Whiteout (Aurora Sky (36 page)

“We never had sex.” There. That ought to be clear enough. “Can we go now?”

Fane nodded. “I'll have you back to the city in no time. My cousin's rented several suites at the Captain Cook. You can take a shower, bath, or both as soon a
s we get to town.”

“A bath,” I said in a dreamy voice.

Fane opened the cabin door, letting in the
arctic
wind
. As he stepped outside, he looked over his shoulder and said, “Your vampire h
unting days are over
.”

What had seemed so out of reach suddenly felt
too easy. I thought about Dante's earlier words. If I retired, what would that make me?

A free woman, that's what. A woman in love.

It was time to leave the agency free and
clear and get on with my life.

 

 

 20

Blizzard

 

Cold air rushed over my legs and spruce trees zipped by as we roared up the road leading to the lodge. The wind blasting us was no match for the warmth radiating throughout my entire body. Arms wrapped around Fane's waist as he drove across the snow, I felt my spirits soaring alongside the machine with the force of the wind, spreading out across the forest and mountains.

We'd found each other.

We'd
united body and soul
. Those memories alone could keep me warm for the next century or two. But I no longer nee
ded memories or dreams to bring me comfort. Now I had the real thing. Fane in the flesh
beat Fane the memory
and Fane
the dream
any
day. Nothing could keep us apart
now that we'd found each other against all odds
.
Not Melcher, nor Valerie, or even Mother Nature.

I pressed my cheek against
Fane's
back.

He turned his head to the side and hollered over the engine's roar. “You okay back there?”

Fane had on a pair of ski gog
gles. The owner of the lodge in town didn't ha
ve a helmet that fit either of us. We weren't going far and Fane drove cautiously. I had the benefit of using his body to shield the wind
head-
on
.

I pulled my left
arm away from Fane's
waist to give him a thumbs
-
up.

I caught the side of Fane's smile before
he faced
ahead
and
sped forward through a straight stretch of road, following the ski tracks Dante and Giselle had left behind. At a bend in
the
road, Fane slowed and took the curve gently.

A big
white-and-
grayish mass had formed overhead when we first se
t out.
It threatened to burst open like a cloud-shaped piñata.

After rounding the bend, Fane zipped across the next open stretch. My arms tightened around his waist as we gained speed, racing the threatening storm.

The
blizzard
came instantaneously, like a
rain shower. No warning drops, or in this case, no scattered f
lurries
before the big
snow
dump.

Fane slowed the machine. At first I wasn't aware that he'd come to a complete stop. The wind continued beating against us as though we were still riding full s
peed across the landscape. He turned his head. “I can't see where I'm going.”

My heart dropped.
We'd almost made it. Why did it have to snow now? I should have woken earlier, got dressed faster, not lingered at the cabin so long.

“How long do you think we'
ve been riding?” I asked.

Fane's ey
es lifted upward inside the gog
gles as he attempted to calculate the approximate time we'd been on the trail. “Maybe fifteen, twenty minutes.”

“We should be getting close.” When Fane didn't answer, I squeezed his waist. “
We have to keep going.”

He looked from
the path ahead to
my
wide, pleading eyes and nodded.

“It's going to take longer, but we'll get there.”

Fine. I didn't care what speed we went so long as we made progress.
Fane pressed forward. Even at a slow clip, the
machine buzzed and vibrated between my legs.

At least the green
-
needled spruces were still slightly visible. We skirted them
at a crawl
. Fane must
have been
following the tree line up to the lodge.

At our careful pace, I loosened my hold on Fane. I fell b
ack
a bit
when we plowed over a thick snowdrift. My arms snaked around Fane and pulled my body against his. Not that I needed an excuse to hug him.

The problem with the tree line was that snow from previous storms had gathered in the branches and
was
dropp
ing in thick clumps that created mounds on the ground below. Fane took them as gently as possible, maneuvering over them as though they were speed bumps in the snow.

