Chapter 19
- Aug 28
- 9 min read
Updated: 7 days ago
Snowed In with a Bigfoot, a Yeti, & a Werewolf
by Honey Cummings
Wilma was tightening the robe’s belt around her waist as she speed-walked away from Tenzin and Boone. The two were lazily following her out of the shower area. Mille was laying on one of the benches with her headphones on. She swiveled her head fast and Wilma stopped in her tracks. That wicked, mischievous grin growing on her face.
“Hold on, Tica,” Millie spoke with a menacing tone. “I’ll let you know because they just came out of the shower.”
“Oo-la-la!” Tica’s voice came across the receiver, a cackle like no other following suit.
“I’ll be back!” Mille sat up, her eyes dancing between them all. “So … how was your shower?”
“Oo! Give me the tea,” Tica shouted over the phone in Mille’s hand. “Did she get naughty with both of them?”
“Nope. Nope. Big nope,” Wilma repeated to herself.
“But she wanted to,” teased Boone.
Tenzin smirked and Wilma’s heart fluttered at the sight of it. “And she wanted us to wrestle naked.”
“Stop!” Wilma covered her face.
“What? Which one is that? His voice is HOT!” Tica exclaimed over the receiver.
“I need to hang up, Tica.” Mille whispered into her phone, “once they have clothes on, I’ll send pics.”
“Wait! They don’t have clothes on?” The phone beeped, ending the call with artist extraordinaire Tica Sansook.
“Wilma, did you ask them to hook up for you?” Mille’s eyes were growing wider.
“Indeed she did,” joked Boone. “Wrestling, and who knows what else before the shower suddenly ended.”
“I ended the shower.” Wilma’s face was red as she dropped her hands at her side in angry fists. “And I don’t care that you can smell my … thoughts, it doesn’t mean I want to act on it!”
“And we are just the same,” Tenzin wagged a finger between them. “Can’t hide how you feel at all, though, it’s a little harder to hide for us.” Tenzin chuckled, casting a dangerous look her way. “Even more so when you stare, but please, don’t ever look–”
Wilma opened her mouth to retaliate but the door to the locker room swung open with vengeance. It banged hard against the wall, ending the teasing and bringing their gazes to the intruder. Wilma jolted, closing her eyes tight waiting for impact. They had come rushing in with such a calamity and it was clear they were aiming for her.
A familiar snort and chuckled hit her ears and she cracked an eye open. Lucan, still in his birthday suit, was dragging her battered suitcase to her. His red hair falling in natural waves across both shoulders before his golden eyes made her breath hitch. By the time Lucan stopped, he was almost touching her, the heat of his body radiating into her even with a robe wrapped around her. The smell of peaches mingled with the cedar and sandalwood scent of … him. She swallowed her heart back down, her pulse racing. It was becoming clear now she was sensing things about these monsters under the guise of men.
Am I changing? Or has this just been the first time I’ve had a chance to notice I…
“Dog guy,” admonished Mille who had her hand over her chest. “You scared the shit out of me!”
Lucan paid her no heed, his eyes still locked on Wilma’s own. “Did I scare you?”
Searching his face, she couldn’t gauge his expression. There was no clear sign of the feral flirt or hot tempered lone wolf she had encountered so far. She narrowed her eyes. A shiver made her shoulder shake.
Oh, I am feeling all sorts of things with him this close.
“My clothes,” she managed to blurt. “Did you find them?”
Lucan scratched the back of his head, cringing. “Sorry, Moonshine. They snatched up your stuff and ran off with it as souvenirs.”
Wilma paled, whispering, “Even my bra and panties?”
Lucan nodded. “But I did find your luggage!” His ears popped out.
Wilma panicked, very aware Mille was in the room. With uncanny speed she slapped a hand over each ear, flattening them against his head and hiding them under her palms. They wiggled against her palms, tickling them.
