Reach of Slaughter Mountain

  REACH OF SLAUGHTER MOUNTAIN

  (BEARS OF SLAUGHTER MOUNTAIN, BOOK 3)

  By T. S. JOYCE

  Reach of Slaughter Mountain

  Copyright © 2023 by T. S. Joyce

  Copyright © 2023, T. S. Joyce

  First electronic publication: April 2023

  T. S. Joyce

  www.tsjoyce.com

  All rights are reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews. The unauthorized reproduction or distribution of this copyrighted work is illegal. No part of this book may be scanned, uploaded or distributed via the Internet or any other means, electronic or print, without the author’s permission.

  NOTE FROM THE AUTHOR:

  This book is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the writer’s imagination or have been used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, actual events, locale or organizations is entirely coincidental. The author does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for third-party websites or their content.

  Published in the United States of America.

  Editor: Alyxandra Miller

  For More of these Characters

  check out T.S. Joyce’s bestselling Wolves of Piston series

  Zombie Wolf of Piston (Book 1)

  Brother Wolf of Piston (Book 2)

  Lone Wolf of Piston (Book 3)

  Holiday Flex (Holiday Short)

  Traitor Wolf of Piston (Book 4)

  ************************************

  More Books in this Series

  War Bear of Piston (Bears of Slaughter Mountain, Book 1)

  Defender of Slaughter Mountain (Bears of Slaughter Mountain, Book 2)

  Legend of Slaughter Mountain (Bears of Slaughter Mountain, Book 4)

  Contents

  Copyright

  For More of these Characters

  Prologue

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Epilogue

  Up Next

  For More of these Characters

  Newsletter Sign-Up

  More Series from this Author

  For More from this Author

  About the Author

  Prologue

  Home repairs weren’t meant for Alaskan winter months. He’d messed up by leaving this chore for too long.

  Owen Thomas muttered another curse to the heavens as a gust of wind stung his cheeks. He drew the blade down the log, carving the thick layer of bark off in a long, curled shaving. Under his thick jacket, he was sweating. Though he felt okay right now, it was dangerous to have that moisture on him when the temperatures were dropped so low like this.

  The snow stung his eyes, but it couldn’t be helped. One of the timbers on the corner of his cabin had given way under the weight of the snow on the roof. He’d been in town and come home to a mess. If he wanted to live through this storm, he had to repair his cabin.

  He knew the damn support log had been rotting, but he’d thought he had two, maybe three, years left until it gave out.

  Movement in the woods yanked his attention to the tree line. He’d lived here long enough to know sometimes a man could be hunted and not even know it. His instincts were sharper than the average man’s now.

  A broad-shouldered man stood up on his snowmobile as he drifted toward Owen.

  Shhhhhit. He’d lost track of time.

  The trapper’s name was Ledger, and he was a monster to deal with. Owen liked to have his money ready and make the buy as fast as possible.

  Usually, the interaction involved Ledger telling him what furs he had to sell, Owen tallying it quick in his head based on going prices and counting out the cash as Ledger unloaded what Owen wanted, and then there was the hand-off and Ledger would be gone for another month.

  Owen balanced his blade on the half-stripped log and jogged toward his cabin, tossing Ledger a greeting wave as he went. “Let me grab the cash.”

  Owen rushed to grab the cash from the kitchen drawer behind the knives, then inhaled a deep, steadying breath before he opened the door and made his way outside again.

  His least favorite part of the month was dealing with this mountain man. He brought good furs and tanned hides for Owen to deliver to his brother in town, but there was something wrong with that man.

  He was an inch or two shorter than Owen, but that was still big. Owen was six-foot-five. Ledger felt as big as a house, and his demeanor was just…off. He’d definitely seen shit. Probably caused shit.

  Owen didn’t ask, and didn’t want to know anything about him. He wanted to do the buy as fast as possible and then head back inside and take a shot of whiskey, hoping it dulled his instincts and made that watched feeling go away.

  If Owen ever ended up dead, his brother, Darden, knew to start with a mountain man named Ledger who came from the wilderness to the south where not many dared to live.

  He lifted his attention to Ledger’s snowmobile, but the man had already dismounted. Owen paused as he saw Ledger wasn’t alone. A woman was sitting on the back of the snowmobile, dressed in nothing more than thin leggings, a tight-fitting burgundy sweater, and an animal-fur hat. Her soft brown eyes looked just as startled to see him as he was to see her. She had a long, intricate braid down one shoulder, and the remnants of three dark lines of paint on one cheek. On the other was a long scar along her cheekbone. It was the perfect arch. Had it been put there on purpose?

  “H-hi,” she said softly.

  “I said don’t talk!” Ledger’s booming voice echoed through the mountains.

  Anger simmered through Owen’s blood. “Is she your wife?” he asked low.

  “She’s mine,” Ledger growled in a voice Owen had never heard from him before.

