CHAPTER NINETEEN – Kodiak
It had been three days, and Silas hadn’t returned to the house. I had no fucking clue where he went. He didn’t answer his phone or reply to texts. I even had Jacob at the Harbor watching out for Silas, but he never showed up at the bar. The bastard better not be drunk and dead in a ditch somewhere.
Nicolette’s heat ramped up. We couldn’t get out to the Tongass for two days because of the snow, and most of that time was spent with her. Morning, noon, and night, she was aching to be knotted. Even with both Ezekiel and I there, we barely got any rest.
The third morning, the weather had cleared, and the snow melted enough so we could get to our worksite. I wouldn’t have left Nicolette if it wasn’t for the fact we had a contract to cut a certain number of trees before Thanksgiving. She assured us that she was satiated for the time being and was going over to help my dad with the greenhouse.
I drove my truck down the mountain toward town trying to work out in my head how the two of us could do the work of three and get it done by the deadline. I didn’t expect Silas to show up. My warring feelings wanted to conduct a full island search for him and also just say fuck it and let him rot in whatever hole he dug for himself.
Ezekiel cleared his throat, obviously preparing to say something. I tried not to groan.
“So,” he began and drummed his fingers on his leg. “Maybe we should start thinking about the long run. Nicolette is going to stay, and she doesn’t want to choose between us. After the past few days, I’m realizing it could work. We could stay a pack—”
“What could work?” I knew what he was going to say, but I didn’t like it. The possessive beast in me hated to share.
“If we were both her mates.” Ezekiel watched me out of the corner of his eye. We hadn’t had a physical fight over our lovely Omega, but it loomed over us. “You’re like a brother to me, and so is Silas. I hate the thought of losing our pack. Nicolette doesn’t want us fighting, especially not over her. And I know it’s been hard. The instinct to claim her, to make her mine, it’s powerful. I won’t do it without her permission though, and she isn’t ready to decide yet.”
I gripped the steering wheel so hard my knuckles turned white. The fact our pack had been shattered was tearing me apart. In my ideal world, Nicolette would let me claim her, and we’d have a happy life together with Ezekiel and Silas as our pack. I didn’t want to share her, but damn if I didn’t want to lose my friends.
And there was what she wanted. Fuck. It wasn’t as if we directly talked about it. Yet she basically made it clear. I’ve seen her with Ezekiel. He treated her like a queen and made her happy.
“I’m not good at sharing,” I grunted out the words.
“I know.” Lucky for him he didn’t expand on it. “It’ll be difficult, but we could make it work. I want to try to make things right with Silas too. He’s having the hardest time. All the shit that happened with Sarah is coming back on him, and he’s not handling it well. Plus, it doesn’t help that he’s compatible with Nicolette too. You did notice she has some of his stuff in her nest, right?”
“Maybe.” I did, and it pissed me off to no end. “She also has a crate of peanut butter in there, so it doesn’t mean anything.”
Ezekiel chuckled. “She’s so cute. I thought we could stop by the bakery on the way home today and get her some stuff. Ginny makes a wicked peanut butter pie.”
“Fuck right, she does.” I’d buy Nicolette everything in the bakery just to see her smile.
We pulled into the lot and parked the truck. I noted Silas’ pickup was there, but it didn’t look like it had been driven in a day or two. What was he doing?
“I just wanted to say my piece before we went out there today. It’s felt like we’ve had a truce, and I want to keep the peace. You can think on it. No decision can really be made until she’s no longer in heat anyway.” Ezekiel exited the truck and eyed Silas’ vehicle too. He turned to peer down the dock at our boat. “He’s not there. Shit.”
“Yeah, well, fuck him. We’ve got a job to do, and if he isn’t there, he isn’t getting paid.” I slammed my door shut and marched down the dock to our boat. Silas had always had troubles. He had mood swings and a temper, but Ezekiel and I could always help him. Now I didn’t know what to do. I wasn’t going to send Nicolette away. Silas would just have to learn to live with it.
As we walked along the dock, someone in their old liveaboard opened their door and emerged from their cabin below. I didn’t look, but Ezekiel stopped walking.
“Silas?”
I spun, and my eyes went wide to see Silas locking the cabin door and putting a tarp over it. The boat he was on was dented and weather worn, and I’d never seen it before in my life. “What the hell?”
