by Tasha Black
No, he told it.
It heaved a heavy shoulder against his mind and pressed against his ribs. I know what to do in the woods.
“No,” Derek said aloud, his voice sounding strange in the silence of the trees.
He waited a moment.
The bear was still.
Derek took a deep breath then, and kept walking, secure that he was behind the wheel.
He was going uphill, hoping to increase his chances of getting service on his phone.
Derek slipped the phone out of his pocket again.
No signal.
Figure it out.
He wasn’t going to get help anytime soon without a cell phone signal. This was now a survival situation.
A sheen of sweat from his exertions clung to him. The cool fall breeze was a welcome relief. But it would be dark soon, and the night would be cold.
He slid the phone out of his pocket a final time.
Kurt had downloaded a survival app onto both their phones once. Hopefully, it had been on this phone and not last year’s model.
He slid his thumb across the screen and entered his code. Battery was at 28%.
He took a breath and swiped through the apps. The big orange letters SAF appeared in the corner of the last page. Kurt had explained that Survival App the Fittest was supposed to be the best app for emergency survival with well-organized strategies for different situations, including manuals and video tutorials.
Derek considered the battery life left on his phone and chose the all-text survival primer to read first.
1) Before going for a hike in the woods, be sure to eat something. Tell someone where you are going. Bring the survival gear noted in the list below. Study a map of the area where you will be hiking.
No point reading that list. He had nothing.
2) A person can survive three weeks without food. A person can only survive three days without water.
Derek couldn’t survive three days without food either. He’d be home by then, though, so no worries.
3) Consider the place where you are standing to be your ground zero. Do not move from your ground zero, if possible. Wait to be found. If you must move to find kindling or water, mark your ground zero so that you can find it again.
That was obviously a suggestion for the lowest common denominator. Derek wasn’t staying anywhere. This was Pennsylvania. He’d find his way to help by relying on his brains and instinct - as he had survived everything else in life. And he’d do it before anyone even realized he was gone.
4) If you must leave your ground zero, do not wander aimlessly. Even using a compass or the direction of the sun to help you head in a consistent direction is not advisable. Instead, choose whether to go uphill or downhill.
Going downhill provides your best chance of finding a water source, which in turn is your best chance of survival. If you find a creek or river, you may be able to follow it to help.
Going uphill may help you get your bearings, but too much climbing will use up energy.
Fair enough. But the sky above was ominous, it was sure to rain soon and he’d have water if he needed it.
Nope, he’d rather get the lay of the land.
Derek continued uphill, keeping the smoke of the plane directly behind him, begrudgingly allowing it to be his ground zero.
As he moved away from the wreckage, the smells of the forest began to fill his nose.
He found himself smiling in spite of his situation.
The bear was snuffling in the rich loamy scent of the soil and the sweet smell of pine sap.
And he was searching for something.
Derek tried to push down the bear’s agenda in favor of his own again.
But this time, the bear was not interested in being pushed aside.
Through Derek’s eyes, the bear searched the trees.
Derek felt his own lips huffing and blowing in search of the scent.
Impossible.
He was in the middle of the woods with no civilization in sight. There was no way the bear could be scenting a woman.
Yet, even as he thought it, the whisper of her came to him. A shimmering blue trail of scent in the twilight.
The bear chuffed within him, as if to say, “I told you so.”
But Derek didn’t give a fuck.
The scent, that incredible scent…
He had to find its source.
Derek charged through the trees, back down toward the direction from which they had come, slipping on wet leaves and scraping himself on branches.
Just the scent of her was enough to make him rock hard, despite the sting of the branches and the burning sensation in his hip. The heat radiated from the exact spot where he’d seen the strange marking swirling, as the plane was crashing. He’d forgotten all about it in the commotion.
Some sense of the unreality of the night’s events streaked through his head, but was gone before he could latch onto it.
Derek wanted that female.
And Derek got what he wanted, always.
The longing inside him was nearly at a breaking point when the blue shimmer of the scent trail intensified to a blinding ocean.
Dark against the bright cloud of her breathtaking scent, the silhouette of the woman appeared.
She was looking out into the gathering darkness over the mountain. Her stance was powerful.
The bear drank in a long pull of her scent approvingly.
Females should be brave, and strong enough to protect and discipline cubs.
As Derek stared at her in awe, she turned to face him.
7
Hedda heard the demon long before it arrived.
She was at first surprised at the natural sound it made. The creature crashing through the underbrush sounded like an animal that was frightened or hungry.
Or both.
But there was no time to dwell on the trickery of the evil, whatever it was.
If Hedda cowered it would surely attack, so she decided to display the kind of regal confidence that might throw it off momentarily, giving her a slight advantage.
She thought of her mission and surveyed her kingdom below, such as it was: an abandoned hillside, a ghost town, a mine fire, a creek, and the abandoned hill on the other side.
