by Amy Ruttan
“Look that’s fine, but I won’t have you put Lesa in harm’s way.”
“I’ll get you, Lesa and Nash somewhere safe first. Though the Phoenix Agency can protect you better than I can.”
“No!” she shouted. “No Phoenix Agency!”
He glanced at her. “What’re you afraid of? You’ve always been so afraid. What is it? What drives the fear?”
Everything.
Only she didn’t say that thought out loud. She didn’t want to be involved with another agency. Once this whole thing was over she could return to the north with Auyuittuq and live in peace.
“I don’t want them involved. Nash understood. I want to be long gone before the Phoenix Agency comes around.”
“They’re not something to be afraid of,” Mason said gently. “It’s not like the institutions you had to deal with.”
Her heart skipped a beat. “What?”
“I saw it, in your mind. You were in the foster system and you were sent to a psychiatric…”
“Just stop!” she shouted. “Don’t read my mind.”
She didn’t like that he was in her head. This is why she kept it secret from him. If she didn’t have to communicate telepathically with him to avoid GKA detection in that tavern he wouldn’t have access to her thoughts.
And vice versa.
Of course, the GKA did find them and now Mason had access to her. It was like they were bound by this invisible tether and she didn’t like being tied down.
“You read mine,” he snapped back, interrupting her thoughts.
“Don’t probe my mind further,” she said, quietly. “I had my reasons for probing yours. This is just a favor to your brother for saving Lesa and me. Once you and Nash are reunited, Lesa and I are out of there.”
“Fine.”
He turned off the highway and headed toward Fort Providence. May really hoped that this was where his other plane was, because she knew there wasn’t a road north of Fort Providence and she wanted to put some distance between her and Mason LaCroix.
As fast as she could.
Chapter Three
Mason did the final check of his small bush plane. May was pacing in the hangar. He could sense that she wanted to get out of here, that she wanted to be far away from him, just like before. So nothing had changed. She was still pissed at him.
And that was fine by him. It was better this way.
Was it?
As he did the safety checks, he couldn’t help but watch her. She ran her hand through her long, straight brown hair. She wore a thick layer of dark eyeliner around those hazel eyes, as if she was trying to hide something. Her body was lean, athletic and strong. From the moment he first met her, he knew she was edgy, but he didn’t realize why she was. He also learned what a good shot she was with a gun. What didn’t surprise him was what a damn good kisser she was.
Just thinking of when she kissed him made his blood heat with need and he quickly glanced down at his hands, which were glowing.
Dammit.
He had to get this under control. There was no way he was going to let his emotions get out of control. He saw Bryant’s scars and Lexie told him how it happened. The thought of hurting a woman in a moment that was supposed to be about pleasure made his stomach reel.
Maybe Lexie was right and I should head down to the Lotus Circle.
The problem was he never had the time with his business to run, and he wasn’t sure he was going to even survive this mission. He almost didn’t survive the last one.
He glanced back over at May. She was jumpy and had stopped pacing to look at him. She’d blocked her mind to him. He could sense the barriers up and she was looking at him as if to challenge him to try and move past those barriers, but he wouldn’t.
And that was fine.
Seeing that she was just as attracted to him as he was to her made it harder to keep his control in check.
Even if she didn’t trust him anymore he could still sense her desire for him. In the brief moment they were connected he saw how he still invaded her thoughts. How she still thought of all those times they made love. And when he closed his eyes he could see her beneath him, feel her tight, wet pussy wrapped around his cock.
Mason smelled smoke and cursed, as he tried to regain control of his newly developed pyrokinetic abilities.
“Are you almost ready to go?” she asked haughtily.
“Yeah,” he turned his back to her and finished the last of his work. “Let’s load the firearms. They’re in the back of the truck. Plus a go bag.”
She nodded and got what he asked for.
Mason took the items from her and stowed them safely in the back of the plane. If they were headed into polar bear country, he was going to need his rifle. York Factory was a very weird place to hide out. Lesa and Nash probably had guns to fend off any bears that would wander into the area.
“Where am I landing this plane?”
“What do you mean?”
“I can’t land this plane in Churchill, that’s quite a bit from York Factory and I can’t land the plane at York Factory either. There’s no landing strip and it’s a historic site.”
“Gillam. I have a boat there that will take us up the Nelson River to where Lesa and Nash are holed up.”
May climbed into the plane and Mason finished closing everything up. He climbed into the pilot’s seat and put on his headset. May slipped on hers.
“It’s pretty brazen,” Mason remarked, as he went about his preflight check.
“What is?” May asked.
“Being holed up in polar bear territory.”
A secret smile danced across her lips. “They’re safe.”
“If they have rifles I’m sure…”
May snorted. “They don’t need rifles to protect them from the bears.”
“You’re not just a bit afraid of the polar bears?”
“No. Did you not see what my projection was? The bears and I are connected.”
Mason just shook his head. “If you say so.”
He started the engine and began to slowly taxi out onto the small gravel landing strip on his property. Here he didn’t need to file a flight plane or tell anyone where they were going. Once they landed in Gillam he’d make sure Mike knew where they were.
