Shifters' Storm (26 page)

“I—don’t!”

“Quiet.” Songan lightly slapped her ass.

“Don’t make a sound.” Ber began drawing her nipple in small circles.

Quiet? Silent?

Desperate to obey the men, she clenched her teeth. Her arms were starting to ache from supporting her upper body, and there was a burning sensation along her spine. Any other time, the discomfort would have distracted her, but the shifters who’d taken ownership of her body knew her weaknesses.

Songan! Spreading his fingers in her and increasing the pressure against her pussy walls. His thumb no longer rested against her bung hole. Instead, it slid over the scant space between it and her sex, finding—oh God—her clit.

Triggering it.

“No, no, no, no!”

“Yes, Rane, yes.”

She did as Songan commanded, surrendered. The hot, wonderful wash that was everything claimed her. Her inner muscles tightened spastically around Songan’s fingers. Despite the awful/wonderful electrical charge consuming her, she didn’t try to break free.

Still drawing her breast about, Ber nibbled the back of her neck.

She climaxed. Climaxed again. She was still short-circuiting when Songan’s fingers disappeared, and his cock took their place. He started pounding at her.

“Yes! Oh shit, yes!” she screamed.

Her body raged, her muscles caught on fire. She only dimly comprehended when the elk shifter spilled inside her.

Later, Ber opened the vacuum-packed stew packet, added water and put it on the woodstove to warm. When it was ready, they stood around the stove and took turns eating from the pan. Even later, all three dragged their clothes back on. Despite her insistence that they needed the bed more than she did, the men took turns sleeping on it while the other hung over the sides of the too-small recliner. She spent half the night curled against Ber, the rest with Songan’s body around hers.

Even before first light, she knew the storm had lost its strength. Snow continued to fall all through the day but didn’t hinder their hike back to civilization. No one said a word about what they’d left behind. They reached her truck before she’d decided what she had to do.

Chapter Twenty-Four

Planting his hands on her shoulders, Ber looked down at her. “No. You’re staying here.”

“Why?” she demanded, even though her muscles ached and she’d kill for a shower. “You two are going back.” She jerked her head at Songan, who was talking to Deputy Gannon and the head of the county’s search and rescue. “I know the area better than you do. Don’t forget, I grew up here.”

“Yes, you did.” His hold gentled, but he gave no indication he might let her go. “Damn it, Rane, you’ve been through enough. You don’t want to see…”

“We don’t know what happened to those two men.” Like Ber, she kept her voice low so the dozen or so people crowded inside the small city hall couldn’t hear them.

She looked around but couldn’t make herself settle on any of the faces. “They’re probably still alive. Even if you can’t find them, the search dog probably will.”

As if aware that he was being talked about, the ninety-pound Doberman padded over to the door, clearly ready to get started.

“Then let him
.
We don’t want you doing it.”

By
we,
Ber was obviously referring to Songan. It felt strange to be talked about as if she belonged to the two men, strange and comforting and exciting.

“You don’t want them to be alive, do you.” It wasn’t really a question. “At least the bear part of you doesn’t.”

“After what they did, they don’t deserve to live.”

Ber’s voice echoed with conviction. Given what he’d seen in the cave, she couldn’t blame him, but things were more complicated for her. She was more civilized, for lack of a better explanation.

Leaving the deputy, Songan joined Ber and her. He nodded at the door, then started that direction. Ber’s hand remained on her as the three stepped outside.

“Gannon knows the whole story,” Songan explained once they were alone. “For now he’s going to keep it to himself.”

“In other words,” she said as she faced their imposing forms, “the volunteers think they’re simply handling a search and hopefully a rescue.”

The elk shifter started to nod, then stopped. “It’s not that simple. They know who they’re going after.”

It hit her that those inside city hall, the whole town, probably, knew who hadn’t come home last night. More than that, they saw the missing men either as friends or someone they preferred to avoid.

Running her hands into her back pockets, she concentrated on meeting the shifters’ gazes.

“I need to know something,” she said. “Do you blame me for telling Gannon what I did? If I’d said nothing about them being at Wolverine, no one would be looking for them. Nature could take its course.”

“Let it,” Songan said.

