Wolf Games

Chapter 7

“We’ve got a problem.”

Maggie groaned as she sat up from where she’d sprawled on the side of the trail. The past two hours had been sheer hell as they slogged their way to the top of the Golden Stairs and over the Chilkoot Pass. She hadn’t hiked so much vertical ascent since she was a teenager, and every muscle screamed in protest. “What’s wrong, Jared?”

“Did TJ lose a page of the puzzle when he was goofing off last night?” Jared frowned as he flipped through pages. Erik reached out and Jared handed them over. Maggie watched in concern as Erik examined the set. Jared growled in frustration. “If King Klutz—”

“That’s enough.” Erik cut in sternly and Jared had the grace to look sheepish. “There’s nothing missing. What’s the issue?”

“There are no additional clues for the last few spaces,” Jared pointed out. “There are also no landmark clues. Three completely blank columns—it’s like we’re going in blind and have to find a needle in a haystack.” Maggie crawled closer to look over Erik’s shoulder at the papers. She leaned against his strong back, the warmth of his body drawing her like a magnet. The whole day she’d forced herself to stay away from him but now gave in to the need to recharge her batteries with a brief touch. He glanced at her and winked, and she blushed. Their sexual attraction was normal for wolves, but her continued denial of their mating and his patient response confused her. She felt like a broken fan, running hot then cold.

“I noticed the first day. We’ll figure it out tonight.” Erik handed the papers back to Jared. The young man stared in shock.

“How can we fill in the missing answers without clues or landmarks? Why didn’t you say something earlier?”

Erik shrugged. “There was no use in panicking. The challenge must be solvable, so I decided we’d figure it as we went along.”

Jared shook his head. “You really are too cool and collected at times, aren’t you?”

A muffled howl rose from up the trail and they turned to see TJ racing back. His loping gait tore up the rocky terrain as he returned to drop a rock at their feet. Erik picked it up, running a hand over TJ’s head. “Well done. I wasn’t looking forward to hunting for this answer.”

“Where was it?”

He pointed to the mountain spine extending another mile off to their left, the razor edge jagged against the skyline. “The puzzle clue was Cutting you off and the map shows the location to be along the far ridge. I sent TJ ahead in the hopes the answer would be something obvious, and save the rest of us the trip.”

Maggie swallowed hard. Imagining having to hike the ragged rocks to the spire made her even more grateful for TJ’s wolf. “I would never have made that.”

“What symbol do I add?” Jared asked.

Erik handed the rock over to Maggie and she turned it over carefully. “There’s nothing carved on it.” Her stomach fell. Were they going to have to do the dangerous climb after all?

“Don’t worry, this is what we need. It’s not always simple like having the answer written on the surface. Remember the answer to the sixth clue involved a math formula.” Erik nudged her arm. “What kind of rock is it?”

TJ pawed at her feet and she knelt to scratch behind his ears as she stared at the stone chip. “You wouldn’t have brought it unless you thought it was the answer, so I’ll assume it wasn’t in a normal setting.” She wrinkled her nose. “It sparkles, so I’ll guess it’s fool’s gold. There’s got to be a lot in these parts.”

Erik laughed. “Remind me never to go panning with you. You’d miss out on a bonanza.”

She gaped at him. “It’s real gold?”

“Yup, and that’s not the usual location to find a nugget. Gold is rarely found loose like this, and never up that high. Someone had to have planted it there.”

Maggie rotated the chunk again. “Still doesn’t look like much to me.”

Jared added a few notes with a flourish. “One piece of gold.” He glanced up, worry back on his face. “There’s only three more clues before we run out and hit the blank section of the puzzle.”

“Then we’ll stop for the night.” Erik rose and held out a hand to Maggie to assist her up. She took it gratefully. “That’s the last of the big uphill. From here on it’s rolling trail until we start down to Bennett Lake. The next clue is Reflections and the coordinates look like it should be by a water source, so let’s get moving. The day will be done before we know it.”

He held up her backpack and Maggie crawled under the shoulder straps reluctantly. He brushed his hands over her body as he helped tighten the snaps and buckles, and her skin tingled.

“Stop it,” she whispered. Great, now she was going to be hiking with sore feet, tired muscles and an aching need in her belly.

Erik chuckled. “I’m just trying to be helpful.”

She elbowed him.

“But it doesn’t mean anything.” TJ scratched his head.

“It has to.” Jared paced back and forth and Maggie rubbed her temples. They’d set up camp two hours ago, had dinner and then the puzzle began to drive them all nuts.

“They are totally unrelated words. It’s gibberish, no matter which way we read them.”

Maggie stared at the papers at her feet. It was true. There was no logic in any of the words and symbols they’d found. “We’ve tried rearranging the words. We’ve taken the first letter, the last letter. We’ve…”

“…tried everything.” Jared glanced over at Erik. “What if we don’t figure this out? Can we finish without the last six clues?”

Erik nodded slowly. “We just need to get to the Bennett Lake check-in by three. That’s not a problem at all. Only in previous Games, the final challenge used information gathered from all the rest of the events. Five years ago the team in fourth spot came from behind to win because none of the leaders had all the clues.”

Maggie sighed. She’d felt so useless this whole challenge. Unlike TJ who had more than pulled his weight, all she’d done was ensure they hiked slower than usual. Usually she was good at logic puzzles. She picked up the clues and shuffled through them again. Something caught her eye.

“Erik, what are these notes?”

He sat next to her and she soaked in his presence. “Those? I kept track of where we found the answer. I figured everything might help in the end.”

Her heart raced. “What if the clues weren’t just to help us find the location, but we have to use them twice?”

Jared plopped down across from them, hope shining on his face. “How do you use a clue twice?”

