“Smoke On Water?”
“The grey. The tan is Smells Like Leaves.”
Gage laughed in spite of himself. The little tan wolf did smell like leaves. Like the soft fertile scent of fallen leaves composting into the forest floor. “You named him that?”
“Not me. That’s his name. Don’t ask. I have no idea how he got it.”
Gage shook his head. “It’s not going to be easy. I’m not a speaker.”
“You can do it. They respect you. Just keep an eye on Smoke.”
“Fabulous,” Gage said, but he could smell that Cray was sincere. He truly believed that Gage was capable of this. Bringing two half-starved, feral wolves across country with only the company of a human, who wasn’t actually speaking to him at the moment. And who needed to be protected. From the elements. From bears. And from the wolves themselves.
Ah, yes. And then there was the young pair they were tracking. Somehow, he had to convince them to join their merry little group without actually being able to communicate directly. Can’t forget that. “Thanks, Cray.”
The older man crossed the fire and clapped him on the shoulder. “You’ll do fine. Pack my clothes for me?”
And with that, he stripped, shifted, and disappeared into the night, a darker shadow amongst the deep impenetrable blackness of the woods.
Chapter 17
Bridget doggedly placed one snowshoe-encumbered foot in front of the other. At least today was sunny and bright. She was in a foul mood, but it would have been worse if she had to contend with gloomy weather. Cray’s words last night brought home things she’d been trying to avoid thinking about. She really was a prisoner. She had lost control of her future, the one thing that she had managed to carve out for herself so far in her twenty-seven years of living. Her freedom. And it was gone.
And Gage, that foolish, optimistic soul was convinced she was his mate. That everything would work out and there would be rainbows and flowers, tra, la, la. Little did he know, she wasn’t anyone’s anything. She kicked at a rock and almost fell. You just couldn’t do any decent angry-kicking in snowshoes.
She made a face and marched, as much as she could under the circumstances, up to a clump of trees. She needed a walking stick before she ended up face-down in the snow. I should have thought of this days ago. But days ago, she’d been walking next to Gage, or occasionally Cray, while they were pulling the sled and going nice and slow to accommodate her frail human abilities. Admitting that she needed a walking stick under those circumstances— Yeah, no.
She yanked savagely at a broken branch that was caught in a tangle of other branches. Her gloves slipped off the bark, and she went down hard, landing on her butt.
Wonderfuk.
She sat there for a minute, grinding her teeth, but she didn’t want the snow to seep past her outer layer. The pants were water resistant, but she didn’t really want to put them to the test. All she needed right now was a four-hour hike with a freezing cold ass.
She tried to lever herself up, but she couldn’t quite manage it with the damn snowshoes. This would be a lot easier if I had that branch. She took a deep breath and removed her gloves. Undoing the buckles, she removed her snowshoes. Then she put her gloves back on and pushed up to her knees, eventually making it to her feet. Why did I think I liked winter camping?
Sucking in a deep, calming breath, she bent over and re-buckled the stupid snowshoes. That tree limb was hers. She’d earned it. Gritting her teeth, she braced one hand on a lower limb and yanked the broken one with all her strength. Which wasn’t enough.
“Arrrgggh!”
She gave another quick jerk, and finally, the thing came free. Good thing she had a firm grip on the tree, or she would have gone down again. Graceful as a gazelle.
She made a sour face and began stripping the smaller branches from the tree limb she’d extracted. She couldn’t help remembering the endless dance lessons her mother had forced on her as a child in an effort to make her more feminine. Ballet lessons. Which she hated. She towered over all the little girls in their tiny little pink leotards, feeling like the jolly pink giant. Then there were the ballroom dancing lessons. Which she hated. She got to tower over all the boys in those lessons. Even more fun. And then there were the violin lessons. Which she hated. A musical ear, she did not have. And the violin? She’d towered over that thing too. It looked like a toy in her hands even when she’d been twelve.
