by Debra Dunbar
His eyebrows lowered. “You most certainly do not get shotgun. I’m the Alpha here.”
“Then you drive and Karl can ride in the back,” I said, trying to edge around him.
He shoved me and I flew backward to skid across the gravel on my ass while he ran for the passenger door, laughing. Asshole. I jumped up and ran after him. Of course he was already in the passenger seat before I got there, smiling smugly and indicating with his thumb that I was to either climb into the tiny back seat or in the bed of the truck. I climbed in and plopped my ass down on his lap.
For a hot second he let me sit there, then he grabbed me and hoisted me over top of the seat into the back, slapping my rear firmly on the way. I heard Karl chuckle as I landed face-first in the cramped space.
“If you two are gonna start that shit, then you’re going on your own. Don’t care if you’re Alpha of this pack or not, Jake, I’m not gonna ride along with you two acting out a low-budget porno in the truck.”
I snickered, liking this bear more by the moment. But I felt the change in Jake, felt him suddenly realize how out of character he’d been acting. I don’t know if that whole strict-as-shit Alpha was an act or not, but clearly he was a bit embarrassed by our shenanigans.
“All business, Karl,” he promised. “Sorry about that.”
Karl turned to face him, eyebrows practically in his hairline. “You’re not one bit sorry. And don’t be a stiff prick-face on my behalf, cause’ I don’t give a shit. You wanna grab ass with that demon-wolf, ain’t no business of mine. Just don’t wanna get all worked up myself without my Brina here to relieve the frustration. Know what I mean?”
Sadly, there was no more grab-ass. We drove through the night and well into the morning, stopping at a gas station where Jake ran in and bought a plastic bag full of beef jerky, granola bars, and Gatorade for our breakfast. The guys switched places with Jake driving exactly the speed limit with mind-numbing precision. Karl drove like an old lady. Jake drove like the car was set on auto pilot. I dozed, not really able to get more than ten minutes of sleep at a time.
“Last food until morning unless you catch it and skin it yourself.” Karl’s low voice woke me from a fitful nap and I blinked my eyes open to see the sun setting as Jake eased the truck into the parking lot of a burger joint.
We got out to stretch and Karl ran in with our food order, emerging with enough to feed a small army. I hadn’t expected it to take us nearly a day to drive to wherever this stockpile of ammo was. The long roadtrip had blunted my excitement a bit and I found I’d settled into a kind of Zen peace, where I listened to Karl and Jake talk about the coming winter weather predictions, where we argued over the radio, where I occasionally caught Jake glancing at me through the rearview mirror as if he couldn’t keep his eyes off me.
“Five bacon triple cheeseburgers and a bottle of water,” Karl announced, handing a bag to Jake. “And the same with an extra-large chocolate shake for demon-wolf,” he told me.
I opened the bag and inhaled, thinking nothing smelled so heavenly as bacon cheeseburgers. Then I scooted into the driver’s seat and grabbed the keys out of the console.
“No. No you don’t.” Jake scowled. “Karl’s driving the last stretch.”
“Which will take three hours more than if I drive,” I told him. “It’s my turn. Karl can ride in the bed like a dog and you get the passenger seat. I’ll even let you grope me while I drive.”
“I’m not riding in the bed,” Karl announced.
“And you’re not driving.” Jake reached in and hauled me out of the driver’s seat, dumping me facedown over his shoulder.
That electricity arched between us. I lifted his shirt and put my hands on his warm skin, sliding them as far under the waistband of his pants as I could. Damn, this guy had an ass that could crack walnuts.
Jake didn’t protest, letting me molest his backside as he carried me around the truck to the other side. Karl climbed into the driver’s seat, and Jake hesitated a moment, allowing me to get a few seconds more of feeling him up before he slid me off his shoulder and down along the front of his body. Pulling my hips tight against him, he dug one hand into my short, purple hair and kissed me.
I ground against him, breathless, wanting him desperately.
“Any day now, guys,” Karl growled.
“Five minutes in the burger joint bathroom,” I whispered to Jake.
