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“Time to go.” He held my coat for me.
WHUMP WHUMP WHUMP
The cabin started to rattle.
I put one arm into my coat, and Hamid draped the shoulder around my injured, swollen arm. “Can you make it?”
“Yes.” My entire body hurt. Every breath sent burning, searing pain through my arm. But I could shamble in the general direction of escape. Another round of stress hormones dumped into my system as every survival instinct kicked in for the last burst to get across the finish line. “Head for the big black thing making all the loud noises?”
“Exactly.”
I had one last sprint in me. “Whatever happens, Hamid, don’t interfere. Remember that. I have to keep honor intact so I have a life on the other side of this.”
“You want a life at all, don’t you?” he asked dryly.
“Yes, and I meant that literally. You also aren’t being paid for this level of bullshit.”
“No, ma’am, and I would like to collect my retroactive danger pay.”
“Then you need to play along with me for another ten minutes. Sudden movements will startle predators.”
WHUMP WHUMP WHUMP
Outside, the snow swirled blinding white. The cabin shuddered all over.
The cold punched me. The great gusts of wind tore at my skin, and the deafening whump whump whump and whine of engines punished my ears. Across the main clearing a large, double-rotor helicopter painted flat black lumbered towards the ground, bending trees and sending up clouds of swirling snow. The FrostFur poured out of cabins and the tree line.
“Wait!” Hamid shouted over the din as I held up my hand to shield my eyes from the debris.
WHUMP WHUMP WHUMP
The helicopter alighted on the snowpack. Two men hopped out of the side. The whine of the engines lessened a few notches. One man wore pale white-tan gear: boots, vest, pants, gloves. He carried a compound bow, arrows on his back, and the hilts of several knives tucked into various easy-to-reach places.
The wind gusted and blew the scents to me: Garrett and Sterling.
The man with the bow had to be Garrett, because the other male was Sterling.
My mate was dressed in a dark blue suit, ice-blue shirt, no tie, a navy blue wool coat whipping around his calves. Suspenders. No socks, leather shoes that looked absurd in the snow except to wolves. Jeans didn’t shred. Belts didn’t come off. Boots could get stuck.
“What the fuck,” Hamid said. “What are either of them doing here! Where are the others!”
Hamid, shook? I’d probably never see it again. Too bad I couldn’t spare the energy to laugh.
In the swirling snow, Sterling was pale and silver, his hazel-eyes like shards of bright ice. Steel gleamed against the darkness of his coat in the whirling snow. A knife?
Sterling had a claw-gauntlet.
I stared at it stupidly, addled brain trying to comprehend that my mate had a claw-gauntlet.
Garrett casually reached over his shoulder, pulled out an arrow, and nocked it.
I balked, still riveted by the gauntlet. Hamid yanked, and I stumbled after him. Sterling kept coming and our eyes met.
Holy Gaia, he couldn’t be about to—
I balked again. “Go, Hamid!”
“You’ve got to get on the helicopter!” he shouted.
