Red Snow Bride (Wolf Brides Book 2) (18 page)

Jeremiah

The snow hadn’t quit the late winter up in the mountains. Here, amongst the crags and cliffs, it was a different world from our home in the valley. The air was thinner and harder to breathe and muscles fatigued faster, requiring Sheriff Hawkins to rest often. We’d left the horses down the hill at the first sounds of a camp up ahead. Someone was up here in the frigid country where no one would willingly inhabit unless they were the occasional mountain man tracking and trapping winter game, or outlaws slipping their nooses.

I’d heard what Dirty Bill Burton had done to the families he robbed. He’d tortured them until every hard-earned penny was squeezed from them. He’d stolen gold fillings from their mouths with a dirty knife, and then he and his men had raped the women in front of their husbands before he killed them all. He’d murdered countless families who lived on the outskirts of small towns, and all far enough away from civilization where no one would hear the screaming.

Just the thought of those children in his evil clutches was enough to run my blood hotter than hell fire. The noose was too kind a death for a man like him. It was too kind for any of them.

With our senses on the camp, we traveled in a circle around them and came out of the scraggly trees that braved yearlong snow above them. They’d been clever about their campsite. There were no trees or places to hide anywhere. Just piles of snow. It meant no relief from the relentless snow and wind for them but it also made it possible to see every mouse move within fifty yards. Unfortunate for human hunters, but not such a problem for a wolf.

“Dammit,” Luke breathed between me and the sheriff. “Where’s Gable when we need him?”

Luke was right. We worked well hunting as a pack, and two wolves did not a pack make.

We were lying on our stomachs, overlooking a small cliff some ways above them when Hawkins said, “I can’t see a damned thing. How many?”

I ticked the bodies off in my head. “Looks like Burton’s grown his crew by two men. There’s six plus Burton.” I’d never seen him in person before, but I had a wanted poster of him in my pocket and he looked spot on. The long scraggly black hair and gold front tooth gave him away. “Wait,” I said as a man emerged from the tree line some distance off, zipping up his pants. “Seven and Burton. Eight altogether.”

Hawkins cursed and rolled to his back. “Eight to three. What’re they doing?”

Luke squinted toward the firelight. “Looks like they’re getting ready to eat supper. Their getaway horses are about fifty yards down the hill from them, tied to a line.

Their laughter and conversation whipped around on the frantic wind, allowing only bits and pieces to be heard and none that made any sense. I gauged the setting sun through the clouds. If they kept passing around that rotgut whiskey, we’d be all right but either way, we were going to have to settle into the snowcapped hill and wait for them to fall asleep or pass out drunk.

I turned to Hawkins. “How good are you with a long shot rifle?”

“Good enough to save your carcasses from a hanging.”

Fair enough.

By the time we’d stalked slowly back down the mountain and retrieved the proper weapons, dark had fallen over Colorado. The moon glowed as a pale orb through the cascading clouds, and the sounds from camp were starting to slowly die down. For hours we sat there, waiting for that instinct that would tell Luke and me the moment was right. When the moon shone right above us and after we hadn’t heard any noise from camp bar the movements of two guards and the occasional snoring of the others, Luke headed a hundred yards down the mountain to change. I’d be worthless as a wolf. A half-crazy werewolf completely unreliable. We needed an animal with human logic, and Luke was the monster for the job.

His fur shone silver, black, and cream in the dim cloud-saturated moonlight.

I crouched down and spoke low. “We can’t use guns on the sentries or it’ll ruin the element of surprise for the others. Pull one of them into the woods. When they’re taken care of we’ll attack the camp and Sheriff Deadeye over there can pick off any bodies he can get a good shot on.” I turned to Hawkins with as much seriousness as I could muster. “Don’t shoot me or my brother please.”

He snorted. “You two bickered the whole way here. If I haven’t shot you by now, you’re good.”

I crept as close as I dared to the camp. Inhuman speed was good and well, but we had to be delicate about this if we wanted to survive it. And thinking of Lorelei standing naked in the moonlight that night by the creek, I definitely wanted to survive it.

Two lookouts leaned on trees some twenty-five yards apart. The one nearest me yawned and shifted his weight like he was stretching out sore legs. A flash of gray to my left had him jerk his head up with the movement. He cocked his pistol and straightened his spine.

Another flash.

“Hey, Duggard,” he whisper-screamed. “I think there’s a wolf out here.”

“So shoot it,” came the harried reply.

“Ain’t there only, say, three hundred or so left in these here parts?” he asked.

And explosive sigh came from Duggard. “Just shoot the damned thing before it brings its friends.” He pushed off from the tree and tramped over to where the first sentry was wading into the woods.

Luke ran out from a tree further down the mountain and disappeared behind a snow bank.

“I gotcha, you little bastard,” the man said with a grin in his voice.

