Rescued & Ravished: An Alpha's Conquest (A Paranormal Ménage Romance) (31 page)

She couldn’t live on this islet for the rest of her life, and she couldn’t get off it without help. When a bear turned up—and one was
going
to turn up; Dane had made it very clear that if she tried to get away she’d be chased—she was going to have to go with them.

I hope it’s Hunter. No, wait. I don’t. He probably hates me after I filched his canoe. And
wrecked
his canoe… and fucked him.

She sighed.

I hope it’s Dane. But then, he might hate me too. He told me to stay—more than once!—and I didn’t. I also took his stuff.
The soggy daypack on her shoulder was his, and it was packed with food and a knife from his kitchen.
He told me to keep away from Hunter, too…

I wish I was home. Back in Seattle. No, back in Boston, even.

She ran a hand through her damp hair, watching a cormorant skim the water.

At least I got some good sex out of the last twenty-four hours.

After a night of rain, the forest was still dripping: the salal glittered with water, and the trees were dark and damp. Hunter, tracking through drenched ferns, was wet to the knees.

There
.

Catríona’s cabin. Its metal roof glimmered with water, and a yellow-rumped warbler took off from the ridge cap. Children’s toys were scattered across the rain-washed deck. A hammock was stretched between two alders, dribbling.

He sighed. Then, pulling his canvas jacket closer, he tramped down the gentle, mucky slope to the door. Knocked. Loudly.

Catríona answered, already dressed, with a red-haired baby on her hip. Past her shoulder, the cabin was a riot of dishes, quilts, hiking and rain boots, toy trucks and blocks, and unfolded clothes. The row of leaning fishing rods right by the door smelled strongly of brine and steelhead.

“Hunter!” Cat seemed surprised. “You look… what’s wrong?”

“Who is that?” Angus’s voice came down from somewhere up a ladder, in the cabin’s sleeping loft. “Cat?”

“It’s Beaumont,” answered Eimhir, Cat’s older sister, sitting at an unvarnished table next to a toddler playing with a puzzle. She was a handsome, crimson-haired woman, and the mother of the litter underfoot; Cat and Angus hadn’t had children of their own yet. “He looks worried, Angus.”

“Beaumont?” Angus, a burly, thick-bearded man, appeared at the top of the ladder. “Well, damn, so it is. Mornin’, Beaumont. How d’you fare?”

“Come in. Have breakfast,” said Cat, concerned; her eyes were locked on Hunter’s face. “There’re pancakes on the griddle. And there’s porridge.”

“No. Thanks.” Hunter rubbed his face. “Listen, Cat, you need to get down to the dock—you and Angus, and Fingal too.” Eimhir’s man. “Untie your ketches. Take ’em out.”

“Why?”

He hesitated. “MacAlister’s girl stole one of my canoes. She’s gone.” It stung to say. “Off-island. We have to find her.”

Catríona’s eyes widened; the baby in her arms fussed, grabbing some of her hair.

“Stole?
Gone
?”

“Yeah.”

“Ginger?”

“Uh huh. It was Ginger.”

“But how? When?” Cat passed the wriggling infant off to Eimhir, who had come to stand beside her.

Hunter shifted uneasily. “Last night sometime.”

“But… how did she get past you?”

His jaw clenched. He held Cat’s eyes, meaningfully.

What could he say? She just had to understand. She had to understand that he’d lost his judgment and restraint completely and spent the night with Ginger. Had to understand that he’d slept with her.

Flickers of it came back to him, suddenly, irresistibly. Her smooth, flat stomach; the soft firmness of her breasts in his hands; her knees on either side of his hips while she straddled him. The rich, silken inferno of her cunt.

How beautiful she was—all white skin and red hair and big, blond-lashed hazel eyes. The beauty spot on her neck. The feminine curve of her hips. Even now, it turned him on.

But the things she said haunted him.
“You’re strong, Hunter. Strong enough to protect me… I like you… kiss me.”

Cat saw the truth in his face. “Oh my God, Hunter. You didn’t.”

“Stupid man,” Eimhir chided, blunt. “She’s not yours.”

“She’s desperate, Hunter!” Cat said, chewing her lip. “Desperate enough to steal—of course she is. Where was your sense?”

“I don’t know.” He sounded tired, even to himself. “Maybe I never had any. Will you help me find her?”

“Obviously.” Eimhir shrugged. “And your idiotic secret’s safe with this family.”

