Alpha in a Fur Coat (9 page)

Storm could feel a fresh flow of liquid desire oozing from between her legs. She was quickly losing her mind, forgetting where she was or what was going on outside. All she could think about right now was getting Grant’s erection out of his pants and into her. She reached down for the button on his jeans, fumbling with it as he moved his teeth from her nipples to her neck and bit down hard, leaving his mark.

“Mine,” he said, breathing out the word with a husky intensity that sent fresh shudders of passion down Storm’s spine. Then he reached for the button on her jeans, unbuttoning and unzipping, twisting and maneuvering until he somehow managed in the tight space to get her pants and underwear off. His job was made a little easier by the fact that somewhere in the course of their flight, Storm had kicked her shoes off to be more comfortable.

It was Storm’s turn to growl. Now, the only thing between her and Grant’s glorious erection was his pesky jeans and underwear. He was still sitting as she straddled him, so the task ahead of her wasn’t easy. But Grant gladly shifted around to help her out as she reached down to push his pants and briefs down past his knees, leaving his long, thick dick standing proudly between his legs. Storm moaned, and didn’t resist as Grant used his strong hands to lift her ass a few inches off his legs, then repositioned her right in front of his erection.

A moment later, with a loud roar, he thrust into her. Storm’s eyes flew open with disbelief as their bodies connected. He was so big, so strong. The pressure that had been growing in her core intensified, and a hot, tingling sensation started spreading through her body. It only took a few moments for her to completely lose control and lose herself to the moment. She threw her head back and screamed out Grant’s name, letting the waves of her orgasm start to flow over her.

The intensity was almost too much to bear. She had never experienced such strong, unadulterated passion before. Spasm after spasm rocked her body, and a burning heat spread through her. Then, moments later, Grant roared again as well, and stiffened as he found his own release, shooting a hot stream of himself into her as he came. His bare skin was burning against hers, but the heat was the best kind of pain Storm had ever experienced.

She looked into his eyes as they both slowly came down from the high they had just been on, and she could see that he clearly felt the same deep sensation of loyalty and trust that she did. They had bonded. They were mates for life. It had all happened so quickly, and yet it felt so right. Storm knew deep within her that they had been building up to this moment for years, and she smiled happily as Grant tilted his head up and kissed her nose gently.

Then, just as suddenly as the rain outside had started, it stopped. The clouds melted away, and brilliant sunshine came streaming through the windshield of the hover, lighting up the raindrops that still clung to the pine trees surrounding them.

Storm smiled as the warm sunshine hit her back, and she reached down to squeeze Grant’s hand.

“Come on, Sexy,” she said. “Let’s get dressed and then go save your clan members.”

Chicago was burning.

From a distance of fifty miles outside the city, you could still see the smoky haze in the distance. Because Grant and Storm had no way of contacting anyone from their stripped down hovercar, they couldn’t get any news. But it was clear from the smoke rising in the distance that things weren’t good.

Grant glanced over at Storm, who was staring out the front windshield with a grim look on her face. Even with a worried expression etched across her face, she looked beautiful.

“Hey,” he said, reaching over to give her thigh a reassuring pat. “It’s okay. We’re safe. We’re going to grab my clan members and get back to Michigan. No one will be able to find us there. Drew knows how to keep our location secret.”

Storm looked over at him and smiled sorrowfully. “I know,” she said. “It’s just really sad to see all the smoke coming from the city. It makes it all feel so real. I loved Chicago. I loved being a part of that city. I can’t believe this is actually happening.”

Grant said nothing, just gave Storm another reassuring pat. She was right. It was hard to believe that all of this was happening. Chicago had seemed like such a wonderful land of friends and opportunity when Grant arrived there for law school. Now, it was spiraling into a place of paranoia and chaos. Grant wondered how his colleagues at the law firm were handling everything. No doubt, they were shocked by the sudden turn of events. He wondered if they suspected that he had escaped the city, or if they thought he had just been unlucky enough to be caught in the riots.

Grant glanced down at the navigation system on the hover. They were minutes away from the spot where they were supposed to pick up his clan members. He only hoped that the three bears he was picking up were still at the pickup location. Thanks to the crazy weather, Grant and Storm were several hours late.

Not that Grant was complaining. He still had to pinch himself to believe that Storm had actually agreed to sleep with him. But she had, and they were bonded.
Bonded
. He hadn’t intended to find a lifemate, ever. It had just kind of happened with Storm. He’d been dreaming of her for so long now, and they had actually turned out to be lifemates. Grant smiled. What a crazy day he’d had.

He hoped things didn’t get too much crazier, honestly. He and Storm had a lot to talk about now. He just wanted to pick up their friends and get back to Michigan. As he approached the designated pick-up spot, he was relieved to see three familiar faces staring up at him.

