Danger Mine: A Base Branch Novel (14 page)

A
n alarm trilled
through his dream, shattering the glass walls. Shards rained around him, pinging off the ground and bouncing back toward his face. Street’s eyes popped open at the same time as Khani’s murky greys. For a stunned second they stared at one another.

Touch by exquisite touch the dream—his reality—dripped back into his conscious mind.

Khani buried her face under his neck. Even when she’d been vulnerable she’d never been embarrassed. “What is it?” he whispered.

“I don't want to get up. I don't want to leave this tent. I don’t want to face the day.” Her arms coiled around him. “Because now I have something else I don’t want to lose.”

“I’m not going anywhere, except down on you and inside of you the next chance I get. The only way I’m leaving is if you make me.”

She smiled, but it held more than a hint of sadness. “I might make you.” Her head shook. “I’m not good at relationships. I’ve never been in one and I’m not sure I won’t fuck it up.”

“And I’m sure no matter how much you push me away, I’ll always belong to you.”

Khani crawled up his body and laid one on him. He starched at first contact. Too soon she rolled off him. Her grin beamed in the dim room. “Saddle up, cowboy.”

“Is that a euphemism for…you want to bone again?”

She giggled. “No. It’s American for get ready, we’ve gotta go.”

“Damn.” He winked and groped for his pack, ready to pull on some clothes now that the sleeping bag and her sweet warmth didn’t drape his body. “How about we steer clear of washouts today?”

“And bears,” she said through the knit of her sweater. Mussed black hair sprang from the head hole. “And wolves.”

“Wolves? Who cares about them? They’re like large dogs.”

She popped out of the top of the sweater, her eyebrows cranked high. “You obviously didn’t see
The Grey
.”

A full-out belly laugh cramped his sides.

“Oh, when we get back we’re watching it.” Her nose scrunched. “I’m making
you
watch it. I have no desire to see it again. Especially after this trip.”

“I take it it’s less
Dances with Wolves
and more
Cujo
?”

“Um, yeah.” Her hair bobbed.

“So, we’re going after bad guys with guns, but avoiding cute teddy bear and fluffy pups.” He tugged his shirt over his head, hiding his head as she rolled her eyes. “Got it.”

“I’m going to get it,” she threatened.

“Promise?”

“Hell yes, but not right now.” She shoved her socked feet into her boots and opened the tent’s zipper. “I’ll see you outside in two. I have to pee.”

He couldn’t wipe the stupid grin off his mouth. Khani rolled her eyes and groaned for effect, and then crawled out of their hideaway. Street finished dressing, packed their bags, rolled the shelter, and stuffed it into his ruck by the time she returned.

Khani plopped onto the ground in front of him and laced her boots. “Why the smirk?”

“You’re kidding me right?” He swung the pack onto his shoulders. “I’ve been dreaming about getting my hands on you for more than a year.”

Smile lines bracketed her mouth. “This is crazy.”

“What exactly.”

Her lips pursed. “My brother’s being tortured, if he’s not already dead, and I’m here making googley eyes at you.”

“On your way to save him. Stop guilting yourself.”

She recoiled as though he’d ripped one. “Easy for you to say. No one’s ever been dependent on you for every little thing. We left home when Z was twelve, but for as long as I can remember I’m the only one who made sure he was fed, bathed, and got enough sleep every night. If I didn’t fix us something to eat, we didn’t eat.”

“He’s a grown man, troop. You did a job you shouldn’t have had to do. You did it well. But you don’t have to shoulder him anymore.”

“Oh,” she tossed her hands. “So, I should just leave him in the hands of the Russian mob?”

“That’s not what I said and you know it.” Street hefted her pack. He crossed to her. Leaves and small sticks crackled under his boots. He extended his hand as a peace offering. “Don’t pick a fight with me because you’re feeling exposed. Last night was the best night of my life. It’s okay if you feel the same. It’s okay if you don’t. I don’t expect you to drop your weapons and birth our very own liability.”

Khani’s cool fingers wrapped around his hand. She stood without much help from him. “When I don’t know what to do with myself I get prickly. Bitchy.” She stared off several seconds before meeting his gaze again. “You deserve better than me.”

