AlphaMountie (9 page)

She had to smile at that. Noire was glad to hear that her issues
still made her
less
drama than the competition. “It’s the first time I’ve
noticed it too. Well, during sex, I mean. I felt you the moment you snuck up on
me at the ferry, only I didn’t know what it was then. Guess it must be the half-shifter
blood. The first time we had sex, in your hotel room, was when I really noticed
it.”

“If that’s what sex with another shifter is like, I’m not going
back to regular humans,” he said.

“But I’m not a shifter.”

“You’re pretty close to it.”

“Still.” She turned her head from him, not wanting to see his
face. She concentrated hard on her paddling, telling herself it was just because
she wanted maximum stroke efficiency. “It’s not the same, is it? This morning, when
we saw what Page had done to our campsite, you were worried about me.”

“Of course I was.”

“No, you were worried about protecting me. I’m not an equal to
you, am I? Because I’m not a werewolf, I never will be.”

“So what? Why should that matter? We’re different, that’s all.”
He was getting frustrated with her, but Noire couldn’t stop herself from speaking.
It seemed to be a bad habit of hers.

“I can sense it in you. I could with Fawn too—her yearning to
be an actress, her curiosity about the city, her skittishness and fear when she
arrived there for the first time alone. I could read her feelings as if I were reading
the trails of a young deer venturing into a clearing in the trees. With her, she
was chasing a dream, only to find the rifle of a hunter at the end of it. And even
if he missed she would be back, a week later, that same skittish deer in that same
sunny clearing, because you can’t kill her curiosity and she never learns from it.
That’s what killed my sister, as much as any monster did.

“But you’re not a deer,” she continued. “You’re a wolf. Through
and through. I could sense you dominating the other detectives on Ward’s Island,
working your alpha male tricks, and I can sense you missing your pack so dearly
it’s like you’re howling at your moon. Then I can sense you, the wolf you, turn
your attention to me, looking for a mate, protecting me like a mate.”

“I’ll always want to protect you, Noire. Even if you were the
most powerful woman on the planet, I would still want to keep you safe.”

“But I’m not your mate.”

“No. Maybe I’d like it if you were some day. The wolf wants you
now, but the human can wait until you’re ready. And I hope you will be. Your sister
wasn’t a deer completely, though, was she? You could feel her deer side, that part
of her that was curious but terrified of the world.”

Noire nodded, confused at where he was heading with this.

“But what kept her in the city, then, if she felt alone and scared?”

Noire replied, “Fawn always said she wanted to be an actress
more than anything. And you can’t do that from the inner reaches of the forest.”

“
Fawn always said
—you mean, you talked to her about it.”

“Yes.”

“So you couldn’t feel it.”

Noire furrowed her brow. She realized he was right. She could
picture her sister’s wide brown eyes hidden beneath a fringe of brown hair, like
a deer peering out from the foliage. She could almost taste her sister’s fear, and
it had churned like a whirlpool inside Noire when she first set eyes on Fawn’s body.
But she had never understood the human side of Fawn, the part that persisted in
staying in Toronto, following a dream long after she should have woken from sleep.

Cam’s gray eyes searched her face. His face was so serious. She
took one hand off her paddle and ran a thumb along his lower lip and managed a small
smile, showing him that she was going to be okay. Maybe.

“So what you’re saying,” Noire said, “is that just like my sister
wasn’t completely a deer, you aren’t completely a wolf?”

“Exactly. My wolf may want to run home to my pack and celebrate
that I’ve found a mate, and my wolf may want to drag you back there with me. But
my human side—and I am shaped like a human most of the time, you’ll notice—is willing
to wait until you’re ready. And he’s willing to start a new pack, wherever his mate
wants to live.”

They stored the canoe on the northernmost bank of the lake and
continued on foot. They weren’t sure where they were going but knew the bear had
to be close. Noire noticed the sounds of the forest had almost completely disappeared.
While the slight wind still
shushed
through the trees, it was accompanied
by no bird song, and no squirrels or mice darted at their feet. They headed for
a series of caves that Noire had heard about, but had never visited. They walked
for over an hour in the eerie quiet, until Cam paused and said he’d caught a strange
scent.

