Cloudburst Ice Magic

CLOUDBURST ICE MAGIC

Avalanches may bring down more than snow…

Working for the Search and Rescue team at the
Cloudburst Resort in Colorado, Lily Sinclair figures she’ll do all
the rescuing from now on. When hikers are caught in a spring
blizzard, Lily and her partner head into the storm. Cut off from
communication and facing deadly conditions, Lily fears she’ll never
see her Ice Demon lover before death claims them.

Zach Snow encouraged Lily move to Cloudburst
to grow and learn, but missed her every day of their months apart.
His plans of moving to Colorado get pushed up when he receives her
text explaining her situation, and saying goodbye. He must
negotiate with the local Ice Demon clan to work in their territory
to rescue Lily and the hikers before the Spring Fling blizzard
kills them. But he’s running out of time.

Between the amorous hiker hitting on Zach,
Lily’s self-doubts, and an avalanche bearing down on them, Zach and
Lily must rediscover the love they first kindled in a Christmas ice
cave, and create their own Cloudburst ice magic.

CLOUDBURST ICE MAGIC

A Cloudburst, Colorado Novella

Copyright
© 2014
Siobhan
Muir

ISBN 9781311544926

Published by
Three Lakes Books
at
Smashwords

Cover Photo:
Maksim
Shmeljov | 
Shutterstock.com
Kichigin |
Shutterstock.com

Cover Design: H.L. Carmichael

eBooks are
not
transferable. They cannot be sold, shared, or given away as it
is an infringement on the copyright of this work.

All Rights Are Reserved. No part of this
book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without
written permission of the author except for brief quotations
embedded in critical articles or reviews. This ebook is licensed
for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or
given away to other people. If you would like to share this book
with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each
recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or
it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to
Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting
the hard work of this author.

This book is a work of fiction. Names,
characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author's
imagination or are used fictitiously, and are not to be construed
as real. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons,
living or dead, is purely coincidental.

First Electronic Print, August 2014

DEDICATION

Dedicated to all the men and woman who serve in
Search and Rescue. Thank you for your service and efforts in all
the worst weather. And thanks to their loved ones who wait for them
to come home safely.

Acknowledgements

Writing a book is never really a one person job. In
fact, it takes a great deal of hard work, editing, and research on
the part of the author to get things correct. Great thanks go to
Silver James who made sure my heroine wasn’t too whiney, and caught
my typos. Thanks to Nichole Severn for catching my run-on sentences
and even more typos. And thanks to Lanya Ross for reading through
this tale and finding the logical sticky spots. And as always,
thanks to Cara Michaels for designing the most glorious cover
art.

Chapter One

Lily Sinclair dug as fast as her arms would
allow, shoveling great drifts of snow behind her. The hikers she
and her partner Randy had come to rescue stayed out of the way.
Everyone wore exhaustion and fear wrapped around them like
moth-eaten blankets.

“Have you radioed in?” Her breath plumed in
the snowy air before her.

“Yeah, but I lose signal about half-way
through.” Randy shoved the radio into his pack and bent to help her
dig the snow fort. “They know we’re not coming in tonight, but they
can’t send out the helicopter in this storm.”

“Did you give them our position?”

He shook his head with a grimace. “That’s
when the signal cut out each time.” He glanced over his shoulder at
the huddled hikers. “How long do you think this storm will
last?”

Ever since her boyfriend Zach had rescued
her from a similar storm over a year ago, Lily had developed an
uncanny storm sense.
Too bad it worked too late today.
She
scanned the flake-filled landscape and took a deep breath through
her nose. Scents of Ice Demons, dank ice and fresh snow, having
some sort of spring fling filled her awareness. She bit her lip.
More than likely they were only just getting revved up.

“This one’s going to be bad. Three days at
least.” She dug harder. “And we’re going to have a ton of snow
dumped on us.”

Randy swore under his breath. “Then we
better get this tent up and the stove running. Do we have enough
fuel for three days?”

“Let’s hope so.” She prayed they did.
If
not, they’re going to find five frozen bodies in the tent.
Not
the way she envisioned her first season as Search and Rescue.
I
wish Zach was here.

Lily pushed the complaints aside and focused
on making a snow fort large enough for all of them. It would be a
tight squeeze, but being close meant more warmth.
Too bad we
don’t have Zach’s beautiful ice cave.
The lovely bubble he’d
built and furnished on Mt. Charleston had been comfortable and
welcoming.
Focus, Sinclair!

Between her and Randy, they managed to make
a large enough space under the snow to get the hikers out of the
weather. Randy brought their charges in while Lily expanded the
cave and set up the stove.
Gotta get this place warmer than a
shop full of Chinese New Year fireworks.
They’d celebrated the
Year of the Horse this year.
What we could really use right now
is the Year of the Dragon. Fire would be a good thing.

Randy set up the six-person tent against the
wall closest to the open door and raised his eyebrows at Lily.
“Damn, did you make it big enough, Sinclair?”

“Hey, we needed room to stretch out and
store the gear. No one likes sitting in someone’s lap to eat.” She
pulled her gloves off and lit the stove. A blossom of heat warmed
her nose and cheeks as the little machine roared to life.

He shook his head, but some of the tension
eased from his expression. “Stove running?”

“Yeah, just got it started.” Lily grabbed
one of their pots and scraped some of the wall into it before
setting it on the burner. “Hot water in five minutes.”

“We’re gonna die.” The panicked whimper
echoed across the space and Randy crawled back to the hikers.

