Wild Refuge: A Yellowstone Shifters Novel

by K. Panikian

  It rang for a minute. No one answered.

  By the time I reached the parking lot, I’d called two more times with no luck.

  Looking at my car, I wavered. It was obviously a trap. The question was, what was I going to do about it?

  My puma and my Beast were indifferent. Logan wasn’t my pack. He’d shown no loyalty to me.

  He’d been hurt—the sweatshirt had been covered in blood.

  I searched my phone for the name of the mine and found an address near the Idaho-Wyoming border, directly west of Jackson and south of West Yellowstone. I didn’t know which pack territory it fell into, or if a third pack was in play.

  I felt out of my depth. My swaggering confidence from earlier had vanished as I imagined Blair cutting into Logan. I didn’t love him, but I’d loved him once, and I couldn’t let her hurt him, especially if it was my fault she went after him.

  I debated calling for reinforcements but I didn’t want Jordan and Darcy involved in this mess. This was a vendetta against me. I climbed into my car and headed south out of the park.

  As I drove my phone rang—August. I didn’t answer.

  THE GPS dumped me in an empty gravel parking lot, my headlights the only illumination I’d seen for the past several miles. The sun was gone, the moon wasn’t up yet, and the landscape gleamed black and gray where it stretched up the side of the mountain.

  I stepped out of my car and inhaled, scenting dust and iron. The cold air raised goosebumps on my skin.

  A small, brick building stood at the far side of the parking lot and, as I walked closer, I saw a bloody t-shirt draped over the door handle.

  A metallic taste filled my mouth as I imagined what I would find on the other side of the door. I reached for the door handle just as another car pulled into the lot.

  Ducking out of sight, I peered through the shadows as the new headlights cut off. My puma eyes caught movement as the car door opened and shut and a shape stalked through the darkness. When it saw the bloody shirt on the door, it darted forward.

  “August!” I gasped as the shape came into focus in the gloom.

  “Sienna?” He drew up short before taking two quick strides to my side, lifting and grabbing me tightly. August buried his face in my neck and exhaled heavily, his body trembling briefly.

  Bewildered, I patted his back.

  “What are you doing here?” I murmured.

  “I got a note and it smelled like you. It had blood on it and this address. It told me to come alone.”

  Ah ha. The trap is for both of us.

  I told August what I’d found in the woods. He’d yet to let go of me. I squirmed and he squeezed me tighter.

  His voice husky, he stroked my hair. “Sienna, I—”

  I shook my head. “Not now. We’ve got to rescue Logan.”

  “What if he’s in on it?”

  I wriggled free, considering August’s question.

  “I can’t assume that,” I finally said. “Maybe he is. But maybe he’s not. Maybe he’s hurt, or dying.”

  August stepped back. “Do you care?”

  I cocked my head at him in the murky darkness. “Of course I care. He’s not my boyfriend, or even my friend anymore. But that doesn’t mean he deserves to be hurt because of me. No one deserves to be hurt.”

  “I think he’s in on it,” August muttered as he moved toward the door again.

  We leaned together and sniffed the door handle.

  I turned and whispered into his cheek. “Is that Blair’s scent?”

  August whispered back and his minty breath washed over me. “Yes.”

  “It’s Logan too. I don’t smell anyone else.”

  August nodded. We pushed into the small building. It was empty and a dark staircase opened down into the earth. I blew out a breath.

  “If you need to hold my hand,” August rumbled, “it’s okay with me.”

  “Jeez, what’s with you?” I asked. “I thought you were angry with me about your betas.”

  “That was before I thought you got kidnapped and hurt,” he said. “Now I just want to hold you.”

  I flushed in the darkness, my heartrate quickening. I thought about how I’d feel if it had been August’s bloody sweatshirt on the rock. I shuddered and rubbed my chest.

  We leaned over the black stairwell. An elevator waited at the bottom.

  “Okay, I’m definitely not getting in there,” I said. “She’ll probably cut the wires or something.”

