Silence of the Wolf

Chapter 4

Elizabeth skied away from the chairlift but Tom followed her. “Noon,” he said. “Meet you at the base lodge.”

His comment wasn’t an offer but a command. “You don’t take no for an answer, do you?” She smiled when she asked.

He offered her a wolfish, sexy smile in return that had her whole body warming despite the chill in the air. “You never said no. See you later. Enjoy your day if I don’t get a chance to meet up with you on the slopes. A blue trail is off to the left, expert to the right.”

He skied along the connecting trail for the black-diamond slope.

You never said no, echoed in her thoughts. Yeah, if she hadn’t really wanted to meet up with him, she would have been all alpha and said no. He had her figured.

She watched him move like a pro and wished she could ski down the expert trail with confidence. She didn’t get a chance to ski nearly as often as she’d like, since they had no skiing in Texas. But she loved the slopes and took every opportunity she could get to ski. She was definitely an intermediate skier.

She was about to head for the intermediate slope when two males on the chairlift got off and joined her.

“Need a ski buddy?” one asked, looking hopeful. He was a blond and reminded her of a Viking, muscled and with beautiful white teeth grinning at her.

“He’s busy, but I’m free,” the other said, looking like the first one’s twin.

She chuckled. “I’m mostly just taking pictures. Sorry.”

“Well, if you get tired of just taking pictures, I’m Cantrell.”

“Robert,” the other man said.

“You’re brothers, I take it.” And both gray wolves.

“Yeah. Kind of no mistaking it,” Robert said with a wink.

“Thanks. Maybe I can take you up on it later. Nice meeting you both.” She took off toward the entrance to the blue intermediate trail.

“Wait!” Cantrell said, catching up to her. “What’s your name?”

She paused at the top of the trail. “Elizabeth.”

“Elizabeth,” Robert said. “Have you got lunch plans?”

“Yes, with Tom Silver.”

Cantrell laughed. “I told you he’d already asked her.”

“What about tonight?” Robert asked.

“I’m having dinner with the pack leaders.”

“Uh, okay,” Cantrell said as if that meant she planned to join the pack or something. “Well, we tried. See you around, Elizabeth.” He headed downhill.

Robert smiled. “They always get the good ones.” He followed his brother down the slope.

Elizabeth shook her head. She really couldn’t believe all the interest, especially after what she’d gone through growing up—physical and emotional abuse from her father’s wolf family for being part coyote. Shunned by her mother’s coyote pack for having wolf DNA. And here she was totally welcome. Maybe because Tom seemed interested in her.

She stood to the side so other skiers could access the trail and pulled out her camera. She snapped shots of the two men traversing the hill, then of the vista. She breathed in the cold, crisp air, loving it, wanting to throw off her clothes, shift, and run through the woods, biting at the snow, rolling in it, having the time of her life.

Tonight she would.

She skied down to another intermediate run and across an easy trail where a couple of patrollers, Tom included, checked out a young girl of about eight. She sat on the snow holding her knee and crying. Tom crouched next to her, talking to her as she nodded. Elizabeth hoped the girl wasn’t too badly injured, but the sight of him speaking to her made Elizabeth believe he’d be good with kids. She wondered if the rest of the pack was like that. The two she had belonged to—as in had family ties to but hadn’t really belonged to—had been. They just hadn’t treated her that way.

She’d always thought of her parents as Romeo and Juliet—Romeo, the red wolf, and Juliet, the coyote—two different families, both feuding. In the end, both her parents had died. Which meant she’d had to fend for herself against the wolves of her father’s pack. The coyote pack hadn’t wanted her, either, since she was an alpha and part wolf. The pack leaders had feared she’d want to take over.

She was a pariah, worse than an omega, a wolf that was pushed from the pack, picked on, and left to grab scraps everyone else had left behind.

Except for one thing. She was an alpha. They couldn’t beat that out of her, no matter how much they had tried. Alpha wolves were born with the take-charge tendency whether they were lupus garous or strictly wolves or even humans. Not all alphas formed their own packs. Some became loners and others sub-leaders of a pack, ready to take over if the pack leader died. Not that she would ever face such a situation.

After capturing Tom and the little girl with her camera, Elizabeth moved toward the lodge. She took several pictures of the building, with its steep alpine roof and log sides and a large veranda where visitors sat at tables enjoying hot drinks. The heat of the drinks mixed with the air, causing steam to rise above their cups. She captured photos of people waiting on the lift line and of some coming down the gently sloping bunny trail.

