5. Cal

I’ve walked into a cult. Bunch of peace loving idiots who were in no way prepared for those gun-toting cavemen. They might as well have been human instead of shifters. Fucking useless. Pathetic.

“Shut up,” a female voice snaps.

Was I thinking out loud?

“You still are. So shut up.”

I open my eyes groggily to see the golden amber eyes of Hope staring down at me, her gorgeously fiery red hair tied up into a high bun. Scraped away from her face she’s all intriguing cheekbones, freckles and pout. Not that I allow my expression to change in the slightest.

“What happened?”

“You stormed off to the medic thinking you were invincible. Passed out in a corner from blood loss and almost died. I’ve just finished digging the bullets out. I could get one of the peace loving idiots to have a go if you prefer?” she added sarcastically, a twist of a smile lighting her face.

“Shit, did I miss the group heading out to meet the attackers?” attempting to sit up and getting a vicious push back down. Her bare hands on my skin made something deep inside me fizz. That’s when I realised I had no shirt on. And that Hope has blood on her hands.

“I won’t tell you again to be quiet,” she murmured, sitting back into her folded legs, squinting as she delicately threaded a needle. 

“I don’t have to listen to a word you say,” I growled, sitting up and looking around. I’m in what looks like a goddamn creche. The walls look padded. “What…where am I? This isn't the fortress?”

I got no response. Great. Hope is playing games, licking her plump, cupid-bow lips. Continuing to try and thread her needle but failing I gave her shoulder a poke in return, sending her off balance enough to get a glare. 

With a bad-tempered growl I repeat myself. “I said. Where are we?”

“Try again. With manners.”

Annoyingly she had a point. My mothers voice flew into my head, she always corrects my manners too. Too direct, too immediate.

“Fine. I’m sorry. Dear Hope, saviour of my life and to whom I owe an eternal debt of gratitude…please can you advise just where the fuck am I?”

“Sarcasm doesn’t count,” before she sneezed out of nowhere. Except the needle jabbed into my shoulder. Completely on purpose. My wolf was outraged, my brown eyes no doubt firing up dark blue shards.

“Injuring doesn’t count as helping me,” I retorted.

“That little jab? It couldn’t have possibly hurt the big tough Alpha know-it-all,” she replied with a roll of her eyes. 

“It didn’t,” I snapped, “but you wanted it to. Why?”

She pauses for just a second. “None of your business,” finally getting the thread through the eye of the needle, a victorious smile lighting up her features under the yellowish lighting. Everywhere I look I see beige. For a calming colour it’s weirdly unsettling. 

“Because I beat up your boyfriend?”

Quick as a flash she moved one of her legs so she was straddling my torso. Dangerously close to my hips her ass rested on my v-line. Slowly she leaned down low enough that fine tendrils of hair almost touched my face. “Don’t move. I need to stitch this and it’s always better doing it face on.”

“Is it now?” I smirk, to my surprise her jewelled gaze lifts up to meet mine with a matching grin. For just a second, then it drops and she focuses on the gaping hole in my upper pectoral.

“Hmmm,” is the only answer she gives. I decided not to push my luck whilst she could still maim me. Plus it turns out being pumped full of bullets really does hurt.

With zero numbing she plunges the needle in and I can’t disguise the pain. A hiss leaves my clenched jaw and my body tenses. It doesn’t help that she is on top of me. Just a few inches away from doing it face on, as she might say.

It takes all my self-possession to prevent my cock reacting. I’m not jutting up into her ass like an overexcited teen because a woman is sitting on me. It’s the reaction she wants, I know that. 

With her black fur coat removed, her clinging black catsuit feels barely-there. If I closed my eyes it would feel close enough to having her bare skin on mine. And shit my dick is unstoppably twitching at the thought.

“You’re in the bunker. And he’s not my boyfriend,” she murmurs, finishing off a knot with a vicious tug. Leaning over to bite the thread away, her hot breath lands on my chest. The few stray red hairs keep tickling my chest. Both her hands are on my skin, her thighs pressed against me.

Why the hell did she move away before she blossomed into this vixen? Single and stunning, I could be in danger here, maybe they just broke up?

“On your back,” she whispers. “Some shots went clean through.”

“How many?”

“A dozen holes, I’ve taken out ten bullets.”

“No wonder I feel like shit then.”

“And yet, still talking,” looking up at me with those devilish eyes again. Shit maybe it might be worth doing a few more days down here. That prick isn’t her boyfriend, all the better for me.

I don’t protest when she climbs off me, but when her next move is to slap a rectangular white dressing over the stitches I can’t help my lip curling in anger. She seems delighted at my response. “Roll over,” twirling her finger.

My wolf immediately plants the image of my fingers doing the twirling. Deep inside her. I wonder what noises she would make if I found the right spot. 

Gingerly rolling over onto my stomach before my stiffening cock betrayed me, I could study my surroundings a little bit better. I was laid on a ragtag collection of yoga mats, my blood staining them. The room was small, a beige painted concrete floor, magnolia walls and ceiling. Folding my arms under my chin I don’t complain when she resumes her position on top of me.

Sat practically on my ass, her legs wide, hugging my ribs she threads her needle. I breathe in only to find myself clouded in pears, freesias. Goddess that is a scent of pure temptation. Sweet yet intriguing. Like Hope herself. All backchat and hidden layers.

“Thought face on worked best for you,” I murmur, trying not to flinch as her tweezers get to work on my lower shoulder. 

Her voice is softer, more teasing, my comment making her pause her nursing. I know because I can’t feel her breath on my back, she’s lifted her head up to look at me. “From behind works for me too,” and without looking I know the minx is grinning. 

“Good to know.”

