When Gray growled again, Miles muttered, “Don’t know what nature show you’ve been watching but animals growl when they feel threatened.”
The metallic click of a hammer made me spin around. “I said no gun, Miles! Put it away.”
“Have you lost your damn marbles?”
“I swear he’s harmless.” But then a thought coalesced in the form of new goosebumps. What if this was the shifter from the Glacier pack? What if it tried to attack Miles and turn him, and—
What the hell are you doing here, Nikki?
Shoulder blades jamming together, my eyes cut toward the giant black wolf with yellow-amber eyes prowling out from behind the cabin.
So the gray one was Lucas . . .
Get back in the car and drive away.My Alpha’s command resonated inside my very bones, and yet I couldn’t get my body to uproot itself.
I wrapped my hand around Miles’s wrist, forcing it down. “Please put the gun away.”
He didn’t, but he also didn’t shrug my hand off. “There are two of them now, Nik. Unless the second one’s a bear.”
Get the fucking human back in his car.
I wanted to grit out that I was trying, since clearly something was going on here, but I couldn’t exactly speak to a wolf without raising Miles’s hackles. “We should head back to the car.”
“My sister’s in there. What if one of these rabid fuckers found their way inside the cabin and attacked her?”
“I’m sure they didn’t. They’re probably just out for a stroll,” I spat out, confused and angry. Mostly angry. Whatever happened to Alaska?
“Wolves don’tstroll.”
“Those two surely do.” I tugged on his arm, but the man wouldn’t budge. “Come on, Miles. Please.”
The growling crescendoed. I wanted to snap at Liam and Lucas to quiet down, because Miles was already wired like Beaver Creek’s main street during the winter holidays.
“They’re on the move. Get behind me, Nikki.” Before I could try to pacify him again, he dragged me behind him and then raised the gun, leveling it on the black wolf’s head.
“Miles, put the fucking gun away! NOW!”
My shriek made his body jerk and arm bob. “The fuck is wrong with you?” He cocked the trigger.
I latched on to his shoulder and stabbed him with my claws. He cried out in pain and slammed his gun into my temple. It was probably a knee-jerk reaction, but damn, it hurt.
He swung the gun back toward Liam.
“Run!” I whimpered, but the idiot charged Miles instead.
The gun went off. Liam slammed into Miles, tipping him over and taking me down with him. Although the snow cushioned my fall, the back of my skull glanced against something hard and sharp that made my vision pale.
I blinked, but my already fragmented vision fissured some more as though Miles’s dark goose-down parka was pressed into my corneas.
Rapid heartbeats pounded inside my skull. I tried to untangle the distinct patterns, tried to make out Liam’s, but all the beats ran together, dulling to a low throb before quieting completely.
Chapter 29
Igasped awake in an unfamiliar bed with a searing pair of eyes fastened to me and an angry pulse at the back of my head and at my temple.
“What the fuck, Nikki?” The tendons in Liam’s throat twisted like mooring lines. “What the hell were you doing with Miles Park?”
I really was innomood to be growled at. “Already back from Alaska?” I clipped out, attempting to turn my head to take in my surroundings, but the pain that whizzed through my skull immobilized it.
