Free Alaskan Fire by Sara King Page A

had a penchant for tobacco.  She was also pretty
sure he hadn’t visited in something nearing a decade.
    A quick inspection of the dusty interior
told her that the cabin had no phone, which wasn’t very surprising, considering
that it was mostly only the lodges and full-time residents who could afford the
cost, upkeep, and long-term maintenance of a full-fledged satellite phone
system.  The only thing the little cabin did have, she discovered, was a
pretty complicated radio.  The cabin’s owner, it appeared, liked his music.
    After discovering the pantry and
its meager supply of expired canned goods, Blaze slumped into the main couch
with a can of tuna and, after cracking the lid with the temperamental
old-school can-opener that she had found hanging from a nail nearby, ate fish
from the can with her fingers, reveling in how wonderful it tasted after such a
long, chilly hike through the woods.
    Can demolished, she sat there
trying to figure out what to do next. 
    She had a… thing …occupying
her lodge, convinced it was a werewolf.  Or a wereverine.  Or something. 
Something really big and ugly and with lots of teeth.  God, she needed the
authorities.  That, and about six different guns each with a thousand rounds of
ammunition, all strapped to her chest in her best impression of Rambo.  Let the
little twit fuck with her then.
    Blaze leaned back, feeling the
first warm tingles of exhaustion dragging at her chest.  It was hard to
walk through the woods.  Like trying to keep your balance on an ever-changing,
never-level earthquake reproduction machine with built-in tripping mechanisms.
    God, she was tired.  Until now,
she’d never really liked tuna, but as it had been the only choice aside from
canned Great Northern beans and baby onions, the little pack of fish had tasted
better than anything she’d ever eaten before.  Blaze knew that was probably just
the exhaustion speaking, but at the moment, she was too tired to critique
culinary merit in the middle of the damn woods, on the lam from a guy who
thought he was a medieval monster, born again to terrorize some really tall
chick on her own property in the wilderness.
      I really have to find a way
back to town, Blaze thought, as she started drifting off.  She had seen
other cabins from the lakeside, when she had gone down to figure out where she
was.  Tomorrow, she would spend the day circling the lake, hoping to find a
permanent resident with a telephone.
    Blaze had only been asleep an
hour, maybe an hour and a half, before the door slammed inward, imbedding
itself in the little stove that marked the beginning of the cabin’s tiny
kitchenette.  Blaze screamed and tried to scramble to her feet.
    “All right,” the fanged, taloned, drooling monster in the doorway roared, “since you seem to be intent on
doing things the hard way, wench, I’m thinking I should just bury you in the
damn hill and be done with it!”  He stepped inside and slammed the door behind
him, making the windows rattle in their frames, trapping Blaze in the tiny room
with the wereverine.
    Blaze cried out and backed up
until her spine was pressed up against the back wall.
    Growling, the wereverine strode
towards her—
    —and yanked a chair off the
middle of the floor, dragged it back until it was positioned directly in front
of the only exit, and sat down hard enough to make the wood squeak.
    “You,” the wereverine growled at
her, pointing a taloned hand at the window over the lake, “almost made it off
my territory, you long-legged pain in the ass.”  As he spoke, his form shifted
back to something more human, until the only bit of monster showing was the way
his canines extended past his lips in a snarl.  “Do you know what
would’ve happened to you if the fauns caught you on their land?”
    “Accost me, tie me up, fling me
over their shoulder, lick me, and try to convince me not to tell the
police?” Blaze snapped.
    He gave her a flat green stare. 
“They