“How so?” her tweezers digging a little deeper even as her voice lightens, giving me another little burst of pain. My wolf gives me a bolt of confidence. Hope likes me. She must. She's straddling me, cracking double entendres and nursing me. The air is thick with tension, every sentence carrying weight and intent. Her hands are all over my back, propping herself up as she plucks out fragments of bullets. 

Lets not forget I was pretty fucking brave too. That shit impresses women.

“For when I get out of here. Soon as I get the all clear I’m gone, what about you?” enjoying making her work for an answer for a change. Her tweezers stopped again. I can feel her breathing. She’s inhaled sharply, struck with indecision. 

This back and forth is making my cock ache for her, it’s a battle I’m going to win. My pulse skips for a second as I feel her lean back up to sitting, taking her face and hands away from my bare skin. 

Before I could say anything else, two brisk, painful smacks landed on my back. “No need for stitches here, just dressings,” she said. Then she leaned forward and dipped her lips close to my ear. There was no disguising the lust in her pear and freesia scent. I was probably no better.

I could roll over right now and grab her to me. In a low husky voice, I stifled a groan as she purred into my ear. “Are you planning to apologise to my mate when you get out of here then? He’d probably prefer that facing forwards?”

I could curse my wolf for that bolt of confidence now. He’s her mate. That useless Ryan? Fuck. Not single then. Fuck fuck fuck. How has that blonde, bearded idiot been blessed with her?

Except she keeps her face planted close, her lips brushing my ear. “Or did Mr Big Ego Alpha think…Uh-oh,” and my instincts took over. My arms were folded under my chin but quick as a flash I flexed my hand to grab her wrist. 

It hurts like hell and I’ve no doubt ripped the stitches she’s just put in but with a yelp of panic she finds herself underneath me. Within seconds my hand is pinning both her wrists above her head. Not touching her, I simply loom over her, drinking in the golden shimmer in her eyes. 

The arch of her back to cancel the stretch of her arms leaves her displayed like an angel. She’s angry and excited at the same time. Same as me.

“I don’t play silly games, Hope,” I growl menacingly.

"Get the fuck off me!"

"Try again. With manners," I remind her victoriously, unable to help a smirk as she continues to struggle.

She scowls right back at me, wriggling under my hold. “I’m not the one…ah, get off me! I’m not the one who ran straight into gunfire? I’m not the silly one-”

I quickly relaxed my grip on her wrists, freeing her, but being caught up in her flushed cheeks and pathwork of freckles and rapidly unravelling hair meant I missed the unexpected audience. 

Without a sound I found my throat gripped. Speechless I found myself quickly rising upwards then slammed against the wall.

Which isn’t as padded as it looks and hurts like fuck. 

Snarling at me with rapidly expanding claws pressed against the vulnerable skins of my neck is a red fury. Shit. It’s Hope’s father. Howen. One of my fathers closest friends. Who helped teach me how to read the stars as a boy. 

Who now thinks I was trying to attack his daughter.

“Papa! Let him go! Please!” Hope screamed, tugging on his arm as I extended my own claws. Howen might be older than me, slimmer in build but he’s made of pure iron. My vision is already blacking at the edges as I swipe for him. I’ve got nothing, my body spasming without air, my eyes feel like they want to pop out of their sockets. 

I cut his shoulder, slashed his black pullover and ribcage but he just glares. His green eyes are filled with pure rage.

“Papa! It wasn’t what you think! I was treating him and winding him up-”

“Howen, release him if you want to stay here this Freeze,” a dark voice commanded. 

Howen’s jaw, already tightly clenched, ticked manically for a couple more seconds as he clearly weighed up just murdering me outright and paying the consequences. My throat was bleeding down into his fingers, my blood definitely smeared on the beige wall.

“Last chance Howen!” and I hit the floor with a thud. Retching and heaving onto the floor, pain washed over me as my pulse and lungs raced to reclaim my stolen oxygen. 

Alpha Reu kneels down to my level, silently looking over my bleeding, shuddering carcass. His blue eyes are frosty, focused. His white hair is the only reminder of the world above. “Cal, the weather has turned. You’re down here for the Freeze. I cannot let my you take on the route out of here injured and unprepared-”

“That’s not your call,” I groan, “I’ll take my truck and go now.”

“I had to use your truck to transport the supplies. They’re arriving back in the next few hours then we shut the bunker down. We have given them everything we can to save Miereille. The weather has turned, there isn't enough time to get out.”

“What? How are you going to survive down here?”

“While you were unconscious everyone who wasn’t critical to the bunker running was issued supplies and a snowmobile. We are going to survive down here Cal. You are part of this bunker now. And I won’t hesitate to lock you up on Corridor Nine if you give me even the slightest bit more shit.”

“What about Howen? He’s unhinged!”

“You had better apologise then hadn’t you?” he snapped, rapidly losing interest in my protests. “Oh, and leave his daughter the hell alone,” he growled before standing up. “This will be your room, so when you feel like it, you might want to give it a clean.”

Alone, I roll onto my back and look up at the ceiling, waiting for my pulse to settle. 

I’d promised my father I wouldn’t spend a Freeze up here. Thanks to rushing into a hail of bullets, determined to be some kind of Alpha-hero, I'm going to break his heart and make them worry for months. 

I’ll be scarred too. That will devastate him. 

Guilt merges into apprehension as I realise the enormity of the next six months. Trapped underground. No way out. Tonnes of ice and snow building up above us once they shut the hatches. 

Nobody to talk to except light-obsessed pilgrims now she is off-limits. She has a mate. Game set and fucking match to Hope.

I’m so screwed. I shut my eyes and cover my face with my hands, except that only makes the situation worse.

My hands smell of pears and freesias, the darkness glinting with flecks of her amber and gold irises.