Zanthe (Primal Impulse Shifters Book 2) Read online

Female!

  2

  Crina

  Comprised entirely of ghost-hunting Americans, the tour group I led through a deeper section of the forest inside Apuseni Nature park in Romania, were determined to find something spooky about our trip. “So, what about the Carpathian Mountains that loom menacingly in the distance, Crina?” A skinny, mop-headed, young man named Mikey asked.

  “They’ve been around for eons.” I brushed off the silly question with ease. Then added something more relevant about the majestic mountain scene just beyond the forest made up of mostly spruce trees, “This mountain range has quite a few peaks that are above two-thousand, four-hundred meters.”

  James, the oldest of the group of ten people in their young twenties, had to ask as he seemed to always do, “What is that in feet, please?” Although his requests for American standards always ended in niceties, it didn’t make them any less annoying.

  Stopping the hike to use my arm to gesture to the size of the mountains, I had to ask, “Does the size of the peaks in feet matter, James? It is, after all, the beauty and sheer size of the formations that should be enjoyed and taken in. What do feet or meters matter, really?”

  “So, you don’t know how to make the calculations then?” Shaking his head, he made some marks in his little, tiny red notebook.

  And I should’ve let it lie right there. But I had stubborn Romanian pride to uphold. “I do know how to make the calculations, James. Seven-thousand, seventy-four feet, and some change is the number you want. I shall share the calculation with you. You simply take the number of meters. In this case, the number is what, James?”

  For reasons I couldn’t imagine, he wore a proud grin on his thin lips. “Two-thousand and four-hundred.”

  I felt he needed a verbal pat on the back for coming up with the right answer that I had seen him write down when I’d said it. But whatever. “Great job, buddy. So, you take the number of meters and you multiply that number by three-point two, eight, one.” Watching him use the calculator app on his cell phone, I waited for him to get the answer. And when his face lit up, I knew he’d gotten the right answer. “See. Now you don’t have to ask me every time about the American version of meters, correct?”

  Shrugging, he made the notation in his notebook. “Yeah, guess so.”

  Running my hand over my face, I managed to hold in the groan that stuck in my throat. “Moving on. I will take you all to the small cabin that was built in the late sixties by a trapper named Dragos Rusu. The top animals that he trapped and killed for their pelts alone were bears but he also trapped wolves and lynxes. This nature park is home to many brown bears. Some are small, some are medium-sized, and some are massive. He took all sizes without regard to their role in this sometimes, fragile ecosystem.”

  “So, he was a villain?” the only girl in the group, a mousy blonde they affectionately called, Bit, asked.

  “Yes, he was a villain. From what rangers think, he lived within the forest, undetected for years before they finally tracked him down to the cabin we’re about to come upon in just a few minutes.” I liked to drum up the drama for the tourists who were after scary stories. “Once his den of iniquity was found, the man was never seen again. Nor were anymore bears left skinless lying on the forest floor. Some say a sleuth of bears killed and ate him.”

  Randy’s expression grew excited as he rubbed his palms together. “Get out the cameras you guys. We might be able to pick up some orbs if we’re lucky.”

  The fearless leader of the group, Loci nodded as he looked at me. “So, you will be back for us in the morning after sunrise then.”

  “No.” I’d been hired to take the group on an in-depth tour, not leave them over-night. “We’ve got plenty of time before the sun sets to see the cabin then get back to where we started.” Leaving tourists alone in the woods wasn’t a thing we often did. At least not without them giving us prior notice.

  Loci didn’t seem to be one to back down easily. So when he handed me a wad of lei to buy me off, I wasn’t surprised in the least. “Take this. We’re fine on our own. Hell, we stayed night before last in the castle. You know the one.”

  “I hope you don’t mean Bran Castle.” That place was a joke and a total tourist trap.

  But I’d pegged Loci wrong as he wrinkled his nose at me with a look of disgust. “Not that fairytale-like castle. The real castle.”

  “So, Hunyad Castle then?” With his nod, I knew I could show him a much scarier place than that one. “So, have you heard of Poenari Castle?”

