AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Nancy checked her watch. “We’re running a little late.”
“Tell our grouchy alpha he left me waiting all night. He can bloody well wait until I’m ready.”
The other three women laughed. She looked out their window until she could see they had all reached the ceremony site and that Nancy had given Mischa the message. He looked up to their room, saw her standing there—in her wedding dress—and shook his finger at her. Good, that meant he was slightly pissed, which meant he’d be in a more primal frame of mind tonight.
She opened the door and was surprised to find Giuliano standing there. “It is tradition for the father of the bride or her alpha to give her away.”
“And you are neither. You took Mischa’s money under false pretenses.” She held up her hand. “Yes, I know I was made dire wolf when he claimed me, but he had always stated he wanted a mate with impeccable lineage. Even though he assures me I am his fated mate and the only one he ever dreamed of, you had no way of knowing that. While I will be grateful that Martina saved my life and will respect that you allowed her to raise me, I will never again acknowledge you as my father or my alpha.”
She walked into the hall, down the stairs, and into the dawn of a new day to formally join her life with the wolf who had insisted she be substituted for the mate he had contracted for. She would always be grateful to him for that… although she’d be damned if she ever admitted it to him.
EPILOGUE
ACCIDENTAL MATE
Aleutian Range
Alaska Peninsula, Alaska
Present Day
Hiking through the Aleutian Range in Alaska in the winter was not Carson Payne’s idea of a good time. The range, known for its many active volcanoes, extended from the southwest of Anchorage to the tip of the Alaska Peninsula. It was fucking cold. Even for a snow leopard, it was fucking cold. Why couldn’t he have been born a cheetah or a jaguar? They lived in hot, sunny climates. But no, he had to be born a snow leopard—the white, icy shit was literally a part of his species’ name. It didn’t help that his twin brother, Mason, had loved all things snowy and cold.
Bitching about the cold wasn’t going to help anything. He was trudging back to Mason’s cabin in the mountains, sticking as close to the tree line as he could in case he had to duck for cover. The sled he towed behind him didn’t make things easier. It was loaded down with enough supplies to get him through the winter. He’d need to hunt and fish for protein, but he had everything else he’d need. Almost, anyway; Carson regretted not getting the extra case of dark roast coffee.
The sound of the distinctive single-prop engine of a de HavillandBeaver shattered the silence of the surrounding mountains. Only, there was something wrong with it—the engine was coughing and sputtering. Carson stopped and held his hand up to shield his eyes, searching the skies for it. As he located it high above him, dread furled low in his gut; the smoke streamed behind the plane. The plane was falling steadily through the sky, which it would if the engine had conked out.
He had no idea where the pilot was headed, but he knew he wasn’t going to make it. Carson shrugged, trying to turn his back on the impending emergency. It wasn’t any of his business; and after all, sticking his nose in where it didn’t belong is what had gotten him into this mess. He took a few more steps, then stopped. Shit! He couldn’t do it. He just couldn’t do it.
Securing his supplies to the sled, he located a branch stout enough to hold the weight and threw his line up and over the branch. Why did they always make that look so easy in television and movies? It wasn’t. The first two attempts missed, and the line fell back down, smacking him in the face. Sighing, he threw the line for the third time, thinking if it didn’t work. He would take it as a sign from the universe that he should forget about the poor schmuck of a pilot, leave him to his fate, and continue on his way.
Unfortunately, the end of the line sailed over the branch and returned to him, hitting him in the face anyway. Carson couldn’t decide whether to swear or sigh, so did neither. Instead, he grasped the line and began hauling the sled up into the air. He was damned if some bear would come traipsing along and commandeer his food. Hand over hand, he hauled the heavy load so it was suspended out of reach from even a large bear standing on its hind legs or hanging off a branch or the tree itself trying to get it. Once he had the sled at the proper height, he wrapped the line around the tree several times and then secured it with a figure-eight knot.
