Alaskan Fire (12 page)

But his voice was low and serious
when he said, “You got any particular reason why you feel like the end is
coming?”  He looked at her, and when his eyes met hers, they were utterly
alert, waiting.

Blaze let out a nervous laugh
under his acute stare, caught completely off guard by his solemnity.  “Uh.  Just
my gut.  Like the Earth was never meant to hold all these people, and Mother
Nature’s gonna end up fixing the problem.”  When his gaze sharpened, she
anxiously picked a few pieces of dried grass from her shirt.  Quickly, she
added, “Probably just all the books and movies out there.  Kind of rubbed off,
I guess.”

He grunted, his brow wrinkling in
thought.  Then he shrugged.  “Sounds doable.”  As if that were the end of the
conversation, he pushed himself to his feet and held out a hand to assist her. 
“Let’s get inside and get the door shut.  We’re letting the bugs in.”

Warily, Blaze took his hand. 
Jack heaved her to her feet like a lead statue, then released her hand like it
was infested with lice, staring down at his forearm.

Following his gaze, even Blaze
noticed the goosebumps that crawled up his skin at her touch, like he’d dunked
his arm in icewater. 

“Still ain’t gotten used to
that,” he grumbled, opening and closing his big fist like he’d just slammed it
into a brick.

“Used to what?” Blaze demanded,
more than a little unnerved to see that kind of reaction on a guy who spent
half his time running around sprouting fangs. 

Jack glanced up at her, and for a
moment, it looked like he was going to say something really important.  Then he
let out the breath he’d been holding and shrugged.  “Nothin.”  Then, to her
consternation, he turned his back and went into the basement.  Beside the
woodstove, however, he paused and glanced over his shoulder.  “How long would
you say we’ve got?”

“I need to start running guests
through this place by next summer,” Blaze said.  “The renaissance fair is gonna
have to wait until I can get the cabins and the livestock around.  Probably
like ten years.  Who knows.”

“I mean ‘til Mother Nature gives
us the boot.”

Blaze hesitated, caught off-guard. 
“Uh.  Maybe ten to fifteen years?”

He grunted.  “The fey have been
sayin’ five.”  Then he brought out a second flashlight, flipped it on, and
started up the stairs, leaving Blaze staring after him.

Jack helped the Sleeping Lady’s
new proprietor get settled in for the night, then retreated to the woods to sit
and watch the place, thinking.  He was actually rather shocked when the leggy
redhead didn’t try to sneak off again.  He would have bet a sword she would’ve
tried to rabbit on him the first night.  It was, after all, an awful lot for
somebody to digest for the first time, and it was a really
long
night to
spend alone, staring at the ceiling in the dark.

And yet, he heard the unmistakable
sounds of sleep coming from the room she had requisitioned for herself.  He sat
down under a spruce, listening to the rhythmic sounds drifting from the
basement, wondering what the hell he was going to do with this fancy new
critter that had landed on his doorstep.  She was
way
outta his league. 
He had known that the moment she put her big-ass foot on his land.  It was
pretty much the same feeling a lumberjack got when a grizzly snuck up behind
him and tapped him on the back with a big, hairy claw.  That whole Hey Buddy,
Hope You’re Packing Fresh Shorts, ‘Cause You’re Gonna Need ‘Em moment.

Yet, Jack had always had a sort
of death-wish, and he’d spent his life flirting with danger like most guys
flirted with women.  And after spending centuries with a
dragon
, Blaze’s
particular breed of nasty wasn’t as terrifying as it should have been. 
Just…interesting.

Way
too
interesting. 
Gods, she was like a freakin’ alabaster-skinned
goddess
.  An Aphrodite
that made his breath catch every time he got too close.  Just her
proximity
gave him those deliciously wicked goosebumps, and it had been everything Jack
could do to keep her from seeing the way she made him pop wood, every time she
moved.  ‘Pretty’ didn’t even
begin
to describe her long, coppery hair,
or her fine, elegant lines, or her slender fingers…

Jack quickly derailed that train
of thought before it could go any further.  He would
not
do that to
another woman again.  Never again.  The world was just too dangerous to fall in
love with a wereverine.  Especially for some drop-dead gorgeous, painfully
innocent chick from the city who seemed to have absolutely no freakin’ clue
what was going on…

…or what she was doing to him.

Damn it,
Jack thought,
again crushing that thought. 
Not gonna happen, chump.  She’s a princess to
your dickcheese.  Some dragon’s gonna come down and whisk her away, so don’t
even bother getting your hopes up.

Then he realized he was thinking
about saying fuck the dragons and trying to make the bond anyway, even after
losing Tavva to an iron maiden, and Jack started pounding his head into the
nearest birch tree to clear it.  He didn’t need another mate.  His mates died. 
Because of him.  Because he couldn’t protect them.  Because they trusted him
and he
failed
.  This cute little bird didn’t need that.

