Amber's Ace (3 page)

She watched through the window as Ozzie duct taped the woman’s hands behind her back and bound her ankles to the legs of her chair with a thin rope that had enough give for her to raise and lower her legs, giving the small shifters a ride as they sat on her feet. The unknown woman told them a story and sang to them. Meanwhile, Ozzie collapsed on a nearby sofa with a beer in his hand, watching a baseball game on the TV.

Once, the new prisoner raised her head and stared out the window, meeting Amber’s gaze. A flash of recognition passed between them then vanished as rapidly. Fearing discovery—or worse repercussions—Amber ducked below the window sill to hide.

Gradually, she crept back up, careful to keep as hidden as possible as she stared into the cabin. An image on the TV Ozzie watched caught her attention. One of the players. The pitcher. A big, toned male, who seemed to tower over the other ballplayers, his pinstriped uniform so taut over his body he might have been poured into it. Huge muscles rippled with every movement. And his face! Goddess. Hewn from stone yet sensual at the same time. Riveting, wintry-gray eyes the color of sparkling bleached granite. Coal-dark hair feathered around a milky, black Irish complexion evident even beneath the summer tan and sunburned nose. She had never seen a more handsome man. She bet he smelled divine.

He went into his windup, and she stared at him, mesmerized, unable to look away from the screen as he lifted his leg, exposing the thick sinews of his thigh, the tight curve of his ass. She’d never seen a finer ass or better, broader shoulders on any being, wolf or human.

As she stared at him, completely entranced by the image of male magnificence shown on the wide screen, vehicles filled with shifters burst through the outside barricades and roared into the compound. Were they here to rescue the newest prisoners? Their shouts and growls filled the air.

Amber barely heard the commotion at the gate or surrounding the cottage. The yells of the young woman tied to the chair and the cries of the little kit and pup went unheeded as so much background noise.

She could not look away from the video screen or gorgeous hunk of masculinity displayed there. His face, his body branded her soul. She could not absorb anything else. A shattering need for the unknown male consumed her. A hunger for him unlike anything she’d ever experienced. She craved his heavy weight on top of her, his large hands running over her bare skin, his sensual mouth on hers then his lips closing around each of her nipples, sucking, stroking with his tongue. Her breasts grew heavy and full with her arousal, the buds hard and pointed, straining against her T-shirt, anticipating his teasing hands, his toying mouth, his thick, throbbing cock inside her. His rich, delicious scent embracing her.

Goddess. She squirmed. Heat enveloped her. She loathed all the males Magnum had partied with at the compound, but she wanted the man on the TV. Her sexual awareness awakened for the first time in her life.

The fantasy scenes dancing in her head had her quivering on the brink of orgasm as she replayed once again the images of his tongue skimming southward over her hot flesh, lower and lower, tracing a path from her breasts to her belly then, at last, delving into the slick womanly folds between her legs. Sucking, nibbling, tasting. Readying her for the sublime penetration of his hard, thick cock. The idea melted her, made her so liquid her lust drenched her panties.

Beautiful and perfect. His own taste would be nothing less than delicious, and his tantalizing scent would cocoon and paint her skin, brand her as he made love to her while whispering endearments into her ear. So different from the snorting, grunting, disgusting rutting of Magnum’s henchmen.

Garnet tugged her arm. “Come on, sis, we’ve got to go!”

“TV,” she murmured.

“Come on, Amber! We’ve got to hide!”

Her sister dragged her away. They ran for another one of the abandoned huts. Garnet curled beneath a cot, but Amber scrabbled about like a person possessed, whimpering until she found another TV. Compelled by a force beyond her control, she flicked the ancient machine on.

Static and snow filled the small screen, but Amber fiddled frantically with the old, rabbit ears antenna, managing to see past the flickering, jumpy images. Sweet Luna, the man was gorgeous. She gaped at him, a jagged lightning bolt of need striking her dumb. Muscled and masculine, with bulging biceps and thighs and sharp angles in all the right places, he sported a scruffy head of inky hair she ached to run her fingers through. The hint of a five o’clock shadow sculpted his cheeks and strong chin.

An erotic shiver coiled through her, a sensation she’d never felt before. A sense of…rightness. Something like…destiny…her fate somehow entwined with that of the distant man.

