Gunnar

by Kimber White

  As the Pack moved to the east, my heart eased. A blast of heat hit me in the face as the air shifted and we moved toward the surface. The tunnel widened into a small, underground cavern where we could stand. Just above my head was another makeshift trapdoor. I put a hand on it and waited, listening for any sounds of movement above.

  Gunnar came to my side. He towered over me and had to crouch so his head wouldn’t hit the rocky overhang above. His eyes flashed again as he let his wolf out just enough to listen too.

  He gave me a quick nod and I pushed the trapdoor to the side. Tree roots hung in a snarl beside me. I grabbed one to pull myself up. Gunnar’s arms came around me. He lifted me as if I weighed nothing. My heart caught and my skin flared hot where he touched me.

  As I climbed out of the earth, a blast of fresh air hit me in the face. I squeezed my hips through the hole in the ground and rolled away. Gunnar burst out of the ground beside me. He landed in a crouch, his eyes scanning our surroundings, looking for danger.

  “This way,” I said, coughing. I needn’t have bothered. Even I could hear the rushing river straight ahead. Gunnar took a protective stance in front of me. When he seemed sure we were alone, he nodded again and we moved through the trees.

  The Rockcastle River flowed roughly this time of year. We edged our way down to the riverbank. My heart started to beat again when I saw the nose of the kayak peeking out beneath the dead branches I’d used to hide it.

  Not waiting for Gunnar, I dragged it out. Though the thing was only built for one, it was of heavy-duty construction. It would hold us both, but it would be a tight fit. Gunnar grabbed the other end and we set in in the water. Without a word, Gunnar climbed in first and held his hand out to me. I would have to sit in his lap. Of course it was the only thing that made sense, but now that I was about to get close to him again, I found it hard to breathe.

  “Let’s go!” he shouted as the river raged.

  Nodding, I took his hand and stepped into the kayak. Gunnar drew his knees up, making space for me. My head spun as I slid between his legs. Every nerve ending in my body sizzled as I pressed my back against the solid wall of Gunnar’s chest. He sucked in a hard breath as he lifted the paddle and started to carve it through the water. He was in pain. Adrenaline fueled him, but the effects of months of torture had to have taken their toll.

  We moved through the water at dizzying speed. I gripped the sides of the kayak, praying we wouldn’t tip. But Gunnar fought the raging current with agile grace. Each stroke of the paddle propelled us away from danger. At this rate, we would cover miles in no time. It should have made me breathe easier, but my body stayed alight with fire.

  Gunnar’s arms came around me with each stroke. I marveled at his strength and hard-cut muscles. He wasn’t like any shifter I’d ever known. He was bigger, mightier, more powerful. The idea that the Pack could still pose a danger to him shocked me. They did though. I could feel the fear in his wildly beating heart. At first, I thought I just felt his pulse pressed against my back. It wasn’t that though. It was something else. Something deep inside of me. Again, his heartbeat seemed to become my own.

  Finally, the current began to slow and the river widened.

  “There!” I shouted. A long beach stretched around a wooded peninsula. The trees were dense here, almost as if no humans had ever touched it. Gunnar shifted his weight and carved the oar through the water. In four strong strokes, he beached us. Sand scraped against the bottom of the kayak and we came to a stop.

  A strange sensation came over me. Here, in the kayak, I felt protected, almost as if we existed in some bubble of time. I didn’t have to think or act. I could just be. The moment I stepped foot on land, I would have to turn and face this man. What had I done?

  Gunnar got out first. He put a steadying hand on my back then reached for me. “Come on,” he said. “We’ve got to get rid of this thing.”

  I opened my mouth to protest. That kayak had been a hard-won prize. Vera found it a few months ago. We’d used it for supply runs, to scout new territory, and to escape faster than we could on foot when the Pack closed in. But, Gunnar was right. We’d traveled so far away from my encampment and downstream, there was no good way to get it back.

  “The less they know about how we’re traveling, the better,” he said. Swallowing past a dry throat, I nodded. Gunnar threw the paddle into the kayak, waded out into deeper water, then cracked the thing in two with a volatile strength that shocked me. I knew what he was. And yet, his power still startled me. The wreckage of the kayak sank quickly to the bottom of the river.

