by T. S. Joyce
Thunk.
Emily shifted her weight and pulled another throwing knife out of her belt, flipped it, caught the blade neatly, and chucked it at the target she’d pinned to the log.
Thunk.
She’d only brought three, and just for comfort because she definitely hadn’t imagined she would be hunting on this trip, but every instinct was on alert now.
She’d searched every hidey hole for Uncle Victor in Galena, but he hadn’t been there. Why? Because he wasn’t hunting Link. He was hunting Chance, the werewolf that had stolen his precious Hell Hunter niece out from under his thumb. Or at least, that’s how Uncle Victor would see it. Hate did that—made people see what they wanted and nothing more. It limited their view of the world. She knew because that used to be her.
Not anymore.
Thunk.
He was here, hunting the man she loved, and now he had a horse. Oh, it was no accident the horses had fled the pasture last night. Uncle Victor was ailing and with limited lung function. He wouldn’t be hiking after his prey. He would be riding.
And he wasn’t planning on coming back from this either. If he was all the way out here, stalking Chance away from his caretakers in Anchorage, this was a kamikaze mission, designed to do the most damage with what strength he had left. Ending Chance meant no alliance for Hell Hunters and werewolves. It meant Link would go mad, and Dalton would never recover. The loss would echo through the marrow of the pack, destroying it inch by inch like a slow-burning fire. How did she know? Because that had been her plan when she’d begun hunting Chance. But now her uncle had even more motivation because she had fallen under the umbrella of his loathing for choosing a side that went against everything he’d taught her. Now, Chance’s death would be personal for her uncle because it would be his direct path to destroying her, too. He was more dangerous to the wolves now than he had ever been. Why? Because he was desperate, was bloated with the idea of revenge, and had absolutely nothing left to lose. In his eyes, the Galena pack had killed his brother, and now they’d taken the only family and ally Uncle Victor had left—her.
She’d brought hell to Chance, and she would be the one to banish it from his life once again.
She strode to the target and yanked out all three blades, one by one, from the red bullseye. The hairs lifted on the back of her neck, and she turned a glance at Chance who stood leaned against the wall of the lodge with his arms crossed over his chest and a furrow of worry in his fair brows.
“You can feel me watching you, can’t you?” he asked low.
“Yes.”
“How? You’re human.”
“Am I?” she asked. Or was she a monster? Because she was definitely going to kill to protect the man she loved. And for the life of her, she couldn’t muster a single ounce of remorse over that fact. Fuck what that said about her.
“I think you’ve hidden how lethal you are.”
“I haven’t hidden anything. You knew what I was from the beginning. I just didn’t have a reason to flaunt my skills.”
“And now you do?”
“No,” she lied coolly. With the flip of a blade, she threw another knife into the red. Thunk.
And Chance was there in a blur, hand on hers, plucking a knife neatly from her hand. He threw the blade, and end-over-end it blasted until it sank deep into the target, not more than an inch away from hers. “You don’t need to protect me, mate.”
Oh, but she did. If she spilled her plan, Chance would act different. He would tip Uncle Victor off before she could set her trap, and she couldn’t have that. She had one shot at this, and Chance being left out of the plan was one of the most important parts. To guide him away from the meat of the issue, she said, “I’m upset about the dream.”
Chance narrowed his eyes and cocked his head, but he wouldn’t find a lie there. She was utterly shaken by it still, even though it had happened hours ago.
“You didn’t sleep much.”
“Well, if you had a dream of me dangling from a rope, I bet you wouldn’t either. I didn’t exactly want a repeat of that little show.”
Chance cast a quick glance at the corner of the lodge, then led her to the log wall. He looked uncertain for a moment, here in the deep gray light right before dawn. Just a flash of disquiet, and then it was gone. He lowered his lips to hers, and she opened for him, desperate to have a few moments where she wasn’t assaulted with the images of that stupid nightmare. Where she didn’t feel the flames licking at her skin and hear the creak of those damned hanging ropes.
