“That too,” he admitted with a laugh.
Rone shoved aside his personal problems for a moment and helped unload the bags from their arms so they could brush off the powdery snow before wetting the floor.
“Hey, man, thanks. What’s brought you by?”
“Can’t a brother come over and keep a sister company?”
“Sure, especially if you bring those little pies you make.”
“Check,” Cherry offered like she’d won the lottery. “Didn’t let him through the door without them.” Lorne walked over to Cherry and placed a tender kiss on her forehead.
“Glad to know you guys have your priorities all lined up. I also had the head baker place in a few other things. New breads and pastries I’m trying out.”
Armed with a little more information than what he began the night with, Rone clasped hands with Kohl and then Lorne before giving his sister-in-law a hug. “Thank you. You take care of my little nieces or nephews. I’m already working on a special little something down at the bakery in their honor.”
Cherry beamed up at him, and his heart lightened a fraction at seeing her smile return.
“Are you not staying, bro?” What’s the rush?”
Cherry wound her hands around Lorne and Kohl. “You boys let him go. He has some work to do.”
Both looked at him but didn’t say anything else. Didn’t have to. Both his brother and the new brother that came into the family with their union with Cherry understood instantly.
He turned and palmed the handle to the door. When he was on the job he would become focused like a laser beam. He could feel tunnel vision coming on now and one black-haired blue-eyed angel was his sole focus.
“Hey, Rone.”
He turned back to Cherry where she stood in the kitchen with her men. Her new family. Something he wanted to give Sabine if she would only let him show her what that kind of happiness meant.
“Yeah?”
Cherry crossed the apartment and grabbed a scarf he’d seen her work on here and there when she would visit the bar. She wound it around his neck and waited to speak until he raised his gaze to hers. “Be gentle with her. She’s trying her best and when she is ready she’ll let you in. Just show her the love I know you have in your heart and she’ll be unable to deny the gravitational pull you Wylde men have over a woman.”
He nodded. Before Sabine his heart didn’t want love and he was perfectly fine with hooking up with one-night stands and tourists that liked an adventure with a shifter. Now he only wanted her.
“There’s one more thing you should know. Be ready for her to run. I did it and if Loren and Kohl hadn’t stopped me I wouldn’t be here.”
“Yes, you would. We would have crawled our way to Texas to find you and beg you to take us as your mates and husbands.”
He wouldn’t let her get that far without a fight. Unlike humans, shifters didn’t need months to find out if a mate was the one. He was foolish to try to fight the connection he felt and looking back, it was ridiculous to even try. He wanted her plain and simple. Now he had to peel back the layers for her to see them without the jaded past blocking the full view.
“That’s an entirely different conversation, boys,” she chastised with a slap to Kohl’s shoulder.
He excused himself and stepped out into the cold. Fat flurries whipped through the biting cold air and kicked into an angry whirlwind that mirrored the chaos going on in his head.
He slammed the truck door closed and sat there in the dark as the snowstorm raged just beyond the windshield. His bear pawed at the thin veil that separated his beast and human side, pushing him to throw the door back open and head the call of his beast. It wanted free, to shift and hunt down their mate.
He tightened his fingers around the wheel and squelched the wave of energy that threatened to take over.
His cock was like steel wedged behind the bite of his zipper. Fire dripped into his blood stream and wouldn’t stop the more he thought about the smell of Sabine that clung to him. The heat of her body and the way she moaned as he took her from behind.
His gums ached and his teeth threatened to punch through. The world beyond the glass sharpened and the scent of everything within a mile pinged on his radar. Rabbits, foxes and one very timid human.
How the hell did he get through to a woman that didn’t want his help? Didn’t understand the love of a family, and sure the hell didn’t want anything to do with Alaska?
He scrubbed a hand down his face and brushed off the snowflakes that landed in his hair and used the back of the scarf to dry off the little drops of water that clung to his hands. He paused. He smiled. Why, of course.
