VAMP RISING (By Moonlight Book 1) (2 page)

              Why had she never learned to paint? Why had she not made time to meet a man? Why had she lived her adult years buried in work and determined to get ahead? She’d always thought she would slow down and enjoy life when she became established in her career. It had never occurred to her, that day might never come. After all, it was only a matter of time, or at least that’s what she’d told herself for the past ten years. But now look at her, she was 29 years old and there was no time left.

              Gwen was furious. The feeling came on hard and sudden. Her heart leapt from her chest and her fingernails pinched into her palms under the strain of her balling fists. She had never felt less in control of anything in her life. That’s where the fury came from, the fact that there was nothing anyone one could do for her. There was nothing she could do for herself. She was going to leave this world before she wanted to, before her time, and it just wasn’t  goddamn fair. As much as she wanted to make peace with her fate, as much as she wanted to come down off the mountain Sunday evening, stoic with a sense that her life, short as it was, had mattered. It didn’t. And nothing could make this right.

              She suddenly regretted coming here. She should be in a bar in Seattle. She should be dressed to the nine’s and flirting her ass off. She should try coke and heroine and make passionate soul-quivering love to the hottest man she could find. That’s who she was deep down, wild at heart and willing to take risks. But she had taken all the wrong ones. All her life she spent risking her future by working too hard in the present. It was time to get reckless, time to seize the day, and with that stark revelation Gwen decided she would get the hell out of the Cascades and make some goddamn memories so that she could die knowing that she had lived, and lived fully if only for a few months.

              Because goddamn it, Gwen Keller wanted to live.

              Before she knew what was happening her feet came into view in front of the mountain backdrop then her elbows smacked against gravel. It took a second to process that she was sliding down the cliff, but when she realized she began clawing backwards and trying desperately to fight the landslide that had taken her with it. She was plummeting with shocking speed, as grit and gravel scraped her bare legs, her elbows and forearms, kicking up dust to the extent that she could no longer see. The cliff face had to be at least two hundred feet and she prayed that she would reach the bottom unscathed, but all of a sudden her boot clipped a sharp rock, sending her careening head over heels. Reflexively, Gwen’s hands braced out to protect her head, but the momentum was too extreme. Her head struck the hard earth with a crack, causing her body to go limp, and she tumbled violently down in somersaults, hitting her head, back, butt, and legs over and over again until she had no idea which way was up. Gwen was a blur of breaking bones and searing pain with every revolution, as her body flailed for what seemed like an excruciatingly  long time, when without warning, she suddenly found herself free falling. At first she was relieved to not be tumbling, but her relief was quickly replaced with stark panic as she realized she was plummeting towards the ravine floor. She only had time to gasp. Her eyes pinched shut reflexively and her hands whipped up in front of her face, but neither could save her.

              She struck the ground hard and lost all consciousness.

*              *              *

              The sun had begun to set, lowering slowly behind Mount Rainier and casting the most beautiful shades of orange across the sky by the time Brandon Scott was finally leaving The Cascade Sanctuary & Wildlife Preserve after a long day’s work.

              It
had
been a long day. He’d gotten up with the sun as always, made it in to the Sanctuary slightly late, which was expected (he’d set a precedent with the Administration long ago that his version of being on time would amount to rolling in just shy of twenty minutes late), and checked the board for his territories. He’d been assigned Cascade Creek, the perimeter around Hollis Lake, and Evergrove, the campsite on the eastern side of the mountain.

              That’s where he’d seen the woman. Ordinarily, Brandon would’ve been annoyed to have been assigned Evergrove. The campers bothered him in general. They were so
human
, so dependent on their modern conveniences like radios, television, and electricity. It blew Brandon’s mind the way they’d haul themselves deep into the wilderness then complain they couldn’t hear the game because their radio signal was all static. Joseph had assured him the campsite would be vacant so combing it for injured and sick wildlife would be painless, but Brandon had been skeptical. He’d obliged, however, grumbling his way out the door and into the warm morning sun.

              As soon as he’d seen the woman, he was glad to have been assigned the territory. She amused him. The way she’d struggled through pitching that tent had been a virtual comedy of errors. She’d maneuvered the poles with childlike clumsiness. She’d clearly been out of her element. If one pole stood straight the other three she’d planted fell. By the time she was nailing one of the stakes into the ground the other five popped up from the impact. At one point the tent’s fabric seemed to have swallowed her and she’d jerked about like a cat trying to get a sock off its head.

              Initially, Brandon had enjoyed watching her struggle, because he figured it served her right for having the audacity to venture her city slicker ass into his neck of the woods, but eventually he found her endearing. She had gumption. Determination had rolled off her like steam from an engine. She kicked and muttered and huffed and puffed, but didn’t let her frustration stop her. And as he watched from the brush she succeeded. She got the tent to stand. And when she did, she jutted her hip out, planted her fist on it, blew her long blond bangs out of her eyes and seemed to marvel at the accomplishment. 

              It had been damn cute.

              Not to mention her sporty figure had been of some interest to him. She was petite, on the short side, but toned. The definition in her legs made them seem longer than they probably were. He had been able to tell her arms were strong, equally toned beneath the gray shirt she’d been wearing. And he had to admit he liked her curves, which had been present, but not enough to hold her back from squatting and thrusting the tent into shape. The woman could get her hands dirty. 

              Brandon had spent the majority of his day wondering about her. He considered the reasons a city girl would be up here this time of year, and alone for that matter. She was probably trying to prove someone wrong. Maybe that someone was herself. She certainly didn’t belong here. She had Seattle written all over her, all the way down to that hunting knife she’d clearly bought on a whim, a last minute attempt to convince herself the wilderness wouldn’t eat her alive.