Safe to say, she’d been nothing but a disappointment to her mother. She’d learned to just go through the motions and interact with the other kids as little as possible. When the lessons were over, she got the hell out of there as fast as she could. But not fast enough.
“Bridget the midget.”
The remembered taunt still made her flush. Which was ridiculous. The little shits. It wasn’t even original. She’d lost count of how many different groups of kids had come up with that one. She’d wanted to kill her mother for sticking her with that name. She would have tried going with her middle name, but Rose wasn’t much better. A rose was supposed to be sweet and delicate. She snorted. Which I am not.
But her mother always got what she wanted in the end. Not that it made her happy. But for some reason her mother couldn’t see that. All the social climbing in the world didn’t give you happiness if you weren’t fulfilling your dreams. And call me crazy, but ‘find a rich husband’ doesn’t seem to do it. Her mother was on her third, and still drank three martinis a night, just to get through the day.
Bridget turned and started trudging after the trail the sled’s runners had left in the snow. Yesterday, Cray said they were only about half a day behind the young pair of wolves they were following. Wolves that Gage really wanted to add to this little pack he was collecting. A mated pair would bring the pack together. She didn’t want to be the reason they failed to catch up. But she wasn’t sure she could really go much faster. The sled was out of sight over a rise in the ground way up ahead of her.
Well, this is what you wanted. The opportunity to study wolves in the wild. In their natural habitat. She rolled her eyes. Her mother had been horrified when she’d announced she was going to be an ecologist. A zoologist. “But Bridget, my darling. I have enrolled you in a French finishing school.” Her mother’s remembered wail still made her wince. “Mom, they still have those things? Haven’t you ever heard of ‘politically incorrect?”
“Oh, that is for the masses, dear. We are above all that.”
And honestly, her mother believed it. And spent her days in the spa, or lunching with the lunch set, or shopping. And her nights with an emotionally unavailable hard-ass who was twenty years her senior. With money. But her mother was a beautiful woman, even in her forties, and she was willing to do what it took to keep the man happy. So…
You shouldn’t judge, Bridget. Maybe she is happy. In her own way. But it made her stomach ache to see it and she spent as little time as possible at home. Home. She rolled her eyes. A Manhattan penthouse apartment with floor-to-ceiling windows, and zero charm.
She sighed. Okay. Enough wallowing. You wanted this. And you got it. Now you just need to figure out the next thing you want, and then how to get it. Did she really want to leave the pack? And do what? Go to parties with Sandy? Yeah, that was fun.
She topped the crest of a small hill and started down the other side. The limb-turned-walking-stick had really helped with the climb. Her foot came down on a patch of ice and slipped, and she went sliding down the hill. She managed to get the pole anchored into the snow and halt her headlong rush just before she crashed into a patch of bushes. She continued cautiously down the hill, using the stick to keep her from sliding all the way down. Where were those sled tracks? Oh, there they were, off to the left, she must have veered—
A noise caught her attention, making her head snap up. That was not a good noise. A combination of grunting and snuffling followed by the rustling of bushes. That wasn’t a bear, surely? A bear would make much more noise.
She had just reached t
he edge of the tangle of brush and tried to peer around them. Inching forward, her foot picked that moment to slip right out from under her. She crashed into the bushes like a ton of bricks. The sudden irate growling that erupted from within made the hair stand up on the back of her neck.
Oh, shit!
Feral pigs. Or wild hogs. Take your pick. Actually, they were one and the same— and they were a serious threat. Liberally mixed with the genes of the Russian boar released into the wild back in the nineteen hundreds for hunting, they were temperamental as fuck. And big. Many of them grew to well over three hundred pounds. And they had tusks.
She scrambled to her feet, planning to cut around the hill this time, but that brought her into view of two very disgruntled hogs. No, those were clearly more boar than hogs. Ugly things with dark black fur and long snouts, they were humped almost like a buffalo.