  It was low and snarling.

  Chills rippled up his spine, and he glanced at the woman again. She didn’t look scared. She looked…sad.

  He didn’t like this. Owen didn’t like a single thing about this. Ledger was a walking red flag, and now he had a woman? Out here?

  “Where’s your coat?” he asked.

  Ledger snatched the wad of cash from his hand fast. Really fast. Owen didn’t even have time to register he’d moved, and then the money was gone.

  Ledger counted out what he wanted and growled out, “This is fair.” He threw the remaining money back at Owen’s feet and told the woman, “Anya, unload the furs.”

  “Yes,” she whispered, ducking her pretty eyes down before she stood and dismounted, then unfastened the furs from a sled in the back.

  She was taller than he’d expected, and walked with a surprising grace. She had to be freezing, but she didn’t act like it. She wasn’t even shivering. Her lip was cut though. Perhaps it was cracked from the harsh dryness, but he didn’t think so. She was healing a slap.

  “Are you okay?” Owen asked her, stepping forward.

  She cast him a fast glance, and then back to her furs. He didn’t miss it—those pretty brown eyes looked lighter than they had been.

  Ledger was marching toward her.

  “I asked if you are okay?” Owen asked louder, his hand on the hilt of the knife he kept tucked in the back of his pants under his coat.

  “Move!” Ledger yelled, and Anya flinched automatically.

  Fuckin’ asshole. If Owen had questioned her split lip before, he didn’t now.

  Ledger yanked on the ties of the furs, kicked them off into the snow, and then jammed a finger at her seat on the snowmobile.

  “What happened to your house?” she asked suddenly as Ledger got on in front of her.

  “Support beam went while I was in town,” Owen said. God, he didn’t want them to leave. He wanted to make sure this woman was all right. Every instinct in him was screaming that she wasn’t.

  “We should help him,” she said to Ledger.

  Ledger turned and snarled something too low for Owen to hear, and he could see her eyes dim. They went dead, leaving a sick pit in the middle of Owen’s stomach.

  What an awful power to be able to steal someone’s light so easily.

  Ledger pulled a tight circle, almost clipping Owen’s legs with the empty sled he was dragging, and zoomed away.

  He watched them go. Just before they disappeared into the snowstorm, Anya turned and tossed him a little wave. She wasn’t even wearing gloves.

  And he knew it. He knew down to his bones.

  He would never see that woman again.

  Likely, no one would.

  Chapter One

  Trapper.

  Anya rolled the title around in her head.

  Hunter.

  That felt strange, too. Female bear shifters hadn’t been able to do jobs like that before Biergon the Dead had taken over the Clan. The Clan had split in half, and believers in the old ways had begun making their own community while the rest of them were left to rebuild from the ground up. br />
  With hunting and trapping, Anya had kept the New Clan fed after the Old Clan had ransacked the meat stores they’d put away for winter.

  She didn’t know if hunting anything had ever felt this important though. Right now, she was hunting down the fur dealer she remembered from two years ago. With a frown, she studied the side of the cabin that had been damaged at the start of the winter storms. The trader had repaired it well. The wood was still lighter than the other aged logs, but it would weather nicely eventually.

  The fur trader wasn’t here. He hadn’t been for a couple of days. She could tell because his scent barely lingered around this place, and his tire tracks had been covered with one of the last snowfalls of the season.

  Curiosity overcame her as she ran her fingertips down the snow-dusted wooden boards. She couldn’t tell if they were from a lumberyard or if he had stripped these himself with the tools sitting under a small awning on the side of the cabin. Impressive if he had done it, and also impressive if he’d been able to afford them from a lumberyard. There was a large barn she didn’t remember from before, right on the edge of the clearing. He’d been adding onto this place.

  Wait. What if he had moved away and someone else had bought this place, and that’s why there was a new barn?

  With a frown, she sniffed a pair of discarded gloves under the awning of tools, but she couldn’t remember exactly what the human had smelled like. She hadn’t been very close to him when Ledger had brought her here and it was a long time ago, plus she had been very distracted at that time. Survival-mode fogged up a brain.

  Anya glanced back at the snowmobile loaded down with her furs and tried to remember what Ledger had said about the trader. She remembered the day he’d brought her here. He’d been talking to Trace about the trader. She’d been paying attention to their conversation out of curiosity as she’d loaded Ledger’s furs to sell that day. He’d said something about the trader having a brother in town who made fine jackets and winter clothes. What town? Cooper Landing?

  When would he come back, she wondered.

  Carefully, like the nosy little bear she was, she moseyed on up to the big window beside the front door. No lights were on, but the daylight filtered through to a living room. She gasped as she spied a bearskin rug, complete with a taxidermy head sporting a fierce look and snarl to its mouth. A wave of relief took her as she realized it was a wild grizzly, not one of the Clan. Although…

  She frowned and canted her head as she studied the rug. She imagined her stupid ex-mate, Ledger, there and a soft giggle took her. Perhaps someday she would have her own cabin with a bearskin rug in front of a stone hearth like the trader.

