Alaskan Fire (22 page)

…or have them come to her.

The thought of meeting a
dragon
left Blaze with a flutter in her stomach.  She’d always enjoyed reading stories
about dragons as a kid, would snatch them off of the bookstore shelves just
because they had a dragon on the cover.  The idea that they were
real
,
and that she may someday meet one, left her feeling a mixture of excitement and
anticipation. She could imagine the monstrous creatures landing in her yard at
night to feed, and then trying to explain to the neighbors why five of her cows
had gone missing sometime after dusk.

Blaze was still smiling about
that thought when she heard the whine of a boat motor.

Pausing, she glanced up.  A flat-bottomed
river-boat was coming north up the Yentna River, toward her.  Once it got close
enough to make out the shapes against the glare of the gray glacier water,
Blaze saw that it contained two women; one sitting in the back to run the jet,
while the other huddled near the front against the wind.

Not really in any mood to talk,
Blaze had hoped that they wouldn’t see her and would motor on by.  As it grew
closer, however, the boat started to veer to the right, toward Blaze’s beach,
and her stomach grew tight with a lump of dread.  The
last
thing she
wanted to do was explain to her neighbors why she was out wandering the river
without so much as a backpack.

“Hello there!” the lean woman in
the back of the boat called over the roar of the prop.  She was probably about
five-ten, and even under her bundle of heavy jackets and floatation device,
Blaze could tell that her body was the slender, hourglass-shaped figure that
she had always wanted.  Her eyes were blue, almost white, and she had long
blonde hair that was even then loose in the wind.

“Hey,” Blaze said, smiling and
bracing herself for a conversation she didn’t want.

“Why you out walking the river?”
the blonde woman asked, as the aluminum hull of the boat scraped the shore near
Blaze’s feet and she shut off the engine.  “Boat break down?  Need a lift?” 
Taking up a seat in the bow, her companion was a tiny, brown-eyed, black-haired
mouse of a woman who seemed to be hiding within her lifejacket, probably only
five feet, max.  She was cringing backwards in her seat, her dark eyes fixed on
Blaze’s face in horror.  When Blaze stepped forward to offer the woman her
hand, she just slid further away, looking like Blaze had approached her with a
bloody hatchet.

The Walking She-Mountain
strikes again,
Blaze thought, disgusted at the fear she inspired in the
timid woman.  Fighting down another rush of self-loathing, she returned her
attention to the blonde woman and her question.  “Wanted to look around,” Blaze
lied.  “We don’t have the boats in the water yet.”

The driver’s delicately arched
eyebrow—nothing like the thick orange masses on Blaze’s forehead—went up. 
“You’re new in the area, then?”

“Yeah,” Blaze said.  “I’m Blaze
MacKenzie.  Bought the Sleeping Lady Lodge from the Meyers.”

“Oh!” the woman cried, sounding
delighted.  She tilted the engine and got up.  “I’m Amber Stern, and this is
Kimber Womac.”  She gestured to the child-sized bundle.

When both Blaze and Amber’s
attention turned on her, Kimber raised a tentative hand and gave a soft hello
in a voice that almost sounded Arabic.  Combined with the woman’s dark skin,
her jet-black hair, and her tiny size, Blaze guessed she was probably a
military wife, brought over when one of the GIs from Elmendorf or Fort
Richardson came back from a deployment.  Like a lot of women when they hit
American soil and started having to repeat their name to fat-tongued Americans,
she had probably changed her name to something more pronounceable by her new
Yankee neighbors.

“So where ya from?” Amber asked,
as she climbed out of the boat.

Blaze moved to help the woman
drag the vessel up the shore, but Amber had the prow resting on six feet of
gravel before she could lend a hand.  Blaze found herself impressed.  For such
a small woman, she was
strong
.

“Alaska,” Blaze said.  “First
time in the Bush, though.  Kinda jumped between Wasilla and Anchorage my whole
life.”

Amber smiled, her startling blue
eyes flashing amusedly.  Almost in the patronizing tone one would use on a
child, she said, “The Yentna’s a big leap from Anchorage.  Why’d you move?”

Yet another Bushrat who thinks
I’m a useless city-slicker.
  Bristling, Blaze shrugged.  “Had some money
come in.  Thought I might try getting away from it all.” 

Amber’s smile was still pleasant,
but her ice-blue eyes narrowed almost imperceptibly.  “What kind of money?”

