In the Shadow of the Wolf Read online

  Well, the hot dream was over and she was wide awake. There was no point in lying in bed anymore. She couldn't get back to her strange wolf like lover if she wanted to. She needed to get up and get going on having some fun and meeting some potential baby-makers.

  First, she realized as she sat up and tossed her legs over the side of the bed, she needed to go to the gym to work out some of the soreness in her body. Her muscles were excruciatingly sore and in some weird places, but then, that was to be expected, especially since she was sure that she hadn't been skiing appropriately. Getting out of bed, she made her way over to her suitcase, which she had placed on a dresser by the door, and got an outfit out that would be easy to work out in.

  After she had showered and gotten dressed, she examined the map that laid out the facilities of the lodge and found the gym. Leaving her bedroom, she noticed the clock on the kitchen stove indicated it was only seven o'clock. Even though she'd promised herself that she was going to be more spontaneous on this trip, which was why she hadn't requested a wake up call, she was glad that her inner clock had gotten her up at her usual time. It was a good time to workout. The gym would most likely be empty.

  She liked it better that way. She didn't really like being alone most of the time, but working out was one of those times when she especially didn't want anyone paying her any attention. She never felt attractive in her day to day life, but she particularly didn't really feel very attractive working out. Who could feel attractive when you are sweating, breathing hard, and making strange faces as you strain with heavy equipment? It was good that she had decided to start the day with a workout, as she always did back home in the city. She did want to try to be as spontaneous as possible, but she didn't think it was a good idea to get out of the habit of working out first thing in the morning, especially if she was going to get pregnant. She didn't want to get out of shape during her pregnancy. It would make being a single mom that much harder on her, and besides, she needed to set a good example for her child.

  Throwing on a her thick jacket that she'd hung on the coat rack by the front door, Sayuri slipped her already sneaker encased feet into her large snow boots and headed out the door and to the main part of the lodge where the gym was located. It didn't take long to find the work out room located in the basement.

  The sounds of equipment and muffled voices reached her ears before she actually saw the interior of the room. Her brow furrowed in disappointment when she heard the sounds. Damn. Who in the world was working out this early in the morning?

  But as she rounded the corner in the hall and got a glimpse of who was occupying the gym, she forgot all about her initial disappointment at discovering that she wouldn't be able to workout solo. It took a few minutes for everything to really sink in, but when it did, she couldn't help the shock that stole over her entire being.

  Not only was Faolan, the gorgeous sullen man that had been so short with her the day before, in the room, with his shirt off and his glistening muscles straining with heavy equipment, but he had two other handsome men with him that were also impossibly good looking and, wouldn't you know it, shirtless.

  Trying to recover from her shock at the wall of man meat before her, Sayuri quickly closed her mouth. The men hadn't noticed her. That was good. They hadn't gotten an eye full of her staring at them like she was some sex crazed maniac who was trying to stalk them. But another problem presented itself. She was all set to work out, but she didn't know how comfortable she would feel going into the room with Faolan, especially after the way he had acted toward her the day before. The urge to take flight and run all the way back to her cozy cabin was tempting. She bit her lip in indecision.

  No, she wouldn't tuck tail and run. She had paid for this vacation, and she had the right to use the damn gym, too. She also had the right to walk right in there and pretend as if Faolan didn't exist, and that was exactly what she was going to do. She wasn't going to let one guy ruin her good time or her workout. Well, he might make her feel uncomfortable despite all her efforts to the contrary, but she was going to do her best to not let any of that on. And, who knew, perhaps she could get some interested glances from one of his companions. She had every intention of looking for men with possibility today, and they completely fit the bill.

  She opened the glass door to the gym, her head and vision pointed in the opposite end of the room from the guys. She didn't look over in their direction, but she did hear them stop working out for a moment as she took off her coat and hung it on a hook and kicked off the snow boots that encased her sneaker clad feet and walked over to some equipment on the other side of the room from them to start working out. The silence seemed very loud in the room, almost overwhelming her conviction to stay, but she was determined to ignore it and appear as if she was completely focused on her workout.

  She stood with her back to the men and examined a row of equipment for a few minutes, anxious and tense, but soon she was flooded with relief when she heard the guys begin their workout again. Maybe they weren't paying her any attention now.

  She was so twisted. One moment, she was thinking about how she needed to meet a man and have a baby, and the next she was thankful that three gorgeous men weren't paying her the least bit of attention, three gorgeous men who would make beautiful babies. That was what she needed if she was going to get what she wanted. It was just hard, focusing on catching a man when she'd never been good at it, hard to act as if she wasn't totally aware of them, hard to act as if she was confident in catching a man when she was probably the most hopeless and helpless woman when it came to relationships that had ever lived. If she got laid once while she was on vacation she should count herself lucky. If she got pregnant at all it was going to be an act of a merciful god.