One was clearly larger than the other, two hundred and fifty pounds maybe, and looking right at her. She could just make out the tiny tusks sticking out of its hairy snout. And she knew, however small those tusks might appear, they were razor sharp.
She took a cautious step back. You didn’t want to startle them. Something she’d already done, unfortunately. If she could just get out of their line of sight—
The memory of the news article about a woman in Texas killed by wild pigs flashed into her mind. What a way to go. Killed by an invasive species. Now there’s irony for you.
The animals were a blight on the environment, eating everything from plants, including their roots, to birds and insects and even by some reports, deer. Areas with feral pig populations commonly had about twenty-five percent fewer species of birds and mammals than normal.
She took another step back, afraid to take her eyes off the animals, and hoping like hell she didn’t back into something and trip. The boar in the lead let out a horrible growling noise and lowered its snout. It started scraping its front foot against the ground as if it were a bull. Not good.
And then it charged.
Bridget turned and fled. Or tried to. She tripped on the damn snowshoes and went down in a flurry of powder. She only realized she’d been screaming when the sound cut off as she collided with the ground. She rolled to a sitting position and flung up an arm then rolled frantically to the side, just as the thing rammed her, knocking her on her back as it ran by.
Shit. It was big— what if I hadn’t already been rolling?
But at least it hadn’t gotten her with its tusks.
She was panting as she scrambled to her feet. Where was that damn stick? She shook her hands frantically, like that was going to help anything. Glancing around wildly, she spotted it. There! Sticking up out of the snow like someone had thrown a javelin. She lurched over to it and pulled it free. Okay pig. Let’s go.
Oh, shit. Not really!
He was coming. And she was wearing fucking snowshoes! She spread her feet slightly apart and held her walking stick up in both hands like a staff. The boar was almost on her. She did a one two shuffle to the side and swung her stick underhanded, like a cricket bat, making solid contact as it rumbled. The thing was as tall as her mid-thigh at the shoulders.
It squealed and turned back to face her. She would swear its tiny little eyes were glinting with malice.
There was noise to her side. She whipped around just as the second pig charged. She barely got her stick up in time to smack it hard on the snout. There was a terrible cracking noise as her staff broke. The smaller hog whirled around and charged. Just like that.
Shit! The damn thing was fast.
She tried to poke it with the broken staff, half of the branch hanging limply and dragging on the ground. She only managed to half turn it, and it knocked her to the ground with its shoulder as it went past.
She sat there for a second on her butt and then hopped to her feet. Amazing what you could do when the adrenaline kicked in. The first pig was rushing towards her now and she shuffled backward as fast as she could—
She felt a searing pain in her thigh and let out a scream. She wobbled on her feet for a second, clapping a hand over the bloody gash in her thigh. A streak of tawny brown leaped past her and collided with the boar’s shoulder, just as it was turning back.
That’s one of the young wolves!
Bridget backed away, blinking and trying to see though the blur obscuring her vision. There was a yelp as the little brown wolf was flung aside.
And then a flash of grey came out of nowhere. He attacked the second pig just as it was rounding on Bridget again. The other wolf! They came?
The smaller pig slashed at the grey wolf with its tusks, but the little grey danced aside. A noise behind her had her swinging around. The larger boar was charging the little tan wolf. It turned and fled.
Bridget glanced around frantically, looking for anything she could use as a weapon, but there was nothing. She backed further toward a thicket of trees, searching… There. That log. It was a little big, but—
But I’m a big fucking girl. You think you’re going to attack my pack? She pulled it free from the snow and underbrush and stomped back into the fray. The smaller hog was busy trying to fend off the grey wolf’s attack, while the larger one raced after the little tan.
She marched grimly on, intent on helping the grey at least. Smoke. That’s what Gage called him. But she couldn’t get close enough. Something was wrong with her leg.
And then the big one was back barreling straight at her. She tried to lift the log with shaking arms. She snapped it up just as the boar reached her and popped it in the nose. Take that!
