Erik motioned to the others. “Come on, team, let’s take another look at the instructions. We have thirty minutes still until our start.”
They gathered around, backs to the trees at the edge of the clearing. Before them the Dyea flats stretched to meet the ocean. The early-afternoon air was warm with the promise of heating up nicely. Erik spread out the map at their feet and traced the route they would follow. She was happy to see that once they started hiking, they’d be in the trees for the first third of the hike.
“Three days is the maximum time allotted to complete the thirty-three miles to Bennett Lake. That’s a good solid hike, but it’s not a race pace. We’ll be going faster than the original Gold Rushers, but we don’t have to carry as much gear. However, we not only have to reach the checkpoint in time, we have a series of clues to find. Some of them will be used later in the Games challenges.”
“What if we can’t find them all?” TJ asked.
“Missing one or two, we have a chance. Missing more will make the final challenge tough to win. So this isn’t a sprint. We’ll camp out for two nights and I really don’t care if we see other teams passing us.”
He winked at Maggie. “It’s not a race, although some of the other teams will try to convince you it is. This is a setup for later events. All we have to do is finish.”
He pulled out the puzzle instructions, spreading them on the ground next to the map. Jared leaned a little too close and Maggie drew away, backing into the safety of Erik’s side. He casually shifted his position, tucking her against his body and she relaxed. Why did he have to feel so good?
She looked down at the strange maps. Contour lines, altitude markers, not much else. “They’re not giving GPS waypoints, are they?”
He shook his head. “We have to do this the old-fashioned way with only compasses and our noses.
For this challenge, one of the team travels in wolf. They can shift back at night, but while on the trail and searching for clues, they have to be in their animal form.”
Maggie’s throat closed tight and she found it hard to breath. One of them was going to turn into a wolf. She had to be around a wolf.
She was going to die.
Without saying a word, Erik rubbed her back, a slow soothing motion. She closed her eyes and concentrated on the feel of his hand instead of thinking about the gnawing fear in her belly.
TJ cursed as his foot caught the edge of the paper and it ripped. “Damn it, sorry. Look, I’d like to volunteer to be the one who stays in wolf.” He wrapped his long arms around his legs like he was trying to 36
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Wolf Games
stop from touching anything near him. “I know I’ve got a bad reputation, but I am capable of pulling my own weight, especially if you keep me in my wolf form for most of the Games. It’s just my human form that sucks rocks when it comes to coordination.”
For the first time Maggie examined him more closely. He was as dark as his brother, the Alpha, but nowhere near as bulky. Long limbs, square jaw. TJ wasn’t a bad-looking fellow, he just never seemed to be in the right place at the right time. There was a dark-coloured stain on his shirt where she’d seen someone bump into him and dump their ketchup-covered fries all over him.
Erik nodded. “I hoped you’d volunteer for the position, but not because I plan to keep you in wolf the whole time. You have an awesome sense of smell, and we need it for this challenge.” TJ grinned, his limbs jerking in enthusiasm. Erik pulled the map out of range in the nick of time and laughed. “You’re getting better. You’ve still got a little growing up to do, that’s all.”
The pleased expression in TJ’s eyes made Maggie forget some of her own fears. Over the past couple of days every other time someone mentioned TJ’s name, he had been called a klutz, whether he was standing there or not. Suddenly she felt indignant for him. What kind of crap was that?
“You just don’t want to carry a pack.” Jared poked TJ in the side and the two of them fell to the ground to wrestle like puppies for a minute. A tug on her sleeve caught her attention and she followed Erik off to the side a few steps.
“I’m going to get TJ to change now. You okay?”
How did he know? “I…have to be, don’t I?”
He stepped closer and spoke softly, for her ears only. “You think I haven’t noticed you’ve tensed every time one of the other teams had a member shift? I didn’t think it was because you were embarrassed by their nudity.”
“Well, there was that one guy…”
“Hush.” He kissed her nose, and she went all soft and melty inside. Three days on the trail with him.