He motioned her to be quiet, and leaned in to whisper in her
ear, “It’s him.”

“Are you sure?” she mouthed back.

“Either that or we’ve got more than one of them. Let’s hope it’s
Page.”

Emboldened now by knowing they were on the right track, they
began to jog. Cam took Noire’s pack, shouldering the burden so she wouldn’t fall
behind.

They lost Page’s scent at a fork in the path. Cam held up a hand,
asking Noire to pause, while he hunched over slightly and inhaled. Noire tried it
herself, but the spruce trees towering around them were the only thing she could
smell.

Once they had smelled like home, the sticky sweet sap, but now
she saw the never-ending forest as an obstacle to finding the monster that killed
her sister.

They would find him. And then he would pay.

She caught Cam looking at her with concern. He reached out a
hand to touch her face, attempting to comfort her, but Noire moved out of the way.
Fucking him these past few days had been amazing, but now they were too close. She
couldn’t give in to her desires. When the bear was dead, she would take him every
which way she pleased.

To distract herself, she took another deep breath, ignoring the
scent this time, and thought of how she’d track a non-supernatural animal. Sharpening
her focus, she peered into the underbrush of the forest around her—looking for broken-off
branches, slightly trampled weeds and any softer moss or mud that might retain prints.

“This way,” Cam said, pointing. He turned to head into the brush.

“Wait,” Noire said. When he stopped, she clasped his hand in
hers. “Why that way?”

“I can smell him down here. It’s strong.”

Noire took an experimental sniff and couldn’t smell anything;
but then, she didn’t expect to. She believed him though, trusted absolutely in his
abilities. But…

“Cam, there’s some vegetation broken down this way too,” Noire
said as she gestured to the northwest. “Can you smell anything here?”

The werewolf furrowed his brow thoughtfully, and she saw his
nostrils flaring again. “Just a little. Very faint, compared to the other trail.”

“Ah, guess you were right then,” she said, though it went against
her intuition. She frowned.

He reached out and touched that frown, pressing into her lips.
She deftly bit down on his finger, a puppy’s love nip, eager to get going.

“Nope,” he said. “You were right.” Campbell breathed in deeply,
and Noire’s gaze caught on the rise and fall of his powerful chest. “It’s urine,”
he declared. She must have looked confused, because he smiled playfully, baring
his teeth like a wolf. “He walked that way awhile and then marked a tree with his
piss. Then he retraced his steps and headed back, and continued on the trail you
found—northwest. He thought the strong scent eastward would throw me off, but you
outsmarted him.”

He leaned in and kissed her, just once, quick and hard.

“Lead the way,” he said.

She turned and started off after the northwest trail, then paused.

“What is it?”

“I figured you out,” she said. “You just want me to go first
so you can look at my ass.”

He grinned. “Guilty.”

As she picked her way through the woods, careful not to lose
sight of the trail, Noire swore she could feel the heat of his gaze on her ass the
whole way.

From the outside, the den looked like a regular black bear habitat.
Bears could make a den out of nearly anything—a rock cave, the inside of a rotted
tree trunk, the shelter of strong roots or a simple hole in the ground. This one
was larger than most, cave in the side of a cliff that towered over them. The walls
were earth and dirt, crumbling slightly, and vegetation all around the opening had
been ripped out of the ground.

There was nothing that unusual about it, but when they approached,
Noire felt her entire body go cold. It came from deep inside her, a point in her
chest that until this week had been one of her greatest joys—where she normally
felt her psychic link with Fawn. Until Fawn had died screaming.

“It’s here, Cam,” Noire whispered. “Her pelt. I know it.”

She knew Fawn was dead and her suffering was over—there was nothing
of her baby sister’s soul left in the pelt. But Noire’s eyes still filled with tears,
and everything came rushing back—Fawn’s pale face, bites marring her neck and shoulders,
the rest of her body shrouded under the white sheet, surrounded by metal drawers
in the morgue.

