by Debra Dunbar
“Some of us. Swift River Pack keeps their businesses consolidated and their members work for them. We operate more like a club. We each have responsibilities, and every wolf knows that pack duties come first, but beyond that everyone except our Alpha has an outside career. I used to work for a corporation, but now I have my own company and do marketing for small businesses on a contract basis.”
“Smart woman.”
He sounded rather awed, even though I wasn’t doing anything that a thousand other people weren’t doing. “What about you?”
He put two plates on the table and pulled out a chair for me. I sat, salivating at the huge slab of fried halibut on the plate surrounded by honeyed carrots and roasted brussels sprouts.
“I sell the wood I chop, sell meat from my hunting. Don’t need a lot of money. If I do, I’ll do odd jobs for a bit of cash or trade.”
I took a few bites, savoring the unexpected joy that was Karl’s cooking before asking him to elaborate.
“How do you get the wood into town for deliveries without a truck? How do people know you’re selling it if you don’t have a phone or e-mail?” The whole thing boggled my mind. How in the world did people live like this?
“I go into town on occasion and put a note up on the board outside the grocery store. People drive out if they want wood or meat, or if they want me to pull up tree stumps for them. Some humans out here live the same way, Brina. It’s not that odd.”
It seemed odd to me. I envisioned some human showing up out of the blue with a pick-up truck to buy a cord of wood, or to ask Karl to hop in the cab and go off somewhere to pull stumps or clear trees. I guess it was no different than picking up one of the people who hung out in the home improvement store parking lot looking for day jobs.
“I only need enough for things like books, clothes, the occasional tool or hinge, or latch I can’t make myself. And toilet paper.” He grinned. “That’s where I draw the line. Decent toilet paper is a necessity of life.”
I’d never really thought of that. I shook my head to dislodge all the “bear crapping in the woods” jokes. “How long does it take you to walk into town?”
“Few hours if I walk. Less if I run. I make a day of it and enjoy the journey.”
It hit me. That was pretty much Karl’s philosophy on life. And I suddenly wanted it to be mine. I’d like to enjoy the journey too, instead of obsessing over crossing the next thing off my to-do list and living for what needed to be set up and accomplished to meet the next day’s, the next week’s, the next year’s goals.
“Wait…” Something suddenly struck me. “How do you get to your other dens? It must take you weeks to get up to Juneau or Skagway if you’re walking. Does someone give you a lift? Do you hitchhike? Use your savings to take a ferry?”
Every muscle in his body tensed. “I make my own way. Walk some.”
What wasn’t he telling me? “You better head out tomorrow if you want to make it in time for the barbeque, then. Juneau is a long walk, especially if you’re going around the ice fields.”
“I’ve got a den near Juneau. It’s quicker traveling to my dens.”
No. No, it wasn’t. “What, the chimneys connect or something like in Harry Potter? How is it quicker for you to get to your den in Juneau versus some other place in Juneau?”
He sat his fork down. “My dens are beacons. They’re home. If I want to move from home to home, I just do it.”
Was he saying what I thought he was saying? “Like waypoints on a GPS? You close your eyes, click the heels of your ruby slippers together, then poof, you’re there?”
“Don’t know anything about GPS stuff, but my dens are home. Anything that’s home to me, I can travel to. I just want to be there, and I go.”
Teleporting. He was telling me that he could teleport. Ahia was a frickin’ angel and she couldn’t teleport. The gate guardian could. Ahia’s main-squeeze, Raphael, could, but he was an archangel. Karl had sworn he wasn’t Nephilim. Was he an angel? What in the heck was he?
“Can you do it right now? Can you show me? Go up to your home in Juneau, then back. I want to see you do this.”
He shook his head. “I can’t right now. I don’t want to go there. I want to be here with you.”
That was just plain weird. “There are days I don’t want to get in the car and go to the grocery store, but I still can do it. Are you telling me there has to be a deep-seated desire to be at a different den for you to teleport there? You can’t just say ‘oh, I really want the copy of Sons and Lovers from the Juneau den’ and pop back and forth?”
