by Bonnie Vanak
The basement’s left side had been completely modernized.
Gleaming paneling covered the old brick and masonry foundation. Beige tile replaced the concrete flooring. The room opened to a large recreational center with two pool tables, a ping pong table, and a gleaming oak bar sitting against one wall. Glass shelves held an assortment of liquor bottles. Neon signs advertising beer adorned the walls, along with several dart boards and a large television. In the corner was a children’s play area with a toy box and a colorful, soft mat. It had been designed as if the adults could enjoy a drink or two while watching their young.
The thought cheered her. How many times had she wished for such a place to spend time with her father? But he’d always been sequestered in his rooms and later, in his office in the basement, ignoring his youngest daughter.
The room opened onto a long hallway. She found a laundry room with appliances and bright lighting, a weight room with treadmills and stationary bikes and even a classroom.
The hallway was closed off at the end with a foreboding steel door. The new cells. Only three were complete. Stark and sparsely furnished with bunk beds, they featured private bathrooms. Renovating this former place of horror must have cost Ryder plenty.
She was fiercely glad he’d chosen to vanquish the memory of her father’s cruelties.
Kara turned and headed to the basement’s grim east wing. The door barricading this section was locked. She removed a brick in the wall, found the key and unlocked the door.
Taking a deep breath, she flicked on the flashlight and shone it down the hallway.
The correctional center, Alastair named it.
The torture chamber, she’d called it.
This section of the basement had not been touched. The air here was damp and cold, and smelled of sour fear. Sweat dampened her palms.
Only she and Aiden knew this section of basement hid two tunnels, abandoned mining shafts. The main tunnel led to the Shadow Forest—the hidden entrance she’d planned to use before the trolls had attacked.
An oval of light swayed as the flashlight trembled in her hands. Memories beat at her with fists of rage.
I can’t do this.
I must do this.
Kara flicked the light switch. Bare bulbs strung atop the ceiling only pushed back the gloom instead of brightening it.
Each step felt like heavy chains weighted her feet. The flashlight continued to shake in her hands as she advanced, past the iron bar cells with the manacles hanging from the ceiling.
Midway down, she paused and looked at a thick wood door. Kara took a deep breath and pushed it open.
Ryder had been imprisoned in this cell many times. She shone the light over the weeping masonry walls, saw the maroon stains on the floor, and the X marks on the wall in rust. He’d marked off the days with his own blood.
She’d snuck him food and once gave him the blanket off her own bed. Alastair had discovered it, of course, but for some odd reason had not punished her. He’d only removed the blanket.
Punishment came later when she’d kissed Ryder.
Kara left the door open. Next to this solitary cell was a large, well-lit chamber used long ago for canning preserves. Her father had turned it into his office to be closer to where his mate lay sleeping in the grave.
Her entire body shook as she looked within the room, remembering her own screams as Alastair had burned her…
Stop it!
Walking into the office, she forced herself to confront the past. A layer of dust covered the desk where Alastair preferred conducting pack business. Her father had been a tidy Lupine, always keeping his surroundings clean. The framed photo of her mother was next to a bowl filled with small blue packets, the artificial sweetener Alastair enjoyed in his coffee.
She picked up the frame, checked the back and saw the money tucked there. Kara sighed, fingering the bills. The $2,000 would barely make a dent in Aiden’s debt.
As she set down the photo, a white coating came off on her fingers. Frowning, she brought her fingers to her nose and inhaled. The powder had an odd scent.
Next, she went to the conference table, remembering how he’d hit her over and over, then placed the heated iron against her cheek…
Enough.
Sucking in a breath, she left the office and continued down the hallway until reaching a room at the very end. She went through the archway and flicked on the light. The room was stacked with furniture and boxes. Her family had used it for storage as long as she could remember.
Kara crossed the room until reaching a stack of crates against the wall. This wall was brick, not masonry.
After moving the crates, she pushed on the wall and it moved, creaking inward, the sound like old bones rattling. Blackness stretched endlessly as she shone her flashlight down the corridor.
The entrance to the tunnels.
Kara drew in a deep breath and crossed over.
Here the brick floor gave way to rock and soil as the hallway turned into an old mining shaft. The mine was a dark and dangerous maze, she remembered her father saying.
Support timbers shored up the tunnel. The rough-hewn pylons were sturdy, but aged. A few crates were stacked against the wall. Curious, she opened one and saw several sacks within. Pulse racing, she opened one. Silver coins.
No gold.
Kara replaced the sack and closed the crate.
The stones beneath her soles grew rockier and uneven as she pressed onward. Finally the narrow shaft widened to a large cave her father had turned into a crypt. The stench of death and disuse assaulted her delicate senses.
Her mother was entombed here.
Fishing the golden key from her jeans pocket, Kara walked to the rock wall on her left. Shadows danced in the dim light, concealing a narrow slit in the cave. Dank, cool air brushed against her exposed skin.
The slit was barely wide enough to admit an adult Lupine. A slender adult.
It seemed wide as a house when she’d wriggled through it as a child.
Kara glanced down at her big breasts, the gentle slope of her belly and ruefully touched her bottom.
Damn.
