Read Under the Alpha's Protection (Steamy Werewolf Shifter Menage Romance) Online
Authors: Willow Wilde
Under the Alpha's Protection (Steamy Werewolf Shifter Menage Romance) (8 page)
“I'll go to bed later. You go get your rest.” I got up to wander back to the window again, settling down in the chair.
“Alright,” she reluctantly told me. “Don't stay up too late. If this is gone by morning, I don't want you exhausted and bitchy all day.”
“I'll be bitchy whenever I damned well please. Now
scram
!” My devious smirk made her shake her head with a smile, and she disappeared around the corner and upstairs.
My gaze returned to the window. I couldn't help but think about Ben's story...I mean, it was totally irrational. That kind of stuff, the whole “shifter”, “natives up in the mountains” thing...I'd stopped believing in crap like that when I grew up. The most spiritual experience I'd ever had was getting my hands on a vibrator. But I couldn't get the thought out of my head...how
cool
would it be if that was the case? An old tribe with a bunch of paranormal bear dudes around, fighting the mountain lions and lording over the peaks.
Well, it would also be a total pain in the ass to get out of this storm
, I thought to myself.
What did the natives need to break it again?
The answer pinged into my head.
Oh, right
.
Women.
“Care for some company?” I heard the deep voice of a burly man behind me, and turned my head. Ben was standing close, a pair of tumblers in his fists. He extended one out to me, and after a brief moment of hesitation, I took it from him.
“I'm not 21,” I frowned, my eyes focused on the portion of dark, telltale fluid in my glass.
“So don't tell anyone,” he smiled warmly.
I flitted the tumbler beneath my nostrils. I didn't recognize the amber liquor, but it wafted a light, earthy scent that had a tinge of something sweet.
“Don't worry, it's fine. Just a little something I rummaged up from the basement. Among other important things, there's a stocked liquor cabinet down there...for times like this.” He sipped from his drink and took a seat in the armchair beside me.
“So, you guys aren't guests,” I noted.
Ben chuckled. “No, we aren't.” His warm smile spread beneath his beard, and he eyed me mischievously.
“So you work on the staff?”
“Not strictly,” he answered, watching for my reaction. “We sort of own this resort.”
“You're the owner!?” My jaw dropped. “No way!”
“All five of us, yes. Our family has owned this land for quite some time. It was our father who decided to build the resort.”
“Whoa...you guys must be
loaded
,” I wondered aloud.
“Actually, no. He wished to reinvest the vast majority of the profits into conservation, protecting these mountains and their forests. Seeing as we live primarily off the land and have no need for vast amounts of money, it wasn't even a discussion for us to keep that legacy strong.” He took another swig from his drink.
“You live off the land? What do you mean?” My curiosity deepened. “Are you guys like those weirdoes who drop civilized life and disappear into the woods?”
Ben let out a roar of laughter. As his large chest bounced, I spotted four others approaching from the direction of the stairs – undoubtedly his brothers. Peter was among them, and they all had grins on their faces.
“No, it's nothing like that,” Ben continued. “You see, although we don't look it, we have a certain...ancestry. My grandfather was native to these lands, and although the physical parts of it are primarily recessive in our genes...our shifter blood is strong.”
The other four had formed a semi-circle around him now, as he sat in his chair beside me. They were all clearly related: the same burly builds, thick beards, large chests, and broad shoulders. In the semi-darkness, they even seemed to share peculiarly sharp, green eyes. But as I noticed these highly attractive similarities, a small ping of recognition fired off inside my brain.
Shifter blood?
It dawned on me. “There's no way,” I told him. “That whole little spiel of yours earlier, about the natives and the bears...that
can’t
be true.”
“It is,” Peter piped up. “The storm is here because it's time for us to mate...for the next generation of us to arrive.”
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To this day, I’m still not sure how I survived the landslide.
The first thing I remember is opening my eyes, coughing against the choking smell of stirred dust in the air. I became gradually aware of my limbs, mostly buried along with the rest of my body, and in horror I realized I could barely move. Panicking, my alertness sharply increased as the endorphins pumped straight into my head. Circumstances be damned, I wasn’t willing to die in a pile of dirt and rock, and I immediately struggled to wrench myself free from the ground.
