Grey Mountain Pack Series: The Prophesied Luna

Montana

As she was driving along Highway 93 in Montana, her tiny car decided to begin to lose momentum and smoke had started pouring out from under the hood and, before coming to a stuttering halt on the side of the road, her car gave one final gurgle before completely shutting off. Savannah began cursing everything she could think of before a sudden wave of panic hit her. What if no one came down this road? What if she had to sit there all night? What if she froze in her car because she did not have any heat? She had tried her cell phone, but to her dismay there was no service. She just had to hope for the best and that someone would come along.

It was nearly two hours before another vehicle came along. She had been scared that no one would find her before the sun had set, and the temperature began to decline; snow had been falling in the area for about four hours before her car broke down. Savannah had sat in her driver's seat praying to whatever deity that would listen, she had begun shivering within about forty minutes because what little heat that had been in the tiny desolate vehicle had quickly dissolved with the rapidly dropping temperature outside.

The flash of headlights in her rearview caught her attention. Quickly she scrambled out of her Toyota into the heavy onslaught of wind and snow. Using her arms and the light on her phone, she flagged down the rescue she desperately needed.

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Tyler had not really known why he had chosen to take 93 tonight, but there had been a nagging gut feeling that this was the route he needed to take to get to his Great Grandfather Carson's hunting cabin tonight. Not to mention his wolf Killian pestering him to take that particular route. Turning up the heat to fight the cold that tried to seep through his slightly cracked window, his mind began to wander away from his driving. He knew all the roads going to the cabin so well he could probably navigate them with his eyes closed. He had begun to crest the slight incline that could barely be called a hill when a sudden moving light caught his eyes. His mind snapped back to full attention just in time to see a dark figure waving what he assumed to be a cell phone in the air.

Immediately, he hit the brakes while letting out curse words that his mother would have slapped him for even thinking about. Bringing his Ford F-150 to a jerking stop, he slammed the gear shift into park and began to unbuckle his safety belt to get out. Before he could dismount the driver's seat of his pick-up, the figure that he had seen standing there waving the light had moved to stand outside his door and began to take off its jacket hood. In that quick movement he realized that the figure was not just anyone; it was a woman. Killian howled in his mind, prancing around, almost vibrating with unexplained excitement. What in the blue blazes was she doing out here in the middle of the road! He could have run her over if the light on her phone had not caught his attention.

At that precise moment, she began to speak to him, but he could barely understand what she was trying to say. Her words were so broken by her shivering and her teeth chattering. The fact that his window was only slightly cracked open also didn’t help the situation any. Before he could open his door and get out of the cab of the silver F-150, she managed to get out "I a-am s-so gl-glad you st-stopped." Her voice was so low, and the wind was howling around them, sending snow like ballistic missiles towards their eyes. Even with the wind and snow, Savannah could still see the man in front of her perfectly; she had never seen the likes of Tyler Grier. He towered over her at six foot six; she would barely be able to claim that she stood a meek five-foot four. Both her mother and father were under six foot tall, so it was no wonder that she was so short. His brown hair, that was a little longer than a crew cut, whipped around his face in the wind, and his eyes the color of cobalt pierced through the fading daylight.

Suddenly a thought popped into her head, a thought she had not even considered before. What if her would be rescue was not a rescue at all? What if this man planned to kill her right here on the side of this road? No sooner had she finished her thought process had he taken a step towards her, one hand raised as if to touch her shoulder. Savannah could not stop what happened next. She screamed.

Tyler snapped his hands back, throwing them up in the air, in a surrendering stance. "Whoa, I ain't gonna hurt you. Stop that infernal screaming, besides no one will be able to hear you out here." He quickly said in the hopes that she would shut up; the screaming was grating his nerves. Killian whimpered in his mind, shrinking back into the depths. The near frozen woman clamped her mouth shut after he told her no one would hear her anyway. She stared at her would-be rescuer/killer and started to violently shake. He knew she was scared and freezing; the shivers racked her tiny frame. Tyler spoke again, but this time his voice was less defensive. "Hey, lady, why don't you sit in my truck and warm up? Then we can talk about why you're sitting out here in the cold." He waved his hand in the direction of the truck’s passenger side.

Savannah stared at him like a deer in headlights making no move to just climb into this guy's truck; maybe that is exactly what he wanted so he could kill her. " You s-sure you w-won't h-hurt m-me?" Her voice was shaking, and she knew it was a combination of fear and the cold. Sensing she was terrified along with knowing she was freezing, Tyler nodded his head saying, "Yes ma'am, I swear I won 't hurt you. Just come get warm, you're nearly frozen, and your lips are turning blue." She nodded her head in acknowledgment and started walking to the passenger side of the truck. She was just going to have to trust this tall and strikingly handsome stranger.

When she had climbed into the cab she sighed and sank into the truck seat; the warm air embracing her like an electric blanket. He climbed into the driver's side, slammed his door against the freezing winds and turned his body to face her. He did the best he could with the steering wheel in the way. Once they were both situated in the vehicle, Tyler offered her his right hand and said, "My name is Tyler Grier. What's your name ma'am?" She looked at him and took his hand. "My name is Savannah Gordon." They quickly shook hands; then without any hesitation, Tyler asked her what she was doing out there by herself. Taking a deep breath, Savannah began to tell him how she had left home after her father's death to get away from her mother's side of the family. That they had begun to insert themselves into her business and that they thought they could tell her how she should act and what she should wear. She told him how she was just driving until she felt that she had gone far enough away from them that they could not get to her.

Savannah told Tyler that she had been looking for a hotel to spend the night in and that her GPS had sent her down this road since all the ones nearby were full. It was then that her car decided to potentially blow up on her. She couldn’t understand why she had just spilled basically her whole life to this stranger. Something deep inside her just made her blurt it all out, like verbal vomit. "Well, Miss Gordon, you are in a real pickle here. Maybe there is something I can do to help you out. That is if you trust me enough to do so." She couldn't help that her lips went into a small smirk when she replied saying, "Mr. Grier, I really don't have much of a choice in the matter. I either trust you to help me out or I will sit here all night and freeze to death." As if he found what she said to be hilarious, he busted out in deep laughter. The sound was warm and coated her like her father’s hugs once had. It made her feel like she was safe, even if she had just met him. Once he had gotten himself under control, he told her that there was a garage just up the road about two miles away and that he knew the owner, so he might, could get her a deal on the price of whatever it cost to get her car fixed. She agreed to let him take her to the garage and asked him if he knew where she could stay until her car was fixed. Tyler told her that the nearest hotel that might have a vacancy was still one-hundred miles away; but he was headed to his family's hunting cabin and that there was a spare room she could stay in for now. Savannah reluctantly agreed to stay at the cabin with him, but only because she did not have any other choice. The nearest hotel was too far away for her to go, and she needed to stay close by.