  There was a comfortable-looking couch with a red blanket strewn across the back of it, and a small kitchen across the open room. Woodblock counters stretched across the entire back wall. There was a fridge, which meant he must have electricity here. How far exactly was he from town? She’d come through the wilderness.

  His home was very nice. Even though it was old, it was well-built.

  A soft humming sound froze her into place, hands pressed against the glass like she was a kid looking into a candy store. Eek! She flinched back. Her perfect handprints were there on the window, and that was absolutely her fault. She’d brought pizza rolls in a plastic baggie and snacked on the way here. Biergon the Dead kept buying family-size packs of the frozen ones from town, and they were the new love of her life. Human food was delicious. And probably filled with drugs, because she was addicted.

  She pulled her sleeve over her hand and swirled it over one of the pizza roll grease marks, but that just smeared it around.

  “Fart,” she muttered as she huffed a breath onto the window and tried again. Still disastrous, and now the humming was louder. It definitely sounded like a truck engine.

  Abandon the mistake! You will get in trouble! The bear warned her.

  Her inner animal was right! She high-kneed it toward her snowmobile, but skidded to a stop halfway there.

  “Wait,” she murmured to herself. “He can’t get me in trouble. I’m not his. I am mine.” A gross feeling filled her middle. She hated the part of herself that was still weak and afraid, the part that was trained to be perfect.

  She lifted her gaze to the six furs she’d packed neatly on the back of the snowmobile she’d borrowed from Biergon the Dead. She’d worked hard for these and then worked for the courage to come out here alone and try to strike up a trade deal. Without Ledger. Without anyone.

  “Be brave,” she whispered as she turned around to see the matte-gray pickup truck headed her way. That was definitely the truck she remembered from the last time she’d been here. She couldn’t tell the make of the truck because he’d ripped off all the emblems and replaced the entire front grille with a huge metal bullnose bumper. The tires were thick, their tread aggressive and deep. It had been lifted to get through deep snow without bottoming out, and had a roll bar on the back. The windows were tinted dark, so she could only see his silhouette as he parked in front of his cabin. His door creaked as it swung open, and the nerves had her hands shaking.

  Anya put her hands behind her back to hide it.

  He stepped out slowly, and she was stunned into stillness. He looked different. His sandy brown hair was longer and his beard was thick, but none of that hid how fetching he was. He had soft brown eyes that seemed to take in everything. He was wearing a dark blue sweater that clung to the curves of his muscles. She’d never seen a more shredded human. Usually muscle like this made sense on a bear shifter. He was taller than she remembered, but she’d never stood this close to him either.

  “You look different than I remember,” she said.

  He blinked hard and shook his head slightly. “I didn’t think I would ever see you again.”

  “Did you…” She swallowed hard. “Did you want to see me again?”

  “Of course. I don’t want anyone dying out here.”

  Well, that was a confusing answer. “Dying?”

  Trader shut the door of his truck, made his way to the bed, and lowered the tailgate. “Your husband is bad news. You should probably go. I don’t want any trouble with your people.”

  Okay. So he wouldn’t be up for trading if he’d had run-ins with the Clan. The disappointment that took over her was overwhelming.

  She moved to leave, but her stubborn streak kicked in. “I worked myself up for three days before I came out here, and I have something to say. I need to say it and then I will leave.”

  He unloaded a box of supplies from the bed of his truck and stood there holding it. “Well, be quick.”

  She inhaled deeply and then said, “I don’t belong to anyone anymore. Screw Ledger. These furs I got on my own,” she said, gesturing, “and I was wondering if you would like to ever buy furs from me. And also, before you say yes or no, I have to admit something very fast.”

  He nodded once. “Go on.”

  “Well, for the last two years I remembered you because you asked if I was okay that day. Before you no one had ever asked me that, and I think that means you are a good man. I hope. And that you’ll give me a fair price, but I’m okay negotiating on this first sale so that you can get my quality furs at an unbeatable price. And also I was curious about you. I stood over there and looked in your house and I left handprints because I ate pizza rolls while I was driving here.”

  The corner of his mouth twitched. “Anything else?”

  “I have all my trapper and hunter licenses and tags, and can provide the right paperwork with each fur. I will be professional and on time with my fur deliveries, and I will be nicer to work with than Ledger.”

  “And if Ledger finds out I’m buying your furs, will he be angry?”

  She swallowed hard. “You’re still buying his furs?”

  Trader nodded.

  Fart, fart, fart. Fart was her favorite curse word because it had been Ledger’s least favorite word in the English language. “Well if Ledger has a problem with it, I will simply fight him.”

  Trader’s lips twitched again into the tiniest flash of a smile. “You’ll simply fight him.”