She snapped a shot of a teen wearing a gray-wolf ski hat who headed straight for her. He whipped around her, grinning, and skidded to a halt next to her. “Tom’s girl, right?”

Before she could respond, he laughed and took off for the ski lift. She smiled. If her pack had treated her like that, she would never have left.

She snapped a couple more pictures—one of a man hitting a hill of soft powder, causing it to fly everywhere. If the day remained sunny, this afternoon she’d take a break from photographing and just ski. Well, after she got what she needed from North, she thought, wishing again that he had taken the evidence he had on her uncle straight to the red wolf pack’s new leader, Hrothgar. North wouldn’t, saying that it was her issue to deal with. Elizabeth didn’t disagree, but she didn’t want to get that close to the pack.

She thought maybe that afternoon she’d take some pictures when the sun wasn’t as intense. When she was done, she’d try to contact Hrothgar and arrange to meet with him to transfer the evidence herself. Hopefully, he wouldn’t mind making the seven-hour trip here.

She was still irritated with North. He had waited a long time before telling her he had solid evidence against her uncle. He could also have informed her that the red pack had a new leader who might consider the evidence and right the wrongs. Then again, Hrothgar might not do anything more with it than Bruin would have.

Shaking loose of her frustration, she proceeded toward the lift. She felt someone hurrying behind her, but he didn’t pass her. She glanced at him as he got in line next to her for the double chairs. He didn’t look at her, which told her he wasn’t trying to meet up with the new she-wolf on the slopes. He was covered in cold-weather clothes, ski hat, and goggles, so she couldn’t make out what he looked like. She tried to smell him, but the wind blew the wrong way so she couldn’t tell if he was a wolf or a man.

He sat to her right as they took the lift up, and Elizabeth caught sight of a lovely vista beyond the man’s head. She thought to come this way again, sit on his side of the chairlift, and have her camera ready.

Then the man turned and stared at her. Blatantly. She’d been looking in his direction—at the view, not at him. Maybe he thought she stared at him. If he were a wolf, he’d definitely be an alpha because he wouldn’t look away from her, trying to force her to glance away in submission.

She didn’t need to prove anything to him. Not the way she’d had to with her former wolf pack. But the instinct was built in, and the repeated abuse she’d suffered for being who she was had made her toughen against such people. She wasn’t looking away first.

She didn’t want to have anything to do with him, but she finally smiled and said, “Nice day for skiing. Are you local?”

The man wore a black balaclava over his mouth and nose, but Elizabeth could tell from a glimpse of his cold eyes that he glowered before he looked away without answering her. Having won the confrontation, she smiled to herself. She snapped pictures of people skiing down the slope from the lift’s bird’s-eye view. She took a picture of the chairs behind her. Never knowing what shot might really look cool in a story, she would take hundreds while she was here. She tucked her camera away in her pouch before she reached the end of the ride.

This time when she got off the chair, she would head for the expert slope to take some shots of the moguls and skiers traversing them on the way down. After she finished there, she’d ski back across the trail to the intermediate slope. She would find another lift to take her up to some other trails later.

The man got off the chair and she followed him, moving off to the side so the next passengers could leave the lift. She waited to see which trail he went on. Expert. Super. Not.

Then again, he’d ski down it quickly and be gone. She could even take some shots of him and see if he did a great job or was just an egomaniac and crashed and burned, nearly killing himself on the way down.

Smiling darkly with that thought in mind, she skied toward the black-diamond slope. When she reached it, she made sure she was out of any skier’s way. She pulled her camera out and took a picture of the man. He’d stopped halfway down the trail, resting his skis on top of a mogul. Not such a hotshot after all.

He turned and looked up. Not expecting to be caught photographing him, she quickly raised her camera to take a picture of the pines separating this trail from the intermediate one.

She heard a skier coming from behind her, the swoosh of skis against snow. Elizabeth’s skis crunched into the semipacked powder as she inched over just a little more to get out of the way. Trees blocked her from moving over any farther.

The skier—had to be a man, as hefty as he was—slammed into her, knocking her down the steep incline.

Heart in her throat, she cried out. She lost her camera on impact. Fell. With her ski poles looped around her wrists, she threw her gloved hands out, trying to stop herself. The shove made her topple onto her side, crashing into the first of the moguls that didn’t slow her fall.

