by Anthology
“So, what exactly do you mean by ‘the assets you manage wear skin’? You all just check us out like library books or something?” Kotara flinched when Neesia’s foot made contact with her shin. After all, Kotara hadn’t actually meant to say that out loud.
Ignoring her snarky-assed question, Johns continued.
“The military somehow failed to mention that one of their own happened to see Kerr in Idaho. Saw him ride in. Saw him ride out. This human is the one who reported a murder by a rogue Were. He was the one that found the body that was supposedly left to rot by Kerr. But the story around how that body was found doesn’t add up now that we’ve heard Kerr’s side of things, and the evidence doesn’t seem to point to him at all.”
“Dammit, Johns, this just makes it worse,” Derria declared. “So someone unknown to S.W.A.T. dropped a name and we didn’t bother to investigate whether he did it or not?” Derria fumed. “What kind of shoddy police work is that? Someone can accuse a person of murder and they can be declared the perpetrator without any evidence at all? Just shoot first and ask questions later? Or worse, don’t ask questions at all? This is some foul-assed bullshit!”
Kotara looked over at her cousin and wondered if Dare’s head was about to pop off. The natural hue of her skin combined with the blush of anger made the woman look like a caramel apple ready to blow.
“I agree. I admit we dropped the ball on this one—”
“Dropped the ball? I almost killed my fucking mate, and that’s a hell of a ball to drop! And now you’re dropping a bowling ball of a bomb on us just weeks before Christmas?”
“—so I’m going to do something I’ve never done before in my history at S.W.A.T. I’m putting this in your hands to investigate in whatever way you deem best. My only order,” said Johns, “is that neither Derria nor Lakota be allowed on this hunt simply because they might be recognized. And of course Kerr can’t go as he is not part of the agency and is the center of this mess. The rest, you can decide on your own. The human is a man named Harrison Blue. The details have already been transmitted to your comm units. Johns out.”
The screen went black and Johns was gone.
Neesia Pryde looked around the table. “Well, hell.”
* * *
Two days later, Kotara pulled off the main road and onto the trail to Alice Lake in Idaho. The sky was crystal blue and the day super bright, due to the reflection of the sun’s rays off of the thick pristine snow. The stark beauty of the Sawtooth Mountains struck a chord in her soul. To her surprise, the energy of the place reminded her of home.
“Okay, I’m at the coordinates Niah sent to my comm unit,” Kotara said to her cousin, who was the assigned liaison on this hunt.
“Uh, Tara, I’m showing you’re on a hiking trail,” Derria replied. Sounded like the woman was trying really hard not to laugh.
“Well, it is a hiking trail.”
“Kotara Ann Pryde!”
“What? You’re acting like normal people don’t take their four-wheel drives on hiking trails or something.”
“Tara?!”
“Oh, pipe down. The weather is crazy right now, so it’s closed anyway.” After a few more minutes of friendly bickering, Kotara slowed the monster she called a truck down to a crawl. “Dare, I can’t go any further in this ride. The drifts are so ridiculous, I can’t tell what’s trail and what’s going to take me off into a ravine or something. I’ll have to pick my way on foot.”
“That’s probably the best option anyway. We don’t want the guy to get wind of the fact that you’re near. If he knew enough about our kind to call in a hit to S.W.A.T. and blame it on Kerr, who knows what else he’s aware of.”
She knew Derria was right. They didn’t know if they were dealing with a matter of a little espionage or simple stupidity. Regardless of the current conundrum, she still didn’t want to leave the warmth of the oversized cab of her ride to romp around in the freezing cold.
But there was no help for it. According to their calculations, she’d have to head into the Sawtooth Mountains and make her way around to the spot where the protected forest bumped up against private property. It might look close on a map, but it was at least ten miles away.
Luckily, that was nothing for a lioness. Her chilled paws wouldn’t thank her, but she’d get the job done anyway. She pulled completely off the trail and eased into a small stand of trees to hide her ride. Snow was falling again in earnest so she wasn’t worried about covering her tire tracks.