“What?” Silas shot us a glare. “I needed my own place. I can’t start to build until next summer, and even then, doing it myself, it’ll take at least a few years. So this is my home until then.”
Several people had liveaboards in southern Alaska, but I never thought any of us would be up for that sort of lifestyle. For some reason, it made me angry he chose to live like this. He had his own room at the cabin, or he could stay with my dad. This was bullshit. “It’s a piece of junk.”
“It’s a classic Bellboy.” Silas shot back. “It needs work, but I could make her pretty again. All that matters is that it has a bed and heat to get me through the winter.”
“Whatever.” I didn’t like it. He was being a stubborn ass. I continued to our boat and started to remove the tarp.
“You totally could make her beautiful again.” Ezekiel was ever the peacemaker. We desperately needed that between Silas and I, but it still grated on my nerves. “Who did you get her from?”
“A couple from Juneau decided to retire here and were selling cheap since the motor was having issues.” Silas came over and started untying the knots which tethered our mini tugboat to the dock. Ours wasn’t a pretty craft either, and it didn’t have a sleeper cabin, but it belonged to all of us. It was the pack’s boat. The cabin we had built together was our pack’s home. Silas needed to be with us.
While the two of them talked about the liveaboard, I made sure we had everything we needed and drove us out to the worksite. It was quiet and still in the morning. A few local fishermen were out, and they waved our way.
We docked at our makeshift pier and gathered our machinery and tools from the shed. All of us fell into the rhythm of the day. We knew our jobs and we worked well together. I was still pissed at Silas, but the sooner we got today’s trees down, the faster I would be home to Nicolette.
The first tree of the morning came down smoothly in less than two hours. We moved the logs to the water to be towed by the contractor later and continued to the next Sitka spruce. It was slightly bigger than the first, but it sat on a down slope.
Ezekiel and Silas climbed up, and I secured the ropes while they sawed the branches off. The ferns were thick around me. Such a rich green it reminded me of Nicolette’s eyes. I wanted to take her into the Tongass soon and lay her out in a bed of ferns. Awake or asleep, it seemed all my thoughts went back to her these days. I never thought I’d fall so fast, but she had owned my heart the first time I saw her smile.
Someone yelled, and a branch crashed to the ground not three feet from me. If it had hit my head, it could have killed me.
I looked up and scowled at Silas. “Watch where you’re dropping them, asshole!”
“I fucking shouted at you,” Silas yelled. “Not my fault you weren’t paying attention.”
I flipped him off and cursed him under my breath as I dragged the branch off to the side with the others. The bastard did that purposely. I’d kick his ass once he was back on the ground. The beating I gave him the other night wasn’t enough to knock any sense into him.
I’d tried to reason with him. Maybe I wasn’t so great at it as Ezekiel would have been, but I’d been through rough times with Silas before. He knew I had his back. When he downed that shot and looked me right in the eye as he did it, words weren’t going to cut it anymore. My fists had more impact.
We didn’t say anything once it was over. Silas gave as good as he got, and we supported one another as we walked out of the bar afterward. In my head, everything was sorted. But the second Silas saw Nicolette, everything went to shit again.
The branches were cleared in just over an hour, and Ezekiel and Silas returned to the ground. None of us said anything as we took a break for lunch. I hated this uneasy tension. Not even my favorite salmon sandwich helped my mood.
Ezekiel refueled his chainsaw and climbed back up the naked tree. He tied rope around the top and tossed the end to the ground. Silas and I would hold the rope, and when Ezekiel made the final cut, we’d pull it to ensure the log fell in the proper direction. Even the best of wedges couldn’t guarantee the timber would fall how you wanted it.
The first twenty feet came down easily. Silas and I rolled it down the slope out of the way. Even though it would be the narrowest of the logs, it was still twice as thick as I was wide.
As Ezekiel got into position to cut the next section, I kept pushing the log down to the path where the backhoe log grapple was parked.
“Hey,” Silas snapped and stepped back. “We don’t leave anyone alone in a tree. The log isn’t going anywhere. Come on.”
“Ezekiel’s fine.” I huffed and gave the log another shove. Gravity helped, but we’d need a few levers to get it closer to the grapple.
“Just because you’re wanting to get back to fucking the Omega doesn’t mean we don’t follow protocol. If he falls, it’ll be on you.” Silas marched back to the tree where Ezekiel had climbed down to the next marked section and was fastening the ropes.