“I’m not making love to you in the bathroom of a roadside fast-food joint,” Jake informed me, still making no move to pull away from me.
“Who said anything about making love? Let’s fuck. Hard. Fast. Just bend me over the sink and shove yourself in as deep as you can go.”
He inhaled sharply. “It’s dirty in there. It’s nasty.”
I rubbed myself along him. “I’m dirty. I’m nasty. Three minutes, Jake. Or less. I’m so fucking wet right now that I’ll probably come in two strokes.”
“Guys.” Karl growled.
Jake kissed me and I realized it would most likely take less than two strokes for me to come. Damn, I wanted this guy.
But he stepped back, his hands on my shoulders to keep me from closing the sudden distance between us. “No. Not here. Not like this. After we’re done and can go somewhere with an actual bed and clean sheets. Not in a dirty bathroom.”
“I’m starting the truck,” Karl announced.
“But after we’re done, I’ll most likely be a poison-spitting frog,” I complained. “Are you going to want to fuck a frog?”
“I’m driving away, now,” Karl told us.
Jake chuckled. “I promise I’ll have sex with you even if you’re a frog. There. Are you happy? Because I’ve never said or envisioned saying anything as disgusting as that in my whole life.”
“Leaving. Leaving now.”
I smiled. “Stick with me baby. Fucking poison-spitting frogs is only the beginning. Be prepared for all sorts of perverted nastiness.”
Karl edged the truck a few inches forward, and Jake hopped into the passenger seat. Then he grabbed me and yanked me in, setting me on his lap as he closed the door. Instead of shoving me into the back, he wrapped an arm around me holding me in place. Then he grabbed my bag of burgers and plopped them on my lap.
I ate, drank my milkshake, then dozed off for the best nap I’d had since we began this road trip, happily snuggled in Jake’s arms.
Chapter 16
It was full-on dark by the time Karl finally pulled off the road and edged the truck down a narrow dirt path. I could hear the branches slapping against the sides of the truck and scraping along the windows. He turned the headlights off, and even with my night vision, it was still creepy. I hoped the bear knew where we were going because I really didn’t want to experience going over a cliff in a truck to smash onto a bunch of rocks and trees a few hundred feet down.
The truck slowed and stopped. Karl turned it off and slipped the keys above the visor. Jake opened the door and I scooted out. We were in fight mode. I knew things were serious because Jake didn’t pinch my butt as I slid off his lap or even say anything to me. I stretched beside the truck while both Karl and Jake climbed out.
I’d never realized how truly dark it was out in the middle of fucking nowhere when there wasn’t the slightest bit of light pollution. I’d been in the woods before at night, but this was completely different. The sky was like a blackout curtain that a moth had gnawed, the tiniest star clearly visible, the swoosh of constellations a blur of lighter gray amid the dancing white lights. I’d always felt comfortable making my way around the forest even on a moonless night, but the woods we were in were so thick with trees and leaves that outside of the spots where the sky was visible overhead, my surroundings were a solid black.
“You get used to it,” Karl told me as he came around the front of the truck to join us. “I member’ when I first came up here, I felt like maybe I’d gone blind. Worried that something had happened to my eyes at first cause’ I couldn’t see shit at night anymore.”
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nbsp; “I’m less worried about seeing shit than walking off the edge of a cliff,” I teased him. Although I wasn’t sure if there were any cliffs nearby. The trees were different. The smells were different. Even the insect song seemed different. The whole thing had an odd rainforest feel that made me wonder how close to the coast we were.
Karl pulled a paper from his back pocket and unfolded it, spreading it out on the still-hot hood of the truck. “We’re here. The old gas station is here.”
I squinted at the map. Obviously, the old gas station that was our target was off of an old road. Whatever wards and traps the hunters had in place, they must have made allowances for the fact that a car or truck might occasionally go by every so often. It would have been stupidly obvious for us to just drive down the road, park and try to walk into the old gas station, but the hunters must have planned for the chance that a human might do that very thing. Someone stretching their legs in the middle of a long drive might use the old gas station to pull off the road and walk around, or even pull off to take a nap. That made me assume that either the protections would be set off by actual breaking and entering, or that they were somehow magically set up to only go off if a shifter crossed the lines.
