SHIFTERS

Three Complete Trilogies

Arctic Wolf

Wolves of Valhalla

The Pack Trilogy

by

J.R. RAIN

H.P. MALLORY

CHANEL SMITH

Other Books by J.R. Rain

VAMPIRE FOR HIRE®

New Moon Rising

Moon Mourning

Haunted Moon

Moon Dance

Vampire Moon

American Vampire

Moon Child

Christmas Moon

Vampire Dawn

Vampire Games

Moon Island

Moon River

Moon Tales

Vampire Sun

Moon Dragon

Moon Bayou

Blood Moon

Parallel Moon

Moon Shadow

Vampire Fire

Midnight Moon

Moon Angel

Vampire Sire

Moon Master

Dead Moon

Lost Moon

Moon Vacation

Vampire Destiny

Infinite Moon

Vampire Empress

Moon Elder

Wicked Moon

Moon Shots

Winter Moon

Moon Blade

Sasquatch Moon

Moon Cases

Wild Moon

Moon Magic

Moon World

Vampire Deep

Moon Matador

Latin Moon

Sun Dance

Unicorn Moon

Missing Moon

THE WITCHES SERIES

The Witch and the Gentleman

The Witch and the Englishman

The Witch and the Huntsman

The Witch and the Wolfman

The Witch and the Hangman

JIM KNIGHTHORSE SERIES

Dark Horse

The Mummy Case

Hail Mary

Clean Slate

THE WATSON FILES

Sherlock Holmes and the Missing Shakespeare

Sherlock Holmes and the Lost Da Vinci

Sherlock Holmes and the Werewolf of West End

Sherlock Holmes and the Vampire’s Kiss

WINTER SOLSTICE SERIES

Convergence

Containment

Catalyst

Catacombs

ALEXIS SILVER SERIES

Silver Light

Deep Silver

Silver Quarrel

Silver Heart

Silver Kingdom

Other Books by H.P. Mallory

PARANORMAL WOMEN’S FICTION:

Midlife Mysteries

Midlife Spirits

Haven Hollow

Misty Hollow

Trailer Park Vampire

Gwen’s Ghosts

PARANORMAL ROMANCE:

Witch, Warlock & Vampire

Lily Harper

Dulcie O’Neil

Gates of the Underworld

PARANORMAL REVERSE HAREM:

Happily Never After

My Five Kings

Other Books by Chanel Smith

THE HUNTRESS TRILOGY

The Vampire With the Golden Gun

The Vampire in the High Castle

The Vampire Who Knew Too Much

THE GHOST FILES

Ghost Crypt

Ghost Town

Ghost Writer

Ghost Castle

Shifters: Three Complete Trilogies

Published by J.R. Rain

Copyright © 2024 by J.R. Rain

All rights reserved.

Ebook Edition, License Notes

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

ARCTIC WOLF

Lone Wolf

New Wolf

Dark Wolf

WOLVES OF VALHALLA

The Viking Wolf

Wolves of Winter

Wolves of Asgard

THE PACK TRILOGY

Werewolf Moon

Werewolf Nights

Werewolf Forever

Reading Sample: Hell on Earth

About J.R. Rain

About H.P. Mallory

About Chanel Smith

LONE WOLF

A novel by

J.R. RAIN &

H.P. MALLORY

Arctic Wolf #1

Lone Wolf

Published by Rain Press

Copyright © 2021 by J.R. Rain & H.P. Mallory

All rights reserved.

Ebook Edition, License Notes

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

**Previously published as Ice Wolf. This edition includes numerous changes.**

Dedications:

J.R. wishes to dedicate this novel to John and Chuck.

H.P. wishes to dedicate this novel to her son, Finn, for making her the happiest mom ever!

Lone Wolf

Chapter One

The body had been perfectly preserved in the ice.

What little there was of the winter sun was low on the horizon, shining at an angle, casting long shadows but giving little or no heat. It was noon, and the sun had reached its zenith. It would be gone in an hour or so.

Whoever this was, he’d spent the harsh winter buried in snow and ice. Same with the knife sticking out of his chest. The body was that of a male Native American. He was Inuit, no doubt. He was maybe thirty-one, thirty-two. He was also completely naked, although his legs were still partly encased in ice.

One of my deputies, Miguel, who was wearing latex gloves, squatted next to the dead man, and looked carefully at the knife protruding from his chest.

“Strange,” he said.

A bitterly cold wind swept over the freshly-thawed lake. I ignored the wind, or tried to. I might have hunkered down into my police-issue jacket a bit more, but that was it, and no one saw me do it. There’s an unwritten rule in Alaska, at least, out in these parts; you ignored the cold, and you sure as hell didn’t make a fuss over it. Even if you were a woman, and especially if you were the chief of police.

I squatted down next to him and studied the knife.

Miguel nodded towards it. “It’s not a normal knife.”

Antler handle, sloppy glue job.

The afternoon light reflected dully off the metal shaft. I suspected the knife had been plunged all the way into the man’s chest; however, due to the ravages of time and the brutal winter, his skin had retreated some, revealing more of the unusual blade.

“It’s homemade,” I said as I continued to study it. “And it’s silver.”

Miguel nodded.

We both stood but continued staring down at the body, which was propped up against a tree in a sitting position, as if waiting for teatime.

“Ijiraq,” he said finally, using the Inuit name for “shape-shifter”—a name I was all too familiar with.

I knew this was coming. After all, in these parts—these remote parts—the legend of the shifter was prevalent. For three months now, I’d been the chief of police of Hope, Alaska, and during that time, I’d heard the word whispered dozens of times. Some weren’t whisperings. Those who were courageous enough spoke freely of the creatures that many believed stalked their woods, raided their homes, and stole their livestock and, in one case, their children.

I’d heard the rumors, too, all the way down in Anchorage, where I’d worked homicide for eight years. We’d all heard the stories that trickled out of Hope. And we’d all laughed at them, too. After all, Anchorage was the last outpost of civilization. It was where the Starbucks stopped, and where the real bucks started. Where hipsters’ beards weren’t just ironic, but necessary. Anchorage was the last place where people were born and raised and educated and actually became something.

But out here, in the wild, beyond our imaginary fortress walls, anything was possible. Or so some claimed. Out here were thousands of acres of untouched wilderness. Out here were beasts of all shapes and sizes. Polar bears, moose and brown bears in unheard-of sizes. Some even claimed the last vestiges of the Ice Age were out here, too, but these stories seemed less probable, though no less prevalent. It wasn’t that unusual to hear stories from hunters returning from the wilderness who’d claimed to see wooly mammoths and mastodons. (I never knew the difference between the two, truth be known.) There were also the Inuit trackers who said they’d seen saber-toothed tigers and dire wolves and lived to tell about it.

Yes, we’d heard all the rumors and legends. We’d listened to the stories from behind our lattes and within our heated homes. We’d heard the stories and we’d laughed them off. We had to. We were civilized, after all.

But there were some stories that weren’t quite so easy to dismiss. And those stories revolved around wild men and women who lived off the grid. Way, way, way off the grid. People who governed themselves and lived outside time and space and law, people who were nearly impossible to reach. And if you did reach them, you were in for the fight of your life.

Now, the wind somehow found its way inside my clothing, but I ignored it. If someone looked closely enough, they might have seen my shoulders hunch a little as I attempted to ward away the cold, but they wouldn’t see anything more.

I was the new girl. And not just a girl, either. I was the chief of police. The boss. And the Neanderthals here didn’t know what to make of me. Six machismo officers, all under my command. The small town of Hope had been looking for a new police chief, and I’d been looking for a way out of Anchorage. It was a match made in heaven. At least on paper. In reality, the guys didn’t like me, and some might have even hated me. After all, who was I, an outsider, to come in and tell them how to run their department, their town, their lives? Hell, I was a city slicker, an outsider, and I was a woman, too. All of which added up to animosity.

All of which I ignored.

I was convinced that most of them thought I’d be gone by now. Most had it wrong. It was going to take a lot more than butt-hurt cops to scare me away.

“Have you ever seen anything like this, Miguel?” I asked.

He moved closer to the blade, and was now inspecting it from just inches away. There was no blood, but I wasn’t surprised. Undoubtedly, any blood had washed away with the snow melt. At present, the temperature was a little above freezing. Warm enough to melt snow but not warm enough, apparently, to cause decomposition. The dead man before me could have died hours ago, minutes ago. Hell, he looked like he could be alive even now.

“Yes, Chief,” he said. “I have.”

I waited.

Miguel had been the first to call me chief. A few of the others had followed suit, but the name hadn’t stuck. I hadn’t earned it yet, I suspected. At least in their eyes. My years in homicide had done nothing to impress them. Then again, I wasn’t here to impress anyone. I was here to uphold the law. At least, that’s what I’d said during my interview with the mayor. What I hadn’t said was that I was here to start over, to find myself, to heal myself. Mostly, I was here to forget.

Miguel continued, “It was when I was a boy. I found a man on a boulder, facing the sky. A spear in his chest.”

“A spear?”

He nodded. “With a silver tip.”

“Do you remember anything else?”

“The elders burned the body.”

“Who was he?”

Miguel, who was about thirty, the same age as me, and who sported uncannily round eyes for an Inuit, glanced at me. “My brother.”

“Jesus,” I said.

Miguel looked back at the man propped up against the tree. “We must burn him, too.”

“No,” I said. “First, we find out who he is, and then we find out who killed him.”

Chapter Two

The beads of rain splashed my face, the sudden coldness shocking at first but then, strangely comforting. People always thought it was odd that I preferred a rainy day over a sunny one. Who knew? Maybe I was odd. I’d been accused of worse…

I could feel the burn in my legs as I continued jogging and before long, I found myself headed for the woods—woods that were dark, hidden.

My heartbeat started to increase as unease overcame me, though I wasn’t sure why I was feeling anxious. I ignored the feeling and continued forward. That was when I saw him—the largest animal I’d ever seen in the wild. A wolf.

He was standing maybe five feet in front of me and was completely black with the most startling gray eyes. I’d never seen eyes this color—that of steel.

I immediately stopped and my heart rode up into my throat. I took a step back but the wolf made no motion to follow me. Instead, it just stood there, watching. Waiting.

I won’t hurt you, Elodie.

It was the creature’s voice in my head. And it was plainly male—the tone deep and gruff.

I didn’t understand how it was that I was hearing the creature’s thoughts in my own mind, but there it was.

I need you, Elodie. We all do.

***

My eyes popped open at the same moment that I bolted upright. I was panting and the sweat was already beading along my hairline. It took me a few seconds to catch my breath and convince myself it was just a dream. A recurring one. But my heart continued to thump against my ribs in rapid succession as if it wasn’t convinced.

I threw off the duvet cover and reached for my fluffy white bunny slippers from underneath my bed. Their proximity was by design, considering I woke up nearly every night the same way. Yet, the dream had changed. Before I’d moved to Hope, Alaska, I woke up every night dreaming about an evening eight years ago when my fiancé, Nick, had been shot and killed, right in front of me. It was the reason I’d become a cop and the reason I’d moved to Alaska from Connecticut. Call it escaping the past or fleeing from reality, call it whatever you wanted.

Yet, ever since I’d moved to Hope, I hadn’t dreamt of Nick once. Instead, I’d had this dream or a variation of it. And it was always the same: a wolf—black and enormous and I could hear his voice in my head, telling me he needed me.

I shook my head as I put on the annoyingly fuzzy slippers and then plodded into the living room, the milky-white moonlight guiding my way. The clock on the stove revealed it was 2:00 a.m.

“One of these days,” I said with a sigh, even though I wasn’t exactly sure what it was that I was trying to tell myself. One of these days, I’d actually sleep through the night? One of these days, I’d stop having this weird dream about a talking wolf with steel gray eyes?

Gus, my overweight and overloud roommate, plunged off the couch from where he’d been napping and assaulted me with what sounded like an overture of bleating sheep. It was the sound he made when he was hungry and he was always hungry.

“Yeah, yeah,” I muttered as he weaved his white, portly body in between my ankles, nearly tripping me in the process.

He sat down next to his kitty bowl and then looked up at me with an impatient expression pasted across his flat face. I flipped on the light switch and suddenly felt like my eyes were being burned out of my head as they fought to acclimate themselves to the fluorescence overhead. Once I was able to see through the narrow slits of my squinting eyes, I pulled open the pantry door. Gus’ rows of Fancy Feast cans took prime position up front and center, outnumbering my human food five to one.

“Dr. Ivers is going to be upset with me,” I reprimanded the uninterested Persian cat. “You know we’re supposed to be watching your weight.”

Even if Gus could have understood me, he probably would have responded with something along the lines of, “I’m hungry, so Dr. Ivers can shove it.” As it was, he just licked his chops as I opened the can. I leaned down to spoon out the nasty stuff, but Gus dove for it before I had the chance to empty all of it into his bowl. The guy was serious about his victuals.

I plopped the can into the recycle bin and then stood back as I studied Gus with my arms crossed against my chest. He made a funny sort of humming sound as he vacuumed the food in his bowl. For myself, I couldn’t even remember if I’d eaten dinner the night before.

“Maybe if I shaved you, you’d look thinner and we’d be able to pull one over on the good doctor,” I said, legitimately concerned about the scolding I was sure to get from Dr. Ivers.

Gus finished his chicken pâté in record time and made a beeline again for the living room. He flopped onto the sofa, curled into a big, white ball and promptly went back to sleep.

“Not even a thank you, ungrateful cat,” I grumbled as I turned off the solar flares overhead and made my way back into my living room. “And what does it say about me that the most conversation I’ve had all week is with you?” I sighed and wondered whether this self-imposed loneliness was going to wreak long-term havoc on me.

I stood in front of the sliding glass doors that overlooked the harsh Alaskan winter, debating whether or not to make a new pot of coffee or just heat up the leftovers from yesterday. The moonlight reflected against the blanket of white that covered what was, in the summer, a meadow. Beyond the blanketed meadow was the open wilderness, delineated by the pine tree line. In my small community of Pine Hill, everyone kept their animals indoors. Not just in winter, either. In summer, too. If you didn’t, you’d never see them again. Courtesy of the wolves.

I shivered in spite of myself as I remembered the eyes of the body of the man whom Miguel and I had found preserved in the icy tundra. I’d seen a lot of dead bodies in my time, but there was something about this one that stuck with me. It was the expression in his eyes that was echoed in the curve of his lips. Surprise.

Surprise? I thought to myself as I shook my head and frowned. How obvious could I be? Of course, he was surprised! No one expects to receive a silver dagger straight through the chest! The first thing anyone would feel is the shock of it. Jeez, Elodie.

I exhaled a pent-up breath as I recognized the truth in my thoughts. This case was going to be a big one. As it stood, it was the biggest case I’d come across in my three months here in Hope. That meant I needed to step up my game. Thinking a corpse looked surprised wasn’t going to win me any sleuth awards. If I were going to put this case to bed, first, I had to make sure I put myself to bed. It was true—I wasn’t getting enough sleep. I could read as much in the dark circles underneath my eyes. If my aristocratic mother were to see me now, she’d probably have an aneurysm right on the spot. That reminded me, I still hadn’t called her back.

I glanced at my cell phone on the coffee table in front of the snoring cat and noticed the green light was blinking—I had a voicemail. I was sure it was from my mom. During off-duty hours, she was the only one who called me. I didn’t bother listening to it because her messages were always the same…

Why wasn’t I meeting any eligible men when I was living in a place where men outnumbered women nine to one? Was I over Nick’s death yet? If not, I really should be. I was now thirty and my biological clock was ticking, so why wasn’t I considering my future more seriously? Why had I become a police officer anyway? Didn’t I remember that, once upon a time, I’d been prom queen and, therefore, could have been the enviable wife to any of the guys on the football team? Didn’t I remember that underneath my amorphous uniform, I still had a figure most women would die for? Wasn’t I aware that in looking just like my mother did at my age, I was beautiful?

“No wonder you’re the only one in my life, Gus,” I said as I glanced over at the now-twitching cat. “You don’t talk back.”

Chapter Three

The thing about naked dead guys was that they didn’t carry identification.

“I’ve submitted the fingerprints to the IAFIS,” said Dr. Paul Moody, referring to the Integrated Automated Fingerprint Identification System maintained by the FBI. “If he’s in there, we’ll know in a few hours.”

We stood in Dr. Moody’s office, located in what passed for our “downtown”—it comprised six buildings, three of which were restaurants. Moody was our only doctor. He was also the region’s only qualified coroner. As such, it was his job to identify bodies and determine causes of death. According to him, this case wasn’t exactly a rush job, since our John Doe had been on ice all winter, literally.

After photographing the crime scene, Miguel and I had been careful to dig out John Doe from the ice. Then we’d strapped him to a sled, easing him onto his side. Talk about dead weight! As soon as his vacant eyes had met mine, though, I’d decided to cover him with a white sheet. I really hadn’t wanted to look at the stillness in those long-dead eyes for the next twenty-five miles back to Hope. Besides, it was freezing out. And it just seemed, I don’t know, right to cover the poor, naked bastard, even if said bastard was dead.

The ride back into town had been a long one. It was a ride that took us through the densest of woods and along the most forgotten of trails, through a rugged landscape that still wasn’t showing the first signs of thawing. Winter in Alaska was a long one. So long, in fact, that it felt neverending. As we covered mile upon mile of white landscape, I wished to see the occasional fern popping up through the snow that might hint at the end of winter and the dawning of spring. Or the way the maples sported a reddish glow as new buds appeared at the tips of what were once bare and lifeless twigs. But, no, the branches of the maples were just as bare and lifeless now as they had been two months ago.

Not wanting to lose myself in my own wistful thoughts, I considered what Miguel had said about burning John Doe. And all I could picture were those frozen eyes thawing in the heat of the fire as the flames consumed them. Apparently, burning was the only way to keep the body from rising again, whatever the hell that meant. According to Miguel, the silver dagger was only a placeholder, of sorts.

“So he’s not really dead?”

“Oh, he’s dead. It’s just that...” Miguel had shrugged, and then went silent for a few seconds, as if he were considering how much to tell an outsider. I’d encouraged him to continue, and he’d added, “It’s just that we don’t take chances out here.”

Later, as I’d followed behind on my own snowmobile, the sheet flapped in the arctic wind and I’d occasionally caught sight of the man’s face and the shocked expression in his eyes. Yes, I was accustomed to seeing surprise in the eyes of the dead, but this one still struck me as different, even now, even while I was standing here beside Dr. Moody and staring down at the corpse before us. There was just something about his eyes, about the shock in their depths.

His eyes don’t look dead, I suddenly thought to myself as I glanced down at the body, which was spread out on the gurney before me.

I shook my head at the absurdity of my thoughts and nearly asked Dr. Moody what he thought of John Doe’s expression, but it wasn’t the good doctor’s job to determine a victim’s expression. It was his job to perform an autopsy, which he’d already confirmed he had.

“Any suspicious death requires one, Chief,” Dr. Moody said as he bobbed back and forth in his desk chair. Then he gave me a broad smile that said he liked calling me by my title. “Although we try to honor local Native American customs when possible,” he continued, “in this case, I would assume our mystery man was First Nations, but there’s no way of knowing which tribe. There were no identifying marks or tattoos on his body. No scarification, or traditional dress.” Then he shrugged and looked slightly embarrassed. “He wasn’t dressed at all, was he?”

I just shook my head.

He cocked his head to the side and then shrugged. “It’s a shame because we could have learned something had he been. Anyway, in this case, state law trumps cultural heritage, because he wasn’t found on tribal land.”

I nodded again. I knew all of this already. But this was the first dead body I’d come across in my position as police chief of Hope, and, as such, my first interaction with Dr. Moody in any official capacity. Unofficially, I’d found the man to be an incorrigible flirt even though his desk was cluttered with framed pictures of grandkids, dogs and a wife, though heavier on the grandkids and dogs.

“I determined the cause of death was a stab wound to the chest, although it just missed the heart,” the doctor continued as he drummed his fingers along the faux wood of his desk. “Hypothermia would have played a role, too. A naked man in the woods, in the depths of winter, would have lasted only a minute or less. Unless his clothing was removed later.”

I, too, had pondered the whole naked bit. Thought about it hard. John Doe’s clothing could have been removed, maybe by whoever stabbed him. Maybe the killer needed his clothing? But I hadn’t seen evidence of any clothing caught in the teeth of the blade. And there hadn’t been any indication that John Doe’s clothes had been cut away in the first place. For all intents and purposes, the man seemed to have been naked when stabbed. Naked in the woods, in the middle of one of our coldest winters on record.

“Whisperings are that he’s a shape-shifter,” I said with a shrug. It wasn’t that I believed any of it. It was all nonsense as far as I was concerned, but I wanted to see where the doctor stood on the subject. “I keep hearing things about werewolves.”

Dr. Moody chuckled and his laughter seemed to ripple through his belly. He reminded me of Santa Claus. He was just missing the white beard and red suit. “Yes, there are those who believe in that sort of thing.” He gave a quick nod. “But us educated folk know better.”

I nodded, but his comment rubbed me the wrong way. “You mean ‘we’,” I offered, to which he gave me a confused frown. “It’s actually ‘we educated folk’,” I continued. “Not ‘us’.”

“We, us, same difference,” Dr. Moody responded curtly, apparently not very pleased at having his grammar corrected. He cleared his throat and faced me squarely. “Do you have any leads, Chief?”

I nodded. I’d spent the morning talking to our only lead, a hunter from Missouri who’d been tracking musk ox, a beastly, if not primitive, creature that, admittedly, I’d never heard of until moving to Alaska. To me, it looked like something out of the latest Star Wars movie.

Anyway, the hunter had stumbled across the body and then he’d immediately called us. As ordered, he’d stayed long enough for us to locate him. After getting his initial statement and contact info, I’d sent him on his way. Later on, I’d met with him at his rented lodge outside of town, and ordered him to walk me through everything again. At the end of our conversation, it was pretty obvious he hadn’t seen anything and didn’t know anything. It had just been dumb luck that he’d stumbled on the body before bears or wolves had. Then again, Alaska was a big-ass place. Hard to stumble on anything out here, let alone the rare dead body…

Naturally, I’d asked him how often he hunted in Alaska. Once or twice a year, he’d answered. I’d asked him if he was here with someone. No, he was alone. I’d asked him how the hunting was, and he’d said, “No musk ox yet.”

“A lead that led nowhere,” I finished with a sigh before turning to more important topics. “Trace evidence?” I asked. It was the medical examiner’s duty, much like on the popular TV shows, to recover any trace evidence from the body—hair, carpet fibers, fluids—anything that might aid the investigation.

“None that I’ve identified,” Dr. Moody responded with an uninterested shrug.

I nodded. I’d already made a mental note to head back out to the woods and take another look. “Where’s the knife?” I asked.

“Sent to the SCDL in Anchorage,” Moody answered. The SCDL was otherwise known as the Scientific Crime Detection Laboratory. “Should get there in the morning if Dusty doesn’t run into weather.” Dusty was our local bush pilot. “My resources are limited here, as you can imagine.”

The crime lab in Anchorage was as modern as any state’s, which was a relief because sometimes I felt like I’d inadvertently relocated myself to BFE. With such a small population that existed in Hope, it was no wonder that solving crimes was sometimes frustrating. But leave it to Anchorage, where I was sure they’d go over the blade with a fine-tooth comb, so to speak, using an array of tests to pull any evidence from the weapon.

“In the meantime, I have these for you.” Moody clicked his mouse, as he squinted at his monitor. He clicked again, then again, and a moment later, the printer behind me whirred to life. With a groan, he stood up from behind his desk, then slid behind me, being sure to bounce his enormous stomach into my butt, all the while smelling potently of aftershave. I took a step away from him.

A moment later, he handed me two full-color, close-up photographs of the knife, each photograph depicting one side of the weapon. The doctor next called in his young and very attractive secretary, and asked her to find me an envelope for the photos.

She smiled and said, “Yes, Dr. Moody.”

I suspected the not-so-virtuous doctor probably employed just about any reason to summon his attractive assistant.

While she was gone and while the doctor settled in behind his desk again, I studied the pictures. This was, after all, the first I’d seen of the actual blade. It was long, slightly curved, a sort of cross between a dagger and hunting knife. I recognized the sloppily-made antler handle. I had better knives in my kitchen drawer.

Moody said, “I’m no metallurgist, and the crime lab will confirm, but I’m certain the blade is nearly one hundred percent silver. The handle could be anything. Deer, elk, caribou.”

A moment later, Moody’s assistant appeared with an oversized envelope, which she handed to me. I slipped the pictures inside, figuring I’d study them later. Then I turned back to the doctor, who was busily thanking his assistant a little too profusely for a job a child, a dog or a circus monkey could have very easily handled.

“There’s more,” said Dr. Moody.

More is good in my business. More could possibly mean additional evidence, possibly extra clues to determine who the hell the man was, why he was killed, and why he was naked in the first place.

“Go on,” I said.

“I found over six pounds of undigested caribou meat in his stomach.”

Chapter Four

I felt my stomach turn as soon as the visual hit my brain. I had to pull myself away from my own disgust in order to focus on Dr. Moody’s announcement again. “Did you say six pounds?”

“I did.” He must have seen the perplexed look on my face because he continued to explain.

“I mean… how is that even possible?”

He cocked his head to the side. “It is possible for a human stomach to hold up to six pounds of food, though it would be rare. And I must say, the individual in question would be extremely uncomfortable.” He took a deep breath and I had a feeling there was more. “But that wasn’t the strangest part, Chief.”

“Go on,” I said.

“Along with the meat, I found two rib bones and a considerable amount of skin and fur.”

I opened my mouth, then shut it again.

Outside, through the open door of Dr. Moody’s office, I heard his young secretary talking on the phone, scheduling an appointment. His young, redheaded with big breasts secretary. I shook my head and brought my attention back to the doctor. “So what you’re trying to tell me is that our victim ate through the side of a caribou, skin, fur, bones and all?”

“I’m not necessarily saying he ate through the side of a caribou. All I’m saying is that somehow a caribou’s skin, fur, flesh and bones all ended up in his stomach.”

“Okay,” I wasn’t really sure where to go with this. “How would all of that end up in his stomach?”

“I assume he pulled it apart and fed himself.”

“How difficult would it be to pull apart a caribou with no tools?”

“Hard.”

“And he ate not only the flesh, but also the bones and fur?”

Moody nodded. “And another strange thing is there weren’t any lacerations in his mouth or throat…”

“Lacerations from?”

“Chewing and swallowing bones.”

I didn’t know what to say so I didn’t further comment. Instead, I changed the subject. “How thick is caribou hide?”

“Extremely.”

“And how big are their rib bones?”

“Big enough to pose a serious choking hazard.”

I was having a hard time digesting this. Pun intended. “Dr. Moody, have you ever, in all your time here, seen something like this?”

“I’ve only seen something similar in animals. In fact, that’s the first thing I thought when I performed the necropsy: that I was looking at the stomach contents of, say, a bear. Granted, a bear’s stomach could hold far more than our John Doe’s could, but the general state of the contents looked similar.”

“Similar how?”

He shrugged. “Partially masticated, torn-up pieces of flesh, some of which had been swallowed whole. In fact, I question just how the bigger chunks managed to find their way down his esophagus. Most humans with normal throat capacities would have choked.”

Try as I might, I couldn’t wrap my head around a naked man feasting on the side of a caribou, bones and all, in the middle of winter. Just call me unimaginative, I guess.

“Do you have any idea what we’re looking at here?”

I sure as hell didn’t have any answers.

Dr. Moody shook his head, but I couldn’t say I was surprised. The medical examiner’s job was to determine the cause of death and to collect any evidence to aid the investigation. It wasn’t his job to speculate what could have happened or who might have committed the murder, or why. Then again, we were at the far edge of nowhere, in the way back of beyond. Protocol had already flown out the window and was now MIA and had been from the moment the victim had eaten six pounds of raw caribou meat, bones, fur, skin and all.

The doctor studied me long and hard. I couldn’t help feeling like he wanted to tell me something, but then he blinked and seemed to think better of it.

Finally, he shook his head, and said, “I’m sorry, but I have no idea.”

What he’d been about to tell me, I didn’t know. But I’d caught something else in his eyes:

Fear.

Chapter Five

The wind was howling like a hungry pack of wolves.

The skeletal branches of the trees continued to scrape against the glass of my bedroom window like some hideous ghoul trying to get inside. I glanced at the glowing green numbers of the clock on my bedside table, which revealed it was 2:00 a.m.

“Another sleepless night,” I grumbled to myself as I sat up and stretched, encouraging the large yawn, which took control of my mouth. “You see that, brain?” I continued, trying not to worry about the fact that I was having a conversation with myself. “That means your body is tired and wants to go back to sleep.”

“Meow, meow, meow,” Gus added from where he was curled up on the foot of my bed.

“And no more from you!” I reprimanded the incorrigible cat. “You’ve already eaten twice tonight! With how expensive Fancy Feast is, you’re going to eat us right into the poor house!”

Gus emitted a low, guttural sound that made it seem like he’d gotten my gist and then he dropped his white, furry head back onto his paws and went back to sleep. Lucky him. For myself, I was well aware that the incessant thoughts going through my head would disallow me from visiting the Land of Nod again anytime soon.

“I’m gonna go for a run,” I said to no one in particular. I stood up and reached for my thermal yoga pants, which I’d draped over the chair back just beside my bed. I followed suit with my sports bra, which was a necessity when jogging since the twins weren’t exactly small. Then I secured my conceal-and-carry holster around my waist and slid the Colt .45 into it before pulling my elbow-length blond hair up into a high ponytail… I looked like I Dream of Jeannie. I grabbed my red Nike sweatshirt on my way out of my room, pulling it over my head as I plodded into my living room where I retrieved my matching red sneakers.

“Damn,” I said as soon as I opened the front door and was greeted by the icy cold night. I almost turned tail to retire back into my living room, but I forced myself outside, figuring the exercise would do me good. It was important to stay fit in this line of work. You never knew when you’d have to outrun a felon or a shape-shifter, as the case may be.

I locked the front door behind me and shivering in spite of myself, jogged down my driveway which emptied into Shamrock Street, on which I took a right. Then it was straight uphill for a good quarter of a mile, but that was a great way to warm up my cold and tired muscles.

As I felt the burn of the incline in my calves, I began replaying the facts of the case. John Doe was still John Doe. We hadn’t been able to find a match on his fingerprints or his dental records. It was almost as if he’d never existed. Out here, in the middle of nowhere, that wasn’t as unusual as it might have sounded. Out here, people did manage to live off the grid—if they wanted to badly enough.

I’d searched through the lengthy archives of missing persons, but I hadn’t found anyone who matched John Doe’s description. I figured my next course of action would be to visit the reservation of the Inuit who lived on the outskirts of town, just to see if any of their kin were missing. In general, the Native Americans pretty much kept to themselves, so it wasn’t unusual to find that our database of missing people wasn’t exhaustive.

I could hear my breathing growing ragged, but I continued to force my feet into the pavement, actually loving the burn in my legs. When I reached the top of the hill, I took a few deep breaths before descending the other side. Shamrock Street dead-ended in another twenty feet or so. From there, I could take the dirt path that wound through the densely populated pine trees and eventually led to Vista Lake. Or, I could turn around and go home in hopes I’d get a visit from the sandman.

When I reached the end of the street, I put my hands on my knees and bent over as I tried to catch my breath. Now, it was time to make a decision as to whether to turn around or continue into the woods… the very dark woods. Granted, the moon was full and bright in her rightful place in the sky, but the canopy of the trees overhead was also thick and wouldn’t allow for much light to lead my way.

An image of the dagger in John Doe’s chest suddenly assaulted me as if the operator in my brain had dropped a still into the projector of my mind’s eye. I could see the antler handle with the crappy glue job and the gleam of the light glinting off the silver blade as if it were right in front of me. I sighed in deep disappointment because this case began to look like it might dead-end just as surely as Shamrock Street. With all leads on John Doe’s true identity going nowhere, the silver dagger was now the only lead we had left. And that was a position that didn’t leave me much hope.

I couldn’t remember making the decision to continue jogging, but I found myself heading down the path that led into the deep woods. My mind immediately returned to the antler dagger as I hoped it carried secrets I could unlock, secrets that would lead me down the path of exposing the killer.

I took a bend in the road and felt my breath catch as I stopped short. There, standing in the middle of the narrow path, was a wolf. Or maybe it was too big to be a wolf. With its narrow snout, thick fur, large paws and long, bushy tail, it looked like the wolf’s bigger, badder cousin.

I just stood there, panting as the enormous creature stared at me with piercing gray eyes. And that was when I realized I’d seen this creature before—many times. It was the same exact wolf as the one who had been haunting my dreams since I moved here. It was the same black, shiny coat, the same size, the same steel gray eyes.

I wasn’t sure why I didn’t go for my gun, but I didn’t. It was almost as if I were frozen in place, unable to tear my gaze from the creature’s beautiful eyes. It, too, stared at me intently, as if it were rooted in place, just the same as I was.

After another few seconds, it began to approach me, but it did so cautiously, slowly. I could feel my fight-or-flight defenses kicking into gear and a moment later, I pulled my gun free and aimed it right at the wolf. It was at that instant that I realized it didn’t matter if I thought I’d dreamt about this wolf—that was merely coincidence and coincidence wouldn’t protect me. I took a few steps back as the wolf continued to study me, completely unafraid. Given the fact that the thing probably stood as tall as my waist, I guess I shouldn’t have been surprised.

“Go away,” I said in a soft voice as I retreated another few steps. But the creature made no attempt to leave. Instead, it took another few steps toward me, its black fur reflecting almost blue in the moonlight. Even though it was probably thinking about eating me for dinner, I could admit it was remarkably beautiful.

No sooner did the thought cross my mind than a second wolf suddenly pounced in front of the large black one. This wolf was equal in size and breadth, but its fur was milk-chocolate brown. Unlike the first wolf, though, who seemed to be merely curious about me, this one turned up its lips and snarled as soon as it looked at me. Its hackles rose as its eyes narrowed, and it dropped its head down as it began to approach me slowly.

“Back off,” I grumbled as I glanced down, looking for a rock or something I could throw at it. Not finding anything, I held the gun straight in front of me, using both of my hands. It made sense that the creature wouldn’t be afraid of a gun, considering it didn’t know what one was. I was loathe to shoot it because gunshots made scenes and that was the last thing I wanted. But I would shoot if I had to.

The brown wolf continued to growl as it took another step forward. The black wolf behind it suddenly began growling, too, a low, guttural warning sound. At first, I thought I was in serious trouble because I wasn’t sure I could take both of them quickly enough. I also wasn’t sure if just one bullet would take each one down. These were big animals… As the seconds ticked by, though, it dawned on me that the black wolf wasn’t growling at me. It was growling at the brown one.

I continued to aim my gun at the brown wolf since he was closest to me. I took another step backward, followed by another. Meanwhile, the brown wolf turned its attention from me to the black one. The two of them began circling one another, both with their hackles raised as they snarled at each other, their fangs reflecting the moonlight. I wasn’t sure how long it was that they circled each other, but eventually, the black one pounced on the other one, immediately pinning the brown one to the ground, pressing its snout into the brown wolf’s throat. The pinned wolf yipped a high-pitched sound and the black one released it. I watched as the brown wolf jumped up and trotted away into the darkness of the trees. Then I brought my attention back to the black one.

Our eyes met again. Somehow, and I wasn’t sure how it was possible, but I felt like those eyes could read me, that this creature was appraising my fear as it looked at me. It almost seemed like I was looking into the eyes of a sentient creature.

But, of course, that was impossible.

Chapter Six

Hope, Alaska, didn’t have much, but it did have a morgue.

The morgue was located beneath Dr. Moody’s clinic, in a narrow basement that felt exactly like hell frozen over. No matter how many autopsies I’d witnessed, or how many morgues I’d been in, I’d never, ever get used to standing in the freezing cold for hours on end. How the examiners did it, day after day, I’d never know. This, coming from someone who chose to live in Alaska in the first place.

Correction. This, coming from someone who’d chosen to run away to Alaska in the first place.

Anyway, the smell you got used to… eventually. Hell, the smell was the easy part; before you knew it, you’d forgotten the putrid, mushroomy odors. But the cold? I had real respect for medical examiners and coroners, putting up with the frigid conditions, for hours on end, while meticulously examining a body.

I wasn’t sure if it was just me, but the arctic temperature in the morgue seemed particularly biting this day. My breath frosted as I looked down at the body displayed before me. John Doe’s chest cavity was open wide. The organs had all been carefully removed, weighed and packed into baggies. Later, when the examination was finished, the organs would be replaced in the body, which would then be sewn up as neatly as possible. I noted that the tongue had been removed, and so had the brain. The skin of the man’s face was still peeled up, which always left me feeling a bit disconcerted. Why it was the peeled-up face and not the butterflied chest cavity that caused me the heebie-jeebies, I didn’t know.

This wasn’t my first rodeo. Or my first dead body. Or my first autopsy. So why did it feel like my stomach was about to revisit the cheeseburger I’d had for lunch?

Come on, Elodie, you’re going soft, I reprimanded myself.

I was now alone with the body. Dr. Moody had completed the autopsy, and he’d fully examined the body for trace evidence. I was now cleared to be alone with it, and that was just fine by me. I liked being alone with the victims, whenever possible.

The dead didn’t speak to me or anything crazy like that. But, in their own sort of way, they kind of did. No, the dead didn’t say anything, but being alone with them strengthened my resolve and connected me to them. I found I did my best thinking when I was alone with them. When it was just me, them and my thoughts, this was the time when I usually found a direction in which to take a case. It was the space where I was oddly at peace, not only with the circumstances of a case but with myself. In the same way that the victims were finally able to find their own peace, no matter how terrible their deaths, I was somehow able to go there with them.

They are at peace, and I am at peace.

I wasn’t sure how it worked exactly, but it was moments like these that I felt a connection to the victims. I just sort of let my mind wander and when it did, it usually came back with something useful, some little tidbit about the case that I hadn’t noticed previously.

“I will find your killer,” I said to the body before me. Except now, as I gazed at the splayed-open man, a man whose stomach contents filled a nearby large stainless steel bowl to overflowing with meat and fur and bone, just as Moody had described, I sensed a problem.

I don’t feel a connection.

The more I thought about it, the more I realized I’d never felt a connection to this body. Not like the connections I’d experienced in the past, not like with other murder victims.

In the past, the connection had been immediate, powerful. It helped drive me in my frantic need to find the victims’ killers. And I wouldn’t quit until I had the killer in custody. Nothing would get in my way. Not sleep, food, family… nothing. It got to the point that most of those in my department knew to stay clear of me, knew better than to question me, or try to slow me down. Everyone understood how a case would consume me completely and totally. It was almost as if I became one with it, that I inhaled the facts, ingested the particulars, bled the outcomes.

Truth be known, I’d hoped to escape that side of me out here. Hunting a killer certainly had a way of ruining one’s social life. Hell, I didn’t even know the meaning of a social life for the eight years I’d worked homicide and robbery in Anchorage. The robberies I could take or leave, and I did my best to investigate each thoroughly. But homicides were a different animal altogether. Maybe not musk ox different, but different, nonetheless. Yes, I definitely needed a break, which was one of the reasons why I’d ended up out here.

I walked around the corpse, which was lying prostrate in front of me and considered whether or not I should touch him. Touching the bodies sometimes helped to facilitate the connection I was after.

You don’t need the connection, Elodie, I reprimanded myself. It’s all in your head anyway. You know you can do the job without it.

Maybe that was true, but I couldn’t help but focus on the fact that I’d always had a connection to the victim in the past and usually, I didn’t have to touch him or her to get it.

True, I didn’t know John Doe’s name, but that was nothing new. I’d worked with John and Jane Does before. I didn’t need a name to feel the link. All I needed was the connection itself.

I continued walking around the victim, noting his long, light brown, and muscular arms. His hips were especially narrow, while his shoulders, chest and back were broad.

He was physically intimidating, I thought to myself. Strong.

I’d noted as much when I’d first come across his body in the snow. The man had been heavily muscled. The problem was, muscles didn’t guard against the cold. Fat and fur and layers of clothing did.

Why were you naked? I asked him silently, nearly reaching out and taking his hand. I resisted the urge and, instead, continued around the table. Dr. Moody had already noted that the man had shown no other wounds. No abrasions to his hands, no bruising, no smaller cuts. No signs of a fight. His skin had appeared unblemished, a wide expanse of perfect tanned flesh.

Except for the knife sticking out of his chest.

His heart had long since been removed, and his chest peeled back in such a way that he could have been confused with a Halloween prop. I would have liked the opportunity to study the death wound again, but Dr. Moody had taken plenty of photographs for me, which hopefully would suffice. Those photographs now sat in a file that would soon be submitted to me.

“And what’s the deal with all the caribou meat anyway?” I whispered. “I mean, I’ve seen caribou, sure, but it’s not like I want to dig my face into one.”

I sighed as the realization dawned on me that the only people I was comfortable talking to were either cats or dead people. I could only imagine the conversations I could have with a dead cat...

I took in some air and paused near John Doe’s muscular legs, which had been spared any incisions. Yep, his legs were just as strong as the rest of him. Strong, strong legs. I had to imagine this guy had been quite the runner and then some.

“What were you running from?” I asked aloud. Suddenly worried Dr. Moody might have overheard me from upstairs, I felt my face flush. I had to stop having conversations with dead bodies, that’s all there was to it. I was starting to scare myself. I could only imagine what my mother would think!

