Gunnar

by Kimber White

She pursed her lips and let out a snarl that sounded almost wolf-like herself. But, she knew this was no time for a standoff. The howls faded as if they were headed in the other direction, but we needed to get underground now.

  Vera stepped to the side. I went first. Gunnar followed. When I turned to look at him, he jolted straight as Vera shoved the barrel of her rifle into his back. His silver wolf eyes glinted and his lip curled. I made a downward gesture with my hand hoping he’d just let it go for now. He clenched one fist but kept walking.

  We headed to the downhill to the back of the cave. Melanie and Caroline were already down there. Caroline had one of our LED lanterns on, sending ghostly shadows over the walls.

  Gunnar turned on Vera. “Lady, you better put that thing away before somebody gets hurt. You know you can’t kill me with it. You’re more likely to kill yourself or one of them down here. Be smart.”

  “Vera!” Melanie got between them, seeing Vera’s face drain of all color. She was about to blow up. “Enough. Have you stopped trusting Jett all of a sudden?”

  Vera didn’t answer. She took a position against the wall. I took it as progress. She’d at least lowered her weapon. Gunnar busied himself exploring the cavern. It was large, roughly two hundred feet across. A natural spring bubbled up in one corner. When it wasn’t safe to head topside, that spring saved our lives.

  With his wolf eyes flashing, Gunnar felt the walls. “Is this it?” he asked. “No passages?”

  “No,” I answered. “None that we can get to.”

  Nodding, he kept feeling the walls. “They’re behind here. Probably miles worth. This could be tunneled.” He came to the spring and dipped his fingers in. It was a small well, only four feet across. “How deep is it?” he asked.

  “We don’t know,” Melanie answered. “Deep.”

  “It leads to the lake,” he said. It was a statement, not a question.

  Vera kept her position on the wall. She shook her head and let out a snort. Gunnar ignored her and felt along the walls again.

  “A mine ran through here,” Caroline said. She’d been so quiet in the corner, I’m not even sure Gunnar noticed she was there. He turned to her. Before I could intervene, Gunnar went to her, squatting in front of her where she sat on a rock ledge. Her leg twisted beneath her. Gunnar held his hand out.

  “Gunnar Cole,” he said.

  Caroline’s eyes flicked to mine. She smiled and shook Gunnar’s hand. “Caroline. Or Caro if you’re in a hurry.”

  “Caroline,” he repeated. “Can you walk on that?” He gestured toward her leg.

  “She manages just fine,” Vera barked, pushing herself off the wall. “We all manage just fine.”

  “Vera…” Caroline started.

  Vera wouldn’t hear it. She stepped between Caroline and Gunnar, putting a hand on his shoulder, she tried to shove him back. She’d have had more luck knocking one of the cave walls down. Again, Gunnar’s eyes flashed. He clenched his teeth and slowly rose.

  “You’re sitting ducks,” Gunnar said, his voice dropping low. “All of you. You were worried about leading me here to your hideout? You wouldn’t have had to. I scented you from the lake. This cave isn’t stable. The passages are closed off because that wall was part of a cave-in. That wall behind the well? That was open. All you’re doing is making it easier for the Pack to find you if the patrols ever make it out this far.”

  “And what reason would they have to come out this far? Huh?” Vera stood her ground. “There’s nobody out here. It’s just wilderness and a lake nobody ever visits. They can’t scent us from out there. You’re full of shit.”

  Gunnar grabbed Vera by the arm, not hard, but enough so she moved. He led her to the spring. “I said I scented you from the lake,” he said. “This spring feeds into the lake. I was underwater and I could sense it. You want proof? Go out there. I’ll swim it. I can hold my breath and swim faster than any of you. The Pack members can too. You’re lucky one of them hasn’t surprised you while you slept. It’ll happen. Trust me.”

  “Right,” Vera jerked away from him. “Now they will. Because you went messing around at the prison camp and drew attention to us.” She pointed a finger at me.

  “Stop it, Vera,” I said. “I’m not going to keep having this same fight with you. You know why I did what I did. I’d do it again.”

  “And you,” Vera pointed at Gunnar. “You have no idea what we’re capable of. We aren’t sitting ducks. You are. Those wolves out there weren’t looking for us. They’re looking for you.”

