Edwina and the Seven Snowed-in Scientists (7 page)

Hopefully they could convince her she’d suffered the beginnings of

hypothermia and leave it at that. She didn’t seem the type to go telling fantastical tales she had no way to prove.

“What now?” Gary asked, aiming the question at Kieran. They’d

all seen Kieran refuse to hand Edwina over to their youngest brother.

Kieran’s behavior—especially considering the fact that all Edwina

had done for the last fifteen hours was irritate him—was completely

out of character. Kieran never got emotionally involved. Even when

he was hot and heavy with some woman or other, it was fun stress

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relief and about as far away from commitment as a relationship could

get.

“I don’t know,” Kieran said, showing more confusion than Jake

had ever seen him admit to. “It’s likely she’ll wake up and think it

was all a dream. If we get our stories straight, we could probably

convince her she was hallucinating.”

Calvin growled low in his throat, startling them all with his

reaction. Usually in human form they reacted as humans. It was a

very rare occasion that primitive emotion overruled their higher brain functions in this form. All eyes turned to Calvin, and he shrugged

sheepishly.

“She recognized me,” he said, obviously trying to explain what

he’d felt without going into detail. Jake understood exactly what he

was trying to say. He’d felt it, too. That strange connection to her that seemed to grow stronger each moment. It was why he’d handed her to

Kieran. Something inside him claimed her as his own, but another

more primitive part somehow understood that she belonged to his

brothers as well.

He shook his head, trying to clear the strange thoughts. Perhaps

he’d spent too much time standing naked in human form in the snow.

Maybe Edwina wasn’t the only one hallucinating. Although, she

hadn’t actually been hallucinating.

“Should we call the Mawson base and let someone know she’s

alive?”

“No!” three angry voices chorused, Jake’s included.

“Jesus,” Gary said as he held his hands up in feigned surrender.

“Chill for fuck’s sake. I’m only trying to figure out what happened.

It’s not every day my brothers bring home a naked woman.”

Jake almost felt sorry for his youngest brother. He hadn’t seen the

attempt on her life, so he couldn’t know the seriousness of the

situation until someone explained it to him. But for the life of him, he couldn’t force the details past his lips. Everything inside screamed at him to crawl onto the narrow cot beside Edwina and hold her close.

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“Sorry, bro,” Jake said to Gary. “It’s just been a weird kind of

day.”

Gary nodded and then turned back to Kieran. “What happened?”

Kieran and Jake filled them all in on the happenings from when

they left the base, the helicopter crash, the deliberate damage done to Edwina’s emergency supplies, and then Calvin told Gary about the

attempted shooting and the run home in yeti form.

Gary nodded thoughtfully and turned to Calvin. “Are you

supposed to be at the Mawson base?”

Calvin nodded warily, almost as if he didn’t give a flying fuck if

anyone noticed him missing. Considering that Jake, Kieran, and

Edwina were probably listed as missing presumed dead, having

another of the Kodi brothers disappear was probably not something

they needed right now.

“You need to head back immediately,” Gary said with the quiet

confidence that belied the fact he was the youngest of seven brothers.

Calvin looked for a moment as if he would argue but finally nodded

his agreement and stood to strip off his clothes.

“What about Edwina?” Calvin asked anxiously.

“We need you back at the base,” Gary said without hesitation.

“The only way we can keep Edwina safe is if we have someone on the

inside. At this stage I don’t think we should let anyone know that Jake and Kieran are safe either. We still don’t know who their target was.”

Kieran opened his mouth to argue, but Gary cut him off.

“Despite the fact that they tried to shoot Edwina, it’s possible they were only tying up loose ends and trying to make sure there weren’t

any witnesses.” Jake had to agree with his brother. On the information that they had right at this moment, they still had no idea what the hell was going on.

“Fine,” Calvin said as he headed toward the door. “I’ll contact you

if I find out anything useful, and I’ll be back as soon as I can leave without arousing suspicions. What about mom and the dads?”

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49

Jake cringed at the idea that his parents would be told of his

supposed death, but there was very little he could do about it at the moment. Calvin would need to somehow get a message to them to

counteract the official report they would receive without leaking what he knew to anyone else. Hopefully that would be enough. Edwina’s

father would likely be devastated, but considering they still had no clue whom they could trust at the moment, there was little they could do about it.

The only thing they knew for certain was that Edwina’s boss

seemed quite happy to leave Edwina, Jake, and Kieran for dead.

Gary turned to Simon, Evan, and Brian. “You three grab your

stuff and move into the second shack for now. Kieran and Jake will

decide how to handle Edwina—since they know her best at this

time—and we’ll gather for the evening meal at eighteen hundred

hours.”

Jake’s three brothers nodded and headed out of the room, and Jake

was left wondering yet again how his youngest brother had become

their decision maker. There were only a few years between the four

youngest brothers, so it was possible to understand in that respect, but the fact that Calvin, Jake and Kieran seemed to fall in line these days too was quite interesting. Kieran, being the eldest, was nearly ten

years older than Gary, but it never seemed to be a problem.

Kieran, however, was not someone to be left out of the

conversation either.

“I want to tell her,” he said as soon as the others moved out the

front door with all their supplies.

“Why?” Gary asked with a neutral expression on his face.

“Because she’s already seen us.”

Gary shook his head. “She was cold and probably thinks it was

her imagination.”

“She needs our protection.”

Gary nodded his head and said, “Which is something we are quite

capable of providing in human form.”

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“But,” Kieran said again, clearly searching for a reason to explain

their shape-shifter status to Edwina, “she’s liable to be here for

months, and you know how much easier it is to stay warm in shifted

form.”

