Shifter By Christmas

by Brea Viragh

  When her lips brushed his it was a miracle he remained standing. There in the wild white wilderness, they explored each other, the heat building between them.

  It was Lakota who reluctantly lifted his head. “I’m sorry,” he whispered. “I take full responsibility.”

  “Like I wasn’t involved?” Her voice caressed his skin. She stared up at him. A little nervous. A little helpless.

  “I don’t know how to do this,” he admitted. “I’m wrapped up in a whole bunch of feelings.”

  “Sexual feelings.” She glanced down at his crotch.

  “One of many.”

  “Whoa.” Farris shook her head to clear it. “I can’t remember the last time I was kissed like that.”

  He puffed up his chest with pride. “Good. I don’t want you to forget—”

  “Dammit!”

  She interrupted him on a swear, staring at her camera. “I lost the light. Sorry to interrupt you, but I went out of my mind for a minute and forgot about the shot. Without the sun everything starts to look muddled and that’s bad.”

  Lakota glanced at the sky, his hackles rising. In his lust for her, he’d forgotten where they stood. Forgotten how long it took to get back on the trail toward the parking lot. He shivered in knowing. “The light isn’t our only problem, sweetheart.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “You see the clouds rolling in overhead?” He pointed to them. “It means snow. A lot of it.”

  “I suppose your shifter senses are tingling?”

  No joke, they were indeed tingling. And telling him to get the hell out of the area. Fast. Before they were stuck in a blizzard. His inner lynx was screaming and Lakota took a second to curse himself for not using his head. But a second of indulgence was all he could spare.

  He grabbed Farris by the elbow. “Come on. We have to get out of here. Now.”

  Something in his voice must have scared her. He watched her eyes widen and she slowly nodded, her head jerking forward. “Okay, okay. Let me pack up.”

  Nervously checking the sky, it didn’t surprise him when seconds later snow began to fall, coming down in thick wet clumps sure to pile up quickly. With the temperature dropping rapidly, it made for a bad mix.”

  “There’s no time to get to the cars.”

  “No. Oh no no no, I can’t survive out here overnight. I’m not built for it.”

  He noticed the screeching panic leaching back into her voice. “I’m not suggesting spending the night outside. We’d be frozen before anyone could find us, and with this kind of weather and the freezing temperature, I don’t need to look at a weather report to know it’s bad.”

  Why hadn’t he checked the weather before bringing her out here? Because, a small voice whispered in his head, he was too busy thinking about her to be logical. This wasn’t going to end well, especially when he told her his next thought.”

  “I’m sorry, honey, but you’re going to have to come home with me.”

  Chapter 5

  Ah, there it was. The cost she’d known was coming. It slammed in through her skull, down her chest, and landed hard in her gut, rattling around like loose change in a jar. “No way, bub,” she insisted. “You are taking me back to my vehicle because I have a reservation and a schedule and I can’t mess anything up.”

  “You’d be lucky to get out in time.” He was staring at the sky again, his gaze riveted on a dark line of clouds pushing closer and closer. Yeah, they looked bad. Not bad enough to warrant a stay in whatever humble abode he’d probably planned on taking her to, anyway.

  “In the seconds we’ve wasted talking, a good inch or so of snow has accumulated. Your tires are good but not good enough to navigate this, I guarantee.”

  He could tell the amount of snow that had fallen? She was only now aware of it, blinking against the fat flakes falling in her face. “You can’t be serious.” She chuckled and finished packing her camera in its bag. Her movements precise despite the deep and yawning pit of panic opening up in her gut. “I’m not going home with you.”

  “You don’t have a choice.”

  No, this couldn’t be happening. And the way he said it—You don’t have a choice. That didn’t sit well with her.

  “Of course I have a choice! Get me back to my vehicle and we will say our goodbyes and I’ll be on to my next location. Period.” She tried to go for haughty. Unfortunately, it wasn’t something she was used to, and it came out too nasally, not enough spine. The next time she spoke she tried to channel the goddesses of the silver screen in their glory. “I refuse to go anywhere else with you.”