  I didn’t wait for him. Instead, I trudged up the beach and headed into the deeper part of the woods. We should be well protected here, but there was always the chance the Pack might venture out this far.

  Early spring, and it got bitterly cold here in the Kentucky wilderness. Enough water had splashed up to leave me drenched to the bone. I shivered and drew my arms around me. I pulled the shoulder strap of my small backpack over my head. I’d traveled light. The nine, some walnuts for protein, a lighter, and the Maglite.

  “We need to make a fire,” I said, my teeth chattering.

  “No!” Gunnar came to me, still scanning the tree line. “It’s not safe.”

  The moonlight cast eerie shadows, making the trees seem to come to life. Gnarled branches reached out with crooked fingers, closing in all around.

  “We’re miles away,” I said. “And the Pack’s headed in the other direction.”

  Gunnar seemed unconvinced. He stood with his legs apart in a ready stance. He dropped his head and tilted one ear into the wind. I opened my mouth to protest again but thought the better of it. I knew these woods better than he did. I knew how the Pack moved. But, he could still sense them in ways I never could.

  His eyes snapped open and he came to me. “You’re freezing,” he said. He stood inches away, but his body heat reached me like an aura around him. There was a pull between us I couldn’t understand. It frightened me as much as it drew me in.

  “I’m f-fine,” I said. “I’ll make a fire. It’ll be all right. I know what I’m doing.”

  When I turned to walk away, Gunnar took my arm and turned me back. His eyes blazed with hot fury. “You don’t.”

  I erupted. “Are you kidding? I’ve survived out here a hell of a lot longer than you have. You haven’t got the first clue about what I know.”

  Gunnar’s shoulders dropped. That silver wrath still lit his eyes, but his tone softened. “Jett, they’re out there. You can’t sense them, but I can. Even miles away, they’ll smell the smoke. Don’t you understand what just happened? Don’t you realize what they’re capable of?”

  Something snapped inside of me. How could he ask me that? He didn’t even know me. He didn’t know what I’d been through. “Yes,” I hissed. “I understand. And I also just saved your ass, so please don’t lecture me about…”

  A growl ripped from Gunnar’s throat. “Saved me? I killed that guard.”

  “You didn’t have to!” I yelled. “He wasn’t going to get up. Maybe not ever.”

  “He saw you,” Gunnar yelled back. “Whether he got up or not, he knew what you looked like. Do you get that I’m now the most hunted shifter in Kentucky? There’s a bounty on my head. And the Alpha is here. God, I can still feel him. The pull is still there. It’s all around us. If he gets closer...when he gets closer…”

  Gunnar put his hands to his ears. Agony distorted his features and he doubled over.

  “Gunnar!” I went to him on instinct. I put a hand on his back. That same heat was there. His skin rippled where I touched him. The instant I did, his breathing grew steadier. He froze then slowly straightened.

  He staggered away from me as if my touch burned him. I know it burned me. His expression filled with such desperation, my heart nearly stopped beating.

  “Why didn’t you do it?” he said, his voice a choked whisper.

  “Do what?”

  An ancient, rotted log had fallen a few ya
rds away. Gunnar went there and sat. He buried his face in his hands. His shoulders quaked. Slowly, I went to him. I wanted so badly to put a hand on his shoulder. When he looked up at me, his eyes were hollow.

  “You made me a promise,” he said. “You should have kept it and killed me.”

  I couldn’t hold back. I put a hand on his shoulder. Gunnar flinched from the instant heat I knew we both felt. He didn’t stop me as I sat beside him. He was right. I had promised to kill him. But now, I knew in my heart that I never could.

  Ten

  Gunnar

  Jett shivered beside me. She was soaked to the bone wearing a thin t-shirt and her black cargo pants. Winter hadn’t completely released its grasp on central Kentucky. It would get below freezing tonight. Her teeth rattled and she drew her legs up, hugging them.

