CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE – Kodiak
“Where the fuck is she?” I stomped out of Nicolette’s bedroom. There wasn’t a sign of her in the house. Nor was she in the sauna. I would destroy the world if anything happened to her.
“I told her to stay here.” Ezekiel peered in her bathroom and under the bed.
“Like she listens to anyone.” Silas smirked at that, like he was proud of that fact, but his brows remained furrowed with worry.
“When I find her, I’m going to lock her in her room and never let her out again!” At this moment, I truly would. I couldn’t stand not knowing where she was. After everything that happened, now she was missing. “Could she have gone to Shae’s?”
My dad huffed and shrugged. “I’ll call Shae.”
“Her suitcases are gone!” Ezekiel flew out of the bedroom and skidded to a stop by the front door with panic in his eyes. “Fuck. So are her boots and coat.”
His alarm was contagious. Nicolette should be here, safe in my arms. My fury mixed with fear for her well-being. The wind and sky were still raging outside. “Where would she go?” I hit the wall and winced as it reverberated into my injured ribs. “There’s nowhere to go in this storm.”
“Not at Shae’s.” My dad called and continued to talk quietly to her on his cell.
Ezekiel pulled on his boots and coat. “The truck was still out there, but I’m going to check the shed.”
The dogs followed him out into the blizzard and left me to pace. This was bullshit. I’d left the clinic to find Silas and have it out with him, but we never got as far as blows because my dad and Ezekiel arrived. The only reason we stopped and came back home together was because Ezekiel said Nicolette needed us. She was upset that we were fighting and that was a dull blade in my guts. I couldn’t stand that I was doing something that made her unhappy.
“She left, didn’t she?” Silas stared out the windows as the snow whipped at them. “We were being selfish pricks and she couldn’t take it anymore.”
“We?” I snorted.
“Yeah, all of us.” Silas shot me a look. He was right, but I wasn’t going to say that to him. “She hates when we fight.”
Nicolette tried so hard to keep the peace, and I was the ass who yelled for everyone to get out of my room at the clinic. I freaked out seeing that Silas claimed her. It should be me. She came to Alaska for me, and we fit so good together. I wanted her here with me forever.
Ezekiel burst through the front door with wild hair and snow dripping off his body. “One of the snow machines is gone. She left.” The dogs trotted in as if they had a romp on a warm and sunny day. The exact opposite of the wretched look on Ezekiel’s face. “I don’t get it. Why? She said she loved me.”
“What?” Silas and I barked at the same time. No way. Now Nicolette is in love with Ezekiel? Fuck my life.
He ran a hand through his hair and sighed. “She said she loved you two as well. She loves us all.”
I put a hand on the wall to steady myself. Nicolette said she loved me. She was everything I ever wanted and she loved me. The immensity of it made it hard to breathe.
“Why the fuck are we standing around like idiots? Let’s go find her!” Silas rushed to the door and put on his coat and boots.
The sound of his voice broke the grip my heart had on me and pushed me to get dressed too. “Where would she be? In this storm…” Fucking hell. She was out in this. Fear that she was freezing to death or that she took a wrong turn and was lost again raked through me. “She wasn’t going into town, wasn’t she?”
“I told her to stay here, so yes.” Ezekiel grunted. “But she packed her stuff. She was leaving, not coming to us.”
“But where would she go?” This was all crazy. She shouldn’t have gone anywhere with this storm. What made her so desperate that she had to leave now? “She can’t drive off the island, and she doesn’t know how to drive a boat. Why did she leave?” I looked to Ezekiel for that answer. He was the last one to see her. When he didn’t meet my gaze, I grabbed him by the front of his coat and slammed him against the wall. “Why did she leave?”
He pushed me off of him and shouted, “I don’t know! Don’t you think I’m as freaked out about this as you are?” He stared at the floor for a few seconds and then forced out in a low voice, “I claimed her.” What the fuck? “But that can’t be the reason why. There was something in her eyes since we left the clinic.”
First Silas and then Ezekiel. Both of them claimed the Omega I loved. No way was I going to allow that to happen.
I turned and ran out into the storm. I heard Silas tell my dad to stay at the house in case Nicolette returned, and then my friends followed me to the shed. Grabbing a helmet and keys, I revved up the nearest snow machine.
“The airport!” Silas yelled over the noise. “If she’s planning on leaving, she’ll wait out the storm there and catch the first flight off the island.”
The airport wouldn’t be open though.
But Nicolette wouldn’t know that. Shit.
I didn’t wait for the guys. I tore out of the shed and barreled down the drive. The snowcat’s deep tracks were almost covered by the snow already, it was blowing so hard. And Nicolette was out alone in this. No matter what little she learned recently, she wouldn’t be prepared to survive in a blizzard.
The snow machine’s top speed wasn’t fast enough. The airport seemed a world away. My heart beat hard as my blood roared through my veins. I would find her, and she would be okay.
She had to be okay.
Headlights flashed in my mirrors. The guys were behind me on their own machines.
I powered through twists and turns. So easily I could slide off the road. A deer or moose could dart out in front of me and kill me instantly. I didn’t care. I needed to get to Nicolette.
While I couldn’t see that far ahead of me, I knew exactly where to go. I could have taken the machine down through the woods if it hadn’t been storming. But on a day like today, this was the fastest way. And it wasn’t fast enough.
