“That’s where I found you.” Devon eased her foot off the gas pedal and pointed to the open field to her left. Last night’s blizzard had covered up any trace of Liam’s presence. Wisps of white swirled over the smooth surface of snow, stirred by the wind of another oncoming storm.
Liam’s gaze stayed glued to the field, neck craning as they drove slowly past. His expression was contemplative, his dark brows drawn sharply over his eyes. He remained silent for a long moment and Devon couldn’t shake the feeling that he knew more than he let on. Anxiety unfurled in her stomach and her grip tightened on the steering wheel. Whatever his secrets and his reasons for keeping them, she hoped to God they wouldn’t make her regret her decision to help him.
“Do you see many bears around here?”
The question seemed to come out of left field and threw Devon for a loop. She assumed he’d ask for details about last night, not the local wildlife. “Not really.” She kept her eyes on the road as she spoke. “I’ve seen a couple of black bears in the spring and fall, but they tend to stay up high on the ridges. They really don’t have a reason to come down because there’s not much of a food source here. Berries grow on the ridges and the bears love them. The deer and elk are pretty thick in the spring and summer, though. In the winter, they move on to the lower valleys for the most part.”
“What about wolves?”
Devon caught a glimpse of Liam’s grim expression from the corner of her eye. His jaw was squared and his lips thinned. This conversation made her more anxious by the second. “A lot of locals say they see wolves all the time. Big ones. Timber wolves. I’ve lived here almost a year and I’ve never seen one. I’ve heard them, though. Some nights it seems like they’re everywhere.”
Liam turned to look at her. He didn’t say a word but the worry was plain on his face. After a moment, he turned to stare out the window. The rest of the drive passed in silence and Devon’s unease grew with every mile. By the time they made it to the bar, the cab of the Jeep felt even smaller than usual. They might as well have been driving in a tiny cardboard box. The air was too warm, nearly unbreathable, and Liam was much too close.
The Jeep’s tires spun out in the deep snow as the four-wheel drive engaged. Devon would have to break out the snowblower later this morning and clear out the parking lot. Otherwise, she’d have an even bigger mess with vehicles stuck everywhere. She loved living here. Loved the isolation, the gorgeous views, and the river that wound lazily through the canyon along the highway and in front of the bar. She could do without the hassle of the snow, though. Luckily, it wouldn’t last long. A couple of months, maybe three, before the snow line rose to higher elevations.
Liam climbed out of the Jeep and stared up at the sign that read LOWMAN INN mounted on a long post at the edge of the property. “It’s a little misleading since there isn’t actually lodging here,” Devon remarked. “But as soon as I’m a little closer to being in the black, I plan on adding a few tiny cabins or maybe some camping sites.”
“This place is pretty far from your home,” Liam said.
Devon dug the bar keys out of her pocket and headed for the door. “Yeah, eight or nine miles, or something close to that. When I first moved here, the drive felt like forever but now I barely notice it.”
She turned the key in the lock and pushed open the door. She glanced back over her shoulder to find the same concerned expression on Liam’s face. Warm emotion blossomed in her chest at the thought that he might be worried for her driving back and forth on the highway. But that was silly, wasn’t it? They didn’t even know each other. There was no reason for him to be worried about her.
“Well, this is it.” Devon held out her arm and swept it wide. The place was small. It could barely accommodate a hundred people. But it was hers and she was proud of it.
The previous owner had completely remodeled the space. It was the perfect blend of shabby chic and rustic farmhouse with all of the pieces of Americana you’d expect to decorate the walls and shelves. A large mirror covered the entire wall behind the bar and the four flat-screen TVs throughout the space were a huge draw for locals who wanted a place to hang out and watch whatever sporting events were broadcast on any given weekend.
“It’s nice.” Liam wandered the thousand square feet or so of space. He was distracted to the point that Devon wondered if he was aware of his surroundings at all. They could’ve been standing in the middle of the county dump and he might have said the exact same thing.
“The phone’s back here.” Devon pointed to the counter behind her. “Go ahead and grab it. I’m going to start some coffee.”
Liam turned to look at her as though only now realizing they’d come here for a specific reason. “Right. Thanks.” He rounded the bar and grabbed the cordless from the cradle. He stared at the phone in his palm as if he had no idea how to use the damn thing before glancing Devon’s way. “Would you mind if I took this outside?”
