Rogue: An Imp World Novella (Northern Wolves Book 2) Read online

  The bear muttered something under his breath and didn’t speak again until he was done eating.

  “I’m going with you.”

  It was a good thing I didn’t have food in my mouth, because I would have choked from surprise at his words.

  “Karl, you’ll scare the crap out of them. You can’t go with me.”

  He glowered. “If they can’t tell you’re a wolf, then they won’t be able to tell I’m a bear.”

  How did I put this? “Your eyes glow sometimes, Karl. Actually, they glow a lot and that’s not exactly human.” It wasn’t exactly shifter either, but it was clearly supernatural. “And besides that, you’re this huge jacked-up guy who looks like he’s two seconds from picking up a car and slamming it through the side of a building. One look at you and the clerk will be pushing that emergency button under the counter.”

  He considered my words. “I don’t like being around humans very much. Never thought that they might be scared of me.”

  I’m sure the people who bought wood from him, or the guy who had Karl haul his truck out of the ditch were happy to wrap up the transaction and be about their way. “I love that you’re a grumpy, scary bear, but this situation calls for a non-threatening, skinny, redheaded woman.”

  He laughed. I can’t recall that I’d heard him laugh before and the sound thrilled me. Humor transformed him, turned a sexy, dark, brooding guy into someone gorgeous and lighthearted. Even the darkness that lurked behind the gold flecks in his eyes receded, nearly vanished, when he laughed.

  “Brina, every inch of you screams confidence and determination. If I were looking for someone to rob, I’d pass you right by. You walk around like someone who would beat the ever-loving shit out of anyone who messed with her.”

  That had to have been the sweetest thing anyone had ever said to me. Forget his comparing my hair to Indian paintbrush, or my freckles to stars in the sky, this was romantic.

  “Okay. Point taken. But my eyes don’t glow gold. That’s why you’re not going. I’ll be careful. And I’ll see you tonight.”

  He scowled. “You’ll call me when you leave the shop, is what you’ll do. Or text me. I think my phone receives texts.”

  I picked it up off the table and flipped it open. “Yeah, you can get texts. And yes, I’ll let you know when I leave.”

  “Promise?” He was still glaring at me.

  “Promise.”

  “Good.” He stood. “Because otherwise I’d worry. And if I was worried, I might be tempted to go to that store and gnaw on all those humans until they told me where you were. Might even kill them.”

  Shit. “That won’t be necessary, wild man, because I will text you.”

  He gathered the dishes and went over to the sink, smiling as he turned on the tap. “I miss this running water thing. Wouldn’t be too hard for me to do a gravity-fed tank to my sink at one of the dens.”

  No it wouldn’t. And it would make me a lot happier than having to haul water around. But I didn’t want him to change the way he wanted to live just for me. He was adapting to my place nicely. I could do the same at his place. I picked up the rest of the dishes and put them in the sink, grabbing a dishcloth to wipe the table.

  “Ahia and Raphael were at Brent’s yesterday,” I said casually. “They examined the bullets and are going to pull some strings to get an antidote or counter spell or something. Seems Raphael knows someone in Hel that might be able to help.”

  Karl grunted. That was it. Just a grunt and no words. I swear the guy’s communication skills made me want to whack him over the head sometimes. He was going to make me spell this out, ask all the embarrassing questions that I hated to ask, but really needed to know the answer to.

  “So…how well do you know Ahia?”

  “Well enough. She’s okay for an angel.”

  That hardly sounded like he was harboring any unrequited feelings for her. I began to breathe easier, giving the table an extra wipe. “She said you put a wolverine in her bathtub.”

  Karl grunted. “She bear-tipped me when I was taking a nap. It was a good nap too.”

  “And the bicycle tires on her Jeep?”

  “As I said, it was a really good nap. Can’t let her get away with that shit, angel or not.” He put his arm around my shoulder, shutting off the water with his other hand. “I’ve known Ahia since I came to Alaska. She’s okay in small doses, but think I’d wind up killing her if I had to spend more than a few hours in her presence, know?”

