Page 58 of Tangled Fates

I drew in a deep breath. “We need some sort of a distraction that they won’t see coming. Something that will catch them so off-guard that they won’t have time to think about destroying me.”

Levi shrugged. “We could start a fire. Send them running for their lives.”

Hudson chuckled. “You think bears that live in the woods haven’t accounted for forest fires?”

But the idea seemed plausible. “I don’t know, have you guys accounted for what may happen if a forest fire ever makes it down the mountain to you guys?”

And when Hudson didn’t have anything to say, I turned toward Levi.

“If we can start that fire in the small, rundown cabin we saw back at the lake, we’ll have a chance to stay out of sight while making it as big as we possibly can.”

Levi grinned. “And once the bears come running to do something about it, we sneak our way into the cave.”

Dean shrugged. “I’m down if it doesn’t put Raven in danger.”

Hudson picked up dried twigs on the ground. “Come on, the quicker we can gather things, the quicker we can get this going.”

As we fumbled our way back to the abandoned cabin near the smelly, rotten lake, we had gathered enough timber and dried leaves to start a nice pile in the middle of the rotted living room floor. The cabin around us was dry and cracking, with paint peeling right off the walls.

“I’ve got some cleaner down here,” Dean said as he crouched beneath the kitchen sink.

“And guess who found some matches,” Levi said as he traipsed out of what looked like the bathroom.

Hudson started for the back door. “I’ll go haul bigger logs into the middle of the floor. We’ll really need this place to go up if it’s going to reach the outer stretches of their part of the forest.”

After piling fourteen massive logs and topping it with kindling and dried leaves, Dean doused all sorts of expired cleaners on top of it. The bleach damn near singed my nostril hairs, and I had to toss my arm over my nose and mouth to keep the taste from choking me. But when Levi struck a match and tossed it into the middle of all that chaos, flames erupted.

And ate through the ceiling.

“We better get out of here,” I said as I coughed.

Dean took my free hand and dragged me to the door. “Come on, you guys. We don’t have much time.”

We trekked around the southern tip of the lake and stayed to the west as the fire quickly ate away at the walls of the cabin. I peered over my shoulder long enough to see the roof cave in, and the flames quickly reached for the dry, dead trees that hung overhead. The smoke that billowed up from the angry orange flames stilled my heart in my chest. Holy shit, we had just deliberately started a forest fire.

And it fucking worked.

“There, on the west end, look at them scurry,” Hudson whispered.

There had to have been at least two dozen bear shifters that tore toward the fire. And with two of the trees behind the cabin already going up in flames, I knew it was only a matter of time before their entire group would have to get involved to keep it under control.

“Come on, let’s go,” I commanded.

Getting to the cave was the easy part, though. The hard part was figuring out how in the fuck to navigate it. This wasn’t some dinky little cave that we had stayed in for the night. I mean, that dark fucking hole dug as deep into the side of that god damn mountain as the shifter colony raging above our heads.

The smell of bleached smoke off in the distance wrinkled my nose.

I forced myself to pay attention to what was happening in front of me instead of the chaos raging behind me.

“Gotcha,” a growling voice came from the darkness.

“Raven, look out!” Levi exclaimed.

His warning came too late, though, because by the time his voice reached my ears something had already slammed me into the cave wall. The crackling fire roared outside, devouring trees in its wake as it inched closer to us. And when those disgusting bear shifter paws pressed against my shoulders, pinning me to the wall of the cave, I let Wolfy loose.

Before I sank my razor sharp teeth into the bear’s jugular.

Shift. Fight. And get out.

---