I stilled my breathing as he passed the tree I hid behind. It was Duggard who was my target. He was quieter than the first and if I had to bet, smarter too. His boots crunching through the snow were as loud to me as someone talking in my face. I yanked the gun out of his grasp and wrapped my hand around his throat so tightly he couldn’t utter a sound before I snapped his neck.

Luke’s prey hadn’t died so quietly. He’d lunged on his back and as the man fell, his gun went off harmlessly in front of him before Luke’s teeth sank into his spine. The crack of the shot echoed from the cliffs and there wasn’t any time to think. We had to do this now or never and the men in the camp were starting to sit up with questions on their lips.

“Duggard? Campbell?” One of the men called.

I drew my pistols. There was no point in being quiet about it now. The first man fell as my Peace Maker found its mark, but the others were already drawing their weapons, and the sparse trees hid me poorly. I fired and missed but a shot rang out behind me and the Sheriff’s aim had been better. Another dropped like a sack of flour, and that’s where things went south for us.

A flying bullet ripped through my shoulder and rocked me back into the snow and the firing, running outlaws were almost to their horses. I righted myself and bolted to cut them off.

Burton. I have to find Burton.

He and his men scattered as soon as they were mounted but I’d seen his horse just before he disappeared into the trees. Luke ran at a graceful lope beside me as shots sailed through the quiet forest. Another stiffened body fell with a thud to the frozen earth, and I hoped to God it wasn’t Hawkins. Trees whooshed by as I gained speed and the sound of another horse’s hooves thundered nearby. Someone from his gang was loyal enough to offer Burton help.

My shoulder screamed with every pump of my arms and liquid warmth oozed down my ribcage, soaking my shirt, but still, I couldn’t stop. I was so close.

The other horse was catching up and fast on our other side, and its rider peppered shot after zinging shot at us. Luke cut off and ran for him and just as I launched myself at Burton the other rider found a solid mark.

A bullet made a different sound when it hit something than when it missed. A miss echoed on and on as the bullet sailed through air and space. A hit made a solid
thunk
.

A whine escaped Luke’s throat as his body hurdled into a snow bank.

“No!” I shouted as I wrapped my arms around Burton’s waist and flung him from the fleeing horse. A tree broke my fall and pain shot through me. Burton rolled several yards before sliding to a stop at the base of a huge pine. Luke’s body lay crumpled in the snow and a bone chilling chuckle came from Burton’s parted lips.

His pistol was pointed steadily and directly at my face.

“We killed your dog,” he gritted out, right before he pulled the trigger.

Lorelei

A week had come and gone. I knew what it meant but none of us dared to breathe life into our fears with words. The musty, gray haze of denial was the only course for my continued existence. I worked from sun up to sun down and as the week went on, Kristina, Daisy, and I stopped talking altogether. Our voices had started to shake, and the cracks in our once strong foundation had become deep and rotted.

We’d all suffered the same fate but wouldn’t admit it. Not yet.

Elias came every couple of days with food and a constant borage of hope-filled words, but even those echoed with emptiness now. Even eternally optimistic Elias knew something had gone wrong up there in those mountains. Kristina and Daisy were strong in the daylight, but when nighttime brought the dark, no one was safe from slow realization. Their heartbreak echoed through the empty rooms of the house and at some point, I gave up on sleep altogether. Our sleep brought screams conjured by nightmares.

Swaying to the rhythm of both my pain and the rocking chair I’d dragged in from outside, I lost myself in staring at the flames of the hearth. It’s warmth and the sound of the crackling wood it fed upon was a soothing balm on a burn I couldn’t seem to escape.

“Lorelei?” Daisy asked in a frail voice. It was raspy, as if she’d been crying her whole life.

I didn’t have to say anything. She was looking for comfort, not words. Instead I held my hand out to her and she sank to the wooden floorboards beside me.

Her face crumpled, all semblance of strength gone under the horrible reality we couldn’t deny any longer. Clutching onto my leg, she whispered, “They aren’t coming back, are they?”

I shook my head slowly as a tear ran down my cheek. I’d have given anything for my answer to be different.

She clutched onto my skin and cried out, “Damn those men and damn their pride.”

Her nails dug deeply into me but I didn’t mind. At least I still felt something other than the inescapable ache in my heart. Kristina appeared out of the darkness of her room in nothing but a thin nightdress. She looked pale and her skin was covered in gooseflesh. Her eyes had the hollow, sunken look of phantoms and her cheeks were red and adorned with tears.

“Come by the fire,” I said.

She sank down and laid her head in Daisy’s lap and while she gently stroked Kristina’s soft curls with her fingertips, I rocked and hummed a lullaby Mother sang to me when I was a child in need of comfort.

