“Alright,” Ian roared. “No time to waste setting up camp. Let’s get straight to clearing the fire break. We’ve got a lot of work to do.”
Ian pointed out the spot where he wanted the fire break to start, and Hunter moved into position. He had already unpacked and assembled his chainsaw, and he was raring to go. The smoke and fire were quickly edging closer, making this mission a serious race against time. Hunter worked at a mad pace, cutting through the undergrowth and felling tree after tree. He was the youngest member of the crew, which often made him the butt of everyone’s good-natured jokes. But it also meant that he was the crew member with the most stamina. His muscles bulged against his flame retardant clothing as he held the vibrating chainsaw firmly against a thick tree trunk.
For several hours, the crew worked without stopping, while Ian kept a watchful eye on the fire and constantly spoke with Boise on the radio. By early afternoon, the smoke had become so thick that Hunter found it difficult to breathe. They needed about another hour to properly set up the fire line, but they couldn’t keep hanging out here. Even Boise finally admitted defeat, and told Ian to pull back to a safety zone.
The crew packed up their gear and pulled their jumpsuits and parachute rigs back on. Ian started leading them on their established escape route to a predetermined safety zone. A large rocky area with no brush had been located a short distance away. The crew would have to hike uphill to get to it, but, once atop the rocks, they would be safe from the flames. If the level of smoke permitted aircraft to fly, a helicopter would come in and pull them out of the burning forest.
Zach made his displeasure at their current predicament as obvious as possible. He muttered loudly about how they all had wasted their time and endangered their lives by not pushing back against Boise’s orders. Ian let his comments slide, which surprised Hunter. Zach’s constant complaining had worsened over the last month, and Ian had started to use quite a stern tone to shut him up. But Ian had more important things to worry about right now than Zach’s whining.
Hunter focused on putting one foot in front of the other as the clan made their way toward the safety zone. His radio squawked with transmissions from Boise, and he finally reached into his jumpsuit pocket to turn it off. Everyone in the crew carried a radio, in case they got separated from the group, but Hunter didn’t need to have his turned on when Ian was still keeping constant contact with Boise.
The smells of the forest overwhelmed Hunter’s bear nose. Burning pine needles, tree trunks, and grass combined with the overpowering aroma of smoke. Hunter wished that he could turn off his superior sense of smell for a while so the smoke smell wouldn’t be so intense.
The sun was setting and darkness was creeping across the forest as the crew finally made it to the top of the rock. Boise told them to expect a helicopter escort in about an hour, weather and smoke permitting.
“Can we take off our jumpsuits and gear and eat?” Zach asked, with the usual hint of annoyance in his voice. Ian hesitated, and then nodded.
“Alright,” Ian said. “I know you’re all exhausted and starving, not to mention overheating inside these damn suits. Feel free to take them off and grab some food, but be ready to gear up quickly. Our helicopter pilot won’t want to hang out in this smoky air for very long. And trust me—you don’t want to miss our ride out of here.”
For once, Hunter felt thankful for Zach’s grumbling. He stepped out of his jumpsuit and started rifling through his gear to find something to eat. Hunter had a distinct feeling that something wasn’t right, but he couldn’t quite put his finger on it. He suspected that the exhaustion and hunger of the day were catching up with him, and that after eating and drinking a little he would feel better. He disconnected a large knapsack from his main gear bag and grabbed a protein bar from the stash in the knapsack. It took him about five seconds to wolf down the bar, after which he drank thirstily from his water canteen.
The unsettled feeling in the pit of his stomach didn’t go away, however. Hunter paced back and forth for the rest of the hour, unable to push away the nervous gnawing at his conscience. As the rescue helicopter appeared on the horizon, Hunter took a deep, exasperated breath. What he smelled made him suddenly realize what was bothering him.
Human. He smelled human. And not just any human. He smelled a woman, and she was in trouble.
“Ian,” Hunter called out, as the rest of the crew started putting their jumpsuits and gear back on. “Ian! There’s someone out there. I smell a human. A female human.”
