by Madison Faye
Yeah, no thanks.
So, whoever this side girl was, fuck it, she could have him. I didn’t have feelings for Paul, but I did have pride.
“Sit down,” he’d hissed. “Sit your tight ass down, shut the fuck up, and smile pretty, Katrina.”
My blood boiled.
“Look, our parents are here,” he’d hissed, nodding past me at the door to the restaurant. He’d put a big plastic smile on his face and waved.
“This marriage is happening. It makes sense for our families to be connected. We’ve got good genes, and our children—”
“Not fucking happening,” I’d spit out.
Paul had sneered.
“The wedding is next month, bitch. And after that, you’re going to damn well learn to spread those legs and let me get a piece of what's mine.”
Right then is when something in me snapped. Maybe it was the other girl. Maybe it was him talking to me like I was a piano he was buying for his house. Maybe it was the thought of having sex with him that made the bile rise in my throat.
Whatever it was, suddenly, it all clicked into place.
I didn’t want this life. I didn’t want Paul, I didn’t want that future, and I was not going to just sit there and let it happen.
Horrified gasps erupted around us as I’d hurled the wine from my untouched glass right into Paul’s face. He’d sworn fiercely, staggering to his feet and sputtering.
“You bitch! You fucking—”
“Paul?”
He’d froze.
“Go fuck yourself.”
And then I’d turned and walked away. I’d walked right out of the restaurant, ignoring Paul, and my father bellowing at me to get back there, and my mother echoing the same. I’d almost caught a cab, but instead, with a smug grin, I’d let the valet know that I’d be taking my fiancé’s car.
Dick.
I’d driven the extravagant black and chrome Land Rover back to my apartment, snagging anything that could fit into a small pack and changing into the warmest cold-weather stuff I could find. I’d turned my phone off, jumped back into the SUV, headed out of the city, and driven the two hours straight here, to Blackthorn Mountain.
A blast of frozen winter wind slammed into the car again, making me gasp as the whole thing shuddered sideways on the road.
Yeah, maybe this had been a terrible idea…
Chapter 2
Katrina
Shit.
As another blast of wind shook the car across the snowy frozen road, I finally admitted defeat.
Okay, maybe this had been a terrible idea.
The cabin had been my great uncle’s, on my mom’s side. Uncle Stan had always been the black sheep of his family, which is why I guess we’d always gotten along. I think he’d seen himself in me, or at least that spirit that rebelled against living the whole rich and pampered life that came with our family. Stan had been wealthy, but he’d rejected the social snobbery that came with it. He donated a ton of money, and he’d done relief work in war-torn countries. He never came to the parties and functions of the wealthy elite, listened to loud rock music, and drove a motorcycle.
Needless to say, I wasn’t allowed to hang out with Uncle Stan much, as both my father and mother considered him “touched.” But, when I did see him from time to time, he was always my favorite. It was one of the last times I’d seen him before his death — Christmas my sophomore year of college — that he’d given me the present.
…He’d given me his cabin.
Obviously, hiking and camping weren’t exactly things I’d been brought up doing, but my Freshman roommate at college, Stella, had been a fairly rebellious spirit herself, and had gotten me really into it. It’d taken just one trip out to the woods and away from the glitz of the city to make me see what I’d been missing. It’d taken one deep breath of the forest air to make me feel like I was breathing for the first time.
After that, I was hooked. I started going to the woods every chance I got. I’d spend weekends traipsing around hiking trails and exploring rivers and mountains instead of partying. I cut my winter break short so I could go snowshoeing with Stella and some of her other friends, and for Spring Break that year, I skipped Europe or partying in the islands to go camping in New Zealand.
My parents had found out and freaked out that I was “acting weird” and that “people would talk.” My dad assumed that wanting to do outdoors activities meant I was a lesbian. But Uncle Stan understood, and it’s why he’d given me the keys to this place those years before. I’d come as often as I could — once or twice with Stella, but other than that, no one. The cabin was my secret getaway — I hadn’t even told my parents about it.