He smoothed a kiss over her dry lips. “We deserve each other.” King believed that with his whole heart. He’d never been able to share himself with anyone. Khani shared a similar background. They’d both developed ways to cope with the insanity. Their unique survival mechanisms complimented one another. If only he could get her to see that.

She didn't respond to his comment. Her hand slipped from his and onto her ruck. “I need to run. You up for it?”

“I’ve been chasing your tail for thousands of miles. What’s four more—uphill—with fifty pounds on my back?” His gaze double checked their heading on his watched. “After you, my lady.”

Pounding up the side of the mountain they no longer needed the rope tethered between them. Every strike of their boots met with solid rock the color of Khani’s eyes. The trees—their cover—thinned, leaving them both exposed. Street found himself feeling prickly.

They fell into a rhythm they’d found last night. The balls of their boots marched higher and higher, but their pace remained even. Purpose propelled them. Pine flavored the thin air. Sweat added another layer to the bouquet.

A snap to their right stopped them both mid-stride. Street crouched. Khani drew her weapon. Their chests fluctuated, but not a sound whispered through their lips. Another crack echoed through the green ferns and needles. Not a gun shot. Those popped more than cracked. This sounded as though a giant pared limbs from a tree to make his toothpick.

Street’s gaze pivoted across the slanted ground. Khani’s lids gaped as wide as headlights, searching for the threat. They were still a mile from the cabin. This was a little far out to have a lookout, but stranger things had happened. He should’ve thought about that sooner. He’d been about to call time on her sprinted run. No way would he barrel into the unknown without a plan.

“There,” Khani barely breathed.

He followed her gaze fifty yards down the mountain. The green top of an aspen rocked slowly. The sight was nothing unusual of the side of a windy slope, except when he looked at all the trees around it. They stood soldier straight in the still air.

The hairs on his nape prickled. Only one thing was big enough to move a tree that large and he didn’t want to meet it.

“Run.” If it were possible, he hollered the whisper.

His nerves took off before he did, careening dangerously over his veins. Khani stood, her feet seemingly solidified into the side of the earth. He’d never thought fear capable of paralyzing her, but the evidence blocking their escape proved him wrong.

“We’re not supposed to run.” She whispered the words while keeping her gaze trained on the spot in the distance.

“Then walk, quickly,” he prodded.

The hand straining the metal of her pistol shook. “We’re supposed to confront it. Stand our ground.”

“Piss the ground more like. It’s far enough away we can exit the stage with no one the wiser.” He put his hands on her shoulder and hip and nudged her forward.

“Don’t move.” She commanded.

His daft body complied. He held perfectly still.

“He’s coming to say, ‘Hi.’” Khani squeaked.

Street slid his gaze to the side and saw a wall of brown charging. How the mother-fuck had he cleared the distance that fast?

“Stand beside me, make yourself as big as possible, don’t hold his gaze, and don’t move.”

Every instinct inside Street’s body roared to life. Every one of them told him to run. His training told him to grab his gun and aim between the two amber eyes boring down on him. Khani told him to hold his ground.

Dumb as it might be, he listened to her. He stood to every millimeter of his six feet six inches. He spread his convulsing chest like a roided-up gym-rat. He took one step forward, placing himself a foot in front of Khani. He dropped his gaze to the ground. Each ferocious scrape of the grizzly’s massive paws and blade-sharp claws mauled the earth. And he prayed Khani’s firing hand steadied.

The rock shook beneath his feet. The air crackled with tension. The bear closed in on them. Fifteen yards. Stride. Ten. Stride.

Street’s muscles contracted, bracing for certain impact. A blow sure enough to shatter every bone in his body.

The beast slammed on the breaks. Its front feet skidded on the slate. Shoulders as wide as Street’s torso rolled, pressing into the rock. The bear’s snout flared, black and shining in the morning light. It huffed their scent. Rows and fucking rows of pointed teeth stood on display ten feet away. A clamor blatant and guttural erupted from its cavernous mouth.

“You don’t want to eat us, do you?” Khani spoke in an even tone, stunning the shit out of him, the shit that hadn’t already incinerated inside his gut. “You just want us out of your territory and we’re happy to go, just walk away.”

Five-inch razor blades attached to its paws gouged the ground. Rocks broke from the ground and flew. They skittered to the side, pinging down the grade.

