3. Chapter Two
Chapter Two
Alex
“Fuckin’ GPS!”
“Stupid, fuckin’ piece of shit GPS!”
No, Gramps, I don’t need a refresher in land navigation, thank you very much, I have a state-of-the-art GPS system that’s never let me down. It’s more than proven its worth.
It should be for what you wasted on it. You run outta juice and you’re gonna wish you’d let me show you.
Now look at me.
My grandfather was gonna laugh his fucking ass off.
And I’d deserve it.
But it wasn’t gonna stop me from pressing forward. I’d just have to trust my instincts.
Step one, look for landmarks.
There was an odd-looking rock formation high along the rim to the left of me. Directly in front of me was a rock face with plenty of ledges and handholds. Climbing it would give me a better vantage point. Satan’s Shaft was supposed to be located at the center of a trio of stone pillars commonly referred to as the watchtowers.
If I could just climb high enough to spot one of them, I’d know if I was headed the right way.
It was slow going, though. Setting anchor points, I stretched my body to reach solid enough handholds to support my weight. Twice I lost my grip and dangled by one hand, my muscles tested to the limits of my endurance as I struggled to find another crevice that wouldn’t crumble beneath my touch. My shoulders burned by the time I reached the rim and pulled myself over the edge.
Holy shit.
The view up here was breathtaking. For a moment, I just sat panting, taking it all in as an eagle cawed, circling the peak to the right of me. I gazed out over the valley I’d just climbed out of, only to squint at the weird outcropping.
Hadn’t that been to the left of me?
With sore, clumsy fingers I undid the straps on my pack and fumbled with the zipper, struggling to get it open so I could fish my binoculars out. I nearly dropped them as I struggled to fit the strap over my head, my fingertips rubbed raw in places from scraping over the rock.
Peering through them, I spied the spot I’d been standing in when I’d assessed the landscape. The weird outcropping should have been on my right, now that I was facing the valley, but it was still on my left, one jagged slice of it sticking out from the side of the mountain like a sleek, stone wing.
The hell?
No way I’d fucked up my left and my right again.
Right?
And yet the outcropping that should have been on the right was still to the left of me, the sun casting a shadow over it, masking the finer details of the formation.
Goddamn it, when I got home I was heading straight for the local tattoo parlor and having an L and R tattooed on the proper hand, so I never had to guess which was which again.
Just hold your thumb and forefinger apart. The one that looks like an L is left. Simple.
Only it wasn’t simple, and I hated that the snide, snippy tone of my fourth-grade teacher was still in my head, giving me shit because I always screwed it up no matter how many tricks someone tried to teach me. Half the time my brain couldn’t discern a proper L from a backward one, which made the whole concept fuckin’ useless.
Grumbling to myself while I pulled water from my pack and guzzled it, I took note of the position of the sun, barely over the rim of the basin I’d just climbed out of. In a few hours it would be overhead and beating down mercilessly, unless I found Satan’s Shaft soon and lowered myself into that cool, dark hole.
Okay, maybe the thought was a little pornographic, but I was already warm enough to remove the long-sleeved shirt I’d worn so I wouldn’t tear myself up too badly on the rocks. The tank top beneath it had been plastered to my skin by sweat, but the wind felt cool and soothing blowing over me, and I tilted my head back to stare up at the sky and watch a fluffy cloud streak past.
Fast little fucker. Or maybe the wind was just harder up there, propelling it along until it slammed into another wispy formation, merging until it grew massive enough to produce a storm.
Gods but I loved the scent of rain and the slithering electric pulses of energy that danced along my arms when the lightning sizzled and made the hairs stand on end. The scent of ozone was like an aphrodisiac, and if my favorite fantasy happened to be wildly fucking in the heart of a storm then who was anyone to judge what got me off?
I swiped the sweat from my brow with the back of my wrist and reminded myself not to even think about such things or I’d be overheated for an entirely different reason. I brought the binoculars to my eyes again, turning and peering along the horizon lines.