“Eye for an eye,” Ber added. “They murdered.”

“I know.” Groaning, she rubbed her forehead. Then she grabbed Ber’s hand. “They murdered a sow and her cubs, creatures that mean a great deal to you.”

“And your mother.”

“And my mother.”

“What is it you want?” Songan asked. “For the legal system to handle things?”

“I don’t know.” She couldn’t remember when she’d felt this raw or when trying to get someone to understand her meant more than it did right now. “I couldn’t live with myself if I did nothing and the men slowly died.”

What she chose to believe was a softening in their expressions and their slight nods would have to be enough. And yet she had to ask one more thing.

“Maybe the dog will find them,” she said, “but if you two are the first to reach them and they’re alive—”

“Don’t.”

Shocked because they’d spoken as one, she wrapped her arms around her middle.

“You want to handle things the way civilized human beings do,” Ber said after glancing at Songan. “We respect that.”

“Even if that’s not what you’d do?”

Ber brushed the side of her face with a rough hand. “It doesn’t matter, Rane.”

Rane waited until the searchers, the shifters included, had taken off in their four-wheel-drive vehicles before acknowledging Alice. The older woman stood with her arms tight around her middle much as Rane had done a little while ago. Instead of her usual grease-stained overalls, Alice had on faded jeans and an oversize men’s jacket that somehow made her look even smaller and skinnier.

In contrast to Alice, who’d walked from her home above the gas station, Clifford Jones had driven his battered pickup and was leaning against it a few feet away. The last time Rane had seen Clifford, he’d been drinking at the Sawmill. Half drunk, he was full of bravado. Now he put Rane in mind of a trapped animal.

“You want to say it or should I?” Clifford asked Alice. He turned his attention to Rane. “The question is why. You know, don’t you?”

Rane stuck her hands in her back pockets. “Only Dave and your brother can explain what they were doing at Wolverine. Maybe they’d learned Songan, Ber and I were going there.”

“Songan’s a shifter. Half human, if that.” Spittle formed on the corner of Clifford’s mouth. “The other one, Ber, he’s the same.”

She saw no reason to point out that Ber was a grizzly and not an elk like Forestville’s residents were used to. “That’s not the point.”

“The hell it ain’t.” Clifford jutted his chin at her. “You think everyone don’t know what’s going on between you and those two mutants. Hell, makes me sick just thinking about it.”

“Stop it! Just stop it, Cliff.”

Shocked and yet heartened by Alice’s outburst, she turned her attention to the mousy woman. “Are you all right?” she asked. “You look exhausted.”

Alice scrubbed stained fingers over her face. “I didn’t sleep. Hell, I don’t know the last time I did. What’s this about?”

“Do you really want to know?”

Shoulders sagging, Alice nodded. “It’s going to come out sooner or later. I don’t want to be the last to hear it.”

“What about you?” she asked Clifford.

“I’ll listen. That don’t mean I’m going to believe you.”

Several townspeople who weren’t part of the search-and-rescue team were watching, but Rane didn’t care. Right now all anyone knew was that Alice’s husband Dave and Clifford’s brother Chip were missing and presumably lost somewhere near Wolverine.

Her voice low, she spelled out everything that had happened at Wolverine yesterday. When neither Alice nor Clifford spoke, she continued. Her throat ached as she detailed what she believed had been the last minutes of her mother’s life and why she’d been killed.

“You don’t have no proof it was them what did Jacki,” Clifford spluttered.

“Yes, we do. Stop it, please. Don’t lie for your brother.”

Like Ber and Songan, Clifford hadn’t shaved for several days, but instead of looking sexy, his gray-flecked stubble just made him appear older. Worn out, beaten down.

Like Alice.

Propelled by a wash of emotion, Rane wrapped her arms around the gas station owner and held her against her chest. Thank goodness for the muscles that were a result of a lifetime of physical labor. If it wasn’t for that, Rane might have hurt Alice.

“It isn’t your fault,” she told Alice. “I’d never blame you for what your husband did and tried to do.”

Shuddering, Alice rested her head against Rane and took several deep breaths. Then she straightened.

“I hope you don’t. I knew—” She threw a glance at Clifford. “I knew Dave had done something he shouldn’t have. We didn’t talk. We haven’t talked for years.”

