Alaskan Fury Read Online Free

“Would you like more lemon in your tea?”
    “I’m good,” the blonde said,
oblivious.  “So where can we find this werewolf?”
    The conversation went on from
there, Kaashifah thankfully forgotten.  She slipped to the side, listening as
they discussed potential ‘lairs’ and recent ‘sightings’ as Jack made his last
trip in from outside, carrying the final pieces of luggage over his shoulder. 
    “You have an amazing place,
here,” the quiet brunette in the back of the group said to the phoenix, once
Jack had returned from depositing their luggage in their rooms and plunked down
on a seat at the bar, “Fishing lodge, yes?  What made you turn to cryptid
tourism?”  Which launched Blaze into a pre-packaged spiel about how the
Sleeping Lady Lodge was everything she’d ever wanted, come true, and how one
nightmarish winter, she and Jack had been forced to defend it against forty
mutant wolves.
    “And you used silver bullets. ” 
The brunette sounded enthralled.  “Werewolves, then.”
    The ageless blonde in leather
rolled her eyes and walked over to the bay window, glancing out at the pens of
livestock out back.  Oddly, it didn’t seem as if the woman were rolling her
eyes at the idea of werewolves , but rather, at the brunette herself. 
Some corporate power-struggle?  Kaashifah idly wondered where Blaze had gotten
her latest batch of clients.
    “Well,” Blaze said, “not
according to the Alaska Department of Fish and Game.”  Which launched the whole
group into another long discussion about werewolves, the government, cryptids
in general, and the Yentna River Werewolf, who was a ‘lonely survivor’ of the
massacre on the Sleeping Lady’s back steps.
    Throughout it all, Kaashifah kept
her attention on the brunette, finding something strangely off about her seemingly
polite nature in the face of the blonde’s unabashed arrogance.  The woman had
an accent of the southern states, though it was tinged with something else. 
Mexico, perhaps?  And, while her voice had the commanding tone of a
businesswoman, someone used to getting her way, neither her looks nor her
attire set her apart.  She had a professional short-cropped haircut, as was
common with the lodge’s career-oriented clientele, tight blue jeans, hiking
boots, and a button-up flannel shirt, the sleeves casually rolled up her arms.  She
had been holding her temples off and on during the conversation, as if she had
a headache, and she had a gaunt look, like someone who wasn’t getting enough
food or sleep.  And sure enough, halfway through the conversation, she popped
two small white pills from a tiny prescription bottle and swallowed them down as
the phoenix had regaled them of stories of heritage livestock and her
ridiculously green thumb. 
    Eventually, after listening at
length to the phoenix’s ramblings about near-extinct livestock breeds and the rapidly
dwindling genetic diversity of humanity’s food supply, the brunette woman put
her pill-bottle away and glanced up at Kaashifah with curious, glacial-blue
eyes.  “I heard you guys had a staff of four.  Are we missing somebody?  My
friend said he was a real big guy.  Pro wrestler or something.”
    Something didn’t seem right about
the question, and, cautiously, Kaashifah said, “He left on vacation.”
    “Oh,” the brunette said,
scratching at her forearm.  “Then this is everybody?  You guys are all alone
out here?”
    “This is it,” Jack said, grinning
proudly.  “What you see is what you get, ladies.  The Sleeping Lady.  Last
bastion of civilization out in werewolf territory.”
    The brunette reached up and
fiddled with the sleeve of her shirt.  “Good.”
    Good?
    But even as Kaashifah was
digesting the strange taste to that, the woman flicked something forward in a
practiced gesture, and a tiny dart hit the wereverine in his muscular chest. 
His eyes widened and his mouth fell open in a wet wheeze, then he slid to the
floor suddenly, his heavy