Fucking hell!
Those Goddamned towers weren’t anywhere in view.
Fuuuucccccckkkk!
Scrubby brush and a few stubborn trees bracketed the ledge, and beyond them, the final cliff face that led to the top. It didn’t look as steep, and as I swept my binoculars over the scope of it, I spotted something halfway up, something I didn’t think I’d seen marked on the map I’d photographed.
It wouldn’t use much power to scroll through the images. Fuckin’ Grandpa, having jinxed me with his compass talk and more when he’d given me shit about losing juice. I had a charger in the pack, too, Grandpa’s nagging words almost drove me to touch the button on the side to check its charge level.
Not gonna happen.
Nope.
I wasn’t doing it.
It had been fully charged when I’d put it in my pack, and I hadn’t used it since. Fucker was still at a hundred. I didn’t need to check to be sure. I invested in top-shelf equipment, studied the reviews and talked to other climbers to see what they used. I was a fuckin’ regular in several spelunking and climbing chats. I was covered. Time to stop wasting time second guessing myself.
Nothing about the terrain I was on matched the map, but that didn’t mean there wasn’t anything to explore here. The opening I’d just spotted looked promising. At the very least, it might make for a good basecamp while I explored the area. Chances were good that the valley I wanted was on the other side of that peak. If so, Gramps never needed to know about my little detour.
Getting there was what mattered. So what if the path turned out to be an unorthodox one. Hell, if I was really lucky, maybe the opening passed straight through the mountain and would provide me with a little shortcut to save my aching shoulders and arms.
Would be nice to sit in the shade for a little while, too, maybe sip some water and munch on the contents of the snacklebox I’d packed. A little salami, a couple grapes, a mini wedge of soft, creamy cheese and some chocolate-covered macadamia nuts were exactly what I needed at the moment.
And luck.
Plenty of it if I wasn’t going to be forced to face the shame of admitting to my grandfather that I shouldn’t have been so dismissive of his offer.
Heaving myself to my feet after carefully packing everything back in my pack so it wouldn’t shift while I was climbing, I headed past the thorny bushes, spotting tufts of hair that could only belong to the mountain goats who lived in the region.
Hmmmm.
Goat meat.
Rubbed in spices, roasted on a spit over an open flame, my stomach rumbled just thinking about the slow way my grandfather rotated it and the crackling sound of fat dripping onto burning wood.
Best smell ever.
We’d have been there already if Gramps could still climb with me. The most exhilarating moments of my childhood had been the ones I got to spend in the mountains with Gramps, far away from everyone and everything. You had to soar pretty high to harass someone way up here. On the ground, there had been an endless stream of assholes who’d made it their mission to think up new and more creative ways to insult me.
Because they know you’ll lose your cool and bloody one of them, which will just feed into their parents’ insistence that you don’t belong on the same playground with their perfect little angels.
Yes, Gramps, I did know that. It didn’t keep me from deriving an extreme bit of satisfaction at bruising my knuckles on one of their noses.
Fuckin’ bastards.
So what if I hadn’t handled my presentation as an omega the way so many others had. I had no interest in being a baby farm for anyone and resented every fucking stereotype I’d ever had anyone try to force feed me about what an omega was supposed to be.
I wasn’t just gonna submit for any and every alpha who just wanted to get his dick wet. I didn’t care who the fuck they were or what condition my body was in.
Heats sucked…but seeing the few omega friends I had looking to land themselves on a knot the moment it happened had left me distancing myself from them. I’d engaged in a few intense and downright deadly practices for thwarting the effects my heat had on my body, which was challenging with how attentive Gramps always was to me. Ice baths were my personal favorite and the least expensive, too, as long as my grandfather didn’t find out what I was doing. The man would have my hide if he knew I was putting my health in jeopardy that way.