  “Enough!” Melanie shouted. “Vera, dammit. We’re on the same side. Look at him!”

  Melanie pressed a hand flat against Gunnar’s chest, pointing out his wolf’s head tattoo.

  “He’s a shifter,” Vera spat the word out as if it burned in her mouth. “They only know how to take. You of all people should know that.”

  Gunnar’s rage simmered off of him. He trembled from it. I knew he was in danger of shifting right there in the middle of the cave. On instinct, I went to him. I put a light hand on his arm. His bicep bulged beneath my touch, but it stilled him too. It was such a subtle gesture, skin on skin. But, the moment I made contact, I felt bound to him all over again. My heartbeat became his, slowing, beating more evenly. My touch changed him just as his seemed to do for me.

  “I am not Pack,” he said, staring hard at Vera. “And you have no idea what we are.”

  “That,” Vera said, drawing her shoulders back, “is exactly the problem.” She put her arm around Melanie and drew her away. Melanie kept her eyes locked with mine. She understood something Vera didn’t. Her gaze slowly dropped to my hand on Gunnar’s arm. A tremor went through her and she blinked rapidly.

  Gunnar sighed. “I can help you. That’s what I’m trying to say. I know you don’t trust me. Well, I don’t trust you either.” He threw up his hands and moved to the mouth of the cave, following the first stabs of sunlight. He put his hand against the cave wall and trained his ears into the wind.

  I went to him, feeling Melanie’s stare boring into me. I knew she had questions I couldn’t answer right now. I only hoped she could at least keep Vera from doing anything rash where Gunnar was concerned. It wasn’t safe for any of us out there right now.

  Gunnar went outside and I followed. He dropped down to a squat, feeling the ground and sniffing the air. I bit my lip, holding back my questions. Though I didn’t hear anything, I could never hope to sense the Pack the way he did. It was a blessing and his curse, I knew.

  Finally, Gunnar rose and turned to me. “Give them time,” I said. “We’ve been on our own for a very long time. We’ve survived.”

  “”Barely,” he said. “That girl, Caroline. She can’t walk. She can’t keep up with you.”

  “So we’re supposed to leave her behind?”

  He shook his head. “No. Of course not. I just mean...she needs help.”

  “We did the best we could. She took a bad fall and broke her leg a while ago. Melanie and I set it. There was no one else. We can’t take her into town. We’re on watch lists at all the hospitals. We lost two people the last time we tried. The only way we stay safe is off the grid and out of sight.”

  Gunnar went to me. He put his hands on my shoulders, gripping me hard, as if he thought I might fly away. “There’s someone. I know someone who could help her. If I take you to her.”

  Dark lines of anguish furrowed Gunnar’s brow. I knew why. Just like Vera and the rest of us, it was so hard to trust someone new. I put a hand up, cradling his jaw. His skin was so warm. I was still damp from the lake; my hair hung in strings. A shiver went through me and Gunnar put his arms around me. We’d shared a single kiss and I found myself wanting so much more.

  “It’s not safe for you here,” he said, desperation making his voice crack. He was scared, truly scared for me.

  “Gunnar, I told you. We’ve survived.”

  “But your friend Vera’s right. Because of me, they know about you now.”

  “Lowell’s d
ead,” I said.

  “He’s got a bullet in him that they know I didn’t put there.” Something flickered in his expression, as if he were going to tell me something but decided to hold it back.

  “What are you thinking?”

  He let me go and ran a hand hard over his jaw. Bracing his other hand against the bark of the closest oak tree, he scanned the horizon. “They’ve moved off,” he said. “North. I don’t know why.”

  “I don’t care why.”

  Gunnar closed his fist and bumped it lightly against the tree. “You should. You’ve been hiding. That’s not enough.”

  “We’ve been doing more than hiding.” His tone angered me. I felt like Vera. Gunnar had no idea what I’d been through or survived. I went to him, standing in his line of vision. “You seem to forget I’m the one who busted your ass out of that POW camp, Gunnar. I can come and go without them knowing. And I can hurt them when I need to.” I put a hand on my hip holster.