She knew that landscape so well she could fight this thing with her whole concentration, while the evil might have to worry about the rocks and the cliffside if it had taken a corporeal form. That had to be an advantage.
Of course, she only had a chance if this was actually a demon.
If it was a moroi, she was already as good as dead.
The smashing sounds stopped, probably fifteen feet behind her.
Slowly, she turned to see whether her fate was sealed.
What she saw made her believe she was hallucinating.
Instead of a demon, a disarmingly gorgeous man stared back at her.
Dark hair, a bit too long, hung over his gorgeous blue eyes. His handsome face was dirty, a smudge across the left side of his face only highlighting sharp cheekbones and a strong jaw.
He was wearing what must have once been a very nice white button down shirt and expensive looking gray trousers. Now the shirt was shredded, showing off rippling abdominals and a pair of cut biceps. His massive erection was outlined through the trousers.
But none of that had anything on his expression.
The man was staring at Hedda like he was starving and she was a ten course meal.
It had to be her magic. Her other gift had this effect on men. And women. And just about everything.
It wasn’t her he was seeing, not really. He wasn’t transfixed by the way she actually looked…
To him, she probably looked like a gilded angel or a magazine centerfold, shimmering at the edges.
Not like the very human and down-to-earth woman who had just hiked a mountain.
But Hedda felt her body respond to his ravenous stare instantly anyway, her nipples tightening, need forming a hollow pit in her belly.
/> She blinked, trying to clear her head. How long had she been up on this mountain? She’d been so long without a man she had almost forgotten what she was missing. Was he really there? Or was this a creation of her mind and body?
Before she could decide, he strode right up to her.
His breath made a mist in the air. He stood so close he could only be planning to kiss her or kill her.
Or kill her…
Ice flooded her veins.
“Obtundo,” she cried, pushing out at the thing with all her strength.
Minor demons didn’t have the power to truly mimic humans as their masters, the moroi did. But the powerful ones could temporarily create a human echo. Just long enough to distract a fanciful spinster, apparently. And in the gathering dark it would be hard for her to see the imperfections.
She said a silent prayer that he was a demon, not a moroi. A demon would splinter into a dark mist after such a blast, a moroi would merely laugh.
Instead, the magic seemed to bend around it and continue past, like fast moving water around a rock. She’d never seen anything like it before. At least some of the magic must have gotten through its defenses, because the male form went straight down. Hard. His head hit a tree root, making a very concrete sound.
Not a demon after all. Or a moroi.
He was a real man, in possession of his own body.
And he wasn’t getting up.
Cursing herself for cursing him, Hedda knelt to examine his large body. That much magic would keep even a strong man out for days. She couldn’t leave him here. But how was she supposed to get him over the top of the hillside, down it, and up the next one to her cottage?
She sighed as she examined him further.
Even knocked out, he was wildly handsome. His dark lashes kissed his cheeks and those incredible muscles strained against the remains of his shirt.
Hedda indulged herself just a bit, caressing his body with her eyes.
Even his forearms bulged with muscles.
Tentatively, she reached out a finger to trace the vein along one arm.
“Having fun?” he asked in a deep voice.
Hedda jumped to her feet.
“Did you want to wake me up so you could knock me out again?” he asked teasingly.
“I thought you were someone else,” Hedda heard herself say. Inwardly she was wondering how he was awake again so quickly. It shouldn’t be possible. She hoped she wasn’t losing her touch. How embarrassing that he’d caught her touching him.
“What did you do to me?” he asked.
“Oh, um, self-defense,” she answered.
“But you didn’t hit me,” he said.
“You didn’t see me hit you,” she corrected him, hoping he would buy in.
“No, you didn’t hit me,” he stated firmly.
“Want me to do it again?” she offered.
The look of dismay on his face was worth the argument.
“Uh, no thanks,” he answered quickly. “I’ll take your word for it.”
“So, I don’t know how you got here, but I’m guessing you’re not visiting me on purpose,” she said, starting up the hill.
She heard him scrambling up behind her a moment later. Good. She’d established at least some small amount of dominance in the situation again. The Lane sisters didn’t allow themselves to be pushed around, certainly not by handsome strangers. It was practically the first rule in the Lane women’s handbook. Or it would have been, if they’d had a handbook.
“Correct,” he said. “I was in a plane crash.”
His voice was so unperturbed she almost didn’t believe him, though of course there was no other reason for him to be on top of the mountain, dressed this way.
She turned and she could see by his eyes that it was true.
“Are you injured?” she asked.
“No, not really,” he answered.
But he didn’t look happy.
“Did anyone else make it?” she asked gently.
He shook his head.
“It was only me and the pilot,” he told her. “The plane came down nose first.”