“Inheritance,” Blaze said, trying
not to show just how rude she felt the woman’s questions were.

She thought the woman’s attention
sharpened.  “How much?”

How
much
?  Blaze couldn’t
believe someone would have the audacity to ask.  Then again, considering her
experiences with Jack, she wouldn’t be surprised if the people in the Bush were
a little less up-to-date on their people skills.

“It was enough,” Blaze said,
shrugging against the odd sensation of the woman’s complete attention.  “Bought
the Sleeping Lady outright.  Now I’ve got Jack Thornton helping me fix it up.”

The woman’s face darkened to a
thunderhead.  “Jack Thornton.”  The way she said it, Blaze might as well have
said that she had hired an undead intestinal parasite.

Blaze raised a brow, her
curiosity getting the best of her.  “You know him?”

“Who
doesn’t
?” Amber
snapped, and even the girl in the boat seemed to cringe.  “He’s the crankiest,
most selfish asshole on the river.  The world would be a better place if
someone shoved a chainsaw up his ass and pulled the cord.”  The way Amber’s lip
twitched in a snarl, it was evident that she had
personal
experience
with the bastard.

Blaze was grinning, despite
herself.  “I was beginning to think the same thing myself.  What’d he do to
you
?”

Amber was scowling upriver, her
shoulders hunched in obvious fury.

The petite woman on the boat
reached out and touched a tiny hand to Amber’s leg.

Amber’s face seemed to clear
immediately, and she looked back at Blaze with a smile.  “Oh, nothing a rabid,
lobotomized ape with anger issues wouldn’t have done in his place.”  She
glanced at the boat, then raised an eyebrow at Blaze.  “You wanna go back to
our place and talk about it?”

Blaze hesitated, glancing at the
river behind her.  She had told Jack she was just going on a walk…

Then she froze, thinking of
something new.  “You guys got a phone?”

Amber grinned.  “Sure, why?”

“I need to make a call,” Blaze
said.  “Get myself a new cell phone and a new Colt .45 shipped out here.”

Amber raised a brow.  “Oh?”

“Yeah,” Blaze said.  “Bastard
broke ‘em both.”

Amber seemed to stiffen a bit. 
“He broke a
revolver
?”  She gave Blaze a narrow look.  “He must be
really…strong.”

“Or stupid and pigheaded,” Blaze
said smoothly, realizing her mistake.  “Told me I didn’t need ‘em.  He’s got
enough tools in the place that I’m pretty sure he could take apart a nuclear
warhead, if he had the inclination.”

Amber seemed to relax.  “He took
it apart.”  She seemed to shake herself and gestured towards the boat.  “Come
on in.  There’s a life-vest under the prow, and—”

Kimber’s hand on Amber’s leg
again stopped the woman.

The petite woman was still
staring up at Blaze, wide-eyed.  Kimber gave a slight shake of her head and bit
her lip.

Amber threw her hand off of her
with a snarl that both startled Blaze in its viciousness and made the woman
climb behind the seat, quaking.  “She’s coming.”  Glancing at Blaze, she
smiled.  “She’s had to deal with Jack these last few weeks.  I’m sure she could
use the company.”

Made uncomfortable by the
display, Blaze uneasily tried to piece together the relationship between the
two women.  The smaller woman was quite obviously terrified, and Amber seemed
to think absolutely nothing of it.

Amber’s smile cracked when Blaze
didn’t get in the boat.  “Don’t mind Kimber,” she said sweetly, looking back at
her companion.  “She’s a little…”  She cocked her head, almost thoughtful. 
“Off.”  Returning her attention to Blaze, Amber smiled and said, “She’s
sheltered.  Raised in Skwentna, never left the Bush.” 

Raised in
Skwentna
?
Blaze thought, thinking of the woman’s Arabic features and voice.  Then, shrugging,
Amber added, “Probably never seen a woman over six foot in her life.”

Blaze flushed and dropped her
gaze.

Amber’s interest seemed to
sharpen.  “Get in the boat,” she said.

Blaze jerked her head up,
frowning.  That had almost seemed like a
command.

Amber gestured at the vessel,
waiting.  Now that Blaze was looking closer, the pupils of her eyes seemed to
be slightly misshapen…  When Blaze didn’t move forward, Amber’s eyes narrowed. 
She lifted her head slightly, took in a deep breath through her nose that
reminded her of Jack’s flared nostrils whenever he caught a new scent on the
breeze.  Delicately, she unzipped her lifejacket and set it aside.