May didn’t want the Phoenix Agency involved, but they needed to be involved. Parker may have attacked Nash, but Mason was pretty sure that it was him that Parker was after. They wanted to use him to break out General Knight, because Mason was pretty sure they’d found out that he was a strong telekinetic after what happened last year.
Parker was using Nash as bait.
As long as they don’t use May as bait.
That thought terrified him.
He wasn’t going to allow May to get hurt. Not by him. He’d done enough damage. He would take care of Nash and make sure Nash was safe, then he would go looking for Parker. He would draw his younger brother out. Parker had telekinetic abilities, but they weren’t as strong as his. He could handle Parker.
The Phoenix Agency could handle the GKA and Commander Denham as long as Mason was able to deal with Parker.
Mason pulled the plane out on the runway and began to his line up to take off. The tundra tires rolled down the gravel, gaining momentum until he ran out of space and lifted his plane into the sky.
As he cleared the top of the forest he heard May in his head, whispering, scared, and he glanced briefly over at her.
Her eyes were closed tight and she was clutching her seat.
It didn’t take long before Mason had his bush plane in its cruising altitude and he was able to reach out to her. Not touch her, but able to focus on making sure she was calmed down.
“It’s okay, hey, we’re fine.”
“I don’t like flying,” she muttered.
“How did you get to Yellowknife if you were down in Manitoba then? Did you drive?” he was teasing her and she knew it. She shot him an antagonistic look.
“Ha ha. I flew in a bigg
er plane, but these little bush planes always freak me out.”
“The bush plane is safe. I swear.” He reached over and pointed. “This is the directional indictor. It tells me where we’re going. And this, this is the altimeter and it tells me the altitude. We’re not as high as those commercial jets. It will take longer to fly to Gillam.”
“What’s this?” she asked pointing to a dial.
“That is the clock,” he teased.
May laughed and then covered her face with her hands. “Oh man.”
“It’s okay. At least you’re relaxing now. You’re safe with me.”
Her smile disappeared. “You’ve told me that before and, then, I wasn’t really safe with you.”
“Just because I was Phoenix Agency doesn’t mean you weren’t safe with me.”
“You were spying on me. You were sent to find me.”
“They just wanted to help,” Mason said softly.
“I don’t need their help.”
He cocked an eyebrow. “Oh really?”
“Fine. I do this time, but I don’t want to be part of another organization like that. I’ve been through the system, Mason. Bounced from foster home to foster home. No one wanting me because of my powers. And then I was locked away in a psychiatric hospital where I was given so many meds.” She closed her eyes. “I just…I have no faith in anything like that.”
It was like a punch to the gut knowing how she’d been so hurt. He’d had a happy childhood. It killed him to know that May suffered so much. She didn’t deserve it.
“I didn’t know back then,” he said gently.
“I don’t tell people,” she said softly. “It’s something I carry around and I don’t burden many people with it. I can tell you feel bad for me.”
“Not bad. Sad and quite angry that you were treated like that. You were just a child.”
“Yeah, well in some ways it was better than being dragged around in a truck by a drug addict father. He finally left me in a seedy bar in Whitehorse. I think he’s dead now and, frankly, good riddance.”
“And what about your mother?”
She glared at him. “Why are you asking me all these questions?”
“You know so much about me and my brothers. I think fair is fair.”
“I never knew her. She died giving birth to me. Lesa is the only one who cared for me. Maybe she’s more like a mother than a sister, being in her fifties. She took me in when I was eighteen and about to start my life on the streets. She saw me for who I was and gave me a chance. I can’t let her get hurt. I have to protect her. She has powers too. She’s a strong healer and no one must know. She doesn’t want people to know.”
“I won’t tell the Phoenix Agency. I promise, and you can read my mind to know that what I’m saying right now is true. I won’t tell the Phoenix Agency about Lesa.”
May nodded. “Okay. I appreciate that.”
She relaxed in her seat as they flew over Wood Buffalo National Park and headed down over Lake Athabasca and settlements that were only reached by plane or ice road.
“We’re in Saskatchewan now.”
“Good. I just want to get back to Lesa and make sure that she’s okay.”
He understood, because he wanted to get to Nash and see if he was all right. He wasn’t too optimistic about his brother. A broken spine was devastating. Even if Lesa was a healer, Mason didn’t see how that could be fixed without surgical intervention.
Nash needed to get to a hospital to get checked out.
And then once May, Lesa and Nash were safe, Mason would go looking for Parker, because Nash wasn’t the only injured one. Parker was hurting. Mason knew it.
He was going to save his youngest brother from the grip of General Knight’s Army. He’d promised their mother on her death bed that he’d look after him, and he hadn’t done a very good job.
And Mason felt responsible for that. He wasn’t sure that he could forgive himself.
“Your hands are glowing,” May said interrupting his chain of thoughts.
“What?” Mason looked down.
Dammit.
He took a calming breath and tried to quell that anger, the guilt, the pain which was rising in him and causing him to lose control. The last thing he needed to do was set the cockpit on fire. He got control of it.