I gritted my teeth and stomped up the slope after him. “Eze won’t fall. He’s a fucking monkey, and you know it. You need to stop being a bastard about Nicolette because of some chick who screwed you over years ago.”
“If you took your head out from between her thighs for just a second, you’d see how similar the situations are, and you’d be more fucking suspicious too.” Silas positioned himself on a large flat rock and surveyed the slope around us. “We need to have it come down the other side this time. It’ll do less damage to the saplings there.”
What the fuck was he talking about? “They’re nothing alike! Nicolette is actually a real Omega. Sarah was not. Don’t you dare compare her to that bitch.” I motioned to where the other log fell. “Steeper slope this side. Easier to get it moving that way.”
Silas groaned. “I wasn’t comparing the fucking females. I said the situations. Omega comes in, hooks one of us, and tries to break up the pack. Except this time, Nicolette will do what Sarah couldn’t.” He folded his arms. “I say this side.”
“You don’t know shit. Nicolette doesn’t want to break the pack. She hates that we’re fighting. It’s you who up and left.” I caught the rope as Ezekiel dropped the end and wrapped it around my hands. “We’re going this way.”
“I left to keep what little peace we have left intact. If I stayed, we’d rip out each other’s throats.”
“If you would just stop being such a rude fuck to her,” I growled, ready to tackle him to the ground and pound his face in again.
“I’m keeping her away from me, so we aren’t going to war to win her over.”
“Then don’t—”
“Guys!” Ezekiel shouted from the tree. “I’m ready to start cutting!”
“Go on.” I gave him the thumb’s up, and he revved the saw’s engine to life.
Thank fucking God for that. I couldn’t believe Silas was going to start something here on the worksite. Nicolette was a blessing to our pack, and if he couldn’t see it, then screw him. I was determined to make her mine. She wasn’t going anywhere.
Sarah’s plan had been to lure Silas away, encouraging him to design houses for big bucks, and then live large off the money he was making. Silas had no interest in being an architect, no matter his natural talent for it. He preferred to be out in the woods, not wearing a suit in an office. Same with Ezekiel and me. The forest was where we worked and played. Growing up, my dad had called us the Wild Boys of the Tongass.
Nicolette didn’t want to take any of us away from each other, and I loved her even more for it. She was trying to keep us away from each other’s throats. Three Alphas butting heads was hard to deal with though.
What would happen if she chose one of us? Could I be happy for Ezekiel if it was him? Would the guys be happy for me if I were her choice? I didn’t know. Everything in me still roared she was mine, and no way was I going to let another Alpha take her away from me. As much as I wanted her to be my mate, would I be happy if I lost my pack doing so?
Shit. This was a whole fucking emotional mess I never expected it to be.
“Look out!”
The log was coming down. I hadn’t even realized it was ready to fall. Fuck me.
I dove to one side, pulling on the rope, but it was already aiming to hammer me into the ground. Silas cried out, pulling his rope, and bellowing for me to move.
Slamming into the rocky slope, the log missed me by a foot, but it started to roll.
I dropped the rope and ran. My heart pounded. Never had I feared anything about the work we did. Accidents happened, but this… Fuck. I’d screwed myself.
There was no way to outrun the log. It was twenty feet long and weighed about a thousand pounds. If I could slow it, maybe give Silas some time to redirect it. It was going to roll no matter what we did, but if he could turn it….
I turned, dug in my heels, and pushed at the spruce with my shoulder. It slammed into me, and I swear I heard a bone crack. The ground was slick from ferns and foliage, and my feet slid as I tried to hold it back.
“Kodiak!” Ezekiel cried from the tree. The chainsaw thunked to the ground, and then Ezekiel followed. He scrambled up the slope to help Silas who was pulling with all his might to change the angle of the log’s roll.
My back hit the massive trunk of another tree, and the log started to compress me against it. There was no more pushing against it. It was too heavy. Pain exploded in me as my ribs cracked. I couldn’t breathe. This fucking log was going to squeeze the life out of me.
“Pull!” Silas yelled. The scraping of bark against rock assaulted my ears.
My vision blurred and darkness crept in on the edges.
Ezekiel and Silas shouted again, and most of the weight left me. I dragged in a shaky breath. Pain came along with the cool air.
