by Tessa Clarke
He slipped his hand down to her cunt, and circled it around her clit, patiently, deftly. He could feel her orgasm ready to shudder out of her. He increased the intensity of his strokes, and the movement of his finger, almost losing himself in his own pleasure.
“Oh my god. Oh my god,” she said, pressing hard against him, her pussy throbbing and jerking against his fingers, against his cock, and then he was lost, drowning in the ferocity of his own orgasm as he filled her with his hot seed.
They rocked together for a few minutes as their breathing slowed again. Chance left a trail of kisses down her neck and shoulder.
He imagined her walking across the parking lot alone after they skied down, each of them going to their own vehicles and houses. He couldn’t imagine leaving her.
“Do you have plans for the day?” he said, pressing his lips against the soft skin at the nape of her neck. “Are you working?”
“No, they’re operating with a skeleton crew today. Everyone booked the day off after the wedding. I expect there are a lot of throbbing heads down in White Peaks.”
“Do you want to come back to my place? It’s a bit homier than this cave, I promise.”
“I don’t know, the cave is starting to grow on me,” she said with a dry tone. She hesitated. “But yes, I’ll come over. We can hang. As long as you have hot running water.”
“I do, I promise.” Chance thought about his walk-in jetted shower for two and started to feel a hard-on yet again. “We don’t even have to go to the base lodge. There’s a secret trail that goes right to my house.”
Astrid turned around to face him at this. “You live in Sun Valley then? I’ve heard about the trail that goes down the old mining road. It’s out of bounds,” she said, then she rolled her eyes. “Sorry. I work for ski patrol. It’s automatic. But seriously, I can’t take that trail. It could cost me my job. You know Dylan, he’s a stickler for rules.”
Chance kissed the tip of her cute freckled nose. “What if I were to say that I’m your boss too, and I’ll smooth it over with Dylan, if we get caught that is, which we won’t.”
Astrid drew her eyebrows together in confusion. “You’re the silent partner?”
“The one and only.”
She drew back and propped herself up on an elbow, revealing one of her delightful breasts. “I thought you were a ski bum.”
“I am,” Chance said. “I’m just a rich one.”
“Wow,” she said. “Wow. Well in that case, this is quite the location you’ve picked for a first date, Mr. Trainor.”
“I know how to treat a woman,” Chance agreed, his face straight.
Astrid laughed and then turned more serious. “I’m starving and I have to use the facilities. I have granola bar in my pack, because I’m a prepared patroller, and I don’t imagine that there’s going to be eggs and bacon on the menu up here. What exactly do wild ones eat?”
“You probably don’t want to know.”
Astrid nodded. “Probably not.”
She rose, retrieved her pack, and withdrew a bar. “And the facilities? Outside with the coyotes?”
“Fraid so. I’ll shift and go scare them off for you.”
Chance paced around, a low, fierce growl threatening to burst out of him while Astrid relieved herself in a clump of alder. The coyotes had gone and he could smell no perils on the air, aside from the lingering scent of cur that wafted through the trees in their spent breath falls and droppings.
It enraged him that these beasts were trying to steal away this place of calm and happiness that he and the others were building. He and the other cat shifters were happy to live and let live, respectful of each other’s ways and needs, but apparently some other shifters didn’t feel the same way.
Although he was mostly healed, a few of his wounds from the previous night still smarted. Perhaps he had been underestimating the degree of threat the coyotes and their allies posed. The prospect of them harming Astrid forced a low snarl from deep in his belly. If he was feeling this protective of her now when there were no apparent dangers, how would he be in the face of real menace? He’d almost worked himself up enough to go after her when she emerged from the trees, clothed only in her outer ski clothes, looking fresh and bright.
Back in the cave, her outerwear shucked, revealing her delicious expanse of skin once again, Astrid’s brown eyes grew more somber as she snuggled under the blankets with him. “What are you going to do about your brother’s request?”