Over and over I hummed it until my throat was dry, and Kristina and Daisy were curled up sleeping near the hearth. And here, in the darkest hours of the blackest night of my life, I heard the scratching again. It was the scratching of my nightmares where I imagined some terrible creature coming to devour me.
Scritch, scratch, scritch, scratch,
it went relentlessly on as I watched the front door and imagined a hundred evil creatures that could be on the other side of it.

As if in a trance, I stood and padded slowly to the door. Crouching down, I placed my hand against the inside of it until I could feel the vibrations of the monster outside. It stopped. I removed my hand and pulled it to my chest to steady my trembling.

The pitiful whine of a dog cut through the night air.

Kristina and Daisy slept soundly behind me, but I shouldn’t wake them. Straightening my skirts in determination, I moved to open the latch. Maybe my instincts had burned up with my loss, or maybe I just didn’t care as much about living or dying anymore, but I opened that door and stepped out before the dog could come in.

A pile of crumpled fur lay across the porch, and try as I might to make heads or tails of him, the cloudy night sky selfishly lapped up any light I needed. Its fur was dark and its stomach rose and fell raggedly, as if it had difficulty drawing breath.

The dog was dying.

Another whine sealed my fate. Saving it would be my burden. I’d lost too much today and a dog dying on my front porch was just one unfairness too many. I scooped it up before I could chicken out and struggled under its great weight as I carried him carefully to the barn. The horses flared their noses and stomped their feet in the first signs of panic, but I brushed right past them until I was to the hearth. It took two matches for my shaking hands to ignite the dry tender in the fireplace, but when the flames were finally lapping at the stone walls of the fireplace, I turned and stifled a scream.

It wasn’t a dog.

The creature I’d carried in my arms was a wolf.

Chest heaving, I backed into the corner and sank down against the wall with a pathetic whimper on my lips. He looked like the wolf who’d tried to kill us outside the train. His icy blue eyes opened slowly and watched me crouched there like a coward who’d accepted her fate.

Another long whine escaped him and something about it pulled so gently at my heartstrings. No way would a wild wolf come to a home for help. He’d let me carry him with no fight, and he’d known to scratch at the door like some tame pet. He belonged to someone, of that I was sure. He’d likely been raised gently to trust humans so much. Wolf or dog, it didn’t matter what kind of creature he was. I couldn’t just sit here in a cloud of fear and watch him die.

Slowly, I patted my pocket and was comforted by the weight of my knife. At least I had a weapon. I wasn’t just blunt claws and teeth and helplessly human. Still crouched, I sidled slowly closer, and he closed his eyes as if he trusted me to touch him.

“Where’s your master?” I crooned. The wolf was beautiful. Whomever lost him was likely looking for him. Unless something terrible had happened to them. My heart ached. Perhaps he’d lost the most important person to him, like I’d just lost mine. Perhaps we were the same, he and I.

I closed my eyes and reached out until course, thick fur touched my fingertips. He didn’t move or even growl. Eventually I found the courage to stroke him gently, and then to run my hand over his side. Despite being able to feel every rib poking out, the problem was pretty obvious. Even now, I didn’t know if I could change his fate. A half-healed puncture wound disappeared into the dark fur of his shoulder and under thin skin, something hard and knotted was burrowed, poisoning him slowly.

Someone had shot him and the bullet was still there. Perhaps he’d taken it trying to protect his master.

My voice shook fiercely as I reached for my knife. A low rumble in his throat held me frozen in place. So familiar was that sound, it stirred in me…something. Confused, I pulled the knife out of frustration.

“You have a bullet in you. It needs to come out.” No, I didn’t believe dogs could understand humans, but it sure as anything made me feel better to talk to him. I leaned toward his shoulder, blade gleaming in the firelight, but pulled back. “If you bite me, I’m going to kill you the rest of the way.”

He turned his head away from me and closed his striking blue eyes.

“All right then.” The skin had to be reopened because a knot that size would never fit through a semi-healed opening that small. I made the cut quickly and then flinched while I waited for the wolf to eat me. Nothing happened and I opened one eye to find him still in the same position. “This is going to hurt,” I warned.

He was stoic as I pried the seeping wound open and shoved my finger through the hole. I hooked it around the bullet as quickly as I could, and pulled. Out plopped a disfigured chunk of metal. I held it up against the light in my bloodied hand. He must’ve been in a great deal of pain. A shuffling noise drew my attention. The wolf crept closer on his belly, head and tail down and a soft whine in his throat. He lay his head in my lap and heaved a great sigh, as if touching me brought him relief from the heartache he no doubt felt at losing his master.

Well, if that didn’t beat all.

I debated stitching the wound closed but my shaking hands wouldn’t give him any advantage. If the wolf lived, he’d just have to be scarred. Perhaps I could keep him. I would be a poor substitute for the master he’d lost, but maybe we could shoulder our losses together.