  The way the ten people looked back and forth at each other told me that not one of them had heard of the place. Bit stepped up to my side, her dark eyes bright with intrigue. “Where is that and what does it have to do with Vlad the Impaler?”

  “Transylvania. And he built the castle which now lay in ruins. Now, there is where you will find some real ghosts to catch on film.” Another tour guide could deal with them on that trip. “And if we can get back to the park’s headquarters, I can set you up to stay the night there. You’re sure to find your spooks then. Here, you’re not so sure to find anything more than some wild animals to make your night’s stay exciting in a very real sort of way.”

  James seemed to like my idea. “I think going to this other castle sounds much better than hanging out in the woods here, checking out an old cabin.”

  He was right about that. I pointed out how decrepit the old cabin was as we stepped into the clearing where it still sat, the hovel that it had become. “And here is the cabin now. Take all the pictures you like. I doubt you’ll get any oddities on film.”

  Taking out my cell as the group snapped their pics, I let Monty know we had a lively bunch who were ready to pay big money to go stay the night at the boring old place few ventured to anymore.

  It took him no time at all to agree to the gig and he’d said he would come to meet us on the trail so he could drum up more intrigue about Poenari Castle to hopefully gain more money from the Americans.

  “Freedrick!” I heard the deep throaty cry of a male voice in the distance.

  Looking in the direction the sound came from, I noticed the enthralled group hadn’t seemed to hear a thing. “You guys hear anything? Like a man yelling?”

  Freezing in place, they all keened an ear as did I. But nothing could be heard. I, alone, had heard the cry for help.

  Whoever Freedrick is, can he help the other man by himself?

  I didn’t like what I’d heard. My stomach knotted, my mouth went dry, and I had the strong urge to go make sure the man I’d heard was alright. Pacing slowly back and forth in front of the cabin, I grew more and more anxious.

  I need to go see if the man is alright!

  “Loveanu, you okay?” Monty asked he came upon us, startling us all.

  The fearless leader gasped, “Shit, man!” Loci picked up the phone he’d dropped. “You’re one stealthy motherfucker, dude.”

  “I know.” Monty prided himself on his sneaky ways.

  “You take them back. I’m going to see about something I heard.” Not waiting for Monty’s reply, I took off like shot in the direction the man’s voice had come from. I didn’t like the fact that no other sound had come to us after that scream.

  Moving fast through the forest, I slipped on something that nearly sent me to my ass. Catching myself with one hand before I hit the ground, I found what I’d slipped on. “Yuck!” A thick pool of blood covered a good-sized area and I’d stepped right into the middle of it.

  Wiping my hiking boot on the blood-free spruce needled covered ground, my eyes caught sight of a bloody object that had been tossed to one side of the blood pool.

  Going to check it out, I picked up a stick to poke at it a bit. Although mangled rather horrible, I knew it to be a beartrap. But this one had a fair amount of goo on it.

  Poor bear. The trapper used a poison on the spikes.

  He’d probably already expired, and the trapper most likely had already drug him off to skin, gut, and quarter him. Bear mea
t was eaten by many Romanians, I was however not one of them.

  The creatures, looking more like humans to me than the animals they were really related to – dogs, weasels, and seals – weren’t something to eat. But I had reasons for my weakness for bears. I’d found an orphaned cub when I was eighteen and had just begun working at the nature park. I got to bottle feed her and even bought baby clothes to put on her. She was adorable.

  One day, after she’d grown up, she and I were playing a game of hide-and-seek in the forest as we took our daily walk in the warm summer months. The sound of a male bear growling had me running to get away, but it drew her in.

  Nature took its course and – in my fantasy about what occurred – she and the male bear married and had kids. Whatever really happened, I never saw Bibic again.

  Shaking off my memory of the adorable bear, I looked around and found more blood. A drop here, a small puddle with the huge bear’s paw print, complete with what seemed to be six-inch claws not much further from that. The bear tracks went on for a bit, then stopped as abruptly as I did as I came to the edge of a deep ravine.