  August looked at it consideringly. He walked carefully down the stairs and I followed. At the elevator, he stuck his fingers into the crack and grunted, pulling the two halves of the door apart as the panels screeched. On the other side, an empty shaft waited.

  “No elevator car,” August said. “She can’t cut the wires from under us.”

  “No,” I said, peering down into the dark shaft. “She can cut them and the car will fall on top of us. Or she can hit the button and the car will squish us. Or she can drop explosives down on our heads.”

  “All good points.”

  “How deep does it go?”

  “To the mine tunnels?” August asked. “Probably at least a mile.”

  I winced.

  “She’s not going to kill us in the shaft,” August said. “She wants to gloat, to punish. She’ll wait until we’re all together.”

  “That’s a pretty big assumption. I wouldn’t wait. I’d kill my enemies the moment I had the chance.”

  August looked at me sidelong. “Noted.”

  He climbed into the shaft and started moving down the ladder, his blond head disappearing from view.

  I hesitated for a long moment before following into the stygian duct.

  Chapter 12

  We descended forever, the rungs of the ladder passing before my eyes in an endless reel. August climbed faster than me and every few minutes he stopped to wait. I felt grateful I wasn’t alone.

  My heart pounded with adrenaline and my hands trembled on the ladder rungs. I concentrated on moving slowly and steadily, ignoring the way my breath panted out of me. My arms ached from holding my tense body in the air.

  Step down and release, step down and release. The rhythm of our descent pounded in my skull as we dropped lower and lower into the shaft. The cold, dark gloom turned to pitch black around us and I relied only on the touch of my feet and my hands to find the next rung. My palms burned and the balls of my feet ached.

  When August’s warm hands encircled my waist I let out a tense, quiet shriek.

  “Shh,” he said. “We’re at the bottom.”

  He lifted me from the ladder and I turned into his warm body, shuddering. His lips brushed my forehead as I sagged into his arms for a long moment, gasping out deep lungfuls of air.

  August held me tightly, not saying a word as I got myself under control again.

  When I felt calmer, I stepped away from his arms. “Thanks,” I muttered, shaking out my cramped fingers.

  “You’re welcome.”

  We jumped from the roof of the elevator car and looked down the chilly, empty tunnel in front of us. The darkness was almost absolute. Far ahead, a pinprick of light winked at me and I sighed.

  We walked toward the light and slowly the tunnel walls around us brightened. My puma eyes differentiated between the black and the gray—the gray of the tunnel walls and the black of the offshoots that snaked away into the emptiness.

  The pressure of the depths pushed against my shoulders and I fought to stride confidently.

  “I don’t like the side tunnels,” I muttered.

  “I don’t smell anyone else,” August answered.

  We walked farther down the corridor.

  The light expanded to uncover a large cavern, but the tall bare-rock ceiling above and the flat, gleaming floor revealed no secrets. More tunnels shot off into the gloom outside of the light, which broadcasted from a small, battery-operated lantern. Next to it leaned an envelope.

  My heart sank. It was a wild goose chase. Blair prob
ably had Logan miles from here, which meant I’d wasted hours and still had no idea if he was hurt or dead. My throat ached as I swallowed a dry gasp.

  August picked up the envelope and smelled it. “Smells like both of them. No blood.”

  I stepped to his side and read over his shoulder. The note said, “Hope you found each other! Terrible to die alone.”

  “Jeez, she’s like a Bond villain,” I ground out through my clenched teeth. I spun back to the tunnel we’d just walked and saw a flashlight bobbing.

  “There!” I grabbed August’s arm and started dashing back to the elevator.

  August picked me up, holding me back. “Wait,” he growled.

  I struggled in his arms. We had to get to the elevator before she took it back to the surface.

  “Stop, Sienna!” he barked out. “Don’t you smell it?”

  I abandoned my flailing and inhaled. In the stale air wafting down the corridor, I caught the odor of tar and burned almonds.

  “I don’t know that smell,” I said slowly.

