it would be him.
She stood from the couch and walked over to where he was at the window. She stared outside at the snow, which blanketed their steps from earlier. Even now she could barely make out the path that they had followed. The night sky was now covered in clouds, the moon and not a single star visible, providing an eerie darkness, the dim lights from the cabin illuminating the drifting snowflakes as they fell to the ground.
"Any luck getting a hold of Rem?" Courtney asked.
Marcus shook his head. Neither had any signal, and it wasn’t likely that they’d miraculously suddenly get one.
"We’ll have to stay here until the storm ends," he said. "As soon as the storm dies down, I can get the car free, and then we can drive to where we can get some cell phone reception.”
She knew the risk that he was running staying here with her. She knew how worried the hybrids were about being discovered.
The truth was, given how fast he just moved through the snow while carrying her, he could likely hike all the way back to their compound without any issues by himself. But she was still glad he stayed.
She didn’t know if it was a bear, a mountain lion, a wolf, but whatever was out in the woods wasn’t something she could take on herself. And even if she could, she wasn’t sure she wanted to.
"Maybe I should heat up the soup," she said.
Even as she said the words, her stomach turned. Eating the soup she had made for Mr. Martin somehow just seemed wrong, but they needed to get something in their stomach.
Letting it go to waste wasn't the best idea. Besides, the house was still ice cold. She hoped turning on the stove might help with that.
She stepped into the kitchen and poured the homemade chicken and dumplings into the pan from the container she’d brought. She watched as the soup simmer slightly and then turne
d the heat down to low. When she turned around, Marcus had started a fire in the fireplace. She was a bit surprised.
“I found a bit of wood inside,” Marcus said. “Not much though.”
She nodded. She couldn’t ask him to go outside to the wood pile and risk being attacked. Even though she was unsure if seeing Mr. Martin disturbed him as much as it did her, that still seemed something she couldn’t ask someone to do.
The soup would have to warm them for now.
Courtney poured the soup into two bowls and pulled out a roll for each of them from the basket she had brought. Carefully she carried the bowls over to where Marcus sat on the couch and handed him one. She sat down next to him and nibbled on the bread. She had the idea of eating to help settle her stomach, but so far it wasn’t really helping. Too many things were going through her head to process.
She found herself lost in thought.
Marcus took a bite of the soup and was surprised to find how delicious it tasted. Courtney had proved to be a great cook in every other way, so it wasn’t surprising she would be good at this as well.
He spooned a lump of dough into his mouth, and the pillowed texture surprised him. Quickly he shoved in mouthfuls of the soup until it was drained completely.
“What is this?" he asked.
Courtney set down the piece of bread she had been slowly eating and turned to him in surprise.
"It's chicken and dumplings," she said, her tone filled with question.
There are were so many things he'd never heard of before. Cooking his own meals meant eating what he could cook. Grilling meat was easy enough, and sticking things in the oven to roast was easy, but when it came to fancier things, he found himself lacking in any sort of skills. They were obviously skills he lacked in his previous life as well.
"Would you like another bowl?" she asked.
Marcus nodded and watched as she walked back into the kitchen to fill his bowl again. It was nice having someone to eat with. And although he liked being with the other hybrids, he still spent little time with them outside of work.
Marcus: #5 (Luna Lodge: Hunters of Atlas) Page 4