“Coyotes.”
The fuckers had walked all the way out here from the Yéil lands? Or were they haunting the Taku river outside their old pack as well? This wasn’t good, in any case. Fergus was going to have to do something about them, soon.
I locked eyes with Carson, the pack Beta, and he snarled at me.
It was a distraction so the other two in the brush to the sides could charge us.
“Get in the plane!” Grabbing her arm, I practically threw her at the pontoon. “Get in! Get in!”
Scrambling as fast as she could, Addi managed to get out onto the pontoon and tried to pull the door open. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw the coyote jump up on the pontoon with her.
I didn’t have a chance to do anything. Carson launched at me and I had no choice.
Chapter Eight
The door was stuck, and no amount of yanking was able to get it unstuck.
I was panicking and that wasn’t good. I knew there was a hunting rifle in the plane—I’d seen it earlier—but it did me no good at that moment.
The coyote leapt onto the pontoon with me and growled at me. He started walking toward me, one filthy paw at a time, backing me away from the door to the cabin.
Keeping a hand on the plane, I backed up. I knew the pontoon wasn’t that much longer and the water was moving fast just a few feet off the stern of the plane.
“Nice coyote,” I managed. “Please stop. I didn’t know this was your territory.”
He growled again, never halting his advance.
A quick glance told me I had only about six steps until I was in the water. Shit. Could coyotes swim?
“Come on, boy. Stop. I didn’t know.” Why was I trying to reason with a wild animal? There was no way he could understand me.
I was now at the edge of the pontoon, standing on one of the ropes that Patrick had coiled there in case he needed it. That was handy.
I didn’t know if coyotes could swim, but I knew I could, and I knew that if I jumped in the river, I would be swept away and die from hypothermia in about fifteen minutes. The whole thing was racing because of glacial meltwater. My arms and legs would seize up PDQ once I was in that water.
The coyote walked forward again, and I had no choice. I reached down, grabbed the end of the rope, and wound it around my hand and wrist.
I stepped off the back of the pontoon.
Holy fuck, I was wrong. The water was just above freezing. I’d be dead in five minutes.
It closed over my head and dragged me downstream. I couldn’t feel my legs already, but I forced them to kick me back to the surface. Breaking through, I took a huge gulp of air and felt the rope yank tight, stopping me from being swept out to sea.
I had to get out of the water, now.
The wet head of the coyote sped toward me, snarling. Forcing my feet up again, I kicked his chest and sent him out into the current and gave myself a boost back to the shoreline.
The muddy bottom of the river succeeded in sucking off one of my boots, but I was able to crawl to a patch of rocks and make my way back up out of the water and belly flop onto the shore.
I couldn’t believe what I was seeing in front of me.
A giant brown and red wolf, one of the biggest I’d ever seen, was snarling at four more coyotes, with two on the ground, either dead or knocked out. He was trying to fend them off, keep them away from the plane and—
Where was Patrick?
I didn’t have time to try to answer my own question because three more coyotes came out of the bushes behind the wolf and were clearly planning an attack from the rear.
Wild fucking Kingdom, live. Get your tickets now. You get the whole seat, but you’ll only need the edge.
I forced my still numb arms and legs to haul me toward the plane. I had to get that rifle. I didn’t want the wolf to get hurt either. With an unbelievable amount of pain, I hoisted my numb, wet body onto the pontoon and tried to stand.
Didn’t work out well. I fell back onto my ass.
“Watch out!” I finally screamed at the wolf as the other coyotes tried to close in.
One of those turned and snarled at me. It chuffed at its packmates and cut away from them, heading for me.
I couldn’t survive another swim.
An earth-shaking roar came from the forest on my left. There was the sound of breaking branches and crushed underbrush, accompanied by a chuff-pant that was unique to just one animal in the world.
A grizzly bear.
A second later, the biggest damn bear I had ever seen broke through the trees and headed straight for me.
I was convinced I was dead.