Abbreviated Heat Shock was a very real thing that omegas had been known to die from if it was too severe. I’d come close once, when I’d gotten the brilliant idea to spend my heat camping in a range known for its deep snow and treacherous passes. Squirming around in the cold powder had certainly kept my mind off the ache between my legs, but I’d nearly wound up with hypothermia. I’d only been saved when a hunter trailing an elk had happened upon my little shit show and bundled me back into the clothes I’d kept trying to shuck off.
Gramps had never found out about that little dose of stupidity, and I’d kept to ice-filled kiddy pools after that. Best not to push my luck too much. Out here it could end in the span of an eagle’s scream.
So beautiful, though.
I must be close to its nest.
I just hoped the big ass bird kept its sharp ass talons away from me and didn’t get it into its head that I was trying to fuck with its eggs or nest or anything else it had claimed.
I would never.
Not that the bird would be willing to take my word on it.
I was chuckling to myself as I finished the short, simple climb to the cave, and stood just inside the mouth of it.
Ohhh, now this had promise.
A quick press of a button brought the light on my helmet to life, revealing jagged stalagmites and stalactites, like teeth, protruding from the roof and ceiling. Weaving between them, I tipped my head back to see farther up the wall. A second opening curved right, a tight fit until I stripped my pack off and left it tucked in a crevice while I investigated what proved to be a dead end.
Wiggling backward took effort, but at least I could tick that one off and press forward into the wider cavern that lay before me. Kneeling, I reached to retrieve my pack only to discover that the spot where I’d left it was empty.
Okay, seriously?
I searched the area around the hole, despite being certain of where I’d placed it. After all, I’d been certain about the weird outcropping too and look at how the hell that had turned out.
Son of a bitch.
My water, my food, my binoculars, plus everything I needed to set up basecamp, including the compact thermal blanket I carried were in there. No way in fuck was I going to be able to remain up here without it. I’d wedged my pack in good, too. No little fuckin’ weasel would have been able to drag it out of there. Even a badger wouldn’t have deemed it worth the effort.
A bear, however…
Dammit.
Sniffing, all I smelled was sunshine, brush, and the deep mineral scent of warm rock. The rank scent of bear tended to permeate everything, lingering even after the animal had gone on its merry way. If one had sniffed out my pack and dragged it away to get at the contents, there would have been signs in addition to the scent, like claw marks on the stone around the crevice.
But there were none.
Son of a bitch.
Okay, Alex, think, think.
I still had my phone and plenty of daylight left. I could press forward, check the cave, see if it went through or led to anything worth exploring, and if not, repelling down would be faster than the trek up. It would be a bitter pill to swallow, but I could lick my wounds at the closest motel or B and B, grab fresh supplies in the morning, and try to find the correct location after I’d hunted up a video tutorial so I could brush up on those land nav skills Gramps had been on me about.
Fuckin’ Gramps.
Fuckin’ GPS.
And fuck whatever the hell had stolen my fuckin’ backpack.
In case you missed it, the word of the day was fuck.
Fuck fuck fuckity fuck fuck.
I was practically sing-songing it as I made my way deeper into the cave, following the winding twists and turns and dodging a couple bats. At least there had been no more false starts after the first one.
The cave was narrowing though I could see the barest hint of something glowing ahead. The brilliant purple mesmerized me as it pulsed and winked, my attention so focused on it, I hit a wall, literally. There was only a jagged gash between rocks now, just enough that the glow shimmered along the edges, like little hands, waving as it danced along the rock. It took a great deal of scrunching and sucking in my breath before I could wiggle through the gap, my eyes growing wide at the sight of the bright, shimmering circle of stones.
Mesmerized, I reached as if to touch one, when a loud roar thundered, it’s echo shaking the cavern walls and bringing down a shower of dust.
Holy fuckin’ hell. Behind the stones were the faces of five angry dragons, glaring at me like they wanted to have me for a mid-afternoon snack.
One of me.
Five of them.
I wouldn’t even make a decent hors d’oeuvre.
Fuck my life.
Looked like I really should have listed to Gramps after all.