Outfoxed by Love (Kodiak Point Book 2) (16 page)

But for someone agile, and wily, springing into the air whilst changing to grab hold of a branch and swing themselves up so as to not leave footprints in the snow?
If anyone could swap from animal to human while mid leap, Jan could he’d wager.

Damn.

Finding Jan had just taken on a whole different level of difficulty. Tracking her route through the treetops was practically impossible. She could have gone in any direction. His only hope was naked human skin in the cold was sure to drive her to ground in short order so she could warm herself with her fur. Problem was choosing which direction to go.

Would she have doubled back after leading him away so she could hop into a vehicle and take off? Would she rely on her four legs, and occasional two, to get where she thought she needed to go?

This time when he bellowed, the frustration clearly marked his tone.

When I get my hands on her, I’m going to tan her ass until she can’t sit for a week. No, make that a month. Of all the stubborn, foolhardy things she’
s done so far…
This one frightened him the most.

Boris didn’t know where Jan was. No one did. She could be in danger. Hurt.
Captured. Drinking hot cocoa, snickering. Waiting for him naked in bed. Or yelping in the distance?

The unmistakable cry sent a frisson throughout his body, and un
mindful of what he ran toward, he took off at a trot. Forget prudence and watching his steps. Jan was hurt and needed him.

His antlers tangled
in some of the lower branches, snapping the icy boughs like matchsticks. His breath steamed in the cool air as he ran, and his ears strained to hear another sound, another cry, anything to guide him.

When the figure leaped down to the ground from a large conifer in his path, he almost ran right through him. Someone stood in his way.
Move it!

He skidded to a halt at the last moment and took in the details of the intruder in his woods. Well
, his woods so long as he kept making payment each month to the bank on his mortgage for the hundred acres he’d bought.

The stranger was d
ressed in white camouflage, including tinted goggles, and carrying a rifle, military grade Boris judged, given it was a prototype he’d read about but wasn’t available for the general public. It didn’t take his well-equipped nature for Boris to know whoever he faced wasn’t an ordinary hunter.

Nope. Nor was he a stranger.

When a white gloved hand raised the goggles, Boris couldn’t have said he was surprised to see Gene. But the man facing him, the man scarred by experience, was not the Gene he’d known. And by scar he didn’t mean the one bisecting Gene’s face.

There was
a hardness to his features, a cruel tilt to his lips and a coldness in his stare that didn’t exist before. Before Boris stood a man who’d suffered, and from his experiences, emerged tougher and more deadly than ever. Add to that slightly insane.

This
could have been me, had Reid not dragged me back from the brink.

Unmindful of the cold
, Boris swapped shapes and growled, “What have you done with her?”

“Is that all you have to say to the friend you left behind?” Gene replied with an arch of a brow.

“Don’t start with that crap. You and I both know if I’d had an inkling you lived, I would have stayed and looked for you.”

“Start with that crap?
Challenging words from a guy suffering turtle dick to someone holding a gun.”

So uncool.
It wasn’t Boris’ fault his cock and balls were tucked in as far as they could go to avoid the bite of the arctic temperatures. “Where is Jan?”

“Ah yes, the lovely little vixen.
I can see why you’re taken with her. Such lovely flawless skin. Her hair, a sheen of silk. And that body.” Gene licked his lips. “A part of me wishes I’d stayed instead of leaving that note the other day. Perhaps then it would be I sharing her bed instead of a backstabbing moose.”

“You leave Jan alone.”

“Such jealousy. Does the little fox mean that much to you then?”

Admitting
she meant everything to him might paint a larger target on Jan, but denying it could mean lessening her importance in the grand scheme and costing her life if Gene didn’t think she was a viable hostage.

“She’s my mate.” He admitted
the one fact he’d tried to deny for so long out loud to the last person he would have expected to.

Gene appeared surprised.
“A mate. Oh my. Even with all your flaws? Absolutely amazing.”

“Enough yapping.
It’s fucking cold out here. I don’t know what you want, but leave Jan out of this. Swap me for her. Let her go. She shouldn’t have to pay for my supposed transgressions against you.”

“How noble of you, old friend.
However, you’re accusing the wrong person. I’m not the one who has her.”

“Not you?
Then who?”

“Would you believe me if I said pure evil?
Or at least its henchmen.”

“You’re not making any sense. Do you mean one of your guys ha
s her?”

“I have no troops.
No one to aid me. Not anymore at any rate. The person I initially began working with had a difference of opinion with me. Needless to say, we’re no longer talking.”

So there was another person also orchestrating attacks.
Good to know, and he’d have to inform Reid, once he found his vixen. “You think this guy took Jan?”

“I don’t think
; I know. I saw a pair of his hunters tag your fox with a tranquilizer and cart her body off.”

“And you did nothing to stop them?”

Gene snorted. “It is you who would act the part of hero, not me. I merely observed.”

“You fucking prick. No, make that a coward.” Boris didn’t care if he
stood naked and that parts of his body were going numb. He also didn’t give a fuck Gene had a gun and who knew what other weapons stashed on his body. This asshole let someone take Jan.
My vixen.
“The old Gene I knew would have never let anyone hurt a hair on a woman’s head.”

“The old Gene died overseas,” he hissed.

“Bullshit. You escaped.”

“But not unscathed, or did my new facial marking escape your attention
?” Gene indicated the silvery scar that bisected his brow, wound down across his cheek, and slashed the edge of his mouth.

“We all have scars. And as Travis would say if he saw yours, and not without envy, chicks dig scars.”