“Ouch.” Lucan declared, trying to lift her hands. “A warning first, next time. You moved fast.” The ears wiggled again before they were gone again. “Better?” he whispered.
She spun to Mille who thankfully was gawking at Tenzin. A jealous knot tightened in Wilma’s chest. Blinking, it was another strange array of emotion and physical tension she wasn’t accustomed to. Never had she been jealous over anything between her and her best friend Mille, but yet here was that ugly knot at her core, stabbing into her. So much so, her thoughts were alarming. In that instant, those fleeting seconds she heard something feral and instinctual.
Mine.
It was one word, over and over inside her. She muted it, but never had she thought that even with the other Wilma on Gary’s arm. Never had she proclaimed someone or something mine to such a visceral level it invoked emotion and tension and … a sense of territorial demand.
Is it because they marked me?
She shook her head, inhaling deep.
No, it’s because I feel like I’m supposed to mark them to say they belong to me. Is this part of the cryptid magic? The bonded mates thing?
Lucan’s breath was hot over her shoulder. “Are you feeling jealous?”
Wilma shuddered.
“We can punish him, you know,” his voice rumbled as he pulled her into his body. “There’s a room next to here.”
Wait, if Boone and Tenzin didn’t know about Lucan, then that means…
“Lucan!” Wilma spun around. “You and I need to talk. Now.”
Throwing up his hands, Lucan laughed. “Whoa, Moonshine. I didn’t think–”
“About this mark,” she added, grabbing his shoulders to spin him toward the aforementioned door.“W-w-wait.” Lucan hugged her luggage to him as she pushed against his brick wall of a bare back. “Moonshine, do we have to do this now?”
“We’re doing this,” she seethed, shoving him along.
His tail was back. It slid past the slit where the robe parted and the tail was between her thighs. He went to wag, adding to the awkwardness as she slapped his back.
“Lucan!” Wilma yelped, pushing it out from under her and the robe.
“You’re making me nervous!” he barked over his shoulder.
Wilma wasn’t going to back down. She had a suspicion that Lucan was in the position of knowing everything, but what was he hiding behind the jokes and flirting that he didn’t want anyone to see. They called him the Lost Alpha King. Fifty years. A lifetime for some people, but why? She was marked by a stranger at the rate this was unraveling. Not that she knew Boone and Tenzin very well.
Shit, we’re all fucking … strangers?
Refocusing, she landed her shoulder dead center of his spine. “Dammit woman!”
Lucan retreated into the room, a growl rolling from him as she locked the door behind her.
“That hurt. You should be more careful,” he warned, the growl making goosebumps form on her skin. “Did you forget I’m a werewolf, moonshine?”
“No, but I have no fucking clue what that exactly should mean.” She took her suitcase and opened it on a nearby massage table.
Looking around, it was clear this was some sort of day spa room. It was a mixture of relaxing decor yet some parts of the ambience reminded her of a doctor’s office. She never indulged in places like this, and to find herself in such luxurious places from a cabin to a hot spring grotto, to even here. It may feel like a Moose Lodge for cryptids, but the facility was beyond her expectations. Monsters had money. And good taste.
“So why should I be careful, Lucan?” Wilma asked after a long silence passed with no answer. “Remember, I didn’t know you existed until a few days? A week ago?”
“We bite, and we have tempers,” Lucan answered.
“Then don’t bite. And what are you mad about?” Wilma unzipped her luggage and flapped it open with an angry glare at him. “I realized something about you.”
Lucan looked away, leaning against the door with arms crossed. He was broody and it was clear he didn’t want to be here, to answer the questions she will surely ask. Every muscle was taut. The ears, tail, and claws were back. Her stomach twisted as she let her eyes take in his body language.
“So is this still a shifting issue, or something else?” Her question earned her a flick of an ear.
“Something else,” he said curtly.
