by Lily Harlem
Isaac stood wearing jeans and nothing else but a glisten of moisture from the snow fuzzed air outside. It hung over shoulders and caught in his chest hair.
“Hey,” Caleb said, moving to him and pressing a kiss to his cheek.
My heart tumbled. It seemed so long since Aimery and Ryle had greeted me with the same affection. I swallowed a lump in my throat and decided to save any tears until later, because they were still there, just behind my eyes. I couldn’t imagine they never would be.
“I’ve seen two wolves,” I said to Isaac, squaring my shoulders and summoning my emotional strength. “From the kitchen window. Just now.”
“Yeah,” he said, “you would have.”
Was it you?
“Did you find anything?” Caleb asked.
“I think so,” Isaac said with a frown, “some tracks on the far west side of the clearing.”
“Vampire tracks?” I asked, panic welling within me. “Her?”
Isaac shrugged. “Hard to tell, there’s been a fresh fall of snow since they were made, it was mainly a combination of scents that led me there.”
His wolf nose had picked up her trail. Oh God.
“Are you thinking what I’m thinking?” Caleb asked, sitting on the sofa and looking at Isaac over the rim of his mug.
“I don’t think we have a choice.” Isaac said.
“What?” I asked. “What don’t we have a choice about?”
“I need to go away for a few days,” Isaac said matter-of-factly. “Have a proper scout around, not just the local area. I think she’s still about and I’d rather we surprised her than her surprise us.”
“You really think Elfrida is still out there?” I glanced nervously at the window. “Waiting for me to step out of the cabin or for a chance to get inside?” I shuddered at the thought of her lurking in the trees, biding her time for an opportunity to bite me.
“Come here,” Caleb said, patting the space next to him on the sofa. “Don’t look so worried. It’ll be okay.”
I moved toward him and was happy to settle into the curl of his arm and feel his strength surround me. His skin smelled nice, comforting and masculine, a little earthy too. It made me feel grounded, like I could compartmentalize the crazy thoughts that had danced through my mind like vampires and wolves and being on someone’s dinner menu.
“We won’t let her hurt you. We saved you from her once, right?” He balanced his cup on the arm of the chair but still held the handle.
“Thank goodness you showed up when you did, untied me and brought me here. I’d have frozen to death within minutes if no one had come along.”
Now will he admit they’d done more than release me?
Isaac huffed and threw a chunk of wood onto the fire. A few embers jumped onto the hard surface of the hearth. They glowed brightly for a few seconds before dying down to dust.
He set his mouth in a tight, straight line.
“Try not to dwell on that night,” Caleb said, squeezing me a little closer.
“Hard not to when I lost so much.” A tremble tickled my throat and a knot formed in my stomach. I had no idea how to pick up the pieces of my life. How long could I stay in this snowbound cabin in Canada?
Forever?
“I’m going to be on my way before midday,” Isaac said with a decisive nod. “That way I’ll cover a decent amount of ground before nightfall.”
“Okay,” Caleb said, stroking his hand down my arm and then back up again. “I’ll stay here, with Bea.”
I liked Caleb’s touch. It made me feel alive when every other part of me felt dead.
“But where will you sleep?” I asked Isaac. “You won’t survive the night. It must be minus twenty out there, at least.”
Are you going to shift? Will your fur keep you warm?
“Probably nearer thirty below,” Isaac said and then gave a stiff laugh. “But don’t worry about me, I can look after myself.”
God, he really was going to turn into a wolf and go scouting about. This time last year I’d have thought I’d gone crazy to even think of a man doing that. But now, in my new world, it seemed anything was possible.
“He’ll be fine,” Caleb said. “Don’t worry. You worry too much.”
“How can I not?” I lifted from Caleb’s embrace, walked to Isaac and stared up at his handsome face. I had a truth to say and despite the unspoken words between us it had to come out. “How can I not worry when you’re doing this for me? Searching for Elfrida to try and secure my safety.” I shook my head. “I’ve seen her in action; she can move faster than the human eye can see, has the strength of a hundred men and is as wicked and evil as ever a soul was.”
