"Let her go, Con."
The thread of violence in the low, growling voice penetrated the heated stupor that had gripped Danika, rippling through her in a chilling wash. Con stiffened, pulled away slowly and released her, turning to meet the threat. Disoriented, Danika surveyed the cabin behind Con as he shifted and no longer blocked her view. Jared, Xavier, Dakota, and Balin were ranged behind him, all stiff with the tension radiating from them. Balin, who stood closest, was obviously the one who'd spoken, however. He didn't glance at Danika.
"Go back to your cabin, Dani,” he growled.
Uttering a snarl of rage, Con launched himself at Balin.
Danika felt her jaw drop.
"NOW!” Balin roared, narrowly dodging the hammer-like fist Con swung at him.
Danika jumped. Galvanized, she whirled, bumping into the edge of the door and then the door itself as she fought her way out of the cabin in a blind panic. She'd barely cleared the door when Con flew through it backwards and landed in a skidding slide on one shoulder and hip in the yard. Uttering a squeak of alarm, Danika bounded off the porch and toward the safety of her cabin. When she'd slammed and locked the door, she stood staring at it, listening to the roars of rage from outside, meaty thuds of fists meeting flesh, crashes as bodies met walls or furniture instead and the sounds of splintering wood when they did.
The expectation that the sounds of battle would either diminish very quickly or be accompanied shortly by the wail of sirens went unrewarded. Slowly, her body unable to maintain the heights of panic, the adrenaline rush eked away, leaving weakness in its wake. Wobbling toward her bed, she dropped onto the side of the mattress weakly, plugging her fingers in her ears, trying to master the shaking. After what seemed an ungodly amount of time, the sounds of the fight finally diminished and then ceased completely. As relieved as she was that the fight had ended, visions of bodies laid out in the yard danced in her head. The urge to check and see wasn't hard to suppress. She didn't really want to see the results of the battle, particularly when it occurred to her that she might hear the victor pounding on her door at any moment.
The thick wooden panel and locks suddenly seemed woefully inadequate given the way Con and Balin had been throwing one another around. Scrambling toward the headboard, she coiled herself into a tight ball, listening tensely until she couldn't even maintain that much and her muscles relaxed of their own accord.
The blankness shock had produced evaporated after a while and chaotic thoughts poured into her mind. Uppermost was the question of what had happened. She drew a blank. There were holes in her memory. She'd been too groggy from interrupted sleep and her anger that they were making so much noise there was no chance of any wild animal coming within miles to remember anything very clearly about her trip over to the neighboring cabin. Con's wholly unexpected kiss, to say nothing of the effect it had had on her, had completely fixated her mind from beginning to end.
She had no idea what had been going on in the cabin behind them, or what might be going through the minds of the others, but she doubted very much that they could possibly have gotten the impression that she was struggling to break free. What little resistance she'd managed to muster had been feeble at best and nothing they could've noticed. Even Con didn't seem to have noticed.
That ruled out the possibility, as far as she could see, that it was some chivalrous desire to protect her that had sparked the fight.
Unless they'd been doing some of that macho male talk beforehand, wagering on who could get in her pants fastest or something like that?
The violence of both men's reactions still seemed way too excessive for that supposition. Men talked, especially young men, establishing their manhood with their peers in counting coups with women, she knew, besides their propensity to relive their experiences for the sheer enjoyment of it by talking about them. That still didn't explain the challenge and counter challenge between Con and Balin. For that matter, although it was a while before she recalled it, Jared, Dakota, and Xavier had all been bristling with challenge. Their expressions, every line of their taut bodies, had projected barely leashed violence ready to explode.
So much for her budding theory that they were just ordinary, everyday guys who dressed differently!
If any one of the men had established squatters rights on her and had any reason to think she ‘belonged’ to them, she could've understood hostility—not
that
excessive, but some challenge. But they hadn't.
She could envision far more easily a group of randy young men egging on the one that had caught her, or watching with relish, hoping to ‘tap that thing’ in their turn.
They'd been drinking. She'd tasted it on Con, but he hadn't been drunk or even close to it. She didn't recall anything about any of the others that had seemed to imply they weren't in complete control of their mental faculties either.
She also couldn't think of anything, beyond the violence, that would point to the possibility of them being hopped up on some kind of drug.
It had been inexcusably stupid of her to have gone over to their place, especially half naked, although it wasn't really uncommon for women to run around as scantily clad or less in gyms or on the beach—certainly in public! She hadn't had her wits about her. She was mature enough, though, that she should have recognized that fact and
gathered
her wits instead of just reacting.
It almost seemed as if they'd turned the music up so loud just to disrupt her work, but she knew that was paranoia. People that listened to music, young people, seemed to have a need to feel the vibrations all the way down to their core.