“Of course you smell a female human,” Zach said. “Charlotte’s standing right in front of you.”
Ian’s lifemate, Charlotte, was fully human. But she wasn’t the woman Hunter smelled.
“No, it’s someone else,” Hunter said. “Something’s been bothering me for a while, and I just realized what it is.”
Ian paused and sniffed the air, as did Luke. Both of them sniffed long and hard, and they looked at each other and Hunter, shaking their heads.
“I don’t smell anything, Hunter,” Luke said, as he zipped up the front of his jumpsuit and started reattaching his gear bags.
“I don’t either,” Ian said. “I think you’re mistaken. Gear up, buddy. The helicopter will be here in a few minutes.”
“Ian, I’m positive,” Hunter tried again. He didn’t want to be a pain in the ass and defy his alpha like Zach seemed so fond of doing, but he could clearly smell a woman in distress. How could Ian and Luke both miss that? Zach and Trevor joined in sniffing the air, but they also shook their heads to confirm that they didn’t smell anything.
“No one else smells it, Hunter,” Ian said, his voice growing more urgent. “Now gear up.”
Hunter frowned, and started pulling on his jumpsuit and gear, but the smell seemed to grow stronger to him with every passing second. He could still smell it as the helicopter came to a standing hover above the crew and dropped down two rescue lines—one out of each doorway. Charlotte and Luke went up first. When the rescue lines were dropped again, Hunter still hadn’t quite finished putting on his gear, so Ian sent Trevor and Zach up. When the lines dropped a third time, Ian and Hunter grabbed on and the helicopter immediately started lifting away from the rocks. As he felt his feet leaving the rock he was standing on, Hunter caught a stronger whiff than ever of the woman.
And then his bear leapt inside of him, roaring and demanding that he pay attention to the smell. As he dangled a few feet off the ground, Hunter suddenly realized why he could smell the woman so strongly when no one else could. She was his mate. Through some bizarre set of circumstances, Hunter’s mate was trapped out here in this flaming wilderness.
Hunter looked down at the ground, which was just about ten feet away from him now. He made a split-second decision and looked over at Ian, who was clinging to the other rescue rope.
“I’m sorry,” Hunter yelled, and then let go of his rope. The helicopter jerked sharply to the right as Ian’s weight suddenly had nothing to counterbalance it, but the momentum of the quickly rising aircraft quickly overcame the unexpected jerk. Ian and the helicopter with the rest of the crew rose high into the smoke-filled clouds, while Hunter fell away to the ground. Hunter hit the rocks feet first, and performed a parachute landing fall maneuver. The smokejumpers had been taught how to land feet-first and roll to spread the impact of a fall evenly across their body. Hunter did just as he had been trained to do, rolling from his feet to his calves, then his knees and across his right hip.
He lay on the rocks for a moment, catching his breath and wondering if he had just signed his own death certificate. The last thing he had seen as he fell away from the helicopter had been Ian’s shell-shocked face. Hunter had never even come close to defying his alpha before, and jumping away from the helicopter had clearly been against Ian’s wishes. But Hunter hadn’t had time to really think about what he was doing. Some deeper force was driving him now. He sniffed the air again, and started heading in the direction of the human’s scent. Whoever she was, she neede
d his help. Hunter would not let her down.
Chapter Two
How the hell did I end up in this situation? Riley Hughes thought to herself as she ran through the thick smoke. She had no idea which direction she was heading anymore, but she figured any direction had to be better than toward the fire. Her brilliant idea to use her cell phone’s compass app to find her way had turned out to be not so brilliant once the battery died. And with a wildfire nipping at her heels, her solo trip into the wilderness to regain her Zen was quickly turning into a nightmare.
Last month, she had lost her longtime job and longtime boyfriend all within the span of three days. She moped for a week, and then decided to make the best of the situation. She had enough savings to last a few months, and she had no time commitments anymore, so she decided to take a solo backpacking trip into the Northern California wilderness. She’d spend a week reconnecting with nature, and with herself, and then she’d return to her job search with a new vigor.
