Bait This! (A 300 Moons Book) (3 page)

B
y the time
Hedda made her way to the source of the sound, she had already been studying the smoke rising from it for a long time.

She searched for signs of a creature that could cause such a ruckus. However, there was no glimmer of activity in the woods beyond the usual twilight noises.

Coming around a stand of pines, Hedda saw at last that what she had found was not a demon, but an airplane.

Smoke billowed out of it, masking any detail.

“
Purgare fumi
,” she whispered, waving one hand before her.

Instantly, the smoke cleared.

At first she thought that part of the plane was missing. There was the tail, there were the broken wings in pieces in the trees and on the ground. But where was the nose?

When she realized it had crumpled in on itself, she nearly vomited.

So, there were probably no survivors.

A plane crash was never good news, but she couldn’t see how it fit in with the omen. What did any of it have to do with her?

She walked around the wreckage.

Footprints.

Whatever had survived the crash was now in the woods. This must be the bad thing she’d been expecting.

She scanned the trees for the owner of the footprints, but she saw and heard nothing. So she studied the prints instead.

They were human, though of course plenty of evil could take other shapes. They were almost certainly male, judging by their size.

She eyed the wreckage again. No way a man just got up and walked away from that.

A demon, then.

That was her best guess. Probably inhabiting someone on the plane - the more powerful ones could do that. An unlucky coincidence to be sure. And it had brought down the plane when it felt the pull of the moroi and the unsecured portal in the mine. She’d been afraid of something like this.

She waved her hand over the footprints, and they began to glow. Whatever made them was packing some powerful magic.

Hedda swallowed hard.

There was no one else here to follow the tracks.

And perhaps her second gift would help her assert herself over this thing, whatever it was.

In any case, she didn’t have a choice.

Taking a careful breath, Hedda resolved to track down the man creature, no matter the consequences.

She had screwed things up enough with her vanity once before. If she died trying to fix things it was no more than she deserved.

D
erek had decided
to walk in the direction of the setting sun. He didn’t know where it would lead him, but he was sure he didn’t want to be anywhere near the burning plane.

Once it was out of sight, he stopped to get his bearings.

Then realization hit him.

He had been in a plane crash. And a man was dead.

He’d gotten a little banged up, but the bruises were already healing - one of the advantages of being a shifter.

He looked around.

He was obviously in the middle of the woods. There was nothing but an endless stretch of trees in any direction.

Derek was not the outdoorsy type, which was slightly unexpected, considering he was a bear shifter who had grown up on a farm. But even as a child, he’d always been eager to get to the city and out of the trees.

But here he was, alone in the woods.

At least he had his cell phone.

He slid it out of his pocket.

No signal.

No, no, no.

He tucked the phone back into his pocket and walked a bit farther, hoping to find a small break in the trees.

His Italian leather shoes squelched in the mud and pine needles. Man, would his brothers razz him about being out in the woods dressed like this. He should have changed into his farm clothes before getting on that plane.

His feet were already soaked through. He thought longingly of the hiking boots in his travel bag on the plane.

Too late for that.

The bear pushed at him, wanting control.

No,
he told it.

It heaved a heavy shoulder against his mind and pressed against his ribs.
I know what to do in the woods.

“
No
,” Derek said aloud, his voice sounding strange in the silence of the trees.

He waited a moment.

The bear was still.

Derek took a deep breath then, and kept walking, secure that he was behind the wheel.

He was going uphill, hoping to increase his chances of getting service on his phone.

Derek slipped the phone out of his pocket again.

No signal.

Figure it out.

He wasn’t going to get help anytime soon without a cell phone signal. This was now a survival situation.

A sheen of sweat from his exertions clung to him. The cool fall breeze was a welcome relief. But it would be dark soon, and the night would be cold.

He slid the phone out of his pocket a final time.

Kurt had downloaded a survival app onto both their phones once. Hopefully, it had been on this phone and not last year’s model.

He slid his thumb across the screen and entered his code. Battery was at 28%.

He took a breath and swiped through the apps. The big orange letters SAF appeared in the corner of the last page. Kurt had explained that
Survival App the Fittest
was supposed to be the best app for emergency survival with well-organized strategies for different situations, including manuals and video tutorials.

Derek considered the battery life left on his phone and chose the all-text survival primer to read first.