Calum, Hope, and Mia had been friends of his in childhood, but he hadn’t seen them in years. A wave of guilt and regret washed over Grant. Why had he been so stubborn, and refused to spend time with them ever since he moved to Chicago? He’d really been a bit of a jerk. It wasn’t their fault that the elders back home wanted Grant to come back to Alaska and take on alpha duties. As the hover landed on solid ground, Grant immediately hit the button to open the doors. He jumped out and pulled Calum into a big hug, slapping him on the back.

“Calum, buddy, good to see you. And Hope. And Mia,” Grant said, nodding at the girls, whose faces looked about as grim as Storm’s did right now.

“Thanks for coming to get us,” Calum said, tilting his head in a deferential nod to Grant, the way he would to an alpha.

“Don’t mention it,” Grant said. “I shouldn’t have left without you in the first place. But there will be plenty of time for apologies later. Right now, we need to get going. You guys have any phones or tablets on you?”

All three of them nodded.

“We have to get rid of them,” Grant said. “We don’t want any electronics coming with us and potentially leaving a trail that leads to our hiding spot.”

The three of them reached into their pockets and pulled out their phones and tablets, handing them solemnly to Grant.

“I just bought that tablet last week,” Mia said with a sigh. “It really sucks to lose it.”

Grant nodded sympathetically. “I know. But we don’t have a choice,” he said. Then he threw the devices on the ground and stomped on them until they were completely destroyed.

Then he motioned Storm over. She had been hanging back, likely wanting to give him a moment alone with his former clan members. But now, he motioned her over.

“Storm, these are my clan members. Calum and Hope are the twins, as you can probably tell. And this is Mia.”

Storm reached out to shake each shifter’s hand, then Grant took a deep breath and plunged forward with the words he’d never thought he’d be saying. “Calum, Hope, and Mia—meet Storm. My lifemate.”

All of the faces around him registered surprise, but they recovered quickly.

“Wow, Grant. Congrats. Drew didn’t mention you had a lifemate,” Hope said.

“Yeah, well, it’s a fairly new development,” Grant said. Then, feeling slightly uncomfortable and wanting to change the subject, he glanced back toward Chicago. “We should get going. We don’t want to be stuck here when the chaos gets further out than the city limits. It’s only a matter of time until that happens.”

The shifters all nodded, and they all headed back to the hover. Grant and Storm once again took their seats in the front, and the three newcomers squeezed into the backseat.

“Everyone buckled in?” Grant asked. After a chorus of confirmations, Grant revved up the hover and started heading up into the sky in a northbound direction.

“Hang on, guys. We’ll be back to safety soon.”

“We were starting to get really worried about you all,” Mia said from the backseat. “You were several hours late, and we weren’t sure if you’d somehow gotten caught up in the Chicago riots.

“No, we steered clear of Chicago. But we did run into some unexpected weather delays over Lake Michigan,” Grant said. He glanced over at Storm, and caught a small smile playing at the corner of her lips. He smiled, too, at the sight of it. Looks like he wasn’t the only one who’d enjoyed the weather delay.

“How are things in Chicago?” Storm asked, glancing over her shoulder suddenly, as if she needed to get her mind on something other than the weather delay from earlier.

“Not good,” Calum said. “We were following the news on our phones pretty much right up until you guys showed up. The mayor did his best to stir up panic, and now the news has a video of you guys on repeat. They made a montage of all the cell phone videos people took and edited it to look as dramatic as possible. I still can’t believe you all shifted in the middle of Chicago.”

“Yeah, well, we didn’t have much of a choice,” Grant said. “We had to save Storm. Not that it matters much. We were already on our way out of the city. And the mayor already had plans to announce the shifter-detecting scanners. Our little stunt the other night might have added a little bit of fuel to the fire. But, in the grand scheme of everything going on right now, it didn’t change things that much.”

“Why is there so much smoke?” Storm asked, looking again toward the hazy sky over Chicago.

“Rioters have gone crazy,” Hope said. “They’re burning everything. As you know, the mayor put the whole city on lockdown. No one in or out. Well, a bunch of Chicagoans started freaking out about being locked into the city with shifters. They’re afraid, and want to run—but they can’t get out. So they’ve started setting everything in sight on fire. The mayor is apparently in hiding, and national guard reinforcements are being shipped in. But if things keep going the way they have been, there’s not going to be much of a city left to protect.”

Storm let out a low whistle. “I can’t believe this. I mean, I’m seeing it with my own eyes. That smoke in the distance is no joke. But still. I can’t believe it.”

“Well, believe it,” Calum said. “It’s going to get worse before it gets better.”

“Are you sure we’re safe where we’re going?” Mia piped in again.

Grant looked back at her and smiled reassuringly. “We’re heading to probably the safest place in the country right now. Drew knows his stuff, so don’t worry. Everything is going to be just fine.”

Mia nodded, and the chatter in the hover died down as Grant turned the hover to head north over Lake Michigan once more. He was relieved that the Lake itself still seemed largely unguarded, but he knew that wasn’t going to last long.

A full-blown war was brewing.

