Alaskan Fire (14 page)

He slammed the door open—probably
broke off a hinge, considering the metallic snap she heard—and then was out
into the night, moving too fast for her eyes to catch up.

The hinge was, indeed, broken. 
As she tried to drag the door shut against the bugs, Blaze made a mental note
that, next time a ghostly visitor appeared in the woods, watching her, to take
Jack
outside
before telling him about it.

Blaze settled for propping the door
up against the jamb, then went back to the chair to pick up her book.

She didn’t see the man standing
in the shadows behind her until he moved.  His pale, shimmery robes blended
with the walls as he stepped closer, something dark in his hands.  When he
stepped into the light of the gas lamps, his eyes sizzled with their own eerie
blue light-source, and every hair on Blaze’s body suddenly lifted with a major
case of static electricity. 

The man was looking at her over
the open case of her father’s feather.

Blaze went absolutely still.  She
had hid the case in the bottom of the freezer, on the other side of the house.

Still watching her, the man shut
the case and handed it to her.  He seemed to regard her thoughtfully a moment,
then turned and walked deeper into the shadows of the basement.

“Hey!” Blaze cried, the heavy
case like a lead weight in her hands.  “Stop!”

When she went after him, however,
the slender form simply vanished into the shadows.

Heart hammering, Blaze yanked the
case open.

Her father’s feather, a glowing
mass of flickering golden fire-tendrils as long as her forearm, was still
tucked safely inside.  Blaze swallowed and clicked the lid shut again, the
sight still giving her the unholy willies.

“Hello?” she called.

The house was empty.

Grabbing the case and tucking it
under an arm, she hurriedly went upstairs, climbed into the loft, and set the
case against a rafter in the attic, packing insulation around it as she tried
not to hyperventilate glass dust.  The
last
thing she wanted was the damned
wereverine finding it, deciding she was somehow safe to eat, and then ending
her dreams of a pretty little fishing camp in the woods when he chomped on her
head.

Still trembling, Blaze went back
downstairs to sit with her back against the wall, the gas-lamps illuminating
the room all around her, and tried not to panic.  This
dude
with
glowing
eyes
had just plucked her feather out of
cold storage
and given her
a quizzical look, like ‘Why do
you
have this?’ and then vanished into
thin air. 
Dad,
Blaze thought,
what the Hell did you give me?

As the night wore on and Blaze
found herself alone but for the crackle of the woodstove, she realized just how
creepy the woods could be at night, when one was alone.  She drew her legs up
to her chest and settled her chin on her knees and tried not to think about how
quiet the place was.

Jack came bursting through the
door sometime much later, ripping it completely from its hinges in a feral
snarl of teeth and talons.  “That effeminate bastard led me on a merry fucking
goose
chase,” he roared, throwing a chair aside.  It embedded itself into the wall
even as his form began to shift to something a bit more human.  “I oughtta go
up north and wring his damn
neck
.”

He stopped in front of the fire,
he clothes once again torn and tattered, his ribbed torso visible under shreds
of his shirt.  Then he hesitated, sniffing the air.  Fur started to sprout
again as he said, “He was
here
, wasn’t he?”  He slammed a fist into the
top of the woodstove, leaving a dent.  “The
arrogant prick
!”  He peered
at her cautiously.  “He hurt you?”

Biting her lip, Blaze shook her
head.

“Offered to marry you?”  The way
he said it, Jack almost sounded serious.

The hilarity of that was enough
to drag Blaze out of her shock.  Chuckling, she said, “Not likely.”

“Well, what
did
the
feathered twit want?” Jack growled.  As if marriage had seemed the most likely
scenario.

Blaze thought of the feather,
then thought of the huge fangs sprouting from Jack’s mouth, and what they would
look like from the inside.  “Uh, I’m not sure,” she lied.

Jack sniffed at the air, then
scowled.  “You’re hiding something.”

“He didn’t
say
anything!”
Blaze cried.

Jack gave her a long, hard look,
then grunted.  “Well, the little lightning-tossing dweeb shows up on my
doorstep again, I’m gonna pluck me a turkey and roast it for dinner.”

“That was Thunderbird?” Blaze
whispered, cold chills suddenly working down her spine.