Personality disorders or not, you have a case to solve, Elodie Matthews, I said to myself. So you’d better get on with solving it.

I suddenly remembered that day in the snow when Miguel had told me about his dead brother. Even though I’d followed up with him on that exact subject, he’d refused to say anything more about it. The truth was, he’d already said enough when he’d whispered the Inuit word for shape-shifter.

I sighed because I really hadn’t wanted my train of thought to travel down this track. Yes, I was aware of the rumors, which seemed especially prevalent in these parts. And a naked man with a silver dagger in his chest and a belly full of caribou meat definitely supported the idea of a shape-shifting wolf or bear or something that could take down a caribou. It definitely would do nothing to dispel the rumors, anyway. Hell, it would only add to them!

But that didn’t mean I believed it! That was the kind of stuff kids bought into—the boogeyman and all that other nonsense. In my experience, things that went bump in the night were less about ectoplasm and more about law-breaking enthusiasm.

Six pounds of caribou meat! I thought to myself as I focused on the body again and shook my head.

After another few seconds, I reached the unarguable conclusion that the connection with this dead guy just wasn’t there. No matter how hard I tried, I felt nothing for him. No burning desire to find his killer, no reason to care…

“Yep, and it’s kind of freaking me out,” I said out loud as I sighed. “So, if you’re holding out on me, now’s the time to release that psychic energy. Let’s connect on the cosmic plane, shall we?”

There was no response, but it wasn’t as if I was actually waiting for one…

Finally, I reached out and placed my hand on the man’s knee. And that’s when something hit me.

It was like someone had started a projector behind the screen of my eyelids because I was suddenly invaded with images—foreign and difficult to comprehend. There were so many of them that I could barely focus. After another second or so, they started to fall into place and I found myself watching two young boys, maybe ten years old, playing together in a stream, throwing water at each other and laughing.

Then that image faded, to be replaced with a man—his hair was longish and black and his eyes were the color of steel. They were eyes I’d seen before… the same as the wolf from my dreams and the wolf I’d met in the forest while on my jog.

This man was angry—proof was in his furrowed brow, narrowed eyes and pinched mouth.

“How could you do this to me?” he asked. “I love her and you’re my brother!”

That image faded and before I could be assaulted by anything else, I pulled away.

But, just as I was pulling my hand away, something happened. Something that made my eyes blast open. Something that made me gasp, and then nearly trip over my own feet.

“It moved,” I said aloud, even though I was beyond convinced that my observation was impossible. On. Every. Level.

But, no, John Doe’s leg had moved. I mean, I’d felt it move. Not like a twitch or a spasm. His very dead, very inanimate foot had moved from side to side, like he’d been working out a kink in his ankle or something.

And it was still moving. As I stood there and watched it, it continued to move back and forth as if it was ready to jump up and dance. Even as I stumbled up the stairs, the damn thing was still swishing left to right.

I hurtled myself out of the dank morgue beneath the only medical facility in Hope, Alaska, and into the good doctor’s office. Moody’s secretary looked up at me with alarm. I didn’t blame her. I was sure I looked like I’d just seen a ghost.

Or a corpse coming back to life.

Chapter Seven

“Where’s Moody?” I insisted as I faced the doctor’s surprised assistant.

My heartbeat was going a thousand miles a minute and I was panting. I could already feel the lines of sweat beading along my brow. No sooner did the question leave my mouth than I heard a cacophony from downstairs that sounded like metal examining table meeting ground.

Son of a…

“He’s… he’s on the phone with a patient,” the girl stammered as she gave me the expression of what in the hell was that sound?

I backed up a few steps and arched my back over the banister to see if I could get a look at what was going on in the basement downstairs. From my vantage point, all I could see was the base of the stairwell and maybe five feet directly in front of the last stair. There was another loud noise of metal clanking against metal and then I saw a foot… followed by another foot, each step leaving a bloodied footprint. Yep, John Doe had somehow managed to un-kill himself and now he was walking around the morgue.

Seriously.

“Get Dr. Moody now!” I barked at the frightened girl as soon as I glanced back at her. Meanwhile, the realization of what was happening downstairs began to slowly dawn on me and I felt lightheaded and suddenly dizzy. I had to lean over and put my hands on my knees in order to catch my breath.

This is so not happening, I said to myself as I shook my head. I mean, this is completely crazy! This kind of stuff just doesn’t happen!

You saw his foot move! And you know no one else was down there!

What you think is going on down there is a total and complete impossibility, I reasoned. There is no way a cadaver, with half of its organs missing, can just come back to life and start walking around!

Well, how the hell else do you explain the fact that you saw its foot moving, and then you heard the sound of it jumping or falling off the examination table and then you saw its feet… walking! There was another loud crash. And what else could be making all that racket? No one else is down there!

 “I can’t just go and get him!” the girl replied with a frown, drawing my attention back to her as she shook her head emphatically and crossed her arms over her chest. “Like I just told you, he’s on the phone with a patient!”

“I don’t give a damn!” I thundered and brushed past her at the same time that Dr. Moody cracked open the door of his examination room at the far end of the hallway. He poked his little, round head out and looked irritated.

“What in the blazes is going on out here?” he demanded as he looked from his assistant to me. “Do I need to remind you both I’m on a call!”

“That’s what I tried to tell her,” the girl started, but I interrupted because I didn’t have time for this crap. Not when a barely intact, very dead or what was once a very dead body had suddenly decided it wasn’t its time to go and was now making its rounds downstairs, knocking over everything in the process.

“There is a situation unfolding in the morgue,” I informed Dr. Moody, trying to sound as non-delirious as I could. “It requires your assistance immediately.”

“What type of situation?” the doctor demanded, eyeing me suspiciously. Meanwhile, the discord from inside the morgue continued, the racket echoing up the stairs. “Who’s down there?” the doctor added, his narrow-eyed expression now giving way to wide-eyed fear.

“I can’t explain it,” I answered honestly. “You’re going to need to see for yourself.” And then something occurred to me. “Is there a way outside through the morgue?” If not, there was only one way out and that was up…

“A way outside?” Dr. Moody repeated as he stepped out of the examination room and carefully closed the door behind him before taking a deep breath and approaching me. “No. But why would you ask me that? What’s going on?” he insisted again, this time more forcefully.

I shook my head because I had no words. “I can’t even begin to explain it. You need to see for yourself.” I spun around on the ball of my right foot and headed for the stairwell. I glanced behind me to ensure Dr. Moody was following me and was relieved when I found him just behind me.

“I don’t understand,” he began to say, but his words ceased when the body suddenly appeared at the bottom of the stairs.

It was mostly upright, although its upper half drooped over, reminding me of Igor. The thing was attempting to walk, even though it was having a tough time, considering its chest cavity was splayed wide. The top third of its cranium was still missing, although I noticed it had managed to put its brain back where it belonged. When the body put its foot on the first step and hoisted itself up, its right hand clutching the banister, I immediately stepped back, right onto Dr. Moody’s foot. There was already a trail of blood behind John suddenly-reanimated Doe.

“By the grace of God,” the doctor whispered as we both took another five or so steps back and the body continued to work its way up the stairs, its knees wobbling with each step. It walked like a newly born giraffe. But it didn’t look anything like one. Instead, it looked like it had wings stemming from its chest, owing to the loose skin that hung from each side. I remembered the body’s rib cage having already been removed while I was viewing it earlier, so I was surprised to find it intact now, though “intact” was not quite the word to describe the way the rib cage had sort of been stuffed back into the chest cavity. I figured John Doe must have realized it would need its ribs to stand upright, or mostly upright.

It clutched the metal bowl full of its bagged-up organs with its left hand, allowing the bowl to rest against its side. It looked like something from a horror movie, like it was nothing more than theatrics—makeup and prosthetics. But, no, this was flesh and bone and blood. Flesh and bone and blood that had been dead an hour ago. Hell, five minutes ago.

It took another wavering step and then another as my heart continued to thunder in my chest and I wondered if this was actually happening, or more specifically, how this was actually happening.

When the body reached the middle step, I heard Dr. Moody’s assistant scream. Her scream was followed by a loud thump so I figured she was out cold. I didn’t bother checking, though. All my attention was centered on the reanimated dead man who was still coming toward us. His gaze was steadily focused on mine, the whites of his eyes stark against the brown of his pupils.

“Shoot it!” Dr. Moody ordered right after I palmed the Colt .45 from where it was sitting in the holster around my waist. I didn’t pull the gun free, though. I didn’t think there was a reason to. Not yet.

“It’s already dead!” I managed as the body suddenly opened its mouth as if it were trying to speak. However, Dr. Moody had already removed its tongue during the autopsy so it wasn’t able to form a sound, let alone a word. If it was possible, its eyes went even wider.

“Shoot it anyway!” Moody bellowed, his voice incredibly loud, considering he was still standing right behind me.

“It hasn’t done anything,” I whispered back as I shook my head and stepped out of the thing’s way as it aimed for the front door of Dr. Moody’s establishment. It hobbled forward, past Moody’s assistant, and paused only momentarily at the front door before reaching for the doorknob and cranking it to the left.

“It’s trying to leave,” Moody announced.

I didn’t respond because I didn’t know what to say. And, more specifically, I didn’t know what to do. I hadn’t quite recovered from the trauma of the thing coming back to life in the first place.

John Doe opened the door and stepped outside where it was bathed in darkness. As we were still in the tail-end of winter, even though it was only six in the evening, it was already dark.

Neither Dr. Moody nor I said anything as we watched the body continue forward, down the icy street before it turned to the right and disappeared into the woods, leaving a sticky trail of blood in its wake. The silence between us continued, even after another minute passed and another one after that.

But then I remembered Dr. Moody’s assistant who’d passed out. I immediately approached her and crouched down to check that she was breathing. Dr. Moody was right behind me.

“She’s breathing,” I announced as I glanced up at him. “I think the desk broke her fall, so hopefully, we aren’t dealing with any head trauma.”

“I will take care of her,” he announced, his voice trembling just as much as his hands.

I stood up and nodded but wasn’t sure what to do next. There was a part of me that wanted to ask the doctor if he’d seen what I’d just seen, just to make sure I hadn’t hallucinated the last ten minutes. But the other part of me wanted nothing more than to go home and curl up with a very stiff drink. Or eight.

“We can’t speak of this to anyone,” Dr. Moody announced suddenly, his tone of voice somber. “No one would believe us and our sanity would be questioned,” he continued, sounding very matter-of-fact. “I can’t afford to have my credibility nor my practice taken away from me and I imagine you would feel the same way, considering you were just awarded the position of Hope’s Chief of Police.”

I simply nodded because he had a good point. Who in the hell would believe a story like this anyway? “So how do we explain the body vanishing?” I asked and was amazed I could even form words.

“It was stolen,” Dr. Moody answered succinctly, his jaw tight, determined. “As simple as that. It was here and then the next day, it wasn’t.”

I nodded but didn’t say anything more. What more was there to say? Apparently, what happened in Dr. Moody’s office, stayed in Dr. Moody’s office.

Chapter Eight

I stood in the doctor’s office, blinking, feeling sick, and realizing with sudden clarity that my life would never, ever be the same again. I was vaguely aware of the doctor speaking soothingly to his assistant, of the phone ringing incessantly, and, most striking, of the slightly putrid smell of death that filled the office.

Bloody footprints and drops of hemoglobin led up from the morgue and to the door, where a bloody handprint smeared the handle. I had no doubt the trail of crimson led out into the night and through the small town.

My first reaction was to call for backup, but I held off as soon as I asked myself what I was supposed to report. A naked corpse carrying a bowlful of bagged intestines? Yeah, not so much.

Besides, the womanizing doc had it right: we both needed our jobs. And that meant the less crazy I sounded, the better.

Now, as I mentally replayed what I’d just seen, I became more and more certain that someone was playing a trick on me… on us. On second thought, I wondered if it could have been the doctor himself who was at fault. Maybe this was some sort of weird hazing of the new police chief? The more I thought about it, the more I was convinced such was the case.

No doubt, cameras were filming me even now and this whole thing would appear on YouTube before the night was out. If so, I was gonna bust the ass of each and every person who’d had something to do with it.

Yes, it was just a childish prank. An elaborate prank but a hoax, no less. Ha-ha, they’d gotten me. I was sure the look on my face had been priceless.

Except... except... I had studied the corpse yesterday. And I’d looked for a heartbeat and found none. The man had been dead, I was sure of it. And Miguel had been sure of it. Unless he, too, was somehow in on it?

I replayed the image of the thing coming up the stairs, searching my brain for a plausible explanation for how I’d seen what I had. Its face had been all peeled up! And I’d seen inside its chest cavity, even while it was walking!

Yes, but that could have been no more than an elaborate costume and special effects makeup, I argued with myself.

Um, like incredibly elaborate, I argued back.

And what about the blood smeared across the floor from John Doe dragging his foot? That could have been real? Or not. It certainly looked real… But how? No! Things like this just didn’t happen. Not in real life anyway.

I felt like a moron for even considering it in the first place.

So, I did the only thing I could think of: I walked through the office, down the steps and into the morgue where, to my dismay, I found the metal autopsy table vacant, although it was smeared with more blood. A mean-looking bone saw had been knocked to the ground, along with scalpels, clamps, clips, tongs and scissors. More blood was on the floor, a lot of it, in fact.

I quickly searched the small morgue, in particular, the mini corner office and the freezer, all of which were empty. Then I just stood there, frowning at the room because I was certain I’d seen a corpse just fifteen minutes earlier. And now there was no corpse but one hell of a mess.

And me? All I could do was question everything… what I thought I’d seen, my own level of sanity, Dr. Moody…

Elodie, stop! I yelled at myself. Obviously, this was all just a prank. Stop trying to make sense of it.

It. Wasn’t. Real.

That’s what it amounted to. Dead bodies didn’t just rise from the dead. And they didn’t walk up the stairs, holding their organs. And they didn’t try to talk without a tongue. But new police officers did get hazed. Especially when said new officer’s comrades didn’t want them there in the first place.

Whatever had happened, it had been elaborate and well thought out. I hoped at some point, I’d get a good laugh out of. But first...

First, it was time to kick lots of asses and take names.

***

The trail of blood and footprints led out into the night, across a smattering of freshly fallen snow, and toward a park across the street.

Whoever this was, he’d fully committed himself to the role, and was probably freezing his ass off. Costume or not, the man was barefoot, and this was still the tail-end of winter. Served him right… the jackass.

I figured I’d find bloody footprints leading to tire tracks, where his friends had likely picked him up. Even now, they were probably watching from afar—and filming me—unable to stifle their laughter. In fact, they were probably laughing so hard, they were all in tears. All because they managed to scare the living shit out of the new chief of police.

Well, good for them.

The only problem was that as far as I could see, there were no cars, vans, trucks, SUVs, motorcycles, bicycles, unicycles or anything else with wheels anywhere in the vicinity. Just snow, snow and more snow.

The evening was cold, and the streets were empty. This shouldn’t have come as a surprise because Hope was a small town, and most people hunkered down for the exceptionally long and cold nights. Actually, correction, there was a couple walking up the street, about a quarter-mile away. I watched them turn into one of the town’s few restaurants, the Gray Wolf.

Other than the lone couple, this stretch of road was empty of foot traffic, cars and lurching zombies.

I paused in the center of the road, searching, listening, waiting. If it was my guys who had were involved in the prank, I could fire each and every one of them. But if I fired all of them, there would be no police force left. And that would make me the chief of a whole lotta nothing. Okay, so if I didn’t fire them, I could demote the crap out of them? But, no, I wouldn’t do that. And, what was more, they probably knew I wouldn’t do it. If I did, it would just set me apart as the female chief who couldn’t take a joke. It would forever cement them against me.

Yes, I would have to suck it up and laugh along with them, even though I wanted nothing more than to bitch-slap each one of them into oblivion.

A gust of wind whipped up a billowing flurry of snow and ice, and pushed it along the center of the street, looking like an icy apparition.

The wind picked up, and so did the swirling ghosts moving along the street, glowing brightly in the ambient light.

As for me? I did the only thing I could think of... I continued following the trail of bloody footprints, all the way into the park...

Chapter Nine

The bloody tracks ended right in front of a swing set. Beyond the swing set was a slide and beside that, a drinking fountain. Everything was covered in at least two inches of snow.

“How the hell can the tracks just end here?” I asked myself as I whirled around once, then twice, trying to ascertain in which direction the corpse prankster had gone. But nothing. Nothing at all. For all intents and purposes, he’d simply turned into a bat and flown off into the dark night sky.

“Un-freaking-believable,” I continued, frustrated beyond belief and talking to myself as I chewed my lower lip. I had no idea what this could possibly mean. How could there be tracks and then none? How was it possible that someone just disappeared? I glanced up to see if there were any trees with low-hanging branches that someone could have taken hold of. But there was nothing overhead except for the full moon. The closest tree was probably twenty feet away. Shivering in spite of myself, I took another few steps forward, until I nearly bumped into the swing in front of me and then I noticed something.

Tracks.

But they weren’t human footprints. There were four of them and from their outline, I could deduce the prints were made by paws. Yep, they were definitely canine. And, what was even more bizarre, there were drops of blood staining the snow in between each one.

Great. Just great.

This prank was going from bad to worse.

“We’ve only had a chief of police for a few months—it would be a shame to lose you to frostbite,” the deep, masculine voice sounded from behind me and I nearly jumped out of my boots.

Instead, I yanked the Colt .45 from its holster around my waist in record time as I spun on my toes and pointed the gun directly in front of me. Right into the chest of whoever had made the bad decision to confront me.

“State your name and your business,” I ground out immediately, watching as the man grinned at me at the same time that he lifted his hands in a placating gesture to show he was unarmed.

And that was when my heart started hammering in record time. I’d seen this man before—and not in a running into a random person in town sort of way. No, this was the same man that had been in the vision I’d had when I’d touched John Doe in the morgue. It was the man with the black hair and steel gray eyes—the one who’d been angry with John Doe, presumably. The man who’d called him brother.

But, how was any of this possible? How was it possible that I’d never seen this man before, other than in the vision I’d received when I’d touched John Doe? And how could that be part and parcel of a hoax? Last I checked, pranks couldn’t delve into your subconscious mind, producing visions of things that made no sense…

The moonlight was bright enough that I could see this man was fully clothed and as far as I could tell, his organs were intact, so he wasn’t my missing corpse.

“The name’s Johnson, ma’am.” His easy smile was already grating on my nerves. In general, cops don’t like smiles. At least, not in the middle of the night, and not when they’re looking for missing corpses. I liked them even less.

“First or last name?” I demanded, still keeping the barrel of the pistol aimed right between his eyes. This guy wasn’t exactly small, which meant the gun was my only protection. The more I studied him, the more I decided he was probably an inch or two over six feet. And with the ample breadth of his shoulders, it wouldn’t be a fair fight. For him. I’d kicked my fair share of nuts in my time. Anyway, he probably outweighed me by a hundred pounds.

I shrugged. The bigger they are... the harder they fall.

“Last name,” he said, his tone of voice sounding strangely casual, considering he was now facing the barrel of my gun.

“What’s your first name, Johnson?” Looking beyond him, I scanned the perimeter, keeping an eye out for what might very well be a wild wolf. Or one hell of a big-ass dog.

Glancing back at my visitor, I decided I didn’t like his easy manner. Even though I had to admit with his black hair reflecting in the moonlight, the shadow covering his square jaw, his aquiline nose and his wide and large eyes, he was good-looking. Well, for a potential thief, rapist, murderer, or just general jerkoff, that is.

He chuckled a deep and melodious sound that did nothing but tick me off even more. “I can promise you my first name isn’t jerkoff.”

I blinked.

Hard.

Then I blinked again, even harder.

Hadn’t I called him Johnson? I mentally rewound the last few seconds of our conversation. Then I went over it again. I was certain, at least in the ninety-percent range, that I’d called him Johnson. Yes, I’d thought of calling him jerkoff, but that was all it had been—a thought.

Right?

Right. I was sure I hadn’t said the word out loud. So that meant…

Was it possible this guy had just read my mind?

What? No. It wasn’t possible!

“Just answer the question or I’ll arrest you for obstruction,” I said acidly as a shiver snaked down my spine. I had to get out of the elements soon or I would succumb to frostbite. I hadn’t exactly dressed for below-zero weather.

“My name is Alexander Johnson, but I go by Alex,” he replied matter-of-factly as he brought his attention from my face to his arms, which he still held up in front of him. “Can I put my hands down now?”

“No,” I answered immediately as I continued to glare at him. “What are you doing out here?” I glanced around him, to check if maybe he had a canine companion that he’d been walking, but as far as I could tell, Alexander Johnson was by himself.

“Keeping an eye on you.” He shrugged.

I glared at him, not liking the sound of that one bit. “What does that mean?”

He smiled broadly. “Don’t you speak English, Elodie Matthews?”

“How do you know my name?”

He shrugged. “You were the only news to grace the town gazette before you moved here. Everyone knows your name.”

“You’re really starting to tick me off,” I continued, feeling gritty anger boiling up inside me. Or maybe I was just hangry. Last I remembered, I’d only eaten breakfast. As if on cue, my stomach growled.

“Sounds like someone missed lunch,” he said with another grin that revealed his perfect teeth. “Let’s discuss this over dinner, shall we? We have lots to talk about.”

“No, we have nothing to talk about,” I shot the words at him as my stomach continued to rumble, which only embarrassed and enraged me further. “One more thing that comes out of your mouth that rubs me the wrong way and I’m taking you into custody just for pissing me off.”

“Is that a thing?”

“It is now.” And, holy hell, did he actually hear my stomach growling? Had it been that loud?

“Okay, okay,” he said as he shook his head.

“Answer my question—what are you doing out here?”

“I decided to take a stroll to get my mind off... some things.” He glanced down at the ground for a few seconds before he looked back up at me as his eyebrows furrowed. “And last I checked, that wasn’t illegal.”

No, it wasn’t illegal. Unfortunately. “What sort of things?” I wondered if he might have been trying to get his mind off the fact that he was involved in a huge prank that could land his ass in jail.

“Things that don’t concern you,” he answered coolly. “Personal things.”

“Any reason you have to be out here in the dark and the snow does concern me, especially when I’m looking for… someone,” I finished, awkwardly. Somehow I figured “bleeding and naked yet animated corpse” wouldn’t go over well.

He shrugged as if his reasons were no big deal, but I could tell he was perturbed. “Personal things as in, I happened to just run into my ex-girlfriend who broke up with me and kicked me out of our house a few months ago. So I thought I’d take a walk in the hopes of meeting a very attractive blond in a tight police uniform who might distract me from my morose thoughts by pulling a gun on me.” He paused as a smile spread across his plump lips. “And, whaddayaknow? My prayers were answered!” He glanced upward and winked at what I imagined was supposed to be God. “Thanks, dude!”

“Okay, that’s it,” I said angrily as I narrowed my eyes and my anger began to spiral out of control. And, yes, my stupid stomach continued to make its hunger known. “Put your hands behind your back!”

“What?” he asked, sounding baffled as his smile dropped. “You’re arresting me?”

“You have the right to remain silent and you can refuse to answer any questions.” I walked behind him, still being careful to keep the gun aimed at him. Once I was behind him, I reached down and gripped the handcuffs from where I kept them on one of my belt loops. Opening the first cuff, I secured his left wrist and then his right. “Anything you say can be used against you in a court of law.”

“You have no right to arrest me,” he interrupted. “I was just kidding. I promise I’ll be a good boy from here on out.”

“You have the right to consult an attorney before speaking to police and to have an attorney present during questioning now or in the future.”

“An attorney, as in Judd Gibson?”

“Whoever.”

“I mean… he’s the only attorney in Hope and he also happens to be a good friend of mine,” Alexander Johnson pointed out with a large smile that said he really wasn’t taking his arrest seriously.

“If you can’t afford an attorney, one will be appointed for you before any questioning if you wish...”

“Judd Gibson,” he interrupted again. “Instead of continuing to say attorney, you should just call Judd by his name since he’s the only lawyer within a hundred miles of here.” He took a breath. “Otherwise, you might confuse your arrestee.” He took another breath. “Or would it be you’re arrested?”

Damn, this town was way too small and this guy was wayyyyy too annoying. “If you decide to answer questions now without an attorney present,” I continued.

“Without Judd present.”

“You will still have the right to stop answering at any time until you talk to an attorney.”

“…to Judd.”

“Stop interrupting me!”

“Well, if you’d start specifying Judd, I wouldn’t have to!”

“Knowing and understanding your rights as I have explained them to you, are you willing to answer my questions without an attorney… ugh, without Judd Gibson, present?” That was when I realized I had no car to put him in, so I’d have to walk him back to the station.

Son of a…

“I’ll answer all your questions, honey,” he promised as I grabbed his arm none too gently and ushered him forward. He glanced over at me and smiled widely. He was handsome but he knew it. And there was still that niggling little reminder that I’d seen this man in that bizarre vision I’d had when I’d touched John Doe. Not to mention his steel gray eyes were the same as those I’d seen in the face of a wolf…

“Don’t call me honey,” I barked at him. “It’s Chief to you.”

“All you had to do was ask me nicely… Chief.”

This guy was exasperating and then some.

Chapter Ten

Truth was, I was itching to go back and study those prints in the snow; after all, I was pretty damn certain the human prints had ended exactly where the wolf prints had begun.

Crazy, I thought. Impossible.

An elaborate hoax—that was all this was. And Alexander Johnson was undoubtedly part of it. No way was his sudden appearance a coincidence. Well, I would know soon enough. The bastard was going to talk, with or without Judd Gibson. I would make sure of it.

And as to the vision I’d had and his steel gray eyes which I’d sworn I’d seen before? There was nothing to make of either so I shoved both pieces of information to the dark recesses of my mind, where they would never see the light of day again.

We continued through the park, which paralleled a small river, which, from what I understood, was pleasant during the non-cold-ass months. Unfortunately for me, I’d gotten here in the beginning of winter, which was about how badly I wanted to get out of Anchorage. Anyway, the ice was only now beginning to break up, and I could hear it cracking as it moved down the short embankment.

He’d been dead. I thought about the corpse again as I guided the handcuffed Alexander over the snowy path, one hand inside his elbow. I hated myself for noticing the way his bicep flexed and undulated inside his light jacket. Maybe Mom was right, I was spending too much time alone…

And what the freaking freak was Alexander Jerkoff doing wearing a light jacket in the middle of winter anyway? I was clad in my police-issue, all-weather down jacket, and I was still ill-prepared for just how cold it was tonight.

We continued along the path, and I continued to replay the evening’s events over in my mind. The man coming up the stairs had been the corpse I’d loaded on my sled. I was sure of it. No doubt in my mind. No question—the corpse had been one and the same. It was the same corpse I’d confirmed had no pulse. The corpse Dr. Moody had performed an autopsy on. Was it possible it had never been a corpse in the first place? Just a plant?

Come on, Elodie, I yelled at myself. You know the difference between a real dead body and a fake one!

Right. I did know the difference. And I knew that body was real.

So, no. I didn’t buy this line of reasoning. John Doe had been dead. Very, very dead. I’d confirmed it myself in the field. So had Miguel.

So had Miguel…

The depth and depravity of the joke was impressive. Too impressive. Someone was going to spend a night in jail, and that someone was Alexander Bicep. And then I’d turn on the good doctor, himself. Because he’d had the biggest part to play in this stupid prank, aside from little, unsuspecting me.

And Miguel? I asked myself. Do you think he was in on it, too?

Maybe he was. I mean, he doesn’t seem like the type to do something like this, but how well did I really know him?

Not well…

If that’s the case and Miguel did have something to do with it, I’ll have no problem landing his ass in jail, too!

If I had to throw the whole freaking town in jail, I would. Just to prove I wasn’t going down without a fight.

Yet somehow I just couldn’t shake the feeling that maybe what I’d witnessed had been… real? I mean, I’d seen with my own eyes a naked and autopsied man walk up the damn stairs holding a bowl of his own organs, his chest cavity swinging open like storm shutters in the wind. His face had only been rudimentarily pulled down. And Dr. Moody’s expression—he’d been shocked and more so, afraid. His reaction would have been near impossible to fake.

And the blood. So much blood.

What of the tracks in the snow? The ones that had just vanished. Where had they gone? And where had the wolf tracks come from? And then Alexander Johnson just happened to show up, wearing nothing more than a light jacket and jeans? Not to mention that I’d seen him before? As soon as I’d touched John Doe?

No, you forced that bit of info away, remember? I reminded myself.

I paused, shaking my head, as my thoughts returned to the idea that maybe the body had been planted in the ice from the get-go. I remembered the point at which Miguel and I had found John Doe in the woods. Maybe Miguel and his friends had planted it? Left it there to make the new chief of police look like a fool. Well, congrats, boys, because your little ruse was working like a charm.

No, I thought. No cop would deface a corpse just for the sake of a joke.

I just couldn’t believe that. And especially not Miguel. Even though I didn’t know him well, his serene silence and overall pensive manner didn’t lend themselves to a hoax of any sort, let alone one of this magnitude.

I was convinced this Alexander Johnson was involved in some way, shape or form. The problem was I didn’t know enough about him to figure out the how’s and why’s. “What do you do?” I demanded.

“What do I do about what?”

“For income? Otherwise known as a job, asshole.”

He chuckled. “I’m a bounty hunter.”

“You’re a what?” I repeated, frowning at him.

“A bounty hunter,” he repeated. “As in, I hunt down bad guys and bring them to you, the good guys.”

“Why haven’t I ever heard of you, then?”

He shrugged. “Well, you haven’t been here very long have you?”

He had a point. It had only been a few months. “No, I haven’t.”

“Right and I haven’t had a job for a while. I’ve been focused on other things.”

“Okay, so where is your identification? You must carry a license on you?” I asked.

“Of course,” he answered. “It’s in my back pocket.”

I started fishing around for it and pulled out his wallet as I rifled through his various cards, I found the license and his identification which confirmed his story.

“Miguel can vouch for me, as well,” he continued. I work as a bridge between you, the police, and the reservations all around Alaska. I’ve had to bring in a few guys and hand them over to Miguel.”

“I worked in Anchorage for many years, so why haven’t I heard or seen you before?” I demanded.

He shrugged. “I’m currently coming out of hiatus.”

“Next question, where do you live?”

“Are you planning on showing up at my house?” he asked with a huge grin that did nothing but further piss me off.

“No, now, answer the question.”

“Well, my home away from home is just outside of town. I have a place up in Cooker’s Knoll. You know it?”

I did know it. It was a rural community up in the hills, maybe fifteen minutes from Hope. It was a small settlement of houses with people who mostly wanted to keep to themselves. “I know where Cooker’s Knoll is, but you said it was your home away from home?”

He nodded. “Home is on the reservation, where I grew up.”

“Which one?”

“Ammagaruqnik.” It just happened to be the farthest away of all the Inuit reservations. “Satisfied?” he asked.

“No,” I answered and it was the truth. I was anything but satisfied. With the events that had gone on in the last couple of days and the fact that I still had no answers, I was less than satisfied. In fact, I was confused and in a state of general irritation.

“It doesn’t make sense, does it?” Alexander asked as he shook his head.

“What doesn’t make sense?”

“The past three days…”

I swung him around hard enough that we both nearly lost our footing, the snow and ice underfoot slippery as all hell. I held onto him as he leaned into me, his hard, muscular chest veritably pressing into my face. Not that I noticed it. Or how shapely his pectorals felt beneath his jacket.

Jeez, I definitely owed myself a visit from Gordon, my vibrator.

“What the hell do you know about the past three days?” I demanded when I finally untangled myself and pushed him away, although my hand, I noted, was still on his chest.

“I thought you were taking me to prison?”

“I am.”

“Right, so why would I answer your…”

“I know you’re in on this,” I interrupted him. “I want you to start naming names.”

“On second thought,” he started with a self-impressed smile, “maybe I should wait until Judd Gibson is present—ouch!”

I’d gripped his jacket so tightly, I’d managed to either pinch some of his skin or a fistful of his chest hair. I was betting on both. “Listen to me very carefully,” I seethed, my chest rising and falling with ire. “Don’t fuck with me. Not tonight. And not now. I’ve had one hell of a day and an even worse night. So I’m going to ask you one more time: who helped you set this whole thing up?”

“What whole thing?” he asked with a smirk. “Oh, right. You’re still trying to convince yourself this is all just a prank.”

Okay, this time, I most definitely had NOT mentioned the fact that I thought this was all a big joke. Not out loud anyway. So that had to mean this guy could read my mind…

No, you stupid idiot! I railed back at myself. It means he’s in on the prank and he’s basically just admitted as much!

Well, he hadn’t exactly admitted anything, but I didn’t care. I was rolling with it.

I twisted my fingers again, and this time, I might have even felt some of his chest hair pulling free. He grimaced.

“You’ve got a lot of explaining to do,” I began. “Start with who’s involved. I want first and last names.”

He shook his head and even had the audacity to laugh. “Chief, I can promise you I had absolutely nothing to do with any of this.” He managed to hide his smile, once I gave him the look of death. “The reason I’m here is because I’m investigating the crime, same as you.”

“Oh, really?” I asked, sarcasm dripping off my tongue as I decided to shelve the part about him investigating for the time being. “So you just randomly mention the word prank and I’m supposed to think you aren’t involved?”

“Yes, because I’m not involved in any prank.”

“Then why did you mention it?”

“Easy. I read your thoughts.”

I was quiet. Or maybe it was more apropos to say my brain went on strike. I mean, there has to come a point where your mind just can’t handle any more ridiculousness. I was definitely at that point. Well, actually beyond it.

“If you’re done giving me a purple nurple—which I’m pretty certain constitutes police brutality—we can get to the issue at hand,” Alexander of the shapely pectorals continued.

I released him and his purple nurple, whatever the hell that was. The wind had returned, bringing with it a low moan. “And what’s the issue at hand?” I demanded, figuring I’d allow him enough rope to hang himself.

“That you just watched a man rise from the dead.”

I nearly pulled my gun on him. I nearly shoved him face-first into a nearby chain-link fence. I nearly committed enough crimes to be fired many times over... and put in jail myself. But I stopped because three things happened simultaneously:

The first thing was that I decided Alexander was telling the truth. I was pretty damn sure I’d watched a man rise from the dead. Somehow, some way. Miraculously.

The second thing was that I was certain Alexander was reading my mind. If I hadn’t been convinced before, I was now. There was just no way he could know as much as he did about the corpse coming to life because, aside from me, the only other person who knew the facts was Dr. Moody.

The third thing that happened was something started to surface from underneath the frozen-over creek. Something big. Something that was growling from deep within its cavernous chest. I might not know much about Alaskan wildlife, but I knew a wolf when I heard one.

I immediately aimed the Colt at the creature stirring in the water, my hands shaking. “Stand back,” I commanded my prisoner.

“Your gun won’t help anything, Chief,” Alexander said, doing the exact opposite as he stepped in front of me. As he did, he pulled his hands free, snapping the handcuffs at his wrists as if they were a silly child’s toy.

And then he charged forward.

Toward the creek, and toward the approaching beast.

Chapter Eleven

“Alexander!” I yelled after his retreating figure. “You’re still under arrest!”

“I told you… it’s Alex!” he called back.

But he didn’t stop walking. Instead, he just continued toward the creek, taking off his jacket as he did so and dropping it on the ground behind him which I found odd, to say the least. “Alex!” I yelled after him again.

“We warned you not to trespass!” Alex growled out and I wasn’t sure, but I thought he was addressing whatever was in the water.

“There were clear lines of demarcation between our land and yours,” Alex continued. “Your people agreed to it, just as ours did. You broke the treaty and came after one of our own, so you suffered the consequences!”

He stopped walking once he reached the bank of the creek. Then he tore off his T-shirt and threw it down beside him as if it wasn’t seventeen degrees outside. I couldn’t help but notice his incredibly broad shoulders and his muscular back. The guy worked out and then some.

Oh my God, Elodie, really? I reprimanded myself. This guy is about to get torn to shreds by a wolf and you’re busy gawking over his body?

I shook my head and forced myself to focus on the situation unfolding in front of me. Hot or not, Alexander Johnson was clearly bat-shit crazy, considering he was having a full-blown conversation with a wolf. But, cray-cray or not, that didn’t mean I was just going to stand around and let him become dog food… or wolf food, as the case may be.

“Alex!” I yelled after him again as soon as he strode toward the mouth of the creek. This time, he took off his belt, but before he could get to his pants, I figured I should probably intervene, much though I was dying to see what I imagined would be a very shapely ass.

“Stop walking!” I yelled after him as I lurched forward. My hands were still shaking, but I hadn’t managed to drop my firearm, which was a good thing, considering my mind had gone into shock mode for a few seconds.

“This doesn’t concern you,” he growled at me from the corner of his mouth. “You should make your way back into town and let me handle this.”

“To hell with that!” I yelled at him as I hurried down the icy bank, nearly skidding out of control as I did. I didn’t have another pair of handcuffs for him to break through, so I figured I’d just have to take him back into custody the old-fashioned way, with my gun to his head. “You are still a suspect and you are still very much under arrest,” I said as I forced myself in front of him, wanting to thwart any ideas he had about going swimming. I aimed the butt of the gun directly between his eyes and held it maybe a foot or so away from him. I meant business and I wanted to make sure he understood that.

“You have no idea what you’re playing with,” he said, his voice nearly a whisper. He narrowed his eyes at me for a second or so before returning them to what I imagined was the wolf behind me.

“I’m not interested in your delusional conversations with dogs,” I barked (no pun intended) as I took another step toward him. “What I am interested in is getting you back to the station so we can have a conversation.”

“I’m trying to protect you, you pain in the ass!” he whispered at the same time that I heard the sound of the wolf howling from right behind me. The sound didn’t quite come out as a howl, though, it sounded more garbled than anything else. Almost like the wolf was choking on something.

“I’m not interested in your protection,” I ground out as I reached for him, intending to grab his arm so I could lead him away. “I can protect myself.”

But my hand never made contact with his arm. Instead, he reached over and, placing the palm of his right hand on my chest, he “pushed” me. Somehow, and I had no idea how, I was suddenly airborne. I could see my feet as I sailed through the freezing night sky and a moment later, landed in a mound of snow. The snow broke my fall and ensured I wasn’t hurt, but the fall still knocked the wind right out of me.

I found myself fighting to take a breath as I focused on the canopy of the pine trees above me, covered with snow. Snowflakes danced through the air, catching the moonlight and looking like miniature doilies as they caressed the wind and landed on my face. Still, I couldn’t seem to take a breath.

What I could do, however, was listen to the sounds of heavy breathing, splashing water, growling and gnashing teeth.

Alex…

He was in trouble. I was more than sure of that. But where the hell was my gun? I glanced to my right and then my left. I spotted the butt sticking out of the snow maybe five feet or so from me. I opened my mouth and forced myself to inhale, even though my lungs burned like SOBs. I was dizzy, but I pulled myself into a sitting position, my back against the pine tree behind me. I exhaled and then inhaled again, allowing the oxygen to flood my lungs and reinvigorate me. Once I was able to push away from the tree, I crawled forward and reached out, grasping the gun and yanking it out of the snow.

The sound of assault suddenly met my ears. Even though I couldn’t make out much in the darkness, owing to the coverage of the trees, which didn’t allow for much moonlight to filter through, I was convinced the wolf was attacking Alex. And I had to imagine a human wouldn’t fare well against a wolf.

That is, if Alex is really human. The thought suddenly occurred to me. I mean, he hardly touched you but sent you flying through the air! Then there was that bit about him breaking through metal handcuffs like they were made out of paper. Oh, and he can also read your mind…

So, yeah, probably not human.

So what the hell is he?

Wow, was I really going down this rabbit hole?

Hmm… looked like it.

I blinked a few times, trying to see better in the darkness. I got onto my hands and knees, taking deep, stabilizing breaths. Once I was able to, I attempted to stand but was unsuccessful. Instead, I holstered my gun and crawled toward the bank of the creek. When I looked up, I nearly fell over. There, standing right in front of me, as in maybe a foot or so from my feet, was the wolf that Alex and I had spotted in the middle of the creek. It was drenched, a pool of water forming beneath it.

But I couldn’t say my attention was focused on the water dripping off its mottled fur. Instead, I couldn’t help but notice how its snout appeared to be missing its lips, its canines on gross display. Its eyes seemed much wider and larger than a wolf’s should be, almost like it was missing its eyelids. And I wasn’t sure, but it seemed like part of its cranium was peeking through the blotchy patches of fur atop its head.

I felt my heartbeat thundering against my ribs as I brought my gaze to the wolf’s chest and noticed how jagged and toothed its fur appeared, almost as if it were covering multiple broken ribs. I swallowed hard.

Then I swallowed harder.

Could it be…

I didn’t have a chance to further consider whether this wolf was really my missing John Doe corpse come back to canine life because it leapt at me. I didn’t know how I did it, but I managed to pull my gun free before thrusting it in front of me. Then I fired. The wolf yipped and seemed momentarily stunned, but then it growled at me again, seemingly unfazed by the bullet that had to have hit it square in the chest.

I crab-walked backward, up the snow-covered bank and the wolf followed me, saliva dripping from its mouth. It opened its mouth slightly and I suddenly caught sight of its tongue, which was mostly… gone. It was limping. I fought to catch my breath as I brought the gun up again, this time thinking I should aim for its head.

