Page 32 of Heartless

My dad. I couldn’t stop the twist in my gut as I looked around the room. So many memories here, and most of them had been happy. He’d been the first one to teach me, to encourage me when I stumbled. So, why had he lied to me? How could he have kept the truth to himself, especially if it was going to prepare me for what was ahead? Wasn’t that what our parents were supposed to do? Help us make sense of our place in the world? But then, how many parents bartered their daughter away to another man?

When Jasper reappeared, I passed him the wedding album without a word. He looked at me in concern, but took it back to the hidden room. When he climbed back up, he folded me in his arms, his breath warm against my cheek. “I’m sorry you found out like this,” he whispered, feathering kisses along my brow. “But I’m not sorry we came up here.”

I burrowed my nose in his chest, breathing in his sunshine smell. There was a little of my own scent clinging to him – if you counted my pomegranate shampoo – and I felt my cheeks grow hot as I played the last twenty-four hours back in slow, sensual detail. Yes, the whole hybrid shifter thing was confronting, but making love to Jasper had been just about perfect. And assuming he wasn’t freaking out about my complicated bloodline, I felt like I could deal with the rest.

Of course, that included Trey Barakat, who was waiting outside the door. Jasper shot me a grim look as we stepped out to join him, but for a while I was just mesmerized by the thick white landscape pressed up against the sides of the cabin. The blizzard had blown itself out, but half-buried us in the process. Except for a deep trench in the snow, that was widest at the door, but curled off down the mountain. It looked a little like the track marks of a line of bison I’d once seen, and it took me a moment to realize who’d made it. “He’s big,” Jasper muttered under his breath, as we turned to find Trey digging the snowmobile out of its snow cocoon. “Hey, I’ve got someone meeting us halfway. We can take it from here.”

Trey straightened and cocked a brow. “Yeah? And what happens if you run into trouble before then?”

Jasper stiffened. “I’ll handle it.”

“You might still have some alpha juice, but we all know you’re weaker without your wolf.”

“I’m not-.”

“Don’t bother,” Trey waved off his denial. “Most wouldn’t pick it, but I’ve been there. I know the signs.” His gaze flicked my way. “And in case anyone needs a reminder, this is my mountain. No one tells me where to go.”

There was no mistaking the look in his eye, so I tucked my hand in Jasper’s. As much as they both fit the definition of territorial creatures, Trey wasn’t even a blip on my landscape. But I had to admit he was right about the mountain. He knew it even better than I did. And he was the one with the key to the snowmobile, my weary limbs reminded me.

“You two can take this, and I’ll follow,” he said as he finished checking it over.

I’d been envisaging a long, cold slog down the mountain, so I said a little stiffly, “Thanks for the loan, by the way. There was nobody home, or we would’ve asked first.”

He just gave a loose shrug and fired the engine. “What’s mine is yours, little V.”

An uncomfortable silence fell over us as we shuffled over to the Ski-Doo, Jasper’s hand steadying my hip as I climbed on. I was a little worried he might be feeling emasculated by the whole absent-wolf situation, but he didn’t seem to mind taking the back seat as he wrapped his arms around my middle. He had big hands, which meant he could cover a lot of my body, and my breath caught as he pulled me tight. He chuckled in my ear as lightning flicked down my limbs, and my boot slipped off the footboard. “You know I don’t need to tell you what’s mine, right, sweet thing?”

I was a little too breathless to answer, but Trey shot him a sour look and began stripping out of his clothes. His eyes bore into mine as I realized what he was doing, his sourness morphing into a wicked smile as he dragged his oversized shirt over his head. Brown skin filled my vision, with the kind of ragged scars it was hard to look away from. But as curious as I was to see another panther shift, it didn’t extend to a naked Trey Barakat, so I turned my head until Jasper tapped my shoulder.