Kotara hopped down to the ground and turned slow circles. The terrain was amazing. Sure, she was familiar with the concept of snow. After all, she lived on the plains of Wyoming where they received plenty of the white stuff every winter, but this took the concept of snow to a whole new level. In fact, this was damn ridiculous.
“Whoa! Is that a glacier?” she wondered aloud. “Holy shit!”
She really was in the middle of nowhere, in the middle of winter, in the middle of icicle hell, barely a week before the holidays. God, had she really signed up for this crap? Just how was she going to find a human way out here anyway? Surely the guy had more sense than to camp out among nothing but trees and glaciers, right?
Well, only one way to find out.
She yanked her gear bag out of the back seat, walked a short distance and dropped it on the snow-covered ground. Off came one boot, followed by a thick wool sock as she forced herself not to hop around on one foot as she removed the remaining one. Shoes and socks were carefully placed into her bag on top of her weapons, electronics and gloves. Next, off went snow pants, silk thermals, jacket and heat-regulating top that she would need to protect her from the cold after she got to her destination.
Kotara strapped her gear bag loosely to her back and fell to her knees. With the power of the change rippling through her being, she ceased to feel the acute cold that had snapped through her body when she’d removed her clothes.
A powerful shifter, as all Pryde’s were, Kotara relished the flash of unexplainable magical energy that lit the blood in her veins. As her body lengthened and reshaped itself, the muscles burned with an ecstasy that was just short of an intense high. She loved who she was, what she was. And right now, she would do what she did best.
Hunt.
Moments after stripping naked in the mountains of Idaho, a three-hundred-pound lioness loped off, headed toward the asshole that made it necessary for her to be out here in the first place. In her mind’s eye, she imagined what she would do when she caught up to him. Yep, a bite in the ass was definitely in order.
2
This was definitely the right path, she was sure of it.
The terrain here was steep and craggy. Moving carefully from rock to rock, she avoided several spots where the snow had drifted to make the trail look solid, when in fact it dropped away into deep pockets. The last thing she needed was to break her neck by stepping into thin air.
At this rate, she wouldn’t make it to her destination until she’d grown old and gray. And the only way to get new coordinates would be to engage the GPS on her comm unit, which required her to shift back to her human form.
The sun was setting quickly and she might not have a choice but to shift back, dress quickly and figure out how to get the hell out of here before nightfall. No way in hell did she want to be out in the open given the only thing she didn’t have in her gear bag was shelter.
This is not my best day ever, damn it.
Ah, there! She could see the human’s nicely hidden spot off in the distance. Shouldn’t be more than a couple of miles now! Perhaps her timetable wasn’t totally blown after all.
Now, to find a way down off this damn ridge.
* * *
Arms full of firewood, Blue could have sworn he heard a…roar? Impossible way out here. But then again, after what he’d learned from that S.W.A.T. agent who’d been passing through his town, he shouldn’t be surprised about anything.
Not anymore.
The question as to whether humans were alone
on the Earth had been answered, and the answer was a resounding “fuck no”. And it wasn’t an alien or ET type of thing that had taken up residence beside humans on this planet. It was shapeshifters. He didn’t know much about them other than the fact that a shifter had committed the one and only murder in their little town in years. Killing didn’t happen much up here, people were too busy trying to stay alive through the winter. Who had time for killing, decapitating and skinning a man?
Shivers threatened to overtake him that had nothing to do with the weather. Just the memory of what had been done to that body he’d found was enough to make him want to blow chunks right there in the wood pile.
Unbidden, his brain extracted pictures in his head—the bites, the claw marks, the blood. The ripped and torn flesh. And a missing head. Not even in all his tours of war had he ever seen a body torn up like that.
Must be a shifter thing.
