Lion Conquers All by Krystal Shannan

15

CONNIE

Connie handed out Styrofoam cups full of steaming hot coffee to the volunteers and friends and family to the Roberts and Hardisty’s. She paused at the map table. Every time one of the teams would check in, it would get marked off the list. Helen Tragher and her oldest were manning the maps right now.

The big black hand-held radio on the table crackled to life. “This is Veer checking in, Flat Rock blind is a negative.”

“Got it, thanks.” Oscar Tragher put a black line through the name of the blind on the long list and then drew a small black circle on the search map of the area that’d been taped to a large freestanding whiteboard. His mother was right next to him, checking over the list.

“It’s only been two hours and they’ve gotten to half a dozen of the blinds further up the mountain than anyone should’ve been able to get to three hours or more.” She leaned against the table, closer to Connie. “Veer and Ivann, Shenn and Raj…how are they moving so fast? Except it’s not just them. The other newcomers are moving just as fast. They’ve already checked three on their list while Ditrich and Grigory got to their first blind ten minutes ago. Those guys know that mountain. They grew up on the mountain.”

Connie didn’t have a good answer. The Reylean’s had promised not to shift, but it didn’t mean they still couldn’t out-hike and out-track any human on the planet. They were part predator.

“Connie. How did they know they could do more? Why did they get more assignments over others? Oh, and Ditrich and Grigory are headed back.” Helen kept her voice low, but she was like a wolf with a bone. She wasn’t letting it drop.

“Special training?” Connie gave a half smile and shrugged her shoulders. “Ex-military?”

“Maybe. But all of them? I mean, they certainly have that look. Like they’ve seen war. Especially the really new guys at the firehouse search and rescue. The newest ones. My husband has PTSD and those guys definitely have it too, but they are kind. I’ve never seen them lose their temper with anyone that didn’t deserve it. And I’ve seen them verbally tear apart a man, threaten him physically, and then turn and a millisecond later be sweet and polite to a woman. Like nothing had happened.”

“They have good standards.” Connie smiled. Out of any person in town, she knew she could trust the Reyleans who lived here never to hurt her or any woman. It was more than she could say for some of the human males in Mystery.

Helen gave a dry non-believing laugh. “Sure. You stick with that story then.”

“What?” Connie gave her best please-believe-me-smile. “You don’t think they’re ex-military?”

“Oh, that’s quite possibly true. But you know more than you’re sharing, missy.” Helen tapped a pencil against her mouth. “Our deputy has special eyes for you. There’s not more than a half-second at a time when he’s not watching you. And the others speak to you first when they come into the building, even the big scary dude, Col.”

Well, shit.

Connie stole a quick glance at Aarav. He was at the front doors of the gym, the Anchorage Search and Rescue team had just arrived. They were setting up tables and piling equipment inside. Many of the people milling about the community center had gone outside to help them unload their trucks.

“Are you ever going to give the deputy a chance, Connie?”

Connie turned back to Helen and tears burned at the back of her eyes. “I want to. For the first time in a really long time, I do want to try.”

Helen walked around the table and put her arms around Connie, wrapped her in the perfect mom hug. She put her mouth next to Connie’s ear and spoke gently. “I don’t know what you’ve been through, sweet girl, but I know you deserve to be happy. And that man has made your happiness his life’s mission.”

Connie hugged her back, taking the comfort Helen offered. It was rare for anyone to touch her. Even women. She didn’t flinch or avoid women on purpose, but her natural inclination to hang back and not join groups kept her out of situations where people became familiar enough for hugging.

Nobody was a stranger to Helen Tragher. She loved on everyone in Mystery with abandon. And it was genuine. Her boys were the same way. Connie had never met wilder, crazier, more death-defying young men, but they were the sweetest teenagers and young adults on the planet. They would do anything for you, just like their mom and dad. Their father was one of the volunteers out on the mountain right now.

“Go have a cup of coffee. You look like you could use the boost. We’ve got this. Until the Anchorage fellows decide to take over, Oscar and I have it covered.” Helen walked back around to the other side of the map table and picked up the clipboard with the master list of sites Gaven had provided.

Coffee did sound nice. Honestly, a nap sounded better, but that wasn’t going to happen any time soon. Coffee it is.