I cried then as I stroked the soft fur on his face. I let the tide of anguish wash over me as I accepted that I’d lost Jeremiah in those mountains. My shoulders shook with my sobs, and I clutched the fabric of my dress over my heart where it felt like it would burst. I loved him, and now I understood why Kristina had said she’d never marry another.

No one else would compare to my Jeremiah.

Maybe I cried for hours, I didn’t know. All I knew was that I’d never be the same. I’d always be sad and broken. My husband had become a part of me, and now the bits of me I’d grown to care for were gone. As my tears had dried, the wolf had laid his head against my stomach as if he knew precisely the pain I endured.

Spent and exhausted, I lay down in the hay beside the dark beast. He nuzzled my face and licked my hand as I petted his ear, and down his protruding ribcage. My eyelids grew heavier with the gentle motion of my hand against him. It was easy falling asleep next to him. Maybe it was because he’d been there for me. Or because he was going through the same heartbreak. He’d never shown any aggression, only devotion to the hands that had saved his life.

I felt safe here in the firelight by my wolf.

He was wild and brave like my Jeremiah had been.

****

“Lorelei.” A voice echoed through my dreams. “Lorelei,” it repeated. “Where are you?” The voice was getting closer.

I stretched and opened my bleary eyes. Beigha stared at me from the safety of her stall and blasted a snort. Last night came back to me like a thundering avalanche, and with a combination of fear and hope, I felt for the wolf until my fingers found the rough fur of his coat.

I sat up and picked cascading stems of hay from my wild hair under the intense scrutiny of the wolf’s blue-eyed gaze. “You aren’t going to eat me now that you are feeling better, are you?”

He shook his head with a sneeze.

“Great.” My voice was scratchy and raw from crying so much, but the animal didn’t seem to mind. “Come on, boy.” I stood and hailed Kristina, who had a panicked look to her eyes as she ran for the barn. “I’m in here.” The wolf followed me, limping badly.

“There you are!” Kristina said in a tone that all but dripped relief. “I thought you’d gone off and done something stupid.”

The wolf growled behind me at the sight of Kristina, and her eyes went round. She screamed and lunged for the ladder as the wolf attacked.

“No!” I yelled as I jumped in between them. It gave her enough time to scurry up a few ladder rungs.

“Where’s Luke?” she cried over his snarls.

I backed slowly to the ladder, careful to stay in between them. This was a side of the wolf I hadn’t seen. He was terrifying. “What?” My voice shook like a flame. “How should I know?”

“I’m not asking you, Lorelei. I’m asking...Aaah!”

The wolf lunged again and I maneuvered my body closer to the ladder. Kristina scrambled straight up to the loft above me, and the wolf watched her the entire way.

“Don’t you feel some kind of connection to the wolf? Anything?” Her tone was getting frantic as the wolf approached me.

Terror snaked through me and I stumbled up the first rung with my back to the ladder. I just had to get far enough up it to escape those gleaming teeth he was baring at Kristina.

Wolves couldn’t climb ladders. Could they?

“Lorelei, he’ll still be able to get up here. Do you feel a connection?” Kristina asked from above.

“He—he let me clean his wound last night,” I stuttered. I crawled up the next rung, never taking my eyes from the hatred on the wolf’s face.

“Not what I’m talking about. Think. Why would a wolf let you do that?”

“Because he was tame. He was someone’s pet.”

“No, Lorelei. That wolf doesn’t belong to anyone but you,” she said softly. “He’s Jeremiah.”

I shook my head back and forth as I climbed higher. She’d lost it. She’d snapped with the loss of her husband and now she was crazy. Jeremiah was dead and as far as I knew, dead people didn’t reincarnate into black-furred, blue-eyed wolves.

“That’s the secret, Lorelei. He’s a werewolf.”

A hundred things that hadn’t made sense clattered into place. His inhuman speed, his shifting eye color and the soft growls in his throat when I pleased him. His heightened sense of hearing, the Hell Hunters, and the reasons the townspeople all seemed wary of the Dawson brothers.

The devil’s breeding right here in town…

But Jeremiah was a man. I’d felt his skin and kissed his lips. He didn’t match the beast below me.

“You’re his mate,” Kristina whispered.

Tears made warm streams on my cheeks and it was hard to breathe. “Stop it.”

“Lorelei—”

“I said stop it!” I screamed. “What you’re telling me isn’t real. It’s not real, Kristina! Werewolves don’t exist. This is just a way for you to hold onto the idea that Luke and Jeremiah are still alive.”

My roiling anger did something terrifying to the wolf. He pulled black lips over gleaming white teeth and looked at Kristina with such hatred. Then he hooked his paw on the first rung of the ladder, as if he knew exactly how to get up to her.

He wasn’t going to let her escape the loft.