Taming Alaska

by Katherine Rhodes

  “What about you? Do you just go around shagging random women who ask?”

  A slow shake of his head gave me the answer. “I haven’t even had sex in two… years. Kinda swore off for a while.”

  “Sounds like you were burned.”

  “I was trying to extract myself from professional lumberjacking. I thought I wanted in, but those women are crazy.”

  “Well. That explains the pecs and the six pack and those amazing thighs.” Nibbling on my lip, I played with a little fire again. “And that endurance.”

  His lips were a mere hair’s breadth from mine. “Oh, you ain’t seen nothing yet.”

  “Ooh, goody. I could use round…” Holding my hand up, I tried to tick off the times I had come in the past hour and I couldn’t.

  Garrett curled fingers around my hand with a filthy smirk. “Not right now, sexy. I do want to get your power at least working a little. It’s also pretty close to lunch and I don’t know how you feel about your friends finding you mid-fuck.”

  “Hmm. Good point.”

  “But I do still want to take you out to dinner. You’re fun, and we need to get to know each other better. I am going to be here for quite a few weeks.”

  “I’m going to be here until September. We’re supposed to spend the whole summer here, just being women and relaxing.”

  “Well, there’s no doubt you’re good at being a woman.”

  “If you don’t mind, I’d like to prove that a few more times.”

  “Tomorrow night? I’ll pick you up.”

  Sitting up, reaching for my shirt, I shook my head. “You don’t have to come all the way out here to pick me up. I’ll take the truck.”

  “It’s not all the way out here. I actually live off this road. It’s one of the other turn offs down below.”

  “Oh. Well, that’s convenient.”

  “Where are you from? You definitely have an accent.”

  “I’m from New Jersey. We all studied at Northwestern in Chicago. So I don’t know what kind of accent I have at this point.”

  Offering my bra to me and slipping his T-shirt on, he stood from the air mattress and I was eye level with his magnificent cock. I couldn’t help myself as I ran a finger down the length. He jumped, but didn’t jump away. His fingers wrapped around my inquisitive digit and pulled me back.

  “Not a good idea, Jess. I do have to check the tank out back. And order some fuel.”

  I huffed and stood. “I would complain that you’re ruining my fun, but since all of this fun was completely unscheduled, I’ll just go with it.”

  Dangling my discarded panties on his finger, he smiled. “I do hope there are more of these in the future.”

  “Near future.” I slipped them on as he pulled on his pants. “So, are we really looking at a mess here?”

  “Oh, yes. I know we were a little distracted by each other before. But I was serious about the work. I can, however, get you all my contacts to get this place cleaned and straightened up.”

  He turned, and I saw the tattoo on his shoulder, through the thin T-shirt, as he hiked on the uniform shirt over his body. I stopped him and traced the outline of the symbol there.

  “Does it mean anything?” I asked quietly.

  “It’s a family symbol. Most of my…family gets one when they turn.”

  “Turn?”

  “Oh, uh, legal. Eighteen.”

  “Can I see?”

  He nodded. I lifted the shirt up after he took his arm out of the uniform. It was partly an excuse to touch him again, but I did want to see the tattoo. It was a circle with some Tlingit symbols, and a wolf, bear, raven, elk, and eagle. “It’s very nice. Well done.”

  “It’s all very important to me. I grew up here, in the Tongass. My family is part Tlingit.”

  Smoothing the shirt back down, I smiled. He was a very fine specimen of human. I got back to the task of redressing myself before my friends came back to find me standing in a bra and shirt and holding my panties.

  Of course it wasn’t the worst position they’d ever caught me in. Garrett seemed to regain control over himself and now that we had cleared out the sexual tension and opened the gateway for a little fun, I felt better about all of it too.

  We sat at the table and talked about what we had to do to get the house liveable again. There was plenty of flirting and inappropriate touching and dirty talk, but we were able to get the basics down.

  “Lucy! I’m home!”

