The Mountain Man's Vow (Mountain Bred #1)
Chapter 1
CHAPTER ONE
Melanie
This camping trip was supposed to be my “find yourself” adventure—the kind where city girls like me discover inner peace and resilience in nature’s embrace.
Instead, I’m huddled under a flimsy tent in a downpour, my designer hiking boots already ruined, and the s’mores ingredients untouched because I can’t figure out how to light a fire in this dampness.
What kind of kindergarten teacher can’t even make a proper campfire?
The same kind, apparently, who thought running away to the Appalachian wilderness would somehow fix the emptiness inside her.
I check my phone again—no service, of course.
Three days in, and this solo mission has been nothing but mosquito bites, soggy granola bars, and the crushing realization that I’m not cut out for self-discovery via outdoor suffering.
My students would laugh to see their sweet Miss Melanie now, mud-streaked and miserable, the woman who decorates cupcakes with tiny fondant animals somehow unable to boil water on a camp stove.
Thunder cracks overhead, closer this time, and I flinch. The storm has been building for hours, the mountain air growing heavy and electric in a way that makes my skin prickle with unease. Maybe I should pack up and head back toward the ranger station, even if it means hiking in the rain.
That‘s when I see it—a brilliant flash of white-blue light striking a tall pine not fifty yards from my campsite. For a split second, everything illuminates in stark relief before plunging back into storm-darkness. The thunderclap that follows shakes the ground beneath my sleeping bag.
“Oh God,” I whisper, peering through the tent flap.
The tree is burning, flames licking up its trunk with terrifying speed. Wind gusts, sending embers dancing into the canopy where they find new homes among the drought-parched branches. One tree becomes two, becomes three, and suddenly the forest around me is crackling alive with fire.
I don‘t think—I run. Grabbing only my phone and water bottle, I abandon the tent and everything else, sprinting away from the rapidly spreading flames. The smoke is already thickening, acrid tendrils reaching for my lungs, making each breath burn.
My sundress—the only clean thing I had left—snags on brambles as I crash through the underbrush.
I’ve lost the trail completely now, just running blindly downhill because that‘s what they say you should do in a forest fire, right? Get to lower ground? Or is that for floods? My kindergarten disaster preparedness lessons didn’t cover what to do when you’re alone in a mountain forest that’s suddenly transformed into hell itself.
Ash rains down, speckling my skin and hair. My throat feels scraped raw. The roar of the fire grows behind me, hungry and alive, consuming everything in its path. I imagine it as a monster chasing me through the trees, and the childish thought makes hysteria bubble up in my chest.
The ground drops away suddenly—a hidden dip—and I’m falling, tumbling down a steep slope. My sundress tears, rocks scrape my bare legs, and when I finally stop rolling, I’m disoriented and covered in soot. The world spins as I struggle to my feet.
That’s when I see him.
Or rather, I collide with him—a wall of solid muscle and bare skin appearing from nowhere in the smoke-filled twilight.
My face smacks against what can only be described as a chest, but it’s broader and harder than any chest I’ve ever encountered.
My hands instinctively reach out to steady myself, and they find rippling, sweat-slicked abs that seem to go on forever.
Strong hands—massive hands—catch me by the shoulders. They practically span my entire upper arms, fingers nearly meeting around my biceps. I’m not a small woman—I’ve got the kind of curves that make finding hiking clothes a nightmare—but in this grip, I feel tiny and fragile.
I tilt my head back, and back, and back, until I can finally see his face.
He’s…enormous. Seven feet tall at least, maybe more, with shoulders wider than my classroom doorway.
Wild, dark hair falls past his shoulders, framing a face that belongs on some ancient warrior statue—all sharp angles, heavy brow, and a jaw that could cut glass.
His beard is thick but trimmed, unlike the rest of him, which seems deliberately untamed.
But it’s his eyes that freeze the scream in my throat—ice blue and focused on me with an intensity that makes my knees weaken. They’re scanning my body, taking in the torn sundress, the exposed skin, the curves that are suddenly very apparent as the wet fabric clings to every inch of me.
“You’re hurt,” he says, and his voice is like thunder given human form—deep and rumbling and somehow both terrifying and soothing.
I become aware of the stinging cuts on my legs, the burn of smoke in my lungs, but all I can focus on is how his massive hands are now moving over me, checking for injuries with a gentleness that seems impossible from someone so large.
“The fire,” I manage to choke out. “It’s coming this way.”
He doesn’t look concerned. Instead, his gaze darkens as it lingers on where my sundress has torn across my chest, revealing the swell of my breasts and the lacy edge of my bra.
“I’ve got you,” he says simply, and something in those three words sends a shiver through me that has nothing to do with fear.
The flames reflect in his ice-blue eyes as he pulls me against him fully, one arm wrapping around my waist. I should be terrified—I’m alone in a burning forest with a half-naked giant of a man—but instead, my body relaxes against his, responding to some primal signal I don’t consciously understand.
He tips my chin up with one finger that’s nearly the size of my wrist. “What‘s a soft little thing like you doing out here alone?” His thumb brushes soot from my cheek, leaving a trail of heat that has nothing to do with the approaching fire.
“I—I was camping,” I stammer. “The lightning...”
“Shh,” he says, and I fall silent immediately.
His eyes never leave mine as he speaks next, words that should send me running faster than from any wildfire.
“You‘re never leaving this land. You’re mine now, little mama. I’m gonna keep you stuffed full of my cock and my seed every single day until your belly stays round and swollen with my babies year after year. ”
I should scream. I should fight. I should do anything but stand here, heart racing and body flushing with unexpected heat as this stranger claims me with terrifying certainty.
But I don’t move. Can’t move. Something ancient and feminine inside me recognizes something equally ancient and masculine in him, and my body betrays me with a pulse of want so intense it makes me dizzy.
The buzz of my phone in my pocket breaks the spell. I’d forgotten I was even holding it. With trembling fingers, I pull it out—somehow I have one bar of service here, and a voicemail notification flashes on the screen.
The mountain man watches, still holding me against him, as I press play and hold the phone to my ear.
“Mel...” My sister‘s voice comes through, shaking and tearful. “The doctors say it might be twins and there are complications. I’m scared. I need you here for the birth.”
The message ends, and I look up at the giant stranger whose arms still encircle me.
His expression hasn‘t changed, but something in his eyes has hardened with resolve. The forest burns around us, and I’m caught between two fires—the literal inferno at our backs and the promise of another kind of heat in this man’s fierce claim.