Grabbing the small bag he’d taken off the sled, Carson removed his clothes and then shifted from man to snow leopard. He shook himself from nose to tail. Not only was he warmer in his altered form, but he could also cover the distance faster between his current position and where he calculated the plane had crashed. Even if no one survived, which was the most likely scenario, there might be things to salvage from the plane and anything it had been carrying.
Carson bounded off in the direction of the crash, carrying the bag with the clothing he would need to change into after he shifted back. It wasn’t ideal, but it was also something he hadn’t planned to do. The terrain was rough—a lot of rock and shale, and most of that covered in snow, ice or a combination thereof.
The smoke trail was fading, but he had a good fix on where it would lead. There were a number of rivers and lakes that formed a maze of water features. Some of them, a good bush pilot might be able to land on in an emergency. A cold-water landing wasn’t ideal, but it beat the hell out of slamming into the side of a volcano.
He crested the incline of a mountain and looked down to see the pilot had managed to make it to water but hadn’t landed on the pontoons. The nose of the aircraft was under water, the tail raised up and the pontoons pointing down. If the pilot had survived, he didn’t have long. Carson charged down the slope of the mountain, letting its steep incline aid in his speed. At the edge of the lake, he dropped his bag and plunged into the icy water.
Even his thick, two-layered coat didn’t provide enough insulation to keep the cold from him completely. He swam with as much speed as he could to get to the plane. There was a distinct buzzing in his head like a bunch of mosquitos had taken up residence there. The cold of the water must be affecting him more than he thought.
He crawled up from the icy water onto the highest end of the pontoon, wedging his paw into the crunched and wrinkled passenger door to gain access to the cabin of the plane. There were no passengers and the pilot was pitched forward against the wheel. No way he had survived the crash. No way.
Carson was just turning around, trying not to jostle the unsteady plane, sending it to the bottom of the lake before he could get out, when the dead pilot moaned.Shit! He couldn’t have waited until I was halfway back to shore and couldn’t hear him?
He looked around and spotted a floating sled, which he knew many pilots kept on board to ferry supplies from a dock to their plane. Carson pulled it down and left it sitting on the pontoon at its highest point, balanced precariously. Carefully he made his way forward. With each step, the plane seemed to angle further into the water, groaning with the strain of staying afloat.
Deciding he was running out of time, Carson slashed through the pilot’s safety belts with his lethal claws. He grabbed the back of his parka where the hood was attached to the main part of the coat. He jerked him up and over, through the back of the seats, backing away as quickly as he could as the plane seemed to give up the ghost and began sliding down into the icy depths.
Slipping the rope handle around his body, he began to swim powerfully toward the shore. He was just able to get the pilot on the float and the float away from the plane before the vortex, created by its sinking, would have pulled them both under. He dragged himself and the pilot out onto the rocky shore, exhausted from the effort. The plane gave a final groan as it slipped beneath the surface of the water.
The mosquitos in his head had gone from just buzzing to stinging or biting or whatever it was those nasty little critters did. He shook his head and let out the loud yowl that passed for a roar in snow leopards. The pilot moaned again and managed to knock the hood of the parka away from his face. Only it wasn’t ahimat all. It was most definitely aher—a very beautiful her.
She opened her eyes and batted them, not coquettishly, but in an attempt to get them to focus. She took one look at Carson’s snow leopard and promptly fainted, which was probably the best thing she could do in the situation. Using the rope as a makeshift harness, Carson began hauling her back to his sled of supplies. Between the two, he should be able to redistribute what he needed to get her and his most vital supplies up to the cabin and leave the rest hanging in the tree. He could come back for it later.
The unconscious woman didn’t appear to be damp, but he needed to get her wrapped in some of the thermal blankets he carried with him. And he needed to get her up to the cabin and see how badly she was hurt. There was no easy way to get her down to a doctor, but luckily there was one available by short wave radio.
What the proverbial fuck? What were the chances that a beautiful bush pilot would crash and require him to play hero?
Then the buzzing in his head suddenly made sense. He supposed those odds increased dramatically when she was your fated mate.
* * *