  The door pushed open with the greeting and my four friends tumbled into the house, laughing and pushing and dropping bags wherever.

  Addi, Zanna, and Brandy headed for the fireplace and held their hands over the heat, rubbing them together. Delia headed over to me in the kitchen, carrying her bags still.

  “I got the—” She stopped and stared at Garrett next to me at the table, his hand caught in the middle of brushing over my breast. “Hello.”

  “Hi,” Garrett answered, pulling his hand away.

  “Delia, this is Garrett from Timberwolf Electrical. Garrett, this is Delia—Madeline. She’s the money.”

  Delia’s hands hit her hips, not happy. “And apparently you’re the goods.”

  “Be nice, D. You know I don’t do shit like this. It just kind of happened.”

  “You already—You know what? Nope. Don’t want to know. Whatever. We’re on vacation and you’re still recovering. And you’d better remember that you’re still recovering. Be careful. In any case, I brought… the requested item.” She held out the bag.

  “A gun?” Garrett asked. “Didn’t you have one?”

  I offered a shrug. “We were hoping to avoid it.”

  “But there were…noises last night that we didn’t like. Coyotes, I think.” Delia nodded at the bag I was holding. “So, we opted in.” She shook her finger at me. “You’d better watch what you’re doing.”

  Sauntering out of the room, back to where the others were, Delia left us alone.

  “Okay, two questions,” Garrett said. “One. Can you use that thing?”

  “Nope. Zanna can. But we felt it wasn’t necessary to tell her that we were going to buy it.”

  “Great.” He ran a hand down his face. “I’m going to teach you how to fire that. And two. What are you recovering from?”

  I swallowed, still raw from the whole incident. “My ex-fiancé. It was a mess. A horrible, terrible mess, and part of the reason these nuts dragged me up here was so I didn’t have to deal with him or the house we were living in.”

  His eyebrow quirked up and he considered me. “You’re not going to tell me more about that, are you?”

  I huffed. “What’s there to tell? He tricked me into getting pregnant, insisted we get engaged and buy a house. I caught him cheating, he beat me up for catching him, I miscarried a few months later. He tried to drag me back and I socked him in the eye with his engagement ring. He’s going to have a hard time seeing out of that eye for the rest of his life. The house is being sold. I got an IUD and no one’s tricking me into getting pregnant again.” I folded my arms, pissed I had let all that out at once. “There. Now you know why I’m all fucked up in the head.”

  His gentle hand touched my cheek. “Jess. I like you enough—already—to not let what’s in your past bother me. But I also know that I always need honesty. So please, always be honest with me.” A look of confusion wrinkled his brow. “How…did he trick you into…”

  “He poked holes in the condoms. Pin holes.”

  A single sage nod told me he more than understood. “No more questions about that from me until you’re ready to talk. Let’s discuss your night time visitors, instead. Coyotes, you think?”

  It was odd how he seemed equally concerned with the coyotes as he did about me being tricked into pregnancy. I cocked my head.

  “Is there something about the—”

  “Guys! Come here!” Addi’s voice cut through the rooms, and with the shock it carried, we all reacted and headed for the front door.

  Peerin
g out the window there, Addi and Zanna were pointing at something outside. Brandy, Delia, and I walked to the other window and Garrett shadowed us.

  There was a pack of coyotes. Not one or two, but at least a dozen, maybe even more. They were sniffing and snuffing at the edge of the cleared property in front, walking what seemed the entire perimeter.

  “Got a back door?”

  Brandy pointed to the kitchen. “Through the pantry. It takes you out to the back deck and the generator.”

  Garrett touched my arm and motioned me toward the back door. I pulled away and followed, worried that there was a pack of rabid coyotes wandering the land.

  At barely a whisper, Garrett handed me the bag with the rifle. “Take it out. I’ll show you how to load it, really quick. We’ll go out on the back deck and see what’s going on.”

  Following his directions, I pulled out, held, and loaded my first gun ever. I made sure I knew where the safety was, and he explained how the gun worked. I’d need practice, that was for sure.