  Lakota turned his attention to the scenic vista darkening by the second, his face hard like he expected the sky to fall down. Which, she supposed, it already was. Fat plops fell on her bag and soon she felt the moisture seeping through her supposedly waterproof winter wear.

  “We don’t have time for this,” he insisted. And without further ado, he lunged forward like a bull spearing a red cape and tossed her over his shoulder.

  When she thought back on the moment years later, she would remember the feel of his arms and the sexy way he lifted her like she weighed nothing. At this moment, however, it was a different story.

  “Help!” she screamed out, beating her elbows into his shoulder blades. “I’m being kidnapped!”

  “You’re being rescued like the reluctant princess you are. Any longer and we will be stranded.” He turned around and headed straight through the trees, plowing through the rapidly increasing drifts. “My house is about a quarter mile this way.”

  “You’re taking me to your house?” The screeching was back, and it was so much worse than before. More like a keening banshee wail guaranteed to shatter eardrums. It was deafening.

  She had to give Lakota credit. He took it in stride and continued to hike through the snow toting not only her but her gear as well. “Yes, I’m taking you to my house. At this rate, we’d freeze to death if we dallied any longer. I’m not willing to take the chance. Are you?”

  “Let’s see,” she argued, staring at his backside. Watching the way his ass moved. “Freezing to death in the wilderness, which I hear can be a pretty peaceful death, or potential rape, torture, and murder at the hands of an absolute stranger when he kidnaps me and takes me to his mountain lair where no one is eveer going to find my corpse.”

  “That’s correct.”

  What? Shock had her swallowing her next scream and choking on her own spit.

  “No one will find your corpse because there won’t be a corpse. You’ll ride out the storm with me and as soon as there’s a break in the weather, you’re free to go. Then when it’s clear I’ll get you to your vehicle and you can be on your way.”

  He sounded so reasonable it made her sick. “You’ll probably end up being hungry and cooking me! Please, let me down. The jostling is going to make me sick.”

  He ran faster than a normal person. Faster than any human she’d ever seen. Farris supposed it was his paranormal nature taking over. He leaped over snow drifts and dodged trees like he’d been born for the snowy obstacle course. Her breath caught and her heart jettisoned up to her lungs the farther he ran. Panic had her wondering if this really would be the end. If her fears were real and this mountain man she’d made out with minutes earlier would end up being the instrument of her demise.

  Those thoughts took her mind on a wild adventure that ceased the moment she saw his cabin in the woods.

  Farris gulped.

  This wasn’t what she’d expected. The snow was already piled against the pine siding of the modern cabin, reaching up to the molding beneath the windows, and was still pelting down in big mean flakes. A steady stream of gray-black smoke chugged out of a chimney: a fire he’d left burning over the last few days, moldered down to coals. If she hadn’t been riddled with anxiety already, she might have thought it something extraordinary, someplace a little old reclusive lady might live. Or a happy summer vacation cottage owned by a family of four with a dog running around like crazy.<
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  It didn’t look like a murder palace.

  Lakota slowed to a stop and gently set her on her feet, making sure she was steady before releasing her. “Go inside. Get comfortable and set your things down, use the bathroom, whatever you need. I’m going to make sure I have enough firewood to last us through whatever this storm is going to throw down.”

  “Firewood?” she repeated, staring at the front door with its cheerful red trim.

  “Firewood. I’m sorry, I don’t have electric heat.”

  “Gas?”

  “All natural up here. Don’t worry about staying warm, I’ve got it taken care of. Just go inside.” He pushed her on her way. “Trust me.”

  Trust him. Yeah, right.

  She took a reluctant step forward and found the snow unyielding. Like wading through wet cement. The sky had darkened in the short time it took Lakota to jog through the woods, with clouds overhead blocking out the last of the sunlight. And if Farris took a moment to really think about what was going on, then she would lose it. Losing it wasn’t the best option at the moment.

