Dammit!
I try to climb, but for every step I take, I slide right back down.
Oh, fuckity, fuck, fuck.
Okay, stay calm. I will just have to hike out. I will follow it in the same direction the footprints were heading, and maybe if I get lucky, I will find them again when I get out.
Oh dear baby Jesus.
This is bad.
I pat my pockets for my phone, but of course I can remember exactly where I left it. On the dresser in the bedroom. I was so intent on making a flouncy exit, I hadn’t picked it up.
Stupid, stupid, stupid!
I don’t like to admit to being scared, but I am rapidly barrelling down that slope. I force my breath to slow and remember the muffin I’d stuck in my pocket when I left. Pulling it out, I stop to take a few bites. I need to get my blood sugar up, so I can think.
There must be something I can do to get myself out of this.
There has to be.
* * *
Brick
Fuck.
I give Madison an hour and then go back to the bedroom to try to talk it out with her. I owe her an apology. I can fix this.
Except she isn’t there.
The moment I realize everything is as we left it-the coffee cold on the dresser, her boots and coat gone, I dive into a panic.
Jogging to the kitchen, I find Liz in mid-preparation for tonight’s feast. “Where’s Madison? Did she ever come inside?”
Liz’s eyes round. “She went outside?”
“Dane!” I’m shouting now, running through the halls.
The old caretaker appears, his bushy eyebrows slashed down.
“Madison. Where is she?”
His body tenses with my urgency. “I don’t know. I haven’t seen her all day.”
I run through the lodge, shouting for Madison, even though I already know she’s not here.
Fuck, fuck, fuck.
My voice brings everyone out, my mother included. I ignore that fact. “Madison’s outside in the blizzard. I need you all outside now.”
John, the human pilot is there, too, and I have enough brain cells to shake my head at him. “You stay here in case she returns. Call my cell. You, too,” I tell my mother and Liz.
The rest of us run for the mudroom and start stripping.
“Hold up.” Eagle grips my shoulder.
I whirl ,and my growl shakes the room. Everyone freezes from the alpha roar. By the time I’ve recovered, I realize I’ve shown far too much. I’ve shown everything. My wolf eyes have to be showing.
Eagle persists in that persuasive low tone of his. “Brick. Hold up. You take the snowmobile. You’re no good to her in wolf form. We’ll howl when we find her.”
I hate it. I fucking hate the idea, but I know he’s right.
My need to shift and run and sniff my mate out-
Fuck! She’s not my mate! I don’t know why I thought that. Except the fact that my wolf is riding right at the surface means this is more than an office fling.
Far more.
My need to shift and run is so strong, I can barely hold back. But Eagle’s solution holds logic. I put my clothes back on, don a pair of boots, jacket, gloves and hat and run for the shed where the snow toys are kept.
I push out a snowmobile and look around. Everywhere I look is pure white.
Madison has to be lost. It would be impossible to find your way in this weather. It’s also going to be really fucking hard to track her, even in wolf form. The snow and wind will cover and carry away her scent. Even sound is hard to follow with the wind whipping around so viciously.
I want to punch my own face in for making her mad enough to come out in this storm. Making her quit.
What in the hell is wrong with me?
I’m a monster. I pride myself on being horrible to my employees, and now I may have lost…fuck.
More than I previously cared to admit.
I’ve been minimizing what Madison means to me, but now, faced with possibly losing her, I realize what a damn fool I’ve been.
She’s perfect. I need her.
And for some reason, my wolf seems to think she belongs to me.
“Madison!” I shout into the wind then stop to listen. I wish we had fireworks or flares. Things wolves don’t keep around because we have no need for them.
I don’t start the snowmobile. I need to be able to hear the wolf-song, when it comes.
“Madison!” I stand and shout, over and over again, praying my words will catch on the wind and find their way to her.
* * *
Madison
I think I’m going into hypothermia. I’ve been out here so long, even my brain is numb. I have my fingers balled into fists inside my gloves and periodically, I’ll take one out and tuck it into my armpit to warm it and keep from getting frostbite. I probably already have it on my toes.
I think I’m hallucinating because it seems like I can hear my name being called.
Maybe Blackthroat’s out looking for me?
I try to follow the sound of his voice, but it seems to move around, which is what makes me think it’s just hypothermic hallucinations. On the chance it’s not, I decide a better strategy might be to make noise of my own.