“Oh, no. Sure. Go ahead.” Liam’s demeanor had done a complete one-eighty since they left her cabin, and Devon couldn’t shake the feeling that something was up. It shouldn’t have bothered her that he wanted a little privacy for his phone call. There was nothing sketchy about that. But it made her wonder who he was calling. Did he have a wife? A girlfriend? If so, why would it even matter? Maybe because you haven’t had a date in over a year and you’ve been eyeballing the guy like he’s a juicy steak ever since he walked out of your bedroom naked this morning.
Devon’s cheeks heated at the memory. His body was a work of art and the way he strode out onto the landing, completely shameless, had only served to intensify her admiration, no matter how scandalized she’d pretended to be. It had taken an actual physical effort to tear her gaze away. Hands down, the past twenty-four hours had been the most exciting—not to mention rewarding—of her entire year.
Liam pulled open the door and stepped outside, letting in a draft of chilly air with his passage. Devon figured she might as well make herself useful while he was on the phone. Otherwise her curiosity over who he was talking to and what he was saying would eat at her. It was cold enough inside that her breath fogged the air. If it wouldn’t cost her an arm and a leg, she’d do something about having a central heating system installed. But until Lowman had a population explosion, or she hit the lotto—which seemed a hell of a lot more likely—she’d have to settle for good old-fashioned woodstove heat.
Devon crossed to the far end of the bar and threw some kindling and wadded up newspaper into the stove before adding a few large pieces of wood. The deep rumble of Liam’s voice carried to her from outside and she strained to hear his words. No such luck. She struck a match and held the flame to the newspaper until it caught fire. She eased the door to the woodstove almost closed, leaving just enough of a crack to allow the fire the oxygen it needed to grow. Once she was back behind the bar, Devon turned on the Bluetooth speaker she kept near the phone and opened a Spotify playlist on the iPad that also served as her cash register. A moment later, the quiet gave way to One Republic’s “I Lived,” and she let out a slow breath. She didn’t know why it mattered so much who Liam talked to or why he needed privacy. But it did, and that bothered Devon more than anything.
* * *
“Jesus, Liam, where the hell are you? We’ve been looking for you since last night!”
The worry in Owen’s tone did little to put Liam at ease. He pinched the bridge of his nose between his thumb and forefinger and filled his lungs with the chilly morning air.
“I’m in Lowman. Is everyone okay?”
“Lowman? Isn’t that the tiny town north of us? How in the hell did you get that far away?”
Liam blew out a breath. How he’d gotten where he ended up was the least of his concerns. “Was anyone else hurt?” he asked. “And what in the hell ambushed us?”
“Everyone’s fine,” Owen replied. “We can’t be certain, but we think it was a shifter. Bear. And the bastard was huge.”
That Owen and the others remembered details that Liam couldn’t recall indicated he’d taken the brunt of the attack. His wolf retained the memories that Liam forgot. A defense mechanism meant to protect him. Which only meant he was lucky to be alive right now. If their attacker had in fact been a shifter, it would’ve only been a matter of time before he’d found Liam and finished him off. He truly did owe his life to Devon. A rush of nervous energy entered Liam’s bloodstream. Owen’s concerned tone echoed Liam’s thoughts. A bear shifter. It wasn’t a coincidence. Couldn’t be. Fuck. He’d thought they’d left their problems behind in Colorado but they’d obviously followed them to Idaho. He had no doubt the shifter was still in the area. In fact, the son of a bitch had probably settled down somewhere close.
“Did you check the registry for bear shifters in the area?” The supernatural community followed a strict set of rules. Each territory had its own governing body and the residents therein were required to register before they moved into any territory. It helped to maintain order and squashed territorial disputes before they had a chance to crop up. Liam said a silent prayer that there was, in fact, a shifter registered in the area and last night’s attack had simply been a misunderstanding.
“We did.” Owen’s tone was grim. “But we came up empty-handed. Not a single bear shifter in at least a two-hundred-mile radius. Sort of weird considering the terrain, don’t you think?”
Very weird. Damn it. Every new detail seemed to confirm a truth that Liam didn’t want to face. Remote wilderness areas like this were prime real estate for shifters and werewolves alike. In fact, Liam had been surprised to find the Stanley area didn’t already have a pack in residence when he moved his own group there. Devon had referred to the area as a dead zone. Liam was beginning to think that applied to more than just cell phone service. But why? His unanswered questions were beginning to pile up and that made him twitchy as hell.
“It’s definitely strange,” Liam said. “I hope you’ve told everyone to stay on their toes.” In Liam’s absence, it was Owen’s job as the Beta to keep the pack in line. Either some unregistered shifter wasn’t happy a werewolf pack had moved into the area and was bound and determined to scare them off, or an enemy of the pack had managed to track them down. The first option was bad but could be managed. The second option could be disastrous.