But a second or so later, Alex was suddenly on top of it. He was still only clothed from the waist down, but that didn’t seem to interfere with his grappling moves. He grabbed the thing’s snout, holding its jaw together, apparently, so it couldn’t bite him, and then he began dragging it back toward the water. As he did so, I realized how immense the wolf was in comparison to him. As I mentioned earlier, Alex wasn’t exactly a small guy. And yet, this wolf looked like it would be the same height, were it to stand up on its hind legs. The thing was abnormally large.

I found myself in complete shock as I sat there, in the snow, watching Alex drag the huge wolf into the middle of the creek. Then he shoved the creature’s head beneath the surface and held it there as the thing thrashed. He didn’t release it until it quieted and finally went limp. Then he let go and turned to face me.

“He’ll come to in twenty minutes or so,” he said as he climbed the slight incline of the bank. When he reached me, he extended his hand in a show to help me to my feet. Water droplets dripped from all over him, turning to ice as soon as they touched the ground.

“I got it,” I said as I frowned at his hand, took a deep breath and assisted myself. As soon as I stood, I felt dizzy and nearly fell back over.

“Easy, champ,” he said with a laugh as he wrapped his arm around me and hoisted me up. I had no choice but to lean into him because I could barely stand.

“I have a lot of questions for you,” I managed, my voice sounding as exhausted as I felt.

“I’m sure you do, Chief,” he answered cheerily as he led me away from the scene. “But they will have to wait until we’re far enough away from the wolf. When he wakes up, he’s going to have one hell of a headache which means he’ll be beyond pissed off.”

“When he wakes up?” I repeated as I shook my head. “You just killed him. I watched you.”

It was his turn to shake his head. “Nope. I merely delayed him.” Then he cocked his head to the side and smiled down at me. “The first thing you should know about werewolves, Chief, is the only way to kill them is with a silver bullet or dagger to the heart and then you’ve got to burn the body.”

Chapter Twelve

We were in my office, sitting across from one another. I’d just hung up the phone with Miguel who had vouched for him, saying Alex was a bounty hunter and he’d worked with him on more than one case. And I wasn’t sure why, but that information bugged me—maybe because I’d wanted to lock Alex up and now I couldn’t.

I wasn’t sure if it was still the same day or the next. When I glanced at the clock at the far end of the room, I realized it was three in the morning. Already tomorrow.

I’d just returned with two steaming cups of Keurig coffee, both with two creams and no sugar—apparently, Alex and I took our coffee the same way, which for some reason, irritated me. Like he took his coffee the same as mine on purpose, maybe. Like he wanted to prove that he really could read minds…

Anyway, as he reached for his coffee, his wrists rattled. The big shot was still sporting the handcuffs. At least, the bracelet remnants of them. That was when I remembered how he’d pulled them apart like doing so was nothing but a chicken wing.

He caught me looking at the dangling remains—or had read my mind again? Either way, he paused and with a self-satisfied grin on his, yes, very handsome face, he opened his hands wide. The dude could palm a basketball and then some... I immediately wondered if his feet were just as large which then led me to wonder if his… ahem, was…

“You wouldn’t be disappointed.” He interrupted my incredibly embarrassing thoughts as I cleared my throat and felt my cheeks heating. I couldn’t meet his eyes and opted to swallow a scalding hot sip of coffee instead.

“And as much as I’m very fond of these handcuffs, would you mind?” Alex finished as he held his hands up and shook them, apparently, for good measure.

“Can’t you just, you know, snap them off?” I asked with a pronounced frown. Truth be told, I was way embarrassed over the fact that not only was I pondering the size of Alexander Bat-shit-crazy’s unit, but that he was also very well aware of it. And that was the sticking point.

“Maybe I could,” he said with a casual shrug. “But it would be much easier if you just used your key.”

I snorted, but not in a good-natured way. I snorted in an, ‘I don’t know what the hell is going on and I’m not happy about it’ way. I took another sip of my coffee and let his hands hang for a while, just because I could. There was certainly a level of satisfaction to be gained from the fact that I had the power to make him look like a mime stuck in a box…

“Please?” he asked.

I set the mug of coffee down hard enough to nearly break the cup and then fished out the key from my pocket. After unlocking each cuff, I studied the industrial-grade steel chain link that Alex had snapped open. From the looks of it, the chain could have been a plastic toy. But when I held it between my fingers, I felt its weight. These were police-issue handcuffs and, as such, they weren’t meant to snap in half. They were intended to contain the strongest of suspects. And usually, they did.

Not liking any of this, I tossed the handcuffs in my trash can beneath my desk. They made a bigger clang than I was prepared for and I winced at the noise. So did Alex, making a face that suggested the cacophony had, in fact, hurt his ears.

“There’s nothing wrong with your handcuffs, Chief.”

“What?” I demanded, nearly growling the word at him.

He shrugged again, in that unconcerned sort of way he had that rubbed me the wrong way. “You were wondering if something was wrong with your handcuffs,” he explained and then smiled at me again. “I was just answering your question.”

“There’s nothing wrong with the handcuffs,” I muttered. “You just broke them in half because you’re that strong.”

Alex chuckled as he shook his head. Then he picked up his coffee and sipped daintily, as if to show me his softer side. He even stuck out his pinky a little. I nearly laughed at how absurd he looked. Then the near-laugh began to incorporate the absolute absurdity of the entire night, of the entire last few days.

“I agree,” he said, setting the coffee down. “It is absurd.”

“Get out of my head.”

“I wish I could, Chief. But no can do. Your thoughts are as clear as day.” He inhaled deeply, as if this information bothered him. “I can’t just turn them off. Even if I wanted to.” Then he reached for his coffee and brought it to his lips. “And, in this case, I don’t want to.” He arched his eyebrows at me over the rim of the cup like he thought he was Groucho Marx or something.

Asshole…

“This isn’t happening.”

“But it is, Chief.”

I didn’t have anything else to say so we fell silent. But silence and I aren’t exactly well-acquainted, so I decided to play a little game with Mr. Mind Reader…

Behind me, the little office window rattled as an angry wind blew against it. And as I listened, the sound of sleet began tapping against the windowpane, first lightly, then stronger. The soothing sound was suddenly interrupted when Alexander began chuckling.

“The answer is fifteen women,” he said, sounding impressed. “Two of whom I loved, one of whom is dead.”

My mouth wanted to drop open. He was good, very good. Yes, I was testing his damn mind-reading ability by asking him in thought how many women he’d slept with. Even though he’d obviously passed my test, I composed myself—I am, after all, a professional…

“I’m sorry to hear that.” I began to doubt whether or not he was being honest about the fifteen, but I stopped myself from thinking as much because I wasn’t in the mood to hear his defense. “And the other?”

“The other one—you mean the one I loved?” he asked, as if clarifying whether I was talking about women or pairs of socks.

“Yes,” I grumbled.

“Loved is the operative word,” he said with another shrug. “She broke my heart.”

I didn’t have to be telepathic to know where this was going. “She ran off with a friend of yours.”

“Ran off is a little bit inaccurate, as she still lives on the reservation,” he said as he extended his hands out before him, interlacing his fingers as he did so. “And it wasn’t with a friend of mine. It was with my brother.”

“Oh, shit,” I said in surprise as the vision I’d had when I’d touched John Doe suddenly returned with a vengeance.

How could you do this to me? Alex had asked him. I love her and you’re my brother!

“Yep, shit is a good word for it,” he continued with a nod. “Oh, and by the way, you were lucky enough to meet him, Chief.”

“Your brother?” I frowned and started to shake my head because I had a feeling everything was about to come full circle and I couldn’t say I was prepared for it.

“Yes,” he insisted. “What you saw in your vision was true.”

I looked up at him and blinked. Then blinked again as a dawning realization began to stir in my gut like acid reflux. “Oh, hell no.”

“Yes, Detective. Your search for John Doe is over. The man you brought in, the man with the silver dagger in his chest, a silver dagger that had clearly missed his heart by the way, was and is Donovan Johnson, my brother.”

Chapter Thirteen

“Um, what?” I asked as I shook my head for the umpteenth time and tried to make sense of what this guy was telling me. “The body we found in the snow was your brother?”

“Unfortunately, yes,” Alexander Fratricide announced levelly. In the overhead lights of my office, I could see him much more clearly. If I’d thought he was handsome before, I was mistaken. This guy was gorgeous. His hair was just as black as it had appeared in the moonlight, but it was his eyes that held me spellbound. Not to mention, he had lashes most women would kill for.

The bastard.

“How… how did you know about that vision I had?”

He shrugged. “Easy. You were just thinking about it.”

I swallowed hard and turned to the other fact about this case that was raising the hair at the back of my neck. “That was your brother?”

“Yep, and if you’re good at connecting the dots, you’ve already realized that wolf you met in the creek?

“Yeah?”

“He’s also my brother—they’re one and the same,” he continued, way too confidently.

“Wait, what?” I slammed my coffee back on top of my desk and watched the contents splash against either side of the cup as I shook my head and tried to ignore the ache beginning between my eyes.

“Hmm, apparently, you aren’t very good at connecting the dots.”

“No, I’m not and I have to admit, I can’t quite get past whatever craziness just came out of your mouth.”

“Come now, Chief,” Alex said with a slight frown as he leaned back into his chair and stretched out his long legs in front of him. “Think about it. Clearly, Donovan is a shifter, a werewolf. I think you’ve figured that out by now…right?”

I hadn’t figured that out by now but I didn’t want to admit that much, not that it mattered since this asshole could read my mind anyway. “For the sake of argument, let’s say I had figured that out already… then what?”

“Then… as soon as you saw the wolf in the creek, you knew it was your John Doe, as you call him.”

He’d been reading my mind again. Damn him. “I can’t wrap my head around that right now,” I admitted, the reason being that there was a swarm of thoughts already cramming my poor brain. But the one that stuck out the most was the memory of the conversation Alex had had with his so-called brother when he’d confronted him in the creek. When his brother had been a wolf…

“I’m not saying I’m buying into anything you’re trying to sell me,” I hedged, just needing to set some boundaries for myself. “But for the sake of argument, let’s say I accept all this about Donovan being the wolf in the creek…”

“Because he was the wolf in the creek.”

“Regardless, you said something to him about warning him not to trespass?” I eyed him narrowly. “And something else about lines of demarcation between lands? And his people and your people?” Alex nodded as I shook my head. “Doesn’t exactly sound very brotherly to me.”

“Have you ever heard of good seed and bad seed?”

“Sure.”

“Well, lots of people in the village considered Donovan to be the bad seed. Even as a kid, he was always the rebel, always the one getting into trouble. When he grew up, none of that changed. If anything, it only got worse.”

“What kind of trouble?”

Alex shrugged. “You name it, he was involved. Drugs, alcohol, robbery, the list goes on.”

“So what happened?”

“After a while, we decided we’d had enough and we forced him off the reservation. That ended up not being a big deal to him because by this point, he’d already fallen in with a rough crowd.”

“Rough crowd?”

“A neighboring gang.”

“Of Inuit?”

He nodded.

“I can feel the heat coming off your body,” he suddenly announced as if he were telling me I needed an oil change.

“Excuse me?” I demanded, frowning all the while.

“It means you’re attracted to me,” he explained as a huge, self-impressed smile broke across his face. “My pheromones must be calling to you and your body is definitely answering.”

“They most certainly are not and it most certainly is not!” I nearly yelled at him.

“No, I mean it. I really can detect that sort of thing.”

“Well, your detector must be broken because I’m not attracted to you at all,” I insisted and stubbornly held up my chin.

“You’re lying.”

“No, I’m not.”

“Yes.”

“No.”

“Yes, you are. Don’t fight it.”

“Oh, my God!” I threw my hands up in frustration as heat stained my cheeks. “Back to the point and finish your story! I didn’t bring you here to subject myself to this bullshit!”

“Whatever you say, Chief,” Alex said with a little laugh. Then he paused for a few seconds as he just smiled at me, his expression saying he knew something I didn’t. “Where was I?” he asked finally. “Oh, yeah… So once we rejected Donovan from our reservation, he fell in with this rival gang.”

“Okay, why were you talking to him about lines of demarcation then?”

“Our tribe had created a treaty with this neighboring tribe centuries ago, whereby we delineated property lines and agreed not to cross into their lands if they agreed not to cross into ours.”

“Why?”

“What do you mean: why?”

I shrugged, figuring my question was easy enough to answer. “Why would you and your neighbors be so un-neighborly?”

It was his turn to shrug. “You’ll find that the law of the wilderness is much more uncivilized than the laws of the city.”

“Please, Hope is hardly a city,” I answered with a laugh. “It’s a town… maybe even an outpost.”

“It’s the city compared to the place I come from,” he responded. “And sometimes, you find yourself with neighbors who aren’t exactly what you’d hope for.”

“So you and your neighbors made this treaty, but Donovan broke it?”

“Yes, he was high on drugs and decided to break the agreement by raiding our village and stealing from us. Two of our own were hurt in the process.”

“Where does your ex-girlfriend fit into all of this?”

Alex shrugged. “Apparently, she was more interested in my brother’s antics than she was in me and decided to go where the excitement was.”

“What does that mean?”

“It means that not only did Donovan steal from us, he also made off with my ex.”

“But you told me earlier that she still lived in the same house with you?” I argued, narrowing my eyes at him because his story wasn’t adding up. And when stories didn’t add up, it was usually because they were crocks of shit.

“It’s not a crock of shit,” Alex said with a quick grin to my frown. “You have a good memory. Have you ever considered becoming a cop?”

“Not in the mood for jokes.”

“Sorry,” he grumbled. “So the quick of it is that my ex came back. I figure it must have been sometime shortly after Donovan was stabbed. I guess she didn’t like living with people she didn’t know so she came back to our reservation and they voted to allow her to stay.”

“They voted?”

“Yep.”

“Who are they?”

“My people.”

I figured I needed to be more to the point. “You said they, not we.”

He shrugged. “I didn’t want her to stay, but I was overruled.”

“Interesting.” I was fairly good at reading lies and I had to admit that Alex wasn’t showing any of the signs of lying. That could just mean he was delusional and believed everything he was saying, even if it wasn’t the truth. Maybe he was just completely crazy.

“I’m not crazy.”

“Ugh, will you stop?” I asked as I shook my head and decided to return to the topic at hand. “Going back to the question of who stabbed Donovan, do you think someone from your village stabbed him in retaliation for the raid?”

“No,” Alex answered immediately. “I don’t believe it was done by one of our own.”

“Then who else would it have been?”

It made sense that Alex would be the number-one suspect in Donovan’s murder, given that he had a motive, that motive being the ex-girlfriend. Well, that is, if I bought into the idea that it really was a murder and not an elaborate hoax. And, while I could admit that I hadn’t given up on the hoax idea, I was starting to entertain other explanations. That meant Alex could still be considered a murderer and, as such, dangerous. But he was a licensed bounty hunter and Miguel had vouched for him, so there was that. Maybe it was true that Alex was merely investigating his brother’s attack. Besides, he’d also saved my life and my instincts told me I could trust him. I wasn’t sure why I felt the need to trust him, but my instincts had never steered me wrong before and I’d been at this cop game for a while now. Even so, I also wasn’t one to take unnecessary chances.

And as far as the case was concerned, Alex could have attempted to kill his brother, verified bounty hunter or not.

“I’m not going to bother handcuffing you since that obviously did no good.” I kicked out my chair from underneath my desk and stood. I placed my hand on top of my holstered gun to warn him not to put up a fight, to which Alex shook his head.

“I’ll go willingly.” He placed his cup of coffee on my desk and stood. He towered over me by a good foot or so. Maybe more. And given the fact that he’d snapped the cuffs in half like he was playing wishbone, hopefully, he would go willingly…

“Put your hands on top of your head,” I said, figuring I should take whatever precautions I could. I headed for the door to my office and stepped in line behind him as he nodded and followed my orders. My right hand rested on the Colt the entire time. “At the end of the hall, you’re going to make a right,” I said as I bypassed him to hold the door open.

“After you,” he said with a grin.

“You first,” I responded in an icy tone.

He didn’t respond, other than to nod as he walked through the door.

I was left to wonder whether he’d been planning to pull a fast one on me or if he was simply a gentleman. But, then I realized if he’d wanted to attack me, he’d had every opportunity to do so earlier and yet, he hadn’t. So that meant… Okay, he was a gentleman, but so what? He was also looney tunes and potentially a brother killer.

“I didn’t do this to Donovan,” he said in a soft voice as we walked down the quiet hallway. Aside from Stan, the night watchman, the station was empty. And who the hell knew where Stan was. Probably on another coffee break in the break room. Or he could possibly be asleep. There had been many occasions when I’d caught him snoozing on duty.

“You understand you’re the number one suspect in your brother’s death?” I asked with a frown as he stopped walking and glanced back at me.

“My brother isn’t dead.” I didn’t respond, so he continued, “Someone tried to kill my brother, but whoever that someone was, they weren’t successful because they didn’t stab him all the way through the heart and they didn’t burn his body.”

“So?”

“All they did was piss him off.”

“That still doesn’t explain anything. The body Miguel and I found in the snow was that of a deceased man.”

“And what happened in the good doctor’s office after the autopsy on the so-called deceased man?” Alex asked me, in a patronizing tone. I didn’t respond so he answered his own question for me. “Donovan escaped. That’s what happened.”

“Okay, let’s pretend I’m buying into your little explanation…”

“There’s nothing to buy into,” he interrupted. “I’m telling you the truth.”

“Let’s get back to the murder.” None of this made any damn sense and the confusion surrounding all of it was starting to take a toll on me.

“There was no murder.”

“There was a dead body in the snow. With a knife protruding from the corpse’s chest. That counts as a murder in my books, regardless of whatever Kool-Aid you’re trying to get me to drink.” I took a deep breath. “And as far as suspects go, you definitely had a motive to kill your brother, considering he stole the woman you admitted to being in love with.”

Alex cocked his head to the side. “By all surface appearances, that would make sense, wouldn’t it?”

“It would.” I reached up to grip his upper arm and led him down the hall again toward our two holding cells, both of which were empty. Not a lot happened in Hope…

“Surface appearances can be deceiving,” he answered with a smile that he then forcibly turned into a yawn. When we reached the end of the hall, we took a right and met a locked door. I pulled my key ring out from my pocket, unlocked the door, and then showed Alex into the first holding cell. He took a seat on the wooden bench that was suspended from the wall as I closed and locked the cell door behind him. I leaned against the desk just outside the cell and studied him. I wasn’t sure why, but I sincerely hoped he wasn’t guilty of murder.

“Speaking of looks and how they can be deceiving…” I picked up a stray pencil on the desktop and began drumming it against my lower lip.

“You’re wondering if Donovan was really my brother because we look nothing alike,” he interrupted as he leaned over, his elbows propped on his knees. He ran his hands down the back of his head and sighed audibly. Then he glanced up again and smiled at me.

“Yes,” I answered as I stopped playing with the pencil and gave him the full weight of my frown because this mind-reading stuff was really getting on my nerves. “The body we found in the snow was that of a Native American.”

“Inuit.”

“Right, but you’re clearly Caucasian.”

“Yep, I’ve been affectionately referred to as a cracker more times than I can remember,” he admitted with a slow smile.

“So there’s a disconnect.”

Alex shrugged. “Easy-enough answer,” he said as his smile widened. “I was adopted.”

“Adopted? So, you aren’t related by blood to the victim?”

“No, I’m not, but that doesn’t make him any less my brother,” he announced firmly, as if annoyed I was suggesting anything else.

“Well, according to biology, it would.”

“Biology?” he laughed and then shook his head as if biology had no business in this conversation. The laugh died on his lips and he faced me almost stoically. “I grew up with Donovan. He might not have been related to me by blood, but he was related to me by soul and by pack.”

“By pack?” I asked as I studied him. “Strange way of describing your… family?”

“You’ll find, Chief Elodie, that the strange way predominates here.”

“Chief is fine,” I corrected him in a brisk tone of voice. “And, yes, I have noticed that strange things seem to be going on in this town. I was hoping you might have an explanation for me.”

He shrugged. “Maybe I do.”

When he didn’t say anything more, I jumped off the desktop and approached him. “I want to know what the deal is with your brother and what happened to him.”

“He was stabbed.”

“And you didn’t do it?”

“No.”

“Then who did?”

“I don’t know, but I’m hoping you’ll be able to find out,” he answered as we both eyed one another narrowly. “Next question.”

“If John Doe really is your brother and I followed him into the playground, where the hell did he disappear to?”

Alex stood up and approached the cell bars, wrapping his hands around them as he brought his face as close to mine as the bars would allow. “You already know the answer to that question.”

“What if I don’t believe it?”

“There’s no other rational explanation.”

I laughed without mirth. “Rational explanation? Nothing about this is rational!”

Alex held my gaze, all the while wearing a poker face. “You already know the truth, Chief. Your missing John Doe was the same as the wolf that appeared in the creek, the very same one that nearly attacked you.”

Chapter Fourteen

I’d had enough.

Enough of wolves and walking corpses and crazy talk. Enough of Alex’s long eyelashes and his mind reading. And enough of this stupid little town in this stupid oversized state with its stupid, stupid musk oxes.

“Oxen.”

I paused, my back still to him. “What?”

“They’re called musk oxen,” Alex said, his voice echoing merrily from within the cell. “And that was quite a tirade. I’m impressed.”

“Oh, piss off!”

“Such language, Chief.”

“I need a drink.” My stomach growled again, as if on cue.

“And you need something to eat. You haven’t eaten anything since breakfast.”

I glared at him.

“I haven’t eaten either,” he continued with a shrug. “You planning on feeding me in here?”

“I wasn’t.”

“Well, how long are you planning on holding me?”

“I don’t know.”

“Look, Chief, you’re hungry, I’m hungry. And the only other person in this station is asleep in the broom closet at the end of the hall.” It figured. “What if I give you my word I won’t try to run off and I’ll answer all your questions, then can we get something to eat?”

“No.”

“Come on, Miguel vouched for me. You know I’m a bounty hunter and I have a special interest in getting to the bottom of this case, considering it involves my brother…”

“So what?”

“So your stomach has been growling for the last three hours and we both know you’ll do a better job of copping and robbering on a full stomach.”

“You are the most irritating person I’ve ever had the misfortune of coming across.”

***

We ended up at a place called Mo’s Tavern. It was the only place that was open all night on this windy, and now snowy, Thursday.

“So does this mean I’m still under arrest?” Alex asked, as he sat across from me in a booth, drinking from a mug of beer that was big enough to require two stomachs to contain.

“Yes.” Although I wasn’t so sure how under arrest he really was. Truthfully, I didn’t have enough to keep him and he probably knew that. But, I also didn’t want to let down my guard so I figured I’d still go with it.

He nodded. “And what about all that crap about what I say can and will be used against me?”

“Still applies.”

“Well, then,” he said while raising his glass and tapping my half-raised glass of wine, “cheers.”

The bar was just outside of downtown Hope, nestled closer to some residences than to the town itself. The tavern and the residences had been butting heads for some time over loud music and the sounds of drunken merriment. Even though I was new here, I’d already fielded several complaints about the place. But each time I’d investigated, I found the bar quiet enough. Tonight, it was nearly empty. Just me, Alex, the tough old lady who ran the place, and the town drunk, a kindly older man who lived around the corner, close enough so he didn’t have to drive... and close enough to avoid getting busted for public intoxication.

“He’s a good man,” said Alex, apparently following my train of thought. “Lost his wife of thirty years, and now doesn’t want to be alone.” He took another sip of his monstrous beer as he studied the old man with kind eyes. “He misses her every day, more so when he drinks, but he’s okay with that.”

“And you know all this because you’re reading his mind?”

“No, he’s my accountant,” Alex responded with a boyish smile. Then he focused on the old man again and sighed. “As to reading his mind, that’s not exactly an easy task.”

“Why isn’t it easy?” I demanded. “You seem to have a fine enough time reading mine.”

“That’s because you’re sober,” he answered with a little smile as he held my gaze. “And, I have to admit, I love being inside your head.”

Maybe it was the way he said it, but I suddenly got butterflies in the pit of my stomach. I immediately thought about other places of mine that he could be inside until I forcibly stopped the thoughts in order to avoid the absolute mortification that would come from him reading them.

“Back to your accountant.” I paused and took a huge swallow of wine. “Why do you have trouble reading his mind?”

“Because his thoughts are reeling and turning and twisting and spinning nearly out of control,” he answered. “That’s how it is to read the mind of someone under the influence, be it alcohol, drugs, whatever.”

“Sounds like total chaos.”

He faced me as he nodded, but his eyes were still on the drunk old man across the way. “Trust me, Chief, you don’t want to go anywhere near his mind.”

“But you can’t help yourself?”

“No, I can’t.”

I studied him, still holding my glass of cheap chardonnay as I wondered if this was a good idea. I’d already informed Stan as I’d left the station that I was officially off-duty. That was also why I’d ditched the police-issue jacket for one of my own, although I still wore my uniform underneath it. “So what’s your range?”

“Range?”

“How close do you generally have to be to ‘hear’ someone’s thoughts?”

“Oh,” he said with a very handsome, yet boyish smile. “Usually, I need to see them. Or at least be in the same room with them, or the same building.”

“So you wouldn’t be able to hear the thoughts of people in a passing car?”

He shrugged. “Depends on how focused I am. Usually, I don’t choose to be that focused. Usually, people’s thoughts are enough to drive anyone mad.”

“So how do you control yourself or keep yourself from focusing?”

He glanced at me and raised an eyebrow. “Who says I do?”

“Don’t you?”

“Sometimes, I guess. But normally, I prefer to be alone, with nothing but my own thoughts.”

“Why is that?”

“Think about it. It’s not exactly easy to know what people are thinking all the time. Sometimes, I want to strangle them for thinking the violent, lurid, hateful or pointless thoughts they do.” Then another smile pasted itself across his face. “And by the way, you probably wouldn’t want to know what the night watchman at your station thinks of you.”

I nearly asked him what that meant, but shook my head. He was right. I didn’t want to know. “How long have you been able to, you know...”

“You can say it, Chief. No one is listening.”

“Fine,” I said. “How long have you been a mind reader?”

“My whole life, although it really seemed to kick into gear when I hit puberty.”

“And your brother...?”

He glanced at me and no doubt read the crap out of my mind. “Yes, he’s a mind reader, too.”

“Jesus...”

“Yep, I suspect he was a mind reader, too.”

I blinked, not following him, but then I got the joke…

“Ha ha, you’re so funny,” I answered, rolling my eyes. But then I found myself slapping his arm, which I hadn’t intended to do. It just, you know, sort of happened. Hmm, maybe I was a little too eager where the consuming of wine was concerned. I glanced at my glass and noticed it was already empty. Alex followed my gaze and immediately called the bartender over, ordering me another.

“Are you trying to get me drunk?” I asked, back to sounding irritated again. And that was just as well because irritated was what I needed to be where this guy was concerned—irritated kept the necessary distance between us.

He cocked his head to the side while a smirk played with the ends of his lips. “What if I were?”

I frowned. “If you think you’re going to escape, I’d find you. Just so you know. I’m known for never…”

“Escaping is the last thing on my mind,” he interrupted, his eyes smoldering. I gulped down the remainder of my words, suddenly pleased for the reprieve offered by the cranky barkeeper as she appeared before us, dropped off my second glass of wine and walked away.

We were quiet for a little while longer. My own mind was racing, and, to Alex’s credit, he appeared to be allowing me to work through my thoughts. Well, at least, he wasn’t telling me what I was thinking. He simply drank idly from his mug, looking forward, revealing his perfect profile.

“So your brother is a shape-shifter.”

“He’s a werewolf,” Alex corrected without looking at me.

“Yeah, a werewolf.”

Alex took in a breath of air, then lifted his mug and stared into it, before saying, “Yes, he is. A man who can shift into a wolf.”

I felt my stomach drop as I inhaled deeply and then exhaled just as deeply. This was not an easy subject to wrap my mind around. “Do you know how crazy that sounds?”

“For me, not so much,” he answered as he continued to eye the contents of his mug. When he brought his pained gaze to mine, I fought to hold it. I suddenly felt nervous, anxious for some completely bizarre reason. “For you, yes, I can imagine how crazy it sounds.”

“Good,” I answered with a feigned smile as I tried to lighten the mood. “Just as long as you understand that I’m having one hell of a time with this.” Alex took that moment to reach over and pinch the back of my hand, and hard, too. “Ouch! Why did you do... oh, never mind.” Yes, I’d just been thinking that I needed to pinch myself, to wake up from this dream, this nightmare. And judging by the hot pain radiating from my hand, I was definitely awake.

“Hey, you thought it,” he said with a shrug as I glared at him.

“I could have you...”

“Arrested for assaulting a police officer?” he finished for me, his eyes so penetrating, it almost felt like he could see right through me. “I suppose you could arrest me… again.”

“Fine, point taken,” I ceded. “Just keep your hands off me and we’ll be okay.”

He frowned as if he didn’t appreciate the words, like all he wanted to do was keep his hands on me.

“You’re right,” he said immediately, that smile back in its rightful position.

But there was no way in hell I was going to ask him what I was right about—whether I was right about him wanting to have his hands on me or whether I was right that he should keep his hands off me. I hated to admit it, but I was hoping for the former…

Neither of us said anything, but as we were sitting there, staring at one another, I noticed something very strange about him, something that was maybe even stranger than his mind-reading trick. He hadn’t, I was certain, blinked this entire time. As soon as the thought crossed my mind, I studied him pointedly for another ten seconds or so, just to test my theory. And, sure enough, not one blink.

I swallowed hard and glancing down at my glass of wine, realized I’d just downed the entire thing. I opened my mouth to speak, but my tongue wasn’t quite ready to form words. I was about to try again when Alex turned and looked at me, giving me the full weight of his stare. His unblinking stare.

“Yes, Chief, you’re onto me.”

“I’m onto you?” My heart was in my throat.

He smiled, broadly and held my gaze insistently. His expression was confident, challenging. “I’m a werewolf, too.”

Chapter Fifteen

I just sat there for a few seconds as I tried to make sense of the words coming out of his mouth. And then I sat there for another few. After a good ten seconds, his words still weren’t making any more sense than when he’d first said them.

“What?” I asked, not meaning to sound dumb, but there it was. I had to remind myself my mouth was still hanging open. I was more than sure I looked like a trout.

“You could never look like a trout,” Alex answered. “You are far too beautiful to resemble a fish, of any sort.”

“Forget that part,” I replied impatiently and even waved my hand in front of his face as if I were swatting an invisible fly. “Get back to what you just said.”

“I. Am. A. Werewolf,” he repeated, his smile deepening and striking me as even more irritating.

“Yep, that’s what I thought you said.”

“Ah, come on, Chief, you saw this one coming a mile away.”

Yeah, not so much. I picked up my glass but then remembered it was already empty. Alex shook his head as if it were a crime to have an empty glass and then pushed his enormous beer my way. Usually, I wasn’t much of a beer drinker. I didn’t care for the taste. But tonight wasn’t one of those times. I grabbed the tankard, brought it to my lips and downed a good few gulps until the carbonation tickled my nose and throat. Then I slammed it back down on the table with a little too much gusto, the amber liquid reminding me of a tempestuous sea.

“So?” Alex asked, apparently ill at ease with the stretch of silence between us.

I couldn’t answer him right away. Instead, I picked the beer up again to down another few mouthfuls.

“Easy there, tiger,” Alex said with a little chuckle I found way too charming. I put the beer back on the table, noticing that even after my generous swigs, it was still over half full. Not wanting to get too carried away, I wiped my mouth with my sleeve and pushed the tankard back toward him. Then I took a deep breath and faced him. He was beaming from ear to ear.

“Yes, I have been known to be charming on occasion,” he confessed.

“Stop doing that!”

“Doing what?”

“You know what,” I insisted with a heartfelt frown. “Stay out of my head.”

He sighed, but I had a feeling it was all for show. “I have to admit your head is one that interests me the most.”

“Well, quit it or I’ll take you in for…” The words died on my tongue because I wasn’t exactly sure what I could take him in for. Trespassing on my thoughts?

“Haven’t we already been through this?” Alex insisted. “You’ve already arrested me once. Wasn’t that enough?” He yawned, probably just for the effect.

I shook my head, getting angry about the situation. Why couldn’t I just have a normal career in law enforcement like everyone back in Anchorage? Why did I have to deal with mind readers and werewolves and reanimated walking corpses and men who were way too handsome? Well, scratch that last part. I mean, Alex wasn’t that handsome. I stole a glance at him and then wished I hadn’t. He was that handsome and then some. Dammit. Again feeling sorry for myself, I wasn’t cut out for this supernatural crap. I’d never even believed in Santa Claus as a kid. The gentle throbbing behind my ears began to steadily increase until it was an all-out pounding.

“What a sad childhood you must have had,” Alex announced.

“I just don’t understand how this is possible,” I muttered underneath my breath, more to myself than to my could-be furry companion. I glanced down at my palms and extended my fingers as I searched my tired brain for answers. I couldn’t find any.

“That, my dear Chief, is a long and involved story.”

“So.” I darted a glance at him because I was surprised he’d heard me. I’d basically whispered the words to myself. “You even have incredible hearing? Or did you just pick up on my mind-waves again?”

He shook his head and then pointed to his right ear. “Canine hearing.”

“Ah, right, of course you have canine hearing.” I almost nodded but then caught myself and shook my head. “No, not, of course,” I insisted, my logical seeing-is-believing side beginning to take over. My ‘just the facts, ma’am’ side. It was about damned time.

“How can I help you, Chief?”

“You can help me by proving your claims.” I folded my arms across my chest and glared at him to show him I was serious. “If you really are everything you say you are and can do everything you profess to, let’s see it.”

He shrugged. “Well, you’ve already experienced my mind reading abilities…”

“That’s not what I’m talking about,” I interrupted. “Let’s see you put on this wolf show.”

He chuckled. “While I’m not opposed to ‘putting on the wolf show’ as you so reverently put it, there are some things you need to know first.”

“Okay, out with them.”

He nodded and ran his index finger around the brim of the tankard, increasing his speed until it began to make that weird high-pitched moaning sound. I could feel my irritation peaking and slammed my hand down on top of his, once I couldn’t take it any longer. As soon as I did so, I noticed how hot his hand was.

“My body temperature is naturally higher than yours,” he explained to my unasked question.

“Why?”

He shrugged. “I imagine it’s because my metabolism is faster than yours, given the fact that I can change shape.”

I nodded because there were more important subjects still left to tackle. “What do I need to know before you prove you really can turn yourself into a wolf?”

He nodded and brought his eyes from the beer to mine. “There are a few things…”

“Okay.”

“The first is that I don’t like to do it around people.” He took a deep breath as he glanced around the bar. “So I wouldn’t want to do it in here, for example. I don’t like to have an audience, for obvious reasons.”

“So where would you be comfortable doing it?”

He seemed to consider my question for a moment or two before nodding as his gaze returned to mine. “Outside… in the back of the bar, near the cover of the trees so I can take off if some asshole decides to take a shot at me.”

“No one’s going to take a shot at you with me around.” Then I got his gist. “Oh, you meant I was that asshole.” I smiled in spite of myself. “You have my word that I won’t shoot you.” I held up my index finger to show him I was keeping track. “What’s ‘thing’ number two?”

“When I take the shape of the wolf, I adopt the instinct of the wolf.”

“What does that mean?”

“It means that I can’t rationalize like I would as a human. I become feral, just as feral as a wolf is.”

“Then you lose your humanity?”

“Not altogether,” he started and then exhaled as he studied me for a few seconds. “Do you remember when you were taking a jog down Shamrock Street in the middle of the night a few days ago?”

“Yes...” A shiver snaked up my spine and I wondered how this son of a bitch could have known that. Unless he was stalking me…

“You don’t have to worry, I wasn’t stalking you,” he said and then frowned at me as if he’d hoped we were past the suspicious stage. “You ran into a black wolf while you were jogging, do you remember?”

I just nodded because I had a feeling I already knew what was going to come out of his mouth next, but I couldn’t say I was prepared for it.

“That was me.”

Yep. I was right. Maybe I was picking up some of his mind-reading mojo. “The black wolf was you?” I asked, finally finding my voice. Although I couldn’t say I was that surprised because I’d had a feeling that wolf was the same one as in my dreams and Alex’s steel gray eyes had always been the link between the dreams, the wolf and the man.

“Yes,” he insisted and looked perfectly comfortable with this information.

“And the other wolf who growled at me?”

“That wasn’t me,” he answered with a chuckle.

“Was the other wolf a real wolf or a person?” I asked and then realized my question didn’t really make sense. “You get what I mean.”

“Yes, I do,” he said with a clipped nod. “The other wolf was a werewolf like me. His name is Achak and he’s one of my tribe.”

“Achak,” I repeated. “What does his name mean?”

“Spirit.”

“Why weren’t you and Donovan given Inuit names, like the rest of your tribe?”

“Donovan’s Inuit name is Makoktok,” Alex answered. “He just preferred Donovan.”

“And what’s your Inuit name?”

“Taktuq.”

“What does it mean?”

“Fog,” he answered and then smiled. “Mainly because the day I came to my mother happened to be a foggy one.”

“But you go by your English name?”

He shrugged. “I’ve always been more comfortable with it. And before you ask, I don’t know why.”

“Ha-ha,” I grumbled as the waitress approached us and I ordered another glass of wine. I figured I’d need it.

“You need food, Elodie,” Alex said, reminding me of exactly that fact. I’d been so caught up in the conversation, I’d completely forgotten about my empty stomach.

The waitress gave us a few minutes to review the menu and returned to take Alex’s order of prime rib rare and my order of a cheeseburger with fries.

“So going back to Achak,” I started as I remembered the two wolves and Achak in particular. He hadn’t exactly been friendly. “Why did he growl at me?”

“He didn’t know you and therefore, didn’t trust you.”

I shrugged. “You didn’t know me and therefore, didn’t trust me.”

“You’re a female,” he answered with a shrug of his own. “You didn’t threaten me.” He smiled. “Although you are a little scary now when you look at me like that.”

I decided not to take offense, mostly because I had bigger fish to fry. But first things first: “You protected me from Achak.”

“Yes,” Alex answered quickly but then cocked his head to the side as he apparently thought better of it. “Well, he wouldn’t have harmed you. He’s just… brazen.”

“Getting back to that whole bit about you becoming feral when you take your wolf form.” I studied him. “You didn’t seem exactly feral then.”

“I don’t completely lose all touch with my human sentience,” he explained. “It’s just that I become more… hmm, how can I put it?” he asked as he looked up at the ceiling as if it had an answer for him. “I just become more instinctual, I guess,” he finished with a broad smile as he faced me again.

“What the hell does that mean?”

“Rather than telling you, maybe it would be better to show you,” he finished, throwing down the gauntlet at my feet.

Chapter Sixteen

It was full-on snowing by the time we got outside. I was also full-on buzzed, probably bordering on drunk, owing to the three glasses of wine and the third of Alex’s beer. Yes, we’d both finished our meals and each one of us had licked our plates clean. Alex had tried to pay for my dinner but I’d flatly refused. Instead, I’d taken care of the bill—I didn’t want to feel like I owed him anything because I didn’t. As far as I was concerned, he was still a possible suspect in his brother’s… er death wasn’t exactly the right word now—disappearance.

The alley behind the bar was deserted, which wasn’t a big surprise since most of the town was tucked away, asleep in their beds. Calling this an alley was a stretch, though. It wasn’t much more than a crumbled, snow-dusted dirt road that stretched from behind the bar down to the post office. No Dumpsters or fire escapes or nefarious types lurking around here. Unless I counted the big orange tomcat watching us with glowing yellow eyes from under a flatbed truck that sported four flat tires. The cat was a permanent resident here—he lived inside Mo’s Tavern.

Although it was technically the end of winter, it might as well have been the very middle, considering how thickly the snow was falling, how hard the wind was blowing and how cold I was, through and through.

Alex wore only a light jacket and jeans. Not even a beanie cap. He seemed, if anything, to relish the cold. Or, maybe, it was just that he relished being outside. I noticed he lifted his face to the wind and elements more than a few times, a small smile on his sumptuous lips.

Sumptuous lips? I thought to myself snidely. What’s gotten into you? This guy is still a suspect!

“Thanks for the compliment.” Alex glanced down at me with a smirk. A second or so later, the smile disappeared. “Do you really think I’m still a suspect?”

“Of course you are!”

With the cat still watching us and the snow falling even harder, Alex stopped me in front of a row of trash cans. “This’ll do.”

“Heaven forbid you go full werewolf, you know, somewhere warm.”

He grinned and faced me, taking my hand and steadying me as I berated my inability to hold my liquor. I was a lightweight and always had been. Snow slanted diagonally on the wind, and his longish black hair whipped across his face at nearly the same angle.

“Do you always complain this much?”

“Only when I’m cold.”

“And buzzed,” he added.

“Tipsy,” I corrected. “Chiefs of police don’t get buzzed.”

He chuckled at that, and stretched his neck a little, moving it in a circle around those wide shoulders. I heard something crack. Jesus, was that his neck?

“It was,” he answered my unasked question.

“Is it starting?” I was a little apprehensive. I even took a step back because I wasn’t sure if he required more space to complete his, um, metamorphosis.

“No,” Alex announced as he gripped my arm when I started to slip on the ice.

“Well, get to it,” I answered as I pulled away from him. “It’s not like it’s getting any warm…”

He suddenly jerked forward, gripping his stomach as he contorted in what looked like pain. I gasped. “It’s happening, isn’t it?”

“It is,” he answered, sounding like he was in agony. “Ah, it’s happening!”