Looking out over the hood, he pointed the truck back to town and gunned it as a new plan took hold.
CHAPTER NINE
Dodging Rone would be hard, but she would slip out the back door and let the darkness swallow her. Adam said fifteen minutes and to meet him at the tiny airstrip a mile outside of town. She worried about the snowstorm but he reassured her it wasn’t anything to ground them. Yet. In another hour or so she would be screwed and snowbound for another day, maybe two.
Checking to see that no one was in the hallway—no one being Rone—she slipped from her door, leaving behind the key above the frame where he’d pulled it down her first night.
“I had a pussycat named Sabine. She was as black as your hair and just as skittish.”
She turned on her heel and stilled. Yellow eyes cut through the dark hallway, and she suddenly felt like a trapped animal. “I’m not an animal and I’m not skittish. I just don’t like being cornered.”
“Same thing.”
“Is not. What are you doing here?”
“I live here, remember?”
She took a step back as he advanced down the hall closer to her. If he touched her, she didn’t know if she would be strong enough to leave.
“Then why are you running back to an empty apartment thousands of miles away from anyone who cares about you? And on Christmas Eve of all nights?”
“Who do you think you are to lecture me on what is right and what is wrong? Just because I fucked you doesn’t mean anything, Rone.”
The harsh words tore from her lips and dragged a piece of her heart with them. She hated being like that with him, but he pushed her to the ledge and she either pushed back or fell into his arms.
She never fell. Not since she turned eighteen and finally had control over her life. No one would ever take that away from her again.
“I know what it is like to lose control over yourself, Sabine.”
She gasped. “How did you know what I was thinking?”
He tapped the side of his head. “I can see your emotions, not so much hear your thoughts. That comes later when you take my bite and my cock.”
His words brought a rush of desire to spill over her senses and her emotions pinged like radar seeking the source of what affected her. “I’ll lose myself to you, Rone and I can’t have that.”
“Angel, you have it all wrong,” he ate up the small distance between them and she pushed at his chest, but he didn’t back down. “There’s nothing to run from here. Nothing to be afraid of.”
She pulled back and slipped from his touch. “Maybe for you, Rone, but for me… it took me years to find myself, and I’m still fighting to find who I truly am. Which ironically is now not even a doctor. Excuse me now. I have a flight to catch.”
“About that.”
She tightened her grip on her overnight bag.
“What did you do?”
“Me? Do I look like a man that would stand between a woman, anyone for that matter, and their happiness?”
“How the hell should I know,” she rasped harshly.
He studied her from beneath hooded eyes, and she returned the stare. “I thought you knew me better than that, by now at least. That I’m not some asshole dickhead.”
“We’ve known each other for two and a half heartbeats and a few orgasms, Rone. What’s to learn?
”
“More than you could possibly know.” He took her bags from her and tossed them to the side. “I know you love sweets almost as much as my brother. I know you love the snow from the way your eyes light up every time you see a damn snowflake. As if it’s some magick fairy dust falling from the sky. I love that about you, by the way. The way you find such beauty in things I take for granted each day. I know your sense of humor outwits most of the hardheads around here and you have an ugly sweater to tease your sister with for every day of December.”
He prowled closer. It was true. Werebears prowled.
“And,” he continued, “I know you like facts, so let me give you some.”
She opened her mouth to speak, but he silenced her with a single finger in the air. She crossed her arms over her chest and waited. This ought to be good.
“Fact one,” he ticked it off on a finger. “I’ve know you for two days, but your sister talks about you so damn much I feel like I’ve known you a year. Fact number two, I knew you were my mate from the first time I touched you. Fact number three, you take other people’s problems as your own and fact number four, and listen to this one very carefully, Sabine Kennedy, because if I have to repeat it I will do so but only as I peel every stitch of clothing from your body and kiss every inch of your skin until you understand me word for fucking word. You. Deserve. To. Be. Loved.” He drove each word home and her mouth grew drier the more fingers he held up.
