She pocketed her phone and huddled down into her coat, and tried to stay awake, but fatigue rolled up on her and her adrenaline crashed as silence stretched around her. She blinked as her eyelids slipped closed, widened her eyes and sucked down a breath, and then another, hoping the chilly air in her lungs would wake her up.
It didn’t.
Sleep overcame her.
When she woke, it was almost dark. She huffed and chastised herself, pushed to her feet and grimaced as her leg muscles cramped and ached. She stomped her feet to get some warmth back into them, hoping to wake herself up.
Something behind her cracked.
Her hand flew to her bear spray as she whirled to face the direction of the sound, her pulse skyrocketing as images of cougars or wolves filled her mind.
It was worse.
It turned out her luck wasn’t getting better after all.
She stared at the two men dressed in heavy black weatherproof gear, panic lancing her and flooding her veins with adrenaline that made her shake.
The very thugs she had thought had been tailing her.
The one on the left checked his rifle over, his hazel eyes as cold as the snow that whipped through the trees around them.
The one to the right smiled as he aimed a pistol at her.
“Hello, Cameo.”
Chapter 2
Lowe kept pace with his twin brother, Knox, following the snowy trail through the woods, his thoughts keeping him silent as they headed north towards the lodge near the glacier at the head of the valley. Something was wrong with their alpha, Saint. The big bear shifter was caught up in a female he had kidnapped from the neighbouring cougars, had turned on Knox and then demanded he and Lowe get the lodge ready so he could move her there.
If it had been summer, Lowe wouldn’t have minded as much. Hell, if the weather had been clear, he wouldn’t have minded as much.
But it was blowing a gale and the snow was falling thick and fast, and even the forest didn’t offer much protection from the storm. The snow had managed to work its way into the heart of the pines and formed a layer a few inches thick on the ground that made it hard going. He wasn’t a cougar or a wolf, wasn’t nimble on his feet like that breed of shifter. Maintaining his footing was requiring constant focus, and it was making him grouchy.
Knox muttered things beneath his breath beside him, grumbling about Saint and the female.
Lowe glanced across at his brother, reached out when the need to calm him became too great and laid a gloved hand on his wide shoulders.
Knox’s stormy blue eyes slid to him and then he huffed, faced forwards again and growled. “Can’t see shit in this weather.”
Lowe knew the snow wasn’t the reason Knox was in a foul mood. He wasn’t happy about being sent away by Saint either, but he would do as his alpha ordered. He preferred to go with the flow rather than cause any aggravation, unlike Knox. Knox had wanted to fight Saint when he had ordered them to prepare the lodge, but Lowe had calmed him down.
“Don’t know how you can be so relaxed about this. It isn’t right. Saint’s head isn’t on straight where this female is concerned,” Knox rumbled and kicked at a fallen branch, sending it flying out of his way.
Lowe smiled tightly. He might be calm on the surface, but his bear side was as grumpy as Knox. His more human side and his bear one had always been polar opposites. He wasn’t sure that part of him knew how to be calm. It was always easily agitated, always alert, and right now it was uneasy.
Something didn’t feel right, and he wasn’t talking about Saint and the cougar female now.
He glanced around the woods, peering through the endless sea of trunks.
Something didn’t feel right in the valley.
He couldn’t put a name to it, but it had him on edge and had his bear side restless, constantly scanning the area trying to figure out what was wrong. He glanced at Knox again, torn between mentioning it and keeping it to himself. His younger brother would only shrug it off and put it down to Saint and their frigid trek to the lodge.
And the fact they were all awake in the dead of winter.
An image of his bed popped into his head, heavy with warm furs and stacked with soft pillows.
He growled, aching to crawl under the layers of sheets and sleep.
Beside him, Knox chuckled. “Thinking about somewhere warm and dry, too?”
Lowe nodded. “Maybe once we’re done getting the place set up, we can bed down at the lodge.”