Even though he was driving cautiously, the next mound turned out to be steeper than the la
st, something neither of us realized until our left ski
went airborne and the machine rotated to the right. We flipped sideways with the snowmachine into the powder. The moment we did, the engine cut out and the only sound remaining was the rush of wind si
milar to waves crashing along an ocean shore.

“
Cazzo
!
” Fane cried out as we pitched over. He crawled out from under the machine and helped me up. “Are you okay?” Fane
pulled his gog
gles off. His brows wrinkled as he
looked me over
.

“I'm fine,” I assured hi
m, casting a forlorn look at the overturned snowmachine.

Fane didn't spare it a glance
;
he was too busy scrutinizing me for signs of injury. We hadn't been going fast enough to get hurt. Even if we
had
, we healed quickly.
It
wasn't like my car accident. My organs weren't in
imminent
danger.

Fane gently brushed the snow off my legs and arms, which was all the more endearing considering they'd quickly be covered again with the storm coming down.

“I thought you raced the Dakar tw
ice,” I said in a teasing tone.

Fane's shoulders relaxed. He grinned.
“I didn't
say anything about finishing.”

My jaw fell
. “What?”

“Just kidding. I always finish what I start… even if it means walking the rest of the way.”

I looked at the sideways snowmac
hine. “Can we lift it together?”

Fane stepped in front of me, hands cupping his elbows. “I can lift it myself, but it will be faster, not to mentio
n safer, to continue on foot.”

He was right. With the visibility so poor we could probably walk quicker, espe
cially without the worry of turning over again.

“Okay,” I said. “Let's go, but watch your step once we near the lodge. Giselle bought traps and I wouldn't be surprised if she set them up
near the windows and doors.”

Fane grimaced. “Thanks for the warning.
Hopefully the wind will die down enough for us to shout out our arrival from a safe distance before entering the premises.”

Fane held his hand out. I took it, but not for long. We needed both arms to help propel ourselves through the deep snow. Without ski
s or snowshoes, we
sank
down with each step. Maybe walking wouldn't be quicker, but neither would the machine if it kept tipping over
.

I sucked in a tingling cold breath through my nose. As we pressed on, the whine of an engine hummed in the distance.

Dant
e
, I thought instantly. Relief surged in my heart. If they were leaving the lodge, we could flag them down on their way to the road. I hadn't expected him to leave home base so soon, certainly not during a storm. Blizzard aside, the timing worked… until I
realized the sound wasn't coming from the lodge. It was coming from the road—the way we'd come—and it was getting louder.

Fane stood stock still listening with a deepening frown. His pupils shifted sideways, catching the panic in my eyes.
He grabbed my han
d, pulling me toward the forest. We raced together as fast as we could through snow and kept going even after reaching the woods.

The snow might not
have been
falling fast enough to cover our tracks in time, but at least it obscured the surrounding landsca
pe, including the ground. Our snowmachine was another matter. Hopefully whoever it was would think it had been abandoned the day before rather than mere minutes ago.

Once we were a fair distance into the forest, Fane and I crouched behind some low
-
growing
foliage, l
istening to the rumble intensify. It now sounded like multiple machines buzzing slowly up the road. The trees picked up the sound, almost like tuning forks, vibrating the closer they approached.

How many snowmachines were there? Two? Three? Four?
More? It sounded like a horde of angry bees.

Fear coursed through me, not for myself, but for Dante. It was too much to hope that a random group of people were out for a
joyride
. Not on this road in such shitty weather conditions.

As the engines neared, I
pulled my gun out of the hip holster. Fane unbuttoned his coat and pulled out a handgun from inside a deep inner pocket. It didn't surprise me that he'd come prepared. We didn't speak as we waited for the approaching riders, listening for them to notice o
ur overturned machine and
to
stop to check it out.

Soon enough the first snowmachine roared up. At first I thought I heard it slowing down, but then it kept right on buzzing by at a gradual but steady pace.
It was soon followed by a second, third, fourth
,
and fifth machine. My heart lurched as each one rumbled by.