“Put your arm around Falke,” she said to Axel, who sat in the snow.
He draped his arm over the cat’s neck.
“You don’t seem real affectionate toward him,” she noted, realizing that he never touched Falke.
“He prefers the ladies,” Axel said in a dry tone, making Dakota laugh.
She raised the camera to her eye, but stopped and lowered it as she stared at man and beast sitting next to each other. “Dang, you two must have been brothers in another life.”
“What?” Axel’s tone was filled with shock. The cat turned its head to look at him.
“You two…You sort of look alike.”
Axel sputtered. Falke made that silly chuckling sound.
“Same eye color, same hair color. Haven’t you ever noticed?”
“Uh…yeah…a bit, I guess. Take the picture, Dakota.”
She almost laughed again at Axel’s strange reaction to her comments. She snapped a picture, then another, then a third for good measure because she wanted to have one to hang up in her condo. They sat in the almost blindingly white snow, with the dark trees behind.
“Come here.” Axel held out his hand, and she walked on her knees to get over to him. When she was close, he took the camera from her hand and pulled her onto his lap. “It’s not ideal, but I think we can get the three of us in a shot.”
She grinned and snuggled up close to Axel, her head on his shoulder. Then Falke straddled her legs and scooted up to her, his head next to hers, which made her laugh.
Axel held the camera out, pointed at them, and snapped a picture just as Falke licked her face.
She burst out laughing and shoved Falke’s cold nose to the side.
“Be good,” Axel said to the cat.
Falke made that cute little laughing sound and laid his head against her chest. Axel snapped a few more pictures, then shoved Falke off of them and wrapped his arms around her. “Look,” he whispered, and gestured across the white expanse of the lake.
Dakota squinted through the brightness and saw what he pointed at. A huge bull elk was slowly picking its way across the lake, slipping here and sliding there.
“He’s big.”
“Yep. And those antlers can kill if they’re pissed off.”
She took the camera from Axel’s hand and held it up. Even though the elk was probably too far away for the cheap little camera, she snapped a couple of pictures.
“Want to hike across the lake? There’s this really pretty little glade over there—” he pointed in a direction away from the elk, “—where we could have lunch.”
“Lunch?” she turned and looked at him. “Elk stew?”
He kissed the tip of her nose. “No, I made some sandwiches. They’re in my pack.”
“A man after my own heart.”
He stared into her eyes, and she again saw that something she couldn’t quite define, or didn’t want to look at too closely. It made her skin feel tight and her heart race.
She pushed off his lap and carefully gained her footing. Axel followed.
“We can leave the snowshoes here,” he said, picking up two and sticking them in the snow so they were standing up, then he did the same for the other pair.
Falke took off over the white flatness.
“Dakota?” Axel said as he moved next to her.
She looked from Falke up into Axel’s eyes.
“Yeah?”
He leaned down and kissed her, softly, tenderly.
“All kidding aside, you might be the woman after my heart.”
Before she could get her brain functioning again, he was fifty feet away, heading after Falke.
“You coming?” he called over his shoulder.
“Uh. Yeah…” Her insides fluttered, and her heart pounded against her chest. She still couldn’t let herself fantasize such a thing, but she couldn’t deny that what he’d just said was probably the sweetest thing she’d ever heard.
Chapter Five
The next day was spent much the same way. Exploring the forest, watching wildlife and having fun just being together. But time sped by, and now it was time to gather their things and head back down the mountain.
Their days together were over.
Gunnar leaped onto the loft and sat watching Dakota stuff her clothes into her backpack. She was already dressed in a pair of jeans, long-sleeved T-shirt and socks. Her boots awaited her by the front door, but they still had some time before she’d have to put them on.
Axel hollered from below. “I’ll be right back. Gotta head out to the food cache. How about some pancakes and sausages for breakfast?”
“Okay. Sounds good,” she replied.
“I’ll bring back some wood to restock the bin before we go too,” he added. You need to go outside, Gun?
No, thanks. I’m good. Having to piss outside in the winter sucked, but no one would believe a mountain lion could be trained to use the toilet, so it was a price he had to pay as a shifter when non-family members were around.
’Kay. Back in a bit. The front door closed as Dakota slung her backpack over one shoulder and headed for the ladder. Gunnar leaped down, easily making the eight-foot plunge without mishap. He turned to watch her navigate the ladder and drop off her pack by her boots.
This sucks. He brushed his body along her thigh and drew her attention enough for her to run her hand along his spine. Her touch made him purr. He wanted more time with her, to meet her in human form, have the chance to talk to her.
“I like you too, big ’un.” She patted his head and headed for the bathroom.
Gunnar walked over to the fireplace, laid down on the woven rug and watched the dying flames lick at the last hot embers of what had been a log.
His ears perked up. Something wasn’t right.
He sat up, sniffed the air and listened.
Fuck!
He looked at the closed front door. Axel wasn’t back, and he couldn’t warn him telepathically at a distance, not when Axel was in human form. He had to be within eyesight.
Dakota. He couldn’t warn her either, not as-Fuck!
With no time to lose, he transformed into a man and headed for the bathroom door. “Dakota! Hurry.”