I couldn’t stop myself from picturing Nicolette curled up and covered in snow against the door of the airport. Even if she made it there. We wouldn’t be able to find her in this fucking mess if she went off the road.
Fuck.
The airport lights blurred into existence through the sheets of snow. I gunned the machine straight for the terminal. But even before I drove around the whole place, I could see no one was there. No snow machine. No Nicolette.
Ezekiel stopped his machine and ran to the door. He looked inside and then shook his helmeted head as he shouted something.
Not being able to hear him, I stopped and took off my helmet. “What?”
Silas pulled up beside me and removed his helmet too. Ezekiel lifted his visor. “She’s not in there. The only other place she could have went is into town.”
“Nothing’s open!” Silas frowned. The look on his face said the same thing I was feeling. Nicolette was in trouble. Either she hadn’t made it down the mountain or she was still wandering looking for shelter.
Over the wind’s howl, I heard it: a scream.
If I had my helmet on, it would have blocked out the noise.
A second scream followed along with a bear’s bellow.
“She’s that way!” Silas was on his machine and so was I, leaving my helmet behind. Ezekiel, who had not heard the distant scream, stared at us with confusion.
“Nicolette’s there!” I pointed, and hearing that mother-fucking bear again, I was off.
Silas was ahead of me, and I could see enough to know that he had pulled out his bear spray. I lifted off my seat as I sped toward the roar and checked under it. I’d hoped I had the machine with the shotgun, but I only felt bear spray, a first aid kit, and a blanket. Dammit.
If Silas had the gun, he would have taken that out instead. Ezekiel was riding the single seater Ski-doo, so that meant the machine with the shotgun was the one Nicolette had taken. Yet I didn’t see the light of another snow machine ahead of us.
My instinct to protect her made me feel like a fireball streaking through the blizzard. Every second mattered.
Silas’ light hit the bear first. The big bastard turned and thundered at us.
It was a grizzly. No running from this monster.
My headlight hit a snow machine on an angle against a thick tree. But no Nicolette.
Where the hell was she?
I was off my machine before it fully stopped and ran to the crashed machine. Silas was yelling “yo, bear!” at the top of his lungs, diverting its attention to him. My lungs burned and the pain from my injuries became background noise as I pushed myself to move as quickly as possible.
Nicolette was standing with her back against a tree. She had opened her coat and was holding it wide, trying to make herself look bigger. I might have found it adorable if she wasn’t trying to scare off a bear five times her size.
“Nicolette!” I shouted her name, and when she turned to look at me, she let out a hiccuping cry.
Silas sprayed the bear, but it turned out of the full shot of the pepper and snarled furiously as it was now facing Nicolette and I. I stood in front of her, arms up and roaring right back at it.
The furry fucker would not have her.
It raised up on its hind legs, over nine feet tall. I’d never seen one this big. It raised a paw with vicious claws to strike at me.
I would die for her.
I did not move.
Nicolette screamed my name.
Ezekiel was suddenly on the grizzly’s back. He yanked on its ears and punched its eyes. The bear barked and grabbed him, tossing Ezekiel into the snow.
Silas threw his helmet at it, hollering for its attention. Another squirt of spray missed its mark, but it was enough of a distraction for me to grab Nicolette and throw her behind the crashed machine. “Stay there!” I couldn’t pause to see if she would listen. I flipped open the compartment under the seat and snatched the shotgun.
My broken ribs screamed at me as I twisted toward the bear. I bellowed with them, flicking the safety catch.
The grizzly charged on all fours. It was too close. I could feel its hot breath on my face.
I fired. Once, twice, and three times.
Blood splattered over me and the pristine snow. The bear fell to the ground less than a foot away from me. It drew a few more gurgling breaths before it went still.
The boom of the gun had numbed my eardrums. All I could hear was my pounding heart. Cold seeped through my body. My whole body shook. Nicolette.
With gun in hand, I spun and she smacked into me, wrapping her arms around me. I couldn’t hear her crying, but I could feel her trembling with her sobs. Seeing her alive allowed me to drop the gun and enfold her in my embrace.
She was alive. I hadn’t lost her.
Suddenly her delicious perfume hit me. Oh fuck. Her heat. And we were in the middle of a blizzard.
The grizzly was dead, but my Omega still needed me. I hurriedly led her back to my machine. I looked to Silas who had just helped Ezekiel out of the snow. “To the airport!”
Nicolette wouldn’t break into the place, but I sure as fuck would.
Sitting her in front of me on the machine, I turned it around and zoomed back toward the terminal. The scent of her added to the adrenaline rush of battling the bear, and it was like my heart might explode.
I skidded to a stop, the back of the snow machine hitting the brick of the building. I tried to lift her off the seat, but my ribs wailed and I had to set her on her feet. Using her helmet, I smashed the glass of the door and unlocked it so I could rush her inside. Likely an alarm was going off somewhere, but no one would be able to get out here because of the storm.
“Get inside and get warm.” I escorted her back to where the heat was pumping out of the big vents. I was hard and nearly mad with my urge to knot her.
Tears glistened on her cheeks as she peeled off her coat. “Kodiak,” she whimpered my name, gazing at me with dilated eyes. “I need… I….”
“I know, baby.” Oh fuck, did I know.