  “You don’t have shoot at them right now. Just carry it outside with me. I’ll check the generator, and you just hang with the gun. It should be enough to show them you’re here and you’re not messing around.”

  “They’re coyotes, they don’t speak human threat.”

  “It’s enough. Trust me.”

  I hoisted the gun onto my shoulder.

  “Oh, not like that.” His laughter bubbled out. “That’s…no. Just carry it casually. Not like you’re part of the First Battalion.”

  “It’s my first time with a weapon.”

  “Could have fooled me.”

  I pursed my lips and growled at him, and when he laughed, I couldn’t be angry anymore. “I deserved that.”

  We walked through the pantry to the back door and as promised, there was a deck there with a picnic table, some Adirondack chairs, and a short staircase down to the ground. The generator was off to the right in a lean-to, with a small tank next to it.

  The coyotes were yipping at each other, and as we headed down the stairs, Garrett stomped his feet, making a racket they couldn’t ignore. The yipping and yowls stopped and the whole pack moved around the back where we could see them, studying us.

  “That’s disconcerting,” I mumbled.

  “They’re mangy flea bags,” Garrett said offhandedly. “Won’t hurt us. They also don’t want to attract the wolves that live nearby.”

  “Wolves?” My throat went dry.

  He shrugged. “You’re in Alaska. Wolves, bears, eagles, moose, elk, caribou, coyotes. They’re all out there.”

  That wasn’t terribly reassuring. “Shouldn’t I be more frightened of…like bears? Or wolves?”

  “Wolves have never attacked a human in the history of the United States. They’ve been vilified because of cattle ranchers and their losses to the wolves. Once the plains were cordoned off, they felt the wolves were a nuisance.”

  “I did not know that.”

  Lifting up a few of the panels, Garrett poked around the generator. “Wolves are fiercely loyal, to pack and family. They’ll do what they have to, to protect the pack.”

  I looked over at the edge of the trees and two of the coyotes had sat and were staring at us standing there. I stared back, and it was like there was a deep conscious understanding of what was going on.

  A better one than I had at that moment.

  “Garrett, those two are freaking me out,” I whispered.

  He turned and saw the two largest of the pack sitting and watching us. They were intent, focused on me, but not ignoring him in any way.

  Garrett growled. Not a playful, sexy throaty one, but a deep down, from-the-gut threatening tone I had never heard a human make before. He was staring back at them. While I saw their hackles rise, I could feel a chill down my spine as I sensed his rise as well.

  What the actual fuck was going on here?

  Something made me lift the gun and tuck it into my shoulder, trying to aim it to the left of the two animals.

  It did the trick. Finally. They stood and scampered off to rejoin the rest of the pack in the trees.

  “Ballsy,” Garrett mumbled.

  “Rabid,” I corrected.

  “No, just bold.”

  He looked at the generator again and pulled a few knobs and tubes. A second later, it roared to life, with a hiccup and a belch, rattling a bit at first, then settling into a cold diesel engine shutter and shake.

  He nodded and pulled me away from it so I could hear him over the sound.

  “It’s going to be loud for about twenty minutes. But it’s a good machine and if we give it the time, it should quiet down. There’s enough diesel in there to keep it going for about thirty-six hours, running the fridge and stove normally. I’ll get someone up here for a refill. That tank is nice. Holds about a week of diesel.”

  We had walked away from the house and into a field just behind it. I could still hear the coyotes, but they were in a different area, and we were standing in a huge patch of wildflowers of all sorts.

  Garrett pulled up a few of the small red flowers that were sprinkled throughout. “I wish I were making you a bouquet, but…these are fireweed. I want you to burn them in the fireplace. The smell of them burning offends coyotes, and this will help keep them away. I’m going to bring my brother and a few friends up tomorrow with the diesel, and we’ll take care of this pest problem. For now…the gun and the fireweed should do it.”

  I nodded. What else could I do?