  She went through a routine on some of the equipment, which was extremely difficult since she was having a hard time staying focused since the group of delectable men were in her direct line of vision and she could make out every detail of their glistening, sexy toned muscular bodies.

  Now that Faolan wasn't in a snow suit, she could tell a lot more about him. She'd noticed before that he was tall, nearly a full foot taller than her, and dark. He was very muscular, every bit of his upper torso was perfectly defined, but not in a bulky sense. He had a sort of rangy or lanky look to him, a build much like a swimmer's physique. His shaggy hair was a deep shade of black and fell just below his chin. She couldn't see his eyes from across the room, but she didn't think she'd ever forget their intoxicating shade of dark green, eyes the likes of which she had never seen before. It was without a doubt that he was the dark one of the group. It was almost as if he had an ominous thunder cloud that was hanging over him, and even now that he wasn't talking to her directly, now that he was surrounded by what she assumed were his friends or at least men that he felt sociable with because they worked together, he seemed to be even tempered-evenly bad most of the time that is.

  The other two men talked a little. She couldn't make out what they were saying over the sounds of the machine she was using. His friends seemed at ease, comfortable as they talked. Faolan remained stonily silent, like a dark obelisk in their midst. He was obviously not very articulate even among his co-workers-a man of few words. She thought that she rather liked that about him, though. In the city, every man she'd met had a thousand things to say, usually topics centering around them or the expensive toys they bought that they felt defined them as men. Finding a man that chose his words carefully was a rare feat indeed. Or perhaps she just liked that he was the silent brooding type, imagining that he was like some romance novel hero who was dark because he had a tortured past. When they were quiet and mysterious, you could imagine they had all sorts of character. She supposed that's what made them so great, you filled in all the blanks with what you wanted.

  The next man in the group that she examined was a few inches shorter than Faolan. But, from what she could tell from across the room, he seemed broader than him. He was also sculpted like some ancient Greek statue
. She wondered briefly if it was the skiing or the gym that had created their scrumptious physiques, she wasn't going to complain either way. His shoulder length icy blond hair wasn't tied back, it fell into his face repeatedly as he worked out. She couldn't tell what color his eyes were, just that they were light. She wondered briefly if they were blue. It was so rare to see blue eyes and blond hair. It was such a compelling combination that you almost never saw an attractive man that had both that was single. She'd also heard that that was the first sperm to be sold out at sperm banks, she knew from talking to other women when she'd made an attempt at looking at that venue for impregnation, that was until she'd found out how expensive it was and how every once in a great while the woman didn't actually get the sperm she'd chosen. The entire concept had been completely unacceptable.

  When she noticed that he was looking at the clock on the wall behind her, she leaned forward a little and strained harder to try to see if he had blue eyes. A second later, his gaze shifted from the clock to her, and he caught her staring at him and winked at her playfully. Extremely embarrassed to be caught staring, she quickly diverted her attention to the fitness equipment directly in front of her. Obviously he was the flirt and the happy one, as he seemed to have a perpetual smile about him. Even when she noticed that he wasn't smiling, he just seemed to exude some sort of pleasantness about him. He had something akin to an inner glow that seemed to radiate from him. It was infectious, and it made her want to smile as well. He caught her looking at him again a few minutes later and wriggled a brow at her. Oh! He was incorrigible!

  The last man in the group was the smallest of the three, not small by any normal means of measurement, but smaller than the giants he kept company with. He was as tall as the blonde, but slender, slightly more so than Faolan, which made him the runt of their group. His hair, from what she could tell, was a dark chestnut. It was thick and fell in waves to his shoulders. She had also mistakenly made eye contact with him when she had been casting glances their way to examine them. He had been quick to look away, and she had seen what she thought was a blush as he blundered to regain his composure and tried to refocus on his workout. He must have been shy with females. Although most of the women she knew wouldn't have found shyness to be an attractive quality in a man, she thought it was an endearing quality.

  Again, she hadn't really met a lot of men like them in the city. The ill-tempered men she'd met had always been in a position in the company above her and had treated her like a pile of shit that they had wanted taken out with the rest of the garbage. They hadn't had any of the redeeming qualities that Faolan possessed. They didn't have a heroic bone in their body. If she'd been mugged right outside of her building in the company parking lot, and they had been standing right there and been witness to it, they would have just looked the other way, pretended they didn't see what was going on, convinced themselves later that they couldn't have made a difference in the situation even if they had tried.

  The flirtatious men she'd always met had never been interested in her. None of them had ever tried to work any of their well rehearsed charms on her because they were always too busy making moves on the more attractive women she worked with, those women that had a stream of bad relationships, that had all the qualities that men desired most, the women that were in every way her complete and total opposite.

  And she'd never really known any shy men. The business world just wasn't the place for them. She had been surrounded by loud-mouth, overbearing business men for what seemed like her entire life.