1
) Before going
for a hike in the woods, be sure to eat something. Tell someone where you are going. Bring the survival gear noted in the list below. Study a map of the area where you will be hiking.

N
o point reading that list
. He had nothing.

2
) A person
can survive three weeks without food. A person can only survive three days without water.

D
erek couldn’t survive
three days without food either. He’d be home by then, though, so no worries.

3
) Consider
the place where you are standing to be your ground zero. Do not move from your ground zero, if possible. Wait to be found. If you must move to find kindling or water, mark your ground zero so that you can find it again.

T
hat was obviously
a suggestion for the lowest common denominator. Derek wasn’t staying anywhere. This was Pennsylvania. He’d find his way to help by relying on his brains and instinct - as he had survived everything else in life. And he’d do it before anyone even realized he was gone.

4
) If you
must leave your ground zero, do not wander aimlessly. Even using a compass or the direction of the sun to help you head in a consistent direction is not advisable. Instead, choose whether to go uphill or downhill.

Going downhill provides your best chance of finding a water source, which in turn is your best chance of survival. If you find a creek or river, you may be able to follow it to help.

Going uphill may help you get your bearings, but too much climbing will use up energy.

F
air enough
. But the sky above was ominous, it was sure to rain soon and he’d have water if he needed it.

Nope, he’d rather get the lay of the land.

Derek continued uphill, keeping the smoke of the plane directly behind him, begrudgingly allowing it to be his ground zero.

As he moved away from the wreckage, the smells of the forest began to fill his nose.

He found himself smiling in spite of his situation.

The bear was snuffling in the rich loamy scent of the soil and the sweet smell of pine sap.

And he was searching for something.

Derek tried to push down the bear’s agenda in favor of his own again.

But this time, the bear was not interested in being pushed aside.

Through Derek’s eyes, the bear searched the trees.

Derek felt his own lips huffing and blowing in search of the scent.

Impossible.

He was in the middle of the woods with no civilization in sight. There was no way the bear could be scenting a woman.

Yet, even as he thought it, the whisper of her came to him. A shimmering blue trail of scent in the twilight.

The bear chuffed within him, as if to say, “I told you so.”

But Derek didn’t give a fuck.

The scent, that incredible scent…

He had to find its source.

Derek charged through the trees, back down toward the direction from which they had come, slipping on wet leaves and scraping himself on branches.

Just the scent of her was enough to make him rock hard, despite the sting of the branches and the burning sensation in his hip. The heat radiated from the exact spot where he’d seen the strange marking swirling, as the plane was crashing. He’d forgotten all about it in the commotion.

Some sense of the unreality of the night’s events streaked through his head, but was gone before he could latch onto it.

Derek wanted that female.

And Derek got what he wanted, always.

The longing inside him was nearly at a breaking point when the blue shimmer of the scent trail intensified to a blinding ocean.

Dark against the bright cloud of her breathtaking scent, the silhouette of the woman appeared.

She was looking out into the gathering darkness over the mountain. Her stance was powerful.

The bear drank in a long pull of her scent approvingly.

Females should be brave, and strong enough to protect and discipline cubs.

As Derek stared at her in awe, she turned to face him.

H
edda heard
the demon long before it arrived.

She was at first surprised at the natural sound it made. The creature crashing through the underbrush sounded like an animal that was frightened or hungry.

Or both.

But there was no time to dwell on the trickery of the evil, whatever it was.

If Hedda cowered it would surely attack, so she decided to display the kind of regal confidence that might throw it off momentarily, giving her a slight advantage.

She thought of her mission and surveyed her kingdom below, such as it was: an abandoned hillside, a ghost town, a mine fire, a creek, and the abandoned hill on the other side.

She knew that landscape so well she could fight this thing with her whole concentration, while the evil might have to worry about the rocks and the cliffside if it had taken a corporeal form. That had to be an advantage.

Of course, she only had a chance if this was actually a demon.

If it was a moroi, she was already as good as dead.

The smashing sounds stopped, probably fifteen feet behind her.

Slowly, she turned to see whether her fate was sealed.

What she saw made her believe she was hallucinating.

Instead of a demon, a disarmingly gorgeous man stared back at her.

Dark hair, a bit too long, hung over his gorgeous blue eyes. His handsome face was dirty, a smudge across the left side of his face only highlighting sharp cheekbones and a strong jaw.

