by Wood, Vivian
The voice of reason in the back of her mind disagreed. She needed to get up and move before she fell asleep. Only, she was so comfortable…
She heard a soft, chuffing sound. Penny opened her eyes, surprised that they’d been closed. Above her, she saw a glorious black dog. No, not a dog. It was at least four feet tall, its fur sleek and dark against the snow. And its eyes, the brightest spring green… they seemed to glow.
The wolf looked down at her, seeming concerned. It made Penny’s lips twitch, wondering what kind of allegories her snow-drunk brain was making up now. Then she closed her eyes with a sigh, drifting off.
Chapter Two
Harlan Craig was having a bad day. No, actually a bad week. Or was it a bad year?
What did you call it when you were hauling ass through a thick layer of snow, carrying an unconscious woman, and trying not to get shot? Or shot a second time, to be specific.
The wound on Harlan’s arm was nothing major, but it did hurt like a bitch. Not quite as bad as shifting, all those bones breaking and reforming from human to wolf, but… still.
A thunderous crack rang through the woods, echoing in the freezing air. Harlan slammed his back against a tree, panting for breath and trying to determine the direction of the shooter. 4 o’clock, he was pretty sure.
Harlan closed his eyes for a second, listening intently. Even with his heightened senses, he couldn’t hear anyone moving around. The hunters must be heading away from the main lodge, no doubt fanning out to cover more ground.
Please, please let them be doing that behind Harlan, not ahead where his cabin lay. A single glance down showed that the girl’s lips were white with cold, and there wasn’t a damn thing Harlan could do about it out here in the open. He needed blankets and hot water bottles and… fuck, soup? Thoughts banged around in his brain like panicked, trapped birds, desperate to find somewhere to land.
Harlan waited one more beat before springing forward again. Thankfully, the woods were silent as he sprinted toward his cabin at full speed. In the back of his mind, Harlan couldn’t help but think that his boot camp instructors would be proud. Military drills had prepared him for exactly an event like this, though no one could have foreseen the need for it back here in the States.
On top of the guys in the woods, hunting Harlan and his friends, on top of getting shot, now there was the girl.
Like Harlan’s life wasn’t hard enough.
Like he hadn’t literally been through hell and back fighting in Afghanistan and Syria.
Like he hadn’t then been bitten and turned into a fucking werewolf by one of his best friends. Enslaved to the moon’s whims, at times no longer the master of his own fucking body.
Like he hadn’t consequently been stuck out here with his two nearly-insane best friends, the only other werewolves he knew. With no other company to speak of for a year straight, nothing to do but slowly repair the ski lodge and grounds and try not to fight with Chase and Paxton over who of the three of them was the most at fault for all of it.
Nope. That wasn’t enough. On top of all that, she had to arrive on the scene, fall right into his lap. Sexy little redhead with big blue eyes and heart-stopping freckles, stumbling right into a live firefight between Harlan, Paxton, and the Hunters, almost getting shot.
Getting Harlan shot, actually.
He grimaced at the pain in his shoulder as he shifted the slight woman in his arms. He’d taken a little buck shot and flying bark in the upper arm, some ricochet from a nearby tree. He was bleeding freely now, and the girl’s face was perilously close to getting bloody.
He focused on the pain as he booked it back to his cabin, trusting Pax to draw the Hunters off in a merry chase across the most rugged parts of Winter Pass. It was hard country out here; if the wolves were lucky, it might actually kill a few of the Hunters, give their prey some peace.
Yes. Better to focus on death and gore, what Harlan knew best. Anything was better than looking at the girl, feeling the way his pulse raced, listening to his wolf bristle and whine at the sight of her.
Ours, his wolf seemed to say.
No fucking way, was Harlan’s response. No matter how hot she was, he couldn’t even consider bringing a woman into the shit show that was his life at the moment. That was a whole world of bullshit he didn’t need, no matter how cold the nights got up here at Winter Pass…
Harlan made it to the door of his cabin, heart in his throat. When he swung open the door, his stomach dropped. A tall, dark-outfitted figure stood in the middle of the cabin’s simple living room, waiting.