Hedda nodded and led him silently for a while, joining their route with the path of the creek as it cut through the woods. They could follow alongside for a bit without much effort. The tree cover was thinner.
She tried to focus on the cool air against her skin, the damp, rich smell of the woods, the sound of her own footsteps. Anything but the man following her.
She had a mission. And if she let herself get fascinated with this man, even a little bit, the whole world could pay the price.
8
Derek strode quickly after the curvy dark-haired woman.
His shoes were filling with dirt, his clothes were practically useless, and he was sure his body should be hurting.
But he didn’t care.
His senses were filled with this wonderful woman.
Suddenly, instead of fighting off the bear’s acute hearing and sense of smell, he was urging the creature on to do its best. And the animal was complying happily.
The woman moved very quickly through the trees. But there was not the scent of a single drop of sweat on her lovely brow and her heart was beating slowly and steadily.
So those magnificent curves were intact in spite of regular and strenuous exercise.
The bear admired her efficient, bear-like metabolism, while Derek wondered what it would be like to watch her hiking without the jeans and t-shirt.
They were both taken aback when she turned suddenly, violet eyes flashing.
“I know you’re looking at my ass, but please focus on the mountain,” she snapped, gesturing to the steep bank that led to the creek below. “It’s easy to get hurt up here if you don’t know the terrain.”
Whoa.
In fairness, he had been looking exactly at her gorgeous ass, but it seemed wildly confident for her to say so. Derek was slightly annoyed.
But the bear’s fur rippled as if he had been charged with electricity. He pressed against Derek’s skin excitedly as if he had no question that surely now Derek would take her.
No, Derek told the animal.
He looked up. The woman was staring at him like he had two heads. Which, if you thought about it, between the bear and himself…
“Okay, okay, let’s go,” he said. “I’m paying attention, don’t worry.”
She nodded and turned back to the mountain.
Her supposition that he would follow irked him. He was used to being in charge.
“Where are we going?” he asked.
She paused, but didn’t turn back to him.
“To my house, we’ll take cover from the storm that’s coming and see about getting you back to civilization.”
She began to walk again and Derek followed, but something didn’t feel right.
He had the distinct feeling that she was leading him further into the woods.
But why? She was attracted to him, the bear knew it even if she wouldn’t acknowledge it herself. Why wouldn’t she bring him home?
He tried to picture what her home might look like but couldn’t get his thoughts past a sumptuous bedroom where he could tame her wildness.
Damn it, he was lost in the woods with a beautiful woman who was behaving suspiciously and an inner bear wrestling for control of his body.
But he didn’t exactly have any brilliant alternatives. He was going to have to take it at face value that she was planning to help him. She had no reason not to. Finding a plane crash victim and leading them into the wilderness didn’t make sense.
She walked on ahead of him.
He followed, as the nearly full moon peeked over the ridge. Thanks to his bear, the moonlight was plenty to light his way. He wondered how the woman was doing so well in the darkness.
Was she a shifter, too? No, he would have smelled it for sure.
A slight break in the trees suddenly bathed her in silver moonlight. Her dark hair gleamed, and the bear wrenched abruptly at Derek
’s mind for dominance.
He winced in pain as the mark on his hip flared up like someone had pressed him with a hot branding iron.
Before he could stop it, his skin was crawling, fingertips of agony along his spine telling him the change was coming, even if he fought it.
With a massive effort, Derek shook himself hard, clenching his fists, and groaning with effort. Somehow he managed to overturn the change.
But in his struggle, he lost his footing. He teetered on the edge of balance for a moment, sure he could right himself. But before he could get his feet back under him, he slid over the outcropping that led to the creek below.
The first instant of falling through the air brought a flashback of the plane crash.
Then the water embraced him, so cold he thought his heart might stop beating. When the back of his head connected with something solid in the bed of the creek, everything went dark.
9
In Derek’s dream the firelight made shadows dance on the wall. The air was rich with the scent of pumpkin soup.
He knew it wasn’t just a dream - there were bits of memory woven into it.
Though in real life he had been the oldest, in the vision, he and Johnny, Chance and Darcy were all the same age, the age Chance had been when he’d arrived.
They were wrestling on the rug as they always had before supper. But this time they were in animal form.
Chance was a natural wrestler. He had Derek pinned down on his back and was making happy scolding sounds, while Darcy, growling, tugged at Chance’s ear to pull him off. She had always been so loyal to Derek. Johnny was sitting off to the side, swishing his own tail and watching the scales shimmer in the firelight. Derek’s heart danced as he made a plan to pull Johnny unceremoniously into the fray - if he could get Chance off his chest.
Outside the window, the tall trees of Middleton bent under the weight of the fresh fallen snow. Tomorrow maybe they would go over to Tarker’s Hollow and ride their sleds down the big hill on the college campus.
“Kids,” Mom’s voice called over their cacophony of noises.