He grunted, then ate a few bites of fish. “I’d have to need that book. Not just think it would be nice to read it, but need it.”
“And the barbeque?”
His eyes met mine. Heat pooled low in my body. “I need to be at that barbeque. It’s more than want, Brina. Fact, I’m kinda worried I might be dreaming one night and wake up to find myself up at the den in Juneau.”
I concentrated on my food, thinking about what he’d said. There was something visceral needed for him to teleport, and his feelings for me qualified. A wet dream might trigger a teleport. Wow…that was some sexual attraction. I’d never inspired that kind of lust before. Ever. It was a heady feeling to know he desired me that much.
I scooped the last bit of fish off my plate only to have Karl cut a section of his and slide it over to me. “Trying to fatten me up?”
I don’t know why I said that. Probably because I was still a bit awestruck at Karl’s attraction to me, his passion for me. And underneath all my confidence and assertive dominance was an insecurity about my skinny, non-feminine body. Carpenter’s dream because I was flat as a board. Built like a boy. Skinny where women were supposed to be curvy. Hard where women were supposed to be soft. Good for a drunken one-night stand. Good to have as a buddy. Good to date until a better wolf came along.
“Like you the way you are. You’re rangy and strong, lean and tough. You’re smart. You’re determined. You’re powerful. You’re the kind of woman a strong man needs by his side and in his bed. You’re beautiful with hair like Indian Paintbrush in late summer, freckles like stars in the night sky, like spots on an orchid. I want to feed you because you like my cooking, and I don’t have much else to offer you.”
I caught my breath, feeling the sting of tears in my eyes. I guess we all had our own insecurities.
“I’m not a smart bear, Brina. I never went to school. I learned to read on my own. My folks taught me basic math because it was useful knowledge, but that was it. I don’t know marketing or computer stuff. I don’t know how things work in a pack. I can only manage to spend a day around big groups of shifters before I want to either kill someone or go into a cave and hide for a few weeks. I don’t like humans much. I’m good at killing, at hunting, at chopping wood. And I’m good at cooking fish. That’s all I got.”
What a pair we were. All we seemed to have in common was rocking sex. And the feeling that neither one of us had more to give than rocking sex.
I finished the fish, sat back and looked over at Karl, a heavy lump somewhere in my middle. “This isn’t going to work, is it? This thing between us is going to flame out in a few weeks once we get all the screwing out of our system.”
The gold rolled over his irises, lighting them up. “It will work. It’s more than sex. You’re more than just a good fuck, Brina. We’re different, but we fit together like puzzle pieces. And there’s no flaming out for us. There’s no getting you out of my system.”
There was an intensity in his deep voice that lit me up from inside. “I’ll…I’ll do the dishes,” I announced, standing abruptly. Wait. No dishwasher. Did I have to lug water in from the well or something?
“Fuck the dishes,” Karl growled. Then he stood and flipped the table over.
I yelped in surprise, then laughed as he grabbed me and threw me over his shoulder, climbing up the loft ladder and tossing me down on the mattress.
Karl shed his pants in one quick m
ovement while I watched, grinning. Then he stood there, arms crossed, one eyebrow raised.
“Well?”
Oh. Guess I was supposed to get myself naked instead of waiting for him to tear the clothing off me. I stood, careful to position myself in the part of the loft where I wouldn’t bang my head, which put me about six inches from Karl. I could feel the heat coming off his skin as I pulled my shirt over my head and shimmied out of my shorts. Then I gave him a naughty wink and slowly unsnapped my bra, letting it slide down my arms to his feet. He watched, silent, eyes shimmering with that eerie gold light.
Catching his gaze, I hooked my thumbs in the waistband of my panties and waited for him to drop his stare downward, then slowly wiggled them down my legs.
“There. Naked and ready,” I told him, my voice husky.
“Ready? Cause I haven’t even touched you yet.”
I smiled. “Ready. And I can clearly tell that you’re ready too.”
