by Brea Viragh
Her skin was pale and reflective. Her excitement at seeing him genuine. Her cooing voice one that would make a phone sex operator jealous. All in all, a perfect package.
Sure, he knew better than to let a human see him in lynx form, even when there were no distinguishable features differentiating him from his animal kingdom counterpart. He knew the risks. They’d been ingrained in his mind since he was old enough to understand what he was. His kind kept to the shadows. They kept to the underbrush and the deep woods. They kept themselves apart because it was safer that way. It always had been.
He was foolish to be caught in his animal form while close to town, but he’d felt the desire to run. It rode him strong until he couldn’t take it anymore and shed his clothes, tucking them away at work and popping out to feel the ground give way beneath his heavily furred paws. He worked for his father at the New Pines Sawmill which had been in their family for decades. Surely no one would miss him.
A short run turned into a few hours’ long photo shoot when he recognized the stranger for what she was.
One look at the adorable photographer and he was toast. He’d never felt such a visceral reaction before, never in his twenty-seven years walking the earth. There was a tug in his gut. A tingling in his chest. A lightness in his head. Which in itself was a miracle because he was normally weighed down with thoughts and worries and complaints until he couldn’t remember what day it was.
Lakota had heard the stories from his father, stories about their kind and how lynx shifters mated for life. He’d heard how it started off with a quickening in the blood before feeling like the whole of you was electrified. The lynx, his father told a young Lakota and his two brothers, was one of the smartest creatures of the shifter world. They knew before any other species when they were in the presence of their lifemate. It was a natural instinct. It was raw and primitive. It was the biggest break of his life!
He knew without a shadow of a doubt the adorable photographer stumbling around in the snow was meant for him. And it hit him like a steamroller, smashing his insides until they were flat as a pancake and he wasn’t sure where to go or how to move without her. His knees had liquefied and he spent the next however long wondering how he’d be able to stand in her presence without falling.
Now came the hard part, he thought, shaking his head and stepping out of his car. How to tell the very delectable stranger—a human, no less—that she was destined to be with him.
Yeah, it made things a little awkward.
Who knew how long she’d be in town, for one thing. He couldn’t exactly get her talking about her schedule when he was his animal self. The best he could do was tilt his head to let her know he was aware. If he moved too awkwardly she would think something was wrong and leave. It was a risk he couldn’t take.
That first day he’d stalked—or rather followed—her back to her car and took note of the license plate, make, and model. In a town the size of Rossland, there weren’t many places to stay. He’d managed to check with half of them to see if his mystery mate had booked a room. Nonchalantly, of course, and in human form, once he got off work.
He could be quite charming in human form.
Bundled against the cold, he strolled up to the front desk of the hostel, flashing his signature smile, his white teeth standing out against the natural golden hue of his skin like a beacon. “Hey there.” He kept his voice low and rough, designed to rumble through the strongest of wills and break down walls. It was a gift the men of his family shared. Voices like hot melted chocolate. He’d only used it to his advantage a time or two.
Unfortunately, it wouldn’t work this time, and he knew it the moment he recognized the face behind the reception desk of the hostel. The woman was one he’d gone to high school with. They’d dated for a few months before Lakota realized she was one of those. The girl who would rather stay close to home to raise a family and settle down. Not that there was anything wrong with those. He’d wanted someone with an adventurous streak. Someone who would willingly break out of the tiny town for a glamorous location.
He fought back a mental grimace because, despite the grand aspirations, he hadn’t gotten out of town. He was stuck like the rest of them and told daily to accept and enjoy his lot in life.
The receptionist made a faint grunt of acknowledgment and flipped the pages of her magazine in a bid to ignore him. She was damn good at it.
“Susan, please look at me,” he coaxed.
The black-haired woman shook her head and continued to stare down at her magazine. “Nope. Sorry. We don’t have any more rooms available.”
“I’m not here for a room.”
“Good, because there’s nothing for you here.”
