Northern Lights

by Debra Dunbar

  He hadn’t regained consciousness. This whole thing wasn’t good. Gunshot wound, backwoods surgery. We needed to get out of here, and Leon clearly wasn’t in any condition to travel. I powered up my cell phone, and as expected couldn’t get a signal. Then I ransacked Leon’s tent, hoping that he’d brought a satellite phone. We’d always had them in the military, but lots of civilian outfitters didn’t. They were pricey, and required a costly purchase of minutes that expired. The other hiking groups I’d been with hadn’t bothered, but we’d never had any issue requiring an emergency medical evacuation.

  There’s always a first time, and here I was in the middle of nowhere Alaska with a werewolf who might die. I had two choices—hike to a higher elevation and hope I could pick up a cell signal to call for help, or try to get Leon well enough to get to our meeting point at the bay. If we didn’t show up at the agreed upon time, I’m sure his company would send someone in to find us, but that would be another six days at the minimum. I wasn’t sure Leon would live that long. And I was afraid to leave him right now to go hunt for a cell signal.

  I eventually decided to stay through the night and see how Leon fared. Worse or better, I’d need to start hunting for a place to make a call tomorrow morning, but in the meantime my goal was to keep my guide alive.

  When I checked on him again, his chest wound was seeping, which wasn’t unusual. Normally I would have put a drain in there, but I didn’t have anything suitable. If I saw too much fluid building up, I’d need to open him up again, but in the meantime I was hoping his supernatural healing would take over.

  It didn’t. I sat there, keeping the fire going, the rifle locked and loaded in my lap, praying for rescue as Leon’s breathing grew choppy, and his heart rate stuttering. I’d had this helpless feeling before, but I never got used to it.

  The sun dropped low on the horizon. I’d opened Leon’s chest wound to allow it to drain and ate a granola bar to try to keep my strength up. Just as the sky was turning a beautiful lavender-gray, I heard a faint noise in the brush. I know I’d called for rescue, but I still brought the rifle up to my shoulder, seating my finger firmly on the trigger.

  The bushes burst apart, but instead of men with a stretcher, or a bad guy with a gun, the being jumping into my campsite was a wolf—a huge wolf with dark gray fur and golden-yellow eyes.

  Chapter 8

  Brent

  I traced my way back to where I’d last seen Leon and Kennedy, then tracked them from that point, only to lose the scent at the lake. There were two ways they could have gone, but judging from the rough itinerary I’d gotten, only one made sense. I followed along the shore, knowing that I’d be traveling twice the distance as by raft.

  Hours of running and I heard a gunshot. I put on a burst of speed, hearing a second gunshot. Would I be too late? Were these the same hunters who had killed Ian? Who had killed the other grizzly shifter?

  Leon was a shifter, and as much as I didn’t want him to die, I was more concerned that these hunters might not stop with shifters. They might decide that the human witness needed to die also. And my guts twisted into a knot at the thought that Kennedy might right now be bleeding out from a gunshot wound.

  Another shot. And another. I was running as fast as I could, tracking the sound of the shots as well as any human scent I could find, Kennedy’s or not. There was silence and for an hour I pounded through the forest and brush, afraid of what I’d find.

  I caught a scent and followed it, alarmed when I smelled the odor of blood. When I burst into the clearing I saw trampled grasses, blood everywhere, a human body. Pausing to take in the scene, I smelled the human body first. It had been dead for at least three hours, a rifle shot to the head. It was a clean kill—better than most hunters I’d known in my life. Whoever shot this man knew how to kill a human as opposed to hunting animal prey. Military experience. And judging from the attire and the rifle nearby, I was assuming this was one of the shifter hunters. And I was also assuming the person who’d pulled the trigger had been Kennedy. My heart swelled at the thought that my woman would have taken down a killer. My woman. Because no matter whether she’d chosen to give her affections to another or not, she’d always be my woman.

