“Sure thing. You want me to call a tow truck as well?”
“There’s little point—the SUV went over the drop.”
“You all the way down there? Fuck, you’re lucky to be alive.”
“Tell me about it.”
“You’d better stay put. Once I call the ranger, I’ll contact my pack and get them to bring down some climbing gear. We’ll likely need it to get you out. Sit tight.”
“I will.” I paused. “You got a name?”
“Ryan Marin. You?”
“Lizzie Grace.”
“The witch who runs the amazing cake place in Castle Rock?”
It was interesting he mentioned that rather than my relationship with Aiden, but maybe he simply cared more about cakes than relationships. He sounded more like a teenager than an adult. “The same.”
“Then I’m glad I happened by. We definitely can’t afford to lose your cake-making skills.”
I laughed. “You won’t.”
“Good. Hang five. I won’t be long.”
Silence fell, and the darkness closed in. The rain continued to pound down, dripping from the canopy above and running in little rivers past my thighs. I might be wearing a coat, but it wasn’t covering my legs, and my jeans were utterly soaked.
But at least the rain was all I had to worry about right now. The energy that had sent the SUV off the road had disappeared, and I had no sense that anything or anyone else was near—not even the wild magic. Which was rather odd, given how close I was to Katie’s wellspring.
Obviously, something else had her attention.
Was that something her pack? Her family?
Aiden?
I shoved the thought away and told myself to stop worrying over every little thing beyond my control. But it was a hard thing to achieve when I’d spent half my life doing just that.
I looked around again, this time for my backpack, and spotted it a few meters further up the slope. I crawled toward it, alternating between digging my fingers into the soft soil and gripping onto the sharp but crushed needlewood branches to keep balance. The effort left me shaking. There was no way known I was going to get up the rest of this hill without help.
I found my knife not too far away from my pack, and once it was safely tucked inside to ensure there was no chance of it harming my werewolf rescuers, I sat back and waited.
Getting wetter, colder, and more miserable by the minute.
Eventually, the musky scent of wolf touched the cold air. I wiped the rain from my face and looked up. Though I couldn’t see anything, I knew there were three of them up there.
“You still okay?” Ryan asked.
“I am.”
“I’ve got my dad and brother here. They’re going to rappel down and rescue you. Won’t be long.”
“Awesome. Thank you.”
A few minutes later, two men appeared out of the rainy gloom. They were both wearing full wet weather gear and were coming down the slope at a speed that would have alarmed the hell out of me.
The bigger of the two jumped to the right when he neared my position and then stopped. Teeth flashed in his brown, handsome face. “You got yourself into a bit of a pickle, didn’t you?”
“I did. Sorry to drag you both out on a night like this.”
“Wouldn’t be the first time we’ve had to rescue someone from a rollover,” the second—and younger of the two—said. “I dare say it won’t be the last. The road is utter shit in this sort of weather.”
It hadn’t been the weather or the road that had caused the rollover, but I didn’t bother telling them that.
“You’re the local rescue unit?”
The older man nodded. “The name’s George, and this is my eldest, Harry. Ryan—my youngest—will be working the pulley to help you up.”
I took a deep breath and released it slowly. “Good, because I’m not sure I’d keep my footing too well on this damn ground.”
“Even we werewolves struggle in shit weather like this. You able to walk?”
I nodded. “The airbags and the seat belt did their jobs, thank God.”
“And the blood I can smell?”
“Small cuts on my face from the broken side window.”
He grunted and pulled a second harness over his head. “You able to slip this on?”
I handed him my backpack and did so. He checked all the clips were properly secured, then snapped on a rope. I instantly felt a hundred percent better, even though I had a long climb still ahead of me.
“Right,” he said evenly. “Ready to go up?”
When I nodded, his smile flashed. “Good. Ryan, we’re all set down here.”
The rope instantly tightened, and I slowly began the ascent up the steep hillside. The two men kept close, catching my arms to steady me when my feet slipped.
It took ages to reach the top. A tall, lanky figure came into view, and his wide smile briefly lit the gloom. But he continued to work the pulley system until I was back on solid ground.
I undid the harness with shaking fingers and handed it to him. The sheer and utter sense of relief had tears stinging my eyes and my legs threatening to collapse.
I sucked in another of those breaths that really didn’t do a whole lot and then said, “I’m not sure I can thank you all enough, but you can expect free cake and coffee whenever you’re in my neck of the woods.”
Ryan grinned. “You can keep the coffee, but cake never goes astray.”
“And he can eat mountains of the stuff,” Harry said with a laugh. “You may end up regretting that offer.”
“I’d have regretted going over the edge of the cliff more.”
“That is a certainty,” George said. “We called an ambulance, but they won’t be able to traverse this road. We’ll be meeting them at the turnoff instead. Are your legs stable enough now to walk to the truck?”
I smiled. “No, but I’ll nevertheless make it over there. The sooner I’m out of here, the better.”
“A sentiment I totally agree with,” Harry said.
Once I was safely tucked into the back of their four-wheel drive, they retrieved all the climbing gear and then jumped into the truck and headed down the road. There were several sections that had been partially washed out or were covered by the rubble of a landslip. If it hadn’t been for that rush of energy I’d felt just before the SUV tumbled, I might have been tempted to believe it was an accident.
But it wasn’t, and I needed to find out why.
Of course, it was possible that the thing that’d drained the man in the caravan simply wanted me out of the way, but that then begged the question … how had it even known about me?
Had it spotted me in the forest behind the van and investigated who I was? Or did the wild magic have something to do with it? Given dark entities could sense its presence, maybe it could feel me through it.
Katie might know, but to ask, I needed to get hold of her.
Which reminded me … “Ryan, did you manage to get hold of the ranger?”
He twisted around to look at me. “Yes. He said he’d be waiting at the top of the road with the ambulance.”
The goddamn tears threatened again. I blinked and told myself to get a grip. I was not going to fall apart the minute I saw the man. The relationship might or might not be teetering on the edge, but I had more pride than that.