Chapter Seventeen

A flutter of kisses trailed down her throat, rendered breathless with ecstasy and yearning. A deep chuckle reverberated against the soft curve of her neck, sending delicious shivers through her body that met at his fingers just as he pushed them inside her.

“It’s time to wake up sweetheart,” a warm voice purred in her ear as she gasped his name.

“Nick!” Jo cried, rocketing upright in bed. She stared blearily out into the blackness of the hotel room, confused for a moment when the familiar décor of the cabin hadn’t greeted her as expected.

A light glinted off to the side of her vision, her bright phone screen shining harshly against the pre-dawn darkness. She picked it up with blurry vision, scrubbing the sleep out of her eyes to check the time. 4:40 AM. Her phone then chirped a soft notification noise, alerting her that she’d received a third text message to add to the other two that were already there.

“Fucking Brian,” she muttered softly. He was just the type to send messages at horrible hours in the morning to people he was angry at, so she wasn’t surprised. Annoyed, she flipped open the messages, reading about the ins and outs of the meeting set a little over five hours from now.

She fell back into the sheets with a groan of frustration. Five hours. Not enough time to fall back to sleep, but too much time to wander around doing nothing. “Fucking Brian!” she said with a little more feeling this time.

Flipping angrily out of bed, she set up the coffeemaker to brew a fresh pot, thinking of using her unwanted free time to maybe hit up one of those trendy street-side cafes to eat an overpriced bagel on Liberty Art’s dime.

The coffee wasn’t great, but it brewed fast, for which Jo was grateful. Waking up was slow going on half a night’s sleep, even a bed as nice as the one this room had. Taking the first hot sip, Jo flung open the curtains, hoping she could maybe watch the sun rise as she nursed her coffee. Aside from the scattered streetlights, the sky was completely dark, no sign of the sun on the horizon. Despite her efforts, her heart fell all the same. It seemed that her life was slowly beginning to slip back into the routine of doing, being, and expecting nothing more than ‘just enough’. It wasn’t a terrible way to live, she admitted, but she couldn’t help but remember the opportunistic spontaneity that Rawlins had given her, albeit for only two short days. Would the girl she’d allowed herself to explore there be able to function in the life she’d succumbed to outside of the cabin?

She chuckled, sad and lost. “What the hell am I doing?”

The question echoed around the room. The walls were fancy, the furniture ornate, but the smile that played on her lips as she recalled her small victory last night… wasn’t enough. She shouldn’t have to speak that way to her boss to be treated like a decent human being. She shouldn’t have to fight tooth and nail to only get just enough. The life she’d lived before Rawlins wasn’t one she wanted to be a part of anymore.

Standing with a new sense of purpose, she snatched up her phone, quick dialing Brian’s cell. Her heart raced as the dial tone buzzed, a million fireflies partying in her belly.

“Barrowman, what the hell do you think—” Brian began, voice slurred with sleep but still managing to sound indignant.

“I quit,” she spoke calmly into the phone.

“Quit?!” he parroted incredulously. “Like hell, you’re qui—”

“I quit,” she repeated, louder and firmer this time, leaving no room for further argument. “I’ll get you this client guaranteed. Then I’ll email you my resignation.” Without so much as a goodbye, she ended the call.

She stared out into the quiet of her dim hotel room and had the overwhelming urge to jump up and own in total elation. She’d done it. She’d finally done it. She was no longer tied down by her personal hell. She quit her job, quit the stress, quit Brian—and now she felt free,

“Nick would be so proud of me,” she whispered, a sad smile crossing her face. That settled it. She’d go see Nick on her way back home, at the very least to thank him for helping her become the woman she was able to be in the pre-dawn morning of a hotel room she’d fought for her right to have.

***

“How are you feeling?”

Nick rolled his eyes at his brother. “What do you think?”

Tom held up an apologetic hand. “Okay, okay. I get it.”

Nick rose with a grunt from where he was sitting to check on the jobs they had that day. There weren’t many.

“Have you tried calling her?” Tom asked.

Nick shook his head. “You didn’t see her, Tom,” Nick grumbled, solemnly. “She had terror in her eyes as she zoomed past the shop.” The memory that played in his head broke his heart all over again, and his bear mourned with him once more. “Calling her out of the blue like that would only make her think she can’t escape. Why would I subject her to that torture?”