Every instinct in Blaze’s body
was suddenly humming, telling her to back away from the pretty blonde, and run
as fast and as hard through the forest as she could go.

“Now,” Amber said, as her pupils lengthened
into slits.  She smiled, and Blaze saw long ivory fangs emerge from beneath her
lips.  “We’re gonna have a little fun with his newest toy.”

Blaze’s heart was hammering,
now.  She took a step backwards, though, after seeing Jack’s speed, she knew
that wouldn’t save her.  “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Oh?” Amber laughed.  “I can
smell his musk all over you.  He’s shifted in your presence, and you’ve put the
little shit into a rutting mood.”  She took another deep breath, nostrils
flared, sniffing the air between them.  Her smile widened, and her face was
elongating in the shape of a canine’s skull, her ears stretching and growing silvery-white
fur.  “Tell me I’m wrong.”

Blaze took another step
backwards, arcs of adrenaline biting through her veins.  “I hate the
sonofabitch,” she managed.

“That’s not what your body is
telling me.”  The woman hunched as her body grew, the hump of her shoulders
rising above Blaze’s head.  Long white fur was sprouting from every square inch
of the woman’s body, and her lips and eyelids were darkening to an ebony
black.  She smiled, and as Blaze watched, the extra rows of teeth punched
through the roof of her mouth leaving strands of bloody saliva dribbling from
her jaw.  “The body can’t hide its own musk, girl.  Now get in the boat.”

Blaze eyed the boat, saw the
ebony-black wolf standing beside Kimber’s life-jacket like a very large, very
muscular dog, and she bolted.

Blaze didn’t even make the edge
of the riverbank before pain ripped through her back and something heavy
dragged her to the ground.  She screamed and tried to kick away, but a leaden,
clawed fist slammed into the side of her face, stunning her.

Dazed, unable to put up much
resistance, Blaze groaned as she felt rough hands grab her wrists and drag them
behind her back.  “Get the anchor line,” Amber snapped over her shoulder. 
Then, to Blaze, her hot breath licking the back of Blaze’s neck, she said,
“We’re gonna enjoy ourselves taming Thornton’s newest bitch.”

Vaguely, Blaze felt the woman
loop the rope around her wrists and pull it tight.  Unlike Jack, however, Amber
didn’t make any attempt to be humane.  She twisted the ropes until they were
cutting off circulation to her hands, then yanked Blaze’s ankles back and
wrapped the line around them, as well.

She took a second piece of rope
and, after stuffing a greasy, gas-smelling engine rag into Blaze’s mouth,
cinched it tight around her head.

Blaze was just starting to regain
some of her senses when she felt herself hefted off the ground, then thrown
into the boat, heedless of whatever got in her way.  Blaze, unable to protect
her face, felt her world explode in a burst of agony as her head hit the far
side of the boat and something in her nose snapped.  She gagged on the rag as
blood started running down her face in rivulets, dripping on the boot-scuffed
aluminum.

As she passed to return to her
seat at the back of the boat, Amber shoved her aside with a foot, until her
face was mashed against the back bench-seat, her knees crammed against the
forward bench, wedged between the two with a painful angle to her neck.  Then
Amber threw a couple spare life-jackets over Blaze’s prone body and started the
back engine while Kimber pushed them off the beach.

The brutal treatment left a
growing well of fear rising within Blaze’s gut.

They don’t care if I live,
she realized, as she felt warm blood start dribbling down her ribs from the
wound in her back.  Which meant they didn’t plan on leaving her alive.

She remembered Jack’s last
girlfriend, the wereverine that had disappeared, leaving only body parts
behind.  Suddenly, it made too much sense.

The boat trip seemed to take
hours, but in reality was probably only about twenty minutes.  Neither of her
captors spoke, and for Blaze, with her busted nose grinding hard against the low
metal seat, it was doing everything she could just to stay conscious.

When the motor finally slowed and
the boat jolted as its hull slid up a sandy bank, Blaze was starting to feel
dizzy.  The blood dribbling down her ribs had slowed, but the bottom of the
boat was crimson underneath her.

“Go get the pack,” Blaze heard
Amber growl.  “Tell them to dig her a hole.  I want this bitch underground
before he realizes she’s gone.”

They’re going to bury me.
 
Her panic rising, Blaze made weak struggles against her bonds.