The going was rough — I had been mostly buried in a jumble of my own, sprawled limbs, unwilling to shift from under the crushing weight. It took every ounce of strength to shift the heavy debris aside just enough to slowly, painfully pull myself free. Desperation drove me for several painstaking, testing minutes before I finally pulled my upper half up from my earthy prison.
Dragging myself out of the heavy mass of sediments and rock chunks, I gasped for air on the ground nearby. As the chemicals wore off and my fight-or-flight instincts dialed down, things started coming back to me. I remembered brief flashes now: there had been a group of us, hiking together along a wilderness trail that cut along the mountain. The rumbling had come out of nowhere, and a building flow of falling debris had swept me down the slope and towards my inevitable death. It was clear as day now – rolling with the cascading wave of earth, tumbling ever downward as I screamed, unable to separate the rising ground from the cliff-face, nor from the watching sky.
But I hadn’t died. In fact, as I pulled myself shakily off of the ground, it didn’t feel as if I’d broken any bones whatsoever.
There’s no goddamn way
, I thought to myself.
This kind of miraculous shit isn’t supposed to happen. I was a fucking goner
.
Despite some bruising, and inevitable stiffness that would appear the next morning, I didn’t have so much as a missing tooth or a shattered elbow. My gaze drifted up the slope, tracing the redistribution of dirt and stone. Our hiking group had been walking one of the lower trails, but it was still well out of sight from my vantage point.
How long have I been down here?
I wondered to myself. The sun still hung lazily in the sky — if it was the same day, I couldn’t have been unconscious more than a few hours. Thinking quickly, I took stock of myself. My body felt only mildly dehydrated, but I had been a little thirsty before the landslide anyway. Daring to twist my appendages and curve my spine, it appeared that my spry, flexible articulation was still intact. In fact, overlooking some minor scrapes and cuts, I felt
fine
.
This is too weird
, I thought to myself. With eyes veiled in disbelief, I gazed up the slope one last time, marveling at the descent.
But there were other important matters to take care of. I had no food, and I was stranded from my group — who were undoubtedly looking for me. Logic rationed that I was going to be on my own for at least the night, and I needed to find a pure water source and shelter.
With nowhere else to turn, I gazed towards the woods. The earth had carried me squarely to a small clearing at the foot of the mountain, surrounding me on three sides with rock. The only way to advance was directly forward; with certain hesitance, I planted my first foot in that direction.
* * * *
It was only after about an hour of walking that I realized how much
beauty
filled the forest. As an amateur nature photographer, I appreciated nature’s majesty arguably more than most people my age, but these woods were something entirely else. The very leaves seemed to pop more, shining in brighter, greener colors as the sunlight drifted lazily to cast the canopy in brilliance. The underbrush was somehow far more forgiving than I would have expected, and I realized that I hadn’t nicked myself or scratched my skin on any of the branches as I pushed forward.
Stranger still was the wildlife. It seemed to pay me very little mind, and after taking a small break to catch my breath, I realized that a doe was literally feet away on the other side of a healthy trunk. Only spotting it out of the corner of my eye, I completely expected it to instantly dart away — instead, as I carefully climbed over roots and dips in the soft soil, it amazingly turned to stare me in the eyes. My hands hesitated in the air as an irrational fear crept across my mind. As if approaching a beautiful, delicate monarch butterfly with an intrepid finger, I feared that touching its very fur would harm the docile creature. After a moment of regarding my trembling hands, it lazily trotted off towards a distant bush, eager to munch on the available berries.
My amazement only increased as I continued across the woods. A short while later, I encountered a majestic stag, wandering lazily along between the trees. Instinct took over, and I carefully followed it — always happy to keep my distance as to not disturb the beast. After several hundred strides, it led me towards the sound of trickling water, and I stepped from the trees to encounter a small creek, babbling down the rocks and cutting a path through the woods.
Parched, I dropped to my knees and swept cupped handfuls of the running water to my face, thirstily slurping the sustaining gift. After sustaining myself with the water, I turned and noticed the stag once more. It had paused to watch me, having already taken its fill of the life-giving water. The absurdity of the sight almost sent me falling over with laughter, and after we quietly regarded each other with mutual surprise, it calmly turned and vanished into the brush.
Eager to stay near the water, I followed along the edge. Colliding with another trail of water, the growing river descended further still into the woods. I felt compelled to strip my clothes and dip beneath the edge of the rippling channel, but the water was so clear and free from impurities that I didn’t dare taint it with my dirty, dusty skin. Instead, I continued to follow it down, hoping to find a reasonable place to set up shelter within a sizable distance. After all, I was afraid of drawing attention from whatever predators lurked these woods, and staying close to the water had its downsides.
