Alice’s Alphas
Wolf Clan Shifters, #1
by Ann Gimpel
Release Date: March 29th 2016
Dream Shadow Press
Genre: Shifter Ménage Romance
One virgin + three wolf shifters = e-reader ecstasy.
Alice considered her
options. If she made the lodge, she’d crawl into her car and fall on her face
from exhaustion. It would easily be mid-morning before she got back up here to
even begin searching for Brent. Survival in the mountains often hung by a
thread. She was the only one who knew where he was.
He may have abandoned
her, but she couldn’t do the same and desert him. Not and live with herself
afterward.
Alice moved toward
where she thought the trail was, intent on setting up a fireless camp to wait
out the night. She had enough food and a full water bottle. No tent or sleeping
bag, but she’d survived worse conditions. A fire would’ve been welcome, but she
couldn’t risk—
“Hey there. You. Show
yourself, man,” a deep voice called from behind her. Light flared, illuminating
the forest. Footsteps crunched over rocks and twigs as the person approached.
Alice stiffened.
People looked at her build and assumed she was male. It had happened to her
before—and more than once. She considered running, but burdened with her heavy
boots, climbing hardware, and the moonless night, she didn’t want to chance a
headlong flight. Besides, the man might have a gun.
“Why should I?” She
spun to face him, ready for almost anything.
“What? You’re a
woman?”
Alice grasped her ice
axe in both hands. “Leave me alone,” she grunted through clenched teeth. “I’m
tired and my friend is...lost.”
“Whoa.” The man held
up both hands, one of which gripped a flashlight. “Put your axe down,
sweetheart. I’m not going to hurt you.” He was tall, maybe six-feet-four, with
straight, red-blonde hair. Despite his height, he had a slender build. A
well-defined jaw and sharp cheekbones suggested Nordic blood. It was tough to
tell in the reflected light, but his eyes looked blue.
“Go back inside. You
can see I’m not any kind of threat. I’d head down, but I need to be moving at
first light to hunt for my friend.”
The man cocked his
head to one side. “Big guy with red hair?”
Terror gripped her.
Her throat narrowed. Breathing became a struggle. Since she couldn’t manage
words, she nodded and steeled herself to hear the words, he’s dead. Alice bit
her lower lip and gazed mutely at the stranger.
“Look, I think he’ll
be okay. We were out hunting and heard something big falling. Thought it was
the deer we’d shot at. Turned out to be your friend—”
“Awk! You shot
Brent!”
The man waved his
hands in front of him. “Calm down, woman. Christ, you’re strung tighter than a
fiddle. Take a couple of deep breaths. No, we didn’t shoot him. Your friend was
unconscious because he hit his head on a rock, so we carried him back here. My
two buddies took the horses and hauled him down to the lodge. We only had three
horses which is why I’m still here. Anyway, they were planning to drive him to
the hospital in Bishop. I don’t expect they’ll be back much before the middle
of tomorrow.”
At least that
explains why there’re no horses here.
Alice shook her head,
digesting the information. “I need to get moving, then. I can drive to the
hospital and meet them.”
The man held out a
hand. “I’m Jed. Jed Starnes. You look beat. There’re mountain cats on the
prowl. Shot one a few hours ago. They get worse at night. More aggressive. You
got a gun?”
She shook her head
and ignored his outstretched hand. He looked chagrined and dropped it to his
side. “Well, then, handshake or no, you need to come with me. Got a nice warm
fire going inside. You look wet clear through. Nothing you can do tonight,
anyway. Get a few shots of Irish whiskey in you, a little soup, and some sleep.
Come morning, you can go after your friend.”
It sounded good. Too
good. She kept her ice axe poised. “How’d you get access to Lon Chaney’s cabin?”
Jed threw back his
head and laughed. “That’s easy. Ever since Chaney senior died in
nineteen-thirty, his son’s been letting some of us who work with him have the
keys. All we have to do is ask. Damn shame the old man died right after he got
this place built. It’s a beauty. You really should take a look inside.”
She blew out a
breath. “What is it you do?”
“I’m a production
manager for Paramount.”
“I thought they were
in receivership.”
He laughed again. “We
are. But we’re still making movies.”
Something about Jed
put her at ease. Or maybe she was just too weary to think straight. She slowly
dropped her hands. Tethered to her wrist, the ice axe dangled, not quite
hitting the ground.
“That’s better,
sweetheart,” he crooned. “Follow me. I promise I don’t bite.”
She trailed after him
and climbed the broad steps leading to the cabin’s heavy wooden door. He
unlatched it, took the lantern from its hook, and motioned her through ahead of
him. Alice scanned the large room. One end was an enormous stone fireplace. The
other held a kitchen of sorts with a pump mounted next to a sink. A curtained
alcove probably contained a bedroom. The lower walls were the same large, flat
fieldstones mortared together she’d seen on the outside. The upper walls were
wooden planks. Alice sighed. It was warm. Truly warm. She didn’t realize how
chilled she was. Her face stung from the sudden temperature shift.
She took off her
headlamp and set it on a table. Next she unbuckled her waist belt and dropped
her pack in a corner, followed by her axe. The click of a deadbolt falling into
its metal hole snapped her to attention. She made a grab for her axe, but Jed
beat her to it. “Don’t know about you,” he said, hefting the axe over a
shoulder, “but I’m not fond of weapons inside.”
She’d been right
about his eyes. They were a rich midnight blue. Something about them made her
tingle deep inside. Alice pushed the thought away. She was still a virgin at
nearly thirty, and likely to stay that way at the rate things were going in her
life. Almost as if they’d been listening in on her thoughts, her nipples
pebbled into points of awareness.
What am I doing?
She shook herself
back to reality. A stranger she’d just met had locked her into this cabin and
taken her only means of defense. Trepidation trumped lust. “Why’d you lock us
in?” Because she tried hard, her voice only shook a little.
He flashed the key in
front of her and dropped it into his pants pocket. “Never know who might wander
by. I wanted to make certain we’re safe is all.” He made a huffing sound. “Most
women appreciate that sort of thing.”
“No one would come up
this trail in the middle of the night.”
“Hey, I’m sort of a
city boy. We believe in locking the bad guys out.” He shrugged. “If you want to
hang your jacket, there’re hooks by the fire. It looks pretty wet to me.”
Alice crossed her
arms over her chest and stared at Jed. He stared back. Tension sizzled in the
air between them. She held out a hand. “My axe.” She gestured to guns on racks
along the walls. “Looks as if there are plenty of weapons in here. Besides, my
ice axe isn’t a weapon, it’s a climbing aid.”
“Let’s just say I’m
not enamored of watching my back. Look—” he balanced her ice axe against a
wall, stepped away from it, and spread his hands in front of him “—you’re
apprehensive because you don’t know me. How about if I’m feeling the same way?”
She sidled past him
and tucked her axe behind her pack where it had been before. “I have no idea
how I’m feeling,” she muttered, “other than tired.”
Jed moved past her to
the sink and pumped water into a glass. Crossing the cabin, he handed it to
her. “Drink this,” he suggested. “Once you’re done, let me hang your jacket
near the fire where it can dry a little. It’s so wet, steam’s rising from it.”…
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