“What should I do?”

“Run!” he yelled, turning to face me, as I found myself backing up. I nearly tripped over something buried in the snow. Alex’s lips curled into a snarl as he raised his hands in a sort of Nosferatu claw. “Run from the Wolfman! Growr!”

It took me a second to realize he was joking. After my heart slowed down, I walked up to him and faux smacked him. “That was not funny! You idiot.”

Alex couldn’t control the heavy chuckle that ricocheted through him as he swatted his thigh and appeared proud of himself. “You should have seen the look on your face!”

“And you nearly got your own shot off,” I announced, not very surprised to find I was holding the Colt. At what point I’d drawn it, I didn’t know.

“Would have been worth it.”

“Are you done?”

He did one more swipe with his faux-hooked hand, and another feigned growl, before his chuckling subsided. Then it died away altogether. “Okay, now, I’m done.”

Through all the laughter and silliness, one thing became evident: I was disappointed. Severely so. “So you can’t turn into a werewolf?”

I mean, I couldn’t say I was that disappointed. Because I never really thought he could. I guess I’d just wanted to believe there was still a little magic left in the world. Why I needed to believe that, I didn’t know. Maybe there’s just something inside all of us that holds out hope for something more. No, I didn’t believe in Bigfoot. And I didn’t believe in the Loch Ness monster either. In general, I didn’t believe in things that went bump in the night. But Alexander Johnson had gotten me to believe, even if only for a few minutes, that a man really could turn into a wolf.

The bastard.

I sighed and holstered my weapon just as a distant wolf howl pierced the calm night. I turned, looking in the direction of the far-off sound.

The town of Hope, at the very least, had a wolf problem. A pretty big one.

I was in the process of turning back to face Alex when I heard a very different kind of growl. Low and guttural, and seeming to come from deep inside a very big set of lungs.

I was too scared to think, or react, or even to reach for my gun, which was a first for me. Instead, a very small squeak escaped my lips as I completed my turn, and saw the same black wolf in front of me, its hackles raised and its massive canines glowing in the moonlight.

Chapter Seventeen

I glanced around for any signs of Alex, but there were none to be found.

Why? Because Alex was already standing on all fours in front of me, burly and covered in black, wiry fur. That and he was very busily growling. Somehow, and I had no idea how, but the bastard had actually managed to transform himself into a wolf.

Just. Like. That.

And, as he’d mentioned earlier, the wolf before me was the same one I’d encountered on the path during my run a few days earlier. The same one who had appeared in my dreams since I’d moved to Hope. And that was a sticking point that we’d have to discuss later… when he wasn’t… furry.

“Okay, okay, I believe you,” I said to the husky canine who continued to emit a low, warning growl as if it thought I was a threat. I wished it could understand I most definitely was not. I did keep my hand on my pistol, though, just in case...

I took a few steps back as I wondered if the thing could understand me; if so, maybe I could reason with it.

“Alex, are you in there?” I asked, and wondered whether he was only capable of thinking like a wolf when embodying one. Furthermore, how exactly did a wolf think? And just how drunk was I to even consider such a question?

Well, drunk or not, it was looking like I was in a bad situation. Standing in a dark alley, on a blustery night, with a black devil wolf baring its fangs at me.

It growled, the fur on its hackles standing on end.

Then it started inching closer to me, its lips pulled back so I could see every one of its razor-sharp teeth, and its eyes glinted in the moonlight…

I wracked my brain, trying to find a way to communicate with the thing. The only information I knew about wolves or dogs, in general, was that they saw the world around them in limited shades of color and had trouble telling red from green and vice versa.

“Alex,” I continued as I held my hands out before me in an attempt to placate the seemingly irritated animal. All that did, though, was cause the enormous beast to curl his upper lip further, which allowed me a better view of his canines. Canines which were very large and very intimidating. I immediately dropped my hands, allowing one of them to rest on the butt of the Colt, which was still sitting in its holster. As I continued to walk backward, taking slow step after painstakingly slow step, I began to pull the gun free, thinking it might be the only defense I had. Maybe I’d get lucky and Alex the wolf would suddenly spot a squirrel or something.

But, it seemed I wasn’t going to be so lucky. Not this time. Apparently, all the woodland creatures in the area were on lockdown because I didn’t even hear so much as an owl hooting. And the tomcat was long gone. Smart cat.

“Alex, can you hear me?” I continued. “Because if so, you need to get control of yourself and stop growling at me,” I continued in a singsong voice as I smiled at the wolf.

The wolf continued forward, its teeth bared. I brought the gun in front of me as slowly as I could and then held it in low ready, so I could be prepared in case the oversized doggie attacked me.

If you shoot it, Elodie, you’re going to shoot Alex, I reminded myself.

If it pounces on me, what choice do I have? I argued back.

Yep, if it attacked me, I would shoot it. Or him. No questions asked.

“Alex, I’m one of the good guys.” I hoped my rendition of the voice of Glinda, the Good Witch of the South, would succeed in calming the feral beast into submission. “Just be cool, and I won’t have to shoot you.”

When my heels came up against a tree—and only Alaska would have trees in an alley—my breath hitched and I banged the back of my head against the rough bark. At the same time, I yelped and the wolf lunged at me. I wasn’t sure how it was possible, but the thing actually knocked the pistol right out of my hand before straddling me between its enormous front paws.

I blinked and found myself face to face with its muzzle. It continued to growl as it stared down at me from Alex’s steel-gray eyes. Drool dripped from its mouth and splashed against my cheek, but I didn’t even flinch. I was too scared to move.

“Alex,” I breathed. “Alex, if you’re in there and you can hear me, get control of yourself,” I whispered as the realization hit me that maybe this was his plan all along—get me by myself, change into a wolf and then tear me apart. That way there would be no way of tying the crime back to him. And no rational person would believe he’d turned into a wolf and eaten me. God, I was so stupid!

The wolf focused its nearly glowing eyes on mine and while I searched them for some semblance of humanity, I could find none. The good news, though, was that the thing had stopped growling. Probably because it was too busy thinking about ripping out my throat.

“Alex,” I started again, but the words were taken right from my lips as I watched the wolf begin to... change. Its snout receded back into its face at the same time that its eyes began to shrink, taking on a more human shape. I blinked, and kept on blinking, as I watched its thick fur dissolve into tanned skin. Its giant ears shrunk... and looked for all the world as if they were folding into themselves, only to appear to be completely human again. I glanced down at the wolf’s body and watched its claws rescind into fingers as the fur covering its body completely disappeared, replaced with human skin. I blinked again and found Alex on top of me, no longer in his wolf form but... completely naked.

“Oh, my God!” I exclaimed as I shook my head and tried to make sense of the fact that I’d just watched a wolf turn into a man and now that man was straddling me and was completely devoid of clothing. “Oh my God, oh my God,” I continued as I tried to convince myself not to look... down. But I did anyway. And once I saw what he had between his legs, I could only gulp.

“Thank you,” he said in a winded voice as he smiled at me.

“Get off me!” I yelled at him as I brought my hands to his chest and attempted to push him away. But it was like trying to push a brick wall. A hot brick wall. Temperature-wise.

“You’ll have to forgive me, but I’m not going to be able to move for at least a few seconds,” he apologized as he offered me a semi-shrug that said he was completely unconcerned over the fact that he was as naked as the day he was born. And he was on top of me. “What you just saw takes a lot of energy, as I’m sure you can imagine.”

“What I just saw,” I repeated but couldn’t find the rest of the words.

“Yes?”

“What did I just see?”

“You saw what I told you you’d see,” he finished, as if his turning into a wolf was no big deal.

“And on that subject, why the hell were you growling at me?” I demanded as I started to sit up, but the weight of his body pinned me right back down. “And, by the way, I nearly shot you!”

“I knew you weren’t going to shoot me.”

“You could understand me? You were aware of my thoughts?” I asked in an accusatory voice.

“Aware enough,” he responded as I tried to force my eyes to stay on his. Something inside me, though, was begging me to glance down the line of his body again. It was just… it had been… impressive.

“You can take another peek. I won’t get mad,” he said with a huge grin that made me want to kick him right in the...

“If you are strong enough to make smart-ass jokes, then you can get the hell off me.”

He grumbled something but then rolled off me so that he was now adjacent to me and on his back, which meant his… thing… was now even more prominent than it had been before. And, good Lord, but it was huge!

“Will you cover yourself up?” I insisted as I forced my attention away from him.

“Just what would you like me to cover myself with, Chief?”

“Where the hell are your clothes?” I insisted as I stood and glanced around myself, looking for said clothing but finding nothing.

“Shredded, obviously,” he answered as he clasped his hands behind his head and regarded me with a large smile. He looked like he should have been basking in the sun’s rays on a nude beach somewhere, rather than on a snowbank. “If I’m dressed when I take the shape of the wolf, my clothes get destroyed.”

“That’s great.” I shook my head as I wondered if my jacket would fit him.

“And, no, your jacket won’t fit me.”

“Well, it will fit your... sausage!” I yelled at him as I took off my jacket and flung it at him.

“My sausage?” he asked with a chuckle as he grinned up at me. “Wow, I can honestly say that in my thirty-four years, I’ve never heard anyone call it that before.”

So that took care of the question of his age. But never mind how old he was! I was so embarrassed, I couldn’t even focus on the fact that I’d just called his enormous... member… a sausage. All I wanted to do was get the hell away from him so I could be embarrassed all by myself. “Just get up and let’s get back to the station so I can get rid of you,” I muttered as I watched him stand and cover himself with my jacket, thank God.

“Sausage!” he said again as he erupted into a new fit of laughter.

I just shook my head.

Chapter Eighteen

We made it back to the station house.

Once there, I decided to make some hot tea.

There was still the problem of Alex’s clothing, or lack thereof. Which only made me wonder why he’d so quickly agreed to perform his werewolf stunt in the first place if he knew he’d have a clothing conundrum afterward...

So now, Alex was wearing a towel I’d found wrapped around his middle. And I had to admit, his upper body was definitely a sight to behold. His pecs were beyond broad, in direct competition with his biceps and washboard stomach. He gave Magic Mike a run for his money. And that was saying something because I had such a thing for Magic Mike that I’d watched it going on maybe eleven times now.

“You and every other woman on the planet.”

“Ugh, you’re the worst,” I said, heat flooding my cheeks because it wasn’t like I wanted anyone to know about my Magic Mike fascination.

“But thanks for the compliments. Glad you like my body.”

I rolled my eyes.

“If it makes any difference, I’m pretty partial to yours, too,” he continued as he leaned forward, trying to see the back of my pants. “I mean, your uniform covers way too much but from what I’ve been able to see, you’ve got some great… assets.”

“Can we please stop talking about this?” I asked as I shook my head. My attention fell to the towel around his waist and I couldn’t help but think this whole thing had been the perfect setup.

Alex leaned against the cell bars behind him and watched as I added honey to my tea. “You caught me, Chief Hot Pants. My plan was to get naked in front of you.”

I looked up at him, and couldn’t help but note the shit-eating grin on his face. “It was, wasn’t it?”

He grinned broader. “Like I said, you caught me.”

I shook my head and snapped the top of the honey bear closed, leaned back on the top of the desk, cradling the cup, and watched Alex through the rising steam. “You’re a pig,” I said.

“No, I’m a wolf,” he rebutted, and held my gaze. Suddenly, he wasn’t smiling. “And now you know.”

I looked away, and sipped my nearly scalding tea. “Now, I know.” And my thoughts started wandering back to the dreams I’d been having since I moved here. “I want to ask you something,” I started.

“So ask me.”

“I… ever since I moved to Hope, I started having these… these dreams. And in them, I would see a huge black wolf that looked… exactly like you do in your wolf form. Every night the wolf would talk to me in thoughts—telling me he wouldn’t hurt me and that he… needed me.”

Alex’s eyebrows reached for the ceiling. “Sounds like you shouldn’t be talking to me, but with a therapist instead.”

“This isn’t funny and I’m being serious.”

His smile dropped. “My apologies.”

“What do you know about my dreams?” I demanded. “Did you send them to me or something?”

“No, I can’t do that.”

“Then?”

He shrugged. “I don’t know what to tell you other than maybe you’re more psychically aware than you thought you were?”

I cocked my head to the side as I considered it. There were those moments when it was just me and the victims. The moments when I relied on something that defied logic—something deep within me that allowed me to bond with them, to understand more than the facts allowed. Maybe it was a psychic connection? Maybe it wasn’t.

“When I touched Donovan’s body, I saw… things.”

“What sort of things?”

“Images, visions I guess you could call them. I think… I think I saw the two of you when you were boys and you were throwing water at each other in a creek and laughing.”

“That sounds about right.”

I nodded. “And I saw you… you were angry and I think you were talking to him about your ex-girlfriend—the one who left you to be with him.”

“That also happened.”

I nodded. “But you know nothing about the hows or whys of it?”

He shook his head. “I’m sorry I can’t help you with that, Elodie. I think those answers have to come from you.”

I grew quiet as I inhaled deeply. “This is just… it’s all too much.”

I felt his eyes on me. More, I felt him in my mind. “It’s natural to want to talk about it,” he said. “It’s not every day you see a man turn into a wolf. Or rise from an autopsy table, for that matter.”

He was right. I did want to talk about it. Except... except I hadn’t wrapped my brain around it. I didn’t feel stable somehow. Seeing what I’d seen was disconcerting and world-shattering, all on its own. And it was going to take more than a cup of tea to calm me down.

Now that Alex had put away his damned sausage, and I had a little more time to process what I’d seen in the alley, I could only conclude that I was losing my mind. That all this cold and ice and the long, long winters paired with my constant insomnia had finally gotten to me. It was official: Elodie Matthews had gone bonkers.

“When you’re done with your pity-party, Chief, maybe we can finally talk.”

“Pity-party?” I mean, I’d just seen a grown man turn into…

“Yes, a wolf. Big deal. Try being the one doing all the turning. Like I said, when you’re done questioning your sanity, God, and whatever else is rattling around in that head of yours, let’s talk, because there’s some serious shit going on in this town, and you’re going to need my help.”

I huffed and puffed a little more. I was, after all, the chief of police of this ragtag town. And Alex was, technically, still a suspect…

“Oh, cut the shit. I’m no more suspect than you are. I would never kill my brother or even attempt it, no matter how much of a bastard he is.”

“He stole your girlfriend,” I said as I took a sip of my tea, enjoying the warmth in my mouth and throat.

“It’s not stealing if she went willingly.”

“But there’s motive…”

“Trust me, Chief. Had I done the stabbing, my brother wouldn’t have gotten up from that autopsy table. The blade would have hit home, and his body would have been long since burned. That’s how you kill a werewolf.”

I opened my mouth, if only because every cop instinct I’d ever had was screaming at me to challenge everything he was saying. The truth was, for now, I had to take him at his word. Unless the guy was Criss Angel in disguise, I really had seen him turn into a wolf, and back again.

“Tell me more about you and your brother. You were adopted into an Inuit family?”

“In a way, yes.”

“Explain to me how you ended up getting adopted into the tribe.”

“I was found in the woods. Alone. A helpless babe, you could say.”

I shook my head. “No, not buying it. No one just finds a baby in the middle of the woods. A baby would last maybe ten minutes before it would succumb to animals or the elements. So, try again, Tarzan.”

“Tarzan or not, you can just find a baby in the middle of the woods because that’s exactly what happened to me, Chief. My adopted mother found me and decided to keep me. End of story.”

“Not end of story. The judicial system doesn’t work like that.”

Alex shook his head. “Tribal courts operate differently, and the main point was that no one came looking for me. Hell, no one even reported me missing.”

I found myself pacing from one end of the room to the other, all the while clutching my mug of tea like it was a lifeline. “You’ve got to be kidding.”

“Nope, I’m not.”

“So your adopted mother randomly finds you in the woods and decides to keep you?”

Alex nodded. “My ma had been childless up to that point. She was more than happy to take me in.”

“And no one reported you missing?”

“Not to the general public, no.”

“Your mother didn’t alert the authorities in Hope?” I continued as I stopped pacing and leaned against the desk, so I was facing him.

“Nope. In general, my people tend to try to avoid the authorities.”

I shook my head and sighed. “That’s illegal in so many ways I can’t even begin to…”

“Then don’t,” he interrupted. “Because it’s way past the point of mattering. In case you didn’t notice, I’m no longer a baby.” Then he glanced down at himself. “Instead, I’m a fully grown, strapping young man.”

“Who could deal with a dose or two of humility,” I grumbled.

“Ah, come on, Chief…”

“Call me Elodie,” I interrupted. “Please. I’m sick of you calling me ‘Chief’ all the time.”

“Elodie.” He said my name with a giant smirk and said it in such a way that he might as well have been saying something lascivious.

“So going back to you and your roots.” I cleared my throat before taking another sip of my tea. “You were raised in secret. At least, secret to the outside world?”

“That would be correct.”

“And you say no one came looking for you?”

“As far as I know, no.”

“And your mother later gave birth to Donovan?”

“Isn’t that the way of it, Chief, er, Elodie? Childless for nearly a decade of marriage, then she finds me in the forest, and then later gets pregnant with Donovan. Coincidence, eh?”

I made a big mental note to look into his story, not caring if he knew. I mean, when did you ever hear of someone randomly finding a baby in the woods and raising it as one of their own? It had the makings of a fairy tale.

“Dig into it all you want, Elodie. There’s nothing there. No record of me anywhere. Trust me, I’ve looked.”

“This is disturbing. All of it.”

“Welcome to my world.” He paused. “If you think it’s disturbing, imagine being the one living it.”

I suddenly wished everything that was my life lately wasn’t. I wished the body hadn’t been found a few days ago. And I wished I hadn’t seen it tromp up the stairs, carrying its guts in a metal bowl, and I definitely wished I hadn’t seen Alex turn into a wolf. And I really wished I hadn’t seen his… sausage.

“And back again,” he corrected me.

“What?”

“I turned into a wolf and then back into a man again, don’t forget that part.”

“And I wish you’d get out of my head.”

“All you have to do is ask.”

“Well, I’m asking for the umpteenth time, although it doesn’t seem to do any good.”

“You have to ask really, really nicely.”

“Oh, piss off.”

I glanced down at my mug and discovered I’d finished my tea. Strange, but I couldn’t even remember doing so. Grumbling, I set about making another cup. As I did so, I asked, “So how long has your brother been missing?”

“I don’t know exactly, but I’d say he’s been missing since my ex-girlfriend returned to the reservation. She came back because he was gone.”

“What happened then? Did anyone alert the authorities to his disappearance?” I asked, but I already knew the answer. “No,” I supplied. “Because you try to avoid the authorities.”

“It was a cold winter, Elodie. Most of us keep to ourselves. And, given my brother’s nature, no one was keen to go after him. Besides, we all knew he could always hunt and fish, and take care of himself anyway. When you take the shape of a wolf, you’re a natural survivor.”

“And your ex-girlfriend, who ran off with him?”

Alex’s expression fell. “What about her?”

“Do you think she could have stabbed Donovan?”

“No.”

“Why not?”

“She wouldn’t have missed either. If she wanted him dead, she knew how to do it.”

“So she knew he could take the form of a wolf?” I started to wonder something else. “Because if she didn’t, it does make sense that maybe she would’ve tried to kill him if she found out?” I took a breath. “Maybe he changed in front of her or something and she thought he was going to attack her?”

“No, no and no,” Alex announced. “She knew from the beginning. Everyone knew and knows.”

“About you both?”

“Yes.”

“And the fact that you and your brother are werewolves never bothered her?”

“No, not at all.”

My eyebrows furrowed because I couldn’t understand how this information wouldn’t bother someone. Until something dawned on me. “Wait... she’s not...”

“We all are.”

I stopped stirring the honey in my tea. “Who’s we?”

He grinned again, a little too shit-eating for me this time. “The whole village. We’re all werewolves.”

Chapter Nineteen

“Explain how this is all possible.”

“What all?” Alex fired back. “You’ll have to be more specific.”

“How is a tribe full of werewolves possible? Actually, answer this first: how is it possible for a corpse to come back to life minus its brain, with its chest cavity exposed and all its organs removed?”

Alex shrugged. “The rule with killing shifters to make sure they stay dead is that you pierce the heart with a blade of silver and you burn the body. If those things don’t happen in unison, the body comes back to life.” Then he cocked his head to the side and shrugged. “Now, I will admit that in this particular case, I’m surprised.”

“Why?”

“Well, for the same reasons you just mentioned. I’ve never seen a situation like this one where the shifter was able to come back to life after being so badly dismembered. I guess it just goes to show that the power of life in our kind is strong.”

I nodded as something else occurred to me. “Why do you act so nonchalant about all of this when it’s your brother who is involved?”

He shrugged. “Donovan and I were estranged. That’s not to say I don’t care about what happened to him, but at this point, there’s no use in responding with tears and anger. Instead, it’s better to handle everything with clarity and calmness so I can get to the bottom of what’s going on that much faster.”

His explanation made sense to me so I didn’t push it. “Will Donovan be able to heal or will he always look… odd?”

“I’m not sure about that either,” Alex admitted. “In general, as shifters, we can heal ourselves. I’d say that once Don took the shape of the wolf, he was able to heal himself to an extent, but I imagine he’ll also probably seek out help from the shaman.”

“The shaman?” I repeated.

He nodded. “Every tribe has an elder who practices medicine and magic.”

I studied Alex for another second or two. “If you were adopted, how are you able to turn into a wolf like Donovan and the rest of your tribe?”

Alex nodded as if my question was a good one. “I was indoctrinated.”

“What does that mean?”

“Anyone can become a werewolf if given the opportunity,” he explained as I yawned, unable to hide the fact that I hadn’t slept in at least two days. “And I was given the opportunity.”

“How did it happen?” I continued, my eyes suddenly growing heavy.

Alex chuckled. “That is a bedtime story for another night, Elodie. For now, it’s pretty obvious that you need to go home and get some sleep.” He looked back at the jail cell behind him. “Are you going to keep me here or do you trust that I’ll be back whenever you ask me to so we can continue this pleasant conversation?”

I wasn’t sure why, but I trusted him. “We’ll be in touch.”

***

It turned out Alex hadn’t been bluffing. Well, regarding the particulars about his birth, anyway. There was no mention of him in any of our files anywhere. It was as though he’d popped into being right out of the atmosphere.

I shook my head at the absurdity that had become my life lately and then reminded myself to pay attention to the two-lane highway in front of me. It wasn’t that late, but the sun was already long gone, so it felt like it was midnight when it was really only 4:00 p.m. A steady stream of snowfall was currently assaulting my Jeep and I had to slow down so I wouldn’t lose control.

I was on my way to the reservation Alex called home. Step number one was to research his background to find out if he was, in fact, telling me the truth about his birth. From there, I wanted to find out as much as I could about Donovan and his disappearance and this ex-girlfriend.

After an hour, the two-lane highway gave way to a one-lane dirt road. Another thirteen miles in, the road dead-ended into the Inuit reservation where Alex had grown up. When I pulled in front of the large wooden sign that proclaimed the reservation to be ‘Ammagaruqnik,’ I killed the engine.

As a highly amusing aside, I’d earlier Googled the meaning of the word ‘Ammagaruqnik’ and nearly choked on my coffee when I discovered it meant ‘arctic wolves.’ I immediately remembered Alex saying the entire reservation was composed of people who turned hairy, but I tried not to think about it. Instead, I unbuckled my seat belt, opened the door and jumped down onto the icy tundra below, immediately feeling the chill of the air all the way to my bones.

I took a deep breath and glanced up into the sky just to make sure it wasn’t a full moon. I knew it was silly, but lately, I’d become a little bit paranoid.

Call me crazy…

The reservation was comprised of maybe twenty or so single-story buildings that looked like white rectangles with gray, flat roofs. Nondescript in appearance, they all pretty much looked the same. Their layout wasn’t as predictable because the buildings appeared to be sprawled this way and that with no definite pattern in mind. It was almost as if they’d been scattered by a tornado and allowed to land where they did.

“Can you tell me where I can find Amala Johnson?” I asked the first person I encountered, who happened to be a little girl who was maybe six years old. She was bundled up for the cold weather from head to toe. Judging by the fact that she’d just pulled what looked like a frozen Barbie out of the snow, I figured she’d come out to retrieve it.

She just looked at me blankly for a second or so, as if trying to figure out where I’d come from and how I’d ended up in her village, but then she immediately turned around and ran back into her house, without so much as saying, “boo.”

“She lives in the house at the end of the street,” a boy’s voice announced from directly behind me. I twirled around and found a handsome young man facing me. He couldn’t have been more than ten or maybe eleven.

“Thanks,” I responded and then fell silent because he was looking at me in such a way that it seemed he wanted to say more. I’ve learned that sometimes the best way to encourage more information is to keep quiet.

“You police?” he asked as he eyed me narrowly.

I nodded. “Yes, I am the chief, as a matter of fact.”

“A woman?” he scoffed and shook his head as if he didn’t believe it. His long, black hair obscured half his angular face to the point that he reminded me of Mowgli from The Jungle Book.

“Yes, a woman,” I responded immediately, finding it suddenly annoying that sexism seemed drilled into boys at a very young age.

“What are you doing here?” he continued as he circled me, looking like a feral cat about to pounce. Or maybe a wolf. “We don’t see police much.”

“I’m here to talk to some of the people who live in your town,” I answered with a shrug, not wanting him to distrust me or alert anyone that I was here. It would be lots easier to get in and out without a scene. Not that I was expecting one…

“Is someone in trouble?” he asked as he stopped walking and stood still right in front of me so I couldn’t continue forward either.

“No, no one is in trouble,” I replied. Not that I could remove anyone from the reservation anyway, not without tribal police permission. “I’m just here to talk.”

“Why you wanna talk to Amala?” the boy continued as he stepped aside and walked in time beside me.

“Well, that’s private,” I responded and offered an apologetic smile. “But I appreciate all your help.”

“Is it about her boy?” he pressed.

Had I been a dog, my ears would have stood at attention. I immediately glanced down at him and tried not to look too interested. “Which boy?”

He shrugged as an expression of guilt spread over his features. It was as if he thought he’d said too much. “Either one, I guess.”

“Yes, I’m here to talk to Amala about her sons,” I said, deciding to tell him the truth to see where it might get me. It was a risk, but there it was. Once the silence stretched between us, I looked over at him again. “What’s your name?” I asked.

“Irniq,” he answered. “But my English name is Thomas.”

Like Donovan and Alex, Irniq had an English name, too. It actually didn’t come as much of a surprise because the Inuit had been subject to assimilation for centuries. Even now, the only school on the reservation was funded by the Alaskan government and taught mostly in English.

“Which name do you prefer?”

“Irniq,” he answered with a succinct nod.

“Thanks for your help, Irniq,” I offered before something occurred to me. “What are you doing outside when it’s so cold anyway?”

He smiled broadly and seemed proud of himself. “Well, I saw you walkin’ down our street and I’ve never seen you before, so I thought I’d ask you some questions.”

I laughed. The kid was precocious but good-natured. “You better get back inside before you turn into a popsicle.”

“Bah,” he answered, shaking his head as he waved my comment away. Apparently, young men didn’t appreciate being compared to frozen juice. Once he regained his composure, he glanced over at me again. “You aren’t gonna get too far with Amala.”

“Why’s that?”

“’Cause she isn’t all there,” he answered and then twirled his index finger beside his head in the universal gesture for ‘crazy.’

“Oh,” I said as I inwardly berated my bad luck.

“Koko can give you any answers you want,” Irniq continued, looking at me with a hopeful expression, almost like he wanted praise for helping me.

“Who is Koko?”

“She was Donovan’s woman,” he answered with a shrug, like that much should have obvious. “And she used to be Alex’s.”

Bingo, I thought to myself. “And where can I find Koko?”

“Right there,” he said as he pointed to a small house to my left and I immediately noticed the woman standing in front of the door.

If looks could have killed, I would have been pronounced dead on the spot.

Chapter Twenty

As soon as Koko saw me, she immediately turned around and vanished back into her house, slamming the door shut behind her. So much for getting off on the right foot.

“Guess she doesn’t want to talk to you,” Irniq said with a shrug.

“It’s okay,” I responded as I gave him a quick smile. “I might try again and see if she and I can be friends but, first, you need to get back home so you don’t freeze to death out here.”

Irniq, apparently having grown too cold, nodded, then gave me a little smile and a wave before he turned around and trotted back down the narrow dirt road. He disappeared into a house that was set back a few paces from the street. The house was surrounded by four rusty cars with maybe a foot of snow covering each one.

I turned back toward Koko’s house and, wrapping my arms around myself to ward off the chill of the air, jogged up to the front door. It wasn’t like I had a warrant from the tribal police to search the place, so the only way I was going to get any information from Koko was if she willingly offered it. That was sort of a bummer because I hated the idea of coming all this way only to return empty-handed. But there it was.

I knocked on the door and waited. And waited. I knocked again, noticing there wasn’t a doorbell to ring. And, yes, I found myself again waiting. When I was just about to knock for the third time, the door swung open and Koko stood in front of me, looking beyond irritated.

“You’re definitely persistent,” she muttered.

I forced myself to start humming a Taylor Swift song in my head as I spoke, anything to drown out my thoughts; after all, I’d already assumed Koko or any other werewolf, for that matter, could read my thoughts as surely as Alex could.

“I’m sorry to bother you.” I smiled, hoping I could win her over by appearing friendly and non-threatening. When attempting to elicit information from people, this was the best way to do it.

“Then why are you bothering me?”

She played with the ends of her hair and refused to look me in the eyes. “I came here to talk with Amala Johnson.”

“About what?”

She was definitely on the defensive and the way she wouldn’t maintain eye contact told me she had something to hide. Not only that, her hands were shaking. I could have attributed that to the freezing cold, but I had a feeling it was born more from nerves. I would have bet money she was anxious because she thought I wanted to discuss Donovan and, more specifically, his disappearance.

“I came to discuss her son.” I watched as her eyes widened for a split second and then she began to fidget with the hemline of her sweater. “Alexander Johnson.”

Her shoulders visibly fell as she released a pent-up breath and looked relieved. Then she inhaled deeply as she nodded at me.

“But you didn’t get very far?” she asked, probably referring to Amala’s apparent dementia.

“No.” I didn’t bother telling her I hadn’t yet made a visit to Amala, although I still intended to, whether she was crazy or not. Sometimes, you can get pertinent and important information from people who aren’t all there because they aren’t concerned about concealing the truth. “Could I come in?” I asked as a cold breeze whipped up around my ankles and spiraled around my legs before dissipating at my waist.

“Um,” she started and rubbed the back of her neck as she glanced down at the floor inside her house. It seemed like she could only hold my gaze for a second or two at the most.

“I won’t stay long,” I promised. “It’s just very cold out here.”

“What do you want to talk about?” she blurted. “What about Alex, I mean.”

“Just his upbringing. How he came to this reservation and how Amala adopted him.”

The expression on her face said this subject didn’t bother her. She was no longer shaking, which put to bed my question over whether it had just been the cold causing her tremors. Because it was still just as frigid outside as it had been a few minutes ago.

“Okay, but you gotta be quick,” she said and then opened the door wider for me. “I have things to do.”

“Thank you,” I answered as I immediately walked into her modest house, afraid she might change her mind and order me back out again. I rubbed my arms as my body acclimated to the warmth inside her small living room.

“Why do you want to know about Alex?” she demanded as I turned around to face her. “Is he in trouble or something?”

I decided to bluff a little bit. Just to make her more comfortable with talking to me. If I refused to tell her anything, she’d be on the ultra-defensive. “I arrested him for intoxication and when I went to book him, I noticed we pretty much had no personal information about him in our system. I started to look into it a little more deeply and that’s what led me here.”

Now that we were inside and I could clearly make out her features in the light, I was struck by her beauty. She wasn’t overly tall and stood at the same height as me, maybe about five feet four inches. Her black hair was incredibly shiny and completely straight, hanging to her waist in two long pigtails. She wasn’t wearing any makeup, but with her perfect skin and her large black eyes fringed by incredibly dark lashes, she really didn’t need to.

I wasn’t sure why, but I suddenly felt a stab of jealousy. Not that I was envious of her looks because I was confident in my own and I didn’t put a lot of stock into outward appearances anyway. No, the jealousy I was still experiencing had more to do with the fact that this was Alex’s ex-girlfriend and someone he’d admitted to being in love with.

I had to shake the ridiculous thoughts right out of my equally ridiculous head. Alex and I were nothing more than acquaintances and possibly colleagues.

“Seems like a lot of fuss over someone who just drank too much,” Koko said, grabbing my attention again as she studied me suspiciously. “And Ammagaruqnik is a long way from Hope.”

“He’s a repeat offender.” I shrugged. “And I found myself with some extra time on my hands so I decided to investigate.”

She nodded and didn’t say anything more. “Can you tell me everything you know about Alex, er, Alexander, with regard to how he came to this reservation?” I started before another thought occurred to me. “First off, I should probably ask you how long you’ve lived here.”

“My whole life.” She shrugged. “I was born here.”

“Okay,” I said with a smile. This was great news because it meant she would remember growing up with Alex, if such was truly the case. “And when did you meet Alexander?”

She frowned. “I never met him.”

I couldn’t help my surprise. “What do you mean?”

“Well, he’s been here since I can remember so it wasn’t like we actually ever met one another.”

“Fair point,” I answered. “Are you younger than he is?”

“Yes,” she responded. “By five years.”

“So when you were born, was he already living on this reservation?” She just nodded so I continued, “And how did he end up here?”

She shrugged. “Well, the story goes that he was found in the woods.”

“Story?” I repeated. “Do you think that’s all it is—a story? Or is that generally what everyone believes to be the truth?”

She was silent for a few seconds as a smile stole over her lips. “I always thought it sounded funny that Amala found Taktuq alone in the forest.”

It took me a second to remember Taktuq was Alex’s Inuit name and once I did, I felt my stomach drop. It just seemed such a… close, intimate way for her to refer to him. But, of course, they had been close and intimate.

“I remember I was just a child and Taktuq told me the story of how he’d come to live with us here and I didn’t believe him,” Koko said as her smile widened. “So I decided to ask one of our elders who I knew wouldn’t lie to me,” she continued as her gaze seemed to lock on her front door. It was as though she were seeing right through it, like she was reliving a far-off memory. “And she told me it was true, that Amala really had found Taktuq in the forest.” The memory must have faded before her eyes because she suddenly seemed to remember me as she turned to face me. “Amala didn’t have other children at the time so she kept Taktuq and raised him as her own.”

Okay, so as far as I could gather, the story was true. Hmm, I couldn’t say I was that surprised. Alex didn’t strike me as a liar. “Thank you,” I started as she nodded. Now came the harder part. “Do you know anything about Alexander’s brother, Donovan?”

All the color immediately drained from Koko’s face and I was convinced she definitely knew something. “What about Donovan?” she asked, flustered.

I shrugged as I decided to continue my bluff. I just needed to sound unconcerned so she didn’t think I considered her an accomplice or somehow at fault for his disappearance. “While we had Alexander locked up, he started going on about some brother who was missing.” I cleared my throat and filled my head with background music. So far, it seemed to be working. “This was the first I’d heard of it.”

She nodded and played with the ends of her hair, refusing to look me in the eyes again. “Yes, Donovan has been missing for a couple of months now.”

“Do you know what happened to him?”

She immediately glanced up at me. “Why would I know?”

“I’m not saying you do. I just have to make sure I exhaust all avenues and Alexander mentioned something about you being Donovan’s girlfriend.”

Her mouth dropped open before she could catch herself. “I was his girlfriend in the past,” she admitted, her voice suddenly softer. “But we broke up a few weeks before he went missing.”

Hmm, this was interesting because Alex had failed to mention that part to me. Maybe he hadn’t even known they’d broken up? If what she was telling me was true… “Why did you break up?”

She shook her head. “I met someone else.”

“Alexander said something about you moving away for a while?” I pressed. “That you left the reservation?”

“I did,” she responded with a clipped nod.

“Why?”

She started to rub the back of her neck. “Donovan wasn’t welcome here,” she began. “And my parents forbade me to date him, so I did the only thing I could if I wanted to be with him. I left.”

“But then you came back?”

“Yes.” She nodded.

“How come?”

“I came back because Donovan wasn’t right for me.”

“Wasn’t right for you?”

She nodded. “He was… too wild for me. I thought it was exciting at first, but after a while, it wasn’t as exciting.” She looked up at me then and her eyes seemed suddenly weighty, forlorn. “He was an addict. There’s nothing exciting about that.”

“So the man you left Donovan for,” I started, but before I could finish, I heard the sound of a door opening and closing that sounded as if it were coming from the rear of the house. That was followed by heavy footsteps coming down the hallway and leading into the living room. A man suddenly appeared at the mouth of the hallway, wearing nothing but heavy boots.

As soon as I realized he was naked, I immediately averted my eyes as embarrassment warmed my cheeks. I could see, out of the corner of my eyes, that upon seeing me, he immediately covered himself. I was left to wonder why he would be naked in freezing cold temperatures, that is, unless he happened to have just shifted back from the shape of the wolf…

“Achak,” Koko said, her tone one of shock laced with worry.

Chapter Twenty-one

Achak—it was the name of the other wolf that had been with Alex the night I’d gone jogging. The night I’d first met Alex… in his wolf form.

“What the hell do you want?” Achak immediately demanded, eyeing me with what looked like hatred mixed with fury. He was a big guy, brawny and burly, but he had something about him that was slightly attractive. He was like one of those guys who wasn’t exactly classically attractive but had enough bravado that women flocked to him anyway.

Before I could respond, he faced Koko. “Why is she here?”

I immediately started up with Taylor Swift in my head again so Achak couldn’t just probe my mind to answer the question himself. Meanwhile, Koko visibly cowered in front of him. Her shoulders slouched forward and she dropped her head in such a way that it looked like she was trying to avoid making eye contact with him.

“She said she wanted to ask me questions about Taktuq,” she whispered and then winced when he snarled at her. This guy had anger issues and then some.

“Why are you bothering her with questions about Alex?” he demanded once he looked at me again. “You don’t have permission from the tribal police to be here.” And as he spoke, I watched him staring at me, as if he were trying to get through the songs that I was relentlessly singing in my head. Yep, based on his determined expression, he was trying to read me and trying hard. Luckily, I was getting used to filling my thoughts with pop songs. I’d now moved on to Beyoncé’s latest and greatest.

“You don’t have a warrant,” he grunted. Even though it was a statement, there was definitely a question laced in there somewhere. I figured he was just assuming I didn’t have a warrant and he also happened to be correct.

I ignored him. “All I’m doing is asking Koko a few questions and she allowed me to do so,” I confessed as I decided to ignore his question about Alex, at least, for the time being. My hand was already resting on the Colt because I wasn’t sure what to make of Achak. He was just way too angry and that made him a threat. I had to wonder why he was so angry… it was almost like he was hiding something…

“Whatever reason you’re here, she has nothing else to tell you,” he snapped at me. “So you can leave now.”

I nodded but made no motion to leave. Apparently realizing I wasn’t going anywhere anytime soon, he took a step past Koko and one closer to me until maybe a foot separated us. He was much larger than I was. He towered over me by maybe a head or so and with his beefy build, he could easily overpower me. Good thing I was armed and he was… naked.

“Do you normally go outside in the freezing cold temperatures completely devoid of clothing?” I asked as I eyed him narrowly.

“What I do is my business,” he answered with what sounded like a growl. “And I don’t have to answer to you.”

Yes, he was right. I faced Koko because it was getting painfully obvious that I wasn’t going to get anywhere with either one of them. “Are you okay with this man in your house?”

“Of course she’s okay!” he railed at me. “She’s my woman!”

Interesting. I made a mental note of it. But, currently, my concern was for Koko’s safety. I glanced at Achak only briefly but glared at him with the full weight of my stare. “I’m not asking you,” I replied. “I’m asking Koko if she feels like her safety is being threatened by having you here. If it is, I’m going to ask you to leave.”

“I’ll be fucking—” he started.

“Is this your house?” I asked him.

“No, but she’s my woman,” he repeated himself as anger began boiling in my stomach. There was nothing I hated more than macho men like this. I would have bet money that he was the type of man to hit her, if he hadn’t already.

“I don’t give a rat’s ass if she’s the pope’s woman!” I fired back at him and momentarily shut him up. “And if you interfere again, I’m taking you back to the station with me, with or without your clothes,” I continued, even though it was a bluff because I couldn’t remove him without permission from the tribe. Hopefully, he didn’t already know that. Apparently, he didn’t because he held his tongue and didn’t talk out of turn again. I pulled my attention from Achak and focused it on Koko again. “Are you okay?”

She nodded quickly. “Yes, I’m okay.”

“You’re sure?” I repeated, eyeing Achak again with an acidic expression that told him he better not tempt me.

“Yes,” Koko announced, this time more firmly. I did notice that she wouldn’t look either of us in the eyes.

“Okay.” I headed for the door. “Thank you for your help and if you need me, please don’t hesitate. My name is Elodie Matthews and I’m the Chief of Police in Hope,” I finished as I smiled at Koko and then turned to face Achak. “And you better behave yourself. I take domestic violence complaints very seriously.”

He didn’t say anything, but his eyes burned as he glared at me.

***

Alex wasn’t exactly happy with me. We were seated across from one another in the only diner that stayed open past 7:00 p.m. in the winter. I was drinking a cup of steaming hot coffee and Alex wasn’t eating or drinking anything. He was too busy glaring at me.

“You did what?” he asked again as he shook his head and frowned.