When Paxton turned to face him, Harlan groaned.
“What the fuck, Pax. Aren’t you supposed to be leading the hunters around by their noses?” Harlan said, stamping his feet to shake off some of the snow clinging to his legs and boots.
He stepped over and laid the girl out on the couch, then stripped off his damp coat.
“Aren’t you supposed to be helping me? Yet you’re here, with a female. And here I thought I was the ladies’ man of the Triad,” Pax said, arching a brow. The Triad was a reference to the nickname Chase had drunkenly come up with for their group once they’d been through basic training together and somehow ended up in the same unit.
“Is that what they’re calling man whores these days?” Harlan asked, moving to unzip the girl’s coat.
“Getting right to it, then?” Pax grunted. A joke, but the teasing implication made Harlan growl.
“She’s hypothermic, asshole. I need to get her dry and warm. Make yourself useful, go get some blankets from the closet in my bedroom.”
Harlan went back to work. He freed her from her jacket, surprised when a canvas bag fell out of her jacket. He picked it up and set it aside, then got her coat off her. She didn’t so much as twitch as he moved her limbs around.
He touched her shirt and pants, finding them icy and wet. He frowned, realizing that he needed to strip her down all the way. A quiet, unwelcome voice told him that he needed to preserve her privacy as much as possible.
She was so small, so frail lying there. Harlan wasn’t about to take advantage, and he wasn’t going to let Pax get an eyeful either. But how?
Drawing a thick fleece blanket off the couch, Harlan half-covered her body, managing to shield her freezing, naked body from his gaze. It was awkward, made doubly so when Pax returned and watched Harlan work. Harlan could almost hear Pax smirking over his shoulder, laughing at his ridiculous attempt at valor.
Even worse, now that her clothes were off, the scent of honeyed apples was rolling off her skin, filling the air in the cabin, invading Harlan’s senses. What the hell kind of shampoo or soap made a woman smell that good?
“Give me the damn blankets,” Harlan said, holding out a hand.
Pax handed them over without a word. Harlan spent a couple of minutes working one under her body without touching her too much, then swaddled the rest of them around her until she looked like a fleece and wool burrito. Everything was covered except a little of her face, enough to breathe with ease.
“This is easily the worst decision you’ve ever made,” Pax commented when Harlan stood to survey his work. “I mean, other than coming to Winter Pass in the first place.”
Harlan shot him a look.
“I remember you being the one who thought we needed to come here and check on Chase, make sure he hadn’t gone off the deep end,” Harlan said. It was an old argument, half a joke and half an accusation.
“Speaking of Chase…” Pax crossed his arms and looked down at the sleeping girl. “He’s going to lose his shit when he finds out you have a girl here.”
“I know.”
“He made a pretty big deal out of being the alpha wolf, and commanding us not to let any humans come here.”
“I know.”
“And yet… here she is anyway,” Pax said, giving Harlan a long look. “This is basically what he meant, in a nutshell.”
“Fuck, Pax. I know! What was I supposed to do, let the hunters catch her?
Leave her to freeze to death in the snow?” Harlan gritted out. He scrubbed his fingers through his short, dark hair, knowing there was no real answer to his questions forthcoming.
“Just saying that Chase is going to be pissed if he finds out. Not to mention that the full moon is coming, and unless you want to hunt and turn your new friend into a werewolf, you’ll do what Chase says. Avoid her and every other human. It’s the only sure way to keep from doing what he did to us.”
“I’m surprised you even care what Chase will think. You guys aren’t exactly on talking terms, last time I checked. Haven’t been in almost… what, ten months?”
Paxton regarded Harlan for a long moment, then shrugged. Harlan kicked off his boots and peeled off his wet socks, fighting to keep from clawing off his pants and shirt. His wolf desperately wanted to get much, much closer to the pretty redhead in his care, so bad he felt like his skin was crawling.