He grinned, stepping forward and picking me up, nearly banging my head on the rafters as he tossed me over his shoulder. Then he dropped to his knees and slid my body down along his until I was on my back with him straddling me. We lay there, sharing a breath. I reached out a hand and trailed my fingers along his face, feeling the scrape of his scruffy whiskers, the hard planes of his cheekbones, the softness of his lips. Then he bent his head and kissed me—my lips, my neck, my breasts, my stomach, until he was between my legs and all I could do was close my eyes and arch my back, moaning with each touch of his tongue.
My senses swirled together—the intimate cozy feel of his den, the smell of wood smoke and pine, of Karl, of our lust curling through the air, the sound of our movements against the sheets, of my ragged breathing and Karl’s murmured endearments, of the sensation of him, so huge and powerful looming over me, my legs tossed over his shoulders.
His fingers joined his tongue and before long I was begging, pleading with him to make me come, but each time I was close, he eased off and my climax danced just out of my reach. Just when I thought I would go insane, he plunged two fingers into me, sucking hard on my clit and my orgasm roared through me. I threw back my head and cried out, bucking against him, my hands gripping his hair. Then slowly he shifted upward, my legs still on his shoulders as he climbed over me.
“This okay?” he asked. I was bent double, his cock pressed against my entrance, his mouth against mine.
“Hell yeah it is,” I told him, my voice sounding breathless and light.
He chuckled and he pushed deep inside of me, swallowing my gasp with his mouth. Damn. He was big, and pretzeled-up like this he felt even bigger. But it felt inexplicably good being filled to the edge of discomfort, feeling him struggle to hold himself back as he drove himself in and out, kissing me like he was drinking water in the desert.
I gripped his arms, my nails digging into his skin. It seemed to send him over the edge, and his pace became fast and uneven. His mouth left mine and I heard him inhale sharply, I felt him thicken. He slammed himself deep, and I felt myself slip over the edge, felt myself shatter just as he shuddered and poured himself into me.
We soared. As he opened his eyes, that unearthly golden glow stared down at me. For a moment neither of us breathed. We just existed, two people, two beings who had come together and connected in an incredibly intimate fashion. There was something in his gaze, as if he wanted to tell me something, then he closed his eyes and exhaled, dropping his head so that his hair hid his face.
I reached up and smoothed it aside, pulling him down so that I could kiss his forehead, his eyelids, his cheeks and lips.
“Thank you for inviting me to share your den,” I whispered. “There’s nowhere I’d rather be tonight.”
At my words his head lifted, his eyes searching mine. “It’s your den now, Brina. It’s all yours.”
10
I woke up in a panic, not knowing what time it was and not wanting to keep Dustin waiting at the harbor. My phone was dead, and inexplicably, Karl had no clocks in his house. Although I guess it wasn’t all that unusual for a guy with no electricity or running water to forgo a time-keeping device. Out here, so disconnected from anything resembling a nine-to-five, a clock wouldn’t be necessary.
Unless you had a friend spending the night who needed to catch a plane at six in the morning.
I threw on my clothes, gave a groggy Karl a kiss and ran for the Jeep.
“Crap. Crap,” I muttered, catching a glimpse of the dashboard clock. I’d need to hustle. And I couldn’t leave a note or say a proper goodbye to Karl as I wanted to. Normally I’d just text him later. Normally I’d call him later.
This was so not going to work. How the heck could I tell him I’d had a wonderful time and wanted to see him soon? Did the guy even get postal service deliveries for me to send a quick post-booty-call postcard?
Except I didn’t want this to be a booty call. We were so different. There was something deep down inside him that scared me. The sex was good, but a relationship needed more than sex to survive. Books? And I did like to hunt and fish. Maybe we could meet halfway. I hoped so because I really wanted things to work between me and this bear.
And if they didn’t…well, we’d just screw each other until the attraction burned out, then go our separate ways. The thought made me sad, but it was what it was. At my age, I’d learned to take these things as they came and not try to force a long-term connection where there was none.