“Then how—” Rane started.

“I know him. Maybe in ways he doesn’t realize. For weeks now, about the time your mother disappeared, he’s been acting different. Like he wishes he was anywhere except here when he always said this was where he was going to die.”

Rane had stepped back from Alice so she could study her but still had hold of her hands. She wondered if Alice realized she was speaking about her husband mostly in the present tense when he might be dead. She also wondered if Alice was aware of the lack of emotion in her voice.

“I didn’t want to put one and one together, so I didn’t.” Alice briefly closed her eyes. After looking over at Clifford, she focused on Rane. “I was wrong when I said things started bothering him when your mother went missing. He turned different months before that.”

“When?” Rane asked.
When the bear poachings began?

“What about it, Cliff?” Alice asked heatedly. “Last spring my husband and your brother started hanging around together. That when he stopped being close to you?”

Rane’s temples pulsed. She would have given anything to walk away. Instead, she waited.

“He’s my kin.” Clifford shot an angry look at a man around his age who was walking toward him. “Later, damn it. Can’t you see I’m busy?”

Shrugging, the man walked away. That seemed to be the trigger for the others, because one by one they headed for their vehicles. It would be hours before there was any word about the search, no reason to hang around.

“Chip and I’ve always done everything together.” Clifford studied his chipped nails and scarred hands. “Ma kept saying she wanted us to stay in school, go to college. But we started logging soon as we got big enough, made damn good money. For a long time.”

Much as Clifford’s sad recital got to her, Rane didn’t have the energy to hear the story again.

“So.” She had to clear her throat before she could get going again. “When the logging jobs ended, you and Chip—and Dave—had to find other ways of paying the bills.”

“Not no more. We got that logging contract.”

“But before. And maybe in addition to.”

Leaving Alice, she planted herself in front of Clifford. Although he didn’t match the shifters in height or bulk, he was still bigger and stronger than her. Still, she
had
to get this out.

“I don’t know about you,” she said, “but I have no doubt your brother and Dave were making money selling bear galls.” She swallowed again. “They poached, hunted out of season, trapped and slaughtered at least one sow and her cubs. The other day I came across a young bull elk that had had the same thing done to him. Killed for no reason.”

“Damn him! Why the hell did I stay married to him?”

Alice’s outburst had Rane pivoting toward her. Before, the older woman’s face had been colorless. Now her cheeks were red and her eyes blazed.

“I suspected what was happening.” Clifford’s words were barely audible. “But I never asked.”

“Why not?”

“Didn’t want to know. Didn’t want to hear that’s what he and that old man were doing.”

If Alice resented having her husband referred to as an old man, she gave no indication.

“Alice,” Clifford muttered. “That’s not all they did. They…” He stretched his hand toward Rane as if he wanted to touch her but didn’t. “Your husband and my brother killed Jacki.”

Rane tried to prepare herself for Alice’s denial. Instead, Alice stumbled over to Clifford’s dirty pickup and leaned against it. “Oh God. Rane—I wouldn’t let myself think it. Looking at you, seeing what you were going through, I should have been stronger. Told the deputy of my suspicions.”

Clifford placed his arm around Alice’s shoulder. “So should I. Rane, you deserved better.”

“I’m leaving him,” Alice said. “If he’s alive, I’ll make sure he watches as I walk out. Leave here. Start over.”

Still concentrating on the older woman’s emotion, Rane wasn’t sure Alice’s words had anything to do with her. Then it hit her.

Unlike Alice, the last thing she wanted to do was leave Forestville and the surrounding Chinook mountains.

And the two men who’d stormed into her world.

Rio found what was left of Dave. Watching the search-and-rescue dog standing motionless next to the body with his hackles raised and tail tucked between his legs, Ber admired the well-trained animal’s single-mindedness. Until he was given the command to relax, Rio would stay alerted on Dave.

Rio had frequently sniffed Ber and Songan during the hike up to the cabin, his tail wagging slowly. No one had said anything, but Rio’s handler and the deputy’s expressions had left little doubt of what they were thinking. Rio knew shifters were different from humans, more interesting, maybe more likeable.