| |
“I’M USELESS IN THE kitchen,” Ari explained when, much to my surprise, it was Dylan who helped me make breakfast. I chose granola with strawberries in coconut milk, and he chopped veggies and meat for omelets. “He won’t let me have pop tarts anymore.” She winked as Dylan shook his head, suppressing a smile.
“Hey, you can have them,” he teased. “Then I’m eating your omelet.”
“Hands off, mister. I was only eating that stuff because I hate cooking.” She slapped his ass as she finished making her coffee. “And I thought sexy chefs only existed on TV.”
“How are we going to do this?” Leo asked Dylan once we sat down to eat. He was totally deferring to Dylan with his Mount Deception plan, and I wonder how long that would last. Leo liked to be in control. This was going to be interesting.
“I say we take a look around. If there’s the bones of a ski area, there should be some cabins.” Dylan wiped his mouth after he spoke.
“Are you going to live there year ‘round?” I asked. Leo only lived on Soldier Mountain during ski season. He had a cabin in the forest outside of Woodland Park for the rest of the year. I hated that place. Rustic was an understatement.
“I’ll be up there a lot, getting things started, but no. I have a job in town.”
“Yeah, how are you going to do both?” Ari asked. “You’re starting to pick up some clients.”
“I’d like to get the ski area so it was self-sufficient, but for now, it’s going to be a lot of work.” Dylan looked worried about his plan. His eyes kept darting back and forth between me and Leo, searching for some sort of reaction.
Leo had been awfully quiet during this whole conversation. I put my hand over his. “What do you think, babe?” I asked.
He ran his hand over his face. “We need a place live. We can go back to the cabin in the forest—“
“No.”
Ari laughed. “Tell us how you really feel about that, Daphne.”
“It’s so boring!” I stabbed at my granola. “The only thing to do there...is Leo.”
Everyone burst out laughing. “Sounds kind of nice, actually,” Ari said.
Obviously I hadn’t made myself clear. “There’s no electricity! No water. No nothing.”
“Oh. Forget it.” Ari wrinkled her nose.
“Your girl called you boring.” Dylan’s eye’s glimmered as he chuckled.
Leo tensed under my hand. “I did not!” I protested. “Leo’s never boring.” I leaned over and kissed his cheek.
“There isn’t going to be any electricity on Deception, either. Unless there’s a well-established hierarchy up there. So we’ll need a place to stay, too.”
“You’re welcome to stay here.” Ari picked up her plate and Dylan’s. “I know it’s small, but we can get an air mattress or something.”
As sweet as that offer was, we would obliterate an air mattress in about an hour. That wasn’t going to work. “Maybe we could stay with Chloe and Cane?” I suggested. I liked that idea way too much. And Leo and Cane got along great, unlike the constant power struggle with his brother.
“They’re going to be bonding and having a baby. They don’t want roommates.” Leo shook his head. “We’ll start looking for a place until we can get things going up on the mountain. I think we could do some cool stuff there, not have a traditional area. Skiing isn’t the only snow sport, and if we focused on some of the alternatives, we could make it a destination.”
So Leo had been thinking about this. Everything had been such chaos since the idea had been proposed we’d barely had a chance to talk about it.
“Nice.” Dylan nodded. “I’d be interested in that, maybe bringing some clients up there for training.”
Leo’s eyes lit up. “Yeah. There’s a lot of conditioning that can be done for all of the activities up there that would really make people enjoy them even more. I’m sure we can incorporate Daphne’s talents into this, too. Give them a whole experience. If we do this right, it could really be one of a kind. That’s what I want.”
**
“SO I’M BORING, HUH?” Leo teased, grabbing at my waist when we got into the truck to head to Mount Deception.
I squealed because it tickled. Because I squealed, he kept doing it. “I said everything but you was boring in that cabin.” I finally got away from him, and smoothed my sweater back down. “Please say we don’t have to go back there, Leo. Seriously.” I’d left my job as a waitress when I shifted for The Mate. When Leo went to work, I’d been trapped in the cabin, not only afraid of predators, but being discovered by my herd. Leo and I were fated to be together even if he wasn’t a buck, but we’d kept it quiet until he claimed me. I’d been so lonely. And with no electricity, I wasn’t able to do anything.
“I know you hate it there.” He snuck a look over at me while he drove, and I put my hand on his leg, maybe a little too close to his groin. “But you have to understand something. I don’t make a lot of money doing what I do. I’ve been able to do what I love because I haven’t had to worry about paying for a place to live.”
Oh. Now I felt bad. But not bad enough to spend the entire summer without electricity. “I can get a job. I can go back to The Roadhouse. And they’re always looking for people at the rec center for the summer. I can teach dance or tumble. Or I can help you guys out on the mountain. Even if you couldn’t pay me, it would save you from hiring someone else and paying them.”
“This isn’t going to be easy.” Leo put his hand over mine, moving it over his fly.
“It’s not.” I ran my fingers over the length of his growing erection and he groaned, picking up my hand and dropping it back on his leg. “I still think it’s dangerous.” My mind flashed back to that guy who came between me and Linnea. He wasn’t a lion, but he was still familiar with her work. But Leo’s purr snapped my attention right back to him, and I didn’t have a chance to think about it any more.