She hated tight spaces, the darkness clawing at her, making her want to shriek and shriek. If she got stuck, she’d remain down here until turning into a ghost, only the bones of her dead mother for company.
But she thought of the despair in her brother’s face as he’d stared at the sheaf of bills piled on his desk, and how hard he’d worked to make a new home for them.
She thought of the determination on Ryder’s face and how he’d fight to the death to keep her. Was it love? It didn’t matter, now.
“Suck it in, Mitchell,” she said aloud. “No more excuses.”
Drawing in a deep breath, she turned sideways to squeeze into the slit.
And stumbled inward, nearly falling into the tunnel. Gripping the flashlight, she righted herself and shone the beam into the gloom, down a tunnel wide enough to admit three Lupines walking shoulder-to-shoulder.
“I’ll be damned,” she murmured. Someone, her father perhaps, had changed the lighting to make the access way seem much narrower.
Directing the powerful flashlight into the thick darkness, Kara walked on stony ground, her feet splashing puddles as water dripped down the rock walls. Stale, cold air filled her lungs, but the mine was ventilated and did not contain dangerous gases.
The tunnel narrowed until she was forced to walk hunched over, her lungs bellowing as she fought her panic. Dim light showed ahead.
The Shadow Forest entrance.
About 100 yards from that entrance, the tunnel widened and another shaft appeared to her right. She turned, following it a short distance until reaching a thickset door with a tarnished keyhole.
Kara unlocked the door with the golden key and pushed it open, the hinges squealing in protest. Heart beating fast, she shone the flashlight over the small, secret chamber.
Concrete lined the walls and floor, like a cold, gray prison cell. No elect
ricity here. Instead, two oil lamps rested on a shelf.
She lit both, yellow light flooding the small chamber.
The room contained a wooden trunk resembling a pirate’s chest. Please, oh please, she thought. Setting down her flashlight, she knelt before the trunk, struggling to lift the heavy lid and finally flung it open.
Inside the trunk was a large plastic crate. Fingers trembling, she opened it.
Hope flared and died.
No shine of gold as she swept the flashlight over the contents. Nothing but stacks and stacks of old photos.
Her father’s promise of riches was a lie.
Tears filled her eyes, but she brushed them away with an angry fist.
Kara picked up a photo. This time the tears fell freely.
When her mother died, Alastair had removed all evidence of her existence, as if it were too painful to bear. All the family photos had been destroyed. Kara hid a picture beneath her pillow to save it from his purging.
But he hadn’t destroyed them after all, only placed them here, in the trunk he’d said contained pure gold.
A smiling, dark-haired woman held a chubby baby in her arms, her waist encircled by a male with a goofy, happy grin. A young child sat on the ground before them, a look of impishness in his eyes.
Her parents with her siblings, Lara and Aiden.
Kara dropped the photo back into the storage bin. Who was this man? She combed through the photos and cards, desperate to find something, anything to prove there was good in the male she’d called father.
Photograph after photograph she laid upon the cool concrete floor. Kara spread them out, and saw her parent’s past unfurl. She picked up a picture of her father sitting on the steps of the lodge, one arm flung protectively around her mother.
The last photo in the bin featured the entire family. Seven-year-old Kara nestled against her mother’s side. Aiden was 13, his lanky body showing signs of the muscled Lupine he’d become. Lara, their elder sister, sat on the ground. A smiling Alastair stood behind them all, as if guarding his family.
He’d smiled in those days. And then their mother had died and he never smiled again.
A single tear splashed onto the yellowed photograph. She stroked her father’s image with a thumb.
“Why did you change?” she whispered. “I know you loved her with all your heart, but couldn’t you love us too after she died?”
The darkness seemed to press against her from all sides until it suffocated. Kara returned all the pictures to the bin, closed it and then slammed the lid shut. She wiped away her tears. Enough, she told herself. There were no answers here to Alastair’s rejection of his family. No gold, either.
Minutes later, she came to the tunnel’s end. Kara emerged, blackberry brambles scraping her hands and face as she fought past the foliage hiding the entrance.
She brushed dirt off her jeans and stood, her legs wobbling.
Dense trees surrounded her. The forest was quiet. Kara hid the flashlight and picked her way through the forest to a clearing on the ridge. Climbing down the rugged trail to the meadow, disappointment bitter in her mouth, she headed for the lodge. How was she supposed to stop a pack war with no money?
Four rugged cowboys galloped across the meadow, and pulled to a stop mere feet away from where she stood. They sat tall in the saddle, sunshine beating down upon their broad shoulders and their white Stetsons. All of them were muscled and handsome. And dead serious as they stared at her. One of them whistled a signal. A fifth horseman raced across the meadow on a sleek black stallion, stopping on a dime before them. Dressed in blue chambray and faded jeans, Ryder wore a black Stetson. Leather creaked as he leaned over the saddle, concern sharpening his features.
“You’re hurt.”
Blood stained her fingers after she touched the scratches on her face. “It’s nothing. They’ll heal soon.”
“You lost, Kara?”
He must have realized she was gone from her room, and sent his men to search for her. “Just checking out the old homestead.”