“I’m telling you because I think you care,” Pax clarified. “And I also said if. If he finds out. As in… I will do my best to make sure that doesn’t happen.”
A tiny knot of tension eased in Harlan’s stomach.
“Yeah?” he asked, keeping his eyes on the girl.
“Help the only person I both see regularly and can stand be around? Yeah, man,” Pax said, sounding offended. “I’ll take one for the team and go start some shit with Chase, keep him away for the night. You have to get her out of here first thing in the morning, though.”
“That’s your solution?” Harlan asked, a smile tugging at his lips. “Picking a fight with Chase?”
“It’ll be believable,” Pax said with a shrug. “I mean it, though, about getting her out of here. This is a bad, bad idea, H.”
“I couldn’t just… I don’t know how to say it,” Harlan said, turning away from the girl and pacing to the window. “My wolf is like… obsessed with her. I think if I’d tried to walk away, he would have taken over and dragged her back here on his own. He won’t shut the hell up, either. He’s been rattling the cage for the past hour, trying to get me to…”
Harlan trailed off, unwilling to finish the sentence. Paxton cleared his throat, a strange look on his face.
“Like that weird mate bullshit we saw on TV?”
Pax referred to a popular news show’s coverage of supposed information about werewolves, from diet to appearance to how they found and kept so called mates. Pheromones, love at first sight, inescapable attraction, that kind of thing. Half of the stuff on the show had been way off base, so there was no reason to think that the mates thing was accurate. Pax was probably kidding, but the idea gave Harlan a chill.
“You’re overthinking it,” Pax said, cutting into Harlan’s rising panic. He clapped a hand on Harlan’s shoulder and made for the door. “In any case, all the better reason for you to get rid of her ASAP. Tomorrow morning, man. I mean it.”
“Yeah,” Harlan said, nodding. “Of course.”
Pax shot him a dubious look as he left. To his shame, Harlan felt a moment of relief when he shut the door on his friend.
Turning, he stared at the woman on the couch. Maybe if he got lucky, she’d sleep all the way till sunrise and then be out the door before they had to interact.
His wolf growled at the thought of her leaving, hating anything except the idea of Harlan taking the girl straight to his bed. Kissing her full, pouty lips, squeezing the perfect breasts he’d carefully avoided while undressing her. Sinking deep into her heat, watching her eyes blaze with passion as he made her call his name…
Harlan gave himself a shake. He needed space. Man and wolf were both obsessing about a woman they didn’t even know. They didn’t know her name, didn’t know what color her eyes would be when she woke.
She was a stranger. Hell, for all he knew, she had arrived with the hunters and gotten separated from them somehow. Or worse, she was some kind of bait to soften the wolves up and lead them out into the open.
Harlan went over to the couch and gathered her in his arms. Holding his breath to keep her delectable scent at bay, he carried her into his bedroom and laid her on the bed. Unable to help himself, he tucked her under the covers, just to be absolutely sure that she’d warm up on her own.
As opposed to with his help… naked… in a fashion featuring a lot of very aerobic sex…
Snarling at himself, Harlan left the bedroom, shutting the door tight. Grabbing a beer from the fridge, he settled himself in his armchair, the only other piece of furniture that didn’t smell like her.
Snatching up his battered copy of Master and Commander, Harlan sipped his beer and pretended to focus on the book, though his mind wandered from the page again and again.
Morning simply could not come soon enough.
Chapter Three
Heart pounding. Breath ragged. Leaves and branches whipping at her bare skin as she raced through the forest. Sultry moonlight filtering down through the trees, the scent of dark, rich soil filling the air.
Behind her, a man. A glance back shows him to be tall and broad, all rippling tanned muscle, dark hair and glowing green eyes. He grins as he chases her, challenges her.
Penny surged forward, arms pumping, feet flying, heart filled with indescribable joy.
She won’t win.
Can’t. Not against him.
Still, the chase… the chase is everything.
Just as she spots the edge of the forest, where the trees will break and she’ll be free, strong arms band around her waist. Warm lips find her neck as he slows her down, stops her in her tracks.