“She doesn’t have a soul, and besides,” Isaac said with a shrug. “I’m strong too.”
“Not strong enough to fight her unless you’re—”
Suddenly he grabbed my shoulders, tight, and pulled me close.
I gasped as our chests touched. He was as solid as a brick wall and I didn’t doubt his immense strength for a moment. “Isaac!”
“Wake up and smell the roses, Beatrice,” he said. “This is your life now, wolves, the snow—and vampires as your enemy and not your lovers. So stop fretting about the small stuff and let us get on with the job we were born to do.”
Fuck. Was he finally going to reveal something? “What’s that?” I asked a little shakily. “Your job?”
“Killing vampires to protect the innocent.”
“But—?”
“I’m going.” He released me, stopped in front of Caleb and gave him a hard fast kiss on the lips. “I’ll be a few days, and if anything happens I’ll get word to you.” He straightened. “And for God’s sake, keep her indoors. It’s the only thing that she has.”
“Yeah, of course.” Caleb stood and reached for Isaac’s hand. He touched his lips to his knuckles. “But come back soon, and safe, right?”
“Always.”
Isaac turned, strode to the door and pulled it open. A brief swirl of snow danced into the cabin and then he was gone with the door slammed tight behind him. I moved to the window, wondering if he’d put on his boots and maybe grab some supplies from the store bunker on the porch.
Of course he didn’t. He’d already disappeared into the snowstorm and all I could make out through the blizzard was the wolf, the flame-haired one, running into the trees.
Chapter Nine
The cabin was eerily quiet with Isaac gone. Although he was often out from dawn till dusk, hunting or checking the area, he still came back at the end of the day. Caleb tended to stay closer, chopping wood or maintaining the cabin and supplies, so it was he I’d become used to spending the most time with during my long house arrest.
Caleb was chopping wood now. The falling snow hadn’t eased; if anything it had worsened and the wind was swirling, picking the flakes up just before they landed and then tossing them left and right in a haphazard pattern. I marveled at how Caleb was able to stand outside, bare-chested, repeatedly swinging the axe down on the chunks of logs by the shed—over and over and over. He was all thick, roped muscle and the tendons in his back contracted as he heaved the heavy tool over his head and pounded it down. He didn’t seem to notice the biting cold that even indoors had made my fingers and toes nip.
I brought my cold fingertips to my cheek and thought of Aimery and Ryle’s chilly but loving touch. My mind strayed to memories of their more slender body shapes. Not that they weren’t strong, they were, amazingly so, but they were lean. Their strength didn’t require muscles. It all came from what they were, what they’d become.
The constant thwack and splintering of the logs pulled me from reflections and I stared out of the window at Caleb. I was in this moment now. With him. I had to face what fate had doled out to me.
Caleb had been at it for an hour, since we’d finished lunch, and part of me wondered if it was to use up the tension caused by Isaac leaving. It was clear Caleb loved Isaac with everything that he was, so it was understandable he’d be a
nxious about Isaac vampire-hunting in the frozen wilderness. Elfrida was a force to be reckoned with for a man or wolf.
I thought of watching Caleb and Isaac making love the night before. It had been shocking of me to indulge my curiosity, but I couldn’t deny that thinking about it again made a warm glow settle between my legs. They’d been so hot for each other, so in tune and so damn determined on their quest for satisfaction.
It was one of the most erotic things I’d ever seen.
Well, apart from watching Aimery sink into me in the shower and then having bad boy Ryle tied up and submissive, that was all pretty mind-blowing stuff.
Damn it, I missed sex as much as I missed having my freedom, my old life, my husbands at my side.