Elizabeth continued to tumble down the slope. She feared smashing her head against the compacted snow and breaking limbs—her own, not the trees’. Briefly, she fretted about her camera, finding it, concerned it might be ruined. Even the worry about a spinal injury flashed through her mind as she continued the downward plunge.

She did not see her life flashing before her eyes. All she saw were snow and intermittent flashes of blue sky and more snow. Elizabeth felt panicked, unable to stop her forward roll.

She still held on to one pole, having lost the other and both skis. Slamming against one mogul after another, she finally hit one hard enough to stop her. She didn’t remember losing consciousness. Her breath had been knocked out of her, though, and her wrist and back hurt.

“Miss, are you all right?” someone hollered down to her from the top of the trail, sounding far away. A youthful male voice.

She didn’t know how far she’d rolled until she stopped. She thought she’d tumbled all the way to the bottom of the mountain where she couldn’t roll any farther. But no such luck. She was still way up on the very steep incline amid all the bumps, staring up at the blue, blue sky.

Unable to catch her breath, she tried to calm her racing heart.

She wished she could have gotten up quickly on her own, somehow managed to make it the rest of the way down the slope, and none would be the wiser.

Now she was afraid that whoever had discovered her would make a big deal of this.

“Minx, you can’t go down this way,” the kid hollered.

“I’ve been skiing since I was three. I’ll get her camera. You guys go see to her.”

Her camera. Elizabeth tried to turn her head, but her back hurt.

“Come on, Anthony. You know Minx never listens to us. If she breaks her neck, we can say we told her so.”

“Ha, ha, very funny,” Minx said.

The ground vibrated slightly beneath Elizabeth as the boys’ skis swished on the snow, then one stopped way above her, and the other came into view.

“I’m just getting her skis to warn others of danger down the slope, Cody.” Anthony quickly joined Cody, yanked a cell phone out of a bag, and called ski patrol.

They were as tall as grown men, so she figured they were older teens.

Elizabeth closed her eyes, knowing full well Tom would soon get word of this.

“I’m okay,” she said, even though she felt terribly winded. She didn’t feel she’d broken anything, but her wrist hurt. And she couldn’t seem to catch her breath so she could rise to a sitting position.

She wanted to lie here, soak up the sun that the two boys now blocked, and get her bearings. Their faces wore frowns as they looked her over.

“Doesn’t look like she’s got any visible broken bones,” Cody said.

“I secured the area,” Anthony said on the phone. He’d crossed her skis upright in the snow to warn skiers above that a safety issue existed below them.

The boys were gray wolves. She hadn’t seen or scented the girl yet and hoped she wouldn’t get hurt on the slope while looking for Elizabeth’s camera. But she was glad the girl was searching for it and hoped it was all right. At least no one else was on the trail. Thank God.

“I’m all right,” Elizabeth said. “I… just need a moment.”

“Hot damn, she’s a wolf,” Anthony said.

She frowned at him. No one mentioned the wolf word. Or in her case, coyote, either. Not in public.

As if he read her mind, he grinned. “No one around to hear me but us wolves.”

And one part coyote.

“She’s the one Tom must have brought up to the ski resort. All the guys are talking about her,” Cody said. “And the kiss.” He grinned big time. “Cantrell said he caught them on his phone video recorder, but he won’t share unless you pay for it. A few other guys took shots with their cell phones, too. They’re sharing for free, sending emails to the pack.”

Her whole body warmed, and she suddenly felt feverish. She couldn’t believe the word had spread that fast. Or that anyone had bothered to catch their actions on camera. Sure, she knew that a pack shared information to protect themselves, but still… She thought Tom had been exaggerating.

“Where do you hurt?” Cody asked, crouching down in front of her.

Everywhere. She would be fine once she got off this black slope, if trying to ski downhill didn’t kill her.

“She’s having trouble concentrating, unable to answer questions,” Anthony said into his cell when Elizabeth didn’t answer right away. “She’s the one Tom brought up here.” Anthony grinned, put his hand over the phone, and said, “You’re a celebrity. You’ll have the entire ski patrol checking you out.”

With mortification, she felt like she was having a hot flash, and she was sure she could melt the mogul she rested against into a puddle of water.

“I’m fine,” she said, trying to sit up. “I’m not having trouble concentrating. Just breathing.”

“No, just lie still,” Cody said, his hand on her shoulder. “You might have a spinal injury.” He turned to the other boy. “And tell them she has shortness of breath.”