And I was pretty sure if a human pulled in to take a nap, the armed guard would tell him to move along.
“You want to take the back and I’ll take the front?” Karl asked Jake. “I’ll shift and draw their fire, while you deal with the wards on the building?”
Jake frowned at the map. “Let’s do a one-hour observation first, just to get an idea of the guard’s routine and possibly get a feel for the other security, then we can pull back and decide on our actual attack strategy.”
It was a smart idea. There was no knowing whether the security had changed since Karl and Sabrina had been out here a few days ago. Plus there might be things that Jake and I could pick up that the other two couldn’t. Me especially. I clearly had the advantage nose-wise, and I seemed to be the only shifter so far that could sense the magic.
Jake and Karl looked at their watches, synchronizing them. I didn’t have a watch. I did have a nifty cell phone I could use, though, if I really needed to be precise about time.
“We gotta be careful about sunrise,” Karl added. “Ain’t gonna be night for long.”
“One-hour reconnaissance shouldn’t push us too tight time-wise,” Jake told him. “And if we’re at all uncomfortable with proceeding, we can always push the actual attack to tomorrow night and spend the day observing and planning.”
That would drive me fucking nuts. I just wanted to go in there, blow shit up, and take the ammo. I got the feeling if it had been just me and the bear, that’s what we would have done. Jake was the cautious, planning one, and although Karl seemed okay going along with that plan, I was feeling like I wanted to knock my Alpha upside the head and do it my way.
“How quiet are you in your bear form?” Jake asked.
Karl chuckled. “Brina says I sound like a stampede of elephants. ‘Course I’m not much quieter on two legs either.”
“I’m thinking we send Tupper in, then.” Jake turned to me. “Can you do something small? And sense any magical alarms enough to evade them? Ideally I’d like you to get inside and give us a better idea what we’re up against once we take out the guard and make our way through whatever minefield they’ve got out front.”
I nodded. “I can do a rat, and depending on how they have their magical wards set up, I might be able to get through them without them going off.” I’d been thinking about this one. Those magical alarms had to be shifter specific, or else every fucking mosquito would be setting them off as well as the human guard. I was pretty damned good about masking my scent, but whether I could get through undetected or not would depend on what would trigger the alarm—and I just didn’t know enough about magic to be sure on that.
“Gwylla feels most of the shifter-specific magic is triggered by the angel in us,” Jake warned. “Don’t be cocky and get blown up.”
Angel. I was pretty far from an angel. I got the impression that although angels and demons were opposite sides of the same coin, things didn’t always work the same between the two. And I was far more demon that I was angel.
“We’ll have to go in slow,” Karl said. “When Brina and I did our reconnaissance, we didn’t want to get too close in human forms and tip them off.”
Jake nodded. “This isn’t the sort of location where hikers and pedestrians would be commonplace. They might suspect a wolf coming in close, but wild bears are more bold around humans.”
Karl grunted. “I’ll shift when we’re near, so if the guards hear us and turn on a spotlight or use night vision goggles, they’ll just think I’m some grizzly looking for berries in the woods.”
“Then let’s do this,” Jake announced.
Karl folded up the map and stuck it back in his pocket.
“Do you want me upright, or on all fours right now?” I asked. I wasn’t as noisy as Karl claimed to be, but I certainly wasn’t as silent as Jake was. It would truly suck if I stepped on a twig and revealed our presence to the guards.
Something sparked in Jake’s blue eyes at the sexual innuendo, and I heard Karl snort.
“What’s your primary animal?” Jake asked.
I’d never had anyone ask before. They always assumed I was a werewolf since I’d been shuffled around wolf packs since the moment I was born. The truth was my animal was whatever my beast wanted to be at the time. Usually I could assume a fairly convincing wolf form, but there were times when she did something weird and I ended up looking like some horrifying animal mash-up. I blamed it on weird genetics.
“Wolf,” I told him, figuring that was most likely what I’d be if I shifted. Then I added a “sometimes” in the spirit of honesty.