He went still as a sound ripped through the still evening again that raised the hair on the back of his neck. Whatever made that noise sounded wounded, hurt. He could almost picture it stuck in the snow out there somewhere.
He grabbed his rifle and was out the door before he’d even formed a plan, or even a true reason for heading out in the growing dark after whatever-it-was.
No worries. He could always talk himself out of it as he went. The doctor inside of him rushed to action. Saving lives was his specialty. At least it had been at one point, and Blue had never played favorites with a life. Shifter or human, people couldn’t choose what they were born as.
He attached the specialized trailer to the back of his snowmobile, jumped on and headed towards the sound, hoping he could pick up some tracks or something. Seconds later, the whole ground shook, followed by an earthshattering rumble.
“Oh hell!”
Yes, he knew this music. They didn’t get avalanches on this side of the valley, but he sure as hell knew what one sounded like.
As he pushed his ride as fast as he could while still maintaining control, Blue hoped he made it in time. And if whatever he found was still alive, he only hoped he didn’t end up getting his ass chewed off in the bargain.
* * *
Kotara opened her eyes and saw absolutely nothing. Yep. This was dark. Like, out in the sticks, middle of the desert dark, even with her enhanced vision. All of her other senses seemed to be fully intact. Her ears picked up the quiet but deep breathing of someone next to her. This someone had a unique scent. It was like being surrounded by the cool woods in spring time—almost like pine and mint overlaid with something musky.
She realized that it was all around her and wafted from whatever covered her body. It was warm and soft, and smelled so good she had to have more of it.
She took in a deep breath.
Holy hell, that hurts.
“No,” a deep male voice demanded in the dark. “Don’t move. You were injured pretty badly in the avalanche. I almost didn’t get to you in time.”
Avalanche? Is that what they call it when the earth falls out from beneath your feet on the side of a mountain? Guess so.
“Are you safe?” he asked.
Was she safe? The words rumbled in the chest of the person next to her and held the slight slur of someone who’d obviously been sound asleep in spite of asking such a question. It took three tries for her to moisten her throat enough to reply. And even then all she could squeak out was a simple, “Huh?”
“You’ve been out of it for two days.”
Two days? What? She sat up…or tried to anyway.
A strong but gentle pressure held her in place via an arm that suddenly banded around her body. To her surprise, Kotara was so wiped out she didn’t have the strength to push it away.
“Wait. You’re not well. Drink a bit of water and I’ll fill you in on what’s what.” He eased his arm from around her sore body and reached for something behind him. A moment later, he said, “Here. Drink.”
A straw was pressed between her lips and her mind raced like mad as she sipped, then coughed and sputtered. “What in the world is in this water? It tastes like boiled ass.”
And he laughed, actually laughed at her in the deep rumbly voice of his. “Amino acids and electrolytes,” he admitted through his chuckles.
Now she knew how it felt when she fed nasty-assed, good-for-you things to her family.
But back to her interesting and not-fun predicament. Bottom line—she lay somewhere in the dark with an unknown man close to her very vulnerable body. And she was severely injured, if the burning in her chest, stomach and thighs was any indication. Kotara drew on her shifter energy as strongly as she drew on the straw in her mouth, but got nothing.
Damn. Totally depleted.
With an annoyed huff, she pushed the water away. “Why are you in bed with me?” she snarled.
“I only have one bed, and the couch isn’t suitable.”
“Something wrong with the floor?” she asked.
“Yep. I’m not sleeping on it. I spent enough time sleeping in inhospitable places. My home is exactly that—mine. And I sleep on the floor for no one.”
Well, all righty then.
Kotara almost smiled because honestly, that was how she’d feel about the situation if things were reversed. Only difference was there were plenty of rooms in the estate on Pryde Ranch to stick a healing person.
She tried to stretch but the pain was so intense, her breath stuck in her lungs. “So what’s damaged?” she asked between pants.