What she
did
need was for
him to keep his damned distance.  The less Jack’s enemies saw the two of them
together, the less chance there was that one of them was gonna sputch her out
of spite.

Still, the
tingles
he got
when she got close…  Like freakin’ Heaven had decided to part its clouds and
shine its light down on his skin.  Jack groaned, just thinking about it. 
Heaven.  Freakin’ heaven.  It had been all he could do to leave her alone in
her busted little room and walk out the back door ‘to go back home.’  In all
reality, he didn’t even want to wander off what he now considered, in growing
bewilderment, ‘her land.’  He could feel her energy in it already, spreading
outward from the Sleeping Lady, mingling with his, invigorating it, giving it
life
…

“
Way
outta your league,”
he muttered, slapping his forehead against the birch again.  “Stop it, you
dumbass, before you get another one hurt.”

Once he’d managed to get his
reckless side back in check, he went back to his original plan of watching for
intruders.  And there
would
be intruders.  With something like
that
settling down on his property, he would be lucky if he could fend them off with
a freakin’ Howitzer.

The rhythmic sounds from the
basement continued, and Jack was just starting to drift into a light doze when
he heard a soft
click
from the front of the house.  Inside, he heard
Blaze continue to snore.  Jack sat up quickly, summoning the beast in a liquid
surge, and hurried around to the front of the Sleeping Lady.

Immediately, however, his snarl
cut short.

Blaze
was slipping out an
open window.  As he watched, she gave furtive looks in either direction, picked
up a backpack that she must have thrown out the window ahead of her, and began tiptoeing
across the weed-choked yard, fully dressed.  Behind her, something continued to
snore.

Crafty little bird, aren’t ya?
Jack thought, his heart beginning to pound with the thrill of the hunt.  This
could be
fun
.

As he watched, Blaze passed the
shop and headed for Lake Ebony.  No doubt because she didn’t realize the
neighbors were just a quarter mile down the opposite trail, with satellite
phones and battery systems and full contact with the outside world.

Fun, Jack amended, watching her
go, but why bother?  Was he just going to keep her hostage for a few months,
until he
grew
on her gangly ass?  How was he going to keep her from
singing to the authorities about her hairy little kidnapper, the moment she
found a phone?  Or keep her from telling Bruce everything, the moment the pilot
returned with their next load of supplies?

Jack almost let her go.  After
all, his life would be a
lot
easier without something from the Fourth
Realm gracing his doorstep, and he could always find new territory if he had
to.

Then that stubborn, death-wishy
part of him that had always loved a good hunt kicked in and he was loping off
after her. 

Instead of simply running her
down and dispensing with the bullshit as he would have with any other girl that
happened to accidentally complicate his life, however, Jack decided he needed
to take another tack with this particular woman.  Not only did he want her to
hang around and be his business partner, but there was a deep, instinctive part
of him that didn’t want her to be afraid of him.  He’d always had a soft spot
for the womenfolk, and no matter how old he got, when they screamed and ran
from him, it hurt.

Gotta be polite,
he
thought, as he snuck through the woods to circle around and head her off on the
trail to the lake.  She was obviously a smart kid.  He just needed to appeal to
her logic.  He
thought
he’d done a good job of that, letting her talk
about farming and greenhouses and GMOs until she was blue in the face, but
apparently, she needed a bit more persuasion.

I’m rich
, Jack thought,
deciding that would be a good opener. 
Honey, you stay with me and I can buy
you all the fancy chickens you could ever want.

Even as he slid through the
alders, Jack winced.  Even to him, that didn’t sound all that great. 
I’m
rich,
he amended,
Stay with me and we’ll make you right at home.

No, that was fucktarded. 

I’m rich,
he tried again,
I
can help you build whatever operation you want at the Sleeping Lady.  Just
please
don’t go squealing off to the authorities that I sprout fangs.  I’ve really
started to like it here.

No, that was just begging.

I’m rich
, he thought,
creeping through the underbrush, dodging under low-hanging branches,
what
more could you ask for, honey?

Nah, that was just inviting her to
say something nasty.  Like, “Oh, I dunno, less of a midget?”

Jack decided to strike that chain
of thought and try something else.

I’m a badass,
he thought. 
You keep pissing me off and I could rip off your head and—

No, that probably wasn’t the
right way to get her to cooperate.

I’m a badass,
Jack
revised,
I can protect you.  All you’ve gotta do is stop being stupid and
trust me to take care of you.

No, that hadn’t worked the first
time, and losing Henrietta still hurt bad enough that he didn’t really want to
promise that to another woman. 

I’m a badass,
he thought. 
Of course you’d want to stay with me.