My world had completely tilted on its axis. It was unrecognizable to the one I’d inhabited before. I couldn’t go back to Smithfield now, not with Elfrida on the hunt. She’d soon find me and then my father would also be at risk. He’d try to protect me and he’d be no match for Elfrida. She’d squash him like a gnat, despite the fact that he was a big, strong butcher. Perhaps I should try and get a message to Denny, my best friend. He was married to a vampire, Gaspere; maybe they would help me. Denny wouldn’t give up on me, the way I’d never given up on him. I was sure of it.
I sighed and turned from the window. Denny had no idea where I was and I had absolutely no way of letting him know I needed help.
I went into my bedroom and flopped on the bed. It would be no good even if I could by some miracle make Denny aware of my situation. The Order wouldn’t come anywhere near the Rockies, not with the Carlton Pack so nearby. Hell, the cabin was practically part of their den.
Of all the bloody luck, this is where I’d ended up. Hostile territory.
The tears that had tried to fall earlier began to seep from my eyes. It was silent weeping and did nothing to help the enormous hole of loss and despair that pitted my stomach and pulsed around my body.
I was floating, drifting, falling into a black place. Grief carried me there. Desolation was my only friend. My body sagged into the old mattress and my bones melted away. The pain was both physical and emotional on every level. I was a widow, my heart was broken, and I was alone, alone in my sorrow.
“Hey, hey, enough of that,” Caleb said, his voice barely breaching the noise of the screaming in my head. “Come on, enough sadness. We have much to be thankful for.”
“Like what?” I blubbed.
“You’re alive, Bea, alive!”
I turned, my face was wet and blotchy, my nose damp and my hair stuck to my cheeks. I didn’t care. “Yes,” I said, “but sometimes I wish I wasn’t, not without them. You should have left me to die.” I stared, with blurry eyes, at his face, trying to show him how much I meant that statement.
He frowned and then scooped me up into a standing position.
Instantly I went dizzy. My sobbing had drained me. My body was weak. My mind a confusing mass of swirling thoughts and gloom.
“This calls for drastic action,” he said, steering me into the living area.
“What…do you mean…?” I managed, wiping at my messy face and stumbling along in his grip.
“Whiskey,” he said, “You do like whiskey, right? Irish of course.”
“Well, er…I guess.” Dad had made me drink it whenever I’d had a cold. In tea, a hot toddy he’d called it.
“Good.” Caleb dumped me on the sofa, a bit roughly, but I didn’t mind, the bump down had jarred out the last of my sobs—for now.
“I’ve got a draught, for emergencies,” he said, “and you saying you wished you were dead is one hell of an emergency.”
I watched as he pulled open the door of the one cupboard in the room and pulled out a bottle of golden liquid with a black label. He then banged two tin mugs onto the surface of the unit and began to slosh healthy doses of whiskey into each.
He strode over to me with a drink in each hand and his bare chest highlighted by the glow from the fire. The pale winter light that crawled through the small window cast a pale afternoon shadow behind him that stretched over the worn rug and up the wooden wall.
“Drink this,” he said, dropping down next to me and thrusting a mug into my palm. “But first.” He tipped the rim of his drink to mine, and the touch created a tinny sound. “You must say a toast to being alive, because it’s all that really matters at the end of the day.”
I took my drink and looked into his eyes. “But what about love? You clearly love Isaac with every part of your soul. Isn’t being alive completed by being in love?”
He nodded. “So let’s toast to love too.” He went to put his mug to his mouth.
“How would you feel if he just suddenly wasn’t there anymore?”
His lips flattened into a tight line and he stilled his hand. “Drink up and I’ll tell you.” He sloshed his drink back in one big gulp and then hurriedly retrieved the bottle from the cabinet and sat back down.
I gulped on my whiskey. The strong alcohol was a slap on my tongue and trailed fire through my throat. I squeezed my eyes shut and let the burn run to my stomach. “Fuck,” I managed, “that’s strong.”
“It’s the good stuff,” he said, topping up both mugs. “Just what we need. Nectar of the earth.”
“So…” I prompted a little hoarsely. “How would you feel without Isaac?”
He sighed and wrapped his arm around me, the way he had earlier.