  And that put all my fears to rest. We finished the dishes together, then I left Karl at my house to head to Hit-The-Mark, promising once more to let him know when I left the store. It felt good driving away, knowing he was still in my house. We’d spent the last two nights together. We’d pretty much been in each other’s company for four days straight. And I couldn’t wait to see him again.

  13

  I’d wondered why I’d never heard of Hit-The-Mark when it was practically in my own backyard. Now I knew.

  There were two types of sporting goods stores around Juneau—the huge chain stores that carried everything from kayaks to golf clubs, and the specialty stores, which carried eighteen types of kayak oars and attachments in case you planned to fish in the middle of your paddling expedition. If you couldn’t get it there, you’d need to go to the internet and wait for a week or two because overnight or two-day shipping to Juneau cost an arm and a leg.

  Hit-The-Mark didn’t even appear to be a store. It was a shack back off of a long dirt road. It looked like someone had turned a tiny, one-bedroom, pre-fab house into a ramshackle retail location. I sat in my car parked next to two others and wondered whether I dared go in or not. When I’d envisioned myself strolling into something like Cabela’s, or at the very least Harry’s Bait and Bullet, the idea of being shot in the middle of the store was ludicrous. This place was isolated to the point where I swear I could hear banjos. There were two cars here, but they were probably employees, or belonged to someone who lived in the back room. Were they even supposed to get walk-in customers? Had I totally tipped my hand by driving out here?

  Only one way to find out. I got out of my car and headed toward the front door. There was clearly a sign that said “open,” so I went on in, trying to look like a confused tourist who wasn’t sure she had the right place.

  Inside the front door was one long room that spread two thirds of the length of the house. There was a doorway to the left of the room that might have led to a bedroom. Along the back wall was another door and a wide passageway next to a bar-style pass-through that was most likely a kitchen/dining area. There was a tiny electronic cash register in the room where I stood next to a scale and some ledgers on an old dining table. Most of the room was filled with stacks of unassembled boxes, fishing lures in plastic packaging, bins of duck calls, scent lures, netting and traps, and small boxes of bullets, the calibers clearly marked on the sides.

  “Hello?” I called into the empty room.

  A man peeked out from around the pass-through. He was chewing. There were ketchup stains on his blond beard. At least, I hoped they were ketchup stains.

  He grinned sheepishly, then vanished only to reappear coming through the doorway, wiping his hands on a paper towel. “Hey. Sorry. Most time I get a customer they’ve called ahead. I’m surprised you found us out here.”

  “I did make a few wrong turns,” I admitted. This guy seemed nice. Normal. Not the murdering sort. I’d expected a villainous dude twirling a mustache, or a group of squinty-eyed thugs, not cheerful Grizzly Adams with a potbelly.

  “Need lures?” He glanced at my clothes, then out at my car in the driveway—the car that wasn’t towing a boat and didn’t have a kayak strapped to the roof. “Lots of times we come up on the GPS as the closest bait shop to Windfall Creek, even though I really don’t have much in the way of bait here. Most of my sales are internet fulfillment as opposed to walk-in traffic.”

  Windfall Creek was a small, local secret. It was a great place to catch sockeye.
Karl and I should come out to fish here sometime.

  I shook my head to clear it of images of Karl and me relaxing on the bank of the stream, beers and fishing poles in hand. Or of Karl in his bear form, snatching salmon between two giant paws.

  “No, actually I heard you had bullets. Are you Dutch? I e-mailed you a few days ago.”

  “Oh yeah.” He scratched his head. “Yeah, I’m Dutch. I didn’t realize you were a local gal or I would have just told you to come on out. Figured you were up around Skagway or something.”

  “My parents are in Sitka, but I’ve been in Juneau since I graduated college. You?”

  He grinned, placing his fists on his hips. “Vancouver. I moved up here last year. Inherited a bit of money and have always loved fly fishing in this area. I’m calling it my early retirement.”

  I found myself really hoping this guy wasn’t SharpShooter, or that he wasn’t knowingly selling the tainted bullets, but I sorta liked him.

  “This is definitely a fisherman’s paradise. Do you actually sell out of the store, or just online?”