  It was hard work to get through the door through the heaps of white stuff in her way. “I thought snow was supposed to be soft,” she muttered to herself. Embarrassed to be out of breath. How the hell had Lakota managed to carry her all this way? Her, her gear, and the ten extra pounds she’d been meaning to shed for the last couple of years. What was he, the half-animal version of Superman?

  She wrapped her hand on the doorknob. Turned. Found the door unlocked. Shivering, she pushed inside, standing on the front stoop and staring for the longest time. Inside, the cabin was one large room with a stone fireplace on the left outer wall. The kitchen was a simple L-shape in the rear of the house with a closed door next to it. If she had to guess, she’d say bathroom.

  There was a large couch taking up most of the space in the middle of the room. Dark. Microfiber. Masculine. And the bed on the right…God, she couldn’t even look at it. It was a hulking mass of furniture with four posters that looked like they’d been plucked straight from the woods. Polished timber rose on all sides of the bed with a king-size mattress between them.

  She stood staring with her mouth open until Lakota came up behind her with his arms full of wood for the fire.

  “I’m sorry. I didn’t have a chance to clean the place,” he said. “I wasn’t really expecting company. Ignore the dirty clothes and the unmade bed.”

  She wanted to ignore the bed entirely, because of what it represented. The kind of thoughts it brought to mind. Dirty thoughts she had no business thinking for her kidnapper slash stalker slash who knew what other manner of sins he hid.

  Lakota dropped the bundle of wood near the fireplace, came toward her, then reached out and shut the door. He bent down to heft her two bags up from where she’d let them drop. “Here. Why don’t we set these down in the corner and you can come into the kitchen? I’ll get you set up with something hot to drink as soon as I get the fire stoked.”

  “How?” she murmured, letting him guide her forward. “You don’t have heat to cook. How are we going to eat?”

  “No, I don’t have electric heat, but I have a hotplate and a gas generator I use in emergencies. For right now, I have the wood stove, and it gets hot once it’s going. The cabin is less than a thousand square feet so the one stove can do the job. It gets toasty. You’ll swear you were in Hawaii. Not that I’ve ever been. I want to.”

  He was talking to fill the emptiness and she appreciated it. The normalcy of his voice in an utterly abnormal situation. He walked around and lit a variety of kerosene lamps and despite the primitive nature of them, it created ambiance, quaint and homey.

  When she stood next to the couch, leaning, Lakota took charge yet again and began to unwrap her layers. “You’ll feel better when you get out of these wet clothes. I have a few things you can wear.”

  Farris tuned in to him and space began to constrict around them. There was the sure and steady way his hands took her scarf and began to unwind the fabric. The way he looked down at her, eyes deep and penetrating, branding her soul.

  “What’s the matter?” he asked when she stared at him.

  “I…I don’t know what to do. What to say. How to act.”

  “You take a deep breath, maybe hold it for a little bit, and then let it out. Once you’ve done that a few times, you can follow me into the kitchen and I’ll get something for you to drink.” His eyes were warm and held hers.

  It was not uncomfortable.

  “Laced with poison?” she couldn’t help asking. At this point, it was too late. She was here. He was here. And if she glanced toward the window she’d see the unrelenting darkness of the snowstorm determined to keep them both in place. Lakota had been right about the weather. Without his supernatural strength and abilities, they would have been trapped in the woods and most likely wouldn’t have made it out again.

  “Sure, if that’s the way you take your hot chocolate,” Lakota agreed. His face was serious but there was a gleam there, a spark of humor.

  He slid the coat off of her shoulders and sent her one last hot look before stepping away to hang it on a peg near the door. Finally, she could relax again. His nearness did something to her. Something she couldn’t understand. Without the distraction of her photographs, she could sense the chemistry brewing between them.

