Heart of a Dire Wolf

by Carol Van Natta

  Their eyes rounded, and they looked terrified. “Will you come for us?” asked one.

  Becoming a temporary protector to two bobcats hadn’t been part of his escape plan, but he couldn’t let them down. “Yes, I will, but it might take time. If they send hunters, use your human brain and the strength of your cat. Go back to Utah.” He pulled them into a strong, brief hug, which was all the reassurance he had time to give them. “And stay away from strip clubs.” He pointed to a pair of mongooses, who were having trouble with the soapy water. “Help them, before they drown.”

  The twins gave him one last panicky glance before turning and wading toward the struggling mongooses.

  Nic turned and focused on his goal of his mate’s cell, another sixty feet down the corridor. Time was running out.

  3

  Skyla finally understood what her sister Rayne had often complained about: Plans never survived first contact with reality.

  “What do you mean, you have to stay?” She glared at Lerro, huddling and shaking in the corner of their cell. The rising water nearly topped his calves.

  “I’m needed here.” He drilled her with a spooky look that bored into her soul. “Use your gift. Make me look like you, to delay the hunters.”

  “They’ll kill you.”

  Lerro shook his head. “They won’t.” He held up his twitching hand. “I can’t shift. I can’t climb ladders or...” He wrapped his arms around his ribs, as if to keep himself from coming apart. “Make me look like you.”

  Skyla didn’t know what to do. She couldn’t carry him, and she didn’t have time to find someone who could help. Every second brought more guards and wizards running to contain the prison break, and she still had to find her mate before she could leave. But she owed him, and he deserved his chance at freedom. “Lerro…”

  He glared at her and bared his teeth. “My destiny, my choice. Do the spell or don’t, but I’m staying.”

  Skyla blew out a frustrated breath, then worked the illusion. It wouldn’t fool anyone who knew her well, but it would have to do. And though he didn’t ask, she used some of her reserve of hoarded magic to cast the best healing energy spell she knew. Rayne would have been better at all of this, but Skyla couldn’t think about that now.

  She turned and waded toward the cell door. She blinked in surprise when a bearded, long-haired mountain man stepped into the doorway. She knew him. The fantastic scent of her mate made her weak at the knees. She staggered toward him, heedless of the eddying water that tried to take her under.

  He lunged forward to grab her shoulders and steady her. His touch set off lightning in her nervous system. She looked up at him, into his warm eyes. Everything faded away but him. “Hi, I’m Skyla. What’s your name?”

  He smiled. “Nicolas Paletin. Nic to my friends. Siberian tiger. Nice to finally meet you.” His green eyes flashed gold as he massaged her shoulders. “Want to blow this pop stand?”

  His deep, slightly accented voice made her nipples perky. She shook herself, trying to get back on track. Water. Escape. Delay the hunters. “Yes, please.”

  He glanced toward the back of the cell, then did a double take. “What the hell?”

  “Illusion. Lerro’s idea.” She turned to look at the man, seeing the true man through the overlay of her own spell. “Sure you won’t come?”

  Lerro shook his head. “Not my time.” He caught Nic’s eyes with his spooky gaze. “Go her way out. Block the culvert. The door is in winter, and Christmas brings the keys. The heart is in you and her and in the frost.”

  The ground began vibrating under their feet.

  The next thing she knew, she was scooped up into his arms.

  “Lerro,” Nic shouted over the growing din, “life debt owed.” He turned and waded slowly out the cell door, miraculously keeping his footing in the shaking.

  She pushed a lock of his long, unkempt hair off her face. He glanced down at her. “If you’re going to kill me for not asking permission to carry you, do it after we get out.”

  “You’re fine.” Damn fine, in fact. Skyla leaned her head against his shoulder and drew in her first full breath of his scent. Man and tiger blended with salty cold juniper and something uniquely him. Everywhere their skin touched set fires in her. Her sluggish brain reminded her of what Lerro had said.

  “My way out is to the left. Hidden maintenance shaft at the end of the wing.”

  “The stairs would…” He trailed off, looked right, then shook his head. He turned left and slogged down the hall, past the last gushing pipe. The temblor’s shaking subsided. “Goddess, but oracles make me crazy.”

