Alpine Attraction: Alphas in the Wild, #2

Alpine Attraction

Alphas in the Wild, Book Two

By

Ann Gimpel

Dark. Daunting. Unforgettable.

Survival adds a demanding edge to love in the wilds.

Copyright Page

All rights reserved.

Copyright © December 2015, Ann Gimpel

Cover Art Copyright © November 2015, Fiona Jayde

Edited by: Angela Kelly

Names, characters, and incidents depicted in this book are products of the author’s imagination, or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or people living or dead, is entirely coincidental and beyond the intent of the author.

No part of this book may be reproduced or shared by any electronic or mechanical means, including but not limited to printing, file sharing, e-mail, or web posting without written permission from the author.

Publishing history:

Released by Liquid Silver Books in May 2013. Re-released by Ann Gimpel and Dream Shadow Press in December 2015. This book has been substantially rewritten.

Table of Contents

Copyright Page

Book Description

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Epilogue

Book Description:

Tina made a pact with the devil seven years ago. It’s time to pay the piper—or die.

Independent to the nth degree, Tina meets everything in her life head-on—except love. When an almost-forgotten pact with the devil returns to haunt her, Tina throws a trip to the Andes together to face her nemesis. Better to die on her feet than wait for him to make good on his threats.

Craig never understood why Tina walked out of his life years before. He’s never loved anyone like he loved her. His mountain guide service takes up all his time, but he’s never forgotten her. When his back’s been up against the wall, he’s invited her to fill in as expedition doctor, but beyond that, he’s kept his distance. Having his heart stomped on once was quite enough.

Caught between misgivings and need, Tina signs on as team doctor for one of Craig’s climbing trips to the Andes. Though he was the love of her life, she pushed him away years before to keep him safe. Even if he doesn’t love her anymore, there’s still no one she’d rather have by her side in the mountains. And if she’s going to die, she wants to make things right between them.

Chapter One

A heavy weight jammed Tina McKenzie against her mattress. The pressure doubled and then tripled. Her eyes snapped open, but her bedroom was inky black, and she couldn’t see a thing. Breathing became a struggle. Her physician-trained brain panicked. She writhed against an invisible mass on top of her.

It pushed back.

A burned odor with overtones of death and rot invaded her nostrils. It smelled like the cadaver lab but without formalin. Insidious cold seeped into her bones. Whatever held her down was freezing her from the inside out. Her heart stuttered. Breath clogged in her throat, unable to move past her squashed larynx. How long could she live without oxygen before she sustained brain damage? A few minutes at best. Her mind shied away from what was happening. The thing in her bedroom wasn’t human. It couldn’t be; it wasn’t breathing.

Shit. I’m going to die here.

In full panic mode, she thrashed against her unseen assailant, but she couldn’t budge it more than an inch or so. No point wasting energy screaming. She lived so remotely, no one would hear. She tried to raise her arms, but they were pinned against her sides. A flickering white haze fractured her vision.

People don’t die in dreams.

Nice try. I’m not dreaming, another inner voice chimed in.

No, you are not dreaming. A guttural voice sounded deep in her mind.

Accented, it reminded her of... Understanding slammed home and left her reeling. It wasn’t possible. Shivers cascaded down her body. Her blood turned to ice.

Good, the voice continued, silky smooth, almost like a macabre caress. You remember me.

What? she sputtered, You can read my thoughts?

Of course. He chuckled, but the sound was ominous. You made me a promise. I gave you seven years. They’ve nearly expired. Consider yourself fortunate I was kind enough to remind you.

Y-you tracked me down? Her teeth chattered.

The chuckle morphed into a laugh. I have always known where to find you. Did you delude yourself you were invisible here in the United States? Blood for blood, doctor. You owe me.

As quickly as it had come, the pressure squeezing the life out of her body vanished. Tina shot to a sitting position and sucked air until her oxygen-starved lungs calmed. She wanted to scream—to curl into a ball and howl—but she was afraid if she gave in to hysteria, she’d never get herself under control again.

Even though common sense told her the danger had passed, she couldn’t stop shaking. Once she thought her legs might support her, she tottered to the window, grasped the light-blocking drapes, and shoved them aside. Medical school and residency had destroyed her natural sleep-wake cycle. She’d installed the room-darkening shades in an attempt to normalize it, except it hadn’t worked. She still was awake until very late. Most nights she struggled to get four hours sleep.

