Alphas in the Wild

by Ann Gimpel

  “Good thing most of it’s covered by my beard, otherwise I’d be truly cold.” He tugged off his goggles and pushed his hood back. “Mules seem okay. Has everyone gotten something to eat? We need to get them out of the tents and everything packed and back onto the mules. It won’t be easy in this wind.”

  She stopped stirring and handed him a bowl. “Eat quick, while it’s hot. Yeah, all the clients have stopped by for food. I think we should leave a couple of tents pitched here. For one thing, if Gunter manages to stumble off the mountain, he’ll be trashed. For another, we’re coming right back. Doesn’t make sense to break camp only to set it up again a few hours later.”

  He spooned oatmeal into his mouth. It was good: warm and creamy. Tina had added sugar and powdered milk. “Thanks.” He gestured at the bowl with his spoon. “I suppose it would make sense to leave your tent and mine here and some of the food and supplies. The mess tent too. I’d planned to send it all to La Paz. A tour outfit I work with there would store it for me, and not steal too much.”

  “We can keep my drugs and medical supplies here. They don’t weigh much since I didn’t bring oxygen.” She pursed her lips. “Even if things go well, I don’t imagine we’ll be back much before dark—”

  “Which means we won’t be heading uphill until tomorrow,” he finished for her. “Not a problem. I’ll mark this site with the GPS. It may be the only way we can find it again. It’s starting to snow more. By the time we come back, there won’t be any tracks to follow.”

  “It will be a problem for Gunter,” she murmured. “If he’s still alive.”

  Craig put his bowl down, walked up behind her, and put his hands on her shoulders. “I’ve tried to raise him on the radio a dozen times, starting last night after I got to camp and realized what he’d done. He hasn’t answered. What do you think the odds are?”

  “Not good.”

  He grunted. “And getting worse by the moment. I want to talk about something else, though. Have you run tests on your blood since your, um, experience on this mountain?”

  She ducked from under his hands and spun to face him. “Uh, what kind of tests?”

  “You’re prevaricating. You know, blood count, blood chemistry, whatever you guys call it.”

  Her usually direct gaze scooted away. “Why?”

  He lowered his voice and spoke close to her ear. “I thought maybe the mountain spirit might’ve shared some of his power with you when he completed the blood bond ritual.”

  Two spots of color bloomed high on her cheeks. “I should’ve called you seven years ago. Maybe we could have stymied him if we’d had time to dissect things.” She captured her lower lip in her teeth. “My blood’s not the same,” she admitted, her voice soft enough he had to strain to hear. “I won’t bore you with the details, and I never bothered to run the DNA, but looking at my chem panel, I’m not all that human anymore. It’s bad enough, I do my own labs and destroy them once they’re run.” She hesitated and then whispered the next words in his ear. “There are elements I don’t recognize.”

  He shut his eyes for a moment, not understanding why he wasn’t more surprised by her revelation. Craig’s instincts had always been good. They’d kept him alive all these years in a sport where over thirty percent died. He ran with the first suggestion his inner voice came up with. “Before we leave,” he said, keeping his voice soft, “I want you to make a cut big enough to bleed at least a couple of tablespoons. Let it run into the ground. I’ll scrape the snow down for you.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  He shook his head. “Neither do I, not really. But I trust my intuition. These spirits are ancient. The one thought he needed blood to bind you. Maybe you need blood to call him back. It’s better to meet him on our turf, Tina. That would be here, not out on the glacier with a crevasse field to trap us. Most of the openings will have filled in with the new snow, so we won’t be able to tell where they are.”

  “We have to look for Gunter. That means the glacier.”

  “Not if it’s not safe for us,” he countered. “Rule number one is—”

  “I know.” She held up a hand. “If we do something stupid and die, we can’t rescue anyone. I suppose if he were still alive, he’d have radioed for help.”

  “Not necessarily. He knows what he did was wrong. He’s probably too ashamed to use the radio. He knows it would put me in a tough position of having to choose between him or the clients.”

