Vivian Arend - Wolf Sings

Robyn hit him with a hastily formed snowball. “I do not squeal.”

His gaze dropped over her body and heat rolled between them. “You most certainly do squeal. And moan. And make all sorts of other delicious noises. Hell, I’m hard just thinking about it. Wanna fool around?”

“ Keil, it’s twenty-five degrees out and we’re in the middle of the forest. Cool your jets.”

The leer he gave her as he reached down and adjusted himself promised some serious torture in the very near future.

“ Do you realize how tough it is going to be to travel like this?”

“ Put a ski on it. You’ll be the fastest thing on three legs.”

She danced away from him, laughing, and readied for the two-hour journey across the lake.

The snow pack was beautiful. Hard snow covered the surface with a heavy enough dusting of fresh powder to give their skis something to bite into. Once again Keil led the way, setting tracks for Robyn to follow. They continued to talk back and forth to each other easily about nothing in particular, avoiding discussing the pack, the challenge, everything controversial. Robyn enjoyed the rapid pace Keil set, and she was disappointed when he slowed down, glancing into the trees on their right.

“ Hey, you getting tired or something?”

“ Or something. Keep skiing but reduce your speed. Keep your eyes on my back. Understand?”

“ No. We need to pick it up or we’ll be in Haines in a week instead of a day.”

“ Are you watching my back?”

Robyn ran her eyes over the solid body in front of her. Her mouth watered at the thought he was all hers.

“ Your backside, does that count? Yummy.”

“ Glad you think so. Don’t freak out, but I think we’re being shadowed. I count at least four wolves in the trees beside us. Are you still watching me?”

A shiver raced through Robyn. Something was very wrong or Keil would have simply stopped and faced the wolves. “I’m watching you. What’s up?”

“ Someone is trying to pull a fast one on us. If the other challenger to the Alpha position can take me out ahead of time, they can assume leadership. They must think you’re TJ. People knew he was going to Granite with me.”

“ Yuck, what an insult. Have they never seen him ski? Wait, what do you mean ‘take you out’? Hell, are they going to attack us?”

Keil continued to ski forward, Robyn narrowing the gap between them as his pace dropped. She slipped a couple of furtive glances toward the trees and spotted some of the wolves darting in and out of the distant tree line.

“ Yeah, they’re going to attack. Listen up. They don’t know we’re mates which means they don’t know we can talk like this. That’s to our advantage. If Jack were to do this right, he’d approach me alone and his seconds would stand back and watch. By sneaking up on us out here, I doubt Jack’s planning on obeying any of the rules. If they think you’re TJ, they’re going to assume you’ll fight like him.” Keil paused. “TJ’s a tough wolf, Robyn. I’m guessing they will set two wolves on you.”

“ Two wolves? That’s not good odds, Keil, but if we stick together—”

“ I want to, but we’d never survive that way. A four against two means they can actually have three against one at times and even I can’t fight that many at once without getting hurt. The thought is killing me, but I’m going to have to leave you for a bit. I’ll attack the two that go after me, get at least one of them out of the picture, then rejoin you. I told you about wolf society and ranking, you’re strong enough to hold them off.”

They skied a bit farther as Robyn fought down her panic.

He was going to leave her and let two wolves attack her. No, that wasn’t true. He was going to trust her to defend herself until he could come back and save them both.

That sounded better. Even if it still made her want to pee her pants.

“ Right around this bend the wind usually blows the snow off the lake. The ice will be a better surface for you to stand on to defend yourself. We’ll ski until we get there.”

She didn’t know if she wanted the ski to be over or to go on forever. Finally Keil lifted a hand as if signaling for a rest stop. He shifted his body to face the trees, casually turning her toward him.

Keil undid his clothes while hiding from the view of the trees behind Robyn’s body. A dangerous gleam was in his eyes and an impression of power rolled off him. They might be in a tough place, but Keil was not going to be as easy a target as the others imagined.

“Protect your throat. If they’re close enough to get at your throat, I want you to shove your arm into their mouth. They’ll still be able to snap it and it’ll hurt like hell, but your wolf can heal a busted arm. You can’t regrow your throat.”

Robyn gaped at him. “Love you too, sweetheart. Man, you take your girl on the most romantic dates, don’t you? Any other advice for me, Cujo?”

Keil flashed a grin at her. “Just remember that kicking a wolf in the nuts hurts as much as it does a human.”

“ Good to know, hon. So don’t piss me off anymore, okay? What do you expect me to do, other than stand around looking like dinner?”

His answering smile reassured her more than it should have with wolves about to streak across the snow to try to kill her. “I expect you to use your ski poles, your big knife and your tough-as-nails attitude, and kick some butt for me. Ready?”

“ You are sexy when you’re all tough. I guess if they think I’m TJ I shouldn’t lean over and plant a big one on your cheek right now, hmmm?”

Keil threw back his head and laughed. His arms reached out and while he kept his eyes on the tree line he kissed her thoroughly. “What a wonderful idea. Now they’re going to be worried about the sneak attack and freaking out watching us. Here they come. By the way, Robyn, I do love you.”

They drew a hands span apart. Robyn watched as Keil threw off his clothes and shifted to his wolf. His silver grey form raced toward the nearest of the wolves on the left. He flew across the snow and she cheered inside as she saw Keil’s huge body slam into the smaller wolf and bowl him over.

Then she couldn’t watch anymore as the wolves on the right closed in on her.

She turned and crouched, making sure that she had a firm grip on her knife. Her pack lay to the side and she made a mental note of its position to avoid tripping over it. Glancing back up toward the trees, she gasped.

“ Damn it, you owe TJ an apology. They obviously think he’s tougher than you realized. There are three wolves coming at me.”

“ I know. I’ve got three as well. Give me a second. Try and distract them.”

Robyn grit her teeth together. Distract them? “What, you want me to do a cancan dance or something?”

Fear and anger battled within Robyn. It was bad enough Keil was supposed to have to fight in the challenge this weekend. That at least was a time-honoured tradition and involved the values of fair play. This was nothing more than a sneak attack, cowardly and cheap.

She pulled the can of bear spray from her pocket where it had been stored since the start of the trip. One of the rules of the north was to never piss off anything you couldn’t reason with.

Robyn was really pissed off.

She waited until the first wolf was in range, then lunged toward him as she held her breath and coated the beast with pepper spray. A four-second burst was enough and he howled in pain, scratching at his eyes with his paws as he rolled away from the fight, burying his face in the snow.