Maggie laid out the paper and pointed. “We found the answer to number eleven by looking in the reflection of the pool at the base of the waterfall, right?”

“There was the Greek symbol omega. We wrote it down. It means nothing.”

She nodded. “But when you look at your reflection it comes out backwards.” She wanted to jump up and down. This was the right track, she was sure of it.

Erik brushed her arm. “But the symbol for omega is the same whether you draw it backward or forward.”

Maggie laughed. “But what if you think of it as the back of the alphabet? Omega is the last letter of the Greek alphabet. What’s at the other end?”

TJ shot up his arm before lowering it slowly. “Sorry, too many years of school training. Alpha is the Greek A.”

“Right.” Maggie started a new paper. She deliberately drew the symbol for alpha. “And here…we wrote down gold. But the clue said Cutting you off. The chemical formula for gold is Au. If we cut off the U we get an A.”

The next thirty minutes passed in a blur as they struggled through the rest of the puzzle, discovering as they fed the current answer through the clue again there were clear-cut alternatives.

“In your notes you recorded what height we found the answers, high up or low to the ground. Should I add that information?” Maggie glanced at Erik to find him staring at her with a twinkle in his eyes. “What?”

“You’re very attractive when you’re obsessed about something.”

Jared laughed. “You two. Save the lovey-dovey for later. Let’s solve this thing.”

When the new list was finished, Maggie held it up with a flourish. Now they would be able to find the final answers. She scanned the page quickly and her hopes fell. There was nothing but a series of single letters from A-G mixed up again and again.

It still made no sense.

Jared and TJ started laughing, and her temper flared.

“It’s not funny.” So much for her being an asset to the team like Erik had suggested.

“We tried. I guess we’ll just have to finish without the final information.” Jared threw a rock into the bush and lay back on the ground in disgust.

TJ startled. “What are you guys talking about? Don’t you see it?”

His earnest expression made Maggie feel even worse. “There’s nothing there that helps us, TJ.”

He snorted and took the paper from her to scrawl down six more letters.

Erik looked at the list and raised a brow. “You think?”

“Positive.” TJ nodded rapidly. He scrambled in his pockets, fumbling as he pulled out his harmonica. As the first notes of the familiar children’s opera rang into the air on the unusual wind instrument, Maggie laughed.

“No way, you’re saying those letters are musical notes? That tune is too funny.”

Erik grinned at her. “I think TJ’s hit on the right solution. Does it help if I tell you the race director’s name is Peter?” He clapped slowly. “Well done, team.”

Jared groaned. “‘Peter and the Wolf’? We went through all that searching to have to listen to TJ playing bad classical music on his harmonica?”

TJ hit him and the two of them tumbled away to wrestle again. Erik smiled down at her and she grinned back in satisfaction. She really had managed to help the team.

Suddenly the idea of being a part of the pack didn’t nauseate her. The guys had been nothing but supportive of her, and her heart no longer went into palpitations when she remembered she was in the bush with three other wolves.

Except for the rushing, pounding rapid beat of her heart that remained every time she thought about Erik. Her wolf bumped to the surface, as if reaching for him. His eyes widened as they stared at each other, and Maggie had to hold back from pressing closer, rubbing herself all over him. For one moment she seriously considered dragging him into the tent and accepting their mating.

Her throat closed tight and she dropped her gaze away, fidgeting with the papers. She organized them, then thrust them out at him.

The idea of being in wolf form with others around—she wasn’t sure she’d ever be ready for that step. Mating with Erik but refusing to let their wolves have contact would be the cruelest thing imaginable. She couldn’t play games with his emotions, couldn’t tease his wolf with promises she was unable to keep.

What of the challenges still to come in the Wolf Games? Had she helped solve this puzzle only to tear victory from their grasp when she was unable to shift?

“You’re thinking too hard. Let it rest.” Erik brushed a stray hair back behind her ear and she leaned into the caress without thinking. “In fact we all should turn in. Just because we know what we’re looking for won’t make tomorrow any easier.”

“So using the song to solve the puzzle gave us six letters in the answer column, but no idea where we’ll find them? I assume that’s the information we’ll need for the final event, right? That sucks,” Jared complained as he unzipped the fly to the tent.

“Hey, at least we know what to look for, and with TJ’s great sense of smell, I’m confident we’ll be at the checkpoint in plenty of time.” Erik patted TJ on the back, catching him by the shirt when he tripped. “Yup, a good night’s sleep and a short hike tomorrow. I’m betting there will be little time between the end of this challenge and the start of the next.”

Erik settled the boys, returning to hold his hand out to her. “As much as I’d love a repeat of last night, I suggest we hit the sack as well.”

She nodded slowly. There was too much to say and she didn’t have the strength yet. “Erik, what if I can’t—?”

He held up a hand. “I’m not trying to be rude, but I’d like you to trust me on this one. Sleep first, discussions later. You did so well with the puzzle, but I can feel your exhaustion from here. While you’re getting the chemicals you need from being with us, I doubt you’ve hiked this far in the past few years while hanging out in Vancouver.” He pulled her against his body and she molded herself to him. It felt so wonderful. He lifted her chin and stared at her. “I’m warning you I’m going to hold you tonight. I can’t resist, and I think you need it too. If you were planning on protesting, argue here so we don’t wake the boys.”

Jared’s snores already rocked the tent and Maggie laughed. “Like me blowing a trumpet in his ear would wake him.” They exchanged grins before she grew serious again. There was nothing she wanted more right now than to feel his arms around her. “I could handle you holding me. If you feel you absolutely must.”

He nodded seriously. “I think it’s vital.”

They slipped into the tent and Maggie relaxed, the warmth of her mate covering her like a blanket as the never-ending light shone through the walls of the tent, filling the space with a peaceful blue glow.