The idea of searching for a job made her stomach tighten into a tight knot. She had worked as a baker for a large pie shop for years, working her way up through the ranks until she was the chief baker. She had a knack for baking, and she could also do a decent job of managing people, so the owner had been thrilled to have her aboard. He raised her pay several times, and told her more than once that she was like a daughter to him. But, when he passed away, his actual daughter didn’t see the need to keep paying such a high salary to an employee, and let her go.
At first Riley had been devastated. So devastated, in fact, that she hadn’t told anyone she’d been laid off—not even her boyfriend. She figured she would break the news to him gently on the weekend, after the initial feeling of being punched in the gut had passed. Instead, he had added to her unhappy circumstances by breaking up with her. Of course, he felt awful when he discovered he had broken up with her right after she had lost her job. But the damage had already been done, and Riley wasn’t the type to beg a man to stay when he clearly didn’t want her. She had done her fair share of groveling in her lifetime, and she had grown past that. She refused to give a man the satisfaction of knowing he had devastated her by leaving.
But the hard truth was that he had devastated her. She’d had visions of a house and babies, and a backyard complete with a white picket fence and a golden retriever running around. And all of that had been taken away from her in an instant. She’d drowned her sorrows in pints of ice-cream and late night television. During the day, she tried to apply to a few jobs, but she couldn’t quite force herself to put her heart into it. What she really wanted to do was start her own bakery. She had the experience and the talent. But she didn’t have the funds. A business loan wasn’t likely to happen, thanks to a bad deal on a car a few years ago that had turned into a repossession. She’d been going through a rough spot, and she’d lost the car and let a few credit cards go into delinquent status. It had been a while since she’d been late on any payments, but banks still didn’t want to talk to her.
So Riley packed up her camping gear and headed out to the wilderness. Alone. She wanted time to think and contemplate her next move. She planned out a week of hiking and camping, alternating time at official campsites with a few days of true backwoods camping. Everything had been chugging along fantastically until she woke up this morning to a strange smell. She knew even before she stuck her head out of her tent that she was in trouble.
The sight that greeted her made her heart sink. The sky was blanketed in a gray cloud of smoke, and the forest had become quiet. Too quiet. The only sound was the distant crackling of flames, and Riley’s stomach flip-flopped nervously when she realized that a giant wildfire was overtaking the trees in the distance. Riley was two days into the backwoods portion of her adventure, and she had gotten a little turned around. She didn’t know exactly where she was, but she knew the general direction she needed to head. And that general direction seemed to be straight into the distant wall of fire.
So, Riley turned around. She would try to backtrack. Surely, she would reach a campsite or ranger station or something soon enough. They could help her get out of the forest before the wildfire got too close. Riley quickly packed her tent and gear into her large hiking backpack, and took off confidently in the direction from which she had come.
But by late afternoon, her confidence was waning. She had no idea where she was, or where she was going. And the fire that had seemed so far away this morning was quickly creeping closer. Riley tried not to panic, but as time ticked by and she saw the gap between her and the fire closing, she struggled to remain calm.
She walked quicker, as if somehow power walking through the forest would help her outrun the fire. She wanted to break into a run, but she knew she wouldn’t be able to keep a running pace up very long with all the gear she was carrying. She thought about ditching the backpack, but she needed her supplies. The tent wasn’t all that important, but if she lost her food and water she might die out here, fire or not.
As the minutes ticked by, Riley could feel the smoke getting thicker and the heat rising. She finally decided that taking her chances on starving would be a better idea than burning to death, and she ditched her heavy backpack.
That’s how she’d ended up in her current predicament—running, petrified, away from the fire and toward who knows what. The thick brush made it difficult to move very quickly, but Riley did her best. Panicked adrenaline ran through her veins, keeping her moving long beyond when her lungs would have normally given out. She wanted to scream in terror, but she didn’t have the breath for it, and, besides, her throat felt scratchy and hoarse from all the smoke she’d inhaled.