“I could’ve helped you forget the dream,” he murmured against her lips as he pushed his hand down the front of her jeans.
She rolled her hips against his touch and closed her eyes at how good he felt on her. Chance had learned her body and knew which buttons to push to get her wet in an instant, but this was more than just animal attraction. This was his worry and him trying to fix it in the only way he knew how—by reassuring her she was adored and giving her reprieve from her own concerns.
“Chance,” she gasped as he slid two fingers inside her. “I want more.”
“No, baby, this one’s just for you. Come for me quick.”
An unnecessary request since she was already rolling against his hand and burying her face against his chest, clutching his shirt, and completely lost to his touch. God, he smelled good. Fur, the masculine-scented soap from his shower, shaving cream from when he’d shaved his beard off this morning.
She moaned, and he kissed her, quieted her, as her climax turned blinding. Her body gripped his fingers in short bursts as her orgasm pulsed through her. Emily let off a shaky breath and clutched his sweater, desperate to hold onto this moment just a little while longer before she had to go back to worrying, planning, and praying they both came back from this fishing trip alive.
She stroked her palm down Chance’s hard erection, pressed tightly against the front seam of his jeans.
“Em,” he said low as she lifted his shirt and slipped her fingers just below the elastic of his briefs. There was a drop of moisture waiting for her, right on his tip. “Em,” he repeated, stilling her hand. “There’s no time for that now. The oven is going off.”
“The oven?” she asked, dumbfounded. She felt drunk from what he’d just done to her, and her aftershocks were will throbbing through her body. Even her limbs had gone numb, and he was talking about ovens?
“I made you a surprise,” he whispered.
****
Something was wrong.
Chance cast another worried glance at Em, but she was avoiding his gaze as he led her back into the lodge. He would have to wake the Rodericks soon so they could head out, but the worried moue on Em’s full lips had him wishing for more time to drive that damned dream from her mind.
And now she was hiding her gorgeous baby blues with her long, wavy hair. Hiding from him.
Maybe Em threw knives when she was stressed out. Perhaps it settled her mind when she was mulling things over, but he’d seen the intensity in her concentration as she’d honed in on the direct center of the bullseye with each throw. Nah, she wasn’t just lost in thought. She was making sure her aim was on point.
Em was sexy as hell with how much hidden power she wielded, but he hated being pushed away. The oven beeped again, and Lennard would have his hide if he burned the first breakfast for the new clients, so he gestured to a seat at the kitchen island and jogged over to the sink to wash his hands, then took out the pastries he’d made.
Chance loaded one onto a plate and set it in front of her.
When she looked down at her breakfast, she let off the cutest little noise, a mixture of shock and pleasure. Noisy mate, always letting him know when he did good.
“Is this a cherry fried pie?”
“Not fried, but I make them better in the oven. You said your memories of getting them with your dad were tainted so I wanted to make new ones with you.”
Her eyes filled, and for a moment, he thought he’d made a misstep. But her lips
curved up in that boner-inducing smile of hers, and he relaxed again.
“How did I get so lucky?” she asked, squeezing his hand.
“You didn’t,” Dalton offered as he sauntered into the kitchen. “It probably tastes like cherry fried poop nuggets.”
“Oh, here we go,” Chance muttered. “I’m going to go wake up the Rodericks. Don’t eat them all.”
“You made a dozen,” Em said with a giggle. “I think you’re safe from me eating them all.”
God, he was so happy she was laughing again, and now her eyes were dancing and the weird mood she’d been in had lifted. Even her shoulders had relaxed.
“I was talking to dipshit over there,” Chance said, arching his eyebrow as he pointed at Dalton.
His cousin already had his plate piled three high and was reaching for a fourth. “Fine,” he grumbled.
Chance briefly considered relieving the deep ache in his balls that finger-banging Em up against the house had caused, but he didn’t have time to go at himself right now. Lennard was hell to deal with when tours got off to late starts, and he wasn’t up for a row today. Not when Em was taking up all his headspace. So he passed his bedroom door and knocked on room three. Chuck opened it a crack. “Is it time?”