“We’ve been on guard and then some. Especially with you missing. It’s going to help with the tension around here once everyone knows you’re okay.”
The order within the pack depended on the Alpha. Without that order there was chaos. Knowing everyone was all right did wonders for Liam’s own unease. If anything had happened to any member of his pack, he never would’ve forgiven himself for his inability to protect them.
“The sooner you get home the better,” Owen said.
Liam’s wolf gave an anxious whine at the back of his mind. Going back to Stanley meant leaving Devon here, and his wolf rejected the prospect of that separation. Especially with the likelihood of a road closure if they were to get another bad storm. “I’m concerned with how a bear shifter managed to get me fifty miles out of our territory,” Liam said.
“What exactly happened to you?”
“I don’t know.” And gods, did that ever burn. His wolf knew and was, for some reason, protecting Liam from it.
Owen let out a frustrated gust of breath. “Shit.” Liam appreciated that he didn’t have to explain the gap in his memory to him. Owen knew the logistics of their dual nature and knew why Liam couldn’t remember. “Are you at least somewhere you can make a stand from if you have to?”
Liam turned and glanced through the window of the bar into the building and watched as Devon wiped down one of the counters with a rag. Her brow furrowed and she worried her bottom lip between her teeth. She was lost in thought and Liam wished he could crawl inside her brain and see what she was thinking. How could he go back to Stanley and leave her unprotected, knowing there was a potentially dangerous shifter in the area? His scent was everywhere: at her cabin, in her Jeep, and now here. It wouldn’t be hard for a shifter to pick up on it and assume that Devon was a friend of the pack—or even something more.
Because of him, she was no longer safe.
“More or less,” Liam said. Really, if he ran into the shifter again, odds were good he wouldn’t survive the fight. Liam was strong, fast, and agile. The only thing save a silver bullet that could kill him would be to take his head from his shoulders. Not many shifters could accomplish that feat except for one. And odds were good that particular shifter had tracked them all the way from Colorado.
“I’m sending someone to pick you up. What’s the address?”
“No.” Until Liam confirmed the identity of the shifter that was after their pack, he couldn’t leave Devon unprotected. “Not yet.”
“Not yet?” Owen’s incredulous tone would’ve been funny under different circumstances. “You need to get home so we can figure out our next move.”
It was true the pack needed Liam to make any firm decisions about anything. Pack hierarchy was serious business and the buck stopped with the Alpha, plain and simple. “Whatever jumped us last night managed to drag me a good fifty miles from our territory.” If Liam reasoned with Owen, he could justify staying in Lowman for a while longer. At least long enough to try and explain the situation to Devon. “I’m willing to bet I’m smack dab in the middle of the shifter’s territory. It’s a good idea to do a little reconnaissance while I’m here. I don’t think it’s a good idea to waste an opportunity to have the upper hand.”
Owen remained silent on the other end of the line, obviously weighing the advantages to having Liam so far from the pack. His second-in-command was more than competent enough to manage the pack in the Alpha’s absence. “Come on, Liam. You don’t believe this was a random attack any more than I do.”
A nervous tremor raced through him. Owen didn’t believe in coincidences and neither did Liam. “No,” he said. “I don’t. But until I know for sure, there’s still a chance this could be random. I trust you to manage the pack until I get back,” Liam added. “We’ll work both ends to the middle until we ferret him out. He can’t hide from us for long.”
“It’s a sound idea…” Owen began. “But not having you here is bound to cause tension.”
“That you’re more than capable of handling.” Ultimately, Liam’s word was law and the others would have no choice but to obey. That’s not how Liam wanted it to go down, though. He didn’t think of the pack as a monarchy. He wasn’t any more a king than Owen was a prince. The pack simply relied on structure. For the pack dynamic to function properly, everyone needed to know their place. That was Liam’s job. And until he returned home, it would be Owen’s.
“I just need a couple of days,” Liam said. “Let me do a little digging. You hold down the fort until I get home.”
“All right.” Owen’s response came across as though he were giving Liam permission when in fact he needed none. But that’s how Liam wanted it. He wanted Owen to feel some measure of responsibility. He’d need it in order to keep the pack in line for the next couple of days. And if Liam ran into any trouble between now and then, Owen might be taking on that responsibility permanently.
Liam cast a furtive glance through the window to find Devon had moved on to washing glasses. There was so much more than the pack’s safety at stake. Because now, Liam had to protect his mate.