“Sorry, I gotta go.” She could barely work the words from her dry lips, and the fear that dimmed the amber glow of his eyes killed her inside but he didn’t understand. If she stayed, how would she ever find herself? Maybe at another time in life she could have what he wanted, but right now she couldn’t be whole for him?
She leaned in, slowly, and pressed an angel soft kiss to his lips. Then she slipped around him and hit the back stairs.
Darkness greeted her in the few seconds before the backlight flashed on to reveal eight sets of icy blue pale eyes filled with murderous rage.
She skidded to a full stop as an ice bear reared up, blood dripping from long gashes down his sides, and his lips peeled back to reveal incisors the length of her finger.
Instinct brought her hands up. Way up. “Whoa, guys, you remember me, right.” Please don’t eat me. Please don’t eat me.
She cringed slightly but didn’t take her eyes off the bigger one that dominated over the others by at least two shoulders. He took up damn near the entire back alley from brick wall to brick wall enough to where she could feel the hot gusts of breath from his very lethal looking mouth.
Fact: she sure the hell couldn’t outrun a bear.
“Reaper,” she asked tentatively. Hoping she wasn’t wrong and praying her Christmas miracle came a little early and allowed her to survive the holidays. Shivers climbed up the back of her legs and she could no longer tell if it was from the cold or fear. Nothing scary about a pack of ice bears that could take off a head with one bite.
Eyes, white and pure, gazed at her and she dared a closer look. “It is you. Oh my God!” Thank God she wasn’t going to be bear meat. She rushed forward when heavy footsteps and a vise-like grip around her midriff brought her to a sudden stop.
Wool slipped over her shoulders and in seconds Rone had her bundled in the heavy coat she’d forgotten in her haste to escape him. “Sabine, Angel, get inside. God, woman, you don’t just approach an injured ice bear and think they won’t take an arm off in appreciation.” Rone snarled over the gusts of wind that tunneled through the back alley. Off in the distance the faint sound of propellers belonging to Adam’s plane faded.
Damn it. Now how did she get out of here?
Out of the corner of her eye, a piece of silvery black flashed in the bright spotlight that hung over the back door as Rone slipped his phone into his pocket.
The tricky bastard. She narrowed her eyes on him as he scooped an arm out and pushed her behind him. He’d called Adam behind her back. She mentally took a note to talk to him about boundaries, but for now it looked like they had a different problem to handle. She didn’t have to be a shifter to know that a bloody pack—group, den whatever a shit load of massive ice bears was called—wasn’t a common occurrence. Not even in Alaska.
“What the hell happened, Reaper?” Rone demanded.
So she was right.
Ragged slashes cut up the side of the ice bear she knew as Reaper and she stood icy wind ripping through the coat and sweater she had on like a piece of onion paper as he gathered energy to shift. Huddled in the mounting snow the pale muscular man dropped on his knees and knuckles, slowly breathing.
“We’ve been attacked.” Rone stepped forward and she followed him, taking Reaper by the opposite arm.
“Magick?” It didn’t come out as a question but more of a fierce statement filled with disgust.
Reaper nodded and pulled out of their arms.
“Who did this to you?” she asked, eyeing his sides that self-healed as she looked on. If humans could heal the way a shifter did, doctors would be out of a business. Her fingers trembled as she eased apart the jagged edges of a wound that looked singed with something that smelled sickly sweet and coppery. Blood perhaps. “Why isn’t this healing?”
Sabine’s glasses slipped and she righted them with a trembling hand as she took a closer look at the other bears. Some limped, waiting for their alpha while blood matted white fur. Others dripped blood from wounds that had far from healed and looked similar to Reaper’s.
Unrelenting snow battered all of them.
“Some Christmas,” she muttered. “Such violence.”
“Reaper, you have to tell us. Who did this?”
