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 two at a time yet paused before pulling open the roof access door. It was on the wall hit by the snow. It could be unstable. Yet it was far from the shattered glass window.
She gave it a pull. It opened freely, and she was not hit with snow. Rushing up the stairs, the brisk winter air smacked her in the face and she tugged up the coat hood over her head. The sun shone too brightly for the disaster that had just occurred, which reminded her how deadly Mistress Winter could be beyond her deceptive cloak of glittering white snow.
A crew loitered at the edge of the roof, shovels in hand, and one held a long thin stick. A ski pole? The snow wall had pushed all the way up to the roof. As Lexi approached the men, she saw that the entire courtyard at the front of the castle, where visitors and pack members arrived and departed, had been covered over with snow. Probably ten to twelve feet deep, she decided, and it had pushed all the way up to the doors of the storage shed, where they kept the snowplow and pack vehicles.
Two men were carefully making their way down the snow mountains formed up against the castle walls.
“What’s the situation?” she asked anyone who would answer, noting that Vince was not standing in the crew. “Who is that?”
“Said his name was Trystan Hawkes,” one of the men offered. “He’s the one that suggested we go down with shovels and sticks to start looking for men. Just jumped right in and took charge. Said time is of the essence.”
Lexi lifted her chin, not sure how to take that. She liked a man who took charge and, especially in a situation like this, they needed someone to take command. But did he know what he was doing? He could be risking his life by stepping on unstable ground.
“Said he helped rescue a couple after an avalanche in Germany,” another said. “The guy knows what he’s doing. Where’s Vince?”
“I think he was with the skiers this morning,” the other man replied.
Lexi’s heart dropped. If the scion was trapped in the snow, they had only hours to get to him before the unforgiving snow crushed his lungs. While werewolves could withstand much, they were not immortal, and his death would prove slow and suffering.
She cast a glance at the man with wavy red hair who appeared to be sniffing as he walked. Even if a man were buried deeply, the werewolf’s senses should be able to track him. He towered over the pack members. A natural leader who stood out among the average. He calmly delivered instructions to the men. That command appealed to her inner need for order, and touched a curious part of her that lifted her chin and kept her eyes pinned to the bold newcomer.
“Trystan Hawkes,” she whispered against her gloved hands as she clasped them to her mouth to keep her face warm. “What have you brought to Wulfsiege?”
Chapter 2
Wind whipped icy crystals up about the site where Trystan had sensed a heartbeat under the hard-packed snow surface. He’d stowed the titanium case in a cubby near the cafeteria on the way outside. Now he instructed the three men digging to be cautious: a live body was beneath the snow. They didn’t want to cause further injury with a misplaced shovel. But, as well, they had to act quickly.
None of the pack members had been wearing transceivers, as skiers often did, so the search proved difficult. They had been digging for over an hour and the sun was falling toward the horizon. Tryst left the diggers to continue the search for more live bodies. Using a makeshift probe, a ski pole he’d broken off the basket to poke through the snow where he sensed life, he directed another team of shovelers.
“Here. He’s closer to the surface. Can you sense the heartbeat?”
The first rescuer to arrive nodded and knelt to the ground, listening. “Can’t be more than a foot under. I can hear him breathing.”
Thank the gods, werewolves had supersensitive noses and hearing.
Tryst rushed over to another trio who dug where the snow was perhaps only five feet high, near to the front of the storage shed. The ski team must have been heading in for the day, or else the avalanche had carried them this far, which seemed unreal but not out of the realm of possibility.
“Another?” he asked.
“Yes, here’s his hand.”
Tryst bent and clasped the hand sticking out of the snow. The cool fingers clasped back, strongly. Good energy there. “Hurry,” he instructed. “He’s going to be okay.”
Shouts from the first dig site brought him around to assist as they pulled a limp body from the snow. Tryst bent to listen at the wolf’s chest but didn’t hear a heartbeat. He grabbed his wrist, but the man did not react and his hand fell limply across Tryst’s leg.
“Hell, it’s Vince,” one of the wolves who had been digging said. He knelt beside Tryst and bowed his head. “Pack scion.”
Not good, Trystan knew. If the principal was ill, then the scion was the next in line to take charge. This news would shake the Alpine pack to its core.
“Bring him inside. Carefully,” he said. “There may yet be life in him. Get him to—” He didn’t know if there was a medical team on site. “Bring him to the female wolf. What’s her name? The one walking around like she’s running the place?”
“Alexis?” The man who had knelt next to Tryst smirked at him. “She likes to think she’s in charge. But yes, she’ll know what to do with Vince.” The wolf stood and ordered the men to place the scion’s body on a stretcher. “I’m Liam. Just Liam. No last name.” He offered his hand to help Tryst stand. He had a good, firm clasp and friendly eyes, and he actually met Tryst’s stare straight on because he was the same height. “What’s your name?”
“Trystan Hawkes. I had just arrived at Wulfsiege with a delivery to the principal when the avalanche roared in through the castle wall. I’m here to help for as long as you need me.”