“I wanted to double-check your story about your upbringing.” I shrugged.

“And?”

“And it checked out.”

“Great.”

He was still pissed, so I decided to change the subject. “We need to discuss Achak.”

“What’s there to discuss?” he asked, sounding disinterested as he pushed away from the table and leaned back in his chair, his long legs straight in front of him. He crossed his arms across his chest to complete the whole pissed-off look.

“When was the last time you went back home to the reservation?”

“I don’t know. It’s been a while. Why does it matter?”

I nodded. “Yeah, I’d say it’s been a long while. So long that you must not have been aware that Achak and Koko are now an item.”

Alex immediately bent his knees and leaned forward as his eyes drilled into mine. “What do you mean, they’re an item?”

“I don’t know how better to say it unless you want me to attempt it in another language.”

“Ha ha,” he grumbled. “How long have they been an item?”

“I was going to ask you the same question.”

He shook his head, surprise still echoing in his eyes. “I have no idea. But the whole thing stinks. I didn’t realize she got around like she apparently does. But good for her, I guess.”

He was hurt. It was obvious. “The point is that Achak might be someone we, er I, need to consider more closely.”

“We,” he answered as he frowned at me and then grumbled: “There’s no ‘I’ in team, remember?”

“Well…”

“Besides, whatever information you’re hoping to dig up on him, it will be a lot easier with my help than without. My people aren’t exactly fond of cops.”

“Yeah, I noticed,” I grumbled as I weighed my options. Alex had a point—if I wanted to get anywhere without permission from the tribal police (and, really, it would take way too long to go that route)—it would be easier to do so with his help.

“That is, if you actually trust I am who I say I am,” he added.

“It was all just due diligence,” I explained. “Don’t take it personally. I just needed to make sure you were telling me the truth.”

“Because God forbid if you actually give me the benefit of the doubt that I’m an honest, nice guy who isn’t trying to pull one over on you.”

“In general, I don’t give anyone the benefit of the doubt. It goes against my job description.”

“Anyway…”

“Yes, anyway, we need to find out how long Achak and Koko have been dating and if it happened right around the same time that Donovan disappeared.” I paused as I thought of something. “Speaking of, have you seen your brother since you both had that run-in at the creek?”

Alex shook his head. “No, but that doesn’t mean anything. After what happened between us at the creek, he knows better than to seek me out. Clearly, I didn’t want him to find me.”

“There are better ways to tell your brother to eff off.”

“Do we really need to do this right now?” he interrupted. “Because I gotta tell you, I’m really not in the mood.”

“No, we don’t,” I answered with a clipped nod. He was right—time was running out and we needed to start investigating Achak to see if he had anything to do with the attempted murder of Alex’s brother.

Chapter Twenty-two

“Just so you’re aware, we don’t have a warrant from the tribal police to do this,” I said to Alex. I shook my head, concerned over the determination in his expression. “Translated, that means your ass is on the line.”

“We don’t need a warrant,” he responded tightly, refusing to look at me. “Translated, that means I’m not concerned about my ass.”

“What you are planning on doing is called breaking and entering,” I informed him, making sure to keep my eyes on the road in front of me. I was driving my police Jeep and we were maybe ten miles away from the reservation. The snow was coming down in torrents, making it difficult to see even a foot in front of me.

“Not a concern because tribal law is in effect on the reservation.”

“Okay.” I glanced at him briefly. “So we call it breaking and entering; what do you call it?”

“It’s not a concern,” he answered, sounding nonplussed as he glanced out the window and grew quiet. Truth was, ever since the night before when we’d had the conversation in the diner, he’d been different. I figured the news about Koko and Achak bothered him.

“Well, it’s a concern to me,” I argued, shaking my head. “I could lose my job if I go into anyone’s house without a warrant, whether or not it’s under the jurisdiction of the tribe.”

“Problem easily solved. You won’t go in. I will,” he responded in a bored tone as he turned to face me and I was suddenly struck by how handsome he was. But his obvious good looks were impaired by something else—sullenness. And why he was sullen, I wasn’t sure.

“If you really want to know, I might seem sullen because I’m convinced we’re wasting our time with this visit.”

“Get out of my head,” I grumbled back at him, my stomach a mess of nerves. “Why do you think this is a waste of time?”

Alex sighed, long and hard. “Because Achak is a wolf and that means he knows how to kill a wolf. If he’d wanted Donovan dead, he’d be dead.”

“Maybe he tried, but Donovan put up a good fight?”

He shook his head. “You saw Achak; he’s enormous. He’s easily twice the size of Donovan. Like I said, if he’d wanted Donovan dead, he’d be dead.”

“We still need to exhaust all possible leads,” I insisted, nodding. “And as far as I’m concerned, this is a good one.”

“Whatever you say, Chief,” he responded as he frowned at me and then immediately faced forward again as if he didn’t want to even look at me. When I glanced over at him, his eyes were trained on the snowfall in front of us.

“So we’re back to Chief?” I shook my head and started to get angry.

“We’re back to Chief.”

“Why?”

“Because I don’t appreciate you coming to my home and researching my history without first telling me.”

“I didn’t and don’t owe you anything.”

“We’re working this case together.”

“No, we’re not. I’m working this case and you’re giving me information to aid in my investigation.”

“Fine.”

“Good.”

“Good,” he repeated.

I didn’t realize my palms were now fisted around the steering wheel. I was clenching them so tightly, my knuckles were turning white.

“Stop here and park just behind that barn,” Alex said as he pointed to a ramshackle, wooden structure that looked like it had seen much better days. The roof was missing and the walls, which were comprised of slats of wood that appeared to be nailed together, were rotting in places and completely gone in others. “We’ll walk the rest of the way.”

I didn’t argue but parked where he instructed and killed the engine. “What will happen to you if you get caught?”

He shrugged. “I’m not sure because I’ve never done this before.”

That didn’t leave me feeling very secure. “Donovan got kicked off the reservation for the same thing?”

Alex shook his head. “That was after a long list of offenses. I’m the good seed, remember?” He faced me and smiled, but his smile wasn’t a warm one. It appeared acidic and laced with sarcasm. “It’s not like I’ll get an arm chopped off so no need to worry your pretty little head.”

“Good to know.”

“We have shit to do and the night isn’t getting any younger.”

He had a point. I took a deep breath and nodded as I took off my seat belt and then opened the door before jumping down onto the icy ground below.

“And you’re sure Achak won’t be around?” I asked again, once Alex was in earshot.

“I’m just as sure as I was the last time you asked that question twenty minutes ago.” He was obviously angry with me and it didn’t help that I wasn’t much of a talker.

The snow was still coming down at a steady clip and I had to wipe it out of my face more than once. I wasn’t sure how far it was to the reservation, but neither of us said a word to each other as we trudged through the snow. It was just the wind that made a sound as it whistled through the branches of the pine trees, bathing us both in pine needles and snow.

When we reached the mouth of the reservation, I scanned the perimeter in front of me, searching for any sign of life. I wasn’t surprised to find no one. It was late—maybe 10:00 p.m. or so—and it was also freezing cold. Together, that was usually a prescription for people to stay inside. My heart was pounding against my ribs and I could feel sweat beading along my brow and the small of my back.

I was nervous.

I just really didn’t want to find out what would happen if we got caught. Yes, we’d agreed that I would just act as lookout and Alex would be the one to check out the inside of Achak’s home, but that still meant I was aiding criminal activity. That wouldn’t look good for the chief of police, whether I was subject to tribal law or not.

“Stop worrying about it and come on,” Alex said as we hurried past the sign that read ‘Ammagaruqnik.’ He glanced up into the sky, ostensibly to look at the moon, but the flurries of snowflakes filled his eyes instead. He shook the snow from his face.

I didn’t say anything but trotted behind him, trying to keep up with his nearly breakneck speed. I tripped on a tree root that was sticking out of the icy ground and nearly lost my balance. Once I corrected myself, I started to slide on a patch of ice a few feet down the incline that led into the center of the village. Alex was clearly much better at traversing the snow-covered terrain than I was. I couldn’t help but notice that he didn’t bother to look back to make sure I was all right, let alone still behind him.

It must have really ticked him off that I hadn’t believed his story. Why he was taking that so badly, I wasn’t sure. He couldn’t just expect that I’d believe him?

“That was exactly what I expected.”

He looked up into the sky again, his face clearly evident in the milky rays of the moonlight. He’d previously told me it was a hunting moon tonight, which meant, as far as I could tell, that it was a full moon. Apparently, any time there was a full moon, his fellow weres would don their wolf uniforms and go hunting until they procured enough elk or deer or whatever it was they came across to last them for the rest of the winter and into the spring. Their freezers would be well-packed.

We didn’t come across anyone as we ventured farther into the village. There were no lights on in any of the houses and it was so eerily quiet I could have heard a pin drop. It reminded me of a ghost town.

Alex immediately took a sharp right at the base of the incline and then darted in between four towering pines as I fought to keep up with him. He paused when he was completely covered by the canopy of branches overhead and then he turned around to face me. From where we were standing, the foliage was thick enough that I couldn’t see beyond it, but the moonlight still illuminated Alex’s face as it filtered through the heavy branches.

“Just beyond this thicket of bushes is Achak’s,” Alex whispered as he pointed in front of him and to the right.

“Okay,” I whispered back.

“I’m going to go in and out,” he said with a nod. “Once we get beyond these bushes, that’s where you’re going to stand and wait. If he comes back, he’ll come through the rear door so you’ll see him.”

“Okay.” I nodded and took a deep breath.

“Oh.” He reached into his waistband and produced a small pistol that almost looked like a toy gun, it was so slight. “Your gun isn’t going to do any good,” he said as he handed me his. “This one’s loaded with silver bullets.” His eyes met mine and he held my gaze for a few seconds. “Fire only if you have to and aim to kill.”

I accepted it reluctantly, praying and hoping I wouldn’t have to use it.

Chapter Twenty-three

Achak’s home was as nondescript as the rest of the buildings on the reservation. Just as gray on the outside and as flat-roofed as all the others. The only difference, really, was that it was fifty feet or so away from the main dirt road and down an embankment that made it more difficult to access. Especially with the insistent snowfall. His house was also surrounded by pine trees and, as such, much more shielded than some of the other buildings.

As we’d planned, I stood outside, keeping watch, while Alex made his way up the four back steps that led to the rear door. I found it interesting that he didn’t actually have to break in because Achak had left the back door unlocked. I figured it made sense, though—if you turned into a werewolf, what did you really have to fear from intruders? Probably not much.

So I found myself standing maybe twelve to fifteen feet from the back of Achak’s house. It occurred to me that no one was keeping watch in the front of his house… When I’d asked Alex about it, though, he didn’t seem to be concerned. Not wanting to prolong the conversation and run the risk of someone overhearing us, I didn’t ask any other questions. I figured if Alex wasn’t concerned, then I shouldn’t be either.

It wasn’t long before the frigid climate began to get to me. I hadn’t even been out here for two minutes and I was already freezing. Luckily, the pine trees overhead did a good job of keeping the snow off me, but that was about it. In order to warm myself up, I began to jog in place.

As it was my job to keep watch on the surrounding area, I scanned the perimeter of the trees from right to left and then back again. I held the gun Alex had given me in low ready, so I could point it at whoever or whatever I needed to within seconds. The air was so cold that I had to keep running in place to keep my heart rate up. It didn’t matter that I was wearing four layers and a huge down jacket.

I glanced down at my watch and noticed with chagrin that only two minutes had passed since Alex had strolled through the rear door into Achak’s house. He’d said he wouldn’t be long—ten minutes at the very most, but with the way time was creeping by, ten minutes was going to feel like two hours.

At the sound of shuffling in the bushes to the right of me, I immediately spun around and brought the gun up so it was in front of my face. I aimed in the direction the sound was coming from and then waited for the sound to either repeat itself or for something to emerge from the undergrowth. Nothing. I waited more. Still nothing. After another second or so, I dropped the gun back into low ready, convinced I’d merely heard some woodland creature shuffling through the foliage.

A wolf wouldn’t sound like that, Elodie, I reminded myself as I fought to slow my heart rate. A wolf or a human would sound larger and heavier. That was more like a squirrel scuffling through the bushes. Besides, the chances of you coming across a werewolf tonight are slim. Alex said most elk and deer hunts last until the dawn, remember?

Hey, sometimes even the chief of police has to talk herself down. Especially when dealing with werewolves, which was definitely a first for me. Thinking of werewolves and wanting to get the eff out of Dodge, I glanced down at my watch again and noticed three minutes had now gone by in total.

My fingers began to lock around the gun so I had to free one hand then the other, stretching my fingers out as I ran in place until my blood began to pump through me again. I wasn’t sure how much more I could take out here. Hopefully, Alex wouldn’t be much longer.

When I heard what sounded like heavy footsteps crunching through the snow on the opposite side of the house, I froze as I waited to hear the steps again. From what I could tell, it seemed as if they were coming from the other side of the wall farthest from me.

I listened as hard as I could, trying to hear over the sound of my thudding heart. But there was nothing. Holding the gun up to my face, I tiptoed toward the wall closest to me. Then I turned around so my back was up against it, which meant I’d be protected from behind. I inched down the line of the wall, with my shoulders still pressed up against the rough exterior.

I heard the sound of crunching snow again—I could have sworn it was coming from my right, just beyond the corner where both walls met. I glanced up at the house, to see if I could detect Alex through the window, but the blinds were closed so I couldn’t see anything. He’d also closed the back door behind him so there was no reaching him unless I yelled to him or went inside. That meant I would have to confront whatever was on the other side of Achak’s house myself.

No matter. This was exactly what I’d been trained to do. I took a deep, steadying breath and continued sidling along the wall until I reached the end of it. I held still as I listened for the sound of footsteps again or breathing, or anything really that would point to the fact that I had a visitor. But there was nothing. It was almost as if the creature or person on the other side was waiting for me to make a sound in the same way that I was waiting for him or her. Hoping I had the element of surprise on my side, I counted to three in my head and then pivoted on my right foot as I burst forward, with the gun aimed directly in front of me.

At no one.

Because there was nothing there.

Just the path around the house that led to the front door, a path that was covered in snow. I glanced down at it and noticed there were prints in the snow, but they weren’t made from human feet. There were eight of them and from what I could tell, they looked like paw prints. They disappeared into the bushes just to my left. Even though the idea of paw prints should have frightened me, these were too small to be those of a werewolf. They looked like they’d been made by a fox or something of a similar size. Either way, I didn’t imagine they’d come from something threatening.

I breathed in deeply and then exhaled just as deeply. I had to get back to the rear of the house so I could keep watch on the surroundings. There was nothing more here worth investigating. The more I considered it, the more I thought I should have been able to tell the difference between a fox walking through the snow and a man or a wolf. The truth was that I was nervous and it was affecting me. I was putting too much stock into sounds that ordinarily wouldn’t have fazed me. However, this was no ordinary situation because we were talking about werewolves, but the process should have been the same. I had to rely on my police training, whether I was dealing with the supernatural or not.

I glanced down at my watch and noticed eight minutes had gone by since Alex had first stepped foot inside Achak’s home. That meant there were just two minutes left… well, that is, if Alex was also keeping track. I could only hope he was. The last thing I wanted was to get caught and then have to deal with the subsequent questions that would ensue. Not to mention the possible consequences…

I started to retreat to my original stakeout position behind Achak’s house when something caught my attention. It was jutting out of the snow maybe five feet in front of me, past the tree line and into the forest. At first, I thought it might have been a tree root, however, as I further studied it, I decided it was sitting too high to be a root. It probably came up to my knees. I held the gun down at my side as I closed the three or so feet that remained between it and me. Even as I came closer, I still couldn’t detect just what it was. It could have been a branch that was stuck in a snowbank, but the texture didn’t seem quite branch-like.

When I was close enough, I dusted away some of the snow from the object in order to further reveal it, but I still couldn’t figure out what it was. I became more zealous with my dusting and, instead, pushed handfuls of snow away from the thing, until I recognized a large, black nose sticking out from the pile of snow. It was definitely an animal. I wasn’t sure why I was so morbidly curious, but I pushed the rest of the snow away and found the severed head of a deer staring back at me from its lifeless eyes. It was completely frozen.

But it wasn’t the fact that there was a disembodied head that had been hastily thrown into the cover of the forest that struck me as interesting. I found it interesting because the head also included a showy set of antlers, well, one showy antler anyway. The other one had been hacked off and done so crudely. I glanced down at the area immediately around the carcass and shifted what snow there was, but the other antler was nowhere to be seen. Based on the one that was still intact, however, I was pretty sure it was a perfect mate to the antler handle that had been used to fashion the knife Miguel and I had found shoved into the chest of our John Doe, months ago…

Or, rather, shoved into the chest of Donovan Johnson, months ago.

Chapter Twenty-four

“Alex!” I yelled as soon as the realization hit me.

From all possible vantage points, it looked like Achak had been the one to fashion the antler dagger with the silver blade that had ‘killed’ Donovan. There was still a chance he was innocent and I definitely lived my life by the ‘innocent until proven guilty’ code but, as far as I was concerned, he was my number-one suspect.

It felt like slow motion as I pivoted on my toes and turned around, my heart riding up into my throat while my heartbeat echoed through my ears. Before I could take another step or open my mouth to scream, I saw him.

A brown wolf and one I recognized. A huge, growling wolf the color of milk chocolate with its hackles raised. A wolf whose yellow eyes glared at me with human hatred.

Achak…

I started to back away as I instinctively brought my gun hand up and took aim at the enormous beast. The wolf was just as fast. He leapt at me at the same time that I pulled the trigger and felt the gun kick back in my hand. I was vaguely aware of the sound of yelping and could only hope I’d somehow managed to hit my target.

That thought was stolen from me as the wolf crashed into me. I felt myself thrown backward, the acrid smell of dog now suffusing my nostrils. I landed in a pillow of snow, which initially softened my landing, but then I felt the hardness of the cement as it hit the back of my head, my shoulders and my upper back. Everything went black for the space of a few heartbeats as I fought to catch my breath. But I couldn’t breathe. I felt as if my lungs had been flattened, as if there was no possible way the air would ever find its way in or out of them again.

“Elodie!”

The sound of a growl exploded in my ears as I fought to open my eyes but the darkness was insistent and wouldn’t let up. Without realizing what I was doing, I suddenly inhaled deeply and my chest burned with the effort. It felt like someone or something was pushing down on me, keeping the air from fully filling my lungs.

Force yourself to breathe, I commanded myself as I attempted to inhale, but the resulting burning made it nearly impossible. Force your way through the pain, Elodie.

I could feel something heavy and hot on top of me. I gripped onto what I recognized as fur and tried to push the mammoth creature away from me, but it was like trying to move a boulder.

It’s the wolf, I thought. You have to get away from it.

It took me a few seconds to blink the stars out of my eyes, but once I did, I opened them fully and allowed my blurry vision to dissipate until I could focus again. I was staring up at the snowy branches overhead, the full moon peeking through a break in the trees. A throbbing ache suddenly started from the back of my head, radiating its fingers of pain outward to my forehead but I fought through it. I had to.

A concussion, I told myself. It’s just a concussion.

I glanced down and noticed the brown wolf, Achak, was lying prostrate on top of me. Its head was resting on my chest and judging by the way it almost hissed as it inhaled and exhaled, its breathing was labored. I’d hit it with the bullet, of that much I was sure. Just how much damage I’d done still remained to be seen.

Wounded or not, I had to get away from the wolf before it decided to rip me to shreds. I pushed my hands underneath its massive shoulders and attempted to push it away, but all I did was nudge it maybe an inch or two from its previous position. It immediately turned to face me and while it didn’t appear to possess the strength to stand up, it still had enough energy to start growling at me, a low, guttural sound.

Bright red blood covered its nose and mouth, dripping off its fur, and splashing down onto my face. I had to turn my head to the side to avoid being splashed right in the eyes.

Somehow you managed to shoot it in the face or in the neck, I thought to myself, but as I focused on the still growling, canine face in front of me, I couldn’t detect a visible bullet wound. I glanced down at its neck but found it was also free of any lesions.

So how was it possible…

I wasn’t able to finish my thought. The wolf was suddenly wrenched off me and I was enveloped by icy air. I tried to push myself up so I could see what was going on and, more importantly, where my gun was, but my arms were suddenly like jelly. I kicked out with my legs and tried to shift my weight, but my legs were just as ineffectual as my arms. I pushed against the freezing cold ground with my hands but found I couldn’t move at all. It was as if I were suddenly paralyzed.

“She’s bleeding.” I heard a woman’s voice and recognized it as belonging to Achak’s girlfriend, Koko, the same woman who had once been Alex’s…

“Alex!” I blurted out, suddenly remembering his name. A surge of vitality passed through me and I thought to try my luck at moving again, but the vigor I’d previously experienced was gone just as quickly as it had come. And now I was left feeling nothing but weak and, more so, empty.

“It’s okay,” Alex announced in a soothing voice as he appeared above me, looking down at me with what seemed to be concern in his eyes.

“The wolf,” I started.

Alex shook his head. “Don’t worry about him.”

I wasn’t sure if that meant the wolf was dead but figured I’d just take Alex’s word for it. Instead, my worry shifted back to myself and the fact that I couldn’t feel my body.

“I can’t move,” I said, my voice shaky, nervous as I tried to stretch my fingers out, but nothing happened. “I can’t feel my legs or my arms.” It was a wonder my voice was still working.

“I know,” he said as he kneeled down and smiled. His smile struck me as counterfeit, though, as if it was only meant to make me feel better. It didn’t because there was fear in his eyes. He reached out and gripped my upper arm through my down jacket, squeezing it encouragingly. I was surprised I could feel him. “You’re going to be okay, Elodie.”

I wasn’t sure what was wrong with me. Had I hit my head so hard that I wasn’t able to move my body? Had I somehow paralyzed myself when I fell? But there was something inside me that didn’t feel like I was paralyzed. There was something that was burning, something that felt like it was spreading through my body, something invading me. Whatever it was, it clutched at my insides, felt like it was tearing me up from the inside out. I could feel sweat beading along my forehead and heat started to claim my entire body. My hands suddenly grew clammy. It made no sense because the temperature was arctic. There was no reason why I should have felt like I was burning.

“She’s been bitten by the wolf,” Koko said, her voice just a whisper.

Chapter Twenty-five

I suddenly found myself staring up at the ceiling of someone’s house. I wasn’t sure when or how I ended up inside, but here I was. Last I could remember, I’d been sprawled in the snow outside Achak’s house and within a blink, I was here.

You must have blacked out, I told myself as I fought to make sense of it.

I tried to shift my head to the side to take in more of my surroundings so I could figure out where here was exactly but found I couldn’t move my head. It was as if the paroxysm had spread. Regardless, I was still burning up. It felt like my entire body was stuck in the midst of a raging inferno.

“He’s dying. The silver pierced his heart and he’s dying,” I heard Koko’s voice but I couldn’t see her. I could only stare at the ceiling as I wondered what the hell was going on. How it was that one second I’d been freezing outside, staring up at the dark sky, but now I was inside and I didn’t remember ever being moved? And who was it that was dying? As far as I could tell, that person was me.

“Then go tend to him,” Alex barked at her as he appeared in my line of sight. As he glanced from her back to me, his scowl faded and a sweet smile took its place. He blotted my forehead with a wet paper towel as he gazed down at me with concern in his eyes.

I could hear the sound of Koko as she walked across the house and then opened the back door before closing it behind her. Even though the windows and both doors were closed, I could still hear her footsteps as she went down the stairs and then I heard the sound of muffled cries as she went to tend to whoever it was that needed help.

Achak…

I tried to open my mouth to ask Alex what was going on, but nothing came out. In fact, I couldn’t even move my lips. It was as if my entire body was quarreling with my brain and had gone on strike. My intentions were there, but there wasn’t any follow-through.

Alex shook his head as soon as he realized I was trying to converse with him. “You need to conserve your strength,” he started. He glanced away as he took a deep breath, his gaze settling on the floor. When he looked at me again, there was a weightiness in his eyes and an expression that suddenly alarmed me.

I’m dying, I thought to myself as fear began to wind its way through me.

“Not quite,” Alex interrupted as I remembered he was able to read my thoughts… an ability which, before now, hadn’t really proven itself to be that useful. Now, however, I could say otherwise.

What’s wrong with me? I thought as I searched his face for an answer. I can’t move and now I can’t even talk. And I feel like I’m burning up.

“You’re changing,” he said softly. “You aren’t dying, but you’re changing.”

Changing? I repeated as I thought to shake my head, but my neck didn’t comply. What does that even mean?

“You were bitten by the wolf, by Achak,” he answered as if his explanation should have been enough.

What does that mean? I repeated as panic now surged through my body, taking full grasp of my gut until I felt like I might be sick.

“You are in the very beginning stage of the metamorphosis,” he responded calmly as fireworks ignited inside me. I could guess where this conversation was headed. “Yes, you are on your way to becoming like me, to being able to take the shape of the wolf.”

Oh my God, I thought as the realization of what he was saying hit me. I was on my way to being able to take the shape of the wolf? That meant I was turning into a werewolf, into a shape-shifter.

“Yes, but Elodie, there is still a choice to be made in all of this,” Alex continued as his eyes bored into mine. “If you don’t want this, you don’t have to choose it.”

I don’t want it! I responded immediately. I definitely don’t want it! I want to be the same way I always was—just human!

There was hurt in Alex’s eyes and I wasn’t sure why. I didn’t understand how he could think I would willingly choose this path.

“You didn’t allow me to finish,” he started as he lost his nerve and glanced away from me, chewing his lower lip as his gaze again rested on the floor. It took him a few more seconds before he could face me again. “If you don’t choose this path,” he started before swallowing hard, his eyes now never leaving mine, “it will mean your death.”

What? I demanded. That’s not a choice!

“Yes, it is,” he insisted. “The virus of the wolf is now invading your system. That’s why you can’t move and that’s why your body temperature is going haywire.”

The virus? I repeated as I fought to wake myself up. I just couldn’t understand how this was really happening, how any of this was real. How was it possible that I was turning into a werewolf? Me? The chief of police of Podunk! This sort of stuff just didn’t happen. And it definitely didn’t happen to Elodie Matthews! There was no way this could be real.

“It’s not a dream,” Alex said sadly as he shook his head. “I know this is very difficult for you to understand or to comprehend, but you need to make a decision soon. The virus is waging a war inside you…”

I need to make a decision soon? A decision about what?

“Whether you want to live the remainder of your life as a shifter, or whether you…” his voice trailed as he averted his gaze.

Or whether I what? I demanded.

“Or whether you’d rather not live at all.”

Will the virus kill me?

Alex shook his head. “No, the virus will ensure you become one of us.”

So… I started.

“It would rest on me,” he interrupted. I could see the pain in his features as clearly as I could hear the frantic beating of my heart as it echoed through my ears. So if I chose not to become like Alex, not to allow the virus to turn me into a shifter, and to instead choose death, Alex would have to be the one to kill me…

I suddenly became angry. Angry that I hadn’t been given all of the facts. If I’d known there was a chance I could turn into a werewolf if one bit me, would I still have come here? Would I still have continued to even investigate this case? Or would I have given up?

“You would never have given up,” Alex responded as he shook his head.

He was right. There was no way I would have betrayed this case, even if I’d known the ins and outs of becoming hairy. That just wasn’t who I was. I lived and breathed my work. It consumed me. It described me. It was me.

“I’m sorry I didn’t tell you the rules regarding shifters, but I didn’t think it was pertinent at the time. I never thought you would have gotten bitten.” He dropped his gaze. “And for that, I’m incredibly sorry.”

There wasn’t anything more to say on the subject. It was what it was and the time for regretting things was over. Now I had a decision to make. Truthfully, I didn’t even understand how this was really a decision. How could I choose between becoming a werewolf or death? Even though the idea of becoming a shifter left me nothing but cold, there was no way I would choose death. Not when I was a fighter, in general, not when life was so important to me.

I glanced up at Alex and studied his handsome face for a few seconds as I thought about what my life would look like moving forward, what this decision would mean. Everything I knew was going to change. Life as I’d known it would never be the same again and that thought terrified me.

But there was something in Alex’s eyes that suddenly consoled me, something that said everything was going to be fine. That I was going to be fine.

“You have to trust me, Elodie,” Alex whispered.

Suddenly, there was no doubt in my mind. Alex was right. I did have to trust him. I had to trust him with my life because that was the decision I was going to make. It was the only decision as far as I was concerned.

I want to live.

Chapter Twenty-Six

Three Weeks Later

It was the beginning of spring.

The deadly cold of winter was finally passing its throne to the budding starflowers, the heather and the elderberry, just to name a few of my favorite wildflowers of Alaska. Birds, too, had joined the spring reverie by singing from tree branch to tree branch as bees busily gathered pollen from the newly sprung flowers.

“Yep, it’s good to be alive.” I smiled up at Alex as we walked down the main street of Hope.

“I’m glad to hear you say that,” he said with a quick nod as he held open the door to Frank’s Kitchen for me. Frank’s was my favorite lunch spot. “I was worried you regretted your decision.”

“I don’t regret it. It’s just been a weird adjustment.”

We took a seat beside the only window in the very small establishment.

“But you’re dealing with it?”

“I’m dealing with it.”

These last three weeks had certainly been the strangest and hardest I’d ever experienced. After I’d made the decision to become a shifter, I’d been in agony for another four hours or so while the wolf virus fully polluted my body. After four hours, the pain had subsided, only to be replaced with a ravenous hunger, the likes of which I’d never encountered. And the only food I’d wanted was meat. Raw and bloody.

After gorging myself on as much red meat as I could get my hands on, I’d thrown up for the remainder of the night and into the next day. Alex had stuck by my side the entire time and had helped me through the ordeal, telling me everything I was experiencing was normal, that I had to teach my body to eat the way the wolf eats. It hadn’t been exactly pretty.

But after two weeks, I’d started to feel more like myself again. The only difference was that I had to eat every few hours. If I didn’t, I grew increasingly hostile, to the point that I wanted to tear out the throat of whoever happened to be standing closest to me.

Alex had explained that my metabolism was much faster now, and in order to satiate the appetite of the wolf, I had to constantly keep my stomach full.

“When will you teach me how to take the form of the wolf?” I asked him, once our waitress, Hildy, had walked away after taking our drink order.

“All in good time,” Alex responded with a little laugh as he leaned back into his chair and eyed me with amusement. “Shifting is no small feat. It requires a lot of patience and practice.”

“What good is being a shifter if you can’t shift?” I argued with a little pout.

“Patience, young Jedi,” he answered, laughing.

I didn’t respond but watched Hildy return with my soda water and lime and Alex’s Coke. She dropped off our drinks with a hurried smile and disappeared back into the kitchen.

“So when will you go before the tribal court?” I asked Alex as he took a sip of his Coke.

He shrugged. “I’m not sure, but I’m also not concerned so neither should you be.”

Even though Achak had been the one to bite me and therefore, the one to start my metamorphosis, Alex was ultimately held responsible because the choice to allow me to live or die had been his. Or at least that’s the way the tribal police looked at it. To become a werewolf was a right that wasn’t just offered to anyone. You had to apply for that right and it could be—and in many cases, was—denied. Granted, it wasn’t as though Alex had had time to apply for the tribal counsel’s permission to turn me into one of his own kind. This was the reason why he wasn’t much concerned about the outcome.

As for Achak, Koko had been correct—the silver bullet from my gun had pierced his heart and even though the shaman of the tribe had attempted to save him, the silver had done too good a job of contaminating his body. In the end, the decision was made to burn his body, rather than attempt to bring him back.

That situation didn’t exactly leave me with a glowing reputation where the tribe was concerned. Not only was I an outsider, but I’d also shot and killed one of their own. Granted, Achak had been guilty of attacking Donovan, a kernel of information we’d been able to squeeze out of Koko, but that didn’t change the fact that the tribal members weren’t exactly my supporters.

As to the situation between Donovan, Koko and Achak, Donovan had been trying to win Koko back from Achak, who had stolen her shortly after Donovan had done the same to Alex. Achak had stabbed Donovan as a warning not to attempt to come after Koko again. That was why the blade hadn’t pierced Donovan’s heart and also why his body hadn’t been burned. Achak had intended to warn Donovan, not kill him.

“You haven’t seen or heard anything from Donovan?”

Alex shook his head. “Nothing.” He fixed his attention on the bubbles foaming up in his glass. “I hope he’s okay.” He glanced back over at me.

“I’m sure he is,” I offered with a shrug. “He’s a werewolf, so he’s kind of at the top of the food chain, right?”

Alex just nodded but didn’t say anything more for a few seconds. He just continued spinning his straw around in his glass.

“Everything okay?”

“Yes,” he answered quickly before inhaling deeply and facing me. “I want to go after him, Elodie,” he admitted. “I want to find Donovan and then I want to go after everyone who had a hand in what became of him.”

“What do you mean?” I studied him pointedly.

He shrugged. “The neighboring gang who broke our treaty. When Donovan left us, he fell in with them. They were a rough group…”

“I remember you telling me that,” I interrupted, “but what do they have to do with what became of Donovan? You said he was messed up before he ever fell in with them.”

Alex nodded. “He was. But they also didn’t do him any favors. It was under their influence that he came back to steal from us. They made sure he sank even further into abusing drugs and alcohol.”

“I get all that, but those were choices Donovan made. You can’t blame that tribe for his decisions.”

“I can blame them for breaking the treaty between us,” Alex argued as he shook his head. “I can blame them because it wasn’t just Donovan who came after us. He was accompanied by three or four of their own. And these men were never punished, never brought to justice.”

“And your tribe’s police?”

Alex immediately started shaking his head. “Did nothing and continue to do nothing,” he explained. “They’re a joke.”

“So how will you…”

“It’s what I do,” he answered quickly. “I’m a bounty hunter. I hunt down the bad guys and bring them to justice and that’s exactly what I intend to do here.” He took another sip of his soda as he studied me. “And if the tribal police won’t help me bust them, I’m hoping you will.”

“I don’t have jurisdiction.”

“You’re the Chief of Police of Hope,” he interrupted. “You carry more weight than any one person does.” He took another sip of his Coke. “I’m just asking you to help me as much as you can.”

I nodded. “You know I’ll help you, Alex.” I thought about what this could mean. “This tribe you’re talking about,” I began as I faced him. “Are they weres, too?”

Alex grinned widely. “You know it.”

I shook my head as I smiled back at him. “I hope to freakin’ hell that my mother never finds out about any of this.” I downed the rest of my soda water. Like that was ever going to happen. My mother had a way of ferreting out gossip, second to none. And this was some serious gossip.

“Elodie...” He let his voice trail off. She must never know. Although he’d stopped speaking, I heard his unspoken words as surely as if they had been whispered softly into my ears.

I gasped. “Did I just...?”

“You did, Chief. Congratulations, you just read my mind.”

“But... I heard you. Clear as day…”

“No, you heard my thoughts.”

I opened my mouth to speak, then closed it again. Honestly, reading his thoughts was about the third-least weird thing that had happened today alone, a day that had begun with strange hair follicles showing up in places where they most certainly didn’t belong, to me eyeing a cute fawn with what could only be described as ravenous hunger. A fawn! Lord help me...

“You’re telling me I can never tell my mom what I am now?”

“She can’t ever know. No one can,” Alex insisted. At my sigh, he reached out and took my hand. “You’re going to be okay, kiddo.”

I nodded. Somehow, for some reason, I believed him, even though I’d never felt less okay in my entire life. I gripped his hand like it was a lifeline. Maybe it was. “Alex?”

“Yes?”

“Never call the chief of police ‘kiddo’ again.”

The End

The Arctic Wolves return in:

New Wolf

Return to the Table of Contents

NEW WOLF

A novel by

J.R. RAIN &

H.P. MALLORY

Arctic Wolf #2

New Wolf

Published by Rain Press

Copyright © 2022 by J.R. Rain & H.P. Mallory

All rights reserved.

Ebook Edition, License Notes

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

New Wolf

Chapter One

“Ed Berry’s here to see you, chief,” says Sandy Tucker via the office intercom.

“Remind me again who he is?” I ask. Hey, I’ve only been the chief of police here for a few months. The city of Hope is small, but not that small. Hard to know the names of all five thousand plus residents.

“Owns the bar just up the street.”

“Ah. The Swinery?”

“That would be the one. Wants to report a break-in.”

“Have him talk to Miguel. Or Connors.”

“Both on patrol. You’re all that’s here, chief.”

Oh, the joys of a small town police department. “Fine,” I sigh, patting my rumbling stomach... my eternally rumbling stomach. “Show him in.”

“Will do.”

A moment later, I motion for Ed Berry to have a seat in front of me. The man does, easing down into the chair. The tall bar owner is all knees and elbows, his angular face is ruddy with annoyance, his hands balled tight against his thighs. He smells of beer and cheese. Somehow, I don’t mind either.

Big surprise. Everything smells good these days.

“Sandy said someone broke into your bar,” I begin.

“Damn right,” he growls, then remembers who he’s talking to. “I mean, yes, sorry. I’m just so... pissed off.”

I nod, reaching for the notepad and pen in the top desk drawer of my desk. “I get it. Walk me through it, if you don’t mind.”

He does as requested. It had been a busy night last night. He’d closed up just after 2 a.m., counted his receipts, cleaned up, headed home within the hour. Came in today at noon to find the place ransacked.

“Anything stolen?” I ask, pen hovering over my pad.

“Nothing. Not even the good booze.”

My stomach rumbles again, loud enough to be embarrassing. This earns me a look of surprise from Ed but he’s got enough manners not to say anything. To say that I’ve been perpetually hungry since my turning is an understatement. I’ve been ravenous.

All. The. Flippin’. Time.

For breakfast this morning, I’d eaten a pound of raw beef. A pound. Of raw beef. Think about how much food that is. And I’m not a big person. And now, just a few hours later, my stomach is growling again.

After a second or two of awkward silence, I clear my throat, ask, “How did they get in?”

“No clue.”

“No broken windows? Pried-open doors?”

“Nope and nope.”

“Someone used a key, then?”

“Only two sets of keys. One for me and one for Patty.”

“She the blond bartender?”

He nods. “Yup. Usually works the afternoon shift. But she’s been gone all week. Hiking the back country.”

I motion toward my window. “You mean this isn’t the back country?”

Ed chuckles. “Probably seems that way to city folk.”

“From Anchorage, via Connecticut.”

He shrugs. “Like I said, city folk.”

I don’t argue the point. I don’t get a city vibe from Anchorage, but to each their own. Out here, anything bigger than 10,000 people would seem city-like.

“Maybe you forgot to lock your place up?” I ask.

Ed rubs his forehead. “Doubtful, but it coulda happened, I suppose.” He sighs. “I just don’t get it. The Swinery’s just an old bar. Not much there to steal. A jukebox, two pool tables, dart board, an old TV.”

“But it has booze and cash, two things people tend to love. Where do you keep it, by the way? The cash?”

“Safe in my office.”

“Was the safe broken into?”

“Nope.”

“Anyone else know the combo besides you?”

“Just Patty.”

“And you trust her?”

“Been with me thirteen years. So, yeah.”

“Could someone have copied her key?”

“You mean like a boyfriend or something?”

I shrug. “Yeah, or a son, daughter, cousin. Milk man.”

“Lives alone, as far as I know. No kids. Never had a problem before.”

“How much do you usually keep in the safe?”

“Few hundred. I get in early the next day and make a bank run. Most people pay with credit cards these days, anyway, so there’s not usually much to deposit.”

I make a few more notes. “Any vandalism? Destroy anything?”

The growl of disgust comes back with a vengeance. “Smashed up that old TV set I was talking about. Knocked over some stools. Turned my office over pretty good. Pulled some paintings down. Went through my backroom, too. The storage room. Must have opened every damn door and cupboard I have.”

“Any idea what they were looking for?”

His eyes shift. Maybe he’s trying to hide something. Maybe he’s embarrassed. “Like I said, I ain’t got nothing in there but booze and a few hundred dollars. And they left both.” His eyes settle on me. “Just wanted to let you know my place got hit, in case anybody else is experiencing the same.”

I shake my head. “No other break-ins reported, but I’ll double check. Meanwhile, let’s go have a look. Lemme grab one of my deputies.”

***

With Miguel by my side, we leave the station and drive one block over to The Swinery.

“We could have walked,” says Miguel. “It’s good for the heart.”

“Walking is for chumps,” I say, and wink at him.

He grins, and soon we’re at the scene of the crime. The Swinery isn’t much to see on the outside. Located on one end of a ramshackle three-store center, it sits next to the You Sew and Sew Tailoring and Alterations. The space next to it had been closed long before my time here in Hope. I’m guessing it had been an art gallery. Who they expected to sell their art to, I haven’t a clue. Hope is small and poor. Might be why the gallery closed down.

The parking lot is empty, save for an old blue truck that I know to be Ed’s. I park next to it because it looks lonely.

As we approach the building, I see no evidence of broken glass. Ed had given me the keys to the place. I’d asked him to give us an hour or so. Last I heard, he was on his way to get lunch at the Hope Cafe.

Anyway, no signs of forced entry, no broken windows. I unlock the front door and discover it won’t open fully. I soon see why: a broken chair blocks the door’s path. I push some more and slip inside. Miguel follows. I flick on the interior’s light, which still works.

The bar isn’t exactly trashed, but it had been worked over pretty good. Someone was clearly looking for something. The TV had been pulled down. Cupboards everywhere had been opened. Pictures displaced, torn, broken.