Lakota rolled his eyes. “You don’t even know what I want.”
“I know what you don’t want, which is pretty much the same thing. I’m not interested in anything you have to say.”
“You’re holding on to a grudge from ten years ago. Ten years!” he insisted. “That’s a full decade of grudge-holding. You know it’s bad for your skin to hold a grudge that long.”
She licked her finger and nonchalantly flicked to the next page. The wedding ring glinting on her left hand didn’t seem to matter in Grudgeville.
All right, a new plan of attack, he thought. He switched from charm to his other potent weapon. Secrets and gossip.
“There’s a woman from out of town. I just want to know if she’s staying here, that’s all, and if she is then maybe her room number. In exchange for this information, I’ll tell you about Myra LeBlanc and the man she’s been seeing. A man who isn’t her husband.” He let his voice slip down into syrup territory and leaned closer, his elbow on the counter. “The man who is old enough to be her grandfather.”
Susan paused in her page flipping. “Not interested in last week’s news. Sorry.”
Apparently, she was sorry about a lot of things. His jaw jutted forward. “Last week’s news? Then how come I didn’t hear about it until yesterday?” It was his best bargaining chip, knowing her penchant for gossip, and now it wasn’t good enough.
“Because no one likes you and they can’t be bothered to talk to you,” Susan said without looking up.
“Ouch.” There had to be something she wanted. Although he never knew with her. Never knew with any woman, actually. They were nothing but mysteries to him. “What can I do to persuade you? It’s just a simple question.”
Another flick of the paper. “There is no such thing as a simple question. You would do well to remember that.”
Lakota opened his mouth to remind her of a few things when a shoulder knocked into his side and sent him stumbling to the right, caught off-balance.
“Jeez, I’m sorry.” Brown eyes met his and a tentative smile flashed on a mouth that looked good enough to eat. The light ring of cocoa she’d forgotten to wipe off certainly helped. “I can be a klutz sometimes and I never seem to have control of my body. Always in someone’s way. Um, excuse me,” she said to Susan.
His heart lifted to knock against his throat in an attempt to reach her. There she was. In the flesh. He drew in a deep breath and caught the mesmerizing scent of marshmallow and soap.
His gorgeous photographer, instantly forgetting all about him, leaned forward and tried to capture Susan’s attention. “Ma’am?”
Good luck there, he thought. The woman was more likely to—
“Yes, how can I help you?” The magazine was set aside and the question asked without the frost Lakota was used to hearing. Here was the professional Susan, the one who might actually be good at her job.
“Do you have any way of knowing if your internet history is backed up somewhere? As in, do you keep logs of guest usage? I tried to upload photos from the SIM card from my camera and the computer crashed, taking my photos with it. I’m not sure if the email went through and I need to check.” Her fingers drummed out a panicked tattoo on the desktop.
Susan shook her head, lifted a brow, seemed to then realize that the
mystery woman was serious. “Sorry, hon, I wouldn’t know.”
“There has to be some way you can check. Do you have access to the data?”
“Sorry, no.”
Ah, there was the unhelpful harpy he knew well. Lakota wasn’t used to standing around idle and helpless. Even though he knew nothing about technology beyond how to check his work email, he offered, “I might be able to take a look at your computer for you.”
Once again, those gorgeous eyes turned to him and he watched the movement of her tongue when it flicked out to lick at the chocolate above her lip. She frowned down at the room key in her hand. “Do you know anything about computers?” she wanted to know, her voice rising. Hopeful.
Lakota stumbled for an answer. “I–I could try. I mean, I’m not really the best, but I could look—”
His temptress glanced down at her watch and then out the front door. “I still have time to get back out there. A few hours left before it gets really cold. Maybe I can take more pictures to replace the ones I lost. The sun won’t set until around six…”
“You sure you want to go back out?” He was about to say more and then snapped his lips shut. There was no way in hell he could let her know he’d been watching her. Any more comments and he would surely commit verbal vomit all over her.