Tom walked over to the task list, eyeing it with his brother. “I can get on with things here,” he said, quietly. “So you don’t have to stick around.” He patted Nick on the shoulder. “Why don’t you go start on the cabin repairs? Her scent’s all over that place, it should calm your bear, for a while anyway.”

Nick shook his head, not really to decline, but rather because his mind was whirring non-stop and he needed to clear it in order for it to function like a normal member of society. “I don’t know. I haven’t been back there since…” He shuddered. “I’m just afraid of going back and having it all hit me at once.”

Tom gave Nick a rueful smile. “You got this, bro. If you need me to help out, I can put things here on the backburner, but as you are now, you aren’t much help at all. Running hasn’t helped, neither has hunting. The cabin’s the only option you have left. Her scent is the closest you can get to her right now, so go take care of yourself.”

Nick finally nodded, too many times as his mind began to overwork again. “Yeah, maybe. Thanks,” he said, deciding to leave at once. He stepped out into the cool weather without bothering to grab a jacket. Turning in the direction of the cabin, he strode into the wind, letting it bite at his skin. He remembered how the wind had blown like this the night he’d first brought her to the cabin, making her shiver down into her heavy coat. He’d give anything to be back there right now. She could always return, he allowed himself to think desperately. She was his mate after all. Sure, she was human, but she had to feel something, right? She had to feel as restless and unraveled as he did as he fought the coarse ice breeze to clean away the remnants of her essence that he never wanted to be without.

He could smell her scent lightly on the air as he approached the cabin, evidence of her recent stay. Tom was right; Nick’s bear relaxed almost immediately as he drew closer. It was short lived, his bear jumping to attention with a snarl as Nick caught another scent… then another… and another. The Northern Wind Pack. He sprinted the rest of the way to the cabin, his every sense on alert.

His heart fell as he took in the sad sight before him. The cabin had been aggressively vandalized by Lucas’s bears. There was no sign of them at the moment, but he could tell that they hadn’t been gone too long, perhaps attacking sometime during the night.

The cabin door had been torn from its frame once again, hanging crazily on its hinges. The temporary paint job he’d done had been scraped away, the wood underneath dented and beaten down by large paws. The windows that had survived the first cabin attack had not fared too well this time, all in various stages of destruction. The peep windows’ plastic covers had been shredded to smithereens. They’d dug up the yard, marked the stone foundation with their scent, and tore up the dark wooden planks on the porch.

He shoved the door aside with a growl, his anger allowing him to easily tear it the rest of the way off its broken hinges. With a touch of surprise, he noticed that the inside was virtually unscathed. Sure, he could trace their scents through the house as they’d apparently took some time to give themselves a tour, but they’d left most everything untouched. He closed his eyes, breathing in a chest full of oxygen, both he and his bear sighed in relief when he picked up on the unmistakable scent of the woman he loved. At the very least, they hadn’t taken that away from him. Not yet.

He nodded, centering his mind and getting back to the task at hand. A scent caught his attention, his heart sped slightly as he tracked it to the kitchen, and his bear rattled a growl in warning. His mood darkened as he passed the dining table, noticing a piece of paper that lay upon it. He thought hopefully that it might be from Jo, but upon picking it up, he knew it wasn’t. The script was sloppy as if the person who’d wrote it wasn’t all that accustomed to humanoid hands. It was scrawled on the back of a torn romance novel cover.

WATCH YOUR STEP ALPHA

With a sickening realization, the scent that has drawn Nick to the kitchen became disgustingly obvious as he took in several puddles of urine they’d used to mark their territory.

The note crushed in his hand on reflex, Nick’s nose flaring in rage. They’d dare challenge his territory like this…

The bear roared loudly within him, its strength rippling through his body. It wanted to be let free, wanted to find the entire Northern Wind Pack and tear them limb from limb for what they’d done. “Not yet,” Nick growled, forcefully calming himself. First and foremost, he’d tidy the place, getting as much done before darkness fell. Broken glass would be swept, foreign fluids would be cleaned, windows would be boarded, and the door would be reset on its hinges for the second time.

Then, he promised his bear…they’d go hunting.