  Yes, every one of the men in the room was attractive, not just physically, which was more than she could have ever possibly imagined she would discover on her vacation. She just hoped against hope that perhaps one of them would find her pleasant enough to share the company of her cabin bed at least once, especially Faolan, although that looked like a lost cause. She was quite sure she had really screwed the pooch on that one. He probably thought that she was a raving lunatic and wanted to put as much distance between them as he possibly could. She wouldn't doubt it if he thought now that she was stalking him like a desperate woman because she'd run into him several times in the past twenty-four hours. She also wouldn't doubt it if he thought she'd nearly killed herself the day before on the slopes on purpose. She'd heard of women doing crazier things than that to grab the attention of a man. She felt like telling him she wasn't so desperate for a man's attention that she would risk hurting herself. She couldn't help the fact that she was a magnet for disaster. But she had a feeling he wouldn't believe her if she pleaded her case, besides, if she did, she'd wind up sounding desperate, exactly what she didn't want.

  * * * *

  Ulrich could smell the scent of his alpha on the woman. He had picked up the scent the moment she had walked through the door. When he glanced over at Torolf, he could tell from his expression that he had also picked up the scent, and he didn't look any happier about it than he himself did. He knew the only reason that it was so strong was because Faolan had done the unthinkable. He had marked her. He exchanged a look with Torolf and then they turned in unison to give Faolan a knowing look.

  Faolan snarled at them under his breath for their close scrutiny, but he didn't have to guess at their thoughts. He knew exactly why they were looking at him like that. And he didn't give a damn. He was the pack alpha. He didn't have to explain himself to them.

  Ulrich could feel his beast raging beneath the surface because of the scent of his alpha on the woman across the room. His beast was going to drive him insane if he had to endure it much longer, and he knew that Torolf was struggling with his demons as well.

  Ulrich watched her work out, continuing to feel his beast trying to take over, fighting for dominion over his self-control. The woman was now doing jumping jacks which caused her delicious breasts to bounce up and down until his eyeballs were rattling in his head and he had the beginnings of a headache. She proceeded from there to doing stretching by touching her toes and turning her ass up at them until it was all he could do to keep from striding across the room and mounting her right then and there. He envisioned doing just that, and he could feel his beast aroused to new heights by the lust she incited in him.

  * * * *

  Sayuri worked hard to draw out her workout, but when none of the three handsome men came over to speak to her, she knew she might as well leave because she wasn't going to get up the nerve to strike up a conversation with any of them herself, not after what had happened between her and Faolan. Several other guests came in, and she decided it was time to get on with her day. She went to the door to gather her belongings before she headed out of the main building and back to her cabin to take a shower.

  As she laid down her clothes in a lodge bin in front of the sink area in the bathroom, something dark on her pale skin caught her attention out of the corner of her eye in the mirror. She had already turned on the shower and the heat from the water had begun to fog up the glass. She swiped at it to try to get a better look at what she had seen. There were some strange bruises on her neck and chest and an odd mark on her breast. The bruises she figured were from one of her many falls the day before, but the mark-she couldn't think of how that could have gotten there. She mentally shrugged at the injury. She was such a klutz. There was really no telling how she had gotten herself all banged up. She stepped into the shower that was waiting for her and let the heat consume her. It was just what she needed. The hot water soothed away her worries, the tiredness of her muscles, washed away her doubts about her ability to secure the company of a man, at least for a little while.

  She was still sore in spite of the workout and a long shower and decided that it would be best to take it a little easier for the day. What she needed to do was something that was a little less physically daunting. She didn't remember everything that she had seen when she had purchased her room that the resort had listed among their activities. She would have to go back to the main lobby and get one of their brochures.

  Once she made her wa
y through the thick snow back to the main lobby, she found the display with all of the brochures she'd seen when she had first arrived. One of the other tourists noticed her at the front desk flipping through a brochure that offered details on resort activities.

  "You know," the woman said, a pleasant smile lighting up her features, "this resort has a horse-drawn sleigh ride. My husband and I went on it yesterday, and it was just wonderful. You should really give it a try if you're looking for something to do. It's a great break from skiing everywhere. You have to wait in a short line, but it doesn't take that long, and it's worth every minute."

  Sayuri smiled at the woman. "Why, thank you for the suggestion. That sounds like an excellent idea. I've never been on a sleigh ride. Where do you sign up?" she asked as she slipped the activity brochure into an interior pocket of her thick jacket.

  "The line is behind the rental building. There's plenty of other guests to talk to while you wait, or you can explore the gift shop if you don't want to wait out in the cold."

  "Thanks again," Sayuri said as she made her way out the front doors of the main building to make her way over to the rental building.

  The woman was right. It was a wonderful idea. Besides, after all she'd been through since she'd come to this place, she could use something where she just kicked back and relaxed. Surely there wasn't anything that could go wrong with a beautiful sleigh ride led by horses?