“Don’t make me shoot you, bear. It’ll alert Zeke’s captors and give away our position.”

“Will a shot kill it or just make it angry…er?”

“One way to know. What’s it gonna be, bear?” Khani asked in the same droll tone.

“If we lose the element of surprise, they’ll kill Zeke before we get there.”

“I know,” she said with a hint of agitation.

The bear responded with another scallop of the ground.

He had no desire to kill the bear. It was brutish and majestic. At the same time he’d choose himself over the animal any day of the week, and he’d choose Khani ten times on Sunday.

Street lifted his gaze, centering his cross hairs on the grizzly’s yellow one. The creature’s eyes conveyed intelligence, even more than some people possessed. It pinned its ears back and chuffed a warning. Street filled his lungs. The pungent odor of free-range fur burned his nostrils.

As a kid, he’d learned to center a dart from the far side of Bryan’s Pub. He’d made the old man a ton of money. Unwitting patrons bet against Street every time. Every time they’d choke up their change to Bryan. In turn the bloke fed him dinner most nights of the week.

Street yanked his ice pick from his ruck with his left hand. With his right he jerked his fixed blade from the scabbard on his thigh. He unleashed the oxygen he held in a bellow that stripped the lining from his throat.

He jacked the axe high. On a lunge he hurled it. The handle scraped the tips of his fingers, and then sailed through the air. It sank into the bear’s mussy pelt. The skin on its shoulder peeled open.

The bear shied. Sunlight filtered through the trees glinting off the visible point of the double picked steel. The other sharp end sank deep inside the beast’s shoulder.

Street filled his lungs. He shouted and lunged again, his knife ready.

Those massive claws shuffled, conceding two steps. Then another. The mammoth’s head reared. Its long snout bit at its injured shoulder.

Street lifted his arms, making himself larger. He snarled and ate the space the grizzly relinquished. Now that the bear walked away from him—now that pictures of mauled flesh didn’t corrupt his brain—he noticed the animal’s back only reached his belly button. The imposing creature was young, maybe a few years old. If it had been a full-grown bear they would’ve been fucked.

He followed the grizzly’s lazy retreat a football field or more down the grade. Slowly he allowed the gap to grow between them. Thirty yards away the brute leaned its injured side into a tree and scraped its shoulder across the bark. Street’s axe clanked to the ground. The beast lumbered off toward the creek where he and Khani had cleaned up the previous night.

Damn. If they’d run into that thing without weapons… He shook his head and watched the animal until it was little more than a speck on the horizon. Feeling certain they could continue on without worrying about that particular bear sniffing up their asses again, Street turn and headed back toward where he’d left Khani.

The things he knew about grizzly bears fit in half the scabbard where he placed his knife, but he knew predators. Most adhered to the one per territory rule. He hoped it was the same for bears. Adrenaline zapped, the climb took longer than it had the first time.

Sweat soaked his under-layer. A U-shape darkened the forearm of his sleeve where he’d swiped the perspiration from his brow. Luckily, the sun burned brightly and the temperature had risen into the forties, which meant he wouldn’t die of hypothermia.

He used narrow trees to hoist himself up the slope. They needed a break for food, dry clothes, and a plan. His yell had been loud enough to travel the mile to the place where the Russians held Zeke, if they’d been listening. But the sound had been so savage it’s likely they would’ve believed it came from an animal.

Four individual claw marks dredged into the rock inches from where he and Khani had been standing. A foot closer the second gash marred the earth. Street shook his head, and then lifted his gaze to find his woman. She’d marked him last night. It seemed only fair that he claimed her as well. Only his woman wasn’t in the place where he’d left her.

His eyes slanted left and then right. No black hair. No black leather boots. No Khani.

Street’s tongue swelled, but he managed to swallow past it. She probably had to pee. After that encounter he was surprised there weren’t two puddles on the ground in front of him.

One step at a time, he turned in a slow circle, waiting for her to pop from behind a tree and blast him for not following her directives where the bear was concerned. The longer he waited the tighter the constriction of his throat banded.

Was there another bear, one that had come from behind them? His head shook before the question fully formed in his mind. No. He’d have heard her shots. Plus there was no blood and no mutilated body. His stomach pitched at the image his brain created.