  That explained Lerro’s odd phrasing. She should have recognized Lerro’s gift, but she’d been too distracted to notice. Missing details like that was stupid. And I’m supposed to be the smart one.

  When Nic got to the deserted, seemingly barren wall, she patted his wide, muscular chest. “Let me down.”

  He obliged but held her steady. The water was up to the middle of her thighs. Her sweatpants dragged on her legs.

  She pulled magic from the soapy water and used it to take apart the illusion that hid the entrance. The lucky break of the cell-bar magic’s catastrophic failure made the task much easier.

  The thick concrete wall now sported a round, sealed hatch, about four feet in diameter. Nic crouched to spin the center wheel, then opened the latches. He forced the hatch door open against the pressure of the water as it rushed into the darkness. His muscles put world-class weightlifters to shame.

  She pulled more magic from the water to create a floating orb to light their way and sent it past the hatch.

  She pointed up. “Should be a straight climb up, maybe a hundred feet, to a culvert system, assuming it’s intact.” She looked up at him. “Me first, or you? I’m not a fighter, but I have magic.”

  “You sure as hell do,” he said with a brief smile, reaching out to brush back her hair from her face. He took a deep breath and let it out fast. “I can fight. I’ll go first, or all I’ll do is watch your gorgeous ass, and probably fall and break my leg.”

  She snorted in amusement, even as desire rocked her. She plucked at her soggy sweatpants. “You haven’t seen my ass to know if it’s gorgeous or not.” She waved her hand in invitation. “After you, Alphonse.”

  He started to go in, then straightened up and swooped in for a hard kiss, too fast to do more than give them a taste. He ducked in. She followed quickly. Already, she could feel the first threads of a bond forming between them. It both thrilled and scared her. There was so much she hadn’t told him. So much she didn’t know about him.

  The shaft widened and went up. Wind whistled far above them. A sturdy-looking metal ladder started about eight feet above their heads. Nic wiped his hands on his grimy T-shirt, then crouched and launched himself out of the water and up, easily grabbing the third-from-the-bottom rung. He pulled himself up to get his feet on the first rung then looked back down at her. He frowned. “Fuck. I’m coming back down to give you a boost.”

  Sloshing sounds came from the main corridor. Either someone was coming or the main water line had finally broken. “No time,” she said. “I’ll boost myself. Climb!”

  She crouched and jumped, then used the water’s magic to swell the wave to lift her the extra height she needed to grab onto the bottom rung. She lifted her knees and managed to get one leg over the bar. She borrowed more magic to dry her hands and clothes, then swung up and caught the next bar and pulled herself upright.

  “Amazing,” said Nic.

  His praise pleased her, which annoyed her, because it was a bad habit to get into, looking for others to provide her self-worth. Besides, grace wasn’t one of her gifts. “Climb, damnit!”

  He grunted and began climbing. She did the same, aware she’d hurt his feelings. She’d kiss him all over later to make up for it.

  Unintelligible shouts echoed against the concrete walls, sending a frisson of fear down her spine. “I’m dowsing my light.” She did so, then cast
a quick spell to make the hatch seem smaller and uninteresting. No time to reconstruct the illusion that completely hid it.

  The reflected light from below was enough to let her see—one of the advantages of shifter senses. Nic’s wet sweatpants clung to every angle and plane of his massive thighs and muscular butt as he climbed. She could have used magic to dry his clothes for him, but where was the fun in that?

  Just when she was beginning to believe they’d be climbing forever, the walls sloped in, and she smelled dust.

  “Culvert is about twenty feet up,” said Nic. “Which way?”

  “Lerro said right, shuffle left, right. I hope that’s the way out and not tap-dance choreography. Hard to tell with him.”

  Nic stopped and swore. “The concrete is cracked and the top section of the ladder is hanging. Earthquake damage, probably.” He twisted to look down at her. “Can you fix it?”

  “Maybe, but I need to see it.”

  He crammed himself over to one side of the ladder and hooked his knee over the rung. She climbed up beside him, resolutely ignoring the raging attraction she felt just being near him. Shifter-mate biology was as powerful as all the books said, or maybe she was just extra susceptible because he was exactly her type. Tall, dark, and lumberjack.