Instead of attacking me, he skidded to a halt in front of me and roared. The coyote stopped and looked pissed off. The bear chuff-panted again and gave an odd bark. The mangy animal sidestepped, and the bear moved to keep him from me.
The bear was on my side?
Apparently tired of dealing with the massive grizzly, the coyote charged him. Stupid move. The huge brown-furred bear merely swiped his paw through the air and tossed the coyote at a tree.
There was a thud, and the coyote hit the ground, unmoving.
The grizzly turned and chuffed at me, taking a few steps toward me. I raised my eyebrows and couldn’t help thinking that he hadn’t saved me in an altruistic sense, but in a damn I’m hungry sense.
And I was still a lunch snack. Just for a bear now.
He stuck his giant muzzle right in my hair and snuffled about for a moment. Then he went to my neck and snuffled there. Another soft puff of breath, and he was gone, chasing after the wolf and the other coyotes.
How I hadn’t crapped my pants by now was a mystery best left unsolved.
Forcing myself to my feet, I hopped up on the pontoon and managed to scoot myself down to the ladder. Pulling myself up, I hung on the door and turned the knob. The damn thing finally opened, and I was able to crawl in.
There were two guns, not one. One was a tranquilizer gun and one was a regular rifle. I had a choice! I didn’t have to kill anyone or anything.
I grabbed the tranq gun and sat on the edge of the plane’s ladder. The wolf and the bear were making neat work of the coyotes—there was a pile of them on the right, and only two still left standing.
Three. I spied the third deep in the woods, watching.
I lifted the gun and spied through the scope.
He was watching calmly, with thoroughly human eyes and a dangerously intelligent spark in them. Turning just a bit, he looked straight at me. Not through, not at my forehead or the plane. At me.
He scared me.
I released the safety and shot the tranq dart at his shoulder.
He moved fast and was gone into the trees. The dart imbedded in the trunk there.
“Shit.”
“Addi!”
Patrick was jogging at me. There were no more coyotes standing upright, and he was covered in mud and completely naked.
What the hell had I missed?
“Why are you wet?”
“Why are you naked?”
He stopped and realized his junk was just hanging in the breeze. With a yelp, he grabbed what looked like part of his shirt and two sleeves. He tied it around his waist, covering his manhood.
I had to bite back my smirk. It had been an impressive manhood.
Yessiree.
I coughed. Yipes. Survival stupidity, Winter had called it. Inappropriate thoughts brought on by the adrenalin the situation had summoned up in the body.
Patrick marched toward me again. “Why are you wet?”
“I had to get away from the coyote on the pontoon. Oh my God, look out!”
The bear was lumbering quickly toward me from the left. It reared up with another air-trembling roar and stood nearly ten feet on his hind legs. I lifted my gun and aimed for the joint of his leg and shoulder.
“No!” Patrick was screaming and running toward the bear. “No! No! Don’t do it!”
The bear shrank, and the fur fell aw
ay.
A man stood there instead.
What. The actual. Fuck.
* * *
Amos couldn’t be held at fault, really. I hadn’t had a chance to tell him that Addi didn’t know. I charged at him, hoping she thought I was yelling at her to not dart the damn grizzly shifter.
“No! Don’t do it! Don’t—”
But I was too late. He shrank down to his normal six-foot-six from his massive ten-foot bear and lost his fur. He shook off for a moment and grinned at me.
“Good fight, Patrick.”
“What the fuck?” Addi lowered the gun and looked horrified and confused. She yelped and scooted back in the plane.
“Shit.” I ran a hand through my hair.
Amos looked terrified. “Did she not know?”
“I was trying to tell her.”
“Oh, dude. Man, I’m sorry.”
I shook my head and ran to the plane, leaping up the ladder. Addi had pushed herself to the other side and was shaking her head.
“What…what did I just see? Oh, God, don’t let this be the PTSD…”
“No, Addison. No. It’s not you.”
“That bear just turned into a man.”