The doctor part of herself grumbled as he described what she’d already ascertained for herself. Several broken ribs—thank goodness she wasn’t blowing bubbles through her lungs—but it all hurt so much, there was no telling whether anything had been punctured. The lacerations across the stomach and the muscles in her back and legs burned as if shredded. It was all knitting slowly, thanks to her shifter genetics, but damn, the healing hurt almost as much as the injuries.
Now back to his original question.
“What the hell do you mean by ‘am I safe’?”
“Are you planning to eviscerate me?”
“Why would I do that?” She really was confused, then the lightbulb in her brain began to turn on as she became more and more awake. When she’d fallen, she’d been fully shifted.
“When I found you, you looked like one of those beautiful lionesses from big cat week on that television channel where they have all the animal documentaries. No way in hell an African lion should be in these parts, right? I dug you out and carried you to my ATV. You started changing in my arms.”
Fuck-a-duck.
“Am I safe? Hell no, but I mean you no harm. Move your arm, please. Help me sit up.”
The moment the covers slipped, she wished she’d remained snuggled in. It was cold as all get out. No surprise for Idaho in the middle of winter. Once in a semi-sitting position, Mr. Deep Voice shoved some pillows behind her so she could sit unaided. Then he rolled away from her and clicked on the light.
Their gazes met and the growl deep in her throat was full of deadly promise. “I may have to change my mind on that whole mean you no harm thing,” Kotara said.
“Why?”
“Because,” she said quietly as she pulled back a bandage and inspected a wound. “You’re the person I came up here to find.”
“Me?” he wondered aloud.
“Yes, you. Nice work on the stitches, by the way.”
“You’re welcome. I think.”
Inspecting the next sore spot, she said, “I’m Kotara. Kotara Pryde.”
“Harrison Blue. Nice to meet you.”
“Uh huh. You a doctor?” She’d read everything she could get her hands on about this man, both classified and not-so-classified. A first rate trauma surgeon, he’d been awarded the Medal of Honor for saving countless lives on and off the battlefield at great risk to himself. He’d even performed a surgery under mortar fire, for crying out loud. It was pretty impressive. She also knew he’d retired barely a year ago and really just wanted to kn
ow if he would tell her the truth.
“I am indeed a doctor. Or I used to be when I was in the Navy. Why would such a beautiful woman be looking for me? Don’t get me wrong, I couldn’t be happier to have a lovely lady in my bed, but considering you could shift and tear me to pieces, it makes me wonder what you’re doing here.”
In spite of the fact that the man’s fists settled on a pair of slim hips, he had the body of a warrior. Up north were ripped abs, perfect pecs and shoulders, and buffed biceps. South were thick thighs and powerful looking calves. And the package covered by a pair of silk boxers was nothing to sneeze at.
Yep, absolute warrior all right.
A stitch stuck to the bandage she inspected. “I’m here,” she gasped on an agony-filled breath, “trying to solve a riddle.”
He replaced her hands with his own and eased the bandage free. “I’m not good at riddles,” he replied in a perfect bedside-manner voice—not too loud, not too soft.
“Then it’s a good thing you’re not the one that needs to solve it.” He pried at the edges of one of the deeper wounds across her ribs. Pain slammed through her torso and a gasp caught in her throat. Kotara’s eyes shut without her permission and the last thing she remembered as she passed out was a whispered, “Bless your heart,” as the bed dipped next to her.
3
What in the hell am I getting myself into? Blue wondered to himself. She’s a shifter. Could split me open from neck to knees with no effort, yet here I am nursing her wounds and watching over her in my bed.
And fighting the insane need to hold her, help her, and take care of her. Which made no dang sense considering he’d just met her. Correction, he’d actually met a big ass lioness out in the snow drifts. This woman, this Kotara Pryde, had shown herself just a little bit later as the beast faded and the woman came to the forefront.
And he’d been instantly snared by her beauty, both in her animal and human forms. Captured by her vitality, even though it was currently hidden beneath her unconsciousness.