As the newly shifted panther crossed my vision, the breath froze in my lungs. Not just because he was bigger and darker than any wolf I’d seen, but because he was familiar. For a moment I was up a tree, looking down as something slipped through the darkness below. A wedge-shaped head with yellow eyes, bright as topaz and a heavily muscled body…

“You okay?” Jasper asked in my ear.

I nodded, still not trusting my voice. But as we started down the mountain, I couldn’t shake the memory of the creature I’d seen on the Frost Moon. Trey had told me he was stalking me, but it blew my mind to think he was there during the attack. That he might have been the one to tear the two Denners to pieces.

I must have been more distracted than I realized, because when Jasper cursed and lunged against my back, I nearly drove us into a tree. I still managed to hit a submerged branch, which churned under the track, and sent the skis rearing back. But just as the trunk of a large pine loomed up, I found a narrow gap between the trees, narrowly avoiding a direct collision. My heart was pounding in my ears, but it only accelerated as I turned to find Jasper slumped to the side, a dart sticking out of his neck. I looked frantically for Trey, but all I could see were three shifters closing in on us, wide grins on their hairy faces.

I lunged for the rifle I’d strapped next to the seat, but the closest man slammed his hand against my wrist, cracking the bone. I screamed, trying to lash out with my other hand, but it was the guy next to him who elbowed him hard in the head. “Don’t damage the goods, Topper. The alpha’s already down.” He turned and gave me a leering grin. “No need to play rough with the princess.”

Chapter Seventeen - Vail

The pain was like nothing I’d ever felt.

The last time a Denner had hit me, it had been a massive fist to the side of my head. Exploding lights had filled my vision, and I’d been certain he’d broken my skull. But in my frantic struggle to escape, I’d pulled a partial shift and the head injury had settled into a dull ache. And by the time I’d woken in Callum’s room, it was just one dark memory amongst the many I’d suffered under the Frost Moon.

Now, I prayed for numbness. But the pain was a white-hot band around my wrist, and as I clutched it to my chest, I felt the edges of my vision curl and sizzle. I was going to pass out. Or throw up. Or maybe both, especially when I looked at Jasper and saw he was face-down in the snow, the dart still protruding from his neck.

The Denner called Topper rubbed his head, shooting the other alpha a murderous look as he stomped towards me. Three alphas. I knew it the way I knew Jasper was out cold. A sob caught in my throat as I stared at him, unmoving in the snow. It was so ludicrous I could barely process it. Even before he’d been Clan Alpha, his power had rippled off him like sunlight off a lake. Were the Denners’ darts more powerful than the ones they’d used in the academy raid? Or was Jasper really that weak and defenseless without his wolf?

It was a gut-deep terror I had to push aside as Topper grabbed my shoulder. I turned to run, but my head swung sickeningly on my neck, the snow drifts undulating like waves under my feet. I snapped my teeth at his huge, hairy hand, wishing for my panther fangs. But they were blunt and useless against his massive knuckles and the alpha just grunted and put me in a headlock. His bicep jammed my jaw closed, while the meat of his arm cut off my air. A perfect sleeper hold that had my heels dragging helplessly through the snow.

I knew where he was taking me. I’d seen the off-roader out of the corner of my eye. Like a large black hole against the white landscape, I knew once he tossed me in there, I’d be done. He could cuff me, or just knock me out, and I wouldn’t wake until I had no way out. And Jasper would be left unprotected in the snow…

I jammed my chin into his forearm, wrenching my head so I could see the abandoned snowmobile. My heart soared as I realized Jasper had rolled onto his back, but plummeted just as fast as the Denners crouched over him. Jasper still wasn’t moving and the one who called me princess had pulled back the top of his parka, pointing to something on his neck. The other alpha’s head whipped in my direction and I knew what it was they were looking at. My bite. My mark. The staring shifter clapped his hands together, his mocking laughter floating across the snow towards me.

But all I could hear was Trey telling me I’d put a price on Jasper’s head.

Where the hell was Trey?

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