  Gunnar paused. For a moment, his eyes clouded over as if he were watching something play out in his mind. Then, he focused on me, sending that little wave of heat straight down to my toes.

  “I never asked you how,” he said. “Lowell. And that black wolf. How did you do that? You moved faster than they did. You’re not a shifter. Your father may have been one, but you’re fully human.”

  I couldn’t help myself, I smiled. I opened my mouth to answer, but Vera’s sharp shout stopped me cold. “Jett!”

  I turned to her. “I wasn’t going to…”

  “The fuck you weren’t. Jesus, Jett. I don’t care if this one’s Pack. He is what he is. You seem to want to forget that.”

  “I forget nothing,” I said, my voice hissing with rage. “And you are not in charge here.”

  “Listen,” Gunnar said, putting his hands up in surrender. “You don’t trust me. I don’t blame you. But right now, we’re both in a pretty damn precarious position. The Pack’s closing in. Vera, is it? You’re right. Jett shouldn’t have come to Camp Hell for me. It’s put you at risk. Unless you’ve got a damn time machine hidden in that shitty cave, there isn’t anything we can do about it but what we’ve all been doing up until now. Survive. So, here’s what’s going to happen. I’m going to patrol these woods and the lake. You’re going to stay here with your people where they are less likely to sense you.”

  Vera set her jaw to the side. She started to charge toward Gunnar. “Who the fuck do you think…”

  “Vera,” I shouted standing in her path. “Shut up! Gunnar’s right and you know it. You just can’t stand admitting it. So put your pride and your anger away, and focus on the only thing that matters. Keep Melanie underground and out of sight.”

  Vera froze, her mouth hanging open in mid-sentence. But, to her credit, she finally snapped it shut. I was right. Gunnar was right. And this was no time for chest-thumping. She couldn’t resist pointing a finger at Gunnar anyway.

  “Fine, we play it your way for now. But you so much as growl in my direction, or do anything that looks like it’s Pack controlled...and believe me, I know it when I see it...you’re getting a bullet right between your fucking eyes.”

  Gunnar rounded on her. He took two slow, powerful steps until he was in her face. “Vera, that’s the second time someone’s promised me that. You damn well better keep it.”

  He shot me a heated look, then strode into the woods. Every instinct in me told me to go with him. From the moment I locked eyes with him at the prison camp...no...it was even before that. Since I’d first sensed him near me, I felt as if I belonged beside him. Though I wanted to throttle her at the moment, I knew Vera had our best interests at heart. So did I. I just wondered if she was right and my judgment was clouded. There was really only one person who might know for sure.

  Sixteen

  Jett

  We reached an uneasy truce in the days that followed. Gunnar hadn’t sensed the Pack getting close. He kept his word and patrolled near the lake each night. Vera’s anger cooled, but didn’t ease. While he patrolled outside, Vera kept watch each night at the mouth of the cave. On the third night, her exhaustion won out and she fell asleep leaning against the cave wall. I couldn’t make her trust him, but I could at least keep them separated for now.

  I went to her, testing to see how deeply she slept. I put a hand on her shoulder. She grumbled, but didn’t wake. With Gunnar out of sight, this was as close as I would get to getting Melanie alone. I left Vera’s side and went back into the cavern.

  Melanie was waiting for me in the shadows. Caroline had fallen asleep. If things were calmer around here, that would have been cause for great alarm. It still was, but there was nothing I could do about Caroline’s health right this second.

  Melanie moved the lantern in front of her and gave me a weak smile. “She asleep?”

  “For now,” I answered. “Gunnar’s down at the lake again. We’ll know it if he senses anything.” Melanie and Vera couldn’t be more opposite. Vera was fire and fury. Melanie was cool and sweet. Where one was weak, the other strong. I sat beside Melanie and reached for her hand. “She loves you beyond reason, Mel. And she’s scared to death.”

  “That makes two of us.” Melanie’s thick lashes fluttered. She drew in a breath and the courage to ask the question I knew she had. “Jett…”

  I put up a hand. “I know what it looks like.”

  “Do you?”

  “Gunnar’s...different. Do you see that?”