“I don’t have a choice.” She sighed, running her fingers through her hair and shooting one last look at Susan, sounding like she was choking. “I need to get these photos sent out, and at the moment I have nothing to send. Oh, God, my boss is going to kill me.”
Susan shrugged. “I wish I could be of more help.”
“Sure you do,” Lakota and his beauty murmured at the same time and he couldn’t restrain the dazzling smile tugging his lips upward.
“Anyway, I’ll be back in a few hours.” The stranger turned to leave and he heard her mumble to herself, “I’ve got to get into my damn snowsuit again.”
She looked killer in her snowsuit, Lakota thought, leaning against the counter and watching her go. It hugged her curves in all the right ways. He didn’t know her name, but he knew the intense look on her face when she was focused on getting the perfect shot. He knew how she bit down on her lip when she concentrated, how she had a habit of talking to herself when there was no one around. He knew enough to realize he loved her. Already. Completely.
Susan interrupted his daydreams with a rude and phlegmy clearing of her throat. “Is that the woman whose room number you wanted?”
“Yeah, it is,” he answered, staring in the direction she’d gone. “What luck she came down to find me. I didn’t even need to bribe you.” The grin he shot Susan was wolfish.
“You’re a jerk.”
“And you have a pleasant day.”
Lakota ran outside and waited in his Jeep until he saw his mystery dream girl get into her rental and pull off down the snowy street. If she needed new shots, then he had to be there. She’d be missing her lynx. Okay, well, maybe she wouldn’t, but something pushed him in her direction. A swirling heat in his midsection like warm velvet. He told himself it was concern on his part. She would be alone in the woods in the late afternoon. She needed someone to watch out for her safety.
A flash of guilt caught him off guard. This wasn’t the sort of thing a good, upstanding guy did, such as parade around as his animal self and try to pick up women. His brothers and father would call him a stalker if they found out what he was doing. His mother…oh, God help him, his mother. She’d lecture until his ears shriveled and fell off about the dangers of showing himself to humans. She had before, and there would probably be more than a few future instances. He’d heard the argument more times than he could count. Surely it had stretched up into the infinity range. And yet there he was, pushing his boot down on the gas pedal, hoping to beat the nameless photographer to their special spot so she could take his picture.
It had happened purely by accident, he told himself. Accident or fate—and sometimes there was no distinguishing the two. He hadn’t meant to be seen. Hadn’t meant to be caught with his tongue out and about to use his teeth on the giant ball of ice trapped between his toes. She’d caught him unawares and the smile on her face was beatific. To the point where he couldn’t look away from her.
Lakota had gone back the next day and there she was. As if she’d been waiting for him.
Now he almost took the curve too fast and nearly missed the cutoff for the shortcut. The engine in the Jeep gave a whining growl when he jerked the steering wheel and floored it. He knew the roads better than he knew himself. The spot where he’d first met the woman was on the edge of the ski resort, where the property line meshed with the nature preserve. Nature preserve, hell. It was a backwoods wilderness.
It took ten minutes for him to park, strip off his clothes, and change, bounding through the snow with paws as large as salad plates. It was natural to run. To stretch his legs and feel his muscles warm from the activity. The lynx was built for deep snow. Layers of fur kept him from feeling the dropping temperature, and his sensitive nose picked up on the nuances of scents caught on the wind. Lakota saw the way to their spot like a path in his mind, a bright line of scents marking the trail. A swift, fierce swell of pride shot through him when he sat down, ears twitching to catch the sounds of her. And she was right on time. Scrambling through the snow and cursing the snowshoes she’d strapped on to better navigate the two feet of snow on the ground.
“My legs are going to look like Hulk Hogan if I keep this up,” she muttered, thinking herself alone. “Holy moly, these things are horrible.”
Her legs looked great, but the growl of appreciation he made instead of words didn’t translate well.