One thing was abundantly clear even if she couldn't figure out what had spawned the violence. She needed to stay as far from the gang as she could possibly get! The fight just emphasized her earlier assessment.
When she'd managed to calm down somewhat, she checked the time and got up to dress. Obviously, between the fight that had erupted and the loud music, which was still playing, there wasn't a chance in hell that wolf was going to come anywhere near the cabins. Peering cautiously out of her window, she saw that the gang was half-heartedly cleaning up the debris from the fight—Balin and Con included.
Shivering a little when both men glanced toward her cabin, almost as if they sensed her watching, she moved quickly away from the window. The cabin didn't have a back door, unfortunately, no doubt a precaution to keep renters from sneaking off without paying. There was a window on the opposite side of the building from the neighboring cabin, though.
She studied it doubtfully, feeling juvenile for even thinking about climbing out the window. She should just ignore them and walk right out the front and go about her business. Thinking about that and doing it were two entirely different things, though. As silly as she felt sneaking out the window to avoid any possibility of another confrontation, she just couldn't summon enough guts to face them.
She had two options as far as she could see. She could behave like a skittish teenager and climb out the window or she could go back to bed and forget about her research.
The research paid the bills, though, and her boss was going to get pissed if she didn't have something concrete to report in short order. Opening the window, she surveyed the drop to the ground and finally gathered her flashlight and night vision glasses. Shoving them into her bag along with a bottle of water, she leaned out the window and lowered it to the ground. It landed with a gentle rattle of the contents but she doubted it was loud enough to raise any alarm the way the music was still blaring from next door.
Undoubtedly the proprietor hadn't thought it was worth his time to confront them, she thought wryly, but doubted the man could possibly sleep through it, and certainly not the fight.
When she'd straddled the windowsill, she paused to consider the best way to get out without injury and finally turned around, settled her weight on her belly and felt around the outside of the cabin with the toes of her shoes for purchase. The cabin was built of rough hewn timber, but it was vertical planking not horizontal and she didn't find a hold for her toes. Sighing irritably, she wiggled a little further out and searched for the ground. The cabin was higher off the ground than she'd guessed. Realizing there was nothing for it but to drop and that she was already past the point of having the option to change her mind, she pushed herself off the windowsill and dropped to the ground. She landed unevenly, pinwheeled her arms in an effort to regain her balance and finally fell backwards when she failed, sprawling out.
"What the hell are you doing?” Balin growled from far too close.
Danika jackknifed upright and whipped her head around guiltily to look for him. Con, Balin, Jared, Dakota, and Xavier all stood at the front end of the cabin, scowling at her.
Anger spawned by acute embarrassment descended over her after a moment's surprise. She glared back at them and picked herself up, brushing the seat of her pants. “Not that it's any of your business,” she snapped, reaching down to snatch her bag from the ground, “but I'm going out."
"Out the window?” Con ground out.
She blushed but decided it was probably too dark for them to notice. “I felt like it!” she said testily, daring them to say anything more about it.
The five men exchanged speaking glances.
"I'll go with you,” Dakota announced.
"NO! ... Thank you!” Danika added, belatedly remembering her manners.
"One of us will,” Balin retorted, his voice implacable.
Danika stared at him in disbelief. “Excuse me?"
"You heard me."
"I heard you!” Danika snapped. “I just don't know why the hell you think you can tell me what to do!"
He wasn't accustomed to being challenged. That much was obvious from the taut set of his jaw. “There's a pack of rogue wolves roaming these woods. They've already attacked several people. Use a little common sense, Dani!"
Shock rolled through her and not just because in the space of less than a day he'd picked up the habit of calling her Dani ... as if they were intimate acquaintances instead of complete strangers to one another. She'd seen them when they arrived in town. How was it, she wondered, that they seemed to know everything that had been happening so quickly? Maybe even knew more than she did? She certainly hadn't heard of attacks, plural, only the one, and she hadn't even been able to substantiate that.
Maybe he was exaggerating to get his point across?
"I know that,” she said finally. “It's why I'm here. I appreciate your concern, but I know what I'm doing."
"And that's why you climbed out the window?” Balin growled angrily. “Because you know exactly what you're doing?"
She narrowed her eyes at him. “Oh! Don't even go there! Just because I didn't want to take the chance of becoming embroiled in another one of the macho bullshit battles you guys have got going on to decide who's top dog it doesn't follow that I don't have any common sense. In point of fact, it's because I
do
that I figured it was better to climb out the damned window than risk getting mixed up in another one!
"I happen to be a grown woman! And I've probably been doing this since you boys were still in diapers, so just run along now and mind your own damned business!"
The expressions that descended over their faces at that challenge to their manhood were downright unnerving. Maybe, she thought a little uneasily, she shouldn't have thrown in that bit about them being kids?