Chance frowned. He didn’t want to think about what Rowan was asking of him. He wanted to think about Astrid, about touching every inch of that skin and taking her back to his place and telling her that he was pretty sure he loved her.
“I don’t know. The problem is more complicated than just a pack of coyotes. Since Dylan, Cade, Flynn, and I moved in, White Peaks is becoming an unofficial haven for cat shifters. Some of the locals don’t like it much, especially the coyotes. They don’t like cats at all. The wild community is also growing. That’s why Rowan and Marika moved here. But wild ones believe in and support mixed-race marriages and that doesn’t sit too well with some other shifters.”
“The coyotes are shifters too, then?” Astrid had pulled her shirt over her head and sat eating her granola bar next to him, blankets pooled around her naked groin.
Chance shook his head. “Only their leaders are. Gavin and Gabe. You’ll be able to pick them out right away. They’re brothers and way bigger than the others. They want this territory for their own so they’re inciting the non-shifter beasts into doing their dirty work, and then they stay back and out of the fray. They also have shifter allies, like Lothoren, the owl. They’re trying to drive the wild ones out. There have been other attacks.”
Astrid’s face colored suddenly and she pulled the blanket tighter around her waist.
“And they’ll try to drive you out too, as soon they’re done with us,” Rowan said.
Chance turned his head to see his brother standing behind him.
“Please Row, let me talk to Elijah. There’s lots of room over in the canyon. That’s where Flynn’s cabin is. It’s out of bounds for the resort. If you go there, you won’t even have to worry about dodging skiers anymore. I can help you move. Not that it looks like you have a lot of stuff.”
“We can take them out if you join with us. You and those partners of yours,” Rowan said. “Or have they gotten too used to the high life up there in their Timber Wolf Lodge? The human life? They haven’t exactly made things easy around here for us, opening up this section of the hill. On powder days these trees are thick with skiers.”
Chance glanced at Astrid, saw her slight start when she realized that Cade, Dylan, and Flynn were shifters too. He’d been so caught up in finding a mate that he’d been ignoring the local politics. Cade, Dylan, and Flynn were guilty of that too. They’d assumed it would blow over. But judging from the ferocity of last night’s attack, it had gone way beyond politics.
“I’ll talk to them,” Chance said. “But in the meantime, please come back with me to my house.”
His brother shook his head. “There are others who live up here with whom we are allied. We won’t leave them behind.”
Chance stood up, grabbed his ski pants, and started to pull them on. He didn’t understand his brother’s stubbornness sometimes. Then again, if his mate were threatened the way he knew Marika had been, he supposed he’d be blind with fury too.
He glanced over at Astrid in her ski shirt and the blanket, sitting there naked from the waist down eating a granola bar. She was so goddamned delightful. If someone threatened her, he’d do whatever it took to protect her.
“Are you ready for all of the bloodshed that would come with us joining you? Of us deliberately going after them and taking them out,” he said. He was by nature a hunter and did not feel guilty about his kills. But premeditated murder was another thing altogether.
“They’ve made their choice,” Rowan replied.
“We’d have to find a way to bait them out,” Chance said. “Otherwise we’re just going to end up having to keep slaughtering their minions. Could Marika…”
“No.” Rowan cut him off sharply. “I won’t expose her to that kind of danger. He’s been following her for weeks. Gavin Summers is the worst kind of man.”
Chance opened his mouth to reply but heard a strangled squeak from Astrid’s direction. “Did you say Gavin Summers?” she asked.
Chance jerked his head over to her. She’d pulled on her long underwear beneath the blanket and rose to her feet. She seemed to have turned pale, and he thought he could see a pool of tears in one of her eyes.
Chance was by her side instantly. A tremble shuddered through her body when put his arm around her. Was she afraid of him becoming a predator? Did she disapprove? He’d already heard the story about Astrid and Flynn freeing the doves because she was worried about them getting home safely in the dark.