“You smell the rain?” Jack
demanded, gesturing at the busted door.

Blaze glanced outside and heard
the soft patter on the porch roof through the gaping maw he had left behind. 
“You know,” she said looking at the ruined door, “Drywall and lumber are
expensive.”

Jack winced.  “Uh, yeah.”  He
scratched the back of his neck and gave a nervous chuckle, eying the new hole in
the wall.  “I’ll work on that.”

“So what did he want?” Blaze
asked, looking out at the sudden thunderstorm, feeling a bit numb.

“Whatever he wanted, I’m sure he
got it,” Jack muttered.  “That elitist prick operates under the assumption that
the world is his oyster…and he’s the pearl.”

“Maybe he was afraid of taking anything,”
Blaze ventured, remembering the way the man had given her the feather almost
thoughtfully. 

“Afraid?” Jack said, frowning. 
“Why?”

She gestured at his ripped
clothing.

Jack threw back his head and
laughed.  “Well, uh, I’ll take that as a compliment, there, princess, and while
it’s true I can generally hold my own in a fight, the hard truth is that my
furry ass wouldn’t be the one crawling back out, if the two of us got in the
thick of things.”  He gestured out at the rain.  “You saw how easily he waltzed
into the center of my territory without so much as a by-your-leave, and I
didn’t even sense the prick was nearby until you opened your mouth about
wolves.”

“Should we go talk to him?” Blaze
asked.

Jack snorted.  “If the conceited
ass had wanted to talk, he would’ve stayed.  He probably just wanted to see
what kind of interesting new critter had shown up next door.”

What kind of interesting new
critter…
  “What do you mean?” Blaze asked, nervously.

Flinching slightly, Jack gestured
at her body.  “Well, uh, you ain’t exactly Miss America, there, if you know
what I’m saying.  He was probably just…curious.”

He’s saying I’m the latest
addition to the freak show,
Blaze thought, miserable.  She looked down at
her gangly body, her manly feet, her flat chest.  “Well,” she said,
refusing
to cry, “I guess he got a good look.”

He misjudged the agony in her
face.  “Oh, don’t worry, sister.  He wouldn’t have hurt you.”

Like I’m a helpless woman
whose very existence depends on the charity of others.  
So much for first
impressions.  “So,” Blaze said, changing the subject from the one that was
about to leave her running to her room bawling, “that Thunderbird guy wasn’t
dangerous?”  The native-looking guy had just looked…curious.

“Oh,” Jack said, chuckling, “I
didn’t say
that
, sugar.  Nonono.”  He shook his head.  “He’s just so
goddamned stuck-up that he probably didn’t think carting you off was worth his
time.  After all, he’s supposed to be God’s Gift to America.  Spiritual being
from the heavens, and all that.  If he had wanted you, he would’ve just taken you. 
If you had tried to stop him, you’d be dead.  Simple as that.”

“Oh,” Blaze whispered, once again
wondering just how intelligent a decision it had been to stay in the Bush with
the wereverine, “kaaay.  So we’re back to Neanderthals with clubs out here, is
that what I’m hearing?  You just grab a girl when you get horny and drag her
back to your cave?”  Another check-mark next to Return To Anchorage.

“On a happy note,” Jack said, “He
didn’t take you and you’re not dead.  That means he’s not gonna take you, and
he’s not gonna sputch you, at least for now.  Two very positive developments
that I’ve been dreading ever since I figured out what—”  He choked off the
rest, his green eyes flickering in her direction warily.

“You figured out
what
?”
Blaze demanded, her attention sharpening.

As if he hadn’t heard her, Jack
picked up some firewood and started feeding the stove.  “We’ll pick out a spot
for your greenhouse tomorrow.  And we need to plow out some area for a garden. 
Traditionally, folk ‘round here wait to get stuff in the ground ‘til the first
of June.  Much earlier than that and frost might kill it.”

Blaze laughed at him.  “You were
telling me you wanted to grow
mango
trees up here.”

He gave her an awkward look that
said there was more accumulated in his tiny brain that he wasn’t telling her. 
“Yeah.  Probably in a greenhouse.”