“Hi.”
Without thinking, I punched Amos in the face and sent him backward from the plane. I was barely able to grab his arm before he fell in the water. “You’re not helping me! She’s scared shitless. Goddamn it, Amos.”
“Sorry. I thought I would just relieve some of the tension.” He looked sheepish, which was a feat for a massive grizzly shifter.
Addi whimpered from inside the plane. “You are a bear.”
“Amos Jagger, at your service.” If the man had a hat, he would have tipped it. “Alpha of the Taku River Bear Clan.”
“You’re a bear?”
“Grizzly shifter, ma’am.”
“Shifter…”
I slapped my hand over Amos’s mouth. He was a great guy, but this was my job. “Shifters are people who can literally shift into another creature. Amos is a grizzly.”
Her lips trembled, and I could see tears pooled in the corners of her eyes. “And you?”
“I’m a wolf.”
She put her hand over her mouth. “The coyotes?”
“Shifters. Exiled, for a crime years ago. An unforgivable one.”
“They should have been executed, not exiled.” Amos’s voice was low and threatening. And his opinion was shared by most of the Juneau Packs.
“Did you kill them?” Addi was terrified.
“No, they’re all just unconscious.” I wished I could kill them. They all deserved it.
“Even the mutt you kicked downriver is fine,” Amos said.
My eyes went wide and stared at Addi. “What happened?”
“He was trying to eat me or kill me or something,” she said. “I jumped in the river and he followed. I kicked him off to get to the shore.”
Amos slapped my shoulder. “It was a good kick, too. But he managed to swim to the other shore about five hundred feet down. Good woman, Pauler. I’m going to head out and do some more patrolling. Good luck.”
Amos backed off the pontoon and Addi crawled at me and the door. As Amos picked up speed, he leapt in the air, and by the time he hit the ground again, he was in full bear and lopping off into the trees.
“He’s a bear.” Addi looked at me. “And you’re really a wolf?” She let out a little gasp. “You were the brown and red wolf!”
“I am.” I nodded. “I was trying to be more delicate about telling you.”
“Before…”
“Yeah, before. When the coyotes attacked. I was trying to explain this. I wanted you to know what was going on.”
She bit her lip and readjusted the way she was sitting. Her feet dangled out of the plane, and I realized she was still soaking wet.
“Christ, let me get you the thermal wrap.” I started to climb into the plane.
She grabbed my arm. “Show me.”
“The blanket? Sure, it’s—”
“No. Show me the wolf. Your wolf. Your shift.”
I stopped. “What?”
“I saw Amos shift. I didn’t see you.”
“You weren’t supposed to,” I admitted. “I hadn’t actually told you, so I was trying to—”
“I know now. Please show me.”
She was honest, and eager, to see my wolf. The bastard stood a little taller.
“Addi. There’s more. This isn’t just…me showing you. I wasn’t just going to tell you, because we don’t just tell people that we can do this. That we are these animals. There’s much more to it.”
She wrinkled her nose. “What do you mean?”
I picked her up a bit and scooted her to the side of the door, hopping up in my ridiculous ripped shirt-apron. But I wasn’t going to put this off.
“We don’t tell people about our ability to shift. It’s dangerous. We’d end up in government labs or shunned from the rest of humanity.”
Addi was shivering. I leaned forward in the plane and pulled out the emergency kit, jerking it open and grabbing the metallic thermal wrap inside. After unfolding it, I wrapped it around her and pulled her close, wrapping it around me as well. I knew I ran warm.
“So why are you telling me this?” Her question was from between chattering teeth.
“Because there’s something else that shifters have that regular humans don’t. A mate. A perfect companion. A biologically, psychologically, sociologically, sexually perfect mate.”
Despite being damn frozen, Addi’s entire body went still. “And?”
“And my wolf says you’re it for me.”
She stared at me for a moment, then out at the woods, and then down at the ground and water below the plane. “That’s a goddamn tall order, Patrick Pauler.”