Mine.

She stared at the baseball player’s image on the screen, stunned when the ball dribbled out of his glove and he glowered back into the camera as if he could see her, too, his eyes sharp and cool as frost. She recoiled, putting more distance between her and the TV.

The man stepped off the pitcher’s mound, a dumbfounded expression narrowing his eyes. He bit his sensual lower lip. Had he forgotten himself and where he was? She suspected his air of befuddlement was unnatural, a condition foreign to such a dominant and confident man.

A few moments later, he tossed a giant cream puff, the opposing batter squashing it in an instant. He raised his left arm as the ball shot back to him like a bullet. She could almost hear the stunning impact of horsehide and flesh as the ball barreled into his hand like a speeding locomotive. Her jaw dropped, and she stared at the screen in horror as the big, sexy male fell to the pitcher’s mound and rolled around in the dirt in apparent agony.

His pain became her pain. Sickness gripped her at the hideous scene unfolding before her eyes.

“No,”
she
whispered
. “No, no, no, no,
no
!
”

She reached toward the television set, wanting to grab the male through the flickering screen and bring him toward her to hug him against her body and give him comfort. To heal him.

Without warning, four wolves and a giant bear bounded into the room, howling and roaring as they skidded to a halt and slid back into their human forms.

“Dear Sweet Luna,” one of the wolves shouted. “We’ve found them.”

The man knelt beside her, grasping her hand in his much larger one. She flinched away, yanking her fingers from his steady grip.

“Sweetheart, it’s me,” he murmured.

She stared at the TV and the writhing ballplayer, even as the others swept up Garnet and bore her away.

“Help him,” she mumbled, her gestures frantic as she pointed at the jumping images.

“Help who?” The wolf looked around and then shook his head. “Amber, honey, don’t you recognize me?” Tears streamed down her rescuer’s face, and his voice choked. “It’s Chance.”

“Chance,” she echoed. The word felt foreign on her tongue, but right at the same time.

She tore her gaze from the TV and looked at the man crouching before her. He seemed familiar but…it had been such a long time. She glanced back at the small screen again. Emergency crews carried the baseball player’s broken body from the field.

“Look at me, Amber.” The man kneeling next to her raised her chin with two light fingers. “It’s me, Chance. Your brother.”

Eight months later….

The early spring sun beamed down on Amber as she reclined on the banks of Hidden Maiden Creek, part of the patchwork of fast-rolling streams winding through the Black Hills and feeding the extensive system of crystal lakes dotting Tao Pack territory. The gurgling rivulet, swollen with melting snow as it flowed over Shifting Tears Falls, had been a favorite spot before her captivity at the hands of Magnum Tao.

The place held a bittersweet poignancy. The pleasure of complete liberty sang through her, but so many years had been lost. Sometimes she didn’t know quite what to do with her newfound freedom. Her brothers, Brick and Chance, often hovered, so fierce and set on guarding and protecting her and Garnet, they all but smothered their female siblings. Garnet accepted their vigilance, not quite ready to venture far afield on her own. But, to Amber, they sometimes felt suffocating.

Out in the woods, the air still held the brisk bite of the fast-fading South Dakota winter, but clean and refreshing, too, the young season smelling of new life and the sun’s rays warming her skin.

She loved it out here, deep in the forest where she felt most free, among the vast patches of pale-blue forget-me-nots, purple prairie crocus, and pert black-eyed Susans ready for plucking. Other wildflowers struggled to emerge from winter’s tight bonds and show off their raiment of oranges, yellows, and reds.

She did not have to explain anything to anyone out by the creek. She did not have to answer the concerned looks, the constant repetitions of “How ya doing today?” or the initially hushed silences followed by exuberant conversation when she first walked by a cluster of tenderhearted wolves. Here, the spray from the tumbling falls lightly misted her skin, and the thick walls of granite and ponderosa pine shielded her from view.

She did not need to recoil from anyone’s inadvertent touch.

She remained free to wonder what had become of the hunky baseball player who’d captured her soul moments before falling to the ground with a horrifying, grievous injury. She thought of him with longing, liquid heat stealing over her body as she imagined the erotic things they’d do together. If he were hers. And if she were his. Her hot feelings for him, so much at odds with the way she flinched away from the real people who populated her new life, made her realize she was alive.