  Focus, dammit! she ordered herself. The magic-infused water below was too far away to steal from to repair the crumbling concrete where the bolts had pulled away. She eyed Nic’s bulging arms. “I can’t fix it, but could you pull the ladder the rest of the way off and tilt it against the far wall? If you can set it, my magic can hold it steady. Should give us a higher jump-off point.”

  When he nodded, she climbed down to give him room. It only took him one try to wrench the ladder from its remaining bolts and do as she’d asked. She called up her dwindling reserves and magically fused the metal and concrete. “Go fast. I can’t hold it for long.”

  Nic climbed the angled ladder and leapt up with effortless feline grace, landing on the edge. He shot glances left and right, then looked down. “Come on.”

  She clambered up the ladder with considerably less coordination but managed to make the jump into the culvert. She let the magic go as she did so.

  She didn’t mind that he had to pull her up, because it meant she got to slide herself along his deliciously hard body. Her poor brain wasn’t used to her hormones being in the driver’s seat.

  He kept hold of her hand as they walked briskly down the big corrugated pipe. She created a mage light for them, so Nic wouldn’t bang his head into the periodic headers.

  Lerro’s “shuffle left” instruction turned out to be a narrow trough in between two culverts, barely wide enough for broad-shouldered Nic to get through, even sliding sideways. They turned right into the next culvert, which was bigger in diameter and curved to the left. The ordinary smell of dust and the sound of gusty wind made her speed up. She’d been confined underground way too long.

  The next curve brought the welcome sight of sunlight, and the unwelcome sight of a sturdy metal cross-bar grate. In the center, a human door was chained shut with a heavy lock. Probably designed to keep critters out. Fortunately, it was no match for a determined man with the strength of a tiger. He ignored the chain side and ripped the door off its hinges.

  He bowed elegantly and gestured toward the opening. “You first, Gaston.”

  She gave him an appreciative smile for responding to her earlier joke and stepped outside cautiously onto the sharp rocks. Her beast’s paws had thick callouses, but her human feet were soft and tender. She borrowed her beast’s senses to test the air and listen for predators, human and otherwise. Something smelled tantalizingly familiar, and not just Nic, who stepped up beside her.

  Blue and brown mountains rose all around, with streaks of red in the nearby rocks and dirt. Hot, dry winds rustled low-growing, scrubby bushes. Gnarled pine trees dotted the slopes. The sun floated halfway between overhead and the horizon, and the pervasive heat meant it was probably mid-afternoon.

  “We’re easy prey here,” Nic said, looking up and around. “The auction house has a landing pad and helicopters. We need to shift and run.”

  “Yeah, but which way?” she asked. “Where are we?”

  Nic stripped off his T-shirt. “Western US, I think. The guards watch American TV shows. Ads and brand names are all American.” He slid out of his pants. “Earthquakes.”

  Her brain short-circuited when she got a full look at the splendor of his naked form. Taut, down-tipped male nipples over wide pectorals. A thin strip of hair led from his navel down to the thick, dark curls that cradled his half-erect shaft. She licked her lips.

  He smiled. “Skyla, kultaseni, we need to shift.”

  She gave herself a shake and stepped sideways. “Ow!” A sharp pine needle pierced her toe. The pain helped her focus. “Right, okay. Sorry, you’re so freakin’... My brain is mush.”

  She opened her heart to the wonderful beast in her and invited her to rise. Thanks to her talent and years of practice, her shift was nearly instantaneous, and her magic took care of her clothes—they’d come back when she became human again.

  Her physical senses expanded and her instincts sharpened, but in wolf form, her sensitivity to magic dulled. She was gratified to see her long-legged, thin-bodied shadow on the ground, meaning her illusion still held. She’d have to explain to Nic later.

  He stuffed his T-shirt into one leg of his sweatpants, then tied the legs loosely around his neck. Several moments later, he was a yellow-and-black striped tiger, huge and regal. His tiger scent predominated, with his unique and human scent undertones.