As the sun began to set in the sky, I encountered a renewed surge of beauty in the forest. Surrounded by incredible plants I had never seen, I marveled at them as they gradually unfurled their petals together, bathing the trees in a warm, bluish glow. Their growing luminescence matched the waning light of the sun above, striking a perfect equilibrium of light. With the sun quickly descending out of sight, the light bounced harder off of the thick, protective trees in an incredible display. Being around them as I wandered the heart of the forest surpassed anything I had ever seen.
But their natural luminescence wasn’t the only beauty to behold. The vegetation and underbrush had given way to soft, spongey grass that bounced under my every step. The trees themselves were wrapped in thick vines that sprouted beautiful flowers of all colors, adding a soft, sweet aroma that soothed my senses.
Somehow, I knew that I should be exhausted. I’d barely eaten anything since first starting the trail, and I’d survived both a sudden landslide and wandering the forest for hours. Fearful of misidentifying poisonous berries, I had only eaten few small handfuls after watching other mammals chomp on the vines. While I had periodically stopped to scoop water to my face, I knew I’d have to eat something soon, or find a place to rest…but I wasn’t tired, nor was I incredibly hungry.
This entire day is just crazy
, I thought to myself.
But I had no idea how seriously crazy it was going to become…
* * * *
As I stopped wandering the forest and appreciated this vast change in the flora, I wondered about the rest of the hiking group. I hadn’t seen any of them descend over the side with me. I wondered if they would come looking for me?
It made more sense for them to call the authorities and try to have a search and rescue party dig me from the debris. Of course, they wouldn’t find a body. Maybe they would search the woods, but I wondered how far in they would go. It didn’t make sense for someone who had just cascaded down the side of a mountain in a landslide to not only have
survived,
but to have clawed her way out of the dirt and wander across the woods for
hours.
I had been so enchanted by these woods that I hadn’t stopped to wonder if I should try to remain close to the settled debris. It made sense to go hunting for a clean water source, but perhaps I should have tried to establish some sort of shelter around the rock.
As I reflected on these things, it occurred to me to abandon my wanderlust and find my way back. If I traced my way up the river, I reasoned, I could cut out the vast majority of the guesswork and search for the appropriate landmarks. But the more I thought about it, the more I realized that I hadn’t quite paid attention to where I had first encountered it. Worst case scenario, I veered back into the woods too soon, or too late. Either way, without any sort of a vantage point, the likelihood that I could return was incredibly low.
I could only press forward and hope for the best.
But there was more to it than that. I
wanted
to see more of these woods. I felt something drawing me closer, following this riverbank further along. I couldn’t explain it to myself, and I still can’t now – it was an irrational compulsion, driving me further into the heart of the forest. By now, I’d reasoned that I wasn’t anywhere near civilization. For all I knew, I’d wandered directly in the opposite direction. It occurred to me that I didn’t know of any major road that ran near here. But my path was set, and instead of being terrified…I was at ease, somehow.
I felt like it didn’t matter that I didn’t know what I was doing. All that was important was pressing onward…and with my surprisingly intact stamina, it was easy to dispel my fears, putting one foot back in front of the other as I spotted a large, thick tree trunk in the distance, just a short ways from the river. It seemed as good as any a place to rest, and I made my way towards it.
* * * *
It was when I was resting at the crook of that tree, resting peacefully for about half an hour, that I saw the large grizzly bears. There were two of them, lumbering quietly towards me at a leisurely pace, and I tensed up for the first time in hours. It was then that I realized I hadn’t actually SEEN any active predators this entire time — not besides a few wolves that were slumbering to the side earlier, or a wildcat lazed on a tree bough above the river.
The bears were clearly advancing on me, and I felt too terrified to move.
Are these the kind of bears you challenge? Do you shrink down from them? What the fuck am I supposed to do?
“You are not meant to be here,” a rugged voice warned me. My gaze reluctantly drifted from them to spot the broad, sculpted build of a man in the semi-darkness. He stood close and menacingly, his hand pressed against the tree as he watched me. Had I not been completely preoccupied with the approaching bears, I would have wondered why he was completely naked, his thick cock hanging between his legs.
“The bears! What do I do?” I quietly shrieked.