  A thoughtful look creased her forehead. “Your blood theory makes sense in a macabre sort of way. After all, why would the bond force me to his bidding, but not the other way round?”

  He shrugged. “Afraid I don’t have an answer. The other thing your blood might do is make the other ones—Illimani and Illampu—more, um, sensitive to your attempts to communicate with them.”

  He picked up his bowl, scraped the rest of the semi-frozen oatmeal out of the bottom with a titanium spoon, and ate it. Then he moved around Tina, grabbed a mug, and made himself a cup of instant coffee liberally laced with sugar.

  She pounded a gloved fist into her other hand. “You’re shooting in the dark.”

  A corner of his mouth turned down. “I am. If we come up with enough ideas, though, one is bound to pan out.”

  “Wish I knew more about the native people here. I looked up their legends, but didn’t study them because most of the source materials were written in native languages, and I couldn’t find anyone to translate.”

  “It might not have helped.” He polished off the tepid coffee in a couple gulps. “If you’re done in here, help me break camp. We’ll need to batten down the tents we’re leaving.”

  “You aren’t kidding. I don’t want this to be another Mount McKinley where we staggered back to our camp on Denali Pass only to discover it had blown away. It’s a miracle we didn’t die that night. The ice was like glass and close to vertical. One slip would have done it.”

  “Well, we didn’t.” He quirked a brow before repositioning his hood and goggles. “I like to think we’ve learned something since then.”

  Tina snorted. “Yeah, me too.” She held out her arms.

  Craig fought with himself, but the battle was brief. He stepped into her embrace and hugged her back. “It’ll be all right,” he murmured.

  “Wish I was as certain as you sound.”

  He stepped away. “We can talk more about this later, but there’s got to be a reason he gave you seven years instead of shanghaiing you on the spot. Maybe his blood needed time to do its work in your body. Hell, Tina, maybe you have some sort of power to rival his. For all we know, he did something to make you worthy of being his consort.”

  Her face twisted into an unpleasant expression, as if she’d bitten into something sour. She shuddered. “Let’s get the blood thing over with. You dig down to earth and I’ll meet you outside with a scalpel.”

  “How about behind those boulders?”

  “Sure. I’ll be right behind you.” She snorted grimly. “It’s beginning to feel like my second home.

  He headed out the door without bothering to answer.

  Her footsteps crunched through the snow. Craig straightened. He’d used an ice axe to scrape through a thin coating of rime ice between two boulders. It was a protected spot, and there hadn’t been much snow to clear.

  “Here.” She took off her gloves, thrust her coat at him, and rolled one sleeve up a couple of inches. A deft cut in the meaty part of her thumb and blood flowed into the place he’d cleared. “Damn.”

  “What?”

  “It’s so fucking cold my blood wants to clot.” She squeezed the edges of the wound and shook her head. “That’s going to have to do it. I’m not chopping into myself again.” She wound a bandage around the base of her thumb and secured it with tape. He helped her into her jacket.

  Tina dropped her medical supplies into a pocket and slid her gloves back on. “Glad that’s over with. Thanks for helping me.” An uncomfortable expression crossed her face.

 
“You’re welcome. What’s wrong?”

  She shrugged. “If I let myself think about it, this feels too woo-woo for words. Doesn’t matter. It’s done now. Let’s take the rest of this one step at a time. I’ll roust the troops and make sure they have everything. You batten down our two tents and this one.”

  He gave her a mock salute. “As you say, my lady doctor. I’ll make it so.”

  She laughed. “Whoops! Wasn’t trying to steal your thunder, Jean-Luc.”

  “Don’t worry about it. Let’s get going. Sooner we get this show on the road, the sooner we’ll be back here.”

  Chapter Six

  Tina slogged uphill. Her initial estimate of how long it would take to sort things out and escort the clients back to civilization had been wildly optimistic. They might have another fifteen minutes of daylight. It would be well past dark before they reached the tents. They’d left all the mules but Xavier in Estancia Una. The bells from his harness tinkled in her ears. He’d been pretty frisky since his pack frame was empty.

  “I know how you feel, buddy.” She patted the side of his neck. “My pack feels a whole lot better with twenty pounds in it than sixty.”