No, that sounded too much like a
damned dragon.  In desperation, Jack ditched that train of thought, too, and
tried to come up with some other reason why she would want to stay with him. 
Rich, and a badass.  Two things women loved.  Right?

Somehow, though, he got the
distinct idea that
this
woman, the lanky pain in the ass that she was,
probably wasn’t gonna fall for his two most obvious assets.

Then he had another startling thought. 
You’re
still
thinking you’re gonna try and keep her, aren’t you,
Jackie-boy?  Wake the fuck up, asshole, she’s made it perfectly clear she’s not
gonna be hanging around for long…

Then, stubbornly, he decided that
she wasn’t going to get to make that decision.  After all,
she
had made
the mistake of putting
her
big foot on
his
land, so that made her
his
problem.  And he was good at problem-solving.  All he had to do was
figure out what she wanted.

Jack settled himself into the center
of the path, watching her dark shape move tentatively down the trail, towards
him. 

A farm, obviously.  And she
probably wasn’t too keen on the hairy little wereverine that had made an ass
out of himself, but there
had
to be something he could offer her to keep
things from getting out of hand.

I’m a rich badass,
Jack
thought, as she approached, a deeper shadow tentatively picking its way along
the trail in the dark. 
Man of your dreams, baby.

No, no,
no
, he thought,
with increasing frustration.  He needed to say something eloquent, something
that would ease her fears, make her trust that he really wasn’t out to rip off
her head.  Not for the first time, he wished he had a dragon’s command of the
spoken word.  He just wasn’t
good
at these sorts of things.  He
considered that.  What would a
dragon
say?

While neither of us asked for
this, Blaze, I swear upon the blood of my ancestors that I will never harm you,
nor will you ever have anything to fear from me, as long as you live.  Please
accept my oath that you will be safe upon my lands, and that I will endeavor to
help you to achieve your dreams and make this place your home.

Blaze was almost on top of him as
Jack frantically started working that over in his head, trying to figure out
the best way to end it.

Please, as I kneel down before
you here this moonlit night, promise me that you will accept my honest service…

“Where the fuck do you think
you’re going?” he blurted.

Blaze gasped and dropped her
backpack, hastily backing away from him, looking ready to bolt.

Seeing the fear in her eyes, when
Jack had done nothing but be nice to her all day, really pissed him off.  He
started growing fur and fang, despite himself.  “Okay, tootz,” he growled.  “I
guess that understandin’ we came to earlier didn’t really do the trick and I
gotta go find a fuckton of rope, ‘cause you ain’t gettin’ out of the lodge
again until you can promise me you ain’t pullin’ any more of
this
shit.” 
Damn,
he thought, as soon as he’d said it. 
What happened to
the fucking poetry, you goddamned idiot?

But it was too late, and Blaze
was stumbling away from him, eyes about as big as dinner plates.  Jack sighed
and stepped towards her, deciding it was, at long last, time to dispense with
the bullshit.  He’d learned awhile ago that it was a lot easier on everybody
involved to tie up the babes first, then explain yourself later.  She was
actually lucky she was a babe.  If she’d been a guy, Jack would have gutted her
by now.

“Wait!” Blaze cried, holding out
a panicked hand between them as he started towards her.  “Please don’t.”

Jack grimaced.  She’d said
‘please.’  He hated it when the girls said please.  Wrinkling his nose at her,
he muttered, “So you
weren’t
just trying to boogie out of here, after we
had an agreement, sister?”

She glanced at her feet and
scuffed at the dirt with the toe of her boot.  He could smell the fear rolling
off of her, and it made him grimace.

“I told you ya got nothin’ ta
fear from me, girlie,” Jack muttered. 

“I
know
,” she blurted,
lifting her head quickly, actually looking embarrassed.  “I just…um…”  She
swallowed hard.  “Had a bad dream.  Just…  Thought maybe I should go.”

She wasn’t off to sing like a
canary,
Jack realized, a little stunned.  Jack folded his arms over his
chest, peering up at her.  “Why?  You already told me you ain’t got nowhere to
go.”

“Honestly?” she whispered.

“No, I want you to lie through
your teeth,” Jack retorted.

“Because you’re an asshole,” she
said.  “I don’t think you’d get along with guests, and you already made it
clear I can’t tell you to leave.”

Jack’s mouth fell open. 
Well,
she’s gotcha there, Wonder Boy.
  “I can fix stuff,” he blurted.  “All sorts
of stuff.  Trucks, toilets, chainsaws, you name it.  And I’m good with wood. 
Saws and hammers and shit.  Anything you want to build, we can build it.  Please
don’t run off.”

Good with
wood
?
his
mind babbled in a panic. 
Oh, now
that
was smooth.