They’d managed to twist the log enough so it wasn’t crushing me any longer, but my broken ribs made each breath excruciating. It would be a while before a rescue crew would be able to get here. If I had internal bleeding, I was dead already.
“Kodiak!” Silas hurried over. “I tied off the log, but we’ve got to move you in case it snaps.”
Move. Fuck, no.
“Come on, man. You’ve got this.” Silas lifted my arm and put it over his shoulder. I snarled with the pain, but I resisted the reflex to hit him. Move. We had to move.
Each step shook my broken bones like an earthquake. The world swam, but I kept putting one foot in front of the other.
I stared down at the ferns. Ferns as green as Nicolette’s beautiful eyes.
Somewhere to the right, Ezekiel was talking. Accident, Tongass, the coordinates of our worksite.
Then just behind us, something snapped, and the log crashed into the tree I’d been pinned to.
“It’s all good, man. Sit here.” Silas helped lower me down so I was sitting with my back against a stump. “Look at me, Kodiak. Focus. How hurt are you?”
“Nothing a beer or two won’t take care of,” I hissed out the words. Damn, it hurt to talk too.
“Broke ribs, right?” Silas eyed me. I nodded once. “You tasting blood?” I didn’t think so and shook my head. “Good. I know you’re a hard nut to crack, Kodiak, but fuck. That was a huge log. Hang in there. Ezekiel’s on the satellite phone calling in help. You need any water?”
Maybe. I didn’t know. The stabbing pain with each breath wasn’t helping.
Silas fetched one of the water bottles and brought it over. “I’m going to put it beside you. Let me know if you need any.” He ran his hands through his hair, pacing in front of me. “Ezekiel hurt his ankle jumping out of the tree. Probably just sprained.”
Ezekiel jumped out of the tree? That was a big no in our work. But so was not paying attention when a log was ready to come down. All of us had fallen from trees over the years, but none of us had been nearly steamrolled by a thousand pound hunk of wood. That was all on me.
I let my eyes flutter closed. A little nap….
“Don’t you fucking pass out on me.” Silas snapped his fingers in front of my face. My eyes jerked open. He dug into our trauma kit pack and took out some antibiotic wipes and bandages. “You’re scratched up. Some might be deep and there’s likely splinters. You’re going to be real pretty in hospital dressing when we bring you back to Nicolette.”
I almost laughed, but the one near chuckle hurt too much. “She’s going to kick our asses for letting this happen.”
“She has that famous redheaded temper. She’s going to tear us a new one.” Silas flashed me a tight smile as he started to clean my wounds.
And I welcomed it. I would have given anything to hear her giving us shit right now.
Ezekiel limped over with the phone in hand. His eyes were wild and his face pale. “Rescue is coming. Might take an hour or so. But Sav’s been trying to reach us. Nicolette needs us. Her heat has gotten really bad.”
Fuck. Screw my ribs. I needed to get home to my Omega right now.
I tried to stand but my body screamed in protest.
“Not you, man. You need to stay still.” Silas settled me back into place.
Nicolette. I couldn’t stand the thought of her in pain.
“I’m staying here too. There’s no way I can make it back to the boat on my own.” Ezekiel’s gaze bore into Silas’. “You’re going right now, Silas. You need to take care of Nicolette.”
What?
“What?” Silas barked, jerking back as if punched.
“You’re compatible with her. She needs an Alpha right now. You’re the only one of us capable of helping her.” Ezekiel’s words were tight and desperate. “You have to help her. Please.”
“Fucking shit. Damn this all to hell!” Silas threw down the wipes and stood. “I’ll help you to the boat, Eze. You’ll be fine.”
“No, I’m hurt. You have to go.” Ezekiel didn’t look up as he nabbed the wipes and gently cleaned my scratches.
This was a shit show. Nicolette needed us, but I was too injured. Ezekiel was right. We had to give our Omega what she needed even if we couldn’t go ourselves. “Go, man.” And when Silas didn’t move, I yelled, “Now!”
Silas looked at us both once more, and then stormed away, cursing the whole time.
After the forest quieted, Ezekiel asked with exhaustion lining his voice, “Do you think she’ll accept him?”
As much as I hated to say it, “Yeah.”
“Do you think he’ll accept her?”
Now that was the bigger question. Silas had closed himself off after Sarah. Maybe he’d be able to sate Nicolette without becoming attached, but I didn’t see how any Alpha in this world could resist her.