Lexie had been impressed over how fast he could regain control.
“I was never able to do that,” Lexie said. “Well, not that fast.”
“What?” Mason asked.
“Pull back the flames. I could never control them. Not the way you can.”
“You okay?” May asked.
“I will be. I was just thinking about…”
“Don’t think about it,” May interrupted. “You don’t want to set anything on fire and cause us to crash. Not after you just spent some time convincing me that this was a safe mode of transportation.”
He smiled at her, laughing gently. “When you’re right, you’re right.”
She smiled at him, her dark eyes twinkling. “I know that I’m right. You should remember that about me. I’m always right, except when I’m wrong.”
“And that’s never.”
“You got it,” she teased.
They hit a patch of turbulence and the plane lurched. May gripped the sides of her seat and looked a little bit green.
“There’s some cloud cover ahead. A storm perhaps, but we’re okay. If it gets really bad we’ll land.”
She nodded. “Okay. How much longer to Gillam?”
“An hour or so. I’m hoping I can find an old mining camp or somewhere to land the plane. Just so we don’t draw attention to ourselves.”
“I know the perfect place. There’s an old mine just north of Gillam. It won’t be a long hike to where my boat is. Your plane will be safe there and hidden.”
“Great. How long will the boat ride take?”
“Ten to twelve hours, round trip. It all depends on the tides.”
“So we’ll have to grab provisions.”
May nodded. “Yep. We’ll honestly have to start tomorrow morning, since by the time we land in Gillam the stores will be closed. I have a place we can stay though.”
“We’ll need more ammo. Stuff for my high velocity rifle.”
“Why?” she asked. “Is it for the GKA?”
“The bears.”
She rolled her eyes. “You don’t have to worry about the polar bears. They won’t bother us. Auyuittuq and I have it under control.”
He glanced at her. “Who is Auyuittuq?”
“My pet.”
“Your pet protects you from polar bears?” Mason asked dumbfounded.
“My pet is a polar bear.”
Mason’s stomach dropped to the sole of his shoes. “Your what?”
May laughed gently. “I found him as an orphaned cub. I can communicate with polar bears. Auyuittuq especially. How do you think Lesa and Nash are so well protected at York Factory? They’re surrounded by a contingent of vicious carnivores.”
Mason shuddered. “Look, I know how vicious they can be. I’ve flown victims from remote villages down to Yellowknife for treatment. I know what havoc the top predator of the north can do.”
“You don’t have anything to fear,” May said. “Polar bears are a sign of rebirth you know. They bring good luck. Besides, attacks are made on those who are foolish. Those fools who get too close, who provoke, or the bear is simply starved. I would go on a rant about climate change, but I’m not going to get into that. People are encroaching on too much wild territory and the natural prey is disappearing. Trust me when I say we’ll be safe around them.”
Mason wasn’t sure he completely believed that. He’d seen the full force of what a polar bear could do and it terrified him. He had much respect for the animals, but he knew well enough to keep his distance from them.
Inuit people who lived up in the Baffin Islands had a respect for them. People who didn’t listen to their guides on fishing and hunting trips were the ones who f
ell victim.
He’d heard guides talk to people about setting up tents on the islands and then getting mauled. Those stupid people didn’t listen to the people who lived on the land the longest. When a guide tells you to stay on your boat, stay on your boat, and that’s what Mason aimed to do.
The clouds became thicker and he dropped a bit lower to get out of the cloud cover. He could tell that May was worried.
It’s okay. I got this.
And he hoped that she heard that.
It wasn’t long before they were in Manitoba and May was looking out the window to spot the mine she was talking about north of Gillam.
“There, can you see it on your aft side?”
Mason glanced out of his window and did a fly-by of the old abandoned air strip that seemed to be swallowed up by the swampy trees of the boreal forest.
“Got it. I hope it’s dry down there.”
“It is,” May said. “It’s higher elevation than the muskeg.”
“Roger that.” Mason turned his plane around and did a lineup with the airstrip. There was more than enough room for him to land. Probably larger planes, like jets, used to land here to transport stuff to and from the mine.
He slowly brought the plane down. There was a bit of wind from a storm that was whipping up from the east, but Mason compensated for the gusts by landing in sideways, which was referred to as crabbing. The tundra tires hit the runway and rolled along the bumpy bush runway until he was able to slow it down.
By then it began to pour down rain.
“Doesn’t look like we’ll be hiking out of here tonight,” he said over the roar of rain.
“No, but there’s a couple of bunks not far from here.”
“You head for there,” Mason said shutting off the engine. “I’m grabbing the guns and go bag.”
“Okay.” May took off her headset and slipped out of the plane, heading straight for the nearest abandoned bunkie.
Mason took off his head set and then climbed out of the cockpit. The rain was cold and was heavy. He was soaked in a few minutes. As he went around to grab what he needed out of the cargo hold, the incessant drumming of rain drowned out the sound of the world around him.
The metallic static in his head let out of a hellish screech, like a banshee, and it caused a shudder to run down his spine. A bolt of lightning raced across the sky, as all sound of the storm faded into the static, and Mason spun around.