* * *

The trip back to Drew’s cabin was pretty uneventful. And it was a good thing, too. Grant hadn’t had much sleep lately, and he was starting to feel it. For a while, the constant adrenaline high he’d been on had been enough to keep him going. But even that wasn’t helping much anymore. Besides, Grant was starving. He realized as he came to a soft landing in front of the hideout cabin that he’d barely eaten anything today.

Drew came out of the cabin as soon as they landed, and he quickly picked up on Grant’s exhausted state. After brief introductions of the new shifters, Drew told Grant to rest for a few minutes.

“Go get some food and relax, brother,” Drew said. “There’s a big pot of chili on the stove. I’ll take care of destroying the hover.”

Grant didn’t argue, but he did look over his shoulder before entering the cabin to get one last look at his hover. Grant had been awfully fond of his hover, and it was such a shame to destroy that beautiful piece of machinery. But there was no way they could keep it here, with all its intricate computer systems sending off god only knows what kinds of signals. Drew’s number one rule for hiding out was “no fancy electronics.” There was an old radio in the cabin, and Drew had an older mobile phone that he had modified like crazy so that it was essentially invisible. That was it. And the only power in the cabin came from solar panels on the roof. There was no connection to any outside power source here. Drew didn’t want anyone on “the outside” to know where his secret hideout was located.

Storm must have seen him staring back at the hover, because she walked up to him and placed a gentle hand on his arm.

“It’s okay,” she said. “You’ll get another one someday, when this is all over.”

Grant nodded, and headed into the cabin. The tantalizing smell of chili had been wafting out from the front door, and the aroma grew stronger as he stepped inside. Storm followed him, and they both filled bowls to the brim with chili before sitting down at the small table. Moments later, the sound of a loud explosion reached their ears. It had only taken Drew a few minutes to destroy the hover. He was quick.

“Welcome back, Boss,” Jack said, looking up from the couch, where he was reading a newspaper and Silver was curled up next to him with a book.

“Where did you guys find those?” Grant asked, surprised that they both had reading material made of real paper.

“Silver’s mom gave her the book,” Jack said. “And Drew had the newspaper. It’s old. Decades old, actually. But it’s kind of fun to read news from so long ago, and there’s not much else to do around here. No electronics, so there’s no way to browse the internet. And no TV or electronic books.”

“Maybe not such a bad thing,” Storm said as she lifted a spoonful of chili to her mouth. “We could probably all use a little time away from all that crap.”

“Yeah, well, it might be a long time away,” Calum said, stepping into the doorway of the cabin. “Things aren’t looking good in Chicago.”

Jack turned around and smiled. “Calum, good to see you buddy. I was about to ask Grant where you were. I saw you guys all come in for a landing, but then you disappeared.”

“Yeah, I went to help Drew destroy the hover, which surprisingly only took a minute. He’s got blowing things up down to a science. Anyway, he’s rounding everyone else up now so we can discuss our gameplan. Hope and Mia went with him.”

“Where
did
everyone else go?” Grant asked, realizing for the first time that things were pretty quiet. He was too tired to be very observant at the moment.

“They all went out to look at a waterfall that’s not too far from here” Jack said. “There’s supposed to be some great hiking around these parts.”

“Yeah, I’ll bet,” Grant said. “That’ll be one nice change from living in Chicago. Not much nature in the city.”

The group fell silent again at the mention of Chicago. It was strange to think that the city where they had been blissfully living just days before was now under attack. Grant looked around the small cabin, and realized for the first time that the entire thing was probably smaller than his living room alone had been in Chicago. He wasn’t sure how they were all going to be able to sleep in here. They’d have to all get cozy on the floor to make it work. He looked over at Storm who was shoveling chili into her mouth and seemed to be a million miles away mentally. He would love to get cozy next to her, but he wished they had their own room. The best time to be stuck in a tiny one-room cabin with a bunch of other people was definitely not hours after finally convincing a girl to sleep with you. Grant sighed, but he didn’t have long to think about where he could sneak away to with Storm, because moments later the rest of the crew entered the cabin.

Boisterous laughter filled the air, and Grant couldn’t keep a smile off his face as he saw the rest of his friends cramming into the small room. Sure, things would be tight. But they were all safe, and that’s all that mattered.

“Alright, alright, everyone. Quiet down,” Drew said, clapping his hands loudly a few times for emphasis. “Let’s lay out some ground rules and expectations here. As you all know, this is an electronics-free zone. We’ve destroyed everything except my one heavily-modded phone. If you absolutely need to get somewhere, I’ve got a small fleet of gas-powered vehicles and aircraft. But the best way to stay hidden is to lay low, so that’s what we’re going to do for now. Unless it’s urgent, no one needs to stray any further from this cabin than what you can walk in a day’s time. I get weekly food deliveries from a guy in a nearby town, so let me know if you have any special requests. But don’t get crazy. This is about survival, not about living in luxury.”