  Scanning the area below, I could barely make out a figure lying at the bottom. A low groan came up to me as it looked my way. “Freesia?”

  A human man?

  Cupping my hands around my mouth, I used it to funnel my voice down to the man, “Might you have a bear down there with you, sir?”

  Wiping his hands over his face, he left lighter lines on his dirt-covered face. “No. Just me.”

  Taking off my backpack, I got out the rope I always carried in it, then put it back on before tying the rope off. As I backed down the surface of the craggy rock, I heard him moving and groaning as he did. “You don’t have to come down here. My brother’s coming back with some medicine. I’ll come up to you when he’s fixed me up.”

  “I would rather not wait around for him.” I dropped the last foot then turned to go to where he was not sitting up, instead of lying back on the ground. “You fell?”

  Cocking his head to one side, he grinned. “You think?” He ran one hand through the thick mane of dark hair that matched his thick beard on his rather large and somewhat block-like head.

  “For a man with such a bad leg wound, you have jokes?” Taking my backpack off again, I took out a bottle of water and handed it to him. “Drink this while I call for help. I’ll have you airlifted out of here in no time.”

  While I didn’t want him to worry, I had to wonder where the bear was that had also fallen off the ledge. Looking around as I tried to make the call, I found nothing else down there with us.

  Tugging on my jacket, the man handed me the empty bottle back. “Don’t call anyone. My brother is coming. He’s um – well, he’s a doctor. And he’s going to help me. Tell me your name. Mine is Zanthe.”

  “I am Crina Loveanu, a tour guide who specializes in tours of this park - Apuseni Nature Park. Are you aware of where you are, Zanthe?” The large man’s eyes of blue were glazed over, so I wasn’t sure how lucid he was.

  Reaching out to me once more, his very large hand, which had a fair amount of dark hair on the back of it, pawed at my leg. “I know where I am, Crina Loveanu. That’s a pretty name. You smell good. Like flowers. Like freesia flowers.”

  “You must’ve hit your head when you fell.” The poor man had to have hurt himself even more so than just his leg. I moved in closer, gently running my hands over the back of his head. “No, no blood or bumps. Now, how did you fall all this way without ever bumping your head?”

  He took me by the wrists, pulling me down toward his face. “Nope. No bumps. You’re pretty. I like the way you put your dark hair up like that. It’s cute. You’re cute. And you don’t have a male.”

  “I don’t have a what?” I broke the grip he had on me, then backed up.

  “Oh, hi there,” came another man’s voice from not too far from me. “You’ve found my brother, Zanthe. Great. I’ve got it from here. Will you need help out of here, miss?”

  Looking behind the huge man who also had lots of shaggy dark hair, a full beard, and rather hairy hands I found nothing that told me how he’d gotten down to where we were. “Crina is my name. Um, how’d you get down here?”

  “Climbed.” He pulled a syringe out of his pocket and wasted no time jabbing it into the neck of the man he’d said was his brother.

  “Ow!” the man I knew now as Zanthe yelled gruffly. “You could’ve given me a heads up, bro.”

  Pulling the syringe back out of his brother’s neck, he introduced himself to me, “I am Freedrick.”

  “Ah! Freedrick. I heard your brother screaming for you. That’s why I came.” It felt good to know I hadn’t been hearing things.

  The sound of shuffling had me looking back and there I found Zanthe’s massive body shaking, dust flying off of it as his hair flew around too. “Screaming? No. Shouting. Men don’t scream. Women scream. Men shout.”

  Freedrick, a man only a fraction smaller than his large brother, leaned down to nudge me with his shoulder, “Excuse him please, he’s so alpha male.”

  Looking over my shoulder, all I saw was a big man looking at me with what seemed to be puppy dog eyes. “I’ll walk you home.”

  “And how are you going to walk anyone home, may I ask?” But before I could say anything else, he took several steps without a limp at all. “Okay, how’d you do that? Your ankle still has tons of blood on it. How’d you hurt yourself anyway?”