  I scented the pool of blood and smelled a werewolf. Leon. I immediately thought of Ian and worried Leon might be suffering the same fate. Carefully, I traced the trail of scent and blood, following it to a camp near the shore of the lake. There was a fire and two tents. The smell of blood mixed with the smell of necrotic flesh. And I also recognized the floral-fruity scent of Kennedy’s body wash, faded and dominated by the warm scent of her own flesh. With a dizzying sensation of relief, I burst into the camp, not caring whether I was in wolf form or human form, and came face-to-face with Kennedy.

  Chapter 9

  Kennedy

  “Brent!” I flung myself at the werewolf, burying my face in his warm fur. Then I pulled back to look into his golden eyes as I told him all about what had happened. After I was done, Brent went over and sniffed Leon, then he shrugged a pair of saddlebags off and began to shift.

  His body twisted, bone and muscle reshaping, hair fading from his back and neck. I’d seen this before, I knew what was happening. It seemed rude to watch Brent go through this agonizing process, so I turned to stand guard, waiting until he was fully in human form. Then I turned back around to watch him put his pants on because Brent naked was one of the great marvels of nature.

  Wait. “Why are you here? I mean, I’m really glad to see you, but it’s kind of weird that you appeared out of the blue like this.” Even if he’d had some romantic ESP about me being in danger, he wouldn’t have had time to fly here from Juneau and hike in.

  Brent stood a moment, looking uncharacteristically embarrassed. “I…well, I…was in the neighborhood? No, I wasn’t. I wanted to see you and…to just know whether or not. Because you’re leaving, and I needed to know.”

  What in the world was he talking about? I shook my head, but before I could ask him he grabbed me by the shoulders and pulled me against him.

  “This. I needed to do this.” Then he kissed me. In spite of the firm arms he’d wrapped around me, his kiss was soft and gentle—tentative, almost as if he were afraid I was going to jump back and swat him on the nose. It made me want to laugh. A tall, muscle-bound, Alpha wolf, as if I’d not want him kissing me.

  I waited a few seconds, then took charge, sliding my hands up under his shirt and stroking the hard planes of his back. Pressing myself against him, I made a little moan noise and parted my lips to lick the seam of his mouth.

  It was like lighting a match to dry tinder. Brent scooped an arm under my hips and lifted me up against him, his other arm holding me steady. His tongue brushed into my mouth and with a growl he kissed me with an intensity I’d never known before. Then his mouth left mine to trail kisses across my jaw and down my neck, nipping the skin and tasting the hollow of my throat. I was wet, shaking with need, every nerve in my body coming to life.

  And the best thing about it was that he was shaking too, an undeniable erection pressed against me.

  He pulled back, easing me slowly down, his eyes never leaving mine. “We need to talk.”

  “Talk? Can we have sex first then talk? I’m assuming we need to address the fact that there’s an attempted murderer at large, a seriously injured werewolf twenty feet away, and a dead guy that I shot growing cold about a quarter of a mile in the bush. I’m hoping we can get a quickie in before we have to address that situation”

  “No, we need to talk about us. And we need to do it before, because once I have sex with you, I’m not letting you go.” He cupped my face with both hands and brushed his thumbs across my cheeks. “I’m not letting you go regardless, so we’ll just have to figure something out.”

  It was so gloriously caveman-like that everything south of my navel quivered. Then he kissed me on the tip of my nose. “But you’re right. We do need to address this situation. It’s probably crude to be having sex with a se
riously injured werewolf twenty feet away and a dead guy that you shot a quarter mile off in the bush. I’m a pretty crude kinda guy, but even I have my limits.”

  I laughed. In spite of the “situation” we were in, I laughed. He was gorgeous and funny and I was so relieved that he was here. I’d been feeling completely out of my league in the middle of nowhere with a murderer on the loose and no way out, but with Brent, I felt I could take on the world.

  “So, first issue is we need to get out of here,” he told me.

  “Really? You think so? Because this is a beautiful spot for us to reenact the last stand at the Alamo,” I teased.