“Shh. Tammy, it’s gonna be okay.” The guy
with his girlfriend and her friend had only meant to go for a short
day hike. The weather warnings had gone unheeded until it was too
late.

Too bad the weather is worse than they
predicted
.

“Mr. Thomas is right, Ms. Whitaker. Lily is
getting the stove set up so we’ll have hot water and heat.” Randy’s
voice filled with deep calm and reassurance. Randy Montesque was
the lead for a reason and he impressed her with his ability to use
his voice to settle everyone. “To keep warm, why don’t you all help
me get the gear unpacked? We need to set out the air mats and
sleeping bags.”

“We’re gonna sleep here?” The other woman
scanned the little cave space with worried blue eyes. “But it’s
getting colder and it’ll be night soon. What about other
rescuers?”

“They can’t get to us in the middle of the
storm at night anyway, Ms. Benedict.” Randy handed the redheaded
woman a sleeping bag. “We’ll try to radio them in later tonight if
the storm blows out. Worst case it will be tomorrow morning.”

I hope.
Lily didn’t say the words
aloud, but given the scents in the air and fierceness of the storm,
she suspected the Ice Demons would be at it awhile. While she’d
seen Zach go wild a few times in his true form, she’d never
experienced a full-blown party. For all they looked like humans
with white skin and ice crystals for hair, Ice Demons became
elemental when the weather shifted, flashing long canines and thick
talons.
Sounds like they’ve hit elemental tonight.

She unpacked the cooking gear and heat
packs, calculating how to ration everything to stretch for three
days. Ever since she’d met Zach, she’d known how long storms would
last.
Good thing about dating an Ice Demon.
She stopped
those thoughts before they developed into melancholy.

You made your choice, Sinclair. He didn’t
ask you to leave.

No, Zach had wanted her to stay on Mt.
Charleston with him, but she’d wanted to be a Search & Rescue
professional just like him, and there’d been no openings in Nevada.
But Cloudburst Resort in Cloudburst, Colorado, had an immediate
opening and she couldn’t pass up the opportunity. Zach had
reluctantly agreed and said he’d come visit when the season let up
in Nevada.

It should be done by now, right?

Most likely, but she hadn’t heard from him
since that morning and he’d said nothing in his email.
Knock
this shit off, Sinclair. You don’t have time to waste on anything
but surviving.
True enough. She could worry and whine about
Zach when she reached home.

“Water’s ready for tea. I’m starting soup
next.” Lily handed out the metal camping mugs filled with steaming
chamomile tea.

“Thanks.” Tammy rubbed her red nose with a
mitten-covered hand and cradled the hot mug in both palms. “We
really didn’t mean to be out this long.”

“I know, but at least we have shelter, heat,
and soon we’ll have food.” Lily tried to be as encouraging as
Randy. “Here’s a heat pack. Tuck that in your jacket pocket. It’ll
keep you warm for a couple hours.”

“What about when it fades?”

“We’ll worry about that when it’s time. But
right now, take the heat pack and I’ll have soup ready soon.” Lily
gave her most reassuring smile. “Warm food and the tea will help.
And we’ll be able to radio out in the morning.”

“Why can’t we radio out now?”

“Weather is cutting us off. We’ll try to
move to a better location to make contact in the morning.”

“Are we going to be okay?” Tammy’s eyes
filled with bleak dread.

“Yes. We’ll be fine. There’s no use
worrying. Right now we’re safe and warm. Focus on the good
things.”

Tammy bit her lip, but nodded before she
returned to sit beside her boyfriend while Randy handed out the
gear for them to arrange. Lily kept focused on the soup, trying to
calculate the likelihood of their supplies keeping them going for
the length of the storm. She prayed to whoever listened that she
hadn’t lied to Tammy.

“You think we’ll be able to radio out in the
morning?” Randy’s voice snaked past her ear as he handed her one of
the soup packets when the water rolled into a boil.

She sniffed, taking in the scents from the
storm, and grimaced. “All we can do is hope. Radioing out might not
be our biggest problem.”

“Oh? What is, then?”

She met his gaze with stark solemnity. “With
the way this storm is going, we’ll be lucky to see sky in three
days. It’s not us getting the word out, Randy. It’s them getting a
chopper in.”

Chapter Two

Zach frowned at his phone as he marched
along the gravel path toward his cabin. Lily hadn’t responded to
his email or his latest text.
She’s probably on the job and will
get back to me soon.
He just had to be patient. The problem was
he had something amazing to tell her, something he hoped would
solidify the relationship they’d started at Christmas over a year
earlier.

He shoved the phone into the zippered pocket
of his parka and glanced up at the clear blue dome overhead. The
temperature had risen almost high enough to forego the coat, but
enough humans wandered around the resort to require him to keep up
appearances. He brushed a few blond strands of hair out of his eyes
and wished he could be in some higher mountains.
And that’s why
I’m ready to leave.

A smile pulled at his lips as he unlocked
his cabin and surveyed the interior. Boxes and brightly-colored
plastic totes filled the cozy space in haphazard stacks around the
furniture. Moving sucked, especially when he’d been in Nevada for
almost all his life. But he needed to move on, find new crags to
roam, new mountain flanks to glissade.
Like in Colorado and the
Rockies.

That was where Lily lived now, in a little
town called Cloudburst. She’d wanted space to find out who she’d
become since he’d rescued her at Christmas the previous year.
Letting her go when she got the job at the Cloudburst Resort had
been the hardest thing he’d ever done in his hundred and seventeen
years. She was his mate and the one he’d want forever.