She sighed. Only her sister Garnet kept her company here on occasion, words unnecessary between the twins Magnum had imprisoned together. They’d formed such a tight bond few finished sentences ever passed between them. On occasion, each had spoken to Dr. Liv Dunn, the psychologist mated to Xan. They’d learned they both suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder. But only Garnet really understood her. And vice versa.

Amber stared into the creek at her reflection. In the seven months of plentiful nourishment since she and her twin had been rescued from the madman Magnum’s secret compound, her cheeks had lost some of their gaunt and hollow look, and the sun on her hair made it gleam light and bright in the rippling current. Although reunited with her family, she still had not completely lost the haunted shadows in her eyes.

She drifted her fingers through the icy, crystal water, capturing several smooth stones. She loved the rocks. They didn’t badger her with questions and demand answers, or stare with hurt and puzzled eyes if she shied from their embrace. Yet, they spoke to her nevertheless, and she found she had an affinity for them, able to correctly read the powers and properties captured within them.

Polished by the rapids, the pebbles she’d harvested glistened in the center of her palm: a chunk of rose quartz, a clump of glittering golden pyrite, a striated red-black-and-tan Fairborn agate, and, her prize, a nugget of watermelon tourmaline with a pink center ringed by its “rind” of bright green.

Minerals abounded in the Black Hills. Out of necessity, she and Garnet had learned to be handy and crafty during their years at the compound, fabricating objects they needed from broken parts and tinkering with cast-off appliances, such as the hot plate they’d constructed from a deteriorating toaster.

Since then, they’d discovered their creative streaks could be artistic, as well, devising unusual jewelry from the colorful polished rocks they found in the creek bed or on its banks, with thin bits and twists of fine wire to set the stones in place. Their brother, Brick, helped.

Not only alive and well, Brick thrived mated to Summer, his half-cougar, half-skinwalker love, and the mother of his twins—the tiny kitten cub and adorable chocolate wolf she and Garnet had so feared for when they’d been brought to the prison compound. Remarkable how much things had changed in Los Lobos with the demise of the evil Magnum and ascension of his more open-minded son, Drew Tao, as the new alpha. No-nonsense as Drew was, he also had a good heart and cared for the well-being of the pack. Brick’s story amazed her. Happy and content, he’d come into his own and doted on his young family. Once an outcast in his pack, these days he served as one of the pack’s protectors.

An artisan and master carver, Brick encouraged his twin sisters in their fledgling jewelry enterprise, helping them with the tools and supplies they needed. He also helped them sell some of their best pieces at Brenna’s Boutique in Shady Heart, the big cat stronghold on the other side of the mountain, where Brick’s own signature carvings sold like honey-slathered hotcakes despite the high prices they commanded.

The watermelon tourmaline would make a lovely pendant, delicately wrapped in a shred of silver wire, whisper thin so the setting did not mar the beauty of the stone. Geology had always fascinated her, even as a young girl. But the mystic meaning of stones and crystals, the metaphysical properties inherent in the rocks, their ability to heal or soothe or agitate, spoke to her in a different, more profound way.

The most significant for her was amber, like her name. She greatly admired the large teardrop chunk strung on a leather strap and worn by Miss Claire, one of Los Lobos’ elder ladies. Amber wasn’t a true mineral, of course. Made from the hardened, fossilized resin of a coniferous tree, it should more rightfully be in the vegetable category, perhaps. The best amber even retained an aromatic hint of pine. Miss Claire’s belief in her necklace’s power to energize, to draw out negativity and soothe physical pain had urged Amber to adorn herself with the pieces.

She did not go overboard, as Miss Claire’s best friend, Miss Fern, sometimes did. That wasn’t Amber’s style. She wore on her index finger an amber cabochon ring as a reminder of her recent plight and, more especially, of her survival. A miniscule, nearly-invisible insect remained trapped inside the gem, perhaps a prehistoric bee lured to its death by the honey color of the sticky sap. Trapped. As she had been not long ago. As she might be still. Yet, the ring reminded her the huge and mighty dinosaurs were no more and the small bug, frozen in amber, endured.