Page 21 of Heartless

Darkness didn’t bother going in search of a note. Instead, he stepped up close, the rifle resting in the crook of his arm. Like most human males, he smelled like salt and meat, which kind of explains why shifters tend to avoid them if we can. But Darkness had a point to make, his dark eyes drilling mine as his finger bounced off my chest. “You smell like money. And bullshit. So how about you tell me what kind of con you’re running on Vail?”

It was kind of amusing he was scenting me, too – even if I had it on good authority I smelled like sunshine - but I gave a small shrug. “You’re right. I come from a wealthy family. But you know what happened when Vail met my old man? He’d just threatened to turn this place into sawdust if she didn’t stay away from me. Most people were so scared of him, they would have offered to swing the axe themselves. But Vail just said she’d like to see him try. Because the Horn wasn’t a place for pretty wolves in fancy suits.” I held out my hand. “You and your dad did right by her. And I can promise you, that’s all I want to do, too.”

He studied my hand for a moment, then slapped his into it, doing his best to crush my bones. “Your dad sounds like an asshole.”

I nodded. “He was.”

His eyes narrowed at my use of the past tense, but Vail was suddenly right behind us. I had a moment to admire her tight jeans and fitted snow coat before she snatched the rifle from her foster brother in a move that make him blink. “Darkness, what if your dad’s up north, but he’s not at your place?”

He frowned. “Then where is he?”

Vail chewed on her lip, her expression torn. “I think… maybe he’s staying at mine.”

Chapter Eleven – Vail

A trip to my childhood cabin wasn’t something you made on a whim, and never in the dead of winter. It required raiding the basement for extra supplies, digging out some proper snow gear, and finding something more maneuverable than Chastity’s truck. Trey’s place was as quiet as a grave, but Darkness had a key to the Barakat garage and helped himself to a pair of their Ski-Doos. While he got them road-ready, I dumped all the extra coats and boots on the dining table, smirking a little as Jasper twirled a pair of fluffy earmuffs on a finger. Yep, I would pay good money to see the Clan Alpha decked out like one of the Scream Queens.

But my good humor evaporated when Darkness decided we couldn’t leave until dawn. I was itching to move now we had a plan to track down Driftwood, but even I had to agree the road north was too dangerous in the dark. Since we had a few hours to kill, Darkness and I headed to our own beds, while Chastity took Driftwood’s, and Jasper settled on the sofa. I’d kind of hoped Darkness would have talked Chastity out of coming. Not because I didn’t like the girl – we’d barely spoken ten words to each other before we turned in – but because this trip was starting to feel really personal.

I didn’t sleep much, finally rolling out of bed in search of coffee. I wasn’t really surprised to find Darkness sitting at the table with a steaming cup in front of him. I took the long way past the sofa, pausing to pull the blanket back up over Jasper’s bare chest. He didn’t really need it – shifters ran warm, and Jasper hotter still – but I’d been hyperaware of him out here on the lumpy couch. A fire was burning, and I’d given him one of the pillows off my bed, but our cabin wasn’t exactly up to the standard of the rose cottage.

Darkness poured me a cup, eyeing the color in my cheeks as I sat across from him and nibbled on a stale cookie he’d dug out of the cellar. Someone had finished the jigsaw puzzle in the night, and the warm glow wasn’t likely to fade as I pictured Jasper hunting for pieces of the Eiffel Tower while the rest of us slept.

“You sure about this?”

I looked at Darkness in surprise. “You don’t think he’s there? Then why are you coming with us?”

His dark eyes narrowed. “I’m coming with you, because I think you’re right. But I’m not talking about dad.” He sat forward, his face serious. “You need to prepare yourself, Vail. Even if he’s been up there recently, the place will be pretty rundown. It was never a palace, and years without people to tend them, some cabins get swallowed by the mountain.”

“I know,” I told him quietly, wrapping my hands around the warm cup. “I didn’t come here until I was eleven. I remember the long winters. Some of them, I didn’t see another person for weeks…”

We lapsed into silence for a while, both lost in our own memories. Maybe Darkness was going over the to-do list before we headed out, but I was thinking about my parents. And not the ones in the pocket of my duffel bag. That version of my mom I didn’t remember, and the further I got from the academy, the less I felt a connection to Parker West. My dad had always been Michael Warren – or Gabriel Michaels – and had always seemed as much a part of me as the mountain under my feet. It had just been the two of us for seven years. He’d been my whole world, teaching me everything I needed to know to survive in that old, weather-hewn cabin. To anyone on the outside, it must have seemed a strange, lonely life. But with my dad at my side, the world had seemed as wide and bright and full of possibility as the night sky.