  If she’d really felt Lakota was a threat to her safety, she would have blown him off immediately. Either her lady parts had a mind of their own and were now in control, or she felt something for him. Something beyond normal interest. Although a man who looked like him being interested in her felt like its own fairy tale.

  “What do we do now?” She trailed behind him and watched his movements—deft and sure—as he plucked a package of hot chocolate mix from the cabinet to the right of the sink.

  “We might as well get comfortable because this could be a long wait. From what I can tell by using my—and before you laugh at me, know I’m going to go there—my animal senses, we might be in for a couple of rough days. The storm doesn’t show any sign of letting up.”

  A forced vacation? That might not be so bad… Then things clicked into place. “Wait a minute. You do have internet access, right?”

  Lakota shook his head. “No, I’m sorry. I use the web at work, but up here I kind of like to think of it as my personal retreat. I’m completely out of touch. No television, no computer, no…” He turned around and trailed off at the look on her face. “What’s the matter?”

  She gestured toward her camera bag. “How am I going to send my pictures to Terrance? He needs them by tomorrow. I’m on a deadline!” A few mental calculations had her heart dissolving into dust. “I…I have to have this done in time. The Christmas calendar was so popular last year that the success of the coming year depends on it! I have a deadline. I have to prep next year’s addition or…or…Are you trying to tell me I might be stuck here with you until Christmas?”

  “Is that really so bad? Being here with me?”

  She spun out of the kitchen and dropped onto the couch, her head buried in a pillow that smelled like wood smoke and Lakota. Masculine and rich and woodsy. “I don’t know what I’m going to do. How can I get the photographs to Terrance in time?” Hysteria rose again. The same familiar hysteria where it felt like a feeding frenzy in her stomach. “The calendar…”

  “Try to relax. I know it’s asking a lot from you, but we aren’t going anywhere soon, and there isn’t a damn thing I can do to change it. I can’t control the weather.”

  “What are we going to do?”

  “We’re going to sit around the fire. Have good conversation, maybe. Get to know each other better. And wait out the storm. I have plenty of firewood and I’m no stranger to roughing it. I’ll take care of you.”

  “How am I going to shower if you don’t have electricity?” she pressed. Claustrophobia set in and suddenly the room was ten sizes too small. She couldn’t breathe; her lungs felt caught in a vise.

 
; “When you need to shower, I’ll turn the generator on and get everything working,” he said. “Try not to stress out.”

  “Yes, I’m stressed out! I’m sorry, but I am.” Her composure wanted to break down, maybe throw a tantrum a la her five-year-old nephew. She’d seen him do it plenty of times.

  Farris glanced around for something to do, somewhere to go when the walls closed in around her. The bed was a big beacon of red-and-blue checkered sheets. She walked over to it, boots and all, then flung herself down. It was better than standing still and waiting to suffocate.

  “Do you still want some hot chocolate?” Lakota called out from the kitchen.

  He was trying, God love him. Unfortunately, she was approaching the point of no return. “I’m fine!” she exclaimed into the pillow. “Leave me alone, please.”

  She was acting foolish. Foolish and silly and all kinds of negative things that played on a loop. It was a singular talent of hers. She was able to beat up on herself better than any person she knew. She blinked out the window at the growing darkness and saw nothing but black and white. Black sky, white snow, and however many days of torment and no electricity. It was better, she tried to argue, to be warm and safe in a cabin than stuck in the woods or trapped in a car waiting for help to arrive. Lakota was a knight in that respect.

  Still, when she hunkered down for sleep an hour later, she slept in her clothes and kept a ski pole near at hand. Just in case.

  He was pleased with her company, Farris could tell, which left her biting her lip and wondering why. She hadn’t been the most pleasant person to deal with… Then she shrugged. As soon as it was safe for her to leave, she’d be gone, and until then she would have to make do. Surely he’d be happy to get rid of her.

  Just like she had to make do with using the wood stove instead of an actual stovetop. It was tricky, but she was determined.

  “I think it would help me a lot if we made things a little homier,” she grumbled.

  “What do you mean?”