  I went to her; acting on instinct, I pulled her against me. Her shivering intensified for a moment before my body heat started to warm her. I wore no shirt, tattered jeans, and had no shoes. I didn’t need any of it. I had hot shifter blood running through my veins. But, another kind of heat poured through me as I kept Jett close. She stiffened, reason and propriety making her want to pull away. But, she couldn’t deny the undercurrent running between us. I needed her close to me. My body craved it. Hers did too.

  “L-let me go,” she said.

  “You’re going to freeze to death. It’s too dangerous to build a fire. And if you’re not planning on keeping your promise and putting me out of my misery, this seems like the best option to keep you from getting hypothermic.”

  She should have killed me. Hell, I’d begged her to. Even now, I could feel the distant pull of the Pack. They would find their way here. Not tonight. Jett was right that they were headed in the other direction. It had been a near miss though. If she knew how close I’d come to just giving over to the pull, she never would have led me to the tunnels.

  Jett finally settled against me and her teeth stopped chattering. She felt so good in my arms. Not small or fragile. No. Jett’s arms were toned, her waist trim. She kept her back straight and her chin jutted in defiance. This was as hard for her as it was for me. She didn’t trust shifters. If she’d come from Birch Haven, I knew why. Just the fleeting thought of any of the Pack trying to force themselves on her made my inner wolf rage. My protective instincts flared so hot it got hard to see straight.

  I went somewhere else in my mind for a minute. Before I knew what was happening, Jett had slid off the log and stood before me. She was warm for now, but it wouldn’t last long.

  “You’re not okay,” she said. “How long has it been? When did they capture you?”

  “I don’t know,” I said, closing my eyes. She wasn’t wrong. My head swam and my stomach bubbled. When I tried to focus on a single point, my vision wavered. I’d been so keyed up during our escape, it was only now that my heartbeat started to slow. I’d been cramped up in that cell for so long I hadn’t realized how much strength I’d lost. “What month is it?”

  Was it January? That would make two months since they’d captured me. Two months trapped by four walls and chains that wouldn’t let my wolf come out.

  Jett squatted down in front of me. She put a light hand on my knee. “It’s the first week of April,” she said.

  Her lips were moving but it felt like I was hearing her on a delay. April. Had she said April? That meant it had been almost six months since I’d been taken to Camp Hell. Six months. It was impossible. I hadn’t shifted in six months?

  “Gunnar,” she said. “You don’t look well.”

  I put a hand out to steady myself. My whole body began to quake. “April,” I repeated. “That can’t be right.”

  “How long, Gunnar?” she asked again.

  Shaking my head, I tried to rise. I took a step forward then faltered to the side. Jett tried to catch me. She was too small. I took us both down, landing hard on the ground. She got to her knees and put a hand on my cheek. “How long?” she whispered.

  “Six months.” I choked the words out. “I think it’s been almost six months.”

  “Can you...I mean...how?”

  I met her eyes. Hers were wide with fear. My vision went white. I had trouble focusing. “Jett,” I said. “I have to...I can’t…”

  “Gunnar, look at me.” She held my face in her hands. “You have to shift. You have to let your wolf out. Is that what you need?”

  “It’s too dangerous,” I said. “They can track me.”

  “They are miles away. You’re not thinking straight. Look, I don’t know how this works. But, are you sure you’re sensing them properly? If you haven’t been in your wolf in that long, how do you know if you’re instincts aren’t, I don’t know, haywire?”

  Haywire. That’s exactly what everything felt like. She was right. God help us both, she was right.

  “So shift,” she said. “Maybe it’ll help you, uh, hit the reset button.”

  I smiled. It was an odd way to put it, but it made a certain degree of sense. I tried to hold it together, but it wasn’t going to work. The urge to shift burned as strong in my lungs as the need to breathe. I couldn’t keep this up.

  Jett sensed it and let go of me. She rose and took a few gingerly steps backward. “It’s okay,” she said. She grabbed her pack off the ground and slid her gun out of it, holding it pointed down and away from me. That was another conversation we needed to have. With what happened to Lowell, that thing clearly wasn’t loaded with normal bullets.

  “I can take care of myself,” she said even as her teeth started to chatter again.

  “I just need a few minutes, maybe,” I said as the hunger began to rise. My whole body trembled with it. My wolf wanted to tear out of me. “Stay here,” I said. “If anything that isn’t me tries to come through the clearing, shoot it.”