Jake’s eyes narrowed. “And when you’re not a wolf?”
I shrugged. “Lion, with a bird ass and no wings, and scales. Fuck if I know. It’s a roll of the dice whether I’m a wolf or some horror-movie nightmare.”
“Thinking you better stay on two legs then,” Karl said. “Hoping when you do your rat thing, you look like a normal rat, though.”
Yeah, me too. I followed the guys through the woods, glad they were leading the way and not me. Karl, true to his word, managed to step on every stick in our path. After about a half hour of walking, he stripped, stuffed his clothes into one of the backpacks then walked into the woods to shift. I can’t tell you how thrilled I was that the moon was out and we were in a bit of a clearing so I could see Karl in all his naked glory. Skinny Redhead was a lucky gal because, damn, that man had a sweet bod.
Seconds after Karl had walked into the woods, I felt something like static brush across my skin, sending every hair on my body upward. One of the biggest grizzlies I’d ever seen strolled out of the woods, shaking his fur into place.
“Kinda big, Karl,” Jake commented. “Can’t you do something a bit smaller, otherwise they’re going to shoot you anyway.”
Karl stared at him and curled his lip, revealing some truly lethal teeth.
“Okay,” Jake sighed. “Let’s go. Quiet from here on out. And Karl, stay about fifty yards off to the left of us in case they hear you. I don’t want Tupper or me to get spotlighted or picked up in night vision glasses.”
“I can drop my body temperature if that would help,” I told him.
“It’s forty-five degrees out here,” Jake replied. “A few degrees difference in your body temperature is still going to show up.”
I opened my mouth to tell him I could drop my temperature to forty-five degrees, but then decided to keep my trap shut. Some secrets were best kept to myself, and I didn’t really want Jake to know that I could shamble around like a zombie without any ill effects.
Karl was even noisier as a bear, and Jake waved to him, increasing the distance between us. After another hour I saw the thin gray ribbon of road through the trees, as well as our target.
We halted, then Jake motioned to me to
do my thing. I stripped then shifted in one fluid movement into a rat.
Well, sort of a rat. I got the feeling that I was more like a diminutive wolverine, and from Jake’s exasperated sigh, I probably didn’t look like a creature that would be found in this world, let alone in Alaska.
I concentrated, glaring at my beast and trying to impress on her how serious this was. There were some minor adjustments that made me less of a freak, but still a nightmare-sewer-rat. I looked up at Jake for confirmation. He nodded, and with a squeak, I took off to the old gas station.
The place was a total dump. If Gwylla hadn’t been so sure this was the spot, I would have walked right on by. It looked exactly like an abandoned gas station, complete with a collapsed awning over two ancient, rusted pumps, and plywood over the windows. As we got closer I realized that the plywood was strategically hinged, and the boards over the door would swivel out of the way to let someone in. I also noticed that the locks on the solid metal door were new, even though someone had smeared them with some greasy dirty substance to try to dull the shine. Weeds grew up through cracked pavement, and thick poison ivy covered the east side of the building. There were no lights, and I couldn’t scent either the human guards, their weapons, the explosives, or any magical defenses.
I did smell bear pee. And like Karl said, it was insanely concentrated, as if an entire Russian circus had pulled off the road for a quick potty break. It made my nose itch and I struggled against the urge to sneeze.
Jake had pointed to the east corner of the building with all the Devil’s Club and I made my way in that direction. I hesitated a few times, wiggling my nose and trying to see if I could manage to pick up anything untoward. Nothing seemed out of place, although to be fair, with the heady aroma of bear piss, I really couldn’t smell much of anything else.
The guard rounded the corner and sat down on a concrete step leading up to the boarded-up door, setting the rifle by his side. He took out a phone and began typing. I doubted anything significant had happened for him to be alerting his boss because the dude hardly seemed on high alert. He was probably surfing Facebook or playing Super Mario or something. I kinda felt for the guy. This had to be the most excruciatingly boring job in the world, walking around an abandoned gas station with an assault rifle just in case a wolf decided to attack. He probably would have been better off with a mall cop job.