“Someone was looking behind the paintings for something,” says Miguel.

“Seems that way. In the cupboards, too.”

“Looking for something small, maybe?”

“Be my guess.”

Aside from the occasional upturned table (which didn’t follow the M.O.), all the bottles along the shelf behind the counter sat untouched. Doesn’t seem like high schoolers... who undoubtedly would have gone straight for the booze. I point this out to Miguel and he nods, agreeing.

“The thief or potential thief is a drinker,” I say. “Maybe even an alcoholic.”

“Why do you say that, Chief?”

“There is a, ah, respect going on here. He or she clearly moved the bottles, searching for whatever they were searching for, but they didn’t break them.”

“Because they love booze?”

“That, and they respect booze. My guess is, they are a patron here. Hated to see the alcohol go to waste.”

Miguel chuckles. “Now that would be alcohol abuse.”

I nearly smile, too. But I’m not in a smiling mood. As I continue scanning, I spy a large plant yanked out of its clay pot. Someone had looked in the pot, too.

Curiouser and curiouser.

Unfortunately for us, the person(s) who committed the crime hadn’t been stupid enough to leave behind much obvious evidence. Miguel works the place over, wearing gloves. I’m tempted to dust for prints, but the place is a damn bar. There are prints everywhere... hundreds and hundreds of them.

“You think Ed did this himself?” asks Miguel, sidling up next to me. He has me by a few inches, with impressively broad shoulders.

“Why would he do that?”

“To get the insurance money?” He shrugs. “I mean, there’s no sign of forced entry.”

“Hmm. Maybe.”

I go through the place again, checking windows in particular. There are only six of them, and none seem jimmied open. No sign of a basement, and the backdoor is padlocked. I study the toppled tables and two or three broken chairs. Was someone angry with Ed? Was someone making a statement? If so, then why open every damn cupboard? I suspect either Ed has an enemy... or has hidden something very, very important.

Time to get some damn security cameras in here.

Chapter Two

Back at the office, still working on the damn report, my cell rings. A call from Alex, a man I regret every day having met a few weeks ago, a man I personally hold responsible for my current “condition,” though that isn’t quite fair.

Screw fair.

I pick up the call, putting him on speaker, though I keep the volume on low. “Talk to me,” I say.

“That’s how you answer now?” he asks.

“When I’m in the middle of writing a report, yes.”

“You hate reports.”

“Could be why I’m grumpy.”

“What report?” he asks.

“The Swinery was broken into last night. Or, rather, early this morning.”

“Wasn’t me,” says Alex. “Pretty sure I was with you... doing a lot of nothing.”

I let the comment go. We both know why we were doing a lot of nothing. “I’ll cross your name off the list of suspects. So, what’s up?”

“You’ve been ‘invited’ to speak to the council. And by invited, I mean summoned.”

I might have squeaked. Alex is, of course, part Ammagaruqnik. Their reservation is about an hour’s drive north of Hope, somewhere in that impassable wilderness where it seemed inconceivable that any life could survive, especially humans.

Every member of the Ammagaruqnik tribe is a werewolf, and now that my status has gone from mortal to immortal, they want to meet with me in person. Alex had warned me this day was coming. It just seemed to come a little sooner than I hoped. I mean, hell, I haven’t even transformed yet, not that I’m looking forward to it or anything. Sounds painful... and I think it is going to be. At least, for the first few times.

“What are you thinking?” he says.

“Does it matter what I’m thinking?” I knew I would have to go whether I wanted to or not, though I really didn’t want to face the council alone. “Sorry, just a little terrifying. You’re coming, too, right?”

“Of course,” says Alex.

“Thank God.”

The council gave off the distinct impression of being hostile toward outsiders. No surprise there. Alex had already given me a briefing on the most combative elders, like Brass-Eye who claimed he had lost an eye after being attacked by an eagle, though Alex thought he’d only made up the story to scare kids. Of course, with werewolves, the eye had grown back. Which made no sense why he kept wearing a patch. For show.

Idiot.

Though I don’t have much expectation, fingers crossed this werewolf business could actually be fun. The idea of immortality hasn’t yet sunk in—hell, I’d only been turned three weeks ago. Then again, that’s the thing with eternity. I have a lot of time for it to sink in.

We’ll see.

Anyway, Brass-Eye is a zealot who likes to quote a prophecy that one day werewolves will overwhelm the human population. On that day, the tribe will come out of hiding and assume leadership over Alaska and the Canadian northwest. North America will be split into six regions, each of them ruled by a different werewolf clan. Yeah, it sounds a bit Game of Thronesy to me, too. Luckily, that is apparently in the far, far, far off future where I hope it will stay.

“You’re going to be fine,” he says. “You don’t get to be chief of police if you’re not good at dealing with people. Don’t let them bait you. Don’t let them get under your skin. You’re the first outsider to be adopted—well, almost adopted—by the tribe in years, decades even. Give them a chance to get to know you, the real you.”

“So, they just want to get to know me? That’s it?”

A small hesitation from Alex. “Some still have lingering questions about Achak’s death that they would like to have answered…” Achak, the werewolf who had bitten me; also, the man whose life I’d ended with a silver bullet.

“That was self-defense, Alex. I can’t be blamed for that. He attacked me. Not the other way around.”

“I know,” says Alex. “They are our council. Our elders. It is within their rights to investigate anything within the tribe. Elle, had I not vouched for you, there’s a very good chance you would have been killed by now. A small debriefing is hardly comparable.”

“Then why am I nervous?”

I can almost sense him smiling on his end of the line. Who wouldn’t be nervous? After all, they are only a council of freakin’ werewolves. And many of them ancient at that. I mean, these things kill, like, all the time. Luckily, not humans... or rarely humans. Still, a room full of them is hardly comforting.

Then again, aren’t I one of them now?

Yes and no. I have their blood running through me, yes. I do not know their ways, or what is expected of me. I mean... am I trapped living here forever now? Will they even allow me to move? Maybe a moot point, considering I kind of like it here—but still!

Alex continues, “Elodie, all they’re going to do is ask you a few questions about Achak and his death. That said, I really don’t think the death of Achak is of any great loss to the tribe. He was a loser and everyone in the reservation knew it. His death was unmourned; he won’t be missed. Hell, they might congratulate you for having done them a favor.” Alex chuckles lightly.

“Not funny, Alex. Though I don’t feel bad for defending myself, killing him doesn’t feel good either.”

“You’ve never killed before?” Alex asks.

“Never. Most cops haven’t. And I really haven’t come to terms with it, truth be known.”

“Is it any help that Achak was a bastard?”

“I don’t know. A life is a life.”

“He would have killed you, Ellie.”

And that’s what I hung my hat on, as they say... the saving grace that keeps me from beating myself up too much. Achak had come after me, not the other way around. I had just been on a routine investigation.

“Then just some questions for me, that’s it?”

“Well, there’s a little more.”

“How much more?”

He chuckles. “If you pass the question and answer phase, it is my understanding they will begin initiating you into the tribe. There’s a whole process of induction where it is revealed what it means to become a member of the tribe. You’ll find some of it really useful and fascinating, some of it boring. It is what it is.”

Maybe boring to him, but damn useful for me. “When do they want to meet me?”

“Today. Before nightfall. I’ll swing by and pick you up.”

“And what if I had plans today?”

“Cancel them. See ya soon.”

And he hung up.

Chapter Three

I’d been invited to the Ammagaruqnik reservation, located about an hour or so from town.

I say “invited” but it’s probably more apropos to say I’d been summoned. And it isn’t like there is a big question mark as to the reason why. Every member of the Ammagaruqnik tribe is a werewolf, aka every person can take the shape of the wolf. And I’m not talking Lon Cheney as the upright, standing-on-two-feet wolfman, I’m talking true canine; as in, a real wolf on all fours.

As unbelievable as I’m sure all of that sounds, I’m still battling with the fairly recent information that I can now consider myself to be among their noble, canine ranks. Why? Because one of their own, Achak, had bitten me and started the process of turning me into one of them. In return, I’d fired a silver bullet into him, piercing his heart and killing him. Yeah, I was pissed.

So my summoning to Ammagaruqnik either has to do with Achak’s death or, hopefully, the tribes folk were going to enroll me in “Becoming a Werewolf 101” so I can learn everything there is to know about going hairy during a full moon. Unfortunately, I have a feeling my summoning has more to do with the former.

Even though Achak had polluted my blood with the wolf virus, I haven’t actually changed into my four-legged alter ego yet. It has been three weeks and I haven’t so much as sprouted a chin whisker. The only real change that had been introduced to my life is this constant hankering for meat—usually of the raw variety.

“You look nervous,” Alex says as he smiles over at me from behind the wheel of his truck and pats my knee consolingly.

“Nervous?” I nearly squawk at him. “Pshh, why would I be nervous? I mean, this is the first time I’ve been back here since I shot one of their people right through the heart.”

“You were defending yourself,” Alex argues again as he turns the engine off and unfastens his seatbelt. I have the sudden fleeting impulse to throw my arms around him and bury my face against his broad chest. Alex is big and he is warm and he has a way of making me feel safe, for as completely ridiculous as that sounds. As Chief of Police, I know that no one can keep you safe. You have to keep yourself safe.

Even though Alex is right and I had been defending myself against Achak, who’d been in the process of attacking me (remember the whole thing about the wolf biting me earlier?) but knowing people like I do, I don’t expect Achak’s tribe to willingly come to the defense of a stranger. It is definitely a good thing that Alex is one of their own but I have to wonder how true that really is. You see, Alex is a member of the Ammagaruqnik by circumstance rather than ancestral right. Alex’s mother, Amulla Johnson, isn’t his biological mother. Instead, she’d found Alex wandering alone in the woods when he was a young child and she’d adopted him as her own.

Welcome to Alaska, right?

“I’m going to explain what happened again,” Alex volunteers as he holds my hand and I jump down from the warmth of the truck and shiver in the frigid air.

“I don’t think any amount of explaining is going to make these people understand why I shot Achak or why they now have to deal with the fact that I’m going to become hairy just like they are,” I answer with a frown. The truth is, I’m worried even though I’m not fully sure why. I mean, it isn’t like they could really do much to me, even if their laws on the reservation are different to those outside the Inuit boundaries. Furthermore, I’m the Chief of Police, which means I carry lots more weight than the average Joe Blow would. Or, in this case, Jane Blow.

Okay, that sounds bad. Scratch that.

No, I’m more worried that in becoming a wolf, I’m breaking their ‘code.’ After all, morphing into an animal isn’t something you just do. It is something that also has to be approved by the council. And most times requests aren’t approved. The Inuit tend to want to keep to themselves and ensure outsiders stay exactly that: outside.

As we walk into the town of twenty or so ramshackle bungalows that dot the otherwise white landscape, I can hear my heart thudding away in my chest. Alex looks down at me and smiles again as he reaches out and takes my hand. I return his smile, but with little authority. I don’t know what I’m walking into.

“Taktuq,” someone calls from where he is standing outside his front door, using Alex’s tribal name. “You’re to take the woman to the tribal meeting room,” he finishes and then frowns at me before turning around, walking back inside, and slamming the door behind him. Great. If this is any indication of how the tribe feels about me, this meeting isn’t going to go well.

“The woman?” I ask Alex as I raise an eyebrow at him.

“Hey, some of us are less further along on the evolutionary chart than others,” he answers with a shrug and a boyish smile. It is that smile that had worked on my heart in the past and is continuing to work on it at this very moment. There is just something about this large, charming man that did something to me. “Besides, some in the tribe are very, very old. You know, semi-immortal and all that?”

“Right.”

I’m not sure what Alex and I are to each other. Maybe we are boyfriend-girlfriend but we haven’t had that talk yet. Alex had been the one to ask me to make a decision about whether I wanted to live or die after my body had been polluted with the wolf virus, so we are definitely close but I don’t know what title to give us. Not that it really matters now. Or maybe it does? Maybe it will help my cause with these people if I’m Alex’s flame and not just some woman he knows?

“Hey,” I say, facing him. “What are we?”

“What do you mean?”

I shrug, like my question should have been obvious enough. “You know, what are we?”

“Homo sapiens with a side of wolfie.”

Okay, that makes me chuckle. “No, I don’t mean like homo sapiens! I mean, are we boyfriend/girlfriend? Friends? Poker buddies?”

“Oh!” he smiles back at me secretively. “I think we’re cuddle buddies.”

I nod. I know this. Forsaking sex until after my first turning is important, or so he says. So, yeah, we’ve gotten a lot of cuddling... and that’s it. No heavy make-out sessions. Heavy make-out sessions lead to other things. And other things are a big no-no... for now.

“That’s it?” I sigh and cross my arms over my chest and focus on the large, square-shaped building that looms at the end of the narrow dirt path which is currently covered with snow.

“You’re more than that, Ellie,” Alex says as he laughs at me, then elbows me playfully in the side like we are twelve years old. “You’re my girlfriend.”

Some of the irritation bleeds out of me. “That’s better.”

“Is it?”

I nod. “Than being your cuddle buddy?” I ask incredulously. “Yeah, I’d say so.”

“Well, it’s kind of a weird time to bring it up but it is an important subject.” He pauses and takes a deep breath. “Are you okay with that title?”

“Cuddle buddy?” I frown.

“No, girlfriend.”

I cock my head to the side as I consider it. Then I smile up at him. “If you think it will help my case here, yeah, I’m okay with it.”

“Touche,” Alex answers with a laugh. “And, yes, I think it might.”

“All joking aside, I’m good with it,” I say as I take his arm and lean into him, loving the way he towers over me and makes me feel so… small. Alex is a manly man and his immense height and build only add to his physical allure. Oh, and he’s a helluva cuddle buddy.

Shh, our secret.

“You’re going to be just fine, Elodie,” Alex promises me as he squeezes me even closer to him. “Whatever they have to say, they’re going to say it to us and we’re going to get through this together.”

“Thank you, Alex,” I say in a small voice.

I take a big breath as we reach the front door to the one-story building. Alex starts for the handle, but then pauses as he looks down at me. He bends over and kisses me on my forehead before he opens the door wide and I step inside...

Chapter Four

Seeing it from outside, the chambers of the Ammagaruqnik tribal council aren’t imposing—just a cluster of wood-framed buildings, the largest of which contain a wide patio with a coal-fire grill.

The buildings give me a twinge of nostalgia for the VFW—Veterans of Foreign Wars—where I had spent many nights as a girl watching my aunt play piano, and the memory carries with it a certain degree of reassurance.

“Sorry I overreacted,” I tell Alex. “I do this thing where I expect the worst possible outcome for every situation.”

“You don’t have to tell me,” he says, winking. “I’ve already figured that out.”

“It’s a survival mechanism, I think. Then again, I am walking into a room full of werewolves in the middle of nowhere.”

He chuckles. “Well, that survival mechanism is what makes you such a capable police chief. But you don’t have to be on the defensive while we’re here. Just questions... and possible initiation.”

I want to believe him. But as he leads me across a broad foyer containing a circle of statues on stone plinths, I can feel my anxiety returning. On the wall before me I recognize a mural portraying the famous legend of Kirima, the Ammagaruqnik girl who, shunned by her own family on account of a deformity, climbed a ladder to the stars and became a constellation in the night sky. Both terrible and kind of cool.

Yes, while in the middle of all that damn cuddling—and definitely no sex—Alex regaled me with stories of his tribe.

Wait. What the hell did the initiation consist of? Did I like have to like kill a villager or something?

Calm down, Elodie, I tell myself. Maybe get out of your head a little.

Good advice.

Beneath the mural, in a glass display case, lay the ax with which Nuniq the Destroyer had killed two hunters who had entered the village one night with dogs in tow, hoping to exterminate the werewolves. That happened back in the 1970s, and Nuniq ought to have gone to trial for the savage killing of the two men; instead, he had gone into hiding until exonerated by the tribal council, who agreed that he’d acted heroically in defending the tribe. Even now, the entire tribe holds his actions on that night as a model of masculine courage, but from the perspective of an outsider, there is something a little frightening about him. According to Alex, Nuniq really didn’t have to kill those men as savagely as he had. He didn’t have to use an ax.

Alex leads me through the foyer and to a doorway where a severe-looking older woman wearing wire-framed glasses and a black robe stands. She nods in greeting when she sees us, an inscrutable expression on her face.

“Taktuq,” she says. “I see you’ve brought your woman friend with you.”

“Hi, I’m Elodie,” I say with a forced smile, choosing to act as though this is a normal conversation we are having. “You must be Gina.”

She nods once, ignoring my extended hand. “The council is convening in the inner chambers in ten minutes.” She levels her stare at Alex. “Where you can be sure we will discuss the ethics of being turned without prior council consent.”

With that, she strides into the adjoining room.

After I had been bitten by Achak, Alex had been the one who’d helped facilitate my total transformation into a werewolf. I feel the nerves kick in again. Despite Alex’s reassurances, I wonder if I my mere existence is now in violation of the Ammagaruqnik code of ethics, and if so, what are they going to do about it?

Well, I’m about to find out.

A side door opens and a bald, broad-shouldered man, naked from the waist up with unnervingly bushy eyebrows, steps through. In the loop of his belt, he carries a gleaming silver hammer.

“Council’s adjourning,” he says loudly in a thick accent, taking a seat at the long table before us.

I allow Alex to lead me into the chamber where we find two dozen or more pairs of eyes staring back at us. Gina Acoustina holds center court, with five or six men sitting to either side of her. Undoubtedly a powerful woman. That all present are werewolves is surreal to say the least. As Alex guides me to a table near the front of the room, the council members study me curiously, as if eager to see the woman about whom they’ve heard so many stories.

“I’d like to remind everyone,” says Gina, “that no phones or cameras are allowed in the council room.” She pauses and peers intently down at me.

“Oh… sorry.” Reaching into my purse, I pull out my phone and make a show of turning it off.

Satisfied, Gina continues: “We’re meeting to discuss the actions of Elodie Matthews on the evening of March twenty-seventh with respect to Achak, a member of our tribe, now deceased. For those of you who are unfamiliar with the situation, Achak was killed in a struggle with Ms. Matthews, presently chief of police of the city of Hope. She alleges an attempted assault in which the victim—Achak—bit her. Matthews produced a weapon and fired at the victim with silver bullets. Within days of the assault, she began manifesting lycanthropic symptoms and—importantly for our discussion—was guided through the process of full transformation by her partner, Alex Johnson, known to most of you by his tribal name, Taktuq.”

A fresh wave of disapproving murmurs. I could feel Alex’s eyes on me, but couldn’t bring myself to meet them. Gina’s framing of the situation has already put us at a disadvantage... before I even have the chance to speak.

“May I say something?” I ask in an unsteady voice.

A middle-aged man with weathered skin, thinning hair, and an oddly protruding right eyeball glares at me. Well, at least one of his eyes glares at me.

Gina, at the head of the table, nods once. “I will allow it.”

“Thank you.” I take in some air, gather myself. “A few weeks ago, a Hope resident discovered a body in the woods and phoned the police department. We investigated the crime scene and found the body of a naked male with a silver dagger in his chest. The unidentified corpse had clearly been there throughout the long winter, only having been exposed with the recent thaw. We delivered the body to the morgue. After which, I proceeded to track down who the John Doe was. The case proceeded along normally until...”

I hesitate, sensing the absurdity of what I have to say next. Surely the other members of the tribe have had dealings with the paranormal. Heck, they are the very definition of paranormal. But seeing them now, they seem to be regular people presiding over an irregular case. Still, I know the truth, and what I have to say next should hardly be a surprise to any of them.

“Continue, Ms. Matthews,” says Gina.

“Chief Matthews,” I correct her, which draws a small gasp from Alex next to me.

“Yes, of course. My apologies.”

I nod, continuing: “As it turned out, the body wasn’t exactly... dead. And he didn’t stay long in the morgue once he’d figured out where he was. He escaped into town before I could stop him. I gave chase on foot, where the tracks led me into the woods... and right to Alex Johnson—”

“Am I mistaken in thinking that you had never met Taktuq prior to this?”

“No, this was our first encounter.”

For some reason, Brass-Eye glowers at me with aggressive dislike, as if he’d taken my measure and realized we would never be friends. He reminds me of a particularly nasty deacon at my church growing up who had lectured me with jowls quivering about the dangers of dancing and wearing lipstick.

Gina nods, accepting my words. “Very well. Continue.”

“Prior to my encounter with Alex, I had yet to ascertain the identity of the deceased—well, who I had thought was deceased. Trust me, I had no idea who or what I was dealing with... you know.”

“We know, Chief Matthews. Continue.”

“At which point Alex informed me that the body belonged to his brother, Donovan. Together, we investigated the attempted killing, and I came to believe that Achak was the man responsible for Donovan’s injuries. Ultimately, I found the suspect and questioned him.”

“Was he cooperative?” asks Gina.

“Given that he tried to kill me, I’d have to say no.” One of the older men coughs loudly. Had that been a disguised laugh? I wait for him to finish before I go on. “Believing that if I didn’t subdue the suspect, he was going to kill me, I fired at him—once, maybe twice; I can’t remember at this point.”

“And Achak died instantly?” Gina asks.

“Not right away, no. He managed to bite me first; afterward, Alex informed me I had a choice. He said I could either die or be turned.” I paused, reliving that strange and painful memory. “Of course, I chose to turn. I chose to live.”

Silence follows in which I allow myself to think that maybe my story has placated them. But Brass-Eye punctures my delusion, speaking in a stagey voice as if seeking the applause of the other elders. “Tribal matters are not to be dealt with by outsiders,” he says sternly. “If we’re supposed to be impressed by the fact that you’re a chief of police—you’ve brought it up at least twice since the council convened—I’m here to tell you I couldn’t care less.”

“We respect the validity of federal law,” Gina adds, jumping in. “We have no quarrel with that.”

“I didn’t know anything about the tribal laws,” I reply. “I didn’t even know about the existence of your community until that night in the woods, when I met Alex. I shouldn’t be held responsible for breaking laws or codes I was unaware of.”

Unexpectedly, Alex speaks to my defense. “None of you were there. You don’t know how dangerous Achak was that night. He wasn’t in his right mind.” I’m not sure this was strictly true, but it seems to have the desired effect on his audience. “Elodie reacted in self-defense. If she hadn’t killed him, he would have killed her. She only had seconds to make a decision.”

“Strong words, but what proof do we have that he was ever violent?” asks Brass-Eye, his forehead damp with sweat. “You’re this woman’s… partner, so of course you would have a vested interest in defending her.”

After a sustained murmur, Alex motions for silence. Holding his phone aloft, he strides up to the platform. “I have all the evidence you need right here,” he says brightly as he hands his phone to Gina. “May I turn it on to show you a picture?”

She shrugs, nods.

He goes through the turning on process and we all wait uncomfortably. Once done, he shows her the screen.

“What exactly am I looking at?” asks Gina. I had been wondering the same thing—he has his back to me, so I can’t see what the elders are goggling at. “Is that... a severed caribou’s head?”

“It is.” A tone of triumph bordering on arrogance tints Alex’s voice. He’d prepared this defense without even telling me. “You’ll notice that one of the antlers has been sawed off. It was used to fashion a crude knife, the very same weapon used to stab my brother, Donovan.”

“And we’re supposed to just assume that Achak was the one who made the knife?” asks Brass-Eye.

“You don’t have to take my word for it.” Alex holds up his phone again. “Take a look at this second picture. Elodie and I are kneeling in the yard in front of Achak’s home. That’s where we found the caribou head buried. You can see his home in the background.”

This seems to impress the elders more than anything so far. Brass-Eye slumps back in his seat with a huff of exasperation, as if he knew he’d been defeated.

“You don’t have to like Ms. Matthews,” says Gina to the others. “But it is hard to disagree that she was within her rights to fire upon Achak. You know what the man was like. How many of us can honestly say we shed a tear at the news of his death?”

No one objects, not even Brass-Eye.

“With respect to your turning,” says Gina, “being given the gift of lycanthropy is no small matter. Taktuq ought to have consulted with the elders before bestowing upon an outsider something so precious.”

“I realize that,” says Alex, ducking his head submissively. “And I hope the elders will accept my sincere apology. But as Elodie has mentioned already, she was on the brink of death. I had to make a split-second decision, myself. If she hadn’t chosen to turn—and it was her choice—she would have died that night. There would have been not one, but two deaths. I’d love to have spent a couple weeks pursuing the committee’s approval, but there wasn’t time. And frankly, I think any of you would have made the same decision in my shoes, if it meant saving a friend’s life.”

It is a strong argument, forcefully delivered, and I might have fallen in love with the guy a little bit more, not that he needed to know that.

“Very chivalric,” says Brass-Eye. “But the penalty against unapproved turning needs to be followed; otherwise, we risk overturning traditions that our ancestors spent centuries establishing.”

Alex’s voice doesn’t falter, not even a little, when he says, “I think you can make an exception for the life of a young woman—the Chief of Police of Hope, no less.”

He returns to the table and resumes his seat. Brass-Eye looks momentarily stunned.

The man two seats to his right, who had been coughing through much of the exchange, raises a thick handkerchief to his watery eyes and says in a reedy voice, “I think the young man may have a point. Besides, there’s not much that we can do now. The woman has been turned and there’s no changing that.”

“What do you suggest then?” asked Brass-Eye.

“Induct her into the tribe. Much better for all parties if we treat her as a friend instead of a foe.”

Gina agrees. Perhaps too quickly for Brass-Eye’s taste. She puts it to the vote, and ten minutes later, surprise-surprise, I find myself an honorary member of the tribe. Okay, wow. Did that really just happen? Next, I’m summoned to stand before the tribal council.

“Chief Matthews, you are obviously a model citizen, so I trust that I won’t have to stress this point over-much. You’ve seen what happened to Achak, and how poorly his actions reflected on the rest of the clan—”

“I’ll try never to bring shame to the tribe.”

“Secondly,” says Gina, nodding. “It’s imperative that you not consort with members of any other tribe but this one. The Ammagaruqnik have kept to ourselves for decades, and likely avoided much bloodshed in the process. You don’t want to be the person who ends this long season of peace, believe me. There are old prophecies about a woman who brings war at a time when the entire tribe lives peacefully, without walls. Whatever you do, please don’t be that woman.”

It’s an absurd request, and I doubt it would make more sense even if I knew the whole history of Ammagaruqnik warfare. I speak up. “My responsibilities as an officer of the law won’t allow me to shun contact with members of other tribes... or contact with anyone, for that matter. I am sorry, but I do not think I can uphold this request.”

“It is not a request,” says Brass-Eye, threatening.

He sits back with a single look from Gina. “I understand, Chief Matthews. We just ask that, perhaps in your personal life, you refrain from contacting other tribes. I assure you, it’s also in your best interest.”

I don’t see that as a threat, and already knew with my many conversations with Alex that nearby tribes—and by nearby, that meant within a few hundred miles radius—are also werewolf in nature. Such tribes keep to themselves. I nod. Her amended request, on a personal level, should be easy enough to accommodate.

“I’ll look after her,” says Alex, squeezing my hand slightly as if to silence me. “You won’t have to worry about us.”

“Meeting adjourned, then,” says Gina.

In the foyer outside the conference room, Alex says, “That went about as well as could be expected.”

I agree, though I have so many other questions to ask him—I want to know whether we are truly a couple, first of all—but before I can voice any of them, Brass-Eye comes toward me.

Raising a thick finger to my face, he says, “If you’re expecting to be welcomed here, girl, you’re going to be sorely mistaken. I know your kind. We all know your kind, and we don’t want any of it. Not here, not ever.”

With that, he stomps off before I can respond, taking all my relief at the successful outcome of the meeting with him.

Chapter Five

“Wow, nice spread,” I say with surprise, looking around the dishes laid out on the picnic blanket. The park around us is swathed in the silvery light of the gibbous moon. Not too often one has a picnic after sunset.

Then again, we both have the uncanny ability to see into the dark.

It’s been two days since The Swinery’s break-in. With not much to go on—or anything stolen—it remains low on my list of priorities. That said, Ed keeps checking in on it. The squeaky wheel and all that, so I give it some attention.

Without any surveillance cameras or witnesses worth a damn, there isn’t much for me to go on. That said, I’d asked for a list of regulars to speak to—people likely to have been at the bar on the night of the break-in. Ed went over his receipts and found the names of three men. I recognized two. I called all three. Two answered. Neither could remember anything from the night in question. Apparently, the regulars are also the town drunks. I asked if they’d had rides home that night, which they assured me they had. Uh huh, sure.

I smile inwardly. Alex has gone all out on the picnic feast, complete with champagne and candles. Even the weather is behaving, though the wind still feels a bit chilly. Not that it really matters much. Since turning, I’ve noticed how the cold no longer bothers me as much.

Is it just me, or does Alex seem nervous? Hmm. I lean in and place a quick peck on his cheek to let him know how much I appreciate his effort. I feel myself blush at the stupid grin on his face when I pull back. Something about this man makes me act in ways I normally don’t. He softens me, makes me feel more like a woman than I’ve felt in a very long time.

Mostly, I feel special. Not a bad thing at all.

“You approve?” he asks, motioning to the massive spread of food laid out before us. Yes, he had set this up prior to my arrival.

“I love it. Who knew werewolves were such softies?” I say with a wink.

Alex hands me a glass of wine. “Typically, we’re not. I’m just the exception.”

“I feel so lucky.”

“So do I.” He squeezes my hand, then opens a large wicker basket with a flip-top lid. The instant I catch a whiff of prime rib, my mouth waters. Not just waters—floods with saliva. Not surprisingly, my grocery bills have gone way up since my turning. No one ever tells you that being a werewolf is expensive. My stomach lets out a particularly loud rumble.

Alex chuckles. “Hungry much?”

“Very, very hungry.”

“I bet. Your body is going through a lot, Ells. This won’t last forever. Meanwhile, I’ve got you covered.”

He proceeds to unveil all the food he’d brought—and all of it meat. My God, the meat. I think I’m in love. “You really know how to impress a girl, don’t you?”

“Not just any girl—a newly turned, ravenous she wolf.” He chuckles, piling chicken breasts, steaks, and what looks like BBQ brisket on a heavy-duty, triple-layer paper plate.

“Less laughing and more meat,” I say, gesturing impatiently. He chuckles despite my stern admonition and adds two thick slices of ham. Two thick, beautiful slices.

He hands me the overburdened, sagging plate. “Bon appétit,”

I take it in both hands. Hell, even if it all dropped on the ground, I would be all over it.

For a few minutes, we eat in silence. Well, not exactly silence. I am not proud of the sloppy munching noises that come from me. I also don’t care.

As I eat, I find myself listening to the sounds of the creatures in the undergrowth, hearing every chirp, rustle, and scitter with surprising clarity. Yes, being a werewolf has its upside. I mean, I’m pretty darn sure I can actually hear a beetle crawling through the nearby grass. A flippin’ beetle. Yes, a picnic here beat a dinner in a restaurant any day. Alex had done well suggesting this.

“This is delicious,” I say, taking a large bite of the juicy steak, cooked to perfection. Not that I needed it cooked. My body craved raw meat too. “You really made all this?”

“I say I prepared you a picnic. Gordon Ramsey I am not. Trust me, I have other skills.” He wags his eyebrows.

“Oh, brother.”

We settle into silence once again. Weirdly, it feels as if my entire soul is at peace; conversely, something inside me feels off, like the beginning of a head cold that hasn’t quite broken though yet.

Alex told me to expect this. My body is preparing for my first transformation, sending out strange new signals to my cells, bones, skin and muscles to let them know something very, very weird is about to happen. Those signals make sleep elusive and doubles my appetite. Seriously, the hunger is out of control. I’ve damn near eaten a whole cow over the past few days alone.

All of this is in anticipation of my first shift, which would be at the next full moon... just a few days away. Until it happens, though, I have to be as emotionless as possible. Meaning, not too happy and not too sad. Too excited counts, too, which means no sex. Do I even need to mention that my libido really hates that part? But according to Alex, if I give into it, I’m liable to prematurely turn. If that happens, I’d be out of control and out of my mind for days or even weeks... or longer. Apparently, the tribe even had to put down one of their own when he never returned to his senses. Because of that, I have to refrain giving in to my emotions until the proper time. Whatever it takes, I have to ignore my urges—no matter how hard things get.

“Penny for your thoughts.”

“You really can’t read them anymore?” I ask.

“Nope, which is just the way I like it with us. I prefer neither of us to be an open book. There’s something to be said for a mystery in a relationship.”

“Relationship, eh?”

“You know what I mean.”

“Do I?”

He chuckles. “I guess you wouldn’t. Yeah, a relationship. At least... the start of one. Does that freak you out?”

“What do you think?”

“I’m thinking... no.”

I smile at that, reach over and squeeze his hand. “About my first turning... should I be nervous?”

He piles more food on his plate, doing his best to give me a reassuring smile, but it falters. “I ain’t gonna lie to you, kid. You should be a little concerned.”

“Why?”

“Because the first time is always the most painful.”

“Great,” I say before cramming the last of the deviled eggs in my mouth.

“But that’s just the first time,” Alex adds. “Once you’re past that hump, the transitions get easier.”

“Are yours still painful?”

Alex reaches out and pulls free a long blade of grass, thinking. “Truth is... I kinda of like it now. My body needs the change, craves it, even. The closer to the full moon, the more my physical self prepares for the turning. By the time it gets here, I am just done with being a human for a while. I hunger to be a wolf.” A legit growl rattles his chest. “There’s nothing I want more than that moment. I don’t even mind the mild pain that comes with it.”

This crazy admission turns me on in ways I’m not expecting. A man who hungers to be a wolf, to be wild, to be free. Boy, I just want to be free with him.

He reaches out and pulls me toward him. I go willingly. My God, he’s strong. I doubt I could have resisted him... but who knows. My own strength has grown considerably. Meanwhile, I slide up into him, in a position of his choosing... nearly helpless to resist, except I also don’t want to.

No way in hell do I want to.

He briefly presses his lips into mine, just long enough to drive me wild. He gently eases me off him again. The whole damn thing is over before it gets started.

“Ells, we have to stop.”

“Please, no. Just five more minutes. Your lips... so amazing.”

“I can’t risk losing you, Ellie. I shouldn’t have done even that.”

I sigh, hang my head. I’m so ready for more. So. Very. Ready.

But he’s right. I felt something awaken inside me. Something deep inside me: my head and chest... in my very bones. Something that very much wants to come out and play.

Lord, help me.

Chapter Six

After Alex drops me off at home, I call out for my cat, Gus.

That is, until I remember he isn’t here. I had to bring him to Sandy’s house a week after I’d gotten bit. I’d told her I thought I might be getting allergic to cats, but, of course, that isn’t true. Alex had warned me about how I could wind up hurting my cat, the only friend I’d had since childhood. Since I’m not about to let that happen, I let him talk me into briefly surrendering Gus to Sandy, as much as it pained me to do it. Once I feel confident I won’t hurt that little fluffball of love, I’m gonna take Gus back. I let out a heavy sigh before trudging across my dark and empty house to the bedroom.

I change clothes and climb into bed with another sigh. Just as I am about to doze off, my phone buzzes. I groan and lift from my nightstand. Once again, I’m amazed how I don’t have to squint to see the screen clearly. It’s a text from Alex.

‘Can I make you breakfast in the morning?’

‘Sounds heavenly,’ I text back.

That gets me a happy face in reply. Which makes me put on a happy face of my own. I close my eyes and snuggle into my duvet. God, how I miss Gus.

And maybe Alex a little, too.

***

I awaken to the smell of coffee and bacon.

Which also has the dual effect of awakening the growling in my stomach. Will this crazy hunger ever stop? As I pad barefoot into the kitchen, I realize I have only a t-shirt on. And not a very long one at that. Guess that is another thing about being a werewolf. Whether you’re awake, half asleep, or half naked, you’re driven by your hunger... and not by modesty.

“Well, good morning to me,” Alex says from next to the stove. Bacon is sizzling in the frying pan. And on the counter next to him is a glorious pile of more bacon, cooked extra crispy, just the way I used to like it. Then again, these days I could eat it raw.

Wow. He’d also set out freshly toasted and buttered bagels.

Keeps his word. Check.

Sexy as hell in the kitchen. Check.

Nice buns. Check.

My thoughts drift back to how we haven’t yet slept together. That train of thought immediately makes the barely covered parts start running hot.

Alex’s nostrils twitch. “Not yet, Ells. We’ve still got a few more days, remember?”

“I know. It’s just frustrating.”

“Better than going insane.”

“But is it?”

This gets a loud guffaw from him. “Just a few more days, then we can have, ah...”

“All the sex we want?”

“Something like that.” He offers me a mug of steaming coffee. “Believe it or not, coffee actually helps with that.”

“That?”

“Raging sex drive.”

“Don’t flatter yourself.”

I cross the kitchen and accept the proffered coffee mug, sniff the nearly overwhelmingly scrumptious aroma. It’s enough to dissolve my need to screw him on the spot. But it’s also telling me how my senses have been heightened way, way, way past anything I am prepared for. I sublimate that thought by drinking the coffee straight down. Heat be damned. The taste doesn’t hit me as strong as the smell, but I feel my non-horny self come back into focus.

“Wow. You weren’t kidding about it calming me down.”

By then, he’s adding the freshly cooked bacon on the plate with the others. In fact, he’s reaching into the sizzling pan and plucking them out without the use of a spatula or tongs—and without any indication of being burned. “God bless the sacred caffeine bean, huh?”

I go to take another drink only to realize I’d already drained the contents. “How does that even work? Is it the caffeine?”

As he speaks, he arranges the leaning tower of bacon on the plate. “Probably. Kind of the way dark chocolate helps smokers get through their nicotine withdrawal.”

“Beats a cold shower, I guess.” I hold out my mug. “More please—you know, just in case I have the overwhelming desire to ravish you again.”

“Lucky me.” He refills my cup.

As we eat, he asks what’s going on with the bar break-in.

“My gut says it’s some high schoolers. Or maybe one of his employees is responsible.”

“What does Ed think?”

“Ed swears up and down no one working for him would do such a thing. The thing is, I can’t shake this feeling that Ed’s hiding something.”

“Cop instincts?”

“Something like that. Kinda hoping this whole mind reading thing will start kicking in soon for me.”

“It will before you know it. Want me to swing by the bar and see what I pick up on?”

“If necessary. I’ll let you know. Alex, what age were you when you first turned?”

“Fourteen.”

“Isn’t that a little young?”

“It’s treated as a rite of passage, for both boys and girls.”

“How did it work? Were you bitten?”

He shakes his head. “There’s another way to turn. It involves a drink.” He shudders. “A very nasty drink.”

“You were forced to drink something?”

“Not forced. Strongly encouraged. It is a personal choice, after all. Anyway, it’s easily the most disgusting thing I’ve ever tasted. And this is coming from a guy who’s eaten rotten coyote guts.”

“What if you refused to partake?”

“Exile. Banishment. But few refuse. Why would we? We’re given near immortality. That’s a gift a lot of people would give just about anything to have.”

I knew Alex had broken the rules of his pack by turning me without permission. Alex, of course, had taken it upon himself to save me. By doing so, I became his responsibility... for damn near forever. In no uncertain terms, I was recently told I couldn’t leave the area. This would be my new home for now—forever. I’d laughed at the absurdity of that, until I realized they were serious. I reminded myself that I have no plans to go anywhere any time soon, so there is no reason to raise a stink over it—for now. One thing is certain, though. No pack is going to tell me what I can and can’t do.

Or so I tell myself.

“How many are in your tribe?”

“There are seventy-four of us. Seventy-five, counting you.”

“Can a female werewolf give birth?”

He gives me an ‘are you kidding’ look. “Of course, though it doesn’t happen often. Because, you know...”

I nod. “So few of you die.”

“Pretty much. We need to control our numbers if only because we don’t want to run out of prey... or cause undue interest in us.”

“So every full moon, seventy-four of you turn into wolves?”

“Not quite. There are still a few juveniles who have not yet made the transition. But yeah, a bunch of us all shift together. It’s quite a sight.”

“What do you do all night long?”

“We hunt, of course. Run free. Roam, chase, frolic.”

“Oh, you did not just say frolic.”

He chuckles. “But that’s exactly what we do. There’s great freedom in the wolf, Elodie. Great power. Great speed. I swear, there’s nothing like running through the forest and open fields, down roads and up hillsides, ears pinned back with wind on your face—running faster and faster, never tiring. Some of us run for hundreds of miles during our night of freedom.” The way he talks about it, he could have been describing a religious experience.

“Sounds... exhilarating,” I say and mean it.

“You’ll know that feeling soon enough, Ells.”

“When I do, I want you to be by my side, Alex.”

He smiles and wraps an arm around me. As he holds me close, I picture running by his side, over glade and glen, bounding over fallen trees and rocketing over rivers and streams, running tirelessly...

I think I just found something other than sex to look forward to.

Chapter Seven

We book two people later that morning at the station.

The first is a middle-aged woman who beat her husband senseless with a Hillshire Farms Smoked Sausage—all fifteen inches of it. Apparently, he’d mentioned her sister’s ‘booty’ one too many times and she snapped. The other is a homeless man who punched Miguel in the nose, though ‘grazed’ is a bit more accurate. I figure the guy wanted a warm place for the night. We’ll accommodate him.

Ed comes by for an update on the break-in; I tell him I don’t have one, then ask again if he has any more information to give. He hesitates before saying he has none. I ask if he is sure about that, and he nods. I’m not convinced. Anyway, since our collective nothing doesn’t equal much, I tell him I’ll let him know if anything comes up... and for him to do the same.