“Hmm. If I didn’t know you better, I’d say you were playing hide and seek. Your sire hid the gold and now you seek.”
“I don’t play games.” The treasure was supposed to save them all. What a joke.
“Too bad,” he said softly. “Because they can be quite enjoyable. Such as the chase. I’ll give you a ten minute start to get your sweet little ass back to the lodge before I catch you.”
Lifting her chin, she locked her gaze to his. “And if you catch me?”
“Then I get to play whatever game I want with you.” A gleam lit his eyes.
Defiance filled her. “Fine.”
“Naked.”
Delicious anticipation tightened her belly. Catch me first, wolf. Kara shifted into her wolf form, startling his mount. With a big wolfish grin, she sped off toward the lodge.
Only to hear a long, low howl behind her.
Running away triggered his Lupine instinct to chase. But she was no scared rabbit. Racing across the meadow, relishing the wind rippling across her fur and the taste of freedom, she gave a joyous yip. Behind her, she heard Ryder hot on her heels. Deliberately she slowed, allowing him to catch her once they’d left the other cowboys out of sight.
He leapt.
The big male wrestled her to the ground. As they shifted back into their Skin forms, Ryder flipped her over onto her back, straddled her and pinned her wrists.
Both of them were naked.
She sensed the hot blood thrumming through his body, the flood of male hormones preparing him to mate. His cock lengthened and thickened.
“I win,” he said softly.
“I let you.”
Firm muscles layered the hard body lying on top of her. Alight with fierce desire, his brilliant blue gaze burned into her.
Ryder gave a small, mysterious smile. It was wicked and victorious and yet she knew this male would not hurt her.
Oh, he’d tease and taunt her, racing with her in wolfskin through green meadows or spending countless hours in blissful lovemaking…
A tantalizing scent of spices and male wound around her and flicked between her legs like the slow stroke of a finger. Arousal spiked, making her nipples grow taut. The space between her legs grew wet. Kara watched his expression grow intent with sexual awareness.
He climbed off, his thick erection jutting up from his groin. “Later, sweeting. In the privacy of my bedroom, where you deserve to be loved. Not like this, in the open on the hard ground. I want our first time to be gentle and loving.”
Kara melted at his tender declaration.
As they clothed themselves through magick, she gazed around the field. Memories rushed back, happy ones mixed with bitter regret. “I remember this place. My father used to take us for picnics here. My mother would snap out a blanket and he’d raid the basket, always gnawing on a chicken leg and she’d slap his hand, playfully, telling him to wait.”
The sadness intensified as she recalled the spark in her mother’s eyes, how Alastair had kissed her deeply, with love.
“Lara would take Aiden and me to play by the river for a long while. Only later did I realize my parents were making love. I didn’t understand it then, but some part of me knew they were bonding, sharing special moments.” Her voice cracked. “He loved her so much. How can a male with that much love inside turn cruel and ruthless?”
Ryder touched her cheek, his gaze solemn. “By forgetting the most important rule. Take care of the pack at all costs. A leader must sometimes forgo his own interests in the interest of his people.”
They walked quietly back to the lodge. Kara climbed the staircase to her room, Ryder following close behind.
In the bedroom, she pushed a hand through the long fall of her hair, wishing for a few moments more of forgetting, of running free and wild. The worst part with her sire had been the uncertainty. Not knowing when her father’s mood would shift from reasonable to cruel and violent. Not knowing when something she said would br
ing a nod or a slap across her mouth. Not knowing when the thin ice beneath her feet would hold for another day or shatter, plunging her into the cold abyss.
“I left when things were at their worst. I feel like I abandoned the pack.”
“Hey.” Ryder gently clasped her upper arms, turning her toward him. “Remember the good times.”
“It’s hard when I have this…” She rubbed her ruined cheek. “Aiden took me and ran that night because he feared Dad would kill me for kissing you. He saved my life. I owe him everything. But what would have happened if we’d stayed? Could we have made a difference?”
The temperature dropped with the icy chill of his cold anger. “I should have broken Alastair’s neck to keep you here, where you belong. Damnit, I should have done something.”
“What could you do? You were locked up. And you and Aiden would have butted heads if he came into power. You don’t get along.”
“For your sake, I would have tried.”
She glanced up. “It wouldn’t suit you, Ryder. You’re the worst omega I’ve ever known. You’re too strong and stubborn to follow others. I feel so guilty for sneaking away in the middle of the night, but if I had stayed, it might have been worse. I saw the photo of my mom you left for me and I realize how much I look like her. It must have tormented him, seeing me alive each day, knowing his mate was gone. Every moment he saw me was a reminder of his immeasurable loss, another ripping open of the wounds my mother’s death inflicted on him. I made my father crazy.”
Two warm arms settled around her waist. Ryder pulled her against his hard, muscled body. “You didn’t make him crazy. Her death did. He must have loved her very, very much. And of course it hurts, knowing that he couldn’t overcome your mother’s loss enough to love you as well.”
Iron fingers tightened around her throat. “It makes me fear love. Because if that is love, destructive and abusing, I don’t want it. I’d rather stay hidden in my room for the rest of my life than cause someone else that much pain if my heart shattered like his did when my mother died.”