  “Both, although my website is a mess right now. I really need someone to whip it into shape, get a decent point-of-sale system, and figure out what websites are best for ads. Maybe run some on Facebook.”

  Okay, now I was itching to make this guy a customer. I could seriously turn this spot into a hole-in-the-wall local best-kept-secret kind of thing.

  Maybe later. After I’d determined that this Dutch wasn’t murdering my people in cold blood, later.

  “I’m hoping to pick up some bullets today,” I said.

  He nodded and walked over to a pile of boxes. “Absolutely. I don’t have the biggest supply, but I’ve got a variety here. What ’cha shooting?”

  It was a familiar question. He meant both what firearm was I using and what type of game I planned to hunt.

  “I’ve got a Marlin 1895 and a Remington 870.”

  The clerk tapped a finger against his lip. “12 gauge on the shotgun? I’ve got a few boxes of those.”

  “Yeah, 12 gauge.”

  He rooted through the stacks. “Which model is the 1895?”

  “The GBL.”

  He pulled out a box and set it aside. “Nice gun. Short range, though. Most women going for moose or bear don’t want to be that close in. You hunting deer?”

  “Maybe,” I replied, trying to see if there were any special markings on the bullet boxes to indicate they might be “special” bullets. “I like to be prepared.”

  “You probably know this, being a local gal and all, but make sure you’ve got your licenses in order,” he warned. “I swear the Fish and Wildlife wardens here outnumber the hunters. Don’t take anything illegal because they will find out, and they will fine you and confiscate your kill. Some days I think they’ve got a bunch of crystal balls in their trucks or something.”

  I chuckled, thinking that I really liked this guy. I took the two heavy boxes he handed me and tucked them under my arm. “I also need some .44’s.”

  He straightened, hands once again on his hips. “.44’s?”

  I nodded. “I’ve got a Smith and Wesson 629.”

  “You do like to be prepared,” he commented, his words coming out slow and careful.

  If you lived in a dicey urban area and wanted to be ready to defend yourself, you had a semi-automatic, a Glock usually. If you wanted to be ready to quickly defend yourself in the wilderness, a revolver was the weapon of choice. And the minimum bullet size you’d need to even think about stopping a bear was .44.

  “How good of a shot are you?” he asked.

  It was a good question. Tourists that went hunting or hiking and had visions of shooting down a marauding bear either came home with their bullets still in the box or they came home in a box. Wild bear generally stayed clear of humans. Make enough noise, secure your food and trash, keep an eye open for sows with cubs, and you’d be fine. If lightning struck and you did find yourself in a situation with an attacking bear, you’d need to draw and fire fast. And you’d need to be accurate enough to unload your magazine between the animal’s eyes. Pumping a bunch of bullets into a bear’s chest wasn’t going to do much more than piss him off. That was with a normal bear. With a bear shifter, you had even less of a chance of taking him down.

  Unless, you had special bullets.

  “Good enough,” I told him.

  He eyed me. “Best leave that pistol at home, you know.”

  “Best be prepared, you know?” I gave him what I hoped was a meaningful glance. “I saw those YouTube videos. Now I don’t know if they’ve been doctored up, or are some special effects, but why take chances? There’s a guy in the hiking forums who said you were supplying the sort of thing that could protect a hiker, or hunter, against that happening. If it’s all a hoax, well, then I’m a fool. If it’s not and I go out there unprepared, then I’m a dead fool. I’d rather be a live fool than a dead one.”

  His face went blank, his expression suddenly unreadable. “You’ll be fine. Those…that…you’ll be fine.”

  “Fine? I’m out hunting with my friend, and some dude stumbles into our camp and turns into a bloodthirsty monster, and we’ll be fine with shotguns and rifles? I don’t think I could even get to my weapon in time. I’m taking the pistol. And I’d like it to have more than regular .44 bullets in it, if you catch my drift.”

  He hesitated.

  “I’m a woman,” I continued. “And not a big woman either. Now I know how to handle myself out in the woods. I grew up in Alaska, so I’m not some wide-eyed tourist. I’m not going to shoot some dude out fishing in his boat or a hiker who I think looks sketchy. I can keep my cool. I’ll only shoot if a human comes into my camp and then suddenly becomes not-a-human.”