As he’s about to exit my office, he mumbles something about my performance as the chief of police—or lack thereof. Also, he whispers something about my own ass. Apparently he thinks a little more highly of it than my job performance as chief of police. I blink, totally confused.

“What was that, Ed?” I call out to him.

“What’s what?” Having just exited my office, he turns and looks back at me.

“Coulda sworn you said something about me being a crappy chief of police.”

The color drains from his ruddy cheeks; quite frankly, he looks spooked as hell. “Why would I say something like that?”

“And you didn’t just say something about my...”

“Your... what?”

“Er. Never mind.” I smile weakly, feeling a bit spooked myself. “Maybe I imagined it. Have a good day, Ed.”

He stares at me for another second or two. “You, too, chief.”

I sit forward in my chair, elbows on my desk, frowning. I’m certain—damn certain—he’d spoken to me. Except he hadn’t.

Wow. Had I just read my first mind?

***

To cheer Miguel up after the drunken assault on his nose, I treat him to lunch at Gemma’s Gem, a cafe close to the station. Ironically, the gloomy place looks anything like a gem.

More like Gemma’s Garage.

“No kidding,” I say.

“No kidding what, Chief?” asks Miguel.

“About the place looking more like a garage.”

Miguel glances at me sideways. “I didn’t say anything, Chief.”

“Sure you did. You said it looked like a garage...”

“No, I didn’t. Which is funny, because I was just thinking that.”

I swallow. Crap. Unless I’m going crazy, I’d just read my second mind of the day. “I mean, just look at all the license plates on the wall. Obviously, a garage, right?”

“Right. Hey, you okay, Chief?”

“Just hungry,” I say, which isn’t a lie. And these days, it’s never, ever a lie. “Eating will help.”

After the hostess sits us, we immerse ourselves in our menus. As I scan for the biggest burger on it, I hear the little kid at the next table behind me say over and over again that he wants a hot dog with lots of ketchup—and that mommy is a stupid fat butt-head. Yeah, I’m pretty certain he didn’t say that last part out loud.

Yet, I’d heard it. Word for word.

Wow, okay.

When the waitress returns, we give her our drink orders, both Diet Cokes. With all the mind reading going on, I kinda wish we’d gone to a bar—as in, lose myself in some alcohol. But the Chief of Police drinking on duty would be viewed as unseemly.

“How did your meeting with Ed go?” asks Miguel.

Miguel’s innocent question snaps me out of whatever crazy hole I’d fallen into. “I had nothing for him. He had nothing new for me. Neither of us came out of it very happy.”

“Gotta love that part of the job, huh?”

“Unhappy victims with more questions than answers come with the territory.” I shrug. “The thing is... I think he’s holding something back.”

“Oh? Any idea what?” asks Miguel, casually.

“My guess is that he knows what the burglar was looking for, but doesn’t want to come clean.”

“Or it’s just straight up vandalism,” says Miguel.

“Hmm. Except Ed is pushing hard for us to find the perp, which suggests to me he thinks it’s something more than vandalism.”

“But if he knows what they’re after, then why not tell us what it is?”

“Hard to say. Could be something embarrassing.”

“Like a sex tape?”

“Gross. Honestly, who knows?”

“Sounds like Ed just wants to know who’s behind the break-ins.”

“Then what... Ed takes care of it himself?” I ask.

Miguel shrugs. “Find the guy who stole from, get back what’s important to him. Doesn’t seem like such a stretch.”

The waitress returns with our drinks, takes our food order. Biggest hamburger on the menu for me, chicken sandwich for Miguel. I even order an extra patty.

When she’s gone, I say, “Or it could just be a bunch of high schoolers up to no good.”

“Yeah, maybe. Doesn’t explain why he wants them found so bad, though. Sure, they ransacked the place, but most people would let it go.”

“Yeah, maybe.” I sip my Diet Coke, wishing like hell it was a giant meat shake. Geez, what’s wrong with me? “I still get the feeling he’s hiding something from me. But what?”

“If only we could read his mind, chief,” says Miguel, smirking.

“Um, yeah. If only.”

Miguel shrugs. “Or maybe he just wants to teach some punk kids a lesson.”

“Except punk kids would have stolen some booze.”

We make small talk until our food arrives. As we eat, I find myself thinking about the break-in. On the surface, it’s only petty vandalism... basic stuff. Meaning, we’re not talking about a serial killer or organized crime here. A lesser crime, for sure. But a case is a case. Except this sucker finds itself lodged front and center in my thoughts.

What the hell are they looking for, Ed? And what are you hiding?

***

The rest of the day goes by smooth enough.

No real emergencies in our little town in the back of beyond. As such, Miguel asks if it’s okay if he leaves early as he’s feeling a little under the weather. I tell him to knock himself out... and to take some Vitamin C.

After work, I spend some time on the phone with my mother, trying to explain why I need to be here in Hope, Alaska, relying on my old standbys: I need a fresh start, need to find myself, blah blah. How am I ever going to explain to my overly worried mother that I have to be here? That I’m now an honorary member of a tribe of werewolves? And that I might have a werewolf boyfriend, to boot?

My poor, poor mother.

And so, I kept to the innocent standbys; after all, they were the reasons why I ended up out here in the first place. We ended the conversation with her suggesting that maybe she should come out and visit sometimes, to see what all the fuss is about. It’s safe to say I remained noncommittal.

Alex arrives around eight. We spend part of the evening in the living room, cuddled together, while he gives me some pointers on mind reading. Apparently, a lot goes into doing it right: how to focus, when to focus, even where to focus. Concentrating on someone’s frontal lobe is paramount.

He explains it takes time to master, and that not everyone is easy to read. Good liars, for instance, often really believe their lies. Still others have an uncanny knack of hiding their thoughts without realizing it. It takes a skilled mind reader to make their way through the slush.

When we’re done talking, we spend time kissing.

A lot of kissing. Too much kissing.

I send him home before it gets too late... or out of hand.

Then take a cold shower.

Chapter Eight

The next morning, I head out to Ed’s apartment. Time to dig a little deeper, and maybe—just maybe—see inside that noggin of his. What is he hiding? But before I ‘go there,’ I want to give the man a chance to come clean.

Ed’s house is actually the top floor of a new condo complex, one of the newer buildings in Hope. I take an elevator up, my first such ride in months. Heck, I didn’t know Hope had any elevators. I knock, wait. I hear footsteps from deep within the condo. Probably too deep for a normal mortal to hear. Upon opening the door, Ed seems surprised to see me.

After a moment of hesitation, he ushers me into a lavish furnished apartment. Nothing like the rustic, barn-like feel of The Swinery. So how does a bar owner afford all this? Inheritance? Meanwhile, he heads straight to an impressive, fully stocked bar, pours himself a shot of amber liquid, asks if I want one.

“A bit early to drink.” I point to my badge. “Plus, work.”

“Oh, right.” He knocks the amber booze back, pours another.

“You know why I’m here?” I ask.

“Not really, though I can probably guess.” He turns to me, folds his narrow arms across his narrow chest. The drink hangs precariously by his fingertips. So far, his mind remains closed. “When I was a boy, I heard the same whispers everyone else did about this town.”

“What whispers?”

“Shape-shifters, wolfmen. Surely you’ve heard stories by now?”

I give away nothing. Before Alex and Donovan erupted into my life, I’d heard the rumors, too. But from what I gathered... they were only rumors. Per Alex, the pack actively avoids the town at each full moon, preferring to hunt wild prey and run free on the plains. Humans are not on the menu. Obviously people talk, and the tribe members themselves come into town often enough. Sure, the reservation is sprawling, but it isn’t a functioning town, per se, with stores, restaurants and shops. As best as I can tell, the space is used for residences only.

“I’ve heard a rumor or two. Go on.”

He shrugs, swirls his drink. “Well, when you grow up here, they are more than rumors. You hear stories. Crazy stories. Hard not to believe stories. My parents warned me to stay indoors at night, especially on nights of the full moon. Hell, you can hear them howling from miles away on such nights. Hundreds of them, if you ask me.”

I decide to switch the subject; after all, I’m very much part of the folklore now. “What’s going on with the bar?”

“You want the whole story?”

“If it helps me understand what’s going on.”

He nods, finishing off his loosely held glass. “Okay, here goes. And please don’t arrest me for sounding crazy.”

I grin. “No promises.”

“Years ago, just before my father died, he passed on to me a vial of poison. Werewolf poison.”

I do my best to remain calm. “Go on.”

“My father gave it to me for safekeeping when he was on his deathbed.”

He explains more. According to his parents, there was a formula that could kill shape-shifters—no silver bullet needed. A simple poisonous mixture. Once consumed or inhaled, death is instant and, apparently, extremely painful, though he isn’t sure about that last part, having never witnessed it.

“A potion like that could be a problem for some people... or critters,” he adds. “In fact, some people might even kill to have it... or destroy it. Heck, I’m not sure why I’m telling you any of this, other than you’re the chief of police and I can only pray you ain’t one of them.”

“What do you think?” I ask by way of deflection.

“Well, I suppose you’re pretty new to these parts. Can’t imagine they cursed you already.”

“Cursed?”

“What would you call turning into an animal each month? A gift?”

A good question. I guess I’ll know when it happens. Apparently, it’s gonna hurt like hell. Seriously not looking forward to that part. But running free in the woods at fifty miles an hour... oh, hell yeah.

“Suffice to say, my family considered it important enough to keep the potion hidden and to never, ever speak of it.”

“But you’re telling me.”

“Well, you’re the Chief of Police, and you’re here in my home, demanding answers. Hard to say no to that.” He shrugs. “I guess I’m feeling chatty... and a little worried. Not sure who’s interested in the poison or how they even knew about it. I supposed I could have hidden it in a safe deposit box, but who has money for that? And don’t be fooled by the apartment. My brother made a little money in the stock market in his time. When he passed, he left me enough to buy this place cash. Figured it might be nice to get in on something brand new. Truth is, I miss having a front yard and backyard. Then again, I got a helluva view.”

“Your father left the vial with you and not your brother?”

“My brother moved off to Seattle. I stayed here and took care of of my old man. Mom died a long time ago.” He shrugs again. “Guess it was an easy choice for my pops.”

“But why hide it in the bar?”

“Why not? It’s got lots of nooks and crannies. Besides, thought I could keep an eye on it there. Didn’t really want it in my house, being poison and all. Didn’t know where else to hide that sucker.”

“I can see why you didn’t want to have this talk at the station.” Though I doubted the veracity of this poison, someone thought enough about it to steal it. “Where did you hide it, by the way?”

“In a cubbyhole behind a secret panel. All very Nancy Drew. Not easy to spot, or so I thought.”

“What do you mean by that?”

He runs a hand through his thinning hair. “It’s gone, chief.”

I stare, confused. “I thought you said nothing was stolen.”

“I wanted to tell you all about it. I really did. It’s just such a crazy story, you know? Who would believe me? I mean, surely you think I’m crazy even now... or that my whole family is.”

“I’m not sure what to think,” I say, hands on hips, suddenly sick to my stomach. “But someone out there thinks they have werewolf poison. True or not, that can’t be good.”

“No, chief. It’s not. And from what my father said, it’s the real deal.”

“But how did your father come to be in possession of the poison?”

Ed cracks his neck, looks away. “If you don’t mind, chief... I’d like to keep some family secrets. I owe my pops that much.”

Chapter Nine

Back at the station, I’m sitting in my office and, quite frankly, feeling nauseous.

Whether true or not, there is a vial of poison out there purported to kill werewolves just as easily as a silver bullet to the heart. Ed hadn’t known much about the potency of the liquid inside the vial. I know poisons typically work on a sliding scale. Some, like ricin, can kill a man with trace amounts. Others, like cyanide, need larger doses before one even experiences sickness.

Except this poison is meant to kill a supernatural creature. In effect... it is a magical potion. As such, I doubt it obeys the usual laws of science. For all I know, one drop of that stuff can take out dozens, if not hundreds, of werewolves. Or, on the flip side, the entire vial might be needed to kill just a single were. Ed didn’t know. And if he was feigning ignorance, he did a damned good job of convincing me.

What if the bottle is dumped in, say, the Hope water tank? Would it kill all the weres but leave humans alive? Or would it kill both groups? Of course, the Ammagaruqnik tribe is an hour from here. Surely they have their own water supply. Maybe their water supply is the target?

Yeah, I definitely might throw up.

Given the importance with which Ed’s family had treated the vial of poison, it seems reasonable to assume this is indeed the ‘real deal,’ as Ed had said. If so, depending on its potency, there could be a lot of dead bodies before all is said and done. And this time, none of them would be stepping off the morgue slab.

Alex’s tribe—now my tribe—don’t hunt people, preferring to take down deer, elk, rabbits or any other prey that occupies that part of the food chain. And why would they attack people? There is nothing to be gained by letting humans know predators walk among them.

Of course, there are always some bad seeds within any group. Perhaps Alex isn’t being completely honest with me, not wanting to scare me off. Maybe some of the weres really do eat people.

With that disgusting thought in mind, I wonder how many “animal deaths” have been reported near Hope. Hmm. That might be something to look into. I might find a pattern that gives me a starting place for my mystery thief... and what they intend to do with the vial. Are they looking to take out just one were... or a whole tribe?

As much as I’m glad to finally have some direction with this case, Ed’s story has left me with more questions than answers—and a seriously queasy stomach. What chief of police wants to hear that a supernatural poison has been stolen for reasons unknown. Had a loved one been killed by a were, and this is an act of revenge? And how did the thief even know Ed had the poison?

Yes, I had done my best to probe Ed’s pickled brain for his memories, despite his request to keep his family secrets. Sorry, when something is this potentially destructive, I don’t have time for secrets. But between the booze and my lack of telepathic skill, I’d come up with zilch.

Ugh. Enough with telepathy and sneaking around in other people’s minds. I’m a detective, dammit, and a pretty damn good one, too. So, until something breaks, I need to do what I do best: investigate the hell out of this... the old-fashioned way.

I begin with a Google search on poisons for werewolves. I mean, is there such a thing?

“Let’s see,” I whisper.

I feel a little silly, but I figured it’s as good a place to start as any. Maybe I could get lucky and narrow down what might be in the bottle... and ascertain just how potent it might be. An hour of searching later, I finally stumble on a website that sheds some light. Buried deep within it is an alchemical formula specifically designed to kill werewolves—and vampires.

Oh, holy hell. Please don’t tell me vampires are real, too. Or that we’re in some eternal blood feud with them.

I shake away the thought and get back to the formula. The key ingredient seems to be derived from a plant called adontium, which the site helpfully includes a picture of. Wow, it is a beautiful purple flower that kind of resembles the hoods worn by medieval monks. The article mentions another name for it: wolf’s blood. Supposedly, folk tradition holds that it can kill a werewolf when properly prepared—and with just a trace amount.

Great.

A knock at my office door brings me back to the present. After giving myself a mental reminder to delete my search history (how would it look for the Chief of Police to have spent the morning looking up ways to poison werewolves?), I look up to see Miguel on the other side of the glass door. I wave him in as I snap shut my laptop.

“How you feeling today, Miguel?” I ask as he shuts the door behind him.

“Better, thanks.”

“How can I help you, Miguel?”

He clears his throat. “Oh, right. Just wondering where we’re at on the Swinery break-in.”

“Same,” I say. “Not enough of anything to go on. No real evidence. No surveillance. No witnesses.” And no way in hell I’m mentioning that damned poison to anyone but Alex, which I will do the next time I see the big lug.

“Log it as an unsolved B&E cold case?”

I can’t help but snicker. “Well, this is Alaska. All our cases are cold, right?”

He whistles, shoves his hands in his pockets.

“Corny, I know. But before we file this one away, I’ve got something I want to look into first.”

Miguel blinks. “Look into? Didn’t you just said there are no leads?”

“I did, but I’m doing my due diligence. Last thing I need from Ed is another rant about how we didn’t do everything we could to help him out.”

“Yeah, I get that.” His face turns thoughtful. “Say, need any help? We make a pretty good team.”

I smile at the eager deputy. “Naw. Basic stuff. I’ve got this. But if I need help, I’ll let you know.”

He nods, though I can see the disappointment in his eyes. Good guy. Hard worker. Thorough. When he’s gone, I open my laptop again. The pretty purple flower is staring back at me. Hmm. Upon second glance, it doesn’t look so pretty; after all, it supposedly kills werewolves... or has the potential to.

No, not pretty at all.

***

I consider meeting Alex for lunch to discuss the vial of poison, but I’m still not entirely sure how seriously to take it. I mean, I understand Ed’s family takes it seriously, but how legit is this stuff? And how potent?

Ultimately, I decide it’s worth at least a phone call. Considering my line is secure and my office is sound proof, I put the call through to his cell. He picks up on the third ring, which gets a slight grumble from me.

“So, I’m just a third ring gal now?” I ask.

He guffaws on his end of the line. “You’re still my first and second ring gal, Ells. You caught me napping.”

“It’s the middle of the day.”

“Hey, business is slow. All’s quiet here on the rez.”

“Well, maybe not for long,” I say, somewhat ominously—and for getting him back for that third ring business. I fill him in on everything I’d learned from Ed this morning. I also fill him in on my own research to validate Ed’s claims. “To sum up, I have no clue if this stuff is real or not, or who stole it, or why.”

I hear him scratch absently at something on his end. “Well, it stands to reason that something like this might exist. I mean, the werewolf rumors have been floating around here for a while. You gotta figure some of the humans out here will take matters into their own hands.”

“Hey, aren’t we human too?”

“We started out as human, Ells, but turned into something different.”

“Different, better?”

“I’d like to think so. But we are shifters now, for want of a better word. No, Ells, we are very much not human. That, and throw in our semi-eternal lifespan.”

“Semi-eternal?”

“Give or take a few thousand.”

I whistle. “So, do we have anything to worry about here? Have you ever heard of this stuff?”

“Werewolf poison? Yes. Does it work? Haven’t a clue. That someone out there has it and seems to have it out for us... that’s the scary part. I’ll look into it, Ells. See what the elders here have to say.”

“Sounds good,” I say. “And I’ll do my part.”

“Your part?”

“Gonna find the bastard who took it.”

“Of that, I have no doubt.”

***

As the day wears on, I find myself thinking about video security, or lack thereof.

If there had been anything—even the grainiest of images—we might have something to go on. I mean, who runs a bar and doesn’t install security cameras? Grumbling, I make a note in Ed’s file to check surrounding businesses for cameras of their own. Maybe one was pointed in The Swinery’s direction. I mean, someone has to have a damned camera rolling in this godforsaken town.

Taking fingerprints at a bar seems like a waste of time. Then again, taking fingerprints on the actual hidden cupboard might not be. Come to think of it, only Ed’s fingerprints should be on it, right? With that thought in mind, I decide to swing by the bar after work to take a look at this alleged hidden cubbyhole.

Which is exactly what I do. When I get there, the place is empty except for Ed, who, admittedly, doesn’t look terribly distraught over the missing vial. I mean, why did he care? That old vial, as far as he is concerned, is nonsense. That it could kill a werewolf or three wouldn’t concern him much. Despite all the rumors circulating through town, werewolves could still very well be just that... rumors.

No hair off his chiny-chin-chin.

Ed shows me the secret hiding place. It’s actually a good one. It’s behind the bar, high above the shelves of liquor bottles, right near the ceiling. No way anyone would have known it was there. Unless an inebriated Ed (as big a drunk as any of his customers) had blabbed about it to someone he’d trusted.

At my direction, he briefly closes up the empty bar while I examine the secret nook. A flat panel that blends in with the surrounding woodwork, it uses a pressure point to swing in. I used a gloved finger to manipulate it. Once done, I step off the footstool and nod to myself. I’ll send Miguel over to dust for prints, since he’s so eager to help on this case.

In fact, I text him now to get on it this evening when I finish up here. Maybe I’ll send Carl with him. That man always looks like he’s bored.

If Ed had blabbed, it had likely been done late at night when he himself was good and blitzed. The question is... who are his late-night regulars? That might provide a clue. Tie enough of these together—surrounding video, the prints, and a list of late night regulars—and I just might come out of this with a suspect.

I call Ed over, ask him to text over a list of his late night boozers. He says he’ll have it for me tomorrow after giving it some thought. Also tomorrow, I’ll scout the area around The Swinery, when it’s light out, to see who out there might have a camera pointed in the bar’s direction.

I’m beat and hungry. Time to meet up with Alex.

After all, tonight is my first official lesson...

Chapter Ten

By the time we hook up, it’s 6:30 PM.

The sun’s already down for the count and the two of us stand alone in my expansive, two-acre backyard. Too late for birds and squirrels and certainly no traffic on the little road that leads up to my driveway. My closest neighbors are spread out over a mile or so. We are as good as alone.

Holding hands, we gaze up at a sky full of stars and the glowing moon, currently a few days out from being full. The waxing moon, as it’s called. I have to admit... I’ve never been more drawn to the moon in all my life. Granted, we don’t always have clear skies, not at this time of year. But if the moon ever peeks through... yeah, I can stare at it for hours. No surprise there, right?

“So... what do you hear, Ellie?”

“Is this part of the training?”

“Maybe. I’m curious to know if your hearing has fully—for lack of a better term—kicked in.”

“It doesn’t immediately kick in?”

“Not quite. If so, it would overwhelm you. You would literally hear everything for damn near a half mile in every direction. It comes in stages.”

“You can hear everything a half mile in every direction?”

“I could, if I wanted to. You learn to tune in or tune out.” He points to a cluster of bushes glowing in moonlight. Unlike my hearing, my night vision had manifested within days. Everything around me glows softly in the moonlight. The thing is, even without the moonlight, I would be able to see it, though maybe not quite as clearly. “Do you hear a rabbit moving over there, under that bush?”

“The bush that’s a quarter mile away? You have got to be kidding.”

“No, I’m not. There’s a critter in there, trying to sleep, except his guard is up.”

“Why is his guard up?”

“Because he senses us.”

“Humans?”

“No, Ellie. Wolves. Now focus your attention there, and see if you can hear him breathing, shuffling, perhaps even his heartbeat, which is beating a mile a minute.”

“This has got to be a joke,” I mumble. “There’s just no way—son of a bitch.”

He squeezes my hand. “What do you hear?”

“I’m not sure...”

“Keep listening, and keep focusing. Unlike your previous hearing, your new and improved version has the ability to zero in.”

“Shh!”

I’m not trying to be rude. I’d been focused so hard on figuring out what I was hearing that Alex’s words seemed to come from a speaker turned on high. He shushes and I listen. Once I refocus I can make out again what I’d heard... the tiny sound of someone banging on a mini drum—boom, boom, boom—except it’s so very very tiny. And super fast. I’m amazed and shocked when I realize what I’m hearing.

“That poor little guy,” I say after a half minute of silence. “He sounds so scared. I’m afraid his little heart might explode. Oh, hell no.”

“What?” asks Alex in hushed tones.

“I might have just heard him... fart.”

Alex throws his head back and guffaws into the sky. The sound of it damned near makes my head explode, so focused am I on the rabbit in the bush. I cover my ears, ducking. Alex wipes a tear away and tells me I’ll learn how to pull my hearing back.

“So, I can just cast it out and pull it back?”

“Exactly. It will become second nature. Now, what else do you hear?”

“Another rabbit?”

“No.”

“Mating Muskox?”

“Not quite. Listen again.”

It doesn’t take very long for me to hear something on the wind. I wait a second or two more to be sure it isn’t my imagination, but there’s no mistaking it.

“Voices,” I say. “Is someone nearby?”

“Not quite.” He points in the direction of a neighbor’s house, the lights of which can just barely be seen through the forest of trees. I can make out smoke coming from the chimney, and drifting up over the treetops.

“Are they outside? Maybe having a barbecue?”

“No, Elodie. They’re in their home. He’s talking about his day at work. He’s an electrician. Shocked himself today. Damn near killed himself.”

“And she just whispered...”

We both say it together: “Good.”

“Wait,” I say. “Did we just hear her whisper something her husband didn’t even hear?”

“I think so.”

“From damn near a mile away?”

“Looks like it, Ells Bells,” says Alex. “And you might want to keep an eye on that one, especially if hubby dies suspiciously.”

“True.”

We practice for another hour or so. I hear everything from deer moving on the plains to owls sleeping in distant evergreens to an old coyote snoozing in his den damn near five miles away. I even drop in briefly on all the neighbors on my street, though that last part makes me feel like a snoop.

By the time we’re done, I know life for me will never be the same again.

Like, ever.

Chapter Eleven

The following morning, I hit the streets. Well, sort of.

Mostly, I wander around various side streets and back alleys that surround The Swinery. I keep my eyes peeled—and up—looking for anything that resembles a security camera. These days they range from small glass domes that resemble light fixtures, to doorbell buttons, to tiny portable cameras with magnetized mounts. In other words, I keep on the lookout for anything that looks electronic-y. It just might turn out to be a security camera.

As I walk, I sip from a vanilla latte. I try to look nonchalant, not that I’m too worried about being caught wandering back alleys and looking up into the sky like a crazy person. I am the Chief of Police, after all, and I am working a case, so that’s good enough. Still, I don’t want to look too crazy.

The bar sits at the end of a small three-shop shopping center. The middle unit is empty, and the store sitting at the opposite end, You Sew and Sew Tailoring, has no discernible camera. Still, I step inside and ask the little Irish woman with the thick accent if she has any security anywhere that might help with a break in case. She says no and that it’s a pleasure to finally meet the new Chief of Police.

We chat for a bit, and I try like hell to understand her thick accent. She might have said something about “sewing needs” or “Lucky Charms” or “leprechauns.” Yes, I jest, but her accent is that thick.

Behind The Swinery is more parking. Behind that is a small church. I circle the church and see no security cameras... not that I expected to.

North of the three-store shopping center is an abandoned house. For the sake of thoroughness, I walk around the house and see nothing. For the heck of it, I focus on listening inside. I hear nothing but a bit of scurrying. Mice, probably. At any rate, no cameras around the property and no Ring doorbell at the front door. Not that I expected one.

I continue my search, sipping the coffee, nodding at the occasional car that drives by. The bar is located at the north end of town. Just a few blocks from the police department, and not in what I would call the ‘good part’ of town. Not that this part is bad, it’s just sort of... forgotten. Derelict. No gangs or anything. No drug dealing (that I’m aware of). Just a sort of sad section of town. Hope doesn’t experience a ton of crime, but when it does, it tends to come from here. Which is all the more reason to have security.

Other than the house and church... and another empty building that had once been an old playhouse, there isn’t anything else of note. And anything beyond this would be just too far for a camera to be of any use.

Damn.

I head back to my cruiser, where I finish off the rest of my latte. I sit, mind racing, staring through the windshield. A block away is a gas station. A block from that is the police headquarters. The gas station has a camera. I know this because I’ve utilized it on another case a month or so ago, when a kid drove his four-wheeler through their front door. One of their cameras sat in the alley, with a clear shot of the sidewalk directly in front of the station—the very sidewalk that eventually leads to The Swinery to the north... and our police station to the south.

What are the odds the perp had walked to the bar on the night in question? Hard to know. Most crooks like to have getaway cars. Then again, this is the forgotten section of town. If the perp knew he wasn’t dealing with an alarm system, then maybe he wasn’t too worried about getting away too fast.

Of course, the perp could have come up from the direction of the church, or south from the area of the abandoned house. That said, had he or she walked to The Swinery, the most likely route would have been directly in front of the gas station, with its beautiful, clear shot along the alley and toward the sidewalk.

I shrug. Worth a shot.

***

The owner isn’t in, but the kid working behind the counter tells me he’ll text him asap. Sure enough, by the time I reach my office a few minutes later, Joe, the gas station owner, says he’ll email the files for the night in question. I’ll have the files by the end of the day.

Good enough.

I’m considering the veracity of my desire for a second vanilla latte, when my cell phone dings. A text message from Ed Berry. I sit forward, curious, as a list of names appears on my phone’s screen. There are ten of them. I recognize five. Hey, I’ve only been Chief of Police for just over three months. Curiously, one of the five names I recognize causes me to do a double take.

Miguel Sanchez.

Next to his name, Ed adds: Only occasionally, maybe once or twice a week.

There are no hard and fast rules for police officers drinking on the job. People think there is a law about it, but there’s not. Still 100% of the departments across the United States frown upon it. So much so that an officer probably risks being fired. That said, the rules are even more lax for officers drinking after hours and in plain clothes.

That my young officer drinks the night away one or two nights a week at The Swinery gives me pause. I mean, he is all of what... thirty? I guess age doesn’t matter when it comes to booze, but the all-night drinking seems an older man’s game. Certainly not a young, aspiring officer who excels at his job. Does Miguel have a drinking problem? If so, he hides it well. I never suspected. Then again, I don’t hang out at The Swinery, either, and don’t know anyone who does.

Well, not until now.

Funny how Miguel never said anything about his late night sojourn to the watering hole in question. Come to think of it, Miguel and Ed had seemed overly familiar with each other when the bar owner had swung by the station. Not that it’s a crime to drink at a local bar. I’m just not entirely prepared to see my deputy’s name on the list.

I consider calling him into the office. But for what reason? He certainly hadn’t committed any crime. So he drinks a few nights of the week. Might even get shit-faced. Still not my concern. I set my phone aside, drum my unpainted nails on my desk. I shake my head. Gotta talk to him; it’s bugging me.

I press the intercom. “Sandy, send Miguel into my office.”

“Sure thing, Chief.”

A minute later, the young deputy raps on my office door. I wave him in.

“You wanted to see me, Chief?”

“Have a seat, Miguel.”

He does so, smiling pleasantly. His uniform is neat, as always. Shoes polished. Hair trimmed, parted to the side. He certainly doesn’t look like the town drunk. C’mon telepathy! Now would be a really, really good time to start consistently reading minds. But, try as I might... nothing.

“Were you able to lift any prints?” I ask, by way of an opening.

“We did. A few of them. To my admittedly untrained eye, it appeared most were the same.”

“Most?”

“Well, I accidentally touched the panel, so we’ll have to dismiss that print.”

“Right,” I say. “How did you accidentally touch the panel?”

“Well, as you know, it’s high up, above the booze. My stepladder wobbled, and I fell into the panel before I could, you know, pull on my gloves.”

“Fine. Did you log the prints?”

“Logged and waiting for a result. Fingers crossed.”

“Yup, fingers crossed.”

“Was that it, Chief?”

“Not quite.” I sit back, temple my fingers under my chin. “Ed tells me you’re a late night regular at his bar.”

Miguel smiles. “Well, not exactly a regular. Maybe once every few weeks. I try to be respectful of the badge and go in later, when the bar is mostly empty.”

“You didn’t mention that you were a patron of The Swinery.”

“It’s a small town, Chief. I’m a patron of most establishments. I regularly use the Mrs. Clean Laundromat up the street. The Green Apple Market on the corner. The Viking Dental on the other side of town.”

“Right, I get it,” I say. “Just seemed like something you might have mentioned. How friendly are you with Ed?”

He shrugs. “Friendly enough. We talk TV and movies, mostly. Maybe a little politics.”

“Did he ever mention to you something about a family secret?”

“A family secret, Chief?”

“Never mind,” I say, smiling. “That’s all. Let me know asap when you get the print results.”

“Will do, Chief.”

Chewing on my lower lip, I watch him leave my office. Next, I hit the intercom and summon Carl into my office next. The older officer slips in. Cockier than Miguel, he’s also a little more rumpled, shoes scuffed.

“What’s up, Chief?”

“You and Miguel got the prints?”

“Yup.”

“That’s ‘yes, ma’am’ or ‘yes, chief.’”

“Oh, right, sorry.”

“I heard the prints got contaminated.”

“Contaminated, chief? Oh, right. Miguel fell into that weird panel thing.”

“You saw him fall into it?”

“Hmm.” Carl scrunches his forehead, scratching his chin. “Yeah, he tripped going up the ladder, fell into it.”

“Fine. Remember, prints are hard enough to lift cleanly. You guys have to be more careful next time.”

“Right, more careful. Sorry, chief.”

He’s wondering why he’s getting chewed out for Miguel’s mistake, but that’s okay. No, I can’t read his mind, but I can sure see it on his face. “What are you working on now?”

He shrugs. “Finalizing some reports.”

To me, he looks like he needs something better to do with his time. “Go patrol the high school. Make sure those kids are stopping at the stop sign on Western.”

“Now?”

“Yes, now.”

“Okay, Chief.”

He heads out, shutting the door behind him. I lean back, lacing my fingers behind my head, and wonder what the hell is going on.

Chapter Twelve

At six p.m. sharp, Miguel gathers his belongings, inserts in his earbuds, and casually heads out through the station’s front doors.

I watch all this casually from behind the reception desk with Sandy, where I make a show of looking through some old incident reports kept on file. Through a window, I watch as Miguel’s truck crosses the parking and heads out onto the main drag through town. I thank Sandy for letting me look through her files, telling her I don’t see what I’m looking for, but it’s not a big deal. I wish her a good night and head out, making a beeline to my personal 4Runner.

If I can’t utilize on my newly acquired werewolf traits, I can still rely on my old-fashioned cop training. Yes, Miguel is officially on my radar.

Meanwhile, he has a quarter mile lead on me, with a couple of cars in-between. Perfect. Once out of town, I back off and let our distance grow to half a mile. An hour outside of town, Miguel turns onto a familiar road... toward the reservation.

I briefly consider calling backup, but have no basis for doing so on one of my deputies. Not when all I have is a random list of late night drinkers and a bumbling deputy who might or might not have accidentally tampered with evidence.

Worried, I make a left as well, keeping well back. A short but winding road later, instinct tells me to turn off my headlights, which I do. Wow, at this hour, the road should be pitch black, but my eyes see through the gloom with aplomb. My wolf eyes, I should add. Alex said they would adjust more and more to the nighttime. The same way my hearing would grow sharper over time.

As I ease around the next bend, I spot Miguel’s truck turn off the main road... and plunge into a heavily forested area. Within seconds, his vehicle has disappeared. Whoa.

Curiously, we are still a few bends in the road away from the main, guarded entrance into the reservation. Technically, we are reservation adjacent. Not quite on tribal land.

I nearly call in my location, but worry one of my deputies might be in cahoots with Miguel. In cahoots about what, I haven’t a clue.

So, I pull over, too, and find my own hidden nook among the bushes and trees. Once certain my 4Runner probably won’t be seen, I step out and head over to the spot where I’d seen Miguel disappear. I don’t follow him directly; rather, I come in at it from the side. For all I know, he’s waiting to ambush me there, which is a crazy thought to think. Hadn’t the guy given me my first latte this morning? He had indeed.

That was then, this is now.

Commanding my sneakered feet to be as quiet as possible—I wear department-issued thick soled black sneakers—I pause often and listen, casting my hearing in the direction I’m certain Miguel had taken. As of yet, I haven’t found a trail of my own; meaning, I pick my way through the thick forest, over ferns and brambles.

I hear the crunch of feet. Breathing. The jangle of keys in a pocket. I cock my head, switching directions ever-so-slightly.

Soon, I see his sashaying deputy jacket as he moves casually along a narrow trail. A game trail, most likely. Not a human one, Miguel notwithstanding. Meaning, he is off the grid big time.

Where you going, Miguel?

The reservation, though sporting guards at the main gate, isn’t fenced off. This is a community of homes and parks and communal buildings—not a military base. I doubt the residents here are very concerned with crime from outsiders. Patrolled by their own tribal police force and the residents’ own superhuman abilities, no thief would last long here. More than likely, they would disappear off the face of the earth.

I keep my distance as I follow, relying on my hearing to not lose track of him. He’d have to be a werewolf himself to spot or hear me. But I know he’s not, though. I’d heard his thoughts not terribly long ago, back when my telepathy had decided to kick in... only to turn off again. Grr. In the distance, through the trees, I can see a lone cabin spewing chimney smoke. At this point, we are likely on the reservation. Miguel simply chose to make use of a rather long and secret path toward the structure.

He doesn’t want anyone to know he’s here.

The path opens a little and I watch as he heads straight up to the secluded cabin; there, he uses a key to unlock the front door. Once done, he heads inside and shuts the door behind him. What the actual fuck is going on?

I’d just decided to test my newfound super hearing when a black Jeep Wrangler appears along a winding road beyond the cabin, likely from the direction of the reservation. It stops in front of the cabin and the driver steps out, face hidden behind a hooded sweatshirt. Clearly a female, I wait until the new arrival heads inside before easing away from my hiding spot behind the tree.

I creep a little closer, but not so close that a werewolf might pick up on my crunching—or so I hope. Once I have a clear line from my new position, I do what Alex taught me and open up my hearing, directing it at the cabin like a parabolic microphone.

“Hi, baby,” says a voice I think I recognize.

“Hey.”

Kissing sounds. Wet kissing sounds. I feel my late lunch rise up in the back of my throat. What in the Sam Hill is going on? Who is this woman?

I hear the sound of dishes moving, water running. I think someone is making a pot of coffee. More kissing. Gag.

“You seem tense, baby.”

“Chief called me in, wanted to know why I hadn’t told her about Ed.”

“What about Ed?”

“Nothing, really. Just that I knew him prior to the break in. Didn’t know I had to come clean about everyone I knew in the damn town.”

“Why does she care?”

“Ed told her about the missing...” Gah! He mumbles his words. He certainly didn’t say vial or poison. Something else... weed? Devil weed? I’m not sure.

“Yeah, so? Ed was going to probably tell her, anyway. Hard to keep something like that secret. Probably figured it would help her narrow down who to look for.”

“You’d make a good cop.”

“Well, I’ve been around a lot longer than you, kiddo.”

“Don’t call me kiddo.”

“Sorry, baby. Hey, what’s bothering you?”

“She asked about my time I spent at the bar.”

“None of her business, right?”

“Yes and no. No department wants a drunk on staff.”

“You’re not a drunk, hun.”

Miguel makes a noncommittal grunt. “It’s not so much the drinking I care about, Ko. It’s her implication.”

“Implication of what?”

Miguel pauses, and I lean forward. Unfortunately, I also step forward, too, and a damn branch snaps under my foot. Not just snaps, but flat-out cracks. Might as well have been a gunshot to my ears. And to the ears of the woman named ‘Ko.’ A woman I know. A woman who is more than a woman. Much, much more.

“Did you hear that?” she asks suddenly.

“What?” says Miguel irritably.

“Someone’s outside.”

And with that I’m running as fast as my legs can carry me, down along the trail Miguel had used because that has less obstacles. I look back once, thinking for sure I’d heard someone chasing me, but there’s no one there.

By the time I reach my 4Runner, I’m out of breath and certain I’m gonna keel over from exhaustion. But I power through, start my SUV with shaking fingers, and get the hell out of there, checking my rear view mirror the entire way.

No one is behind me.

Thank God.

Chapter Thirteen

I awake the next morning with a skull-splitting headache.

Popping three Advils, I make myself a breakfast of oatmeal and strong black coffee, but the headache persists. Feeling defeated, I call in sick to work for the first time in years. Though I’d only been at this present job for three and a half months, Sandy can’t keep the surprise out of her voice when I tell her, but there’s no avoiding it.

I spend the better part of the afternoon lying in bed, keeping my eyes closed and the blinds shut. At a quarter to three, my doorbell rings. When it does so a second time, I stumble out of bed, throw on my silk robe, and find Alex at the door holding a small paper bag. I smell soup; in particular, chicken soup.

“Been texting you.”

“Been sleeping.”

“Headache?” he says, nodding.

“How did you know?”

“They usually come on just before a turning—worse when you’re a new wolf.”

“Oh, joy.” Shielding my eyes, I wave him in. The sun is legitimately my enemy. “How’d you even know I’d be home? Don’t tell me you’ve got some sort of werewolf tracking app.”

He chuckles. “I went to the station to take you out to lunch, but they told me you’d called in sick. So, I did what any dashing hero would do...” He reaches inside the bag and pulls out a circular white container. “I went to the store and got you some hot...”

“Chicken soup,” I say, gesturing for him to follow me in the kitchen.

“I see there’s nothing wrong with your nose.”

Though my appetite is lacking, I work doggedly at the soup. Before I know it, the container is empty and my head feels clear enough to have a conversation. “So, why the headache, bub?” I ask.

“Hard to say. Probably the body preparing to transition.”

“Count me not a fan.” I rub my temples and, despite my bed’s beckoning call, find myself telling him about Miguel’s late-night drinking sessions at The Swinery and the mishandling of the evidence collecting. Which reminds me... I might have an email waiting for me from the owner of the gas station regarding security footage. Stupid transitioning has scrambled my brain.

“Your theory being what? That a drunk Ed Berry—perhaps trusting a regular patron who just so happened to be in law enforcement—had blabbed about the hiding spot?”

“Is it so hard to believe?”

“Actually, no. It’s a decent theory. Drunk Ed probably thought his secret was safe.”

“That is, of course, if Miguel stole the vial,” I add. “For all we know, a half dozen people heard Ed spill the beans about the vial’s hiding place.”

“And you figure Miguel muddied the fingerprints to mask his own prints left at the crime scene?” asks Alex.

“Hardly a crime scene,” I say. “The vial might be a fake for all we know.”

“Would be a crime scene if it was real and used on us, Ellie.”

“True. Dammit. Had I known he was a potential suspect, I would have sent Carl in alone to collect the prints.”

“Hindsight is 20/20. You didn’t know, kiddo.”

“That’s Chief Kiddo to you. But there’s more.”

“Oh?”