  My gut was telling me there was a hell of a lot more going on here.

  Chapter Three

  I was in so much fucking trouble with this woman.

  One hundred and eighteen years alone. And what happens? My mate calls me up to ask for electrical services.

  As soon as she opened that door, I knew who she was. I could smell her, and it washed over me. How I didn’t pop a boner in the door, I don’t know. And how we made it nearly an hour before fucking would always be a mystery.

  Everything I’d ever heard about finding a mate was dead accurate. Personalities meshed immediately. Desperate sexual attraction. A deep desire to mark them before they walked away. And the need to protect.

  That one had almost done me in.

  Those coyotes, the Turner Lake Pack exiles, were nothing but trouble. They thought they owned the top of the mountain, even though they had been told dozens of times they didn’t. There were too many humans this close to Juneau for them to claim anything. If they wanted land, they’d been told to move out into BC or Yukon.

  Stubborn, useless coyotes. Even their old pack wanted nothing to do with them at the south end of the city.

  To find them circling my mate’s cabin nearly drove the wolf out of me. They knew who I was, too. This was going to be the end of them.

  But that sweet human. She was mine. She said she was here for the summer, so I had three months to convince her to stay, and tell her the truth about myself and my pack.

  That was plenty of time. Plenty of sex, too.

  “Garrett?”

  I looked out of the truck window and found my father standing there. After I rolled down the window, he leaned an arm on my truck and smirked.

  “Smells like sex in there, Son.”

  Of course it did. He was a wolf and I hadn’t showered.

  “You realize you’ve been sitting in there for nearly half an hour?”

  My eyes shot to the clock. “I have?”

  “Yup.” He winked at me mischievously. “Who is she?”

  Groaning, I popped the door open while I grabbed my tool belt. “My mate.”

  “You found her!”

  “She’s human. Here on vacation. She found me through Angie’s List.”

  “Eh, human, shifter, whatever.” Dad shrugged. “You know I don’t care. What I do care about is that my son finally found his mate!”

  He gave me a hard clap on the back and steered me toward the house. I was relieved to have found her, but I didn’t know if I was rea
dy to share that with the whole compound. Especially given the animosity toward a potential future Alpha having a human mate.

  I was glad, though, that my parents didn’t care.

  “Just, don’t announce it yet, Dad. Please. The coyotes are surrounding the house. I want to get a party up there tomorrow to make sure the house is secure and everyone is safe.”

  “Everyone?”

  “She’s here with friends. There’s five of them up there.”

  I watched as his brow wrinkled and a sense of worry crawled over me.

  “Up where? The old Yéil place?”

  “Yes, why?”

  “Well, one, what a damn mess that place is. Two, the coyotes have been hanging out there for a few weeks. They won’t like being usurped. And three…”

  Dramatic pauses from my father were never a good thing. This one was long, but I also knew it wouldn’t end until he was good and ready. “Three. That land was sold to one of the two Yéils’ last living relative. Whoever owns that place…”

  I stopped dead. “Is a shifter.”

  “And I’ll bet her friends don’t know. She may not even know.”

  “Holy crap.”

  “The Yéils were raven shifters.”

  “No one there knew I was a shifter, and no one there smelled like one.” I had been around the women all day, and none of them acted or smelled like anything but a woman.

  “Then she doesn’t know.” My father was suddenly all Alpha and chief. “Dad, are you thinking about awakening her?”

  He nodded. “If she’s descended from them, she can be awakened. Even if it’s a few generations back.”

  “You can’t do that to her.”

  Alpha and chief stood up straight, stepping away from me. “You know what happens to unawakened shifters if they are not taught and guided through it.”

  Tossing a glance in the direction of the cemetery, I nodded. I knew exactly what happened with unawakened shifters. There were a dozen of them in the graveyard, with a laundry list of illnesses and mental health labels. So many we tried to help, but they didn’t want to leave their own comfortable reality.

  “Dad, let’s work on the coyotes first.”