  “They’re expensive,” he finally admitted. “And the chances of you being attacked are probably less than winning the lottery. Why don’t you just buy a box of plain old .44s, and forget about monsters in the woods.”

  I shook my head. “It’s kind of hard to forget about monsters in the woods when five people got killed down in Ketchikan. Five.”

  His mouth opened. “That…that couldn’t happen. It wasn’t. In Ketchikan?”

  He didn’t know. I had a feeling the werewolf videos had been staged to create fear in the human public, but if this guy was as connected as I thought he was, then Ketchikan wasn’t supposed to happen. What had gone wrong? What had happened?

  “Yeah. Five scientists.” I pulled out my phone and read the names. “Paper says there was a grizzly attack, but he wasn’t really a grizzly, you know? He was one of those monsters. One of the guys shot him—some dude from Oregon. A Joseph Floyd. But instead of going down, the bear shifter went crazy and killed all five of them. Then he went on a two-day tear through the woods, slaughtering animals, nearly killing some hiker he cornered. Took more than bullets to kill him.”

  Dutch was breathing hard, a bead of sweat rolling down his forehead. “No. Just…no. Joseph Floyd…” He turned around and grabbed the ledger from next to the cash register. “No…it can’t… That didn’t happen.”

  I nodded. “Yes. I’ve got friends down there and they’re terrified. Heck, I’m terrified. Wolf-people. Bear-people. I just want to make sure if I shoot something, it goes down and stays down.”

  He was pale, his finger shaking as he traced a line down the ledger. “They’re supposed stay down, or run away. Supposed to make it an even playing field.”

  “Well, then that’s what I need.”

  He snapped the book shut. “No, you don’t. I don’t have those bullets. I can’t sell you any.”

  Don’t have them, or won’t sell me any? Because those were two different things. “What do you suggest, then?”

  “Regular bullets won’t kill these monsters, but if you can get four or five well-placed shots into them, you’ll take them down. And then you can run away.”

  “But the guys in Ketchikan shot this bear shifter. When they finally caught and killed him, they dug three bu
llets out of the guy. So it sounds to me like regular bullets aren’t going to cut it. From what this SharpShooter guy says, I believe that. If the guys down in Ketchikan had been shooting these bullets, would they have been okay?”

  Dutch clamped his jaw. “This SharpShooter guy isn’t someone you should be listening to. Maybe. These bullets are supposed to work but…I’ll admit that I sold the special bullets to Joseph Floyd. So maybe they only work on werewolves. Or maybe you need more than one to take down a bear shifter. Maybe he didn’t have the special bullets loaded in his rifle. I mean, they’re expensive. He might not have wanted to waste them.”

  “Why buy them if you’re not going to be prepared,” I argued. “Are you saying they don’t work? That this SharpShooter guy is lying? I mean, he referred people to you. You supposedly sell them, right?”

  He wiped his face on his sleeve. “I do sell them, but I need… Let me contact the manufacturer. I want to make sure there isn’t a quality control issue. I can’t tell the bullets apart aside from a mark they put on the end. Maybe they got mixed up in the box before I got them. Maybe they don’t work on bear shifters, or maybe there needs to be a special kind for the larger ones. Or maybe it’s all fine and that Floyd guy shot the bear shifter with regular bullets. I don’t know, but I’ve got a reputation I’m trying to build here. I’m not gonna sell any more of these until I’m sure they work as intended. The company that sells these to me markets them for werewolf protection. I’m thinking a bear-man is too big, and they don’t have the same effect, but I want to check first.”

  It made sense. You didn’t go bear hunting with a .22. Clearly whatever magical coating was on the bullets, it would take more, or different magic, to bring down a grizzly shifter.

  Except…the hunters in Kenai had been shooting bear. I thought back on what Brent had said about the dying shifter he’d seen. The hunters were taking trophies. They were all about the hunt. They shot. The shifter transformed, and ran away in pain. Then they tracked it and took the killing shot. Or if the shifter didn’t run away, they finished it on the spot.