Silver Mine (25 page)

And the thought of him dying before they’d figured what the future could hold? Sucked so hard she couldn’t stand it.

She scrambled for the words to encourage him. To poke him into doing everything he could.

“No. Damn it, Chase, do not give up. You have a whole field of men you need to take care of, and you are not allowed to just close your eyes and die. Do you hear me?”

She was dragged to her feet as she continued to rail at Chase.

Frank turned her toward him and held her tight, stopping her from facing Chase. Stopping her from seeing his still body. “Let him decide. It’s only right.”

She didn’t care if it was the right thing because she wanted the selfish thing. “I don’t want him to die.”

The big bear patted her back kindly, but he wasn’t Chase.

Shelley knew what she had to do. If Chase was going to die, she wasn’t going to let him die alone. She squeezed Frank fiercely then slipped from his grasp to curl up at Chase’s side on the hard wood planks of the kitchen floor.

“Looks as if you’re stuck with me for a bit, Long John Silver. So why don’t you make yourself comfortable, and I’ll be here if you need anything, okay?” Shelley cupped his furry face and stroked his muzzle. She wrapped an arm around him carefully, hugging as much of his cougar body as she could.

He might have been rejected at times during his life, but damn if she’d let him feel anything but acceptance as he died.

There were layers to the pain, and layers to the confusion. Not like a multi-tiered cake where everything was visible all at once, but like in the winter, when pulling back the thin sheet of ice covering the pond would reveal what lingered beneath.

Chase hurt. That was his single, clear focal point at first. Then
she
came into the room, and at least that gave him something nicer to concentrate on than hurting. The cat and the human fought for a moment over which one of them would actually get to see her, but that was one of the layer things that seemed to be broken.

He really wanted to talk to her, which meant shifting to human. But the cat liked it when she got all riled up and started yelling. Her anger was kind of cute and invigorating, and if it didn’t feel as if there were a three-foot dagger stuck in his side, Chase would have gotten up and kissed her, in either of his forms.

But that dagger was there, and it seemed to have him rather effectively pinned to the floor. He tried twisting, but that only made the pain increase, and now his heart felt strange as well.

She was a pretty woman. Beautiful, really, not just the outside bit. The wolf inside that refused to come out appealed to him, as did her human body. Yet those were surface things, they weren’t who she really was. They weren’t her strength of will or her caring heart.

Even his cat thought she was all right.

When Frank hugged her, the cat almost snarled his disapproval. Almost, until the stab of agony through his torso effectively stopped any complaining.

Chase closed his eyes. Dying was a lot more work than he thought it would be.

A rush of her scent washed over him, a hot body snuggled up tight, and he managed to crack open his eyes to enjoy the sensation of her hand on his face. He really wanted to kiss her goodbye, and since kissing was a human gig, he gathered his energy to attempt the shift.

And the strangest thing happened.

His wolf, who had been gone on some kind of weird sabbatical for the last three weeks, showed up. It hurt like the blazes for a moment, as if the creature were digging its way out of his skin instead of shifting. The skin-crawling sensation increased until finally his wolf was right there, ready to go. When the actual moment of the change came, it was the easiest shift he’d done in ages and glory hallelujah…

It felt
good
.

Body altering, limbs reforming, his vision changing from feline to lupine. Size adjustment, fur, teeth, muscles.

Chase didn’t usually shift from one animal to the other, normally utilizing his human in-between, so it was an unusual sensation in the first place, but the overall mind-numbing difference to the entire process hit with incredible relief.

When he shifted, he left behind the pain.

He rose to his feet and shook out his fur, and was immediately trapped as a pair of arms wrapped around his neck so tight he could barely breathe.

“Chase, oh Lord, you’re alive.”

“Well, damn.” Frank peered down at him. The big bear tilted his head to the side. “How the hell you do that?”

Shelley ran her fingers through his fur, laughing as she examined him. “Chase, I don’t believe it. You have barely any damage to your wolf.”

That was good. Very good. Except for the ringing in his ears that made his vision blur. His hind legs slipped out from under him, and he sat heavily on the floor.

“Chase?”

Shelley tried to catch him, but even his wolf was too heavy for her, and when his front legs gave out he landed in a heap on the ground.

“Chase. Stop. What’s wrong? Damn, don’t you go and do something stupid like die.”

He chuckled, the sound escaping in a series of tiny barks. He’d get right on that. The not-dying part.

Shelley was far too fascinating to leave right now.

She shouted at him again, but the ringing had gotten worse, and if he didn’t want to throw up or do something equally undignified, he had to lie still for a moment.

Wolves didn’t like doing undignified things.

As he lay there, working on not dying, he suddenly remembered a vital fact.

She’d run away from him. Asking her the details was impossible in his wolf, so he made the effort to attempt another shift, not really expecting that it would work. Because everything else was broken.

Imagine his shock when his attempt succeeded.

Once again human, he groaned in pain. Damn, the hurting part wasn’t supposed to return as well. What a weird day.

Shelley was at his side and examining him in seconds. “How did you…? Chase, you’re so much better than you were only minutes ago. How did you do that?”

“I have no idea.” The words rasped over a dry and scratchy throat. “I’ve just been lying here, innocently taking a nap, woman.”

She tugged on his shoulder. “You were napping. Good timing. Way to scare me to death.”

Chase struggled upright, sitting on the cold floor. “Way to scare me. Where the hell did you go, and where is Jones? I want to rip his ears off.”

Shelley ran her fingers over his back, skimming the place where the original injury had been. He glanced over his shoulder to see the claw marks were still there, plus a new slash, ugly and wet and deep, but the pain was a lot more manageable.