To me, it was my getaway, and that’s why I was heading there that night — to get away.
But the blizzard, or whatever it was, had come out of nowhere. I’d been halfway up the winding pass that wound up the side of Blackthorn Mountain and led to the dirt road to Stan’s cabin when the snow had just surrounded me. And with the winds slamming at the windows and visibility getting worse and worse, I knew continuing would be a quick trip over the side of the road.
“Well, shit.” I muttered, gunning the car over to a small little turnaround on the side of the road. I glanced at my phone — thankful that I still had one bar of service up here. I ignored the forty or so messages from my parents and Paul and thumbed open the map to get my bearings. Okay, I wasn’t far. It wasn’t going to be a fun walk in the woods with this weather, but it was doable.
Well, sort of.
When I’d left the city, I’d prepared for winter, but not a freaking blizzard. I’d brought warm weather clothes, but my real outdoor gear was still packed away in storage. But I pulled on my city coat nevertheless, layering up as much as I could. I laced up my boots — not real hiking boots, but they’d been the tallest, warmest ones I’d had on hand in my apartment, even if they were way more suited to going out on the town than going up a mountain.
I was going to get wet and really cold getting there, but the cabin was less than a mile away. I could do it.
I glanced in the rearview mirror, pushing my long blonde hair back and pulling on a big fuzzy hat. I took a deep breath, shouldered my small pack, and stepped out into the icy frozen snow.
The wind slammed into me, stinging my eyes like I’d been slapped. Fuck it was cold.
I shivered, looking around and catching my bearings. I knew this turnaround, and there, next to the boulder at the treeline, was the small trail marker that’d lead me up to Stan’s cabin.
Let’s do this.
I braced myself, and I started to head for the trail when I felt something prickling up my back.
I whirled, half expecting to see someone; that prickle had felt like eyes on me. But there was no one there, of course. Just the car, the snowed-in road, and the empty woods.
Stop imagining things, I chided myself, before I hefted the pack, turned, and headed into the woods.
Chapter 3
Braun
She doesn’t belong here.
The thought burned into my brain as I hunkered down, my eyes narrowing at her. I could feel my muscles coiling — clenching tight with my breath from my run down the side of the mountain. My alarm had gone off the second she’d crossed over the old bridge over Rowan’s Creek. No one came up this road — and I mean no one. But then, that was entirely the reason I was there. It was the reason this was my fucking mountain. I’d set up the alarm a year before, and when it’d gone off that day, I’d set off running to see who the fuck was coming up to my domain.
Her.
Blonde, small, innocent, and goddamn gorgeous. But she had no fucking business being there. A city girl for sure — the clothes, the car, the fucking way she held herself in that prissy city way with her shoulders all straight and starched were all dead giveaways.
It was wrong that she was there, but fuck if looking at her didn’t do something very right to me. My blood blazed through my veins, my jaw tightened, and even
with the wind whipping around me and slicing at my face, I could feel my cock throbbing to life between my thighs. I groaned, watching from my perch through her windshield as she pushed that long blonde hair back and pulled on a hat.
Poofy, furry — like something off a goddamn mall mannequin.
She pulled a coat on, and I growled again. What the fuck did she think she was doing, going out for a fucking stroll in the snow? The coat screamed “city.” It was something you put on between the restaurant and the cab, not something you went out walking in these woods wearing. The coat would be soaked and freezing in ten minutes in these conditions. In an hour, it’d be deadly.
I frowned at the car. I mean, at least a Land Rover had all-wheel drive, but the chrome and the fancy black paint job screamed city. It screamed “luxury,” and that had no place on a snowy mountain like Blackthorn.