Hunter managed half a smile. “Thanks. Look, I’m going to go let MacAlister know.”

“
You
?” Catríona gasped. “Don’t, I can do it, I—”

“No,” he interrupted. “I’m not afraid to tell him.”

“I didn’t think you were afraid. I just think… it’s a good way to start a fight…”

“Don’t worry,” Hunter grunted. “Just pack up and sail out, okay?” He paused. “Thanks for your—uh—discretion. I’ll join you on the water soon enough. And Cat?”

“Yeah?”

“Be gentle with her, if you find her.”

Her eyes softened. “Would I be anything else?”

“Thanks,” he said again quietly. And then he turned and left, striding through the underbrush in the direction of Dane’s cabin.

“Hey! MacAlister!”

Hunter’s voice carried easily across the clearing. Standing right at the border of the woods, he threw a rock toward the cabin’s front door.
Bull’s-fucking-eye
!

“MacAlister! Come out!”

The door opened, unhurriedly. Dane stepped out onto the porch, wearing an expensive-looking pullover. Hunter’s blood rose in temperature, as if someone had turned up a burner; but he knew he had to control it.

“What do you want, Beaumont?” Dane’s voice was inimical, flat.

“Let me up on your porch.”

“Why?”

“It’s about Ginger.”

Even from here, he could see the flash of gold in Dane’s eyes.

“Fine. I permit it. Approach.”

“Try not to talk to me like you’re a king, MacAlister.”

“I’ll try,” Dane said coldly, as Hunted crossed the clearing and stepped up onto the porch. “That’s far enough.”

There was a good four feet between them. “Listen, MacAlister. Ginger’s—”

“With you?” Dane asked stonily. “She must be. She’s not here. And you… you smell like her. I can smell her sweetness.”

“No. That’s just it. She’s not with me.” Hunter sighed, terse. “She took my canoe. She’s gone.”

“
What
?” Dane’s voice roughened to an animal coarseness. If Hunter hadn’t been another bear—and another bull male—he would have found it frightening. “She’s—gone? How? When?
When
, Beaumont?”

“Last night. She took the Aspire, right out of my shed. I would say she launched just after midnight.”

“Last night, I came back,” Dane whispered, his voice harsh as ground rock, “and she wasn’t here. I knew she was with you. I tracked her scent right to your territory. I thought she’d chosen to stay with you.”

“Yeah, so did I,” said Hunter, unapologetic. “But—hey, laugh it up!—she played me. She flew the coop, man.”

Dane’s eyes were hot, dangerous gold; there was no brown to them. “I can’t wait until you get roundworm, you stupid animal. You fucking fool.”

“Save it, MacAlister.”
Prick! He wants to pretend that Ginger never gave him the runaround? He let her wander around the island—let her come to
me
—because he was so soft on her!
“Look, I sent Catríona and her people after her. They’ll muster others at the dock. Ginger’s no canoer—she’s still in the strait, and drifting, probably. We’ll find her. If she’s brought back soon, the elders won’t even add a charge of flight.”

“Unless she drowned in the storm,” Dane growled.

Hunter had thought of it. It made his stomach cold to think of her swamped in the night. “Not Ginger. She’s got too much piss and vinegar inside to die like that. She’s out there, MacAlister, and one of us is going to bring her back. Get down to your prissy little yacht if you want a shot at it.”

“You cavalier sack of shit,” Dane hissed; Hunter could see him bristling, and it made him bristle, too. The beast woke inside him, rearing, making his skin hot, his muscles tight, his mind foggy. If MacAlister wanted to disrespect him—
challenge
him—he could make him sorry—so fucking sorry—

“Watch your mouth,” he managed, his vision going red. “Don’t talk to me like I’m trash.”

“You
are
trash. Poor backwoods fisherman trash who can’t even keep one woman at his side.”

“Oh, yeah? I’m sorry, is she at
your
side? Because I don’t see her anywhere nearby, MacAlister! Money or not, law degree or not, she’s gone! She left you too!”

“You let her out on the water. She could be dead! It will be your fault if she is!”

A veil of rage dropped over Hunter’s eyes—he could tell Dane had reached his breaking point, too. Next thing he knew, Dane’s hands were on his forearms and his were on Dane’s, in imitation of grizzly bears wrestling.

His teeth sharpened in his mouth; his fingers lengthened by a centimeter; but he caught himself. Breathing hard—raggedly—but with forced evenness, he forced a deep, steadying exhale.