She glance over her shoulders again, and choked back tears as she saw that the fire was still gaining on her, despite her running efforts. She couldn’t get out in time. Running was useless. At that realization, she did scream. She threw her last bits of energy into a loud, desperate cry that was quickly drowned out by the roar of the fire.
Moments later, she heard a crashing sound coming through the woods behind her. At first, she thought an animal had found her, but when she turned around, she saw a tall, muscular man dressed in the strangest outfit she had ever seen. He wore a khaki colored full body suit that had a high neck, and a dark helmet that covered everything except his eyes. The legs of the body suit appeared to have huge pockets stuffed with gear. He also had two large bags strapped around his stomach. And he wore a relatively small backpack that looked like it was strapped to not only his arms and chest, but his legs as well. His eyes were a piercing green color, and he locked his gaze on her as he came through the forest.
“Come with me, now!” he yelled, holding out his hand to her.
“To where?” Riley shouted, tears still streaming down her face. “Can’t you see this fire is barreling down on us at lighting speeds? We can’t outrun it.”
Despite all of her efforts not to panic, she had completely given up hope at this point. Even if this guy knew the way out, they couldn’t make it in time.
“I can save you, but I need you to trust me,” the man shouted over the roar. “Come on. Every second matters right now, and if you keep stalling we’re going to lose our window for escape.”
Riley hesitated just another moment. She had no idea how this guy thought they were going to escape at this point, but what did she have to lose? If she kept standing here in tears, she would burn to death for sure.
“Okay,” she called out, nodding her head. “I’ll follow you.”
Riley saw relief flood the man’s eyes briefly before he turned around and headed back through the forest. Despite the heavy load he was carrying, he moved swiftly, and Riley almost couldn’t keep up. A few minutes later, they reached a large rock formation jutting out of the woods.
“We’re going up there,” the man said, and took off up the steep side of the formation.
Riley huffed for breath as she struggled up the rocks. She could hardly breathe through the smoke and the heat, but she forced hers
elf to keep going. Streams of sweat poured down her body, and several times she thought she might literally pass out from exhaustion. She had no idea how the man in front of her was managing to bound up the side of the wall carrying so much stuff. She still wasn’t exactly clear on what he planned to do. Would waiting at the top of this rock be enough to keep them from getting caught in the fire?
The man reached the top well before Riley, and he immediately started taking off his backpack and bags. Then he unzipped the khaki bodysuit and stepped out of it, revealing another strange outfit—skintight, dark green pants and a long sleeved shirt. It almost looked like he was wearing thermal underwear, which would have been strange since it was the middle of the summer.
As Riley hobbled up to where he stood, he started quickly digging through one of the large bags that had been fastened to his stomach. His face had the most intense expression Riley had ever seen. She didn’t say anything for a few moments. He didn’t look like he wanted to be bothered, and she didn’t know what to say, anyway. The circumstances weren’t exactly ideal for small talk. Riley glanced at the fire, then quickly away. She couldn’t bear to watch it anymore. From the looks of it, they were only minutes away from being overtaken by the flames.
“Found it!” the man yelled triumphantly, pulling what appeared to be a giant ball of aluminum foil out of his bag. He shook the ball out until it almost looked like a giant, tin foil pup tent, and then he turned to look at Riley.
“The fire won’t burn the rocks, so we won’t actually catch fire up here. But it’s going to be very hot, and the smoke is going to be even thicker than it already is. This is a fire shelter, and it resists heat up to 500 degrees Fahrenheit. We’re going to lay in it, facedown, and stay as still and calm as possible. It’s going to feel hot, and you might feel an urge to run. Don’t. You’re safest, coolest place is in the shelter, with your face toward the cool ground. Understand?”
Fire Bear Shifters: The Complete Series Page 10