“Hey.” Cam’s voice was soft and kind. He turned her to him and
kissed her forehead, wiped the tears from her cheeks with the sleeve of his mud-stained
uniform. “We’ll get him, love. Trust me.” He comforted her with an embrace and she
let herself relax for just a moment.

Then she pulled back and hardened her face.

“What’s the plan now?” she asked. “Back to camp, I’ll grab my
shotgun and cover you?”

She could sense his hesitation; Cam knew she wouldn’t like the
answer. “Listen. I can’t smell anything distinctive, so I don’t know what’s in there.
It’s just a lot of blood.”

“My sister’s? Jedd’s?”

“I don’t know. Maybe from different people. It’s all just melding
together, acrid and horrible. I don’t think we’re ready to attack.” He guided her
back into the cover of the trees. They kept their voices low in case the bear was
nearby.

She was so connected to his wolf side that she could sense a
lie and would call him on it immediately. He wasn’t lying, but he was hiding something.

“We need to know more about the situation first.” This was truth.
“Let me do some recon. Then I can figure out the next steps from there.”

She pressed her mouth together and bristled at the word “I”.

“I’m just as quiet as you are,” she said. “I’ve been tracking
animals since I was four.”

“I know,” he said, kindness apparent in his voice. “But you don’t
have my sense of smell, sweetheart, or my hearing. And when I’m in wolf form I
can’t be distracted by you.”

“Distracted?” She scowled at him. This was not the time to be
joking about their mutual attraction. She sensed him floundering, trying to decide
whether to go with a lie or the truth. Which was more likely to chase her away?
Even Noire herself wasn’t sure.

“I’m going to tell you something, and I need you to promise not
to freak out on me.” He held both her hands in his. She felt him willing her to
remain with him.

“I can’t promise that. What if you’re going to say something
stupid?”

“My wolf won’t let me observe the bear without using part of
my senses to keep an eye on you as well,” he started.

“I can take care of myself.” Noire yanked her hands out of his.
“Just tell me what you’re thinking.”

“My wolf sees you as his mate. Werewolves…we don’t take a lot
of time to find our forever partner, love. My wolf bonded to you almost immediately.
And because of this, there’s nothing I can do to block out my worry for you if you’re
there. It will be a liability. Noire, if you feel anything for me, and if you want
your sister avenged, I need you to let me begin this on my own. I need you to go
back to camp.”

“What are you saying, exactly?” she asked. She thought she knew,
that every piece of him reached out to her, but she had to hear the words.

“I’m saying that I love you, and I need you to trust me on this.”

“Oh. Wow.”

“It’s okay. You don’t have to say it back. You’re human, after
all, and our two species don’t play by the same rules, even if you have a piece
of shifter blood inside you.”

She kissed him softly. “Keep safe,” she said. “Promise me you’ll
keep safe. Remember, if you make it back alive I’ll let you do whatever you want
to me.” She kissed him again. “Wherever you want.”

“Noire, you’re a lot more special than you realize. The shifter
blood in you, it connects us, werewolf to shifter. Maybe not as strong as with you
and your sister, but when we’re apart, I feel you. Can you sense me?”

She had tears in her eyes, but she nodded.

“Then that will keep me safe,” he said. “You’ll know it if I
get into any trouble.”

She managed a small, brave smile. “Then I guess I’d better stay
alert.”

She turned to walk away, back to the campsite. She could let
him do this. And she realized she had a secret of her own—he had no idea how strong
their psychic link had grown.

Halfway back to the camp, she knew when he shifted. It was different
than when she’d first seen him as a wolf. He’d shifted in the forest and returned
in the other form, like magic. This was the first time she could really feel him.
Cam pulled his service weapon out of its holster. She shared his regret at setting
it aside, but knew the pistol was useless to a wolf. He placed it in a small tree
stump nearby. His weapons today would be his sense of smell, his intelligence, his
teeth and his claws.

