The damp earth of the Moon Shadow pack’s perimeter was smooth beneath my paws as I loped through the dense Minnesota pines… Knight and Rhett were just behind me, a brown blur and a streak of gold, flanking their Alpha as we made our final sweep of the morning… the air smelled of wet pine and distant rain, clean and uncomplicated until…
I skidded to a halt, digging my claws into the soft loam.
My massive, coal-black wolf tilted his head, nose twitching as I caught it… a scent so faint I almost missed it, but so utterly wrong for this stretch of woods…
It wasn’t rogue… but it wasn’t pack either… It was vanilla and sage, and a vibration that felt like static…
Knight, as the massive brown wolf he was, came up beside me, his golden eyes questioning, while Rhett, a sleek golden-blonde wolf, circled back, sniffing the air but finding nothing unusual… I didn’t need to explain… A low growl rumbled in my chest, and I focused my intent, the bones of my wolf snapping and reforming into the man I was…
Knight and Rhett didn’t hesitate; they began their own agonizingly familiar shifts, the cracking of bone echoing slightly in the silence…
I reached into the hollow tree stump where we kept a cache of supplies near this marker… I pulled out tight jeans, a blue t-shirt, and the red and black flannel I usually wore for perimeter shifts… the blue shirt made my eyes, the color of the ice on Lake Superior, look even more piercing, but I didn’t care about that right now… I needed to move.
Next to me, Knight was already buttoning up a work shirt, rolling the cuffs up his forearms… he didn’t look happy about the interruption… “Storm, what is it? The perimeter is clean…”
And Rhett was pulling a well-worn Rolling Stones t-shirt over his head, already grinning as he zipped up his black cargo pants… He patted a rock on the tongue of the large ‘Licks’ logo…
“Maybe we found a lost hiker… a really, really attractive lost hiker…”
“Silence,” I commanded, pulling the flannel on over the t-shirt… “It’s not pack, but it’s not just human either… There is a hum in the air that doesn’t belong here… We’re checking it…”
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I took a long, slow sip of my coffee, the heat grounding me… there’s nothing to it, but to do it, I thought, the Ohio grit finally kicking in…
I stood up and looked at my girls… “You two stay put… and if anyone else walks in here, you scratch their willies off… understood?”
Princess Emmalyne gave a slow blink of agreement while Smudgie just twitched an ear. I tucked a canister of pepper spray into my jean shorts pocket and opened the front door—the solid, heavy door I’d installed myself…
The air outside was crisp, but the sight of the muddy clods of dirt on the front of the bus made my blood boil… someone had definitely been up in the Beast’s business… I walked to the side, unlocked a storage bunk, and pulled out the heavy, oversized wrench that had belonged to my Grampa… it felt solid and right in my hand…
I forced myself not to look at the two cretins across the road, even though I could hear their muffled, evil chuckling… I wasn’t going to give them the satisfaction…
I approached the front and prepared for the climb… I’d gained a lot of weight since leaving Ohio—comfort food was a traveling companion I hadn’t managed to shake—and I prayed to whatever gods were listening that the bumper would hold me… I hefted my big butt up onto the wheel and then the front bumper, my breath catching as I peered into the engine bay… I vaguely recalled what it was supposed to look like, but my eyes were searching for anything that looked out of place…
“Hey, little girl! You sure you don’t need a real man to take a peek at that for ya?” one of them hollered…
“I’m fine!” I gritted out, snapping my head toward them with a glare that should have laid them flat…
But the movement was too fast… my work boot slipped on the damp metal of the bumper, and the world suddenly tilted… I could already feel the indignity of my ass hitting the gravel… I squeezed my eyes shut, waiting for the impact…
It never came…
“Whoa! I’ve got you,” a soft, male voice whispered.
Instead of hard stones, I felt a pair of strong arms catch my thick body with effortless ease… I opened my eyes and looked up, find myself staring into the lopsided, charming grin of a long-haired blonde guy with hazel eyes… He smelled like the deep Minnesota pine woods and, strangely enough, a fresh bag of beef jerky…
“You okay there, sweetheart?” he asked, his smile widening as he held me steady…
She starts to offer a breathless thanks to the grinning man, the words “I’m okay” practically on her tongue, when the air around them suddenly fractures… a vicious, guttural growl rips through the clearing, vibrating right in her marrow: “Put. Her. Down.”
She twists, looking over her shoulder as two more men emerge from the treeline like shadows coming to life… they aren’t just walking; they are stalking toward her with a raw, predatory grace that makes her heart do a frantic double-tap against her ribs… In the back of her mind, a stray, hysterical thought flickers…
What is Minnesota putting in the water to carve out three lumberjack hunks like this?
Her eyes sweep over them, trying to make sense of the sheer scale of the newcomers… the brown-haired one stops short, his gaze darting between the grinning blonde man and the towering, thunderous presence of the man who growled…
“Uhh, Rhett… maybe…” Knight starts, his voice trailing off as he looks at the ticking muscle in Alpha Storm’s jaw… “Maybe you should introduce us to your new friend?”
Rhett’s grin doesn’t falter, but he heeds the warning in the air… he slowly, almost reluctantly, lets her slide down the length of him until her Converse finally hit the dirt… now she’s centered in a triangle of sheer muscle and unspoken tension, the scent of pine and something dangerously masculine swirling around her…
This cannot be happening, she thinks, her pulse drumming a rhythm of pure disbelief… but as the three of them close the distance encircling her, the reality of the forest suddenly feels much too small…
The two beer-bellied cretins stumble forward, their faces flushed with liquid courage and a misplaced sense of ownership… they lurch into the clearing, pointing stained fingers at the wall of muscle surrounding her… “Hey! Get away from the little girl!” one of them slurs, his breath hitching as he tries to puff out a chest that hasn’t seen a gym in a decade…
Veronica doesn’t even try to hide the sneer of pure disgust curling her lip… The sight of them trying to intimidate these three behemoths is almost comical, like two yapping poodles barking at a pack of wolves… When the bolder of the two reaches out, his hand cutting through the air to grab her arm like he actually has the right to touch her, she doesn’t retreat toward the path…
Instead, she slides closer to the growly, dark-haired man… It isn’t because she’s scared—she could easily handle these two drunks herself—it’s because she is suddenly, inexplicably drawn to his orbit… She just… wants to smell him…
As she presses into his personal space, a scent hits her that’s unlike anything she’s ever known… It’s fierce… it’s primal… it’s purely, unapologetically manly…
While the drunks keep rambling, Rhett speaks right over them, his tone as casual as if they were at a garden party… “I’m Rhett,” he says, tilting his head toward the silent powerhouse beside her… “And this is Alpha Storm…”
The world around her blurs… the drunks, the forest, the fear—it all fades into the background as she looks way, way up, drowning in the deep, stormy blue of his eyes…
“I’m Veronica…” she breathes, the name feeling like a secret shared between them…
The growly man’s expression shifts, the thunder in his face softening just a fraction as a slow, dangerous grin tugs at his mouth… “Hi, Veronica…” he rumbles, the sound of her name in his throat vibrating right through her…