Again Gary nodded affably. “But we’ve managed before with

other scientists. In fact two seasons ago we had several human work

partners for nearly eight months.” Kieran looked ready to flatten his brother, despite Gary’s reasonable tone. Gary held up a hand as if to stop Kieran’s primitive reaction. “What’s the real reason?”

Kieran looked stunned by his brother’s perceptiveness, and

despite sharing Kieran’s feelings for Edwina, Jake wasn’t willing to step into this argument.

Kieran fell back onto the sofa and rubbed his hands down his face.

“I want her to know me. The real me,” he added forcefully, obviously

expecting further argument.

“Excellent,” Gary said without a moment’s hesitation. “I want her

to know the real me, too. It’s obvious that Calvin and Jake feel the same way, and I suspect Brian, Evan, and Simon will come to share

the emotions.” Kieran looked relieved and pissed off at the same time.

Typical of his big brother—happy that his brothers agreed but

annoyed that he had to explain himself.

Jake stepped forward wanting to get past the decision that was

essentially already made and ask the most important question. “So

how do we introduce ourselves?”

* * * *

Edwina woke wrapped in Kieran’s arms. He’d bundled the

blankets around her nakedness, and he seemed to be fully clothed, but she was so grateful for the human contact that she snuggled closer and sighed in relief.

A part of her had expected to wake surrounded by big, white,

furry, manlike creatures ready to fight over her, or maybe claim her in
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51

the most elemental of ways. She blushed as memories of her earlier

wild imaginings and the sensual dreams that followed her into sleep whispered through her mind. Why had her foggy brain given her

delusion-induced creatures human-looking cocks? Maybe she’d gone

too long without sex.

She sighed as she pushed her bottom closer to Kieran’s groin and

discovered a nice, hard erection. He moved away slightly, so she did

it again. “Edwina,” Kieran’s stern voice whispered in her ear,

“behave.”

“Why?” she asked, feeling really reckless. She’d almost died in

the freezer they called Antarctica. Wasn’t it time to celebrate life?

“Are you hungry?” he said, obviously ignoring her flirty tone.

Who was she kidding? This guy had made it very clear how much he

didn’t like her. He was probably just keeping her warm, so he

wouldn’t have to explain how she died from exposure. There was no

way he was panting to get into her…um…pants. She giggled a little

hysterically as she realized she didn’t actually have any pants. At least a part of her delusion must’ve been true—she sure was naked.

“Where are we?” she asked, deciding that she could also play the

ignore-a-direct-question game. He sighed loudly, and she smiled at

the exasperated tone. It seemed like he was usually a pretty controlled guy, so being able to rile him was at least entertaining.

“Kendall Shack,” he answered quickly then repeated his question.

“Are you hungry?”

“Of course I’m fucking hung—How did we get to Kendall

Shack?” It didn’t seem quite possible. They’d crashed way off course.

Kieran had said they were headed to the nearest emergency shelter,

and that should’ve taken four hours at least—probably longer with her in tow.

“We carried you,” Kieran said as he pulled her back into the

warmth of his body. Before she could come up with another question,

another voice spoke up.

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“Good to see you awake,” Jake said from somewhere behind her.

“I’ll get you something to eat. Casserole okay?”

“Sure,” she said as she tried to roll over. Kieran did not make it

easy. Squirming inside the blanket that was wrapped around her like a cocoon made it difficult, but she eventually managed to sort of sit up.

Kieran sighed in irritation, picked her up, lifted her over to the other side of the narrow cot, and cuddled up to her again. Now facing Jake, she also noticed another man in the room. She had a vague memory of

this man offering to take her from Kieran—well, the abominable

snowman she’d imagined to be Kieran. Jake must’ve seen her

curiosity because he moved out of her line of vision, so she could see the new man more clearly. By the snow-white hair, it was a pretty

good guess that he was related to Jake and Kieran.

“This is our brother, Gary. You’ll meet the others at dinner if

you’re feeling up to it.”

Edwina nodded enthusiastically. She’d never been a good patient,

and since she wasn’t actually sick, she was more than ready to climb

out of Kieran’s warm, possessive, fiercely protective, sensual, loving hug
and um…on second thought, never mind.

She snuggled closer and tried to pretend that the man holding her

actually liked her. She thought she heard some sort of purring noise

for a moment, but it was gone before she could identify the source.

Perhaps it had been a fragment of memory from her earlier delusions.

Jake and Gary smiled at her, seeming to share delight in

something she didn’t understand. She eyed them both suspiciously,

but Jake just leaned over, dropped a soft kiss on her lips, and

whispered, “I’ll just grab you some food and be right back.”

She nodded, licking her lips unconsciously before noticing Gary’s

interested gaze. She tried to smile, but on this angle with her ass

nestled against a rock-hard cock that she kept telling herself not to notice, it was kind of hard to look friendly without coming off as a bit of a slut. Gary seemed to read all of her emotions easily because he
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53

moved closer and touched her face softly. “Don’t be embarrassed,” he

said, “it’s okay to be attracted to more than one man.”

Whoa!

Absolutely freaking not!

She was not attracted to more than one man.

Just because she’d kissed both Kieran and Jake and wanted to kiss

the guy in front of her—the one she’d only just met—did not mean

that she was panting to fall into bed with all of them. Well okay, she might’ve been panting over them, but she sure as hell wasn’t going to actually do it. Images of what the three well-built, athletic men could get up to in bed with her played in her head like an erotic romance

novel. She could feel her clit throb and her thighs become slippery

with her excitement. She closed her eyes, feeling completely