“Do you really want to do this?” he muttered gutturally. “Now?”

Dane grunted. His grip tightened—and then, fractionally, relaxed.

“No. I do not.”

“Then let go of me.”

“Let go of
me
, Beaumont.”

“You’re such a cocksucker, MacAlister.”

“Charming.” In one sharp movement, he’d swiped away Hunter’s arms and taken a step back, letting go also. “You would say something like that.”

“Go fuck yourself.”

“Get off my land.” Dane was breathing hard again; Hunter knew if they pushed each other any further, there would be a knock-down, drag-out fight between full-grown grizzles. “Get out on the water.”

Don’t give me orders
was what Hunter almost said. Instead, he snorted.

“I know you slept with her,” Dane managed, obviously speaking with an effort; the urge to transform and attack his rival was strangling him.

“It’s not a secret. You said yourself that I smell like her.” Hunter stepped back, off the porch. “Maybe she does like me better.”

“
Get off my land
!”

That was it. He had to go now. He turned and left, knowing he had to launch his second canoe and go after her—as fast as he could.

He wouldn’t come back until he knew where she was and what had happened to her. He wouldn’t come back until he’d found her.

Ginger gnawed a granola bar, her back against a red alder. She was trying to control her appetite, but forbearance had never been a strength of hers and she’d already eaten half of the food she’d packed.

The morning had been long and quiet and empty. She’d napped under the trees, wandered on one of the rocky beaches, and then lay sullenly looking out to sea. The water shifted and broke on itself, rough and deep and mesmeric—but she felt no better. Finally, she’d started eating everything in her backpack.

It was finally sunny again and she was gazing disconsolately out at the blue-grey water, finishing the bar and wondering when someone would—

There
.

It was a canoe, a green one; the paddler’s strokes were strong, practiced, easy. The paddler… it was a man. It was—

Hunter.

She shot to her feet, flushed, and then backed deeper into the alder’s protective shade. What would he do to her when he found her? Bring her back, obviously, but—

Heat. Muscle. Salt-and-pine. Pleasure.

She flashed back to their sex, involuntarily, powerlessly. Her blush deepened and her thighs squeezed together as she remembered his body, his taste, the perfect way they’d locked together…

No!
She couldn’t—this wasn’t the time—it didn’t
matter
if he had the body to end all bodies, a kiss for the ages—

Hunter was scanning the islets in the channel, shading his face. Quickly, he decided on hers, paddling toward the stony shore. He’d land in just a few minutes…

An idea flickered to life in her mind. He’d taught her how to climb a tree, right? She’d use that skill. Right now.

Wriggling up into the alder, going hand-over-hand up the length of the bole, her little plan came together: he’d hove the canoe somewhere, then leave it to check the island; when he scented her, he’d track her, and that would take him away from it. She’d double back around him and steal it while he was crisscrossing the islet, hunting for her. Why shouldn’t she? She’d already stolen a canoe from him once—why not twice?

She got to the top of the alder and stared out into the rolling waters of the strait. He was stroking toward where the islet’s sandstone plate was thinnest and easiest to land on. Perfect. She could see everything he was doing…

A glint caught her eye. She twisted in the tree, and, to her horror, saw another craft approaching the islet—it was a pilothouse cutter, a little white yacht glimmering in the sun.

Instinctively, she knew it was Dane’s.

And she knew it would land here, too.

She was creeping through the woods as quickly and carefully as she knew how. It was late afternoon and the light was getting brassy; through a screen of fir and spruce she caught orange sparkles off the water. She knew she was almost to where Hunter had left his canoe.

Stellar’s jays, chickadees, and song sparrows twittered and peeped in the trees as she slunk through the salal and sword fern, sweating. She’d waited in the alder until she’d seen where Hunter and Dane had landed, but she’d seen other craft out in the strait—kayaks, pontoons, and ketches, pinging between islands, cutting white tails in the water.

It was true what Dane had told her: she would be hunted if she ran. She was
being
hunted.

Gotta be silent. Gotta be alert
, she thought, skulking tensely through the forest.
Gotta be cool. Gotta keep it together. Just get home and—

Accidentally, her foot connected with a dead tree; there was a spray of pulpy wood, landing with a hiss across the ferns. Her toes tingled, and, for a second, she let her concentration slip as she examined her boot.