She grabbed herself a cup from the station at the back of the gym and watched as the gym filled with even more people and equipment. Her phone beeped in her pocket. She pulled it out and glanced at the storm warning that’d popped up.

Dammit.

Snow was falling already. She could see it through the front doors where people were helping to unload Search and Rescue equipment. She wiped a tear from her face before it could trail down her cheek.

The window was gone.

This was it.

Search and Rescue wouldn’t go out until the storm passed. The guys who were already out there were those kids’ only hope. Surely they were at one of the blinds. Surely they hadn’t gone somewhere unfamiliar.

She leaned back against the wall and took a deep shuddering breath. Her heart was in her throat. Her lungs felt like dead weights inside her chest.

For a mountain town, this rarely happened. Kids were raised here knowing how to take care of themselves. Everyone learned about the weather. Everyone learned basic survival and camping skills. Everyone learned how to change a tire. What to carry in your car in case you got stuck on the side of the road. All the emergency preparedness you could think of…they knew it. It was taught starting in elementary school.

A painful cry silenced the room.

All eyes fell on the sobbing mother standing next to Aarav and a couple of the Anchorage SAR guys. It was Sam Robert’s mom. Her husband was holding her from collapsing all the way to the floor.

Connie didn’t need to know what was being said.

Everyone in town knew.

The storm was here. It wasn’t safe to go out. SAR had to wait until the storm passed.

Right now, they were all praying for the men who’d gone out earlier to get back safely. And perhaps for a miracle that one of the teams would stumble upon the kids and bring them back, too.

Connie let her back slide down the wall until her butt hit the floor. She leaned her head forward, resting her forehead against her knees. There wasn’t anything else to do. There wasn’t anything for her to fix. No one was hurt. She was as useless as everyone else in this building.

They were all waiting.

“Hey.” Aarav’s voice was so close, so soft. She liked it. She liked the gravelly sound and the way her body warmed when he was nearby.

Connie looked up from her knees.

“You okay?”

“Yeah. I wish there was something I could do. I wish we had known faster. Started looking faster. I don’t know. I just—”

Aarav gestured to the floor next to her. Connie nodded, giving permission.

He turned and let his back slide down the wall until he was sitting shoulder to shoulder. He was warm and smelled kinda great. Connie caught herself before she asked him to purr again. That wouldn’t really go over well in such a public place.

“I don’t think the kids are at one of her mother’s sites.”

Connie released a deep breath and let her head nod slowly. She didn’t think so either. They would’ve found at least some trace of them before now. Anything. Even a fresher campfire.

“Which means we wouldn’t have found them, even if we had started hours earlier. They didn’t leave a trail.”

“On purpose.” Aarav leaned a little closer. “They ran away. They aren’t just out for a camping trip.”

“Dammit.” The curse slipped out between her lips. She hadn’t wanted to consider that possibility, but he was right. “Do you think they’re even on the mountain at all?”

It was his turn to release a slow breath. “I don’t know. We’ll know more when Ryder reports back. Maybe if the boys saw them before the storm hit.”

“Didn’t Ryder leave hours ago. Did he…shift?”

“Yes. The three juveniles are almost always in their beasts. But I saw them when I went out to the Tragher boys’ camp site.”

Connie’s heart leapt in her chest. “What were they doing around the children? Was everyone okay?”

“Connie. They are teenage boys at heart too. They were curious. They were watching from a distance. We saw them when the boys went back to my patrol car with me.”

“The Traghers saw them?”

“It’s fine, Connie.”

“But it’s not fine. You don’t understand what could happen. It would only take one person. One mean selfish person making a comment to the wrong person. And then everything would change.”

She leaned closer to Aarav, soaking up his warmth.

To hell with it.

She twisted her body and wrapped an arm around his shoulder and laid her head over his heart. The soft thunk thunk soothed her nerves. The scent of him filled her lungs. The strange energy that flowed through her every time they touched calmed her fear. It wasn’t as good as his purr, but it was enough for her to head off the approaching panic attack.

He moved an arm to wrap around her shoulder, pulling her tighter. Then he relaxed and moved his hand to her hair. He stroked through the tangled strands, slowly running his fingers through it piece by piece, smoothing it out.

The way he alternated between tugging at tangles and stroking through the smooth parts lulled her away from every other thought running rampant in her mind. She might have even dozed for a few minutes. She wasn’t sure.

She was only sure that she was safe. And right now, that was enough.