He was wearing what must have once been a very nice white button down shirt and expensive looking gray trousers. Now the shirt was shredded, showing off rippling abdominals and a pair of cut biceps. His massive erection was outlined through the trousers.

But none of that had anything on his expression.

The man was staring at Hedda like he was starving and she was a ten course meal.

It had to be her magic. Her other gift had this effect on men. And women. And just about everything.

It wasn’t her he was seeing, not really. He wasn’t transfixed by the way she actually looked…

To him, she probably looked like a gilded angel or a magazine centerfold, shimmering at the edges.

Not like the very human and down-to-earth woman who had just hiked a mountain.

But Hedda felt her body respond to his ravenous stare instantly anyway, her nipples tightening, need forming a hollow pit in her belly.

She blinked, trying to clear her head. How long had she been up on this mountain? She’d been so long without a man she had almost forgotten what she was missing. Was he really there? Or was this a creation of her mind and body?

Before she could decide, he strode right up to her.

His breath made a mist in the air. He stood so close he could only be planning to kiss her or kill her.

Or kill her…

Ice flooded her veins.

“
Obtundo,
” she cried, pushing out at the thing with all her strength.

Minor demons didn’t have the power to truly mimic humans as their masters, the moroi did. But the powerful ones could temporarily create a human echo. Just long enough to distract a fanciful spinster, apparently. And in the gathering dark it would be hard for her to see the imperfections.

She said a silent prayer that he was a demon, not a moroi. A demon would splinter into a dark mist after such a blast, a moroi would merely laugh.

Instead, the magic seemed to bend around it and continue past, like fast moving water around a rock. She’d never seen anything like it before. At least some of the magic must have gotten through its defenses, because the male form went straight down. Hard. His head hit a tree root, making a very concrete sound.

Not a demon after all. Or a moroi.

He was a real man, in possession of his own body.

And he wasn’t getting up.

Cursing herself for cursing him, Hedda knelt to examine his large body. That much magic would keep even a strong man out for days. She couldn’t leave him here. But how was she supposed to get him over the top of the hillside, down it, and up the next one to her cottage?

She sighed as she examined him further.

Even knocked out, he was wildly handsome. His dark lashes kissed his cheeks and those incredible muscles strained against the remains of his shirt.

Hedda indulged herself just a bit, caressing his body with her eyes.

Even his forearms bulged with muscles.

Tentatively, she reached out a finger to trace the vein along one arm.

“Having fun?” he asked in a deep voice.

Hedda jumped to her feet.

“Did you want to wake me up so you could knock me out again?” he asked teasingly.

“I thought you were someone else,” Hedda heard herself say. Inwardly she was wondering how he was awake again so quickly. It shouldn’t be possible. She hoped she wasn’t losing her touch. How embarrassing that he’d caught her touching him.

“What did you do to me?” he asked.

“Oh, um, self-defense,” she answered.

“But you didn’t hit me,” he said.

“You didn’t
see
me hit you,” she corrected him, hoping he would buy in.

“No, you didn’t hit me,” he stated firmly.

“Want me to do it again?” she offered.

The look of dismay on his face was worth the argument.

“Uh, no thanks,” he answered quickly. “I’ll take your word for it.”

“So, I don’t know how you got here, but I’m guessing you’re not visiting me on purpose,” she said, starting up the hill.

She heard him scrambling up behind her a moment later. Good. She’d established at least some small amount of dominance in the situation again. The Lane sisters didn’t allow themselves to be pushed around, certainly not by handsome strangers. It was practically the first rule in the Lane women’s handbook. Or it would have been, if they’d had a handbook.

“Correct,” he said. “I was in a plane crash.”

His voice was so unperturbed she almost didn’t believe him, though of course there was no other reason for him to be on top of the mountain, dressed this way.

She turned and she could see by his eyes that it was true.

“Are you injured?” she asked.

“No, not really,” he answered.

But he didn’t look happy.

“Did anyone else make it?” she asked gently.

He shook his head.

“It was only me and the pilot,” he told her. “The plane came down nose first.”

Hedda nodded and led him silently for a while, joining their route with the path of the creek as it cut through the woods. They could follow alongside for a bit without much effort. The tree cover was thinner.

She tried to focus on the cool air against her skin, the damp, rich smell of the woods, the sound of her own footsteps. Anything but the man following her.

She had a mission. And if she let herself get fascinated with this man, even a little bit, the whole world could pay the price.