“Yeah. Breakfast is ready in the kitchen whenever you’re dressed.
“Okay, we’ll be right out.”
The door clicked closed, and Chance made his way back to the kitchen, but halted when he saw Dalton and Em’s heads tilted toward each other. They were whispering something just under his range of hearing, and they seemed to be looking at something in the back of her phone. As he crept closer, Em turned the open back just enough for him to catch a glimpse of a tracker. What the hell?
“What’s going on?” he asked carefully, masking how hurt he was by his cousin and his girl sharing secrets.
Dalton startled as though he’d been shocked by a Taser and lifted his hands in the air in surrender. “I’m not doing this. I’m neutral. Don’t ask me questions. I plead the fifth on everything.”
Dalton looked guilty as hell, but Em slipped the cover on the back of her phone and gave him a calculating look. “Chance, I can’t tell you what is happening right now, but I will.”
“Are we in danger?” he asked.
Dalton, the prick, stared vacantly and chewed slowly like a cow on its cud.
“Technically speaking, everyone is in danger,” Em said. Oh, she was being wily about the truth.
“Who the fuck put a tracker in your phone, Em?”
She pursed her lips as if she’d just given a lemon a blow job and didn’t even try to answer.
“Should I be cancelling this tour?” he gritted out, hanging onto his patience by a thread.
“No,” Em rushed out.
“Definitely not,” Dalton said at the same time.
Fuckin’ little fuckers, conspiring behind his back and leaving him out of something big that was brewing. Dalton lifted a cherry pastry to his open maw in slow motion as he stared at Chance. Pissed off, Chance blurred to him and slapped it out of his stupid hand. Dalton’s breakfast made a sad little splat on the floor, and Chance gave him a that’s-what-you-get look before he strode out of the house to pack the horses.
He didn’t look back at Em because he was mad as a hornet right now and would regret anything he said to her, but damn it all, this wasn’t cool. He wasn’t an idiot. Em was hunting and Dalton was in on it, and he’d bet his nipples it was her fuckin’ uncle who had her scared.
He wanted to break everything, glue it all back together, and then break it all again.
With a glare at the woods, he opened the door to the barn and pulled his favorite horse—a four-year-old bay named Gunner—from his stall. Now he would have to rethink the horses he wanted to put his clients on because the ancient comatose ones wouldn’t work if they needed to escape whatever hell was waiting for them out in those woods. He hoped the Rodericks had told the truth on their paperwork about being advanced in horsemanship. Half the time, clients who checked that box came in never having seen a damned horse.
“I’m sorry,” Em said softly from the doorway as he ran a brush down Gunnar’s ribs.
“You’re sorry, but you won’t tell me what’s going on.”
With a sigh, she approached and hugged him from behind. “I was wrong.”
His fury cooled in an instant. “Wait, what?”
“I’m used to my training, but I can’t hunt like that. Not out here, and not with you. That’s not how packs work.”
Chance turned slowly in her arms and lifted her hands over his shoulders. “Just tell me one thing, Em. Tell me straight because I can’t handle losing you. Are you in danger?”
She shook her head, and her eyes shadowed with sadness. “No, Chance. You are.”
Chapter Nineteen
Chance was angry.
Oh, he was being professional with the Rodericks, but he’d barely spared a kind word for Emily.
He was riding beside his clients in a wide meadow, talking and laughing with them while Emily trailed behind on a red horse with a snow cap of polka dots on her back end.
Rosy, the skittish little appaloosa, pranced under her. Out of all the mounts, she was the least well-behaved, and from the hard glance Chance shot her over his shoulder, Emily was also pretty sure he’d given her this horse as punishment. Rosy tossed her head and blasted a snort, then turned and tried to bite her leg for the tenth time in the last four hours, the little cretin.