  A gust of wind that brought a weird mix of smells of the ocean, ash, and engine exhaust gave her a strong sense of déjà vu. She whined softly at Nic and pointed her nose toward the western ridge. The view from there would be high enough to confirm or disprove her growing conviction that she knew where they were.

  Nic’s long tail switched in agitation, but he nodded. He took a leaping bound over a rocky outcrop and made a fast beeline for a scraggly pine tree. She loped along after him, letting him choose the path. Tigers were much better at being sneaky than she was.

  In her animal form, she found herself less distracted by her overwhelming physical desire for Nic, but more distracted by the mental rapport that was slowly building, part of the mate bond. They were already working as a team, looking out for each other.

  She ordinarily gave alphas and dominants wide berth, because sooner or later, they tried to test her, and it usually cost her a friend. Maybe the mate thing changed how Nic viewed her, but so far, he hadn’t once tried to bend her will.

  On the other hand, she’d only actually met him less than an hour ago. Even her shouty, bullying Ancient Elven Magic professor could be polite once in a while. Shifter lore said shifters got the mates they deserved, but in real life, that wasn’t always true. Humans didn’t have a lock on the prize for Jerk of the Year. Bad matings were the stuff of shifter legends.

  He slowed before the top of the ridge and eased into the shadow of a giant rock. She joined him. He looked at her, then up the short rise, then back at her again. He settled on his back haunches. She assumed that meant he’d wait for her.

  She sprang up the hill, using her long legs to make short work of the distance. She crouched down to make her silhouette less visible, then focused her eyes and her magic due west. In the far, far distance, she saw small islands, interspersed with oil drill rigs. She knew them well.

  If she’d known she’d been in her own backyard the entire time she’d been captive, she would have escaped a hell of a lot sooner. Maybe Rayne would still be alive. But maybe she wouldn’t have met Nic, either. And they weren’t safe by a long shot.

  She trotted down to where Nic sprawled in the little scrap of shade. Felines could relax anywhere. She shifted to human and sat beside him, sorry to be wearing the smelly sweats and T-shirt again. He raised his head to regard her with his pale gold eyes.

  “We’re in the hills above
Santa Barbara, California.” She put her hand on his round tufted ear and rubbed, because she’d always wanted to pet a tiger. “Crazy rich people build religious retreats and mini-mansions up here, because apparently, money makes you immune to wildfires, landslides, and flash floods.” She rolled her eyes. “And earthquakes. Electrical lines follow the paved roads, and most of them eventually lead to the coast, or to cities up north. On four feet, we’re maybe three hours away from Santa Barbara, assuming we stay close to the roads. I look like an exotic-breed dog, but you’ll have to shift once we get to civilization.” She smoothed his coarse fur. “Santa Barbarans aren’t fazed by much, but I think a twelve-foot-long tiger with sweatpants tied around his neck would do it.”

  Nic-the-tiger rolled forward and rested his big head on her thighs. It was like a furry bowling ball in her lap, but she didn’t mind. She felt his need to take in her scent, and no sense trying to hide that he aroused her. Her airheadedness around him should have already given him plenty of clues.

  “If we can get to town, we can take my car wherever we need to go, unless it’s been towed. Or maybe one of my friends would help, but that might expose them to trouble. I’ve been gone longer than a month, so my apartment has probably been cleaned out and re-rented. My phone, and my ID and credit cards are gone, but I can get money from my account.” She shook her head. “I’m babbling like a loon. I suck at this. I’m not a soldier. I’m a grad student. The only reason I ever got any shifter war games medals was because of my sister, and now she’s gone.”

  Memories stabbed her heart with a psycho-style knife. Her eyes hurt as tears formed. She wrapped her arms around Nic, burying her face in his thick-furred neck, soaking in the warmth of him despite the heat. “I’m sorry. I’m a basket case.” She sniffled. “But not as bad as Lerro.” A thought hit her. “Damnit! We forgot to block the culvert.”

  She sat up and wiped away her tears. “Cards on the table. I can get us to town, or we can go with whatever better plan you have, but I can’t stay human around you right now. When we’re both human, just the smell of you makes me stupid with lust and I can’t think. My wolf says you are her mate, and I feel the mate-bond potential. If you don’t feel the same way, tell me now and we’ll go our separate ways.”