She glanced at her reflection in the reviewer mirror, licking her lips. I knew it should’ve bothered me — like she was bringing this bullshit city vanity out here to the woods where it didn’t belong. But it didn’t. In fact, watching her soft pink tongue dart out to lick those lips made my whole body come alive. It made my fucking cock throb and my balls tingle in ways they hadn’t in longer than I could remember.
She shouldered a pack, opened the door, and stepped out into the snow.
What the fuck was she doing?
No, stay in the fucking car.
For a second, I almost said it out loud. For a second, I thought about walking over, throwing her over my shoulder, plunking her back in that car and telling her to get the fuck off my mountain.
But I didn’t.
I couldn’t.
With the exception of a few run-ins with Austin, Dallas, Vlad, and occasionally Axe up here on the Mountain, I’d sworn off people when I’d come up here a year before.
After Kandahar, I was done with people.
It was Stan who’d told me about his cabin up here on Blackthorn, back when I’d been on his guard duty over in Afghanistan. The guy was one of those guys I should have immediately disliked — rich, throwing his money around, and a total city-slicker. But then, I’d realized who he really was and what he was really all about, and that’d all changed. Yeah, he threw his money around, but he threw it at real problems, not a new car just for having another one, or big fancy houses he didn’t live in. The man wanted to make real change in the world, which is why he was over there risking his ass to build schools and hospitals. We’d bonded over bikes first, and after that he’d been like father figure to me until the day he’d died a few years ago to cancer.
Yeah, that’d sucked.
But Stan had told me all about Blackthorn Mountain and the cabin he kept here that his rich-ass, snobby family didn’t know about. So after I’d gotten out, when I’d been done with it all, it was the only place I knew to go.
I’d been there ever since — alone, and at peace. Until that day.
Until this hot little blonde, bright-eyed, fancy-assed, and sexy as sin stranger had stepped out of her city car in her city clothes right the fuck in the middle of my woods, not one goddamn mile from my cabin. I didn’t know whether to be rip-shit mad or turned the fuck on. Hell, the fact that I was snarling quietly through a clenched jaw while also sporting a hard-on ready to tear through my damn jeans said it all.
Blondie slung the bag over her shoulder, looked around, and took a deep breath. Fuck, even from here and even in that stupid city coat, I could see those curves. I could see the way her breasts heaved against that coat, making my mouth water and my balls pulse.
She might’ve been an interloper. She might’ve been trouble. Hell, she might’ve been trespassing, cause she sure as hell was. But none of that mattered, because all of a sudden, there was one thing I knew about her above all that:
She was mine.
She didn’t know it yet, but I did. And now that she was there, in my woods on my mountain? I was going to show her exactly how mine she was.
I watched as she started walking, my blood roaring in my ears and my eyes narrowing on those cute, pouty lips of hers. Everything inside of me stirred, and growled, and hungered for her.
But when she stopped, looked round, and then suddenly changed course, I went numb
…She was going right for trail-head — the one you’d never even see unless you knew where to look. The trail that went right to the cabin. We weren’t that close, but fuck if it didn’t look like all of a sudden she knew exactly where she was going.
Yeah, no more waiting. No more watching and wondering what this tempting little stranger was doing up here. I growled as I stood from where I’d been squatting in the snow, my muscles tensed and hardened, my senses tuned, and my cock still fucking hard as stone.
I marched right for her, every intention of snatching that curvy little body up into my arms, throwing her over my shoulder caveman-style, marching back to my cabin to figure out who the fuck she was. But that’s when I heard the cracking sound.
That’s when I felt the thundering of the ground moving under me.
Aw fuck.
That’s when the avalanche hit, and the last thing I remember is wanting to know what those pink, full lips tasted like, before it all went white.
Chapter 4
Katrina
Almost there.
Wind whipped at my face, and I could feel every single part of my body shivering in the harsh, wet, bitter cold. Snow stung my eyes, and my shitty boots were soaked, all the way up to mid-thigh.
Fuck I wished I’d brought real winter clothes.