  Melanie’s gaze traveled to a far-off point. She did this often. I knew it cost her to remember the horrors that happened to her not so very long ago. “He may be different, but what I see is what he wants. Oh, Jett. I’ve seen that look before. When my wolf...God...even now I can’t stop myself from saying that. Even though it’s revolting to me. He wasn’t mine. But, there was another girl at Birch Haven. She didn’t escape with us. Her name was Doreen. She was a shifter’s daughter, but her father came from somewhere in Canada. She said real Alphas don’t force markings on women. She said there are supposed to be fated mates and that’s what her parents were. I think it mattered to her that I understood this marking of mine wasn’t...normal.”

  Fated mates. The phrase thundered through me like a pulse. Fated mates. It held dark mystery and fueled my desire. Fated. Mates.

  “You think Gunnar thinks I’m his?”

  Melanie smiled. “I think only you know the answer to that. And I’m not here to lecture you. I just want you to be careful. This mark...whether I was fated for my wolf or not...it’s a bond I don’t know how to break. I can feel him sometimes, in here.” She put a hand flat between her breasts and the other to her temple. “When he’s close, it’s like his heartbeat is my heartbeat. I haven’t felt it in a very long time. Vera hopes that means he’s dead. But, Jett, he isn’t. Don’t tell Vera I said it, but it’s true. And I’m not saying Gunnar isn’t one of the good guys. I’m just saying have a care with it.”

  I hugged her. “I love you, Mel. You know that. I’d die before I did anything that would betray you or the others. Vera knows that too. She’s just blinded by fear when it comes to you. I understand that.”

  “So do I,” she whispered. A shadow darkened the cavern as Vera came back. She was awake but bleary-eyed. I let go of Melanie and straightened.

  “You’ve got next watch,” she said to Melanie. “We’re going to need some firewood.”

  “It’s been three days,” I said. “The danger has passed. If the Pack had any idea we were here, they’d have shown themselves.”

  “I think you’re kidding yourself if you think you know why the Pack does anything. You ask me, they’re waiting for something.”

  “For what?” It was Melanie who asked.

  “Hell if I know,” Vera said. “Reinforcements? Another full moon? You said you shot that guard back at the prison camp. Maybe they pulled the bullet out of him and figured out what’s in it. Maybe they’re working out a countermeasure. I just know the longer that wolf is down there, the riskier it is for us.�
�

  I wanted to argue with her. She made some sense though, as much as I hated to admit it. Sitting tight was only going to work so long as a survival strategy.

  “Anyway,” she said. “I’ll run down and get some firewood. I feel like swinging an ax anyway.”

  “I’ll go,” I said. “You stay with Mel and Caro.”

  Vera shrugged. She was going to argue with me. I could see it in her eyes. But Melanie gave her a look and she backed down. “Suit yourself.”

  It was the closest I knew I’d get to a peace accord with Vera for now. If we both kept busy working for the good of the group, we’d be fine today.

  I can’t deny I hoped I’d find Gunnar right away. But, he must have gone deeper into the woods. I took our one machete and hacked away at some branches big enough for kindling. We couldn’t risk a big fire, but we’d need something to boil the spring water. If Gunnar’s instincts were right, we’d be underground for at least a few more days.

  I don’t know how much time passed, but I lost myself in the rhythm of chopping and gathering new wood. Hours at least. The sun hung low in the sky and sweat poured off my back.

  Humming caught my ear and made my skin prick. I knew instantly that Gunnar was nearby. He had stayed away for most of the last three days, letting the others get used to him being here. At least, that’s what I told myself. The simple truth was, I think he was just as unsettled around me as I was him. Melanie’s words tore through me. His heartbeat became my own.

  I set my bundle of wood down and followed the sound. I didn’t think I could sneak up on him, but Gunnar was in a clearing, his back turned toward me. He paced, crunching dry leaves beneath his bare feet. Sweat poured down his strong back and he held his hands on either side of his head.

  “Can’t. Won’t. Get out!” he murmured. My pulse jumped as I realized with growing horror he wasn’t talking to himself. Not exactly.

  Gunnar thumped the side of his head. “Get out! I won’t do it!”

  He paced. His shoulders bunched and his skin went from tan to gray and back again. He seemed caught in mid-shift. Terror gripped me as I realized whatever was happening, he wasn’t fully in control.