  He smiled, his hands still cupping my face. “No Alamo. Not if I can help it, anyway. I am worried that guy who ran off might be back with a friend or two. Leon isn’t the only one who has been shot. There was a grizzly shifter that went missing last week, and I found another weregrizzly who’d been shot. He managed to get away from his attackers before he collapsed.”

  And now I had not the slightest urge to continue our lighthearted banter. These guys were murderers who targeted shifters, which didn’t make me feel any better. They must have a method of telling the weres from humans, because dead tourists would have caused an uproar. Murderers. Hunters. And they wouldn’t like the idea that I had been a witness to what they’d done any more than the fact that I’d killed one of them. I shivered and hugged myself.

  “I couldn’t get a cell signal and I couldn’t find that Leon had a satellite phone. Maybe if one of us can climb up to a higher elevation we can call for a medivac.

  Brent looked over at Leon. “I don’t want you to climb up on your own,” he told me. “And I’m not about to leave you to do so. We’ll have to get closer to the bay so we can call in. I can carry Leon, but it will slow us down.”

  “Well we can’t just leave him here.” Leon wasn’t looking good, but I couldn’t abandon him.

  “No, we can’t.” Brent ran a hand through his hair. “We’re easy to find here. We’re exposed. Maybe we should try to take him via one of the rafts or something.” His expression turned grim. “If he lives, that is. The grizzly didn’t make it. There has to be something in the bullets that keeps us from healing and keeps us in our animal form.”

  “But I removed the bullet and Leon still hasn’t shifted back.”

  “He might have a chance then. The grizzly had that bullet in him for almost twenty-four hours. Maybe since Leon has limited exposure to whatever the toxin was, he’ll eventually heal.”

  Brent didn’t sound confident. I’ll admit I didn’t feel particularly confident either. If Leon had been a human, he most likely would have been dead by now. I didn’t know much about werewolf healing, but I was hoping that I got that bullet out in time for him to pull through.

  “Let’s stay here for the night,” Brent said. “I’ll set up some traps around the area that might give us advance notice if the hunters come back. Hopefully they aren’t savvy enough to be looking for them. In the meantime, let’s go look at the one you killed. Maybe we can get an idea of who these guys are, how they’re identifying us, and why they’re trying to hunt us down.”

  I did a quick check on Leon then Brent and I went to where I’d shot the one guy. He was still in the same position, lying in a pool of thick, cold blood. Brent turned him over to search his pockets and I saw the purplish tinge of lividity on the side of his face. While Brent pulled a cell phone and a wallet out of the guy’s jacket pocket, I picked up the rifle.

  “Can you get these bullets out of his pocket here?” Brent asked. “I’m not sure if touching them is going to do anything to me.”

  I was pretty sure whatever was on the bullets didn’t harm humans or this hunter wouldn’t have had a box of them in his pocket. Still, I slid on my gloves before I pulled out the box. When he was done with his search, Brent stood and we began to head back to the campsite.

  “He only had a bottle of water and some snacks, so they must have had a camp less than a day’s hike from here.”

  “Do you think it’s the same guys who shot the grizzly shifter?”

  “I hope so. I don’t like the idea that there are multiple bands of hunters here.”

  “So, a day’s hike? Do you think that guy is going to come back here tonight or tomorrow to attack us?”

  “I don’t know. He ran off, which makes me think he’s a coward. You showed him you’re no novice with a gun and that you’re not afraid to pull the trigger, so I’m hoping he got the heck out of here.”

  “But the game’s up if I live to tell what’s going on. I can’t believe those two guys were behind this. I get the feeling they’re tourists like me, paying for a hunting excursion where they get to kill shifters.”

  “That’s what I’m worried about.” Brent paused at the edge of the camp to look around. “If he ran back to camp and got a call in to whoever is running these expeditions, we might have more experienced, and dangerous, people after us.”

  “At night? I know I wouldn’t want to hike around here in the dark.”

  “If they know the area and are using night-vision goggles, it’s a possibility.” Brent scowled. “Or they could be shifters themselves.”

  “Killing their own kind?”