  Jett smiled. “So you don’t want me to shoot you anymore?”

  She meant it as a joke, but her smile faded quickly. Before I could answer, she turned and walked toward the water. With Jett’s back turned, I slid out of my jeans. Filthy as they were, no sense in ruining them as I didn’t have another pair. My wolf rumbled. I dropped to all fours, eyes on Jett’s back.

  I wanted her. More than I wanted to shift, I wanted her. As I reached out, my fingers turned to claws. The shift shuddered through me. It felt like the first time. My limbs were awkward. My muscles tore and bones reknit in searing agony. It wasn’t the seamless change that I’d honed since adolescence. This was ungainly torture. A growl tore from my throat and my fangs cut through my flesh.

  Then the world went still. My pulse thundered through me, driving heated blood from the tips of my ears to the pads of my paws. I was the wolf. The wolf was me. Strength that had been torn from me flooded through me once again. A blue moon rose, reflecting off the river before me.

  I saw Jett standing in silhouette. My ears pricked at the soft sound of her heated breath. She would shiver again soon. She would need me. My need for her might take hold. For now, I needed to run. Jett turned. Her chin trembled as she stood with her back straight, her hands folded in front of her.

  She was afraid of me. She’d never seen a wolf like me before. The wolves of Birch Haven were smaller, weaker. They were betas. The Alpha kept them far away from the women he’d brought there so the lesser shifters would be easier to control.

  I was no beta. I was born to be an Alpha, to claim a rightful pack and a mate. Had I been born in another century or another place, I could have taken it. But I was born here, in Kentucky where a ruthless Tyrannus Alpha kept all the shifters under his control. Or he would, if I ever let him catch me.

  A howl ripped out of me with enough power to blow Jett’s hair back. The sound rippled through her and I felt her pulse quicken. It meant something. It meant everything. But, for now, I needed something else more.

  Turning, I stretched my legs. With each step, strength poured back into them. I sprang up on my haunches and ran up the hill to the deeper part of the woods. My claws ripped into the ground, prop
elling me forward with each step. My senses sharpened. The scent of wet earth, bark, grass, blood and prey filled my lungs. I would hunt. I would feed. I would reclaim who I was.

  I don’t know how long I stayed away. An hour. Maybe two. In the back of my mind, I thought of Jett standing by the water’s edge. The urge to keep on running all the way to the border pulled at me. It would be so foolish. The heaviest concentration of Pack patrols would be there. And I knew they were looking for me.

  I tore into the flesh of a snow hare that had the ill luck to cross my path. I would need something bigger soon. For now, just the thrill of the hunt helped restore my soul. I howled at the moon once more.

  Then, another heartbeat filled my senses. Not Jett. It was something dangerous. I crouched low, baring my teeth. Part of me hoped the Pack would just come. I welcomed the fight. It was part of my nature too. No sooner had I thought it when the pull started low in my belly. My pulse quickened and my vision wavered.

  No. No. Not this. Not now. I heard voices in the distance. At first, I thought they were just beyond a small ridge on the other end of the peninsula. Then, slowly I knew they were coming from inside my own head.

  Sir, he’s close. He’s been in dragonsteel for months. He won’t be able to stay out in the open for very long and he’s too far away from the rest of his people.

  You don’t know where the rest of his people are. He had help. Gunnar can’t shoot bullets from his eyeballs. Did I imagine the gunshot wound on the guard?

  If they were close, they would have found him by now. He’s alone. He’s weak.

  With all due respect, sir. I know Gunnar better than anyone. Let me take some men south. We’ll bring him back. I won’t let you down.

  You said he grew close to the other men here. I trust you’ll do what needs to be done with them.

  Yes, sir. We’ll increase the interrogations with the prisoners we still have. If they know anything, we’ll know it too in a matter of days. Or less.

  My heart felt like it might explode. The voices were inside my head. It meant the Pack was far closer than Jett or I thought. The Alpha was talking to Maestro. Maestro told him he knew me better than anyone. For those wolves under Pack control, God help me, he was right.