  “C-4.”

  “How do you know that?”

  “Marines.”

  I stared up at August. His brow furrowed, he watched the bobbing light near the elevator disappear. I heard a dinging noise.

  August glanced quickly around the room where we stood, grabbed the lantern, and then my hand. Pulling me sharply, he ran for a side corridor. I shook my arm free and followed him, close at his heels.

  The tunnel he picked curved and the lantern cast careening shadows on the wall as we sprinted.

  August ducked down another tunnel and stopped, leaning back against the wall.

  He sucked in a deep breath and put the lantern at his feet. I watched his face in the dim light as he exhaled before pulling me into his arms again. He turned our bodies so my back rested against the wall and cradled me to his front, his skin hot under my hands where they pushed against his forearms.

  “Brace yourself,” he murmured and kissed me quickly.

  I reared back, my lips burning, and stared up into his dark eyes as an explosion shook the earth.

  I dropped to my knees, covering my head and neck with my arms as the ground shook and rocks fell from the tunnel ceiling. Clenching my eyes tightly closed, I held my breath.

  A hot blast of air gusted over my hunched form and smoke enveloped me. I sprawled flat and pulled my shirt over my nose. My eyes tearing, I turned my head to see August doing the same next to me. When he saw me looking, he gently pushed my head closer to the ground and covered my eyes.

  I shut my eyes behind his hand and tried to breathe shallowly through my shirt.

  We stayed like that, sprawled and shivering for a long moment, until the heat and the smoke dissipated.

  Eventually August stood and hauled me to my feet. In the lantern light I could see our clothes covered in a layer of dust. Large rocks littered the tunnel around us.

  My heart pounded in my chest from the adrenaline release of my panic and my helpless cowering, and my ears rang with a high-pitched sound. I stared down at my shaking hands for a long moment, in shock that we’d both survived the explosion. I couldn’t believe Blair had tried to blow us up—it was so diabolical and cold.

  It took me a long moment to realize August was calling my name. I blinked at him, trying to find his voice amid the steady whine in my ears, and he mouthed exaggeratedly, “Come on.”

  We retraced our steps slowly back to the large room before checking the corridor that led to the elevator—it was a dark hole.

  August started walking and I followed. We got a long way back to where I thought the elevator shaft rested before we hit the debris wall. Rocks and boulders tumbled in a pile and, just beyond, blocked the tunnel entirely.

  August’s shoulders sagged briefly before he straightened again. He set the lantern at our feet and turned to me.

  “We have to move these rocks out of the way, slowly and carefully, to get to the elevator shaft. I’m going to pick the ones we move and we’re both going to carry them out of the way. I don’t know how much air we have and we definitely have no food or water. So don’t panic,” he shook my arms as I blinked at him, “but we need to do this as quickly and as safely as possible.”

  I nodded and we started to work. At first it was easy enough. My muscles felt loose and the rocks were relatively small. I paced back and forth, picking up the stones and moving them, bending and straightening, walking and dropping. I fell into a rhythm and only stopped when I heard August calling for me again.

  We’d reached the part of the tunnel where the rocks were packed more tightly together. It took both of us now to dislodge them and carry them away. My fingernails broke, my arms and legs started bleeding with scrapes and scratches, and my throat grew drier and drier.

  My arms began to shake as I carried the heavy, jagged rocks, one after the other. My thighs and lower back burned from crouching down and lifting them. But I didn’t stop, and neither did August. His steady voice, directing me which rocks could be moved, didn’t falter.

  I didn’t know how much time passed, hours probably, before we stopped.

  “I think we can crawl the rest of the way to the shaft,” August panted. “Let’s sit for a minute and rest.”

  Without responding, I sank to my haunches and dropped my head back against the wall. My mouth and throat were too parched to speak. I licked my lips and got a mouthful of rock dust. I spat it back out and closed my eyes.

  August sank beside me and pulled me into his lap. I didn’t resist. Leaning my head against his shoulder, I willed my muscles to stop trembling.

