Chapter 9

Ash

I don't knowhow I fucked that up so bad. Things between Tessa and I have been going well all week. That's why I felt comfortable asking her to move in with me. I guess I didn't phrase it the right way when I asked her, though, because she got pissed.

Then I got upset and left.

"I'm an idiot," I grumble as I lift a few branches that fell out of the hiking path I'm on.

"What did you do now?" Flint asks, and I glare at him.

I don't really want to talk about it, but maybe Flint will have some idea about how to fix things with my mate.

My polar bear paws at me, urging me to tell him what happened, and I sigh as I toss the last branch aside and turn to face him.

"I went to talk to Tessa and I messed things up."

"Again?" He asks, and I'm starting to regret opening up to him already.

"Yeah, again," I snap, and he holds his hands up in surrender.

"Maybe you should stop talking to her," he suggests, and I glare at him.

"She's my mate."

"What did you say today to piss her off? Or did you reject her again?"

"I asked her to move in with me."

"And that upset her?" He asks with a frown, and I nod.

"Yeah, it surprised me too," I grumble, and my polar bear snaps at me.

Take this seriously,he growls at me. We need our mate.

"What did she say?" he asks, and I lean back against a nearby tree.

Flint and I are out on the northernmost trails. We're supposed to be cleaning up the trails and making sure that everyone is being safe. We've been out here for close to two hours now, and haven't seen a single person. There's only been a few things to clear on the trail, so it's been an easy shift. I hate that. It's giving me way too much time to think about what went wrong with Tessa when all I want is to forget about it for a little bit.

"She said that she'll consider moving in with me in ninety-seven days," I tell him, and he frowns.

"Why then? Is that when her lease expires?"

"No, that's how long I waited before I claimed her," I mumble, and he huffs out a laugh.

"Your mate is feisty; I'll give her that," he says with a laugh, and I relax a bit.

"That she is," I say fondly, and my polar bear nods in agreement.

He leans back against his snowmobile and sighs.

"What did you say back to that?" He asks, and I frown.

"Nothing really. I just left and came to work."

"I thought that things were going better between you two?"

"I did, too, but then I went there for lunch today and asked when she was moving in with me, and she just flipped."

"Maybe you moved too fast?"

"We're already mated!" I protest, and he shakes his head.

"She's human. That doesn't mean the same thing to her as it does to you. You have to go at human's speed of dating and relationships."

I sigh, and he laughs.

"It feels like I'm losing her," I admit, and he stops laughing and nods.

"She loves you, Ash. You two just need to get on the same page. Just sit down and lay out all of your cards, open up to her, and tell her what she means to you and how much you want her," he tells me, and I know he's probably right.

It's scary though. I've never really opened up to anyone like that, and never when the stakes were so high.

We need to make her ours. We need to try everything,my polar bear tells me, and I nod.

"Alright. I'll talk to her tonight, and then if she still needs me to, I'll wait the ninety-seven days. I'll wait as long as I need to until she's ready to be mine," I vow, and Flint grins.

"Atta boy."

"I can't wait until you find your mate," I growl, and his smile turns bitter around the edges.

"Me too," he says softly, and I feel like a jerk.

"I'm sorry, Flint. I—" I start, but he cuts me off.

"It's fine, Ash. We're friends. I want to help you out with your problems. No matter what they are."

I smile, clapping him on the back.

"Ready to head back to headquarters? I doubt there's any hikers out now that the sun is going down and the trail is clear," he says.

"Let's go."

I'm heading back to my snowmobile when a gunshot cuts through the silence, and I freeze. I turn, looking at Flint in surprise. He's already sniffing the air, trying to figure out where the shot came from.

"Hunters shouldn't be here," I tell him. "We're still on the ski resort's land."

"I know. I can smell them, though. They're close," he says.

He's digging the snowmobile key out of his pocket as I climb onto my snowmobile, and that's when another shot rips through the air.

"Ah!" I grunt as I tip sideways, falling off the snowmobile.

"Ash!" Flint shouts, sprinting towards me.

It takes me a second to realize that I've been shot. I reach up, cupping my shoulder and wincing as the blood starts to spill over my fingers and down onto the snow beneath me.

"I'm okay!" I shout to Flint. "Call for backup. We need to get those guys before they kill someone."

He's frowning, but he nods, skidding to a stop next to me and grabbing his walkie-talkie. He reaches into the bag on my snowmobile for the first aid kit there, and I wince as he wraps a bandage around the wound and applies pressure.

"Base, this is Flint. We need help on the North Trail. Ash has been shot. Over," Flint says.

He looks grim, and I wonder if the wound is worse than I thought.

"What!?" Davis asks, and I want to roll my eyes as all hell breaks loose over the walkie-talkie.

"Where are you at?" Niko asks.

"What happened?" Alec asks next.

"There are hunters up here. We're on the North Trail by that giant rock. Be careful," Flint says.

I lean back against the ground, trying to breathe through the pain. I can feel my polar bear working already to heal me, but with the bullet still in my arm, it's not going to work.

"We need to get the bullet out," I tell Flint, and he shakes his head.

"I'm going to get you to the doctor. They'll do that."

I want to argue with him, but he's probably right. I can hear two more snowmobiles headed our way and soon enough, Alec and Niko are pulling up next to us.

"Where are the hunters?" Alec asks, and Flint and I nod to the west.

"Shots came from that way," Flint says.

"They haven't fired in a while now," I add.

They nod and take off into the woods while Flint gets me up and onto the back of the snowmobile.

"Good?" He asks, and I nod, gritting my teeth as he climbs on, and we take off down the trail.

We pass by Davis and Gunner as we go, but Flint waves for them to go help Niko and Alec instead. We race towards town, and I grit my teeth and try to stay conscious as the pain hits me in waves. When we pull up to the hospital, I relax.

Then, the whole world goes dark.