  Freedrick answered for his brother, “A beartrap. A filthy one too. Heinous things.”

  A beartrap?

  3

  Zanthe

  With wide violet eyes, the delectable smelling female took me all in. Scanning me from head to toe, she shook her head in what seemed to be disbelief. “No.”

  “No, what?” Freedrick asked her.

  I was sick and tired of my brother talking to her and the whole bumping her shoulder thing was taking it too far. Moving fast, I got between them, put my arm around my brother then leaned in to whisper, “Scram.”

  “But,” came his clever reply.

  “But nothing. Get out of here. I’ve got her scent. She’s mine. Got it? Mine and all mine. I’m not sharing.” We’d done that a time or two in the past and I wasn’t doing it with her.

  “I don’t even want to share.” With a snap of his fingers, he moved ahead of us. “Nice meeting you, Crina. Good luck with the oaf.”

  “Um, I think you have the wrong idea about me,” Crina said with a fair amount of strength in her words. “I’m not going to need luck with this oaf.”

  My brother never looked back as he knew better than to buck a direct order to vacate the area around my latest mating interest. Not even a hint of a male scent sullied her perfection. “He’s kidding. It’s his nature to joke around.”

  “That didn’t seem like joking.” She moved toward the rope she’d come down to me on. “I’m out of here.”

  I’m coming on too strong. I’ve got to calm down.

  As she went up the rope, I gave her some space before going up it too. “So, you how old are you?”

  “That’s not really a thing people say to people they’ve just met.” Getting to the top of the ravine, she climbed over the edge then stood up, looking down at me. “And I can see that you’re a lot older than me, so no.”

  “No what? You say that word a lot. You should stop doing that. No is a negative word. Now, yes is a great word and it’s also positive, so that’s good.” I climbed up, joining her on the ledge, then pulled up the rope, wrapping it neatly around my arm.

  “I can do that. It is my rope.” She held out her hand, wiggling her long, slender fingers. “Give it.”

  “I’ve got this.” She was adorable. “So, you don’t want to tell me your age. Okay. How about what it is you do when not guiding tours?”

  Taking off her backpack, she unzipped it then pulled out a small bottle of something. “This is pepper spray. I’m going to be holding it for the whole time you’re around me. Do yo
u understand why that is?”

  Handing her the neatly coiled rope, I couldn’t help but grin at her. “You’re afraid I’ll pounce on you. You’re afraid I’ll grab you up and kiss your full lips. You’re afraid that my hands will roam all over your rotund body.”

  “Rotund?” Shaking her head, I could see she didn’t like that description of her lovely and rounded assets at all. “No.”

  Again with that word!

  “Curvy body?” I had to ask as she seemed to have many rules. “You do have many curves. You know that, right?”

  Holding up the small pink can of spray, she aimed it at my face. “Would you like to know the pain of the pepper, Zanthe?’

  “Not really. But if you will dine with me tonight, I might like it if you spray my salad with it. I like pepper a lot.” With a chuckle, I playfully smacked her on the arm. It sent her flying, so I grabbed her, stopping her retreat. “Whoa. I thought you had enough weight on you to take that. Sorry.”

  “You thought what?” The way her entire face went red told me I might have messed up.

  “Um, never mind. So, what kind of food do you like to eat?” I knew humans loved to go on dates that included meals. I hadn’t had a female in ages. The last one was way before the invention of restaurants. Not that I had eaten in more than a handful since their invention. I liked homemade meals so much better than any I had ever eaten out.

  Huffing as she sped up, she didn’t seem interested in talking much. Her answer came quick and short, “Normal stuff.”

  “Yeah, me too. Berries, nuts, the occasional squirrel.” Those little things were delicious fresh off the tree.

  “If I were you, I would stop joking around like that. You have no idea what kinds of thoughts are running through my brain about you, big man.” She climbed a steep slope with ease, then kept on going.

  “You’re a great climber. Your stamina is amazing.” I knew she would be great at mating. “You’ve got strength too. That can come in handy.”