  August stroked a hand through my hair.

  “I didn’t know you were in the Marines,” I murmured.

  “There’s a lot we don’t know about each other,” he answered.

  I fell asleep.

  I woke up in absolute darkness and flailed out. Someone caught hold of my arms and I screamed, my voice hoarse and cracking.

  “Sienna!” August barked.

  I wheezed out a breath, remembering everything. Trembling, I inhaled the cold, stale air.

  “I turned off the lamp while you slept,” August said soothingly as he ran his hand down my back. He turned it back on and the light illuminated his gray, dirty figure. His eyes were red-rimmed from the dust and his chin was shadowed with short hair. Absently I brushed my fingers along the scruff and he closed his eyes, leaning into my hand.

  We sat quietly for a long moment, breathing the same air, as I rested my forehead against his.

  “Are you ready to keep going?” he asked.

  I nodded and drew back, standing. My legs wobbled and my arms felt like jelly. I eyed the boulder wall in front of us and swallowed.

  “Follow me,” August said. “Only touch the rocks that I touch.”

  I nodded again and followed him up the jumbled slope.

  We scrambled and crawled through the debris, our heads scraping the ceiling. Occasionally August paused for a long moment, pushing against different rocks before deciding on which one to put his weight.

  We tumbled free, falling in a heap in the empty space around the destroyed elevator shaft.

  Despair crashed through me when I saw the remnants of the explosion. The shaft was obliterated. Instead, the hole where it used to be stretched up into the darkness. The ladder was gone, the pipes and cords were gone, and the walls of the hole were almost sheer.

  I looked up at the blackness above and knew there was no way for us to climb out.

  Beside me August exhaled and his head bowed. I listened to him breathe.

  I was so thirsty it felt like the skin of my face splintered with every movement. I looked up again and tracked the deeper grooves in the sides of the hole. They were scattered—a groove would stretch up for a few yards and then break off, only to start again a little farther away.

  I mapped what I could see and my shoulders straightened.

  I cleared my throat. I had to make a choice. I knew I could climb out in my Beast
form. She was already planning her path, her handholds, and her leaps as I looked up into the empty shaft.

  The question was did I do it alone, or did I take August with me?

  If I outed my hybrid form, I didn’t know what would happen. Would August still find me attractive? I kicked myself mentally. That’s not the important question. Would August decide that I was a shifter abomination to be destroyed? Or a potential soldier to help him win his pack back from Blair’s influence? Would he try to use me?

  Did I have a choice? No. I didn’t. I couldn’t leave him behind. I didn’t know what state I’d be in when I reached the top. It might be hours or even another day before I could get help to him down here. He might run out of air, or die of thirst, in the meantime.

  He was coming with me.

  My Beast approved. She wanted to show August her muscles, seeking his admiration. I rolled my eyes. This wasn’t going to end the way she hoped, I knew. August would never want to be with a monster like me.

  Should I knock him out and carry him? I cocked my head and considered it.

  August saw me watching him and shook his head sadly. “Sienna, I don’t know how—”

  “I can do it.”

  August stared at me.

  “I can get out and carry you.”

  Shaking his head again, he said softly, “This is it, Sienna. Unless someone heard the explosion and is digging us out, which I don’t hear at all, we’re done.”

  I smiled at him. “Relax, August. Enjoy the ride. And remember, I’m trusting you. You’re going to owe me so hard. Just keep that in mind, please.”

  August blinked.

  I stepped back and pulled my phone from my pocket. “Hold this.” I watched him stuff it into his pocket before I shifted. I released the Beast and felt my body explode with muscles, teeth, and claws. My powerful legs braced on the rocky floor and I shook out my arms. My aches and pains from digging through the rocky tunnel vanished. I felt strong.

  Opening my sharp eyes, I saw August watching me with raised brows and an open mouth. I ignored the pang that echoed in my human heart and grabbed him. Tucking him to my side, I growled, “Hold tight.” And I began to climb.