A soft bite, just in that place at her nape, the spot that makes her weak in the knees. Hands cup her breasts, and she feels his long, thick cock pressing against her lower back.
Penny shivered. He was going to take her, possess her, brand her with his body…
Penny blinked and squirmed. She was way, way too warm. Sweating. Also weighed down with a ton of blankets. She squinted up at the ceiling. This wasn’t Amber’s lilac living room… the walls here were stark white.
The blankets weren’t her favorite comforter, either. These were fleece and wool, and they didn’t smell like her floral-scented detergent. They smelled like fresh pine needles with a little musk, like… like man should smell.
Penny shot up, looking around. Where the hell was she? The room was just white walls and wood floors, very simple. The decor was bare bones, nothing but the bed and a side table stacked high with thick novels. The Sun Also Rises caught her eye.
Whoever lived here, apparently they liked Hemingway. She screwed up her face as she climbed out of the strange bed, staring around. When the last blanket fell away, Penny was shocked to find that she was completely naked underneath.
She wobbled on her feet, her muscles cramping and protesting the abuse they’d suffered. She was bombarded with a sudden burst of memory, of leaving her car and trudging up toward the Winter Pass ski lodge.
Was that where she was now? This room seemed much too small, but maybe she was on the second floor. There was no window in the room, so it was impossible to tell.
Snatching up one of the fleece blankets, she wrapped it around herself like a towel. Then she spotted a chair in the corner, behind the door. Her wet clothes hung there, drying… underwear, bra, and all. They were still damp in places, meaning she hadn’t been knocked out for too long.
An oversized blue t-shirt and a pair of gray thermal longjohns were sitting on the seat in a neat stack, apparently meant for her. A bright spot in the midst of a very unhappy moment in the life of Penny Marie Harding.
Penny had never dressed so fast in her whole life. The whole time she was getting the clothes on, she was also trying her hardest not to imagine how they’d come off.
Someone had undressed her. The realization gave her a chill. She padded to the bedroom door and forced herself to open it, stepping into the hall and closing the door behind herself before she could lose her nerve.
She was clearly in one of the small rental cabins, not the main lodge as Pe
nny had first thought. To her left was a small bathroom, which was her first stop. When she emerged, the hallway led out into a small front room, a kitchenette and table across from a sofa and a recliner.
And him.
He stood at the window, his tight white t-shirt and jeans silhouetting him against the darkness outside. Before he even turned around, Penny knew what he’d look like.
After all, she’d just seen him… in her all-too-real, all-too-sexy dream.
“Shit,” escaped from her mouth as he turned to face her.
He was gorgeous. Six and a half feet tall, pure muscle, lean and thick in just the right places. Short dark hair, a few days’ worth of stubble on his face, and the most eerie, piercing green eyes Penny had ever seen. Blazing bright with every bit as much intensity as her dream had foretold. And his mouth… he had the fullest, sexiest, most bitable lips in the universe, hands down. Just looking at his mouth sent half a dozen great uses for those lips into Penny’s brain like a bolt of lighting.
Damn. Harlan was so hot, he might as well be on fire.
Penny’s legs went out from under her, and she let it happen. Better to be on the floor than to face the level of shame she felt right now at the way her body was responding to this complete stranger.
“Whoa now,” he said, striding over to her.
Penny went beet red as he picked her up and moved her to the couch, as easily as if she were a rag doll.
“Sorry,” she mumbled. This close, his musky pine scent overwhelmed her, making her breasts tighten, the place between her thighs warming unbearably.
He released her and crouched down in front of her, tipping her chin up with a finger. Penny was too embarrassed to form words, angry at her betraying hormones. She never responded to men like this, not even when she and Steve had first started dating.
Penny was frigid. All her life, except right this moment, the worst possible time.
“Did I hit my head?” she asked, raising her hand to feel the back of her skull. She was honestly suspicious that she might have a concussion. It would explain her… symptoms.