Still numb and shaking, she gazed out the window. The glass frosted with cold told her it must’ve dipped below freezing last night. The sky in the east held a pearlescent cast. Dawn. It would be a sunny autumn day in Leadville, Colorado. Too bad the sun wouldn’t percolate into her soul. Tina wrapped her arms around herself. She was so cold she wondered if she’d ever get warm again.

Think, she commanded herself. There’s got to be a way out of this.

Yeah, like what?

Years had passed since she entered into what she’d always considered a pact with the devil. The farther she’d gotten from that nightmare in the Andes, the more certain she’d become that she’d never have to keep her end of the bargain. So much for that pipedream.

Tina walked to her dresser. She tugged the ragged, sweat-soaked T-shirt over her head and surveyed her bedroom. For once in her life she was unsure what to do. Gooseflesh rose, a visceral reminder of her nakedness. She pulled black sweatpants and a top out of a drawer and put them on, followed by ankle socks and her running shoes. She picked up her iPhone to consult its calendar and then dropped it back onto the top of the dresser. October 15th. In two months and ten days, her time would be up.

Adrenaline shot through her. Her stomach roiled. Bile burned the back of her throat. She strode down the hall and stopped in the kitchen long enough to pour water and beans into the coffee maker and set the timer. Knowing she’d have hot coffee waiting when she returned, she let herself out the back door and sucked in a restless breath. The vista of the Rockies, jagged against a bluebird sky, usually soothed her.

Not today.

Her jogging route was always the same: eight miles and two thousand feet of climbing. It took a little less than ninety minutes. She did it every day she was home, regardless of the weather. In winter it took longer because she used snowshoes.

Tina turned to glance at the buff-colored, turn-of-the-century, two-story farmhouse she called home. It had been in her family for ages. A few miles out of town, she’d always considered the location perfect because no one bothered her.

Wind bullied the last of the leaves off the aspen trees. She debated returning to fetch a hat, but didn’t want to go back inside. Her house wasn’t hers anymore. The thing—mountain spirit or shaman or whatever the fuck he was—had invaded her territory. It felt sullied. Unclean.

I’m going to have to get over that.

She didn’t believe in the paranormal. She was a scientist, goddammit, trained to believe in what she could see and feel and touch, in what was illuminated under her microscope when she worked in an Emergency Room. Her experience nearly seven years before had been so surreal, she’d relegated it to high altitude hypoxia.

Tina ran hard to clear her mind, except it didn’t work. Sweat slicked her sides. Her breath came fast. She’d buried the memory of what happened in Bolivia, but it came roaring back with a vengeance, almost as if it resented the hell out of the subterranean prison she’d confined it to at the very bottom of her psyche.

* * * *

Seven years ago in the Andes

Tina struggled against wind. It wanted to flatten her, or worse, blow her off Illimani’s long, summit ridgeline. She was by herself. Twenty-two hundred vertical feet separated her from her camp on the edge of the glacier.

At least I can still see, she muttered. And I got the summit.

She glanced at her watch illuminated in the beam of her headlamp. One in the morning. Normally, she would’ve waited until around then to start climbing, but wind shrieking like a banshee had made it impossible to sleep. She’d set up her camp at eight p.m. and headed for the mountaintop without stopping to think too hard. She wanted Illimani’s summit. It was the second highest peak in Bolivia and a huge massif with five separate highpoints.

And now I’ve done it.

Careful, a different inner voice cautioned. Ninety percent of climbing accidents happen on the way down.

A vicious blast of wind buffeted her. Tina slammed one of her ice axes into the snow to anchor herself to the mountain. As if her grim thoughts were prophetic, clouds descended, obliterating what had been a clear sky in a matter of minutes.

What the fuck?

She peered through impenetrable muck and halted her descent. Shit, she muttered. I can’t see. Surely the clouds were a momentary event. They’d pass, especially in this wind. They had to. Minutes ticked by. Visibility eroded even farther. She took a steadying breath and then another. No sat phone. No radio. No one even knew where she was.

Yeah, I broke a bunch of really important rules.

This peak was supposed to be easy.

Oh, shut up.

Got to pull myself together. Tina spoke out loud to calm herself. She visualized where she’d been on the mile-long ridge. She’d passed the false summit, so she had to be close to the lip that dropped off a fifty-degree cliff. Her heart thudded against her ribs. She panted from more than the twenty thousand foot altitude. She swallowed, but dry throat tissue grated against itself. Stooping, she gathered some snow in a glove, made a ball out of it, and placed it in her mouth.

Another blast of wind was so intense she planted her other axe. Get going, she instructed herself. Now.

Moving by feel, one painstaking step at a time, Tina worked out a rhythm. She probed the snow ahead with an axe. If it held, she moved down to