“I hurt my wrist a little, and I feel a little sore. I’ll be fine if I can just get down the slope.” Actually, at this point, if she could just get up. “I’m not having any trouble breathing,” she amended. She shouldn’t have said she hurt anywhere.

“Did you get all that?” Anthony asked, and she realized that as she spoke to Cody, Anthony must have held the phone nearer to her so that she would give the information directly to the ski patrol. “Okay,” Anthony said to Cody. “Don’t let her move an inch.”

She rolled her eyes.

Cody smiled at her.

“I found her camera!” Minx called out from the woods.

Elizabeth breathed a little sigh of relief, though she still worried the camera might be damaged.

“Ski patrollers are on the way,” Anthony said.

Great. She hoped they didn’t include Tom.

“Yard sale!” a couple of skiers yelled out from the lift. Tom skied down the slope and saw an unfamiliar woman wipe out, losing her ski poles and skis all over the place.

Tom retrieved the two lost skis when pack members Cantrell and his brother, Robert, joined him, carrying the woman’s ski poles.

“She’s hot, man,” Cantrell said to Tom. The two of them grinned at him as they skied down to the lady getting to her feet and brushing the snow off her goggles.

He raised his brows at them, asking in a silent way who they were referring to.

“Not the woman that just rag-dolled down the slope,” Cantrell said. “You know. Elizabeth.”

They reached the lady who had fallen, and Tom asked, “You all right, ma’am?” He handed her the skis, and Robert gave her the ski poles.

“Yes, thank you. I’m fine.” Her cheeks were red from the weather or from embarrassment. She seated her boots on her skis and took off.

“I asked her to lunch,” Robert said. He and his brother skied with Tom to the next lift. “Elizabeth. She said she would be busy.”

“With me.” Tom hated to sound so territorial. She wasn’t really with him. But after that kiss, he was rethinking that scenario.

Cantrell laughed. “Yeah, she said so.”

Tom smiled a little at that.

When the pack leaders invited a wolf to their home for dinner, that was usually the ultimate boon to any wolf’s ego. Except Elizabeth’s. Tom wondered why she seemed reluctant.

“Man, you guys get all the good ones,” Cantrell said.

The trouble was that fewer female werewolves were born, so there seemed to always be a shortage. Not that he expected to set up housekeeping anytime soon.

“How did you learn about her?” Robert asked.

As if the Silver brothers had a pipeline to learning about available females. Although he supposed Bertha was that for him this time.

Tom got a call on his radio from ski patroller Kemp. “Gotta come quick. Devil Man’s Switchback.”

“Whatcha got?” Tom got ahead of those waiting in the ski line and was promptly seated on a chair.

“The lady you brought to the resort?” Kemp said.

Tom’s mouth went dry, and he tightened his hand around the radio. Elizabeth was probably not injured that badly, but since she had been with Tom, Kemp had most likely taken the situation more seriously than warranted.

At least Tom prayed it was so. “Yeah, what happened?”

“She says she’s okay.”

Tom sat on the edge of his chair, unsure whether to be concerned or not. “But?”

Kemp cleared his throat.

“Just spit it out, Kemp,” Tom said. “What’s happened?”

“Vitals look good, but the Woodcroft twins saw her first and called it in. They both say she was knocked out. She denies it, but she probably wouldn’t remember.”

That didn’t sound good. “Is she answering your questions with full clarity?”

“Yeah. I’ve called for my brother to bring up a toboggan. She doesn’t want to use one. You know… she’s all alpha.”

Tom smiled a little at that. Yeah, he already knew that about her.

“You know how it is. Someone can have no memory issues for hours or even days, and suddenly they have a problem. No visible injuries to her head, though.”

“She goes down in the toboggan. Any other possible injuries?” Tom asked.

“Wrist might be sprained—she was still holding on to one of her ski poles. She’ll probably be a little bruised but otherwise fine.”

“What exactly happened? Just take a spill?”

Kemp paused, then said, “She says a guy shoved her down the slope on purpose.”

Tom frowned. More likely an out-of-control skier, though if the guy regularly skied the black slope, maybe not. “Did she get a look at him?”

“She gave me a get-real look, Tom, when I asked her the question. You know, because she was falling down the mountain—in an unglamorous way—her words, not mine. I couldn’t imagine her ever looking unglamorous.”

“Just help me up,” she said in the background, sounding totally pissed.

Tom smiled at hearing her dictatorial tone. “Just keep her down until I get there.”