“Yes, Gavin Summers. Do you know him?” he said.
“Yes, I know him,” she said simply. “What are you going to do if you catch him?”
“Kill him,” Rowan said.
Chance grasped at different possibilities, like relocation, or treaty talks. His brother was too eager. They couldn’t just kill another shifter, could they? But what did one do with a shifter like Gavin Summers? Gavin wouldn’t hesitate to kill one of them if he had the chance. From what Chance had heard, Summers was bad to the core, and there was probably no prison in the state that could keep him contained.
I don’t know,” Chance said. “Something. We’ll do something. But we’re not going to kill him.”
Astrid nodded. Her face had become stony, resolute, with none of its usual fire. It was as if someone had just extinguished her, and Chance felt a slight shard of alarm.
“If you want,” she said. “I can be your bait.”
Chapter Seven: Astrid
Astrid saw Chance’s double take, and the tightening of his mouth, when she announced that she could be the bait. She couldn’t believe she was offering herself.
But she hated Gavin Summers.
Gorgeous and charming Gavin Summers had raped Astrid’s sister Lilly a few years ago when she’d gone home with him from a local club. Astrid and Lilly had reported it to the police, who laid charges. But Gavin hired a slick, expensive lawyer from out of state who painted Lilly as a harlot and a liar who slept with men on the first date. The jury bought it. Gavin walked, and Lilly never totally recovered.
Rowan raised an eyebrow at Astrid. “Do you know Summers? Would he come to you?”
“We have a history,” Astrid said.
Gavin had stalked her for almost two years after the trial. He only seemed to come out at night, turning up unexpectedly in the restaurants, clubs, and stores that she frequented, lingering around dark corners in the resort parking lot, standing outside her condo window for hours on end, always disappearing without a trace before the police arrived, until eventually Astrid stopped calling them.
She developed rituals. She never went anywhere alone and had initiated the safe walk program for ski patrollers to get back to their vehicles at night. Every evening she double locked and latched her door, closed all her curtains, and slept with a knife and her phone, jolting awake at the slightest sound.
He never touched her, not once. Gavin preferred to cat call and make fun of her—of her size and her body, of her lack of success with men. That was almost worse.
It had seemed like two years of absolute darkness. Two years of fearing nightfall.
But eventually he’d stopped. She thought he’d tired of her. But she just realized that he’d stopped around the same time that Cade, Flynn, Dylan, and Chance had bought the ski hill and she’d started working and chumming with Dylan. Maybe he hadn’t tired of her at all. Maybe he just hadn’t wanted to stalk her around so many cat shifters. Or, she shifted her eyes to the lovely and silent Marika, who had come to stand behind her mate, he’d just turned his attentions to another quarry.
She still saw Gavin occasionally on the streets of White Peaks. She usually crossed the street or ducked into a store. But sometimes she couldn’t react fast enough and had to walk past him. He’d watch her with a manic gleam in his eye as she strode past, her chin high, trying to control her insides. If she could read body language, he still wanted her—for revenge, for sex, for her sister, she didn’t know.
Astrid shuddered at the memories. She’d moved on as best she could. She’d started skiing alone again, returned to the party circuit and began wearing whatever she wanted, trying to be defiant in her desire to live the way she wanted to live. She stopped sleeping with a knife, and she didn’t always double lock her door. But she never stopped looking over her shoulder, and she never slept with anyone on a first date.
Until now. Until Chance.
Her heart flooded with the heat and joy of their passion. She had thought she loved Flynn because he’d seemed so safe and solid, after her terrible experiences with Gavin. He was also pretty damn hot. But being with Chance had changed everything. He had been so tender, so passionate, so there for her. If it was possible to fall in love with someone after one night, Astrid was pretty sure she had.
Chance’s back had gotten all hunched, and his eyes had narrowed. “Did you date Summers?” he demanded.