“Fuck, that sounds good.” Knox rolled his shoulders and huffed again, his breath fogging in the air as he glared at the snow that made it through the trees and swirled towards them. His dark blond eyebrows knitted hard. “Get out of this shit. Get the lodge ready. Get a few drinks in us, maybe thaw a steak or two and hit the sack… away from the noisy cougars.”
That sounded more than good. It sounded heavenly.
Their noisy neighbours were the reason they were in this mess, had woken him, Knox and Saint from their winter sleep with some kind of pride celebration. Knox suspected it was a wedding. Well, if their alpha had anything to do with it, it was going ahead without one of the cougars.
Saint hadn’t exactly handled the rude awakening with decorum.
The whole affair had agitated Lowe’s bear side even further and had irritated Knox to the point where he wasn’t thinking straight. Lowe glanced at his brother, feeling the weight of responsibility settling on his shoulders. He needed to calm Knox, to ease him down, and he knew just the way to do it.
Lowe focused on mentally preparing those steaks in his head, trying to remember what they had in storage up at the lodge. There were three things his brother needed in order to relax, and all three awaited them at the quiet lodge.
Steaks. Whiskey. Sleep.
His bear side groaned at the latter.
All he wanted was to go back to bed, to sleep the winter away as he did every year. All he wanted was for things to remain peaceful at Black Ridge. But here he was, trekking through the snow, battling the adverse weather conditions, because his damned alpha had gotten it into his head that stealing a female from the cougars as revenge for waking his pride from their winter sleep was a grand plan.
Gods, Lowe should have told him to take her back the second Saint had marched into the Ridge with her.
He had wanted to, but Saint was his alpha, and he was a good one. The big male had taken care of him and Knox, had provided a home for them when they had badly needed one, and had brought them into the pride.
A pride that might be makeshift, mostly filled with bears gathered from various clans, but it was a pride nonetheless.
A family.
One that felt as if it was stronger and meant more to those in it because it was made up of bears who had come together to live as a group. The bond between him and Saint, and Maverick and Rune, felt stronger than the bonds he’d had with bears who had been part of his old pride, ones tied together by blood and tradition. Those bonds had been flimsy, had snapped with only the slightest pressure, leaving him and Knox without a home.
A home they had found with Saint and the others. A family that shared a powerful bond that felt unbreakable. He would do anything for the males in his pride and he knew they would do anything for him.
And that was why he was freezing his ass off trekking to a remote lodge.
Saint needed him to do this, and so he would do it.
“Think maybe we have any butter in the freezer?” Lowe’s mouth watered as he thought about a nice perfectly cooked rib-eye brushed with butter and cracked black peppercorns.
Knox chuckled again, the warm sound soothing Lowe. His brother’s mood was improving even if the weather wasn’t. He gritted his teeth and braced as a blast of icy wind battered him, dug his heavy boots in to keep himself upright. When it passed, he brushed the snow off his black jacket and trudged onwards.
“Typical of you to think about the food first.” Knox jabbed him on his arm. “I was thinking about the whiskey.”<
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“Aren’t you always?” Lowe slid him a look, grinned at him. “Bourbon glaze might be nice.”
“Oh gods, honey and bourbon glazed steak.” Knox smacked his lips together, his blue eyes losing their focus as a dreamy look crossed his face.
Knox had never been able to resist either honey or what he called the ‘dark nectar of the gods’. Once, one particularly fine and long summer back when they had been younger, he had witnessed Knox in his bear form running from a swarm of bees with half a hive stuck on his head and chunks of honey flying from him in all directions.
He had never let his brother live that one down.
He had honestly never seen anything funnier than a five-hundred-plus pound grizzly thundering along a wooded riverbank trying to outrun angry bees.
“You know I can practically feel you thinking about it. Quit it,” Knox growled in his direction.
Lowe fought the smile that wanted to curve his lips as his brother glared at him, pulled a face and tugged his black scarf up to his nose when he couldn’t hold back the smile any longer.
“Two honey and bourbon glazed steaks coming right up.” Lowe patted his brother on his back again, hoping he wouldn’t hold on to his bad mood.