“Just a second,” she shouted back.
“No. Now!” He threw open the hatch in the floor and then yanked the bathroom door open. “Come on!”
Dakota startled, but he didn’t have time to explain.
“Axel! What the—” He grabbed her by the arm and pulled her toward the hatch.
“Go. Hurry.”
“What… Where are your clothes?”
“Avalanche!”
That was enough to make her move. She scrambled down the ladder into the in-ground storage room that had been built as an avalanche shelter. “Stay in there,” he shouted, running naked for the front door.
“But—” He had to warn Axel, and there wasn’t much time.
Just as he threw open the door, though, he saw Axel step up onto the porch, a frozen package of sausage in one hand and several logs of wood in his arms. His brother’s eyes widened.
“Avalanche.” But he didn’t need to explain. The rumble was getting loud enough now for human hearing to pick up and the ground began to shake.
Axel dropped the burden of sausage and logs and dashed after him back inside the cabin. They didn’t even bother to shut the front door.
Gunnar dropped into the hole, barely missing a frightened Dakota with whom he fell to the floor, covering her body with his own. A second later, Axel followed, pausing just long enough to yank the rope on the hatch to slam it closed.
“No, Falke!” Dakota screamed, her fear apparent.
The rumble was now a roar. The shelter was black as pitch.
“He’s okay.” Axel joined them on the river stone floor as he, too, used his body to protectively blanket Dakota.
Like a runaway freight train, the crashes sounded closer until it shook everything around and above them. Something fell off a shelf, causing Dako
ta to yelp and him to hug her closer.
Then…silence. Gunnar breathed a sigh of relief.
They might not be safe, but at least they were still alive.
* * *
Dakota opened her eyes and saw nothing
, but she felt a lot. Rough floor. Cold chill in the air. Warm breaths-hers, Axel’s, and…
“Uh. Oh, my God. Who—?” She began to squirm, which was not easy with two— two— men on top of her. One was clothed. One wasn’t.
A man grunted.
“Careful,” Axel said, as they moved off of her.
She shot to a seated position, tried to butt-scoot backwards, but her hand collided with something hard behind her. Feeling around, she recognized it as a shelving unit.
“Who the… What…” She couldn’t draw breath enough to form the questions that raged in her mind.
“Let me find some candles,” Axel said, his voice way calmer than she would’ve expected. She could hear him move, start to feel his way about the confines of their underground shelter.
“I would wait on that, brother.”
Dakota squeaked and wedged her body against the shelves, as far away from that voice as possible. When did one of Axel’s brothers show up here? And which one of them was naked?
“When did you get here? Where’s Falke? Axel! My God, he’s still out there,” she said, realizing the cougar might be trapped in the snow, hurt or dead.
“Meow,” the brother said.
She turned her face toward the voice even though she couldn’t see anything but blackness. “That’s not funny. He might be hurt.”
“I’m not.”
Anger simmered. “I’m not talking about you! I’m talking about a poor defenseless cat that might be—” The man chuckled and so did Axel.
She stopped, baffled at why they could be so heartless over their pet. Didn’t they care?
“Falke is far from defenseless,” Axel explained, “and he’s fine. He’s here.”
“Oh?” She hadn’t noticed the cat jump inside, but everything had happened so fast. Had the cat been down here before her and she’d somehow missed him?
That must be it. She breathed a sigh of relief that he was safe. “Here pretty kitty.” She raised her hand out, expecting the puma to find her, nuzzle her hand.
Instead, a man’s hand cupped hers and raised it to his face. Her fingers trembled as they slid over a slight growth of whiskers. Axel had shaved earlier that morning. This man wasn’t Axel. He couldn’t be.
He pressed a kiss into her palm. Her breath hitched.
“I like you too, lil’un.”
She gaped. Not that he could see her or she him, but this man, this brother knew, quoted almost verbatim, the last thing she’d said to the cat. “I-I don’t understand.”
“Don’t be afraid,” he murmured, his hand still holding hers against his face.
Then a soft glow appeared, illuminating the man, and her first thought was beautiful. “Wow,” she whispered.
Then his face, his body began to blur, dissolve. His eyes…his whiskers became that of a mountain lion, a very familiar mountain lion.
She jerked her hand away, slamming her elbow against the shelving unit behind her. “Ouch!”
Blackness returned all around her, as did her fears. Her body shook. Her heart hammered against her ribs, and she could barely catch her breath, much less her scattered thoughts. Fight, flight, scream or cry. She didn’t know what to do or how to react to what she’d just witnessed. There was nowhere she could go, although that didn’t stop her from trying to lean as far away from— “What the hell are you?”
“We’re shifters.” The answer came from Axel. The strike of a match vanquished the darkness as he lit an oil lamp.
“Shifters?”
Yes, shapeshifters. I’m Gunnar, Axel’s brother.
She blinked when the voice sounded in her mind.
Shaking her head in disbelief, rubbing her temples, Dakota eyed the cat who sat tranquilly a foot or two from her. “D-did you just…?”
“We can communicate telepathically,” Axel explained.
Telepathically? She glanced at Axel and pressed her lips together to keep from echoing his words like a parrot. Then she realized something. “We? You mean you both can be…can turn into cats?”