But the impact sent her crashing to her butt.
Suddenly, a large furry shape sailed over her shoulder and slammed into the boar, knocking it to the ground.
Gage!
She looked around wildly, trying to see what had happened to the grey wolf. He was darting in and out at the second hog, which was shaking its hairy pig snout in fury. Using the log for leverage, she managed to get to her feet. She made her way over, limping now— sort of shuffling. Closer… closer. She was almost there.
Bang!
She clubbed the stupid pig right on the head, and then sat down hard in the snow.
The pig shook its head like a cartoon character shaking off a blow and turned to face her. Bridget blinked as it gathered itself and charged— directly at her. From almost point-blank range.
A tan blur hit it just before it made contact with her. She scrabbled back out of the way on her butt.
She tried to see what was happening as she did her best to move back, but the action was like a blur of moving shapes. She could see Gage, nearly as big as the larger boar, biting it around the neck. The thing shook itself like it was shaking off flies and Gage lost his grip. He landed on his side and rolled to his feet. Almost in one motion, he launched himself right back at the beast, aiming for the belly.
The smaller boar was much closer though, and her head snapped around as it moved towards her. Both young wolves charged in at it, worrying it and then dancing away. Bridget could see they were doing their best to turn it from her. She felt oddly touched. My pack. My mother should have named me Julie. Julie of the Wolves.
The larger boar squealed in outrage and she jerked her gaze over. Gage was half under the thing, biting at its stomach while the boar raked him with its sharp little hooves. Bright blood appeared on the snow, brilliant crimson against the white. Gage grunted but didn’t let go. The boar raked him again and again with his hooves, blood spattering with each strike until his whole side was gleaming with dark red blood. And then suddenly the grey wolf was there, Smoke, biting at the pig’s back legs. And then the tan one, snapping at the pig’s other side.
Gage finally released his hold on the pig’s belly and surged up towards its thick, round neck, clamping his jaws around the side of its throat. He was only able to fit about a quarter of it into his mouth. The boar turned its head and got Gage in the shoulder with his tusk. Gage howled and let go.
Bridget felt her h
eart clench. The boar charged, straight at him, moving faster than Bridget would have thought possible. Her heart stopped. Dear God, don’t let him be killed!
But Gage leaped back, narrowly avoiding the wicked tusks a second time. Bridget watched in horror as the huge boar turned back, then charged almost instantly. It hit Gage head-on, knocking him to the ground.
No!
Gage yelped and rolled away. He lay there a minute, seeming dazed. Oh no. Bridget covered her mouth with her hand, wanting to close her eyes but not daring to look away. Suddenly, he shook himself and sprang to his feet. He lunged, hitting the boar squarely on the shoulder, once more knocking the creature off its feet. The ridiculous legs churned in the air, dangerous and deadly, but Gage clamped his jaws around the underside of its chin, hanging on grimly while the other two wolves darted in, biting into flesh and tearing into the belly.
There were horrible noises coming from the pig. Bridget wished she could close her ears. Then, with one vicious motion, Gage tore out its throat. Suddenly there was silence.
Bridget looked away. She was pretty sure she was going to be sick. She sucked in a deep breath and closed her eyes. She opened them just as quickly, glancing wildly around for the other pig. But there was no sign of it. Probably cut its losses and ran. No honor among pigs. She wanted to laugh, but couldn’t remember why.
She sat in the snow and rocked, one hand clamped around the wound in her thigh. Her whole leg was wet with blood. She was afraid to look at it, but it couldn’t be too bad. Nothing like—
She blew out a breath and tried for calm, but it wasn’t easy. Gage had lost so much blood. The snow had been dark with it. What if he—
She swallowed. Things can change so suddenly. One minute you’re reading over a valentine, and the next— Her heart lurched. He could be dead. She squeezed back tears. His kind, sensitive soul lost to the world forever…
My Captive Valentine Page 15