“Make it four.” Knox rubbed his stomach through his own black winter jacket. “I’ll be fiendishly hungry by the time we get there.”
Knox was always fiendishly hungry. It was a good job Lowe loved cooking as much as he did. His brother had one hell of an appetite.
It dawned on him that his uneasy feeling had passed thanks to losing himself in conversation and tried to think of another topic to keep his mind occupied. Other than Knox and the bees. Food stuck in his head, tormenting him, keeping his pace brisk despite the slippery ground.
“I probably should’ve thawed a few steaks for Saint.” He glanced at Knox, whose look said it all.
Saint hadn’t exactly been in the mood to have them sticking around though, had wanted them gone because Knox had scared the female.
“What happened back there?” Lowe rubbed his hands together, trying to get some warmth into them. His gloves were good, but apparently not that good. The tips of his fingers were already cold.
Knox shrugged and growled. “Saint chewed me a new one. He probably should’ve asked you to watch the female.”
“Yeah, well, I probably would’ve let her escape.” Lowe felt his brother’s gaze on the side of his face, pushed his woollen hat back and ran a hand over his short blond hair as he sighed. “Just… it doesn’t sit well with me.”
“Always the gentleman.” Knox took another jab at his arm and grinned at him, flashing straight white teeth. “Mom always said you were the nice one out of the two of us, and I was too much like Dad.”
They both fell silent at that.
When that silence became too thick, started to feel as if it was choking him, Lowe forced a sigh and tilted his head back, gazing up through the canopy to the grey sky.
“I miss them.”
Knox wrapped his arm around Lowe’s shoulders and tugged him towards him. “Me too.”
Lowe lifted his left hand and patted his brother’s gloved hand. It had been hard for both of them when they had lost their parents. Things had changed at their old pride on the coast just north of Vancouver and they had ended up striking out on their own, trying to find a place that felt like home to them.
They thought they had found it in a small cabin they had built near a lake, had settled there and things had been good for a while.
Until they had been out in their bear forms and Knox had been shot by hunters. They had shifted back and had run as far as Knox could manage. When his brother hadn’t been able to keep going, had collapsed and terrified Lowe, Lowe had started dragging him, trying to get him to help. Lowe’s throat closed as he remembered finding himself at a point where two valleys converged, sitting with his brother and too tired to keep moving.
He could still recall how it had felt to sit there looking at Knox, sure he was going to die.
And then Saint had appeared.
Lowe had attacked him, hadn’t been able to stop himself from shifting into his animal form to protect his brother, even though he had sensed Saint was a bear too.
When Saint had offered to help save Knox, Lowe had been more than grateful. Saint had helped him move Knox to Black Ridge, had set them up in a cabin and had let them stay there until his brother had healed and was back at full strength.
And then, just when Lowe and Knox had decided it was time they moved on, even when neither of them had wanted to, the big bear had offered them both a place in his pride.
They owed Saint everything, but somehow the male didn’t make them feel like they did. He had never treated them as if they owed him anything, rarely pulled rank on them, and always took care of them. From day one, Saint had made them feel as if they belonged in his pride, as if Black Ridge had always been their home, and as if they had always known each other.
“You’re awfully quiet.” Knox nudged him as they reached an area where the trees were sparse and the snow was deeper.
Lowe couldn’t stop himself from glancing at Knox’s right shoulder.
His brother’s blue eyes widened slightly. “Ah… winter silence making you all contemplative? Or is this because Saint gave me a spanking for upsetting the female?”
Lowe shrugged. “I’m going to blame the cold. Must be freezing my brain and making me sentimental.”
Knox scoffed at that. “You don’t need the cold for that to happen. For a big bear, you’re a big softie. You know that?”
He wanted to deny that, but their mother had been right about him. Lowe was the gentler one out of the two of them and sometimes he wished it wasn’t the case—like the times he got his heart broken.