“Poor Jones,” she said. “I just threatened to rip off his balls.”

“That’s a good idea as well. Now where were you?”

She flushed. “He took me up the hill and we watched the fight. You were crazy.”

“I thought you were gone.”

“So that made you act crazy?”

Damn. He wasn’t about to confess that the idea of her leaving had made him reckless.

She coughed lightly then the fussing began in earnest. She wiped him down. Stitched and closed his wounds.

“You should be checking the others,” Chase complained.

Frank grunted. “We got a few wolves fixing them up. You’re the only one stupid enough to get himself hurt this bad.”

“That’s what I said,” Shelley muttered.

“I heard that.” He’d closed his eyes because while the pain was much more manageable, it was still difficult to stay vertical as she wrapped a bandage around his chest.

“Good, means you’re only stupid, not gone deaf. What were you thinking wading into a huge group of bears like that?”

“They were convenient.”

And he snapped his mouth shut and refused to say anything more.

Her expression tightened, a hint of murderous intent in her eyes. “Well, I guess Frank and Mark will figure out what to do with the idiot bears while you’re sleeping.”

Chase grumbled. As if that was going to happen. If he wasn’t wasting time being dead, he might as well go finish the job properly. The fight, not the dying. “I’m not sleeping. Help me up and I’ll go talk to them.”

“I think you’ll be sleeping.”

“Wanna bet?”

Shelley sighed, her frustration clear, but she scrambled to her feet and held down a hand. He needed it far more than he wanted to admit, and when she opened her arms and offered him a hug, he was willing to accept that as well.

The sharp stab in his right butt cheek hit a second after she’d wrapped herself around him.

The room grew blurry. “Shit, Shelley, a needle?”

She stepped back, and right about the time Frank grabbed him from behind she flashed a grin.

“What can I say? I like to win.”

Chapter Twenty-One

If there was the equivalent of having a hangover, a marching band playing in your head and a sock wrapped around your tongue, Chase had found it. He wasn’t sure why anyone would want to experience such a thing, but he most certainly had found it.

Other facts slowly filtered into his brain. He couldn’t move. Well, not more than the straps holding him in place would allow, which was all of half to a quarter of an inch.

Hurrah, party time for sure.

He was naked, he hurt. He hurt all over. His toes, his nose. He swore his balls hurt, and not in a good way. Every inch felt as if he’d been beat black-and-blue, and wasn’t that just the most wonderful way to wake up.

Plus, he had to take a piss.

He would have dragged a hand over his head but he couldn’t. There was a light rattle off to his left, and he would have twisted to see what it was, but he couldn’t bloody well move.

He opened his mouth and licked his lips, wiggling his tongue a couple of times to loosen off that sock sensation. He had just cleared his throat in preparation to swear profusely at life, the universe and everything, when something small, black and furry landed on his chest.

The kitten sat primly and washed its face.

“Enigma.”

The beast didn’t move. Didn’t twitch.

Chase relaxed and ignored the fuzzy thing. His brain had finally clued in that he had to be in Whitehorse. How had he gotten there?

Hell
. The chopper. Shelley was damn tricky.

He cleared his throat. “Hello?”

The word rasped out, and the only attention he got was Enigma coming forward to lick his chin.

Chase sighed. Nice. Pinned in place again by sixteen ounces of black cotton candy.

“Enigma, stop that.”

Shelley’s quietly spoken words came from Chase’s right, and he turned his head as much as he could just in time to see Shelley’s face light up.

“Oh God, you’re awake.” She turned and shouted behind her. “He’s awake.”

She scooped up the cat, dropped the creature to the floor and leaned over to plant a huge kiss on Chase’s lips.

Chase accepted it. Soaked in her flavour. Growled lightly when she pulled away. “You want to unlock me and let us try that again?”

“You need to go slow, dude.” Hands worked on unfastening the straps holding him down. Shaun’s face angled over him, the wolf’s cocky grin upside down.

The expression was more annoying when you saw it from a position of powerlessness.

Chase struggled to get vertical, swinging his legs to let them hang over the edge of the mattress. “You guys run a strict boarding house, tying your guests to the bed.”

Concern and worry tightened Shelley’s expression. “I know. And we charge extra for it.”

Shaun slipped to the side and offered a shoulder. “You’ve got to be ready to bust a nut. Come on, man, I’ll escort you to the little boy’s room and you can wring out your kidneys.”

“Jeez, Shaun. Just offer to take the man to the bathroom. You don’t need to be crude.”

“Crude? What’d I say?”

The floor felt uneven underfoot as Chase leaned harder on the other wolf than he’d intended. He ignored the banter trailing after them, concentrating on finding his balance to ensure he could insist on privacy by the time they hit the john.

Shaun paused at the door, peeked a glance behind them. He leaned on the wall as he gestured Chase into the bathroom alone. “It’s safe, dude, she’s not watching. I’ll stand guard from here.”

Chase slipped out from the Beta’s support. “Are you going to tell me why I feel as if I’ve been hit by a Mack truck?”

Shaun’s laughter carried in from outside the door. “Not my fault. I wasn’t the one who dropped you on the tarmac while getting you out of the chopper.”

What?

Chase thought as hard as he could, but the memories were foggy. There was the fight, the pain in his body as he lay on the floor in his cabin. The incredible energy it had taken to shift into his wolf and back to human.

Oh, and Shelley smacking his butt with something sharp right before he lost all focus.

There was enough reason to hurt without having been dropped.