He stripped off his clothes and though Noire was still dressed
warmly for the late autumn weather, the cold breeze cut through her sweater. She
shivered with him.

Naked, he changed. The bones popping out of their sockets, the
muscles tearing—she knew all that pain brought him clarity and purpose. For Noire,
feeling it for the second time, it was agony. When he was done, she was curled up
on the forest floor, shivering and sweaty.

In a few short moments, the massive gray wolf stood, shook himself
off and entered the bear’s den.

With each passing minute, Noire liked Cam’s plan less and less.

She was back at the campsite now, trying to distract herself
with chores. What he’d said about their connection made sense. Carrying the recessive
gene for weres gave Noire a natural affinity for wild animals, and also for those
almost-humans like her sister Fawn—and Cam. Their physical and emotional bonding
made this even stronger. Combined with her ability to read animal gestures, it was
almost as if she could read his mind.

So surely, as Cam said, she’d know if he was in trouble. Right?

But the last she’d felt from him was entering that cave as a
wolf. She could close her eyes and remember what it felt like to walk on four paws,
her tail ready to tuck between her legs at the first sign of danger.

But she couldn’t stop imagining everything that could go wrong.
As she pitched their tent, she thought about how small the den was and how easily
Cam could be trapped inside.

She shivered and a tiny point just left of the center of her
chest grew cold.

As she set up trappings to catch a rabbit for supper (she thought
Cam’s wolf side might appreciate the treat, and Noire herself would never turn down
rabbit stew), she thought about what the bear might eat, which led her to picturing
bear teeth and claws—perfect for ripping bugs out of a fallen log, or for ripping
the viscera out of the stomach of a vulnerable mammal.

The cold spot inside her seemed to freeze, like an icicle ripping
into her heart.

She’d only seen the result of two bear attacks in her career
as park warden, and she couldn’t dismiss either from her mind easily. When a human
got ripped apart by a wild creature, it didn’t look like the neat autopsies she
conducted on cadavers in school. All of the organs she’d been taught to carefully
identify were mush, smashed together and torn to the point where blood darkened
everything—intestines, lungs, heart, liver—into something resembling haggis.

The cold spot in her heart was at the point of pain now. Noire
sat down hard on a log, slipping slightly on wet moss. She barely noticed. She closed
her eyes and clutched at her chest, focusing on the pain.

She’d felt just like this earlier this week. A few hours before
she’d received the call that they’d found someone matching her sister’s description.
But Fawn was dead, so this new pain—this new pain had to be Cam.

Without thinking, Noire hoisted herself off the log and picked
up her Beretta, pocketing all the extra shells she could find. The plan had
been for Cam to kill the skinwalker. Making his death an animal attack would
have diverted any suspicion, but with the Mountie in danger, Noire couldn’t worry
about that now. She grabbed a camping knife and an axe they’d planned to use for
firewood. Just in case. And then she took off down the path they’d followed earlier,
this time with no attempt to avoid leaving a path. She trampled on grasses and let
twigs snap off in her hair, picking up her pace into a full sprint, breathing heavier,
the air in her lungs exhaling in a scream as the pain in her heart grew unbearable.
But she pressed on.

As she ran, memories not her own flooded her mind.

The bear had surprised him.

One minute, Cam was standing deep inside the lair, staring
at a pile of bloody furs, skins and feathers—Page’s collection of pelts. He kept
his senses attuned for the smell or the scent of another predator, knowing that
Page had access to several different shapes. They couldn’t even be sure his original
form was a bear. So Cam’s wolf senses kept watch for bears, wolves, coyotes, hawks—even
deer, knowing that the bear might try appealing to Noire’s love for her sister.

None of those smells reached his snout.

When the blue jay attacked him, he wasn’t expecting it.

The bird struck first for his eyes, raking small talons across
them. Fluid streamed out of his eyes as he was blinded. The pain was unbearable,
but he had to bear it. With a howl of frustration, Cam lashed out with his teeth,
his claws, his whole body, throwing himself at the walls of the cave, trying to
find the tiny bird to crush it between his jaws.