Astrid’s lips got all twitchy, like they could flip into an irreversible frown while she let out the tears she’d held back for so long. “No. How could you think that? Gavin is a rapist and a scumbag. I hate him.”
Chance was instantly fierce and his eyes worried. He reached for her hand. “Did he…”
“No,” she said. “Not me, my sister. I don’t want to talk about it. I’ll be your bait. I think he’ll come to me.”
“No way,” Chance almost growled the words.
She squeezed his hand. “I can do this. I need to do this.” She couldn’t let another woman experience what she’d experienced for two years… even if Rowan and Chance did kill Gavin. She flinched at the thought. Could she be party to a killing? Did she want that? Was she that vengeful?
Chance shook his head. “I need to talk to Astrid for a few minutes, alone,” he said, giving Rowan a steely-eyed stare.
He dragged her to the mouth of the cave where the air was chill. “Tris, you can’t do this,” Chance said. “You have no idea how dangerous Gavin is.”
She gave him a dark look. “I know exactly how dangerous Gavin Summers is.” Her voice came out thin, icy and angry. Chance drew back a bit. She closed her eyes and exhaled to calm herself, and then put a hand on his arm. “Won’t you be able to protect me?” she asked.
Chance’s eyes seemed to be flashing. “I don’t know. I don’t know how many other shifters and animals he has working for him. It’s too dangerous and I don’t want you to be any part of it.” He sounded flat and furious.
“I just want to help your brother and sister-in-law, and the others,” she said. “Don’t you want to help them?”
Chance’s face seemed stony—too stony, and Astrid wondered if she’d gone too far. His words were terse. “I lost Susie, my mate, in a horrific and stupid accident. I won’t lose another mate in a similar way. I won’t allow it, Astrid. I’m taking you home. You need to stay out of this. It’s none of your business.”
Mate. He had called her his mate. Did that mean he loved her? She clung on to this even as tears streamed down her face. “It is my business, Chance. Gavin hurt my sister in the same way he’s hurting your brother. The way he hurt you last night. It is my business, and you can’t tell me what to do.”
“I won’t be part of it. Please, Tris… Astrid. I don’t want you to get hurt.”
She was resolute. “I have to do it.”
Chance stormed away from her and shifted in the mouth of the cave, his muscled back becoming tawny then orange, his hands and feet expanding into giant mitts, and his buttocks tightening into the powerful haunches of a tiger.
Then he bounded off into the woods, his hind paws sending sprays of snow out behind him.
He was breathtaking, her shifter. Had she just driven him away in her desire for vengeance?
She wandered slowly back into the cave. Rowan and Marika stood by the fire. She expected to feel more embarrassment about watching them last night, about having them watch her and Chance. But she only felt an odd kinship, like she was part shifter, and entirely at home with her instincts.
“Thank you for agreeing to help us,” Rowan said.
Astrid clenched her arms around herself and dug her thumbs into her biceps.
“He’ll come around,” Rowan said. “He loves you. He’ll be back in less than an hour.”
Astrid nodded. Did he love her? She wished she could be so sure.
Chapter Eight: Chance
The trees flew past in a blur as he pounded through the snow. He only had at most a half an hour to run unhindered through the woods. Ski patrol would be on the mountain doing avalanche control soon, and while Dylan, as a cougar, and Flynn, as a lynx, could run through the wilderness of White Peaks at any time of the day and experience potentially only a raised eyebrow, or at most some excitement, a tiger in the woods of Montana would result in a hue and cry that would make national news. Trophy hunters from around the world would descend on the region, and his little bit of paradise and freedom would be lost.
It was hard to be mindful of this though as he tried to process the prospect of losing Astrid like he had lost Susie. Astrid was so goddamned headstrong and determined to help other people, even if it meant putting herself in danger. He knew this from her reputation on ski patrol. He loved her for it, but it infuriated him. Why couldn’t he desire a woman who wanted to be a docile homebody?