  Footsteps pelted toward her as Craig caught up. He’d sent her and the mule ahead while he finalized last minute arrangements with the taxi drivers. Tina made Joe promise he’d stop by the main hospital in La Paz before leaving Bolivia. He’d improved after descending four thousand plus feet, so she wasn’t particularly worried about him anymore, but it never hurt to have an extra set of eyes take a look.

  “Sorry,” Craig said. “Took quite a bit longer than I thought it would.”

  “No kidding. Everything did. The foot of fresh snow when we left camp didn’t help, but it didn’t last long. Good thing too since I’ve never seen a group move quite so slow.”

  “Know what you mean. I’ll make a point of trying to meet clients before accepting them from now on. Or at least do a better job of checking their climbing résumés. Too risky, otherwise.”

  She lapsed into silence, her emotions in turmoil. One of her inner voices chided her for not telling Craig to go back. This was her battle, not his. She’d spurned him years before. It wasn’t fair for her to take advantage of his goodwill—and whatever feelings he might still have for her—if it put his life on the line.

  She’d heard the telltale signs of him masturbating last night. Their tents were right next to one another. The hitch in his breathing when he got close to orgasm was unmistakable. If he’d been that aroused, why hadn’t he taken her up on her offer and joined her in her tent? She blew out a sad breath. Craig was a decent guy. She should’ve married him when she had the chance. Plus, he was still sexier than hell. Knowing he was stroking himself to a climax not ten feet from her made her so hot, she’d rubbed herself to her own peak with a jacket stuffed into her mouth so she wouldn’t give herself away. Her face heated at the memory.

  “Penny for your thoughts.”

  “Nothing, really.” She turned away so he wouldn’t see how flushed she was. “We should hatch up a plan, though.” She gestured toward the westering sun. “It’ll be down in a couple minutes. Did you try to raise Gunter again?”

  “No point. The radios have a stated five mile range, but they don’t work very well in the mountains until you’re much closer.”

  “Since you’re the blood guru, what do you think we should do after we get back to the tents? Besides dinner and bed, that is.”

  “I’m not sure. It wouldn’t hurt for you to spend the time between now and then asking Illimani and Illampu for help.”

  “Not Huayna Potosi?”

  He shook his head. “Not sure we need the Lord of Stone. Besides that peak’s quite a way from here.”

  It felt like a fool’s errand, but she didn’t have any better ideas, so Tina threw her mind wide open. The weather had cleared as they’d descended, but it was going to hell again, almost as if some mountain god were warning them away. She latched on to that as a starting point and told Illimani about her dilemma.

  “Tina.”

  “Huh?” She’d been so deep in thought, Craig’s voice came as a surprise.

  “It’s snowing harder and it’ll be completely dark soon. Stop, put on warmer clothes, get your clear goggles out. And your headlamp.”

  “Yes, Daddy.”

  He snorted. “I kept thinking you’d do it on your own. Let me help with your pack.”

  A rush of love so intense it nearly undid her, threaded outward from her belly. She opened her mouth to tell him she’d been a fool, that she’d never stopped loving him, but snared the words before they could escape from her throat. Craig was just being Craig. Doing the right thing was as natural to him as breathing.

  “Thanks,” she murmured and rooted in her pack for her storm gear. She had to be careful. The wind wanted to rip her things right out of her hands. Snow pelted her in the face. She squinted against the developing storm, wondering why she hadn’t noticed how bad it had gotten.

  Once they were underway again, he asked, “Any luck communing with the mountain gods?”

  She started to say no and then set her mind to analyzing what had happened. “I’m not sure,” she replied at last. “I was in a trance state. A pretty damned deep one since I didn’t even think to stop and layer up until you told me.”

  “Did anyone tell you anything?” he persisted.

  She shook her head. “It wasn’t like when Mururata spoke into my mind. It’s possible someone was listening to me. Christ! How could I know something like that for sure? My scientifically-trained brain is tripping me up. I need to suspend that part, and it’s not easy.”