“I know. That’s why I tried to do this carefully. Slowly. After Jess and I talked the other day, it was important to me to tell you the whole truth, about shifters and why…well. Why I would wait for an eternity for you to be ready.”
“Eternity?”
“We only get one mate, Addi. One chance in our lives to find and keep that perfect person. If it took me a lifetime to convince you, I would do it.”
“If I say no?”
My heart sank. “Then I let you go. I’ll find someone someday, but it won’t be the same. It would only be a convenient love, not a soul deep connection.”
“I can’t say yes—”
I grabbed her hand. “I don’t need you to say yes right here, right now. I needed you to know. I need you to do whatever it is you need to do with life but know I’m here. Waiting. No secrets. No other lives.”
“Will you show me? Your wolf, I mean?”
“Of course.” I rolled my eyes. “The bastard has been prancing around, waiting to show off for at least a week now.”
She chuckled lightly, and I hopped down onto the pontoon. Offering my hand, I helped Addi off the ladder and we walked to the beach.
“Do…do you have spare clothes?” she asked.
“Always, we all keep them everywhere.” I pulled the wrinkly metallic fiber tighter around her and smiled. “Keep covered. You’ll start to feel better in a few minutes.”
I walked a few steps away and turned my back to her, untying the remains of the shirt from my waist. Before it hit the ground, I let the wolf erupt out of me.
He took his time so she could see all of us, the whole change. It didn’t hurt, it never did, but it was an exhausting process this way because it was so slow.
My feet hit the ground as paws nearly a minute later, and I could see her through my wolf’s eyes.
Shocked at first, Addi stood stock-still. But a moment more, and she dropped to her knees and reached out a hand. I trotted over, and she dug her fingers into the deep fur around my neck.
“God, you’re beautiful,” she whispered.
I licked her cheek, just a little. She giggled, and I took the opportunity to really get a good sniffing session in. I hadn
’t been able to, and the sensation of drawing her scent into me, searing her forever into my mind, was pure ecstasy.
Walking around her, I sniffed everything. Her hair, her neck, her back, her arms. She giggled while my puffs of breath tickled her in all different places. She still had just a hint of the spice of fear, but it was fading.
“You’re tickling me, Patrick.”
Woof. I certainly was. I loved listening to her giggle.
“Shift back, please?”
I plopped my furry butt right next to her and shifted back. She was grinning. “That’s amazing.”
I grabbed the remains of the shirt and stuffed it on my lap. I didn’t want to make Addi uncomfortable with my dick flopping in the mud. “I’m sorry I couldn’t get the words out fast enough before. I knew I needed to tell you so we didn’t run into a problem. Like Garrett.”
She gasped. “Your brother!”
“And my sister, and both my parents. Cousins. Friends. There are very few on St. Terese who aren’t shifter, and everyone knows. It’s one of the few places we can just be who we are.”
“What happened with Garrett?”
I chuckled. “He shifted to protect Jess and got whaled with a branch in the head for scaring her. I think she also threw hot coffee at him.”
Addi’s laugh was infectious. “I would have paid money to see that!”
“Jess was the one who suggested I tell you before we had an incident like that.” I took her hand and held it loosely in mine. “I didn’t want you to be scared. But, Addi, you held your own.”
“Of course I did. My brother is a former Navy SEAL. You think that he didn’t teach his little sister how to fend for herself? I knew how long I had in that water.” She paused. “Which I quickly amended once I actually jumped in.”
“I’m sorry you had to.”
“Hey, whatever. We got the job done.”
I studied her a moment. “That we did.”
She smirked. “This is the part where you kiss me.”
“Oh, is it?”
“Damn skippy.”
I was more than happy to oblige.
Chapter Nine
The backyard still stank like the mattress Patrick had burned. I stared at the smoldering pile of chemicals and springs and shook my head.
Exploring Alaska (The Juneau Packs Book 3) Page 7