              Technically, it could, which had been the reason Brandon kept circling back to her, as he progressed through his assigned territories. For as much moxie as she had, the terrain was dangerous and if she encountered certain wildlife it could be downright fatal. Deep down he’d started to feel responsible, as though he was her guardian, as though it was his duty to see to it that she’d make it out of here and return to her home city alive and well. Or maybe she wouldn’t return. Maybe she’d stay... The thought had swirled in the back of his mind until he decided, at the very least, nothing was going to happen to her on his watch.

              But he’d lost sight of her when she’d ascended the midway point along Tucker’s Ravine. At the time he had needed to get to the lake and do a sweep across the perimeter or he wouldn’t have made it back in time for call at the Sanctuary. He’d told himself he’d swing by her campsite on his way home, make sure she’d returned safely, put his mind at ease. So leaving the facility, Brandon started off in that direction, as he tried to make sense of her.  

              What the hell had she been thinking going up Tucker’s? It was a trail meant for experienced hikers, not powder puffs hoping to gain a sense of personal empowerment,
See Dad, I can do anything, I climbed the ravine, now loan me money so I can start my online jewelry business
. Not that she was a powder puff. Nothing about her indicated she had a pipe dream about selling homemade tchotchkes over the internet, but she certainly wasn’t an avid trailblazer.

              When he reached the campsite it was nearly dark. He cut across the clearing, hoping to detect some movement within her tent, any indication she’d returned, but it was still and soundless. He went so far as to place his hand on the nylon siding of the tent and walk clear around it, which was unnecessary. He already knew she wasn’t there.

              “Beers at Riley’s?” His friend, Mark Houston called out from the tree line.

              “Nah,” shouted Brandon. “Gotta check on something.”

              “Someone’s camping out here this late in the year?” He asked, as he strode over out of curiosity.

              “Just some lady,” Brandon offered, hoping he wouldn’t sound as interested as he was. “She ought to be back by now with the sun down and everything.”

              “Ah, she’ll be fine,” said Mark before studying Brandon’s hesitation and getting a read on his friend’s unease. “You’re not thinking what I think you’re thinking, are you?”

              “What do you think I’m thinking?” He challenged.

              Mark considered the best way to put it, then quickly gave up and stated plainly, “Don’t get interested in some outsider. It won’t be worth it.”

              “She was hiking Tucker’s earlier.”

              “You followed her?”

              “No, she kept coming in and out of my territories,” said Brandon, who realized as soon as the excuse flew out of his mouth that Mark would know he was lying. The trail through Tucker’s Ravine was barely on the outskirts of
one
of his assigned territories.

              Mark must have been feeling kind, because he didn’t call Brandon out on it, only asked, “How hot is she? Is she like an eight? Or is she like a full blown ten?”

              Brandon smirked. Mark was such an idiot, he couldn’t help it.

              “Do your thing man,” Mark added, punctuating the blessing with a thwack to Brandon’s chest. “Then come to Riley’s. Thursday’s beer night. Don’t you go blowing off tradition.”

              “Alright, man,” he said, as he watched Mark turn on his heel and start back across the campsite.

              Knowing how bad it would look if the woman came back at this very moment, but not caring, Brandon unzipped her tent and entered. He knelt by her bed and lifted the comforter to his nose, taking a quick whiff. Lavender potpourri and baby powder was all he got from it. So he pulled a few articles of clothing out of an army-sized backpack that was sitting at the far side of the tent and sniffed those as well. Again, the same crap scents, manmade attempts to mask a woman’s natural odor. He tried again, this time smelling her pillow, Christ she’d brought enough comforts with her. Why bother camping at all? She had her whole bedroom here. But just then Brandon got the information he had been looking for: musk traces of her unique scent, as precise as a fingerprint.

              He almost wished she’d barge in right now. She’d be terrified then furious. Maybe she’d smack him. For some reason the thought got him excited. He hadn’t had a woman in ages. He liked the feisty ones who would fearlessly put him in his place. But he was getting sidetracked. He placed her belongings back as best he could having virtually no recollection of how he’d found them, and left her tent, anxious to get to the trail where he’d last seen her.

              It was dark and his eyesight was barely serving him. The moon overhead was full and though it shined brightly the canopy of trees overhead obscured what little light it provided. As he ran up the eastern trail along Tucker’s Ravine he knew his eyesight would be sharp, his sense of smell acute if he shifted, so in a flash he did, collapsing onto all fours into his wolf form and instantly sprinting at five times the speed his human legs had been carrying him.

              When he reached the ridge, trees no longer blocked the moonlight and he could see clear across the peak. He smelled the woman and padded over to the cliff’s edge where her scent was strongest. Immediately he saw that the ground had been eroded. He was filled with a deep sense of dread in that moment, as he stared at the curvature where the earth was missing. She’d fallen.

              Brandon crept along the cliff’s edge, scanning the wall of the cliff until he located a stripped line that led straight down: the path she’d tumbled. Then he saw her far below on the ravine floor and his heart sank. She was motionless, a tangle of limbs. If he’d been human he would’ve thought she was nothing more than a rock, a dark lump wedged between two tree trunks.

              Because he knew Tucker’s like the back of his hand and had hiked every inch of its trails, and had bushwhacked through the forest, Brandon sprinted back the way he’d come to circumnavigate the cliff and go around through the northern trail that connected the eastern one with its twin. To say he was frantic would be an understatement. He’d last seen the woman just before 6:00 pm and it was fast approaching 6:45. Humans were fragile and their tenacity to hang onto life often faded quickly in the face of hopelessness. The woman had been alone and probably had no hope of being found. She’d been out here all by herself for too long. If she was clinging to life at the bottom of the ravine, it was unlikely she’d hang on much longer. And he needed her to hang on.