  “Do you know for certain the one dogging you is Mururata?”

  “No. It’s just conjecture since he was the miscreant who was beheaded. Back to reality, do you think you should fire up the GPS? We have to be close.”

  “If we don’t stumble across the tents in the next few minutes I will.”

  Xavier tugged on his lead rope. “Hey. He wants us to bear left.”

  “Go for it. He’ll know where we were last night. He’s probably hoping there are oats left.”

  “Are there?”

  “He could eat himself sick if I gave him all of them.” Craig laughed. The sound was welcome. The closer they got to the upper mountain, the more apprehensive she felt.

  “Maybe he can smell them.” She let go of the rope and trotted after the mule. “Home,” she called over a shoulder. “We’re here.”

  “Great. I’ll take care of Xavier. Want to get something going for dinner?”

  She headed for the mess tent, checking the other two were still where they’d staked them and hadn’t been disturbed. Tina breathed a sigh of relief. She hadn’t expected the weather to sabotage their tents, but the campesinos—Bolivian peasants—were so poor, they often broke into climbers’ camps in the Andes and took whatever wasn’t nailed down. Because their camp was so low, it was close enough to Estancia Una and Pinaya to be easy pickings.

  Likely the rotten weather had saved them from thieves.

  The snow wasn’t much deeper than when they’d left, but it wouldn’t stay like that for long the way it was coming down. Tina stamped snow from her boots and stepped into the mess tent. She shucked her pack, set it in a corner, and got a candle lantern going. She grabbed a large pot and debated walking to the stream she’d gotten water from the night before. Not wanting to deal with the worsening weather any longer than she had to, she went outside, filled the pot with snow, and set it on the white gas stove, keeping the door pinned open for ventilation. While the snow melted, she rustled through their freeze-dried options.

  By the time Craig came in, she had an approximation of fettuccini alfredo bubbling on the stove. “Mmmm,” he murmured appreciatively. “Smells wonderful. What are we having with it?”

  “Here’s soup.” She pressed a mug into his hands. “And I was thinking maybe rice pudding for dessert.”

  He pulled up a camp stool and dro
pped onto it. “I checked the other tents. All our stuff’s still here.”

  “Heh! I did the same thing. On a more serious note, did you try Gunter?”

  He shook his head. The sharp sound of static filled the small space. Craig’s eyes widened. He pulled his radio from a pocket and depressed the send button. “Yes?”

  “Thank God,” was followed by a torrent of German.

  “Slow down,” Craig said. “Try English.”

  “Lady doctor. She is still there?”

  “Yes. Tina’s still here. Why?”

  “I am near Nido de Condores. Leg broken. Cold.”

  Craig’s forehead creased with worry. “I’ve tried you lots of times with the radio. Why didn’t you answer?”

  “Fell. Knocked out.”

  Tina exhaled sharply. Great. With a head injury and a broken leg, he’d be hard to evacuate. She tapped Craig’s arm and mouthed, “We should call a chopper.”

  He shook his head. “They can’t fly in this weather.”

  “Was sagten Sie?”

  “Never mind. Wasn’t talking to you.”

  The radio cracked again. “Sorry, I am—”

  “We’ll figure something out. Do you have your GPS?”

  “Nein. Lost much when falling.”

  Tina made chopping motions with her hands and pulled out her avalanche transceiver.

  Craig nodded his understanding. “Gunter. Turn your avalanche beacon to send. We can track the signal. Turn your radio off. We may need to communicate with you and we won’t be able to if you run it out of power, talking. Turn it back on at the top of every hour for five minutes. Put on everything you have with you and try to find a sheltered spot.”

  “Ja. Danke.”

  Craig set the radio handset on the table. “Shit. As if we didn’t have enough problems.”

  Tina walked around him and looked out the open tent door. She shone her headlamp on the ground. “An inch has fallen since I came in here.” She ducked back inside and velcroed the door shut.

  “May as well eat. We won’t do him any good by not being well-fed.”

  She plunked the cook pot onto the folding metal dining table and handed him a titanium fork. “Want tea with it? Water’s still hot.”