Emily grumbled a curse and yanked the reins the other way, to which Rosy responded by sidestepping off the trail and then refusing to go another inch until she finished making a monstrous pile of smelly meadow muffins. The other horses pooped as they went, but not her Rosy. She apparently needed privacy and grass to eat when she did her business.
When Chance let off a shrill whistle, Rosy lurched forward and made her way back onto the trail without Emily’s guidance. Another hard look from Chance, and this was all going swimmingly well.
She’d been miserable since the moment she’d admitted her plan to Chance in the barn. He’d been upset and hurt, and then furious and protective. It had been all she could do not to get him to call off the fishing trip, but if they didn’t take the shot now, they would be looking over their shoulders for the rest of Uncle Victor’s life.
The Rodericks were stopped on their matching dapple-gray horses up ahead. Chance turned his bay and nudged him into a trot, pulling the paint packhorse behind him. God, he was artistry in a saddle. Under the bill of his baseball cap, his eyes were steady, human green, and his mouth was drawn into a thin line. His broad shoulders were relaxed against the thin material of his gunmetal gray sweater, and his body swayed gracefully in the saddle with the smooth gait of his horse. The nightmare flashed across her mind again, and she shook her head, dislodging the memory of him hanging from that noose. He was here, he was okay, his horse was a dark bay instead of the white horses the Hell Hunters used to ride, and there was only one hooded asshole after them, not several like in her dream.
Chance took a wide circle around her and settled into step beside her.
Abby whistled from up ahead and waggled her eyebrows at Emily like she was about to get kissed by the guide. Too bad Chance would bite her right now if she tried.
“Keep up,” he growled.
“Don’t be rude,” she whispered. He would hear it, and she wasn’t in the mood to get filleted again. “It’s not my fault you gave me the grumpiest horse.”
“Woman, I gave you the fastest horse.”
Emily frowned and shielded her eyes from the high sun. “What?”
Chance pulled so close her leg got squished between the horses. Leaning over, Chance gripped the back of her neck, pulling her to him and almost off balance. “All I want to do is ride behind you and keep you safe from whatever hell is coming, Em. The horse isn’t punishment.” He eased back and let the pressure off her leg, but now his eyes looked too light. “I’m clawing out of my
skin to keep you safe, but you said we have to act normal. Keep up, or I won’t be able to hold up my end of this show.” Chance nudged his horse forward, and he trotted away with one last bright-eyed fiery look over his shoulder at her.
Well, okay then. Maybe he wasn’t as mad at her as he was fighting with his wolf for his skin. Today was going to suck for both of them.
With a clicking sound behind her teeth, she kicked Rosy into a trot behind the pack horse Chance was pulling and caught up with the others. Now that she knew her horse wasn’t just the delinquent of the lodge’s small herd, she saw the head-tossing appaloosa differently. She was a gift. She was a silent I love you from Chance. Leaning forward, she patted her neck and crooned, “Goood, Spotted Rose. Goood Rosy.”
Rosy tried to bite her again, but Emily got all mushy. She would deem them love bites from here on.
Chance jumped into a history of the area and of the gold rush in Alaska, and Emily relaxed in the saddle and really looked at their surroundings for the first time. The trail was muddy, but the ground was covered in vibrant green grass that was growing thick with the runoff from the melted snow and the abundant sunshine above. The deeper green of the pine trees was a gorgeous contrast, and all around them, mountains jutted out of the land and were capped with snow.
“Bald eagles,” Chance said, pointing at a pair of massive white-headed birds of prey flying gracefully overhead.
“Oh, I’ve never seen one in real life!” Abby exclaimed, pulling her camera up to snap a few shots. “That alone was worth the trip. This wasn’t my idea,” she admitted. “Chuck is the outdoorsman of our family, but we decided when we first got married we would try out each other’s interests together.”
“You’ll be glad you did,” Chance promised.
“I already am,” Abby said through a smile for her husband beside her.
“What interests do you have to participate in?” Emily asked Chuck.
“I have an appointment to get my first tattoo the week we get back.”
Abby squealed an excited noise, and Rosy blasted another moody snort.