I made it. The clock hit six just as I pulled into the harbor parking area. I grabbed my duffle bag and locked the keys in the Jeep’s console as instructed, and watched Dustin fly down Tongass Narrows in his landing approach. The guy could fly. Of course, he spent most of his time in this plane. Originally the Swift River Pack had used it, and Dustin, to shuttle their hiking/climbing/hunting tours to various Alaska destinations, but they quickly realized the other two wolf packs in the state needed frequent and reliable transportation. Jake, the Swift River Alpha, was shrewd like that, always on the lookout for a way to increase revenues for their pack. And Dustin was the perfect guy to take charge of this part of their business. He was smart, and had a chill-attitude. He wasn’t what I’d call submissive, but he wasn’t so dominant that there was a constant pissing match between him and his customers. Dustin had a friendliness that made everyone trust him and confide in him. He was like a bartender, only thousands of feet in the air.
The plane swooped down, a trail of mist in its wake as the pontoons touched down. Slowing, Dustin pivoted the aircraft around and made his way to the dock, expertly pulling alongside.
“Hey Sabrina!” The werewolf grinned at me, his blond hair spilling over his eyes—which looked tired. If I’d been up early, Dustin had been up earlier. Although I doubted he’d been awake most of the night having sex with a grizzly shifter.
“Hey, Dustin. Busy day I hear.”
He nodded, grabbing my duffle bag then helping me into the plane. “You. Then I’ve got to go up to Anchorage to grab a couple of the Denali pack and take them home. Then I’ve got a cold beer and a couple of steaks waiting for me back home.”
Now that sounded divine. I took the headset Dustin offered and donned it, flicking the “on” switch so we could have a conversation over the loud noise of the propeller engines.
“You must have caught that rogue pretty fast,” Dustin commented as he turned the plane around. “Although I’m not surprised. I heard you had help from one of the grizzly shifters. Those guys are downright terrifying in a fight.”
I didn’t ask when Dustin had ever seen grizzly shifters fight. “I did the tracking, and Karl did the rest,” I admitted.
“Karl?” Dustin shot me a quick glance before turning the plane for our take-off. “That guy is more than terrifying. He’s like hell on earth. I saw him get into it with a polar bear shifter once. The guy was a smear on the pavement when they were done. I swear, I don’t even think Karl is a grizzly.”
I leaned back in the seat as Dustin accelerated and we rose above th
e water, the plane tilting as it came around to head north. “I don’t think he’s a grizzly either,” I admitted. “He said his mother was. He won’t talk about his father.”
Dustin nodded sagely. “Lots of people won’t talk about their fathers. Not everyone had a great childhood, Sabrina. Although, I gotta say, I’ve always wondered if Karl wasn’t secretly a Nephilim.”
Me too. “He says he isn’t. He says all he can do is bear and human forms. But there’s something in his eyes…” I didn’t know why I was discussing this with Dustin. Bartender. I swear the pilot was just like a bartender. Or hairdresser.
Dustin shrugged. “Maybe his father was a Nephilim. Most second generations don’t have anything more than other shifters beyond enhanced fertility, but he could be the exception. All I know is I’m glad he’s a pretty chill dude most of the time. Seems like it takes a lot to get him riled up, but when he gets riled up, I don’t want to be anywhere near him.”
I thought back on the last few days with the grizzly shifter. He’d said he’d never hurt me, that I could trust him. And I believed him. As frighteningly powerful as Karl was, as much as the darkness behind his eyes scared me, I got the feeling I was somehow precious to him.
The thought brought a smile to my face. “Do you mind if I sleep a bit? It was a long night.” I told Dustin.
He shot me a perceptive look. Yeah. I’d not had time to shower even if Karl had indoor plumbing, and I probably smelled to high heaven of sex-with-grizzly-shifter. Dustin knew very well what I’d been doing all night.
“No problem. I’ll wake you when we land.”
Brent paced back and forth in his kitchen. I was sitting on a stool at the center island. Ahia and her angel, Raphael, were leaning against the counters, watching Brent.
“I don’t like this. I don’t like it at all,” the Alpha declared.
Neither did I. “So what do we do? The police won’t get involved unless we can prove people aren’t acting in self-defense, which means we need to counteract the forced shifting and stop the rogue attacks.”