I settled into the groove of his warm body and stared at the fire, lifted my legs to bend beside me and let out a sigh. Caleb had become a balm to my fractured state, and the whiskey, that first hit on my brain, was inviting numbness.
“If Isaac wasn’t here,” he said, “I don’t know how I’d carry on.”
“How you’d get up each morning?”
“Yes, I don’t know how I’d get up each morning. How I’d put one foot in front of the other. How I’d ever be able to run wild and free again.”
“Being in love is both freeing and containing,” I said, sipping my drink.
“Go on…” He reached for the bottle, topped us both up.
“Well, when you’re in love you feel like you can fly, right?”
“Yep.”
“But it also means when you’re up that high, when the wind is soaring beneath your wings and life is a dazzling display of colors, that it can all come crashing down.” I paused, gathering the strength to go on. “It can all go black.”
Caleb touched his lips to my hair and kissed me in the brotherly, caring way he did so often.
I stroked my fingers up his forearm and watched the hairs spring back in alignment after I’d disrupted them. The tendons beneath his skin were long and hard, the joint of his wrist solid and wide.
“Sometimes, in life,” he said. “And I guess that’s what you’re going to have to do here, is understand that it’s about letting go.”
“I appreciate that,” I said, sipping my drink and staring once again at the dancing flames of the fire. “But letting go is so much easier if you’ve had the chance to say goodbye.”
“True.”
Once more I sighed and he held me a little closer. “I know you and Isaac don’t or can’t understand it, being who you are, but Aimery and Ryle they really did care for me. They made sure I was happy and healthy, they’d do anything for me and they would also go to any lengths to protect me.”
“I’m glad they made you feel that way.”
I looked up at him. “It wasn’t an act, you know, it was real. As real as what you and Isaac have together.”
“Then you were all very lucky to have found one another.”
I saw a softening in his eyes and turned my attention back to the fire. Caleb got me. He understood what I’d had with my vampires, even if Isaac didn’t.
“More?” he asked. He didn’t wait for me to reply just went ahead and topped up my drink.
I drank it gratefully. The sensation of feeling a little floaty and drifting but being safe in Caleb’s embrace was a wel
come change from the sorrow that tailed my every thought and move.
“Caleb, can I ask you something?”
“Sure.”
“Your accent, it has an Irish twang to it. Did you grow up there?”
“No, I’ve spent some time there but I grew up in Siberia.”
“Siberia, really?”
He huffed. “Yes, but my parents were both Irish and so I guess I picked up their way of speaking.”
“And can you speak Russian?”
“Enough to get by. But it was pretty remote, we kept ourselves to ourselves.”
“And is that where your parents’ still live?” I asked.
“No, they’re in Canada at the moment.”
“Oh, and do you see them often?”
“Not so much.”
I paused, remembering the dinnertime conversation I’d had with Caleb and Isaac and them being outcasts from their families for being gay.
“They don’t approve of Isaac?”
“They don’t approve of me not being with the mate they intended for me.”
“Intended for you? What like an arranged marriage?”
“I guess.”
“But surely it’s up to you who you spend your life with, not them.”
“Oh, Bea, you see things so simply, it’s refreshing.”
I looked up at his handsome face again. His hair hung forward as he pressed his lips to the tip of my nose in a gentle kiss.
As he pulled back, I stared into his eyes and saw the reflection of the flames flickering there, heating them, making them appear on fire and matching the hotness of his skin.
“Maybe not simply,” I said, “just clearly.”
“As clearly as this?”
Suddenly he dragged me closer and settled his warm, soft lips over mine.
My mind spun as I melted into him and allowed the sensation of being held to consume me. It was a delicate kiss but full of meaning, full of desire. It was wrong but oh, so right.
He slid his hand up my back and tangled it in my hair. The kiss deepened and his touched his tongue to mine. He tasted of the earth and whiskey and perhaps the coals of the fire too.
“Caleb,” I gasped, pushing back. “We can’t…”