Axel stared at her, gave her a cautious smile and nodded. Setting the lamp on the stone floor at his feet, he took one step to his left, bent down and shifted before her very eyes. The same luminosity. The same incredible, unbelievable change, as if the image of a man dissolved into that of an animal. It was miraculous. Magical. Insanely mind-boggling. And yet…
In the next heartbeat, she faced two mountain lions, but one was dressed in Axel’s clothes—a sight that made her snicker then burst out in an uncontrolled, hysterical giggle. Then she heard male laughs in her mind, and her humor fled as quickly as it materialized.
She wasn’t afraid, not now, not of what appeared to be wild predators, but she was freaked out. She’d fucked a man who was now a cat staring at her. Those eyes… Brothers. No wonder the cougar’s eyes looked so much like the man’s.
Then she remembered all of the little things she shared with Falke, things she’d no intention of telling Axel. Thankful for the dim light and hoping it helped cover the sight of her embarrassing blush, she covered her mouth with the back of her hand. “Oh, my God.”
Horrified, she stared at the cats even as they eyed her.
At least they didn’t smirk at her, as if this had all been some kind of cruel joke. Could cats smirk? No, they appeared to be more worried than smug. “I-I don’t know what to say.” Maybe she was still sleeping.
Maybe this was all some kind of twisted nightmare.
Shifters weren’t real. They belonged in novels, in Hollywood movies, not in real life.
The cold air in the room made her shiver, and she knew she wasn’t dreaming. She wished she’d had time to grab her coat. Maybe the shelter had a blanket.
We won’t harm you. The voice was Axel’s, easy to recognize, even if she hadn’t exactly heard the words spoken aloud.
She shook her head. Dakota knew that. Deep down inside, she didn’t fear for her life, at least not from them. Whether they would ever get out of this hole in the ground was another matter altogether.
She watched Axel change back to a man and noticed the look of worry remained even after he was human again. Concern marred his brow while he straightened his clothes into some semblance of order once more. She was unsure of its cause until…
We’ve never shared our secret before, Gunnar said inside her mind, something she was sure she’d never get used to. But his words struck something inside her.
“Never?” Though she asked, Axel’s slight nod was all the confirmation she needed. Their message was clear. They’d not only shown great trust in her, but they’d also protected her during the avalanche. Gunnar had made sure she was safe first before going after his brother, his own flesh and blood. What if he hadn’t made it in time?
She shuddered at that unwelcome thought, looked at Gunnar and held out her hand. He slowly eased forward to nuzzle her palm. “You changed to save me.”
The cat purred.
She dared a smile. “That’s so weird.”
“We’re not out of the woods just yet,” Axel said, drawing her attention away from Falke…uh…Gunnar.
“I won’t betray your trust,” she declared, wanting them to know that much, regardless of what happened next, even if they died in this hole without ever again seeing the light of day.
He held her gaze for a long moment. “We believe you, Dakota. It’s not that. I just mean that we’re still in danger.” Axel headed for the ladder to the overhead hatch, the only way in or out of their shelter-turned-underground-prison. “We need to get topside, see what kind of damage we’re dealing with.”
“But…”
He paused and looked back at her, waiting.
“Um, nothing.” She didn’t want to jinx hi
m with her fears that the avalanche wiped out the cabin and buried them beneath a mountain of snow. The roar had been so loud, and combined with the other sounds…
She shuddered, envisioning the snapping of evergreens and the destruction of the cabin.
Axel shoved the hatch. It flew open with surprising ease, which caused a relieved laugh to burst from her lungs.
“Oh, thank God!” Smiling, she climbed to her feet and quickly made her way toward the ladder.
Axel cleared the last rung, turned and asked, “Can you hand me the lantern?”
“Oh, sure.” She grabbed the lamp and passed it up to him, and then climbed out of the shelter into a darkened—but surprisingly intact—cabin. A broad grin creased her face.
Gunnar leaped out of the shelter with ease and immediately made his way over to Axel’s backpack.
Axel set the lamp down and dug out a shirt and some pants, which he handed to the cougar. With the clothes in his mouth, the mountain lion headed for the bathroom.
Be right back.
Dakota shook her head. “This all seems so surreal.”
Gunnar pawed the door closed, and she turned to see Axel frowning.
“What?”
Staring not at her but the windows, he lifted the lamp once more, walked over to the front door, which was ajar. He nudged it open farther, and she followed.
He stepped out onto the porch and held the lamp aloft.
She froze just inside the doorway. They were surrounded by a wall of snow and debris. The extended roof of the porch had sheltered the door enough for Axel to open it, but a lot of snow covered the wooden planks of the porch itself.
He bent down to pick up a package of frozen sausages from a scattered pile of logs and snow.
Dakota’s heart lodged firmly in her throat. She glanced back inside the cabin. Without the lamp, it was dark as night, yet she knew it was around ten in the morning. That was when it occurred to her, when reality sank in and her earlier relief vanished. The cabin had been dark because all the windows were covered. They were buried. Under how much snow?
She looked up at the cathedral ceiling, at the loft.
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