“This is ridiculous. What kind of hotel doesn’t back up their internet browser history? A hostel, that’s what. I keep forgetting where I am. I also keep forgetting to bring along an external hard drive. I am such an idiot!” She stopped, her hands on her sides as she drew in a breath. Winded.
The next step had her catching her snowshoe on a tree root beneath the snow and hurtling forward. Lakota leaped out of the way and narrowly missed being pelted by her flailing arms. His mystery woman went down with a groan, ending up with a face full of ice and snow.
Then she looked up. Caught his eyes. Noticed there was a wild animal a mere three feet from her face. Her screech shook the limbs of nearby trees and Lakota tried not to leap out of his skin at the sound. It echoed through his ears and caused an instant headache. The woman had a mouth on her, that was for sure.
It took her a good minute to scramble to her knees, the snowshoes askew and her hat hanging off of one of her ears.
“You’re here,” she said breathlessly. Her lips puckered and her eyes were round, delighted, slightly crazed. “I must be going out of my mind. You’re still here. And you scared the shit out of me. Why didn’t you run away? I made enough noise to cause an avalanche.”
He blinked in what he hoped was a lazy, disinterested animal gesture. Under normal circumstances, he was good at blending in with his surroundings and his animal counterparts. He could usually allow his lynx, the balanced other half of his soul, to be in charge, his natural instincts leading the way. But ever since meeting this woman—his lifemate—he was out of control, although his animal was thrilled by her presence and wasn’t sure how to react. It was safe to say his system had gone haywire at the sight of her and failed to recover.
Would bending down to clean his haunches be too much? Better for her to think he was a real cat than a man hiding in lynx fur. Talk about freak out!
She shifted her weight until she fell back on her rear and studied him. “I guess I should be happy you’re still around. After all, you’re the reason I had to come back out here.” Her camera bag had fallen several feet from her and, with her eyes still on his, she reached for it. Her thumb latched onto the handle and she dragged it to her side.
“You’re an illusion, aren’t you?” she whispered. “That’s why you weren’t scared when I screamed. My luck is not
this good. The computer crash I expected, because things were going too well. This…this is outstanding. And insane.”
Lakota sat and watched her begin to set up for the shot. She had to hurry or she’d lose the light. He didn’t know much about photography but he knew the light was a key part of any scene. He stayed as still as possible so as not to spook her again.
There was something fluid in the way she moved. An efficiency unmatched by many. Her hands were steady, her face serene and focused. And it wasn’t just an attempt to keep her movements simple in fear of frightening him off. She had natural grace.
He didn’t know her. And yet he knew her better than anyone else in his life. His soul was drawn to her and he could say with certainty his lifemate was a force to be reckoned with. Being with her would be a grand adventure. He couldn’t wait to share her life and see where fate took them. The toothy cat grin was there and gone in moments.
She finished setting up the camera on the small tripod and steadied the legs. A few more adjustments and she faced him with a smile.
“You’re going to change my life,” she told him softly. “I need this to work. Everything I have is riding on this calendar. Otherwise my boss—and I use the term loosely—is going to shut down what I’ve worked hard to achieve. But you don’t want to hear my sob story.”
It took supreme effort not to move closer to her. Not to give his opinion and ask her to tell him more.
She tucked a lock of hair behind her ear and tugged her hat down lower. The cold brought two bright red buds of color to the apples of her cheeks. “I mean, it’s weird that you’re here. That every time I come out you’re in the same spot. It’s like you’re waiting for me.” She snapped off a round of photos in rapid succession. “I hope you weren’t waiting for me. It would go beyond weird into bizarre territory. I know it sounds insane, but…if you were really waiting… Oh God.”
She suddenly gave a harsh gasp. Rearing back, she stared at him, her eyes wide. “You’re sick, aren’t you? That’s it. Your pack left you behind because there’s something wrong with you. Dear God, that’s why you’re always here, and why you sit so still for me. You have rabies!”