“I hope you’re not just into that guy for his golden chest hairs.”

I almost snorted coffee out of my nose. “What?” I followed Darkness’ gaze to where Jasper had kicked off the blanket again. He was wearing only black boxer briefs, one arm flung behind his head and the other splayed across his taut waist. It was a good pose, the sort a painter would arrange before spending hours trying to shade his muscles just right. And streaked with red and amber light from the fireplace, he definitely looked like he deserved to be hanging on a museum wall somewhere. I took an extra big gulp of coffee. “You noticed his chest hairs, D?”

“The dick’s half naked in the middle of winter.”

“He runs kind of hot,” I smirked into my cup, but my grin faded as I realized he was hottest as his wolf. I’d called him my Winter Jasper, because it was like waking up wrapped in a big, furry blanket. Summer Jasper, on the other hand, had been all hard, smooth flesh with a sprinkle of those golden hairs Darkness was grouching over. “Enough of that.” I drained my cup and stood. “I’ll let you have the honors of waking him, while I grab Chastity…”

“Hold up, Vail…” Darkness didn’t get any further before Chastity appeared in his bedroom doorway. She was in a skintight silk undershirt and pair of thermal long johns that showed off her gentle curves. On me, they would have probably caused a riot, but then I wasn’t the sort to prance around the cabin in my underthings. Normally, the thought would direct me back to Jasper and his silky boxer briefs, but I couldn’t get past the casual way her hand rested on Darkness’ doorknob. Although when she saw me looking, she snatched it back and folded her arms. “It got crazy cold last night.”

I felt my teeth connect with an audible click. “Well, you should have grabbed an extra coat,” I told her, nodding at the clothes I’d dumped on the table. “It’s only going to get colder the further we go north.”

She shot Darkness a careful look, then gave me a polite smile. “I’ve actually got a parka in the Jeep. It’s a Canada Goose.”

I blinked at her, but she just headed out to grab it. When she was gone, I looked at my foster brother. “Her jacket is made from a Canadian goose?”

“It’s a brand,” Jasper said in a raspy voice, and I turned to find him sitting up and scratching his chest hairs. “A good one, too, so it should take care of her body heat problem.”

Darkness muttered something under his breath, but Jasper just pulled on his jeans and headed for the coffeepot. I must have really been off my game, because instead of watching the muscles move in his back, I stared at the motley pile of clothes I’d left on the table. They were all well-worn and practical, but not exactly high fashion, and I flushed when Chastity returned in a pale pink jacket, looking like a frost-kissed model ready for a winter fashion show. “Whatever,” I muttered. “Can we just get going?”

My sour mood stuck with me as we packed up the Ski-Doos and headed up the mountain. Maybe it was the cloud bank building in the distance, tinged a stormy gray at its base. Or maybe my darkening mood could be blamed on how tightly Chastity clung to Darkness. Or the fact Jasper was holding the back on the bike, instead of hooking his long arms around my waist. He hadn’t argued when I’d taken the driving seat, which just left me itching to snap at him about something else. Which was stupid, since he’d been the perfect guest. He’d even put my pillow back on my bed and rinsed up his coffee cup before we left. Of course, he’d flicked soap bubbles at Chastity in the process, making her dissolve into the kind of breathy giggles that made my hackles rise.

It took almost an hour to get to my cabin, and when we finally arrived, I felt that tension in my stomach bite down hard. Darkness had warned me it would be hard to see it again, but I hadn’t expected it to look so small and defenseless. Like it was a miracle it hadn’t been blown off the mountain in the first storm that passed through. It was half the size of Driftwood’s place, and according to family legend, my parents had found it abandoned and fixed it up themselves. Even under the thick coat of snow, you could see the logs were a little uneven, the chimney not quite straight. Feeling a little embarrassed, I climbed off the Ski-Doo and headed up to the door.

“The stoop has been cleared,” Darkness said, and I looked down. He was right. The snow had been shoveled, and I could tell that someone had moved the boot scraper. Darkness handed me the spare key and I fitted it into the lock.

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