“What was that all about, Dmitri?”
“I don’t know, but I think I like American girls.”
Erik held out his hand and spoke to them in their own language. “Hello. My name is Erik Costanov. I’m sorry, my wife was teasing you. Are you enjoying your holiday in Alaska?”
He chatted with them for a while, the young men telling about the sights they’d seen on their cruise through the Inside Passage. He gave them a few recommendations for restaurants to try in Skagway and Anchorage. With enthusiastic pats on the back and lots of laughter, Erik said goodbye and returned to where Maggie sat on the stairs. She wiggled her nose and scooted over to make room for him beside her. They sat silently for a while. She turned her red face toward him.
“I didn’t know you could speak Russian.”
“There are a lot of things you don’t know about me.” Her scent rose and tickled his nose, and he took a deep breath, storing it for later. He could hardly wait to be able to sleep with her in his arms.
She spoke softly. “You just don’t look like the type.”
“Appearances can be deceiving. For example, you don’t look like the type to get jealous easily, but I bet if I did what you just did, your wolf wouldn’t like it very much.”
She jerked upright and a faint growl escaped from her lips. Hmm, his suspicions were correct. Her wolf was there, just hiding. He’d have to think about how he could convince her to trust him so they could lure the creature back to the surface. After seven years, this could get rough.
Maggie nodded deliberately then a mischievous expression crossed her face. “Well maybe, maybe not. Tell you what, you go ahead and kiss that guy and we’ll see what happens.”
He laughed along with her. It was enough of a win for this time. Another of her defenses had fallen away, and when she leaned willingly into his side, his world grew a little warmer.
Maggie picked up the pack and fiddled with the straps, adjusting them again. There was nothing wrong with the backpack. The whole situation gave her the heebie jeebies.
“Are you nearly ready to go?”
She squealed and dropped the pack. How in the hell he managed to sneak up on her when he was so huge, Maggie could not understand. She nodded, grabbing at his hand to stop him from turning away. “I’m worried about passing out. What if I have a reaction while I’m on the hike and—”
“There are medical crews providing help if anyone gets hurt. You know that. This isn’t a war game where we expect you to die in the field.” He rubbed a circle on her palm with his thumb and a flash of heat ran up her spine. “You haven’t had any troubles since the night of the banquet, have you?”
Maggie thought for a minute. He was right. Her last dizzy spell had been back in Whitehorse. The last couple of days while she’d been at her sister’s, getting ready for the Games, she’d felt fine. Felt the most energized and healthy she’d been for years.
“I feel…” The expression in his eyes sucked the truth from her lips. “I feel great.”
He winked at her. “Wonder if it has something to do with being with other wolves. Like your sister suggested?”
Oh shit, no way. She looked around his bulk at the other teams standing in groups, waiting to begin the first event. The teams from Whitehorse and Denmark were already underway. The Tombstone pack stood at the line ready for their turn in the staggered start.
“I just don’t want to make trouble for the team. I’ve brought my pills along in case, but I’m not going to be able to do this hike very quickly. I hope I don’t disappoint you.”
He crossed his arms for a moment, leaning his torso away from her. It was impossible to not admire the bulk of his arms, his biceps bulging his T-shirt. “It’s not a race for speed. We have to solve puzzles as we go along. I expect you will be able to keep up just fine, and you’re going to be a big help in contributing to us winning this event.”
He spoke with such confidence her fears faded a little.
Erik motioned to the others. “Come on, team, let’s take another look at the instructions. We have thirty minutes still until our start.”
They gathered around, backs to the trees at the edge of the clearing. Before them the Dyea flats stretched to meet the ocean. The early-afternoon air was warm with the promise of heating up nicely. Erik spread out the map at their feet and traced the route they would follow. She was happy to see that once they started hiking, they’d be in the trees for the first third of the hike.
“Three days is the maximum time allotted to complete the thirty-three miles to Bennett Lake. That’s a good solid hike, but it’s not a race pace. We’ll be going faster than the original Gold Rushers, but we don’t have to carry as much gear. However, we not only have to reach the checkpoint in time, we have a series of clues to find. Some of them will be used later in the Games challenges.”
“What if we can’t find them all?” TJ asked.
“Missing one or two, we have a chance. Missing more will make the final challenge tough to win. So this isn’t a sprint. We’ll camp out for two nights and I really don’t care if we see other teams passing us.” He winked at Maggie. “It’s not a race, although some of the other teams will try to convince you it is. This is a setup for later events. All we have to do is finish.”
He pulled out the puzzle instructions, spreading them on the ground next to the map. Jared leaned a little too close and Maggie drew away, backing into the safety of Erik’s side. He casually shifted his position, tucking her against his body and she relaxed. Why did he have to feel so good?
She looked down at the strange maps. Contour lines, altitude markers, not much else. “They’re not giving GPS waypoints, are they?”
He shook his head. “We have to do this the old-fashioned way with only compasses and our noses. For this challenge, one of the team travels in wolf. They can shift back at night, but while on the trail and searching for clues, they have to be in their animal form.”
Maggie’s throat closed tight and she found it hard to breath. One of them was going to turn into a wolf. She had to be around a wolf.
She was going to die.
Without saying a word, Erik rubbed her back, a slow soothing motion. She closed her eyes and concentrated on the feel of his hand instead of thinking about the gnawing fear in her belly.
TJ cursed as his foot caught the edge of the paper and it ripped. “Damn it, sorry. Look, I’d like to volunteer to be the one who stays in wolf.” He wrapped his long arms around his legs like he was trying to stop from touching anything near him. “I know I’ve got a bad reputation, but I am capable of pulling my own weight, especially if you keep me in my wolf form for most of the Games. It’s just my human form that sucks rocks when it comes to coordination.”
For the first time Maggie examined him more closely. He was as dark as his brother, the Alpha, but nowhere near as bulky. Long limbs, square jaw. TJ wasn’t a bad-looking fellow, he just never seemed to be in the right place at the right time. There was a dark-coloured stain on his shirt where she’d seen someone bump into him and dump their ketchup-covered fries all over him.
Erik nodded. “I hoped you’d volunteer for the position, but not because I plan to keep you in wolf the whole time. You have an awesome sense of smell, and we need it for this challenge.” TJ grinned, his limbs jerking in enthusiasm. Erik pulled the map out of range in the nick of time and laughed. “You’re getting better. You’ve still got a little growing up to do, that’s all.”
The pleased expression in TJ’s eyes made Maggie forget some of her own fears. Over the past couple of days every other time someone mentioned TJ’s name, he had been called a klutz, whether he was standing there or not. Suddenly she felt indignant for him. What kind of crap was that?
“You just don’t want to carry a pack.” Jared poked TJ in the side and the two of them fell to the ground to wrestle like puppies for a minute. A tug on her sleeve caught her attention and she followed Erik off to the side a few steps.