Knox had never had his heart broken. Knox could somehow roll into town or Vancouver, find a female to fool around with to blow off some steam, and escape with his heart intact.
Whenever Lowe tried that, it started out well, and then ended badly. He tried not to let his feelings get involved, tried to keep things fast and fun like Knox could, and then more often than not he ended up foolishly developing feelings and thinking he could make a relationship work.
It never did.
“I know that look,” Knox grumbled. “It’s that female. I don’t like her. She’s messing everything up. First Saint is acting all crazy, and now you look miserable.”
Lowe shrugged again, trying to let it roll off his back. “I told you I was done with trying to make things work with females. No more. Last two years, I haven’t had any problems.”
“Last two years you’ve had precisely one encounter with a female. I don’t call that progress.”
He slid Knox a hard look. “I don’t see you out there sowing your wild oats. When was the last time you went to town to get laid? Two years ago now?”
“I’ve been busy.” Knox glowered at him, but before he looked away, Lowe glimpsed something in his blue eyes, something that looked an awful lot like hurt.
Was it possible he and his brother weren’t so different after all, and Knox’s last visit to town to find a female had ended badly for him?
He wanted to know, but he also didn’t want to press his brother. Knox could hold a grudge like no other man in this world, wouldn’t talk to him for months if he went prodding the bear and aggravated him.
“Weather’s getting worse.” Knox didn’t sound happy about it either. “How close do you think we are to the lodge now?”
Lowe zipped his coat up a little more as the icy wind battered him, driving snow into his face, and looked back over his shoulder, into a blizzard that stole everything from view. “Not sure. Might be halfway there. It’s hard to tell. It’s got to be late afternoon now. Maybe close to evening. I feel like I’ve been walking forever.”
“Me too. Not sure we’ll make it to the lodge before nightfall, but I’m fucked if I’m stopping anywhere for the night. We’ll just have to keep our spirits up while
we walk.” Knox growled as the wind caught him, splattering his weatherproof clothing with snow, and stomped onwards. “Tell me more about steaks and whiskey.”
Lowe chuckled as his brother sounded as if this was the end for them. He hated snow as much as any bear, but it wasn’t that bad. Things could be worse.
A gunshot echoed around the mountains.
His entire body locked up tight. Knox froze too, head whipping in all directions. Lowe tried to get a fix on the location of whoever had fired that shot, but it was impossible. He strained and waited, senses reaching outwards, sweeping as far and wide as possible to cover as much ground as he could manage. He couldn’t sense anyone other than him and Knox, and a few animals in the dense forest. He remained on high alert though. Whoever had fired that shot was bound to shoot again, giving Lowe a chance to get a fix on them.
“You think it’s the cougars?” It sounded stupid now he had said it. Shifters didn’t use guns. It just wasn’t the done thing. But he was worried about Saint.
“Nah.” Knox slowly turned to face the way they had come, looking back towards the Ridge. “Cougars are crazy, but they’re not that crazy. Quit worrying about Saint. As long as this storm is raging, he’s safe.”
His brother was probably right. The cougars were unlikely to go out searching for the female while the weather was like this. They would wait for it to pass and then they would track her down, and then Saint would be in trouble. Only crazy people would be out in this weather.
“Who do you think it was then?” Lowe scanned the mountain to his left, his gut saying the sound had come from that direction.
Knox bluntly said, “Hunters.”
Another shot rang out and confirmed Lowe’s feeling that it had come from their left. He tried to narrow it down more, but all he could do was guess. Either way, it was too close for comfort. He closed ranks with his brother, coming to stand slightly in front of him to shield him. Knox huffed at that.
“Humans are crazy, do stupid stuff like thinking they can handle a storm like this without it killing them, but in all the years we’ve lived here, no human has ever dared to come up this way to hunt in the dead of winter. There’s nothing awake here at this time of year.” Lowe glanced over his shoulder at Knox. “You don’t think it’s… Archangel?”
Rescued by her Bear (Black Ridge Bears Shifter Romance Series Book 2) Page 2