“Hello? Help!” I shout over and over again until I grow hoarse.
The wind is too loud to scream over. I need to make more noise than that.
I trip again and crash down on my hands and knees. I’m face to face with a large stick. I pick it up. This might work. I find a tree and start beating the stick against it. It’s not louder than my voice, but I hope the rhythmic sound of it might signal someone who was looking for me. I beat and beat the tree until my arms grow weary. It’s hard for my frozen fingers to even stay curled around it.
Then I hear something.
Not the welcome sound of a human voice. Not my name being called.
No, it’s the yip and howl of wolves. The sound of a celebrated kill.
I choke back my cry. I’ve been trying to get someone’s attention. I forgot that I might attract the notice of something other than a human.
The sound of the wolf-cries grow louder, and then when they can’t be more than a few yards away, they go silent.
Oh, God.
They weren’t celebrating a kill-they’re after one.
Me.
I turn in a slow circle, arcing the stick in front of me like a sword.
Something stirs in the white flurries. A huge ghostly shadow, like a ship passing through fog.
That shadowy shape in the snow was bigger than anything I want to meet, alone and unarmed out here in the cold. I feel like a kayaker out in the ocean, who looks down and sees a giant shark-shaped shadow lurking underneath her.
A dark shape darts out from behind a tree. Then another, and another.
I clutch the stick and shrink back into the snow, trying to hide from the huge creatures I’ve summoned from the forest. A pack of giant wolves, staring down at me like I’m a hundred and forty pounds of raw meat. Dinner.
Four, no, five-oh my God-six wolves surround me, all sitting on their haunches, their snouts toward the sky howling.
How many more could they possibly be calling?
Clearly, I’m their Thanksgiving day meal.
I let out a whimper. Maybe it’s a dry sob.
I never thought this was the way I’d go. Lost in a blizzard then eaten by wolves.
It’s horrible. My mother will never get over it.
Even Blackthroat will probably feel bad.
I press my back against the tree and breathe in sob-whimpers, watching the wolves to see which one will strike.
Madison
One of the wolves approaches. It’s tan with black markings around the eyes and a black streak that runs from its chin down the center of its throat to its chest. I scream when it gets close, sidestepping around the tree, but it stops and sits in the spot I’d been standing and joins the howling.
Oh my God, how long will this go on?
And then I hear the roar of a motor. It takes me a minute-I’m so frozen and slow right now-to realize it’s a cause for celebration.
Before I can think to call for help, a shiny black snowmobile literally comes flying toward me, bouncing over a fallen log and going airborne for four feet before it lands and skids to a stop right in front of me. Blackthroat leaps off, and the wolves scatter and run.
No one could beat that entrance.
He flies toward me, scoops me into his arms and carries me to the snowmobile. “Madison. Fuck.”
I say nothing. I actually don’t feel altogether capable of speaking. Not after nearly dying of hypothermia and being eaten by wolves. I suspect shock has set in because I feel absolutely nothing. Not joy at being found. Not gratitude. It’s like my emotions went numb, too.
He drops me onto the seat of the snowmobile, then climbs in front of me. He grabs my wrists and wraps my arms around his waist, holding them there with one hand as he uses his other to give the snowmobile gas.
We lurch forward, and he takes off at the same speed he arrived. He twists around several times to peer at my face.
I’ve never seen him worried before, but I can tell he is. Frantically worried.
I must look terrible.
The ride is bumpy and fast. I have no sense of time, but it feels like a ten minute ride back to the lodge.
Blackthroat pulls up in front of the back door and leaves the snowmobile there, hopping off and scooping me back into his arms. “Madison, are you okay? Talk to me.”
I say nothing. It’s less a silent treatment and more that I seem to have lost my ability to speak back there with those wolves hunting me.
“Say something. Madison?”
I hear real fear in his voice, so I force my numb lips to move. “Fuck you.”
Not the nicest response to a guy who just rescued me, but he deserves it.
Blackthroat’s shoulders sag with relief, like it’s the best thing he’s ever heard from me. He strides swiftly into the house, kicking open the door.
Liz is there and the woman who looks like his mother. Others, too. His buddies, and his sister, maybe.
“Quick-what do we do?” Blackthroat snaps. “She probably has frostbite and hypothermia.”
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