the wrong way he suspected he’d never get out of castle Wulfsiege alive. “Yes, I’ve a package for your pack leader from Hawkes Associates.” He tapped the case. “I’ve been instructed to hand it directly to him.”
“Of course. I wouldn’t have it any other way.” She appeared to assess him from snowcapped boot toes, up his white-and-gray snow camo pants and over his Gore-Tex jacket to his shoulder-length hair, which he never remembered to comb. And no, it was not red, it was auburn.
Tryst winked, just in case her eyes were on his.
She gave him a “really” tilt of her head, and he felt the admonishment, but that didn’t erase the smile he could not stop.
“Wait here,” she instructed. “I’ll check with the principal.”
“No problem. I didn’t catch your name?”
“No, you didn’t.” She turned and marched off in a precise line that took her around the steel railing that curved along the castle wall, and out of Tryst’s sight.
“No, you didn’t,” he mocked. “Tough chick. But sexy. And a wolf. Whew!”
The howl still clambered for release and his smile went full-on goofy. Tryst shrugged his hands back through his hair. He figured every wolf in the castle had to have his sights set on Miss No You Didn’t. But had they spoken to her as he just had?
Didn’t think so. He was so ahead of the game.
On the other hand, a gorgeous chick like her was probably already mated to the strongest, most alpha wolf in the pack. He shouldn’t get his hopes up. But the fantasy was always a kick. And hell, look up glutton for punishment in the dictionary and his face would be featured.
A sudden unnatural roar lifted the hair all over his body.
Tryst swung around and saw the massive cloud of billowing snow just before it broke through the glass wall that overlooked the stadium. The entire castle shook. Male shouts punctuated the calamity.
Tryst lost his balance but managed to stay upright. The roar, as from a beast unearthed after long centuries of hibernation, engulfed the area—and then it suddenly grew deathly quiet as if a damper had been clamped over all.
Or a heavy wall of snow.
With glass and snow scattering across the tiled floor, Tryst turned to find the lobby doors through which he had entered had gone dark. The window that had once looked over the stadium area was also dark and filled in with a wall of snow.
“Avalanche,” he muttered, and started toward the hallway down which the female werewolf had left. She had walked right by the window.
Werewolves ran by him, shouting for help. A few were bleeding. The structure of the castle seemed intact as Tryst let his eyes scurry up and down the limestone walls, and he guessed the walls must be three or more feet thick if built so many centuries ago. He hoped so.
He sighted the female wolf in the long white coat and called out to her, but she was running toward him, shouting orders into an intercom device she held to her mouth.
“You all right?” he called as she ran past him.
She nodded. “Get away from this wall! It could collapse inward.”
“Right.” He turned and ran along beside her. “We need to go outside and see where the snow moved and what areas it covered. How many outside do you think?”
“Too many,” she said. “A group of at least a dozen was out skiing.” She ran off ahead of him.
Trystan stopped in the lobby, standing near the shattered glass and snow. The wall hushed in an icy cold wave of air that crept up the back of his neck like a deadly poison. Fresh snowfall over hardpack last night, and then today a group had gone out skiing? That had been asking for disaster.
He didn’t think the snow blocking the window would move in any farther. But having been in the vicinity during a few avalanches, he knew there was always danger of aftershocks and even another avalanche. The people inside the castle needed to be moved to safety, which could be the other side of the castle. He didn’t know the layout.
The female wolf raced by him again, telling whoever was on the other end of the walkie-talkie to start gathering the castle’s inhabitants and move them. She had a plan, so Tryst would leave that to her.
But if anyone had been outside, they could be trapped under heavy snow. A rescue team had to be formed. He’d worked on a team once to bring up a mortal couple who’d been trapped eight feet under snow, and so he knew what to do. He needed a few strong men. And they had to move quickly. No one lasted for more than a few hours under snow, and in fact, most mortals could withstand no more than half an hour unless they had a pocket of air and their lungs hadn’t been crushed.
Werewolves had an innate ability to heal, and could withstand a lot. He figured if any wolves had been buried they had maybe four to six hours before death.
Alexis Connor marched through the Wulfsiege lobby, her boots crushing broken glass, and her mind racing in twenty different directions. They’d experienced avalanches before, but never one that had hit directly on Wulfsiege grounds or that had caused such damage as she now assessed.
The north window had been busted out, and she couldn’t be sure if the surrounding wall was stable. The medieval castle walls were thick, but she had felt the walls and floors shake, as if an earthquake had occurred. She had to find Liam, he was the only pack member she knew who might be able to make an assessment on the structure thanks to his past, which involved a stint as a construction foreman.
She’d rallied two wolves to move everyone they could find in the castle to the south rooms and the keep, which was the sturdiest place she could imagine, with nine-foot-thick limestone walls and which had originally been built to keep out enemy invaders.
Today, the snow had proved a malicious invader.
She briefly wondered if her sister, Lana, had made it to safety, and then knew she must be with her fiancé, Sven. Surely, the Nordic Warrior, as some in the pack called the blond bruiser, would protect her. Lexi wanted to look for her, but more urgent was ensuring her father’s safety. She hadn’t gotten to his room to let him know the courier had arrived before the avalanche struck. The principal’s room was in the south tower, and he was the first she’d radioed when the avalanche had struck. He hadn’t responded, but he was ill, so he could have slept through it all. She hoped for that. Father didn’t need another thing stressing him out and pushing him closer to the unstable edge he trod.
Liam raced past her with a bleeding wolf in arm. The Irish werewolf was broad and stout, quiet yet constant. “He was just outside the doors and was slammed up against the glass when it hit,” he explained to her. “His body must have been crushed but he’s breathing.”
“Natalie and Reese are setting up triage in the keep. Take him there. Have you been able to get outside? Do we know who was outside?”
Liam shook his head. “Where’s Vince?”
Vincent Rapel was pack scion and had assumed control over the pack during the principal’s sickness. Vince was a dutiful, capable wolf who would seek her immediately at any sign of trouble, because he understood Lexi’s standing in the pack. She may be a female, but she was truly the second in command under her father’s reign. She handled the security for the castle, and nothing happened here without her knowledge. Chatelaine was her unofficial title, which she liked much better than the official one she had been born with—princess.
“I hope Vince is all right,” she said under her breath as she observed the scatter of wolves heading toward the safe sections of the castle.
A sound on the roof alerted her, and she nodded, confirming what she knew but hadn’t come to mind until now. “The roof access. The best way to get a good look at the damage.”
Racing toward the escalator, which was stalled because the avalanche must have taken out the electricity, she took the unmoving stairs