Digging through her luggage, she weighed the words. Taking a moment to breathe, she wasn’t sure how hard she could press the once smile-junky werewolf with questions of his past he ran away from. It was already making him angry, uncomfortable, and distant. He went from being near touching to on the opposite end of the room. She touched the mark on her neck. It buzzed with magic, warming. He turned, as if he could feel her touching it. Lucan flattened his ears as she looked at the mournful expression he made.
“I shouldn’t have…” He stopped his words and looked away again.
“It’s the reason you ran away,” she declared and he flinched.
Lucan huffed.
“You want to talk about it?” offered Wilma.
Those golden eyes narrowed. “Something tells me you won’t take no for an answer, my luna. Not that it’s fair I don’t say anything about it.”
“Luna. Not Moonshine?” Wilma arched her brow.
He crouched, like a cornered dog as he watched her. “That’s what we call an alpha’s chosen queen, once marked.”
She touched her neck once more. “This.”
“That,” he confirmed.
“You knew,” she spoke softly though deep down she was furious. “You knew you matched the prophecy.”
Nodding, he looked away. “Yea. Yea I did.”
“They didn’t know about you, but you knew Tenzin was the…” she searched for words, unsure which of the titles running through her mind was more appropriate than the other.
“Ice King,” offered Lucan. “Most yeti tribes are called Ice King or Snow Queen. Rani is the term in their homeland’s language. Boone is the Grandmaster Foot.”
“The Grandmaster what?” She sputtered, giving him a bewildered look. “Is he a fucking DJ or rap god?”
“No!” Lucan half-laughed. “He’s the oldest one. The Grandmaster of the Bigfoot clan.”
“Then what are you?” she tossed a pair of pajama shorts to the empty side of her luggage. “And why do I have only half my clothes in here?”
“I’m an alpha king.” He pointed at himself then at her luggage. “I didn’t bother to pack what spilled out since Tenzin was going to buy you new clothes at the ski lodge.”
“But we didn’t make it to the ski lodge,” she roared. “And what does alpha king mean?”
“Look, I was the third son.” Lucan broke, the look on his face and the crack in his voice making her freeze and give him her full attention. “My older brother was killed by my other brother over a fucking chair. What good is a throne to a pack if you can’t accept you’re beside your king. Not below, not behind, beside.” He stood, eyes glowing bright with his emotions. “My wolf would not stay down, would not stay silent. So yea. I ran away. What else was I supposed to do? And looking back, I’m pretty sure he killed our father.”
Wilma’s heart was breaking. “I’m sorry. I … I shouldn’t have…”
He closed the gap between them. “But this,” he whispered as he nuzzled her neck where his mark glowed in reply. “This puts a target on both our heads, but with Boone’s and Tenzin’s marks too, it should be enough to keep you safe from him.”
“So he’s found you, then?” Wilma’s heart pounded loud in her chest.
“He has.” Lucan spun her around, cupping the side of her face with an expression that said he was trying to memorize every detail of her face. “But he’s a coward. He won’t make a move as long as I’m this close to the Ice King and Grandmaster Foot.”
She bit her lip trying to stop the laugh the last title invoked as she pictured a lumberjack of a bigfoot scratching records at a club.
Lucan smiled, the sight of it softening her own tension. “This is serious, Moonshine.”
“I know, I can’t help it.” She hugged him, leaning hard into him as he pulled her in. “So you’ve been carrying around a half empty suitcase this whole time.”
“Yup. Pretty much,” he confessed.
“Then why struggle with it so much?” Wilma furrowed her brow.
“Says the woman who couldn’t walk through the snow without being carried.” He snorted. “It’s not any easier to carry it in my human or werewolf form.”
“Oh.” Wilma blinked. “I guess a yeti is made for the snow.”
Lucan sighed. “How much else do you not know?”
She pinched him.
“I’m sorry!” He yelped, yet he didn’t let go.
Do I have the right to even be dragged into a world this dangerous? A world that can hurt even this incredible heart? Wait, did he mean that his brother will be putting a hit on my head just now? SHIT.
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