Thankfully, I’d dodged the mini avalanche when I’d started hiking. The thing had come out of nowhere, roaring like thunder — almost like a fierce, manly roar, really — as it’d come barreling down the side of the mountain. It’d barely missed me, but I was pretty sure the Land Rover was a lost cause until spring at that point. But fuck Paul.
The one problem was, most of the road — and my way back down from here — was also probably a lost cause after the avalanche too, but that I’d have to worry about later. The priority after that had been to get to the cabin and get warm before I froze to death.
I winced, the icy wet chill creeping through my body as I stomped around one last bend in the trail. And suddenly, I saw it.
The cabin.
I moaned in weak joy, shivering and shaking, my teeth chattering as I made a break for the front porch. The snow was coming hard by then, hitting me right in the face. But I kept at it, fighting back tears and pain and the sharp bite of the snow as I went barrelling up the three steps, and crashing right through the front door. I slammed it shut behind me with a cry of victory, panting as I sank down to the floor in a heap.
Thank God.
I shivered as I kicked my soaked boots and socks off, tearing off my freezing wet jeans, my coat, and the rest of my chilled, wet clothes down to my underwear. It was only then that I took a deep breath and found myself slowly relaxing.
The cabin was dark, but warm, and even if I could have bet money that I’d locked up the last time Stella and I had been up here two year ago or so, I didn’t worry that the door hadn’t been locked. Screw it, no one came up here anyways, and it’s not like there was anything to steal in the place.
I panted in the warm darkness, feeling the heat slowly soak into my goose-bumped skin, until suddenly…
…Until suddenly I froze.
Heat.
Warmth.
The cabin wasn’t just “not cold”, it was warm. Very very warm.
In spite of it, a chill crept up my spine until I finally forced myself to open my eyes and look around.
Oh, fuck.
The orange glow coming out of the cracks of the wood stove in the corner of the kitchen area was the first thing I noticed. Orange, flickering, fire.
…Yeah, I was pretty damn sure Stella and I hadn’t managed to get a two-year fire burning the last time we’d left.
I felt my pulse race, my skin tingling with fear as I slowly stood. Someon
e had been here. Recently. Like, really recently. I went still, listening to the sound of the wind howling outside, and the sound of the logs crackling and snapping in the wood stove. I swallowed, and the sound felt loud in my ears.
And then, there was another sound.
Outside.
It’s the wind, you scaredy-cat. I told myself, deciding to ignore the fact that someone had clearly been using the cabin. I tried to force myself not to think about what sort of weirdo would be up here in the middle of this snow storm in a cabin that wasn’t theirs, but the only things I could think of were serial killers and worse.
The sound came again, and this time, it was the unmistakable sound of footsteps, heavy and crunching on the snowy front porch. I shivered, backing away from the door towards the center of the room, my arms hugging myself as my breath came ragged.
Fuck. Home defense necessities hadn’t exactly been on my list of supplies to grab before I’d come up here. The panic rising in my chest, my eyes flailed around the room looking for something — anything — to defend myself with. My eyes darted across the darkened room, my breath coming faster and faster until my gaze landed on the bottle of whiskey sitting on the small table by the sofa. I lunged, snatching it up and Braundishing it like a club as I whirled back to the door.
Crunch.
The footsteps stomped across the porch. I hefted the whiskey bottle menacingly as I turned towards the door and the sound of the heavy footsteps beyond it. I already felt braver, stronger, and more ready to defend my place and my female parts.
There was a moment of stillness; a calm before the storm, silent but for the wind. And then suddenly with a smashing bang, the door flung open, sending whipping bursts of snow and ice hurling across the room and into my face. I shrieked and shut my eyes to the blinding white, briefly glimpsing a shape — a man — hulking in the doorway. I screamed, my pulse spiking through me, as I lunged forward with my best battle cry, swinging the whiskey bottle like a crazy woman. I leapt at the man, the bottle swinging right for his head when suddenly, my whole world went upside down.