  He nodded. “We tend to get along, but it wouldn’t be inconceivable for someone to be carrying an old grudge, or maybe they hate any shifter except their own breed. Either way, I’d feel safer if we were on the move. As soon as Leon is stable, we need to go.”

  I walked over to the injured werewolf and put my hand on his forehead. We’d leave as soon as Leon was stable—or he was dead.

  Chapter 10

  Brent

  Kennedy took care of Leon and fired up the little camp stove to boil water. We’d agreed that a fire wasn’t a good idea—either during the day or the night. If a shifter came looking for us, he’d be able to find us even faster with the smell and light of a campfire.

  I grabbed the rope she and Leon had been using for climbing along with a bunch of carabiners and a multi-tool and headed into the brush and wooded area around the camp to set some traps. On the deer tracks I made some snares. They wouldn’t hold a human for long, but at least they’d cause enough commotion that we’d be alerted that someone was coming. In a few other areas I put together a trip wire system that would snap a branch at anyone who sprang the trap. Again, it wouldn’t do more than cause enough noise to let us know about an approach. Done, I headed back to the camp to check on Kennedy.

  She was sponging Leon’s face with water. When she saw me she smiled and my heart skittered.

  “Hungry? I boiled water for dinner. You have a choice of pad Thai or chili mac.”

  “Ooo, fancy gourmet food. Shrimp pad Thai?” I was hungry. All I’d brought with me to eat was a packet of beef jerky.

  “Vegetarian.” I wrinkled my nose and she laughed. “Okay, beef chili mac it is.”

  She added boiling water to the packets and set them aside as she made instant coffee. I went over to help, enjoying this bit of domestic bliss. I loved that she was outdoorsy. If things worked out between us, we could do all sorts of camping, hiking, and paddling trips together. I added instant creamer to my coffee, envisioning Kennedy in a bikini on my boat as we went fishing. I wasn’t much of a climber, but I’d happily join her exploring the Juneau ice fields and mountains.

  When our dinner was done, she dumped the chili mac into tin bowls and handed me a fork. We spread a tarp on top of an old log and sat, chatting as we ate. After we cleaned our dishes, she again went to check on Leon.

  “How is he?” I asked.

  “I don’t know. You tell me. He’s hot, but you guys seem to run three to four degrees hotter than we do normally. His heart rate is a bit fast, but again that might be normal.”

  What wasn’t normal was the smell of necrotic tissue I was getting from the wound. Leon was hanging in there, but his body wasn’t healing like a normal werewolf’s would. “I think it’s up to him at this point. He’ll either figh
t it off and heal, or whatever was on or in those bullets will win.”

  She made a helpless wave of her hand. “What do you guys do when this happens? Is there something I can give him? Anything I can do to help?”

  “You’ve already helped.” I walked over and put my arm around her. “You removed the bullet, stitched him up. When werewolves get hurt, they heal themselves. The only time I’ve seen one not heal is when they were instantly killed or something prevented them from healing, like drowning or a severe brain injury.”

  “I guess I’ll just make him comfortable and pray for the best.” She leaned into me. “Are you going to take first watch? I’ve got the two rifles, and I loaded that other one with the tainted bullets just in case the bad guys come back with a shifter. I’ll take that one and you can take Leon’s rifle.”

  I rubbed her shoulder. “Deal. I’m going to shift into my wolf and do some reconnaissance before nightfall. Since we haven’t seen or heard anything yet, I think the remaining guy ran back to camp and called in reinforcements. If that’s the case, we’ve got until tomorrow earliest for someone to hike in from the nearest landing zone.”

  She turned to smile up at me. “Go on with your furry self, then. And make sure you give me plenty of warning when you come back so I don’t shoot you.”

  I put my clothes inside her tent then shifted, lifting my nose to scent the air once I was done. Then I ran, exploring a several mile circumference around the camp as I determined any likely approaches for attack. There was a steep section with snow to the east leading up to the mountains, and likewise to the south. They’d most likely be coming from the north or west, and if I were a betting man I’d say west.