“
Probably
?”  Blaze
scoffed.  “We aren’t wasting my greenhouse space on a mango tree.”

“You like mangoes?” Jack
demanded.

“Sure I do,” Blaze said, “But
there’s some things that just can’t—”

“Then I’ll have Bruce ship one
out,” Jack said.  He left her sitting there, gritting her teeth, as he started
pulling ragged strips of cloth from his body and left to get changed.

The glorified turkey
knew
. 
Jack stalked around the Sleeping Lady all night, on the off-chance that he
would come back and Jack could work out some of his frustrations on his
pretty-boy face.

The worst part was he didn’t know
why it should bother him so much.  If the feather-headed asshole wanted to come
claim himself some pretty young wife, why should Jack care?  More power to him,
right?  After all, she’d been nothing but goosebumps, sass, and heart-hammering
panic
since she got off the plane.

Yet Jack paced through the woods
with every intention of ripping the avian little asshole rim from limb if he
caught him snooping around his territory again.  And, he realized with a wince,
he now firmly considered the leggy little bird to be ‘his’ territory.

Never mind the fact that she was
so damn gorgeous he kept catching himself staring at her like a dipshit.  Or
that she set all his hairs on end if she got too close.  Or that every fiber of
his being was demanding to make her his.  Permanently.  Before anyone else
could do it.

Jack paced, trying
not
to
think of how much he wanted to cinch that bond and make her his.  Between just
casually walking past him while he was relaxing in the basement and leaning
over to see what he was working on out in the shop, Jack was pretty sure he had
a permanent case of the most delicious heebie-jeebies he’d ever felt.  It had
taken all of his control not to just seal the link that first night and deal
with the consequences later.  The oldest, feral part of him was
demanding
it, the sensation so strong it was
pulling
at him, tugging him around
like a puppet on a string, and it was all Jack could do to ignore it.  Hell,
he’d already accidentally barked at the poor girl several times, when she idly
got close enough she was setting his hairs on end.

Damn it.
  Growling deep in
his chest, Jack made another loop around the Sleeping Lady in the dark, already
beginning to carve a circular path through the woods where his feet had
plastered the moss and cranberry bushes to the ground.  This was
not
how
he’d wanted to spend his summer.  He liked to relax.  He liked to be alone.  He
liked to chop firewood and watch the sunset.  He did
not
like feeling
like his chest was being wrenched apart by this beautiful Scottish temptress.

Too close.  He was getting too
damn close.  He’d only known her a few
days
and he was already feeling
that gut-clenching pang whenever he thought of her.  This was not good.  Not
good at all.  Hell, he might as well light his ass on fire, roast it good and
tender, and hand it to her on a silver platter.

Jack made another loop, listening
to her sleep inside her cozy little basement, completely oblivious to the
contortions she was putting him through.  She didn’t even seem to
notice
how damned sexy she was when she moved, which of course made it worse.  All
long leg and sinuous curves…

Stop it, you fool,
he
growled, disgusted with himself. 
You got a strange little bird that showed
up on your doorstep and you’re already trying to pounce.
 
You’ve been
lonely
way
too long, buddy.  She’s outta your
league
.  She’s
dragon-bait, babe.  Thunderbutt dropping by proved that.  Soon or later,
something else is gonna catch a whiff, and when it does, she’s gonna be spirited
off to some damn cave up in the mountains where you’ll never see her again.

But that wasn’t helping the
hammering in his chest, or the ache in his gut knowing that her silky-pale body
slept stretched out only a few insignificant feet away.  Naked.  He’d heard her
undress.

Damn it!
  Jack threw his
head into his hands and pressed his palms to his ears, trying to force the
images from his skull.  This was wrong.  This could
not
be happening. 
Not again.  He wouldn’t let it.  She was just too innocent.  She had no
idea
of the kind of crap out there, the monsters that would be happy to tear her
apart, or worse, just because she lived in the same square mile as Jack.  He
would not do that to another woman.  Never.

Please, Aphrodite, Ishtar,
Innana, Venus, Ashtart, Freya, whatever the fuck you want to be called,
Jack prayed.
  Don’t let this get out of hand.

If the Goddess of Love heard his
prayer, she casually gave him the cold finger.