“It is,” he said, lacing his fingers between mine. “But the payoff could be huge.”
“How does Dylan have all this money?” I asked. It technically wasn’t any of my business, but if he was dragging us all to this mountain with the promise of a new life, I needed to know everything. “I didn’t know personal training was so lucrative.”
“He made a bunch of training videos that sold well. And I think he did some modeling when he was younger.”
My eyes were huge. The videos I knew about, but the modeling was news to me. “Really?” Dylan acted like he was such a tough guy. I giggled. “Do you think he’d loan you any of his modeling money?” Anything not to go back to that cabin.
“No. And I’m not going to ask,” Leo growled. His body stiffened under my hand, I knew I’d said the wrong thing.
If there was a parking lot at Mount Deception, Dylan didn’t know about it. He pulled his truck over into a small field, more like a place where trees forgot to grow.
“You been up here before?” Leo asked, looking around. I held his hand. His energy was changing. The vibration wasn’t a purr, it was something different.
“Couple of times. It’s a lot bigger than Soldier. I never saw anyone but I did find the ski area.” Dylan stretched, his focus on the slope of the brae in front of us. It rose quickly without any gentle introduction. “We need to shift.”
Ari and I exchanged wide-eyed looks. “Dylan...” her voice shook.
He stepped toward her and put his hands on her shoulders, resting his forehead on hers. Her panic visibly subsided. Anyone who doubted he was her mate obviously never spent any time around the two of them. “Baby, take all the time you need. And if we have to bring you back to my cabin as a cougar, that’s what we’ll do.”
Ari nodded, but in the fear didn’t leave her eyes. So much had gone wrong the last time she’d shifted. Dylan put his arm around her waist and led her toward the trees. Leo followed, and I had to hurry to catch up with him.
“I won’t be able to talk to you guys.” My heart was already pounding. The only good thing I’d ever found in any forest was Leo.
Leo reached out for my hand. He shook his head like he was trying to clear it. “Same plan as always. Two taps for danger, three to go back.” He kissed my head, then pulled away. “No one’s going to attack you. And no one’s going to hold me back.” That was for Dylan as much as it was for me.
I tugged on Leo’s arms, dragging him back toward the truck. Ari and Dylan were lost in their own debate about shifting. I couldn’t be concerned about that. “Stay with me while I shift,” I pleaded. I was getting more comfortable with the transitions, but only when we had control over the environment.
Leo took my face in his hands and kissed me so hard I had to catch my breath. All the doubt in my mind disappeared, like little bubbles popping in a sunbeam. He could tell me all he wanted that he was going to protect me, but until he let me crawl inside of him, I’d never truly feel safe.
He led me back over to the passenger’s side of the truck, and tugged the bottom of my sweater up. I lifted my hands over my head and let him undress me. Between every step he planted another hungry kiss on my lips.
Once he’d stripped me bare, my shift began. It came swiftly, and I sprinted in the meadow trying to get the lay of the land while Leo turned lion. In my own apprehension about this, I hadn’t noticed that Dylan and Ari had already shifted. Ari in her cougar form was closer to my size, sleek and beautiful. Now Leo and Dylan actually looked like twins. Their manes rippled in the wind as we headed into the woods.
Mount Deception was beautiful this time of year. Now that the sun was high in the spring sky, the first signs of life had started to emerge. The trees had little buds on them, and flowers had begun to poke through the soil. Everything smelled fresh, in stark contrast to the deadly stench of autumn.
The forgotten trails weren’t very well marked. Spray painted red dots every few yards to mark our way. I wondered when the last time a human had set foot on this mountain was and how willing they’d be to do it again. There was so much work to be done to get this place ready for the public. Brambles tangled in our fur as we maneuvered up the brae. So far the only animals we’d encountered were squirrels and birds, but Dylan circled what looked like a burned out hull of a home. Half a tree, its stump hollowed out, but someone’s belongings were there.
A bear den. I pushed closer to Leo, even though there was no sign of the inhabitants.
Everyone else was talking, but I had no idea what they were saying. So frustrating. Dylan trotted away from the den with Ari close on his heels. Leo followed with a growl, and I had to gallop to keep up with them.
It wasn’t much longer before we came upon the ski area. I only knew it was that from the rusty ski lift that spanned the remainder of the slope. The actual trails were choked by weeds and vegetation. Otherwise, it was a collection of dilapidated buildings in the middle of the woods. We entered the largest one through a broken door, and it was like the building had been frozen in time. So much of the equipment and merchandise remained. Whoever last ran this place left in a hurry. I tapped on the antique cash register with my nose, wondering if they’d left money behind, too. If they did, someone else had already taken it.
The cabins weren’t in much better shape, but it looked like they’d at least been wired for electricity. That was a good sign. We were miles out of town, and Dylan might have some money, but he’d never have enough to electrify an entire mountain.
Our investigation didn’t take very long since what was left of the ski area was small, so we headed back the way we came. All of us froze when a roar broke through the birdsong.
Leo and Dylan circled Ari and I, looking for what had to be lions or cougars. Within seconds, a group of lions emerged from the forest, snarling.
They hadn’t been expecting company.