Gene snarled. “But they don’t enjoy nightmares or a man who wakes screaming or sobbing every night.”

“Some do. Jan doesn’t mind.”
Which still amazed him.

“But I mind!”
Gene roared and swung around, his bare fist connecting with the bark of a nearby tree. The coppery taint of blood from torn knuckles filled the air, as did the despair of a man certain all was lost.

Boris understood that
, but he couldn’t deal with Gene’s issues now. Not with Jan in the hands of the enemy. “Listen, I understand you’re hurt. That’s fine. You want to lash out at me, and Reid and the other boys, that’s fine too. However, can it wait until I’ve gone to rescue Jan? She’s innocent in all this. She deserves better.”

“Better than you at any rate,” Gene mumbled.

Boris nodded. “On that, you and her dad and even I are agreed. But she’s a stubborn little thing, and sweet too. Whatever this evil dude wants with her, she doesn’t deserve it. So let me go, just for now. Let me rescue her fluffy white butt from whatever trouble it’s in now, and when that’s done, you and I can tangle.”

“You assume yourself capable of rescuing her.”

“I have to be.” Anything less than success was unacceptable.

“
And if you’re not? You would deprive me of my vengeance.”

“Glad to see your priorities aren’t skewed,” was Boris’ sarcastic reply.

“Don’t talk to me about priorities. I’ve fully admitted I’m a dick but a dick who’s still going to help you against the guys who took your girl.”

“Why, so you can stab me in the back
when I least expect it?”

“I might have lost a lot of things overseas, but I have a small shred of honor left.
It’s grain sized, but when I say I’ll do my best to help you save this chit, you can believe it. I want your undivided focus when you and I battle, face to face.”

“Old
-school knuckle fight like we used to do in the barracks.”

“Except
, this time, we won’t stop at first blood.”

Healing quickly didn’t mean they pounded on each like psychos
, but they did like to push their limits. Abuse their bodies in a controlled environment so they were better equipped to deal with pain later. “Deal. Let me hit the house and grab my gear, and we’ll go after her.”

“There is no time for that. We must catch them before they leave these woods. Once they enter
his
sphere, we won’t stand a chance, and your mate will suffer because you had to stop to get some pants.”

It went against his better judgment to listen to Gene, but if
the bear spoke honestly and something happened to Jan because Boris had wasted time? “Shut up and lead the way,” he growled before switching back into his moose.

With Gene
setting the pace, Boris put his trust in the buddy they all used to call Ghost. No matter where they were, Gene had an uncanny ability to blend into his surroundings. One would think a man close to seven feet with shocking white hair and a bulky body to make most NFL recruiters salivate would stick out; however, Gene was a master at camouflage.

When they’d landed overseas, dropped from a wilderness they understood into an arid place full of rock, sand
, and hard-packed dirt, they’d all felt like walking targets. Except for Gene. Before twenty-four hours had gone by, he’d adapted his gear to blend into the environs, never mind it meant he got reamed by their commanding officer because his idea of blend meant he’d dipped his fatigues in the gray dust of the place and had dyed his boots a shade of brown.

Lest you think his skills only pertained to outdoor camouflage, it should be noted he did just as well in populated area
s. Less than a week after their arrival, there was a point when no one knew where the ghost was, and speculation abounded he’d gone AWOL.

Boris wagered against that and won a tidy sum. He
knew Gene would never just up and leave. He was right. It seemed Gene had slipped into town wearing native garb and facial makeup. The intel he gathered more than made up for the laps around camp and the pushups their CO ordered when no one could report his location.

Ah
, the good old days, before shit happened.

As Boris watched his old friend jogging, his compact snowshoes barely stirring the snow, he wondered how long he’d been watching
, spying, waiting for his chance. The most disturbing part? Boris never even suspected.

How many opportunities had Gene let lapse to take him out
from afar because he wanted a face-to-face confrontation?

Or did he?

Boris really had to wonder what Gene’s true purpose was. Did he truly want to see them dead, or was this just the desperate cry of a man looking for someone to blame and hurt? Someone to share in his pain.

Gene was who Boris could have become if not for Reid and the others.
And because we left him behind, he feels betrayed.
No wonder he wanted vengeance. Here they’d gone on with their lives while Gene languished, a prisoner still. It made Boris feel guilty to realize they’d assumed the ghost was dead.
He’s right. We are assholes because we never even looked.

We owe him.

So Boris would trust Gene to help him save Jan, then he would give his old friend the fight and closure he needed afterward. Hopefully it wouldn’t be to the death. Maybe he could convince Gene that he didn’t need to live as an outcast and strike from the shadows.

But only once Jan was safe.

Boris didn’t need Gene’s flashed hand signal to know they neared their quarry. The idiots weren’t making any attempt to hide their presence, not since they’d joined with a larger party of thugs.

And thugs w
ere what they were. It didn’t take a genius to recognize the unwashed, scruffy men grouped around a half dozen snowmobiles were the rejects of shifter, and human, society. Bound by one common purpose, violence and chaos, they joked amongst each other about the fine bonus they would receive for snaring the white fox the boss wanted.

While their voices carried in the still woods, they’d yet to realize they had company.
Hell, they didn’t even have someone on watch. Cocky and sloppy.

If this were a training drill, the
sarge would have been tearing them a new asshole. How he missed the man—like he missed a deerfly nagging at his haunches. Not!

But back to the i
ll-trained louts. Between the shadows hiding Boris’ presence and Gene’s ability to blend, it was easy for them to creep closer to the makeshift camp the intruders had established, one which they currently dismantled.