“The Elders.”
“Mr. Wylde?” No, couldn’t be he said elders as in more than one and the maniacal ice bear elder was dead for months now, so who?
“Warlock Elders.”
She nearly bared her own teeth as disgust laced her insides.
At her side Rone’s face turned pale. “The High Council? What the fuck are they doing this far north?”
“Raiding parties, it seems.” Reaper struggled to breathe much less speak.
“Who would miss a den of bears north of the Arctic Circle?” She repeated Rone’s words back to him, and the chill of their meaning seeped into her mind.
“I remember your sister said you were a doctor.” The full force of Reaper’s gaze fell on her. “We need your help.” His words came out stronger than a demand. As if when he spoke it became law.
“I can’t. I’m not a doctor.” Her eyes darted between him and the others bears that flanked him on either side.
Reaper turned as if to walk back out into the snowstorm that gathered force every second they spent talking. Cold claws of trepidation snuck beneath her heavy coat and sent a spiral of goose bumps down her spine. Fear thicker than the air clogged her throat. What kind of human being was she to turn them away injured, bleeding and unable to heal?
She advanced and grabbed Reaper’s arms right below the elbow.
Rone let out a low growl as Reaper stopped and turned to look at her over his shoulder.
“There are more, Sabine.” His tone colder than the snow that gathered at their feet on top of the several feet already fallen. “I gathered those I could spare from the den and came here for your help and you turn us away from fear? What do you have to fear? They are already dying and dead.”
True or not, his word struck hard and low. “What do you mean? I thought shifters healed and fast. Why would you need help from me?”
“Our healer is dead and I need a doctor for my people. The nasty fucking bastards used an incantation on their blades and the wounds are not healing.”
“What do you need me to do?”
“Human medicine can help alleviate some of the pain.”
“But?” she asked. Something in his tight expression, the way his eyes searched hers struck a note of desperation she didn't expect.
“They’ll still die.”
&nbs
p; “I am so sorry, Reaper.” How could people do this to one another? Shifters, warlocks, humans it didn’t matter. Wasn’t it a time of peace?
She studied him for less than a half of a second when Rone stepped up beside her. While she talked with Reaper, she felt him as a solid support there to cut down anyone that dared show an ounce of menace toward her. At least it was what she felt. She couldn’t quite describe it but the thoughts settled in her mind as if they were her own. She shifted just enough to where she could look at him and Reaper.
“Don’t be sorry. Help us.”
She pushed her glasses up and raised her chin. “I can't. I don't have any supplies and I don't have a license to practice in Alaska. I still need to take my final exam.”
“Fuck your red tape. Can you save their lives or not?”
“Yes.”
“Then I don't fucking care what a piece of paper says about you. If your mate agrees, let's go. They don't have much time.”
“He’s not my mate and I can speak for myself.”
“Really, then why does he have murder written all over his face every time I move?” Reaper took a massive step in her direction and clasped a hand around her arm. “Okay, human. Have it your way. Your mate's debt is now yours.”
“The hell it is.” Rone roared the words, rough and filled with anger. Static rushed the air and zinged along her face. Before she could blink up at Reaper, a mass of brown fur filled her vision as Rone’s beast burst through the air aimed at Reaper.
A grizzly taller than her shoulder and larger than a freaking car stood over the injured ice bear as the others closed ranks.
“Oh shit. Uhh, Rone.” Becoming bear meat was still on the table. Danger rolled off Rone in waves, but Reaper didn’t look scared. Death edged close with Rone’s incisors pressed to his throat but still Reaper refused to look away from her.
“Give the word or my death and my den’s is on your hands.”
What an asshole. She rushed forward and did the first thing every wildlife expert told her to never do. Ever. She slapped a pissed off grizzly.
“Kill each other when I’m not here.”
Snowbound With Her Christmas Bear: Wylde Den #4 (Alaskan Den Men Book 16) Page 14