“After seeing some of this sketchy behavior, I followed Miguel after work last night.”

“Obviously he went straight home and made hot cocoa.”

“Hot cocoa?”

“It’s what I do after work.”

“I’m not sure I believe that,” I say.

He chuckles. “So, where did he go?”

“The reservation. Well, just outside of it. He parked in the woods and hiked the rest of the way in.”

“Well, shit,” says Alex, standing. “So, the one viable suspect we have regarding the missing vial, just sneaked his way onto the reservation?”

“If not on the reservation, right next to it. Reservation adjacent. But I think so, yes. There’s more, Alex.”

I tell him about the cabin in the woods, and his rendezvous with a particular werewolf. I tell him about the intimate greeting, and the brief conversation they had; in particular, that he felt I had implied he knew something about... something. “And then I stepped on a branch and she heard me. I got the hell out of there, and fast.”

“Too bad, Ells. Would have been nice to know what he was so worried about, but my guess is that he thinks you think he had something to do with the vial.”

“Well, I do now, that’s for sure. There’s one more thing, Alex.”

“I don’t like that tone.”

“He called her ‘Ko’.”

Alex sucks in some air. “Koko?”

“Would be my guess,” I say.

To my relief, Alex doesn’t seem too bothered by the news. Granted, Koko had been his girlfriend quite a while ago; in fact, his own brother Donovan had dated her at one point, too. Guess we could add Miguel to that growing list.

“Alex, why does she live on the edge of the reservation?”

He shrugs. “She’s been excommunicated for her role in the attack on Donovan. The cabin is there as a sort of halfway house, I guess. Neither off the reservation, nor on it, and far enough removed to feel like punishment. With good behavior, she will eventually be allowed back in.”

“Except she’s hooked up with someone who might have stolen a vial of what could be werewolf poison. You think she’s out for a little revenge?”

“Revenge for what? Punishing her for being party to a crime?”

“Maybe she doesn’t see it that way. Or maybe Miguel is using her somehow.”

“Either way, he shouldn’t have been at the cabin.”

“Which is why he took the long route in,” I suggest. “And if he did steal the poison, he could be planning something big. If so, Koko might very well be helping him.”

“These are big leaps, Ells.”

I ignore him, tapping my front tooth with my fingernail. “Hmm. You could always just so happen to cross paths with him at, say, the station bathroom and read his mind.”

“Good plan, except the headaches also do something else to us.”

“Don’t say it.”

Alex nods. “They muddy mind reading. I’m afraid I won’t be of much use until after the full moon. And even a little after that. Takes a few days to sort of come back to yourself.”

“Which might be too late.”

“What do you mean?”

“Perhaps Miguel knows this is the perfect time to strike.”

“Okay, now you’re making me nervous, Ells.”

I take in some air. “Join the club. With no mind reading, I’m going to need to investigate this the old-fashioned way... with a little legwork.”

Alex wags his eyebrows. “Why did that just turn me on?”

“What did? Old-fashioned?”

“No, legwork.”

I shake my head. “No fooling around, mister.”

He makes a show of sighing, then perks up. “I contacted one of our shamans about the wolf’s blood. I had to. I can’t keep something like this secret from the tribe.”

“I understand.”

“Anyway, he might know what to do, Elodie. The shaman asked to meet with us in person. He’ll be here around eight tonight.”

“Here? Tonight? Should I be nervous?”

“Probably not. Takeshi gets snarly at humans, especially the New Agey types. But with new members of the pack, he cuts some slack. Just don’t go out of your way to insult him and it’ll be fine.”

I pat Alex’s muscular chest. “Well, I’ll trust my chicken-soup-bearing hero to make the arrangements. Right now, I need to sleep off this headache.”

“Wait, did you actually just call me your hero?”

“Anyone who feeds me is my hero.”

He helps me back into bed and there’s a little bit of heavy petting, though it doesn’t get out of hand—or change the fact I still need to rest. Especially now that I know the shaman is coming out later tonight. Even so, it’s hard watching Alex leave with the knowledge that I want nothing more than to spend the day in bed with him.

But I really do need to rest; after all, something is happening to me that’s way more serious than a headache.

Something life changing...

Chapter Fourteen

I sleep fitfully, dreaming of wolves.

Running with wolves, hunting with wolves, dancing with wolves. Okay, that last part is a joke, but it has some truth. The wolves in my dream move as one, a true pack. I have never been part of something resembling a pack before. I’ve never had an alpha leader. Who, exactly, is our alpha leader? A good question. I don’t know. I doubt it’s Alex or his brother. But in my dreams, I happily obeyed the alpha, heading this direction or that, choosing this prey or that. Stopping to rest here, to drink there. All done with conformity... but pride, too. We are more powerful together. Unstoppable, even.

I awaken in a sweat, my headache subsided. Thank god. I’m surprised to find Alex sitting next to me, looking down with a mixture of concern and... well, I was gonna say love, but clearly we aren’t there yet. Fondness? Adoration?

“You okay?” he asks, resting a hand on my shoulder.

“Yes. No. I don’t know. I’m sweating. I dreamed of being a wolf. And not just a lone wolf, but part of a pack.”

“I believe the dreams help prepare us.”

“You have them, too?”

“Right before turning, yes. They have a way of pulling us out of this world and into a far, far stranger one. I think—and I could be wrong here—that this is done so that the transitioning isn’t so jolting.”

“As in, we’ve already mentally taken that journey.”

“Something like that. It helps smooth the transition from man to wolf—and back again.”

“I never thought of losing one’s individuality for the needs of the pack.”

“You don’t lose it completely. Even wolves can resist.”

“But I had a sense of doing everything for the good of the pack, and this was met with approval by the alpha. Alex?”

“Yeah, babe?”

“Who is the alpha? Is it you?”

“No, Ells. He’s an elder tribesman who lives alone on the reservation. However, once we shift... we all gravitate toward him and follow him.”

“Follow him where?”

“Wherever he wants.” He smiles down at me. “The shaman is here, waiting. I’ll let you get ready.”

***

I pull on some jeans and a t-shirt, tie my hair back into a ponytail, and head down the short hallway to the living room beyond.

Alex is seated across from a man with long graying hair, itself pulled back into a ponytail. He’s dressed in a white button-down shirt and faded jeans. Tattoos line his forearms, his wrists adorned with chunky silver and jade bracelets. He sports a watch as big around as a sundial. He looks both stoic and pleasant at once. Mostly, I sense this man knows what he’s doing.

They both stand as I approach.

“Takeshi,” says the middle-aged shaman, offering me his hand.

It’s softer than I’m expecting. We shake.

“Elodie,” I say.

I sit next to Alex on the couch, the shaman opposite us in my old pleather recliner someone at the station had given me when I first moved in. When spring comes around, I’ll see about redecorating the place. For now, working as Hope’s chief of police occupies much of the space in my mind. That, and being a new werewolf.

“How’s the transitioning coming?” Takeshi asks warmly enough. The smile in his eyes tells me he’s genuinely concerned if there are any problems.

“Painful,” I answer truthfully. The ghost of this morning’s headache makes me rub my left temple. “Started the day off with the mother of all migraines.”

Takeshi doesn’t look surprised. “Yeah, that’s going to happen. The changes you’re experiencing can be overwhelming at first. That’s why I think they come in waves. It gives the new recruit time to adjust without losing their mind.”

“You’re telling me the headache is only the first wave?”

“Sadly, yes. Truth be told, not everybody survives to their first full moon.”

I know this, kind of; still, alarm rockets through me. Alex senses this and pats my knee. “Why not?” I ask.

“Not everyone is an ideal recruit. If someone proves themselves to be too reckless early on, the council might make the decision to...”

“To what?”

“Eliminate them,” Takeshi says.

“Please tell me you gentlemen aren’t here to kill me,” I say, suddenly sick to my stomach.

“Of course not,” says the shaman. “We see you as a valuable addition to the tribe. It gives us eyes and ears into the town. And who better than the chief of police?”

“I won’t be used as a spy,” I say.

The shaman smiles. “The only information we want is anything you’re willing to share for the betterment of the tribe.”

“You consider me one of the tribe?”

“Honorary, of course. But, yes.”

Being part of a tribe appeals to me on some level. Though I grew up in a small nuclear family, I did flourish within a police department, itself a sort of pack. Maybe I’m less independent than I thought. Is that so bad? “So you consider me one of your people now?”

“That said, you won’t be an official member until your first turning.” He sits back. “Perhaps we should move to the subject of the wolf’s blood potion?”

“Sure,” I say.

“Very well. Then allow me to tell you a story.” Takeshi clears his throat, takes a deep breath. “Many years ago, perhaps a hundred or more, there was a werewolf named Ahanu. Later in life, he came to regret the gift of near eternal life. Mostly, he didn’t trust himself when he took the shape of the wolf, and lived in constant worry that he’d harm someone he cared about. And so, Ahanu tried every possible way he could think of to end his life. Silver, of course, would have been the fastest way to do so... except there is no silver readily available in this tribe or any nearby tribe.” He holds out his hands, bracelets clattering at his wrists. “These are, in fact, steel. Those who remember him believe he should never have turned. But what was done was done. Personally, I think he might have suffered from a mental malady, perhaps even schizophrenia.”

“And turning didn’t cure him of that?” I ask. “I thought that becoming a wolf cures one of all diseases.”

“Physical diseases, Chief Elodie. But the mind remains a curious frontier. Who is to say what is sick and what is normal? Anyway, eventually he discovered adontium—wolf’s blood—and quite by accident.”

The shaman explains further. Ahanu had been hiking through the deep woods when he accidentally ripped open his skin on what proved to be the branch of an adonite tree. The wound refused to heal, and he would learn later from the shaman at the time—not Takeshi—that he had inadvertently discovered the rare and accursed plant. Ahanu would spend the next few months looking for that same plant, retracing his steps. Finally, he found it again and proceeded to distill the poison found in the vial today. Granted, he never meant for the poison to last longer than a single swallow.

“So what happened?” I ask, raising an eyebrow. “Did something change his mind?”

“He would learn his wife was with child. It was reason enough to live... and to give up on the whole idea. Of course that left a new problem. He was still in possession of his carefully prepared anti-wolf potion, derived from a plant only he knew the location of.”

I hold up my hand like I’m back in grade school. “But how do you go from a quasi legend to being in Ed Berry’s possession?”

The shaman nods. “As Hope steadily grew, some of our kind became friends with the white man—though always wary, and always keeping our distance. Ahanu eventually became friends with a lawmen by the name of Ralph Berry. Later, Ahanu would entrust his new friend with the potion with the clear understanding that if Ahanu—or others within the tribe—became dangerous, Ralph would use it to protect the town. The Berry family has been safeguarding this poison ever since.”

“The tribe knew the Berry family had the potion all this time?”

Takeshi nods, face patient.

“And nobody thought to, oh, I don’t know, destroy it before it became a problem?” Weird how I immediately take the side of the wolf. The lawman in me should have seen the benefit of having such a weapon against such a powerful enemy.

Except... I’m now the enemy.

“As a tribe, we were not made aware of the potion until decades later, when Ahanu’s wife finally told her only son of it. By then, it was believed to have been destroyed or lost. Once the elders knew of the poison, we immediately sought out the Berry clan, but by then the grandfather and son had passed, leaving only Ed and a brother who had long since moved away.”

“And?” I asked. “All you had to do was search his mind for the location.”

“We did, but something curious happened.”

I raise my eyebrows, waiting.

“He had in his memory a false hiding place, implanted, I believe, by his father. It is an old trick, for those knowledgeable of how to use it.”

“How would Ed or his father be knowledgeable...” I nod, snapping my fingers. “Ahanu.”

“Indeed. Ahanu taught the family how to hide memories from those of us seeking answers.”

“So, you searched the false hiding location, found nothing, and assumed the vial of poison had been lost?”

“Precisely. Eventually, the poison drifted into legend even among the legendary. Most in our tribe doubt it ever existed. It is only now that I see we were all duped.”

“So, what wound up happening to Ahanu?”

“His child grew into the shaman you see before you.” He waits for me to overcome my surprise. “My father eventually found the silver he so desperately sought, constructed a single bullet, and shot himself in the heart with a handgun. I found his body as a young man. My father was finally at peace.”

“I’m sorry to hear that,” I say.

“Thank you. It is the way. However, with the potion still in existence—and now stolen—none of us are safe, including you, our newest recruit.”

“Ergo, we’ve gotta find it,” Alex says.

“Just how deadly is this stuff?” I ask.

“Hard to say, Chief Elodie. First off, we don’t know if Ahanu concocted it correctly... or how much exactly was distilled. The plant is known to us, of course, but seems to be extremely rare. That my father stumbled upon it in the first place is incredible. He did show me the wound that never healed, so I believe the story. My gut tells me a few drops could likely spell our doom. An entire bottle could wipe out every pack in the area.”

Chapter Fifteen

With Alex and Takeshi gone, I sign on to my kitchen laptop.

Strange how a whole tribe’s potential future and well being fell upon the shoulders of the newest ‘recruit.’ I suppose I could have given up Miguel’s name as a possible lead. Had I done so, I suspect the full wrath of the tribe would have descended down upon my hardest working young deputy. I don’t have near enough evidence to sell him out like that... or to potentially cause him harm. After all, this investigation has gone way beyond civic duty. In the real world, no one cares one iota that Miguel (or someone) has stolen the vial. Ransacked the bar looking for it... maybe. Which implies that Ed hadn’t totally given away the hiding place to Miguel... perhaps just enough of a hint for my deputy to have a general idea where to look.

And why on earth would Miguel want such a poison?

The million dollar question, no doubt.

Before Alex left, we discussed the possibility that Koko had taught Miguel how to block his thoughts. I asked Alex how common the technique was, and he admitted most knew it, though few passed it on to humans. Koko, for whatever reason, might very well have passed it along. Which was a moot point, considering Alex and his fellow werewolves mostly lost the ability to read minds just before the full moon. Mostly is the key word here. Alex was willing to swing by the station tomorrow just in case something came to him.

My gut tells me Alex won’t find much—even if his mind reading abilities are on full power, which they aren’t. Somehow, some way, Koko and Miguel have conspired to hide the information about the theft—and the reason behind it, since I hadn’t picked up on anything yet. Then again, that doesn’t mean much.

Moving on...

Without direct access to Miguel’s mind (unless Alex found a way through tomorrow), I need to rely on tried and true investigation techniques. One of which is to follow the evidence. Granted, the security footage is a long shot. The gas station is a full block away from The Swinery. That said, the sidewalk in front of it isn’t heavily trafficked, especially at those hours.

Might get lucky.

As promised, the email is waiting there for me, via my department’s official account, which I have access to here at my home. This isn’t the White House or a matter of national security. I’m permitted to work from home. That said, the station’s tech guy did come out and add various firewalls and security to my computer. Should it get stolen, no one, but no one would have access to it. Being Chief of Police, that is probably best.

The gas station manager writes ‘Hope this helps’ in his email and includes a downloadable media file. Easy enough. I click on it and my media player opens right up. So far, so good. As requested, I have about eight hours of footage to review. All from the perspective of a camera set up in the alley, pointing toward First Street. The street the police station happened to be on, and also The Swinery.

I put on a pot of coffee and make a sandwich, all while keeping an eye on the screen. Okay, maybe not the most professional examination of footage ever, but I happen to have super eyesight these days. Even from the kitchen sink, I can see the screen pretty clearly. And what I see is a lot of nothing. The occasional car driving by. No one walking yet. It’s cold here, colder than most winters in other regions, even though it’s March.

Working blindly, feeling my way for the faucet and the coffee maker, I also drop in some toast into the toaster. I’m craving me a PB&J.

With the coffee percolating and the toaster toasting, I sit back at the laptop and drum my fingers on the counter. No nail polish. I’m not against it, just hadn’t had much reason to put it on. Maybe if Alex takes me on a proper date I’ll add some red polish. The city of Hope is small and slightly back woods (okay, a lot back woods), but there are a couple of nice restaurants in town. One of which sports its own lake and outdoor seating, complete with heat lamps and covered patio. Yes, should we find ourselves at The Cosmopolitan, I’ll certainly look the part.

For now, I have to figure out if Miguel has the damn vial. And if so, why. What the hell did he plan on doing with it? Now, if the footage turned up nothing, Miguel and I will have a little drive, and I’m damn well going to get to the bottom of things. And if he is innocent, I can always apologize later. For now, sadly, he is suspect #1.

Ugh. What if he’s planning something nefarious tonight?

Damn well better not.

So, before I start tossing around accusations, I need more facts, if possible.

I mean, who hears the words “I am the keeper of werewolf poison” and decides to act on it? That said, I happen to know that Miguel and his family had suffered a bizarre tragedy, as recounted to me only last month, when Miguel and I had examined the body in the woods. A body that had belonged to Alex’s brother, Donovan. A dead body that hadn’t really been a dead body, considering the bastard had come back to life on the autopsy table, scaring the living bejesus out of me.

Speaking of brothers... it had been Miguel’s own brother who’d been found dead with a silver-tipped spear in his chest. Miguel’s tribe—different from Alex’s and one that very much hadn’t fully embraced the wolf—had burned the body, fearing Miguel’s brother had been a shifter. I don’t know the whole story... and when Miguel had spoken of it at the time, it had seemed weird enough that I dismissed it.

Crazily, that hadn’t even been a month ago.

Now, of course, I knew far, far, far, far too much about werewolves. So much so that I’m one of them myself.

Had Miguel’s brother actually been a werewolf? A silver-tipped spear seemed to indicate someone believed so. But who had killed him, and why? Did Miguel blame someone from Alex’s tribe (and now my tribe) for the death of his brother? If so, it would explain why he wanted the poison. That tragedy had happened when Miguel was a boy... I’m guessing, over twenty years ago. True, such grudges could last a lifetime. And hearing about the poison from a drunken Ed might have reignited the need for revenge.

So, is the poison meant for one person... or an entire tribe?

Or maybe all the werewolves in the region?

Then again, it very much seemed his brother had been a werewolf, too. Otherwise, why bother with a silver-tipped spear, then? Or burning the body, as Miguel’s tribe had done.

Sounds to me like this could have been a werewolf on werewolf crime, but I could be wrong. It’s just hard for me to believe that a human could have killed a werewolf with a silver-tipped spear. Weres are stronger, faster, and quicker. A one-on-one fight wouldn’t end well for even the strongest of humans.

Unless his brother hadn’t been a werewolf, and the silver-tipped spear had been a precaution.

My guess is that it had been two weres in a fight to the death. One made it, the other hadn’t. The one who didn’t had left a little brother behind... who apparently still sought revenge.

All conjecture, of course... but it made a certain sense.

Well, it made sense out here, far removed from the real world.

Who had killed Miguel’s brother, and why?

I wonder if Miguel even knew... and he simply blamed all werewolves. Miguel isn’t a shape-shifter, but his brother might have been, which doesn’t suggest much. Only that his brother had perhaps chosen to become one.

Or had been made into one against his will, like me. Well sorta. Not much of a choice, turn or die.

Either way, not all tribes out here are like Alex’s. Some choose the way of the wolf, while others don’t. The Ammagaruqnik are unusual in that all chose the wolf... or were excommunicated.

How and why Miguel’s brother had been turned into a werewolf seemed less concerning than who killed him. Is Alex’s tribe at risk? Or another tribe? Or are all shifters? Sadly, I now fell into the last category. Of course, Miguel could be going after one person in particular, but I don’t think so.

Why?

Because a silver-tipped bullet would do the trick. If Miguel wanted revenge on a single individual, he possibly could have ambushed the person and shot him dead. Poison seemed overkill and roundabout and not very efficient... unless he had direct access to the person’s beer. For my money, it just seemed a lot of damned work to use poison to kill one particular werewolf... especially when the amount is potent enough, according to the shaman, to kill an entire tribe.

All of this is conjecture. I still need this last piece of the puzzle before I confront him... proof that Miguel is truly up to something.

Two pots of coffee—and multiple bathroom breaks—later, and I find something. It isn’t much. But it is something.

A thin man in a bulky dark jacket and dark slacks heads past the alley entrance in the direction of The Swinery. Head ducked, hands in pockets. I can’t make out the details of his face, as it’s mostly buried in the collar of his jacket. The figure is indeed the size and shape of Miguel. But it’s the shoes I notice most. His very shiny shoes. Shoes which Miguel takes great pride in polishing each and every day, or so he says. And I have no reason not to believe him.

Is it him? Hard to say for sure, and it probably wouldn’t hold up in court. The timestamp is 6:43 p.m. Miguel’s shift ends at 6:30 on most days.

And on the night in question—I’d already checked—his shift ended at 6:30.

I save a little (a lot) of time, and fast forward till after midnight, the official closing time of The Swinery. Per Ed, he allows some of his regulars to stick around and sober up, even while he starts his own drinking. Doesn’t seem like a recipe for good bar management; then again, what do I know? Seems to me that being sober after a hard day’s work, especially when there is money involved, is a good idea.

I probably could have saved a lot of time by starting, say, at two in the morning, but I really don’t know when the regulars start spilling out for home. Ed claimed they were all sober by that point, which is why he let them hang around for another hour or so. ‘No booze after midnight’ is his motto. Well, no booze for the patrons. Ed is a different story, apparently.

Suddenly wide awake, I watch eagerly as the seconds and minutes tick by; after all, this is the night in question, when the bar had been robbed.

My knee bounces. My nails clack on the marble countertop.

1:00 a.m. rolls past. 2:00 a.m.

At 3:34 a.m., I see a figure stroll past the alley entrance. A figure wearing dark clothing and impossibly shiny shoes.

Again, this wouldn’t hold up in court. But there would be no courts in this case, anyway.

If I have to guess, I would say Miguel had hung around the bar long after Ed had finally closed up for the night. Considering there had been no evidence of a break-in, I would suggest Miguel had hung out in, say, the storage room until Ed finally left.

Then ransacked the place until he finally found the poison.

Then strolled back to the station, where he had undoubtedly left his vehicle.

Why did he leave the vehicle at the station? Easy enough. He drank the night away a few times a week at The Swinery, and didn’t want his vehicle seen there late at night. Makes sense for a cop to not advertise his drinking habits.

Miguel... what are you up to?

Chapter Sixteen

One day until the full moon.

Strangely, I’m not as hungry as before; at least, not ravenously so. The headache comes and goes—not steady agony. Thank God for that. I’d already finished all the Advil in the medicine cabinet. Had the headache been a continuous one, I might take my sidearm and just end things now. Yeah, it’s that bad.

I spend some time making myself presentable, wolf down (heh heh) a bagel and cream cheese, and head out the door. On the way to the station, I stop at Mona’s Coffee and get myself a mocha latte. Mona is a sweet old lady who always adds a chocolate covered coffee bean to any order. Funny how I always look forward to that single coffee bean sitting on the cup’s lid. Mmm.

The instant I walk into the station, Sandy hands me a small stack of complaints and petty crime: noise complaints, suspicious loitering, and someone with a smashed car window.

I barely look at them. “Where’s Miguel?”

“Called in sick. Said he wasn’t feeling well and might be out for a few days. Might even stay with his father on the reservation.”

“Any idea where his father lives?”

“Nope.”

“Anyone else here might know?”

“Try Henderson. They’re friends. Everything okay, Chief?”

“Uh, yeah. It’s nothing. Just needed to speak to him.”

“Try his phone.”

“Oh, right.”

“You sure everything’s okay?”

I hold up my coffee. “Only half done. Brain hasn’t kicked into gear yet. Can you send Henderson in to see me?”

“Sure.”

With that, I pull out my cell phone and dial Miguel. Straight to voicemail. As I sit behind my desk, tossing the complaints on my desk, Henderson swings by.

“You wanna see me, Chief?”

“Yeah. Looking for Miguel. Might be on the reservation with his father. Any idea where I can find them?”

“Sorry, Chief. There are like four or five tribes within a hundred miles from here. No clue which one.”

“Do you know his father’s name?”

“Nope.” He shuffles his feet. “Is that it?”

“That’s it,” I say, and watch him leave.

Hmm. Some friend.

I absently flip through the complaints, organizing them in order of importance. Then promptly set them aside, drumming my nails on the desk.

What the hell are you up to, Miguel?

I try his cell again. Voicemail again. Must be turned off. I pull up his employee file, but find nothing in there about his father. His mother, yes. Deceased. Nothing about a dead brother, though. Not hugely surprising. The personnel file is voluntary. Miguel didn’t have to volunteer the info about his brother possibly being killed by a silver-tipped spear... or that he even had a brother. And considering this sounded like a tribal conflict, including the burning of the body, no one but those within the tribe would have known the details.

I have no reason to doubt Miguel’s story. I truly believe he’d found his brother dead with a spear in his chest and his tribe burned the body.

More finger drumming. I call Alex.

“Ells bells,” he answers. “Long time, no speak.”

Okay, that makes me laugh. “I need a favor.”

“Anything but sex. One more day, remember?”

“Like I could forget, Casanova. Anyway, Miguel called in sick, saying he might be out for a few days.”

“Sounds like a werewolf to me.”

“What do you mean?”

“Werewolves around the world are calling in sick as we speak. Except for those on our reservation, that is.”

“I could read his mind—or at least snatches of it. He’s not a werewolf. Besides, I’m looking at his personnel file, he hasn’t called in sick since being employed here, five years ago.”

“So, the one and only time he calls in sick corresponds with the theft of the poison.”

“Yup,” I say. “Which brings me back to why I’m calling you.”

“You want me to find him.”

“I do.”

“Check his home?”

“That, and try to find which reservation he’s from. Miguel told Sandy he might stay with his father for a few days.”

“Nothing about the tribe in his file?”

“Nope.”

“Anyone at the station know?”

“I checked. No one.”

“Okay, this might take a bit. What’s his home address?”

I read it off to Alex.

“Okay,” he says. “I’ll swing by there, then head over to Koko’s cabin. Maybe she knows.”

“Unless she’s in on it.”

“God, I hope not.”

“You have a weapon?” I ask.

“My trusty .45. Then again, this is Koko we’re talking about.”

“And Miguel, don’t forget. An armed policeman.”

“Unless it’s silver bullets, I’m not too worried.”

“Just be careful,” I say, and hang up after a moment of hesitation. The reason for my hesitation? Because I damn near told him I loved him. Okay, that was a close one.

The rest of the morning passes by in a nervous blur.

Alex calls throughout the day with some updates: No sign of Miguel at his home. Koko isn’t at her home either. He swept the town and found no sign of Miguel’s personal truck. Nice to have a secret investigator working with me, especially since I can’t ask any of my other deputies to help with this one.

Nope. Not when werewolves are involved.

Chapter Seventeen

With Alex currently tracking down Miguel, I step out for a bite to eat, though this proves to be a mistake. Almost immediately I’m rushing off to the cafe’s bathroom, hurling the food up almost as soon as it goes down.

Note to self: no eating the day before the full moon.

When I return from “lunch”, the station is in an uproar.

Henderson flags me down from his desk, fills me in. There’s been yet another break-in at The Swinery—except this time, Ed Berry got assaulted. The bar owner is waiting outside my office.

I nearly have to duck under the goose egg forming over his right temple. “You should see a doctor, Ed,” I say, guiding him into my office by his elbow.

He waves off my suggestion. “I’m fine, I swear.”

“Hold on,” I say, reaching for the intercom buzzer. I ask Sandy to fetch a bag of ice from the break room. “Sorry, that thing on your head is a little distracting. Okay, let’s talk. What happened?” Luckily, my office is sound proof, as it should be.

“I came in early this morning...”

“At the bar?”

He nods. “I got to work on my inventory in the backroom—”

There’s a knock at my office door.

“Hang on, Ed. First things first. Let’s get some ice on that thing.” I wave Sandy in, and she hands him a zip-lock baggie full of ice. He takes it from her, gently presses it to his ever-growing bump. I think we all wince. Sandy leaves; I ask him to continue.

“Right. Well, I heard someone come in without knocking, which pissed me off. Thought for sure I had locked the door. So naturally, I head out into the bar to see who the hell it is, but don’t see anyone. That’s when somebody jumps me from behind and bam, lights out.” He points to his bruised noggin.

As he speaks, I note the way a vein pulses along his temple. Ah, hell... can I hear his heartbeat? Yes, there it is... a rapid thump-thump-thump, like the staccato beating of a distant drum. Okay, wow, I’m hearing this clear as day while he’s sitting all the way across the friggin’ desk from me. Nuts.

“Did you happen to see who attacked you?”

He looks away. At the forefront of his thoughts, I see a sudden image. A blurred shape of what could be a very large woman.

“Not really,” he says with a shake of his head, then instantly regrets it.

“But you saw something?”

“Um, just a blur,” he says, followed by a string of thoughts that I hear clear as day: No way that was a woman. No way that was a woman. Was that really a woman?

“Fine,” I say, really not needing him to admit to anything at this point, as long as I can see the real answers in his mind—or hear them. “How long were you out?”

“Not sure. All I know is that I woke up on the floor and the, ah, attacker was gone.”

“I don’t get it,” I say. “Assuming this is our thief, he or she already got what they came for. Why would they return?”

Just as I say this, I get another flash from Ed. He thinks he might have recognized the woman. A Native American he’d seen at the bar before, but he’s not sure. It really had been a blur.

A female werewolf? Could explain how she managed to break in and silently sneak up on him... and hit him hard enough to knock him senseless. Then again, I could pretty much do the same, werewolf or not. But still...

“Oh, right.” He clears his throat a little. “Well, I, uh, didn’t tell you the whole story about the potion.”

I stare at him as he shifts uncomfortably.

“See... the potion’s useless unless a key ingredient gets mixed in. What’s called a stimulant or activator.”

“And what would the activator be?”

“For the poison to work, it needs the blood from its original creator. Ahanu.”

“That makes no sense,” I say, shaking my head. “Why would the key ingredient need to be blood?”

Ed chuckles. “We’re talking magic here, Chief. How the hell do I know? But my best guess is that his blood was built into the recipe as a sort of safeguard. That way, should the poison get into the wrong hands... you know?”

“Right,” I say. “So where are you going with this?”

He looks away, the ice bag slipping a little. If anything, the knot on his head looks even bigger. “Because it’s gone now, Chief.”

“Jesus H. Christ on a crutch,” I mumble, using my dad’s old go-to phrase, which made no sense to me, but I liked the sound of it. “Don’t tell me you kept that in the bar, too?”

“In a different compartment. Secret, of course.”

“How many secret compartments does your bar have?”

“Just the two, that I know of.”

I wave him off. “Doesn’t matter. How could the thief even know about the blood?”

“Dunno, Chief. I’ve heard that werewolves read minds. Maybe one of them read mine? But why would a werewolf want the poison?” He pauses, snaps his fingers. “Maybe to destroy it?”

“Maybe,” I say, suddenly distracted. After all, I’m suddenly certain his attacker was Koko. Had she come into the bar, read his mind, and discerned the need for the blood activator? So far, neither Ed nor the shaman has mentioned the crucial second ingredient.

Perhaps Miguel and Koko had tried the poison, only to discover it didn’t work. Or perhaps one of the other is aware of the need for the activator... and came looking for it today, only to discover Ed had come into work early.

Probably doesn’t matter how they knew about the activator, though Alex told me once that Koko was a descendant of a witch. And not the nice kitchen witches, either. Apparently, her great-grandmother—having long since been run off herself—had been into the blacker magic. Maybe Koko dabbled in it, as well. If so, she might have known about the need for Ahanu’s blood.

Either way, the thief—or thieves—now has the poison and the activator.

Crap and double crap.

I help Ed to his feet and call over a couple of my deputies to get him to what passed as a hospital in these parts... really, just a gloried urgent care, truth be known. Meanwhile, Henderson is privately wondering at his desk where the hell Miguel has run off to, since he’s pretty sure Miguel isn’t sick.

I sidle over to Henderson’s desk. “Say, did Miguel ever mention a brother to you?”

The older deputy blinks. “Uh, no. I don’t think so.”

“Nothing about his brother having been... killed?”

“Killed? No, chief.”

Except Miguel had mentioned it. Immediately, a name pops up in Henderson’s mind. A name I make a mental note of. Why Henderson kept it from me is easy enough to discern. He’s worried Miguel has done something—especially since his friend has been acting a bit sketchy lately. Cop code—plus, Henderson doesn’t like me... mostly because I’m an outsider. And a woman.

Oh, well.

Back in my office, I call Alex. He picks up on the first ring. Good man.

“Does the name Rhun ring a bell?” I ask.

“Say again?”

I repeat the name. Alex pronounces it on his end of the line, trying it on for size. After his third repeat of the word, he says, “Oh, shit.”

“Oh, shit, what?”

“Where did you hear that name?”

“From the mind of a deputy who may not have a job here in a few months.”

“We need to talk. But I want to do it face to face.”

“Fine,” I say. “Dinner tonight?”

“Neither of us is going to keep any food down today or tomorrow. Let’s make it drinks.”

I recall my vomit session in Mae’s Cafe’s bathroom. “Good point. I take it you didn’t find Miguel?”

“Found his father, but no Miguel. He didn’t know where he was, either.”

“Damn it.”

“I’ll tell you all about it tonight.”

And with that, we hang up.

I take another look at Miguel’s personnel file, then call it a day.

Chapter Eighteen

I beat him to my house by forty-five minutes, giving me time to change out of my uniform, take a quick shower, and pour myself a glass of wine. A big glass.

“Hey, you,” he says after letting himself in.

“Hey, yourself,” I say back, pouring him a glass. “You’re looking mighty handsome.” There’s a slur in my voice.

“And you’re sounding a little drunk.” Alex removes his jacket, sits beside me on the couch, and accepts his glass of wine.

“So, what did you find out today?”

He chuckles. “Can a fellow have a drink first?”

“Fine. But hurry.”

He complies, downing half the glass.

“Some drink,” I say. “Now, talk to me.”

“Okay, here goes. I hadn’t heard the name Rhun in over a decade. Maybe longer. To be honest, it’s not a proud moment for my family... or for my tribe. May I ask in what context did the name come up?”

“I asked Deputy Henderson if he knew the name of Miguel’s brother.”

Alex nods in a way that suggests I confirmed his suspicion. What I’m not prepared to see is the deeply pained look on his face. “I was afraid of that,” he says, plopping down at the kitchen counter. Seriously, he legit looks like he saw a ghost. “Wow, you think you know someone...”

“What are you going on about, big guy?”

“I hadn’t known Miguel’s brother had been Rhun. Different tribes and all that... and out here, tribes tend to stay isolated.”

“Because of all the werewolf business.”

“For the most part, yeah.”

“Then how is it that you know about Rhun?”

Alex cracks his neck this way, then that way. I cringe at the shockingly loud pops. He notices and gives me a smile. “Oh, this is just the beginning. There’s going to be a lot more of where that came from in the next day or so.”

“Bones cracking?”

“Cracking, popping... whatever it is they do to take on a new form.”

“Gee, you weres really know how to sell this shifting thing. Now, tell me how it is you know Rhun.”

“I know him because Donovan killed him.”

***

When I pick my jaw up, Alex explains further:

First off, it’s all very macho and stupid and unnecessary, though hearing it from Alex here, it’s also the very definition of honor and pride. It’s a duel, of sorts. To the death. Reminds me a bit of prison. Yes, I worked in a correctional facility in Connecticut early on before my time on the force. The surest way to find work was at a jail, and I took it, because I needed the work, and I needed to get my feet wet, so to speak. Mostly, I needed to forget about my dead fiance.

Prison rules are tough... and final. Unlike what most people think, life in prison isn’t complete bedlam. First off, there are cameras everywhere. Second, if a prisoner screws up, they go into the hold for thirty days. You really don’t want to go in the hold for 30 days... unless you enjoy messing with your sanity. And the hold does just that. Near-complete deprivation.

That said, prisoners dole out their own form of justice. Unlike the movies, inmates don’t generally get jumped by other inmates. No, if someone has a problem with you—as in, they feel they’ve been wrong by you in some way—there is a system in place to fix that problem. And generally it’s handled between the two inmates, in isolation, away from prying eyes.

No, it’s not a fight to the death, but a fight for honor, for justice, and for position.

Apparently, the wolves out here have such a system, too... though it appears to be reserved for the males in the tribes.

But unlike prison, it is fought to the death.

Two go into the woods. One emerges. Simple as that.

Oh, and they fight with silver-tipped spears. Traditionally, the body is left in the woods.

“Which is why, as a boy, Miguel found his brother in the woods,” I say, nodding, finally getting it.

“Yes,” says Alex, exhaling. “The woodland animals leave our bodies alone, and it can take years to decompose. I am not surprised the boy eventually found him.”

“How often are such duels fought?” I ask.

“It’s the only one I’m aware of in my lifetime, though I have heard of a few before my time.”

“Why did Donovan and Rhun fight?”

“They had some bad blood—really bad blood—and they agreed to settle it with a fight to the death, called a Shattuck... the Death Match.”

“Geez... couldn’t they just arm wrestle or something?”

“You would think, but no.”

“Who oversees this?”

“No one, Ells. They agree to a place and time. Each is given a silver-tipped spear, and that’s it.”

“Was the entire tribe aware of it? In this case, both tribes?”

Alex shakes his head. “I don’t know, Ells. It’s frowned upon, as you can imagine. There’s not a lot of hype to it.”

“Where did they get the silver-tipped spears, then? I would think something like that wouldn’t be readily available in a community of werewolves.”

“They’re ceremonial. Hanging in our longhouse. There for just such a purpose.”

“And you were there?”

Alex nods. “I watched Donovan and Rhun leave together. Two hours later, my brother returned, badly wounded. You’d think he actually lost the duel. Wounds from silver take forever to heal, but heal he eventually did. As is customary, nothing more was said about the Shattuck.”

“Until little Miguel found his dead brother.”

Alex looks away. “I didn’t know about that.”

I don’t say anything, but I figured the boy, Miguel, had heard of the duel and gone looking for his brother, and eventually found him.

“Why would his tribe burn the body?” I ask.

Alex takes in some air, holds it, lets it out. “Some tribes do not embrace the wolf, as you know. Others fear it and see it as something evil.”

“Are we evil, Alex?”

“Of course not. Do you feel evil?”

I shake my head. “Different, yes. But not evil.”

“Same here. Nothing possesses us. Nothing takes us over. And nothing makes us do something we do not want to do.” Alex shrugs. “Each month our bodies shift into that of a wolf for twelve hours, and our life span increases tremendously. For us here in the tribe, it is a way of life. Nothing evil about it.”

“Fine,” I say. “You think Miguel wanted revenge for something that happened fifteen years ago?”

“Yeah, maybe. But no one forced his brother to fight Donovan. In fact, I was there. Everyone tried to talk them out of it.”

“What was the feud about?” I ask.

“What do you think?”

“Don’t say it...”

“A girl,” says Alex.

“Gah! Your brother and women... what’s his deal?”

“My brother has never let a little thing like a boyfriend or husband stand in his way.”

“Do you think Donovan and Achak had a duel, too? Is that why he was found with a silver dagger in his heart?”

“That very well could have happened... though it would have been an unofficial one.”

“There are official Shattucks?”

Alex shrugs. “Sort of.”

“So, Miguel’s been harboring revenge all these years?”

“Seems like it,” says Alex.

“But why not just go after Donovan? Why threaten all the werewolves with the poison?”

“Do we know for certain that’s what he’s doing?”

“I’ve surmised as much,” I say.

“Because if he wanted revenge on just Donovan he likely would have put a silver bullet in him long ago?”

“Yeah, something like that,” I say.

“Which suggests he’s planning something bigger with the vial of poison.”

“Bingo,” I say.

“But how?” asks Alex. “It’s just a small vial, from what I understand.”

“A vial that could be diluted.”

“What, in our water supply? Our streams?”

“Something, yeah,” I say.

“A lot of this is just guess work, Ells. Truth is, we aren’t even one hundred percent certain he has the vial.”

“You may not be, but I am.”

“And Koko stole the activator?”

“Seems likely.”

“Wouldn’t whatever he’s planning have an ill effect on her, too?”

“Unless she’s not privy to his plan.”

“And we’re sure he even has a plan?” asks Alex. “Fifteen years in the making?”

“It’s a target of opportunity,” I say. “The plan formed when he heard about the poison.”

“Lots of what-ifs.”

“I know,” I say, “and my headache is coming back on.”

“It’s only going to get worse, Ells bells. You might as well call in sick tonight.”

Which is exactly what I do. And for the first time since turning, I don’t think of food or sex or anything other than just getting through the night. Thoughts of poison, Miguel, and fights to the death, all go out the window, too.

Luckily, Alex is there with me, holding me most of the night.

Ugh. Not too sure about all this shape-shifting business.

Nope, not at all.

Chapter Nineteen

It’s morning, and I had a rough night.

With Alex still asleep in bed, I head out to get some coffee at Mona’s, a drive up kiosk that I frequent just about every morning. As I pull away, with my little chocolate covered coffee bean balanced on the lid, I get hit with a dizzy spell. I yank my 4Runner over, close my eyes, rub my temples. Damn this shifting business is just... hell. Alex did reassure me that not all transitions are this hard... just the initial ones.

Fat lot of good that does me now.

A few seconds later, the dizziness fades and I cautiously head home, driving through the small town that I’ve grown to love over these past few months. I’m proud to be their chief of police, even if most of my deputies still haven’t wrapped their heads around a female boss.

Well, they’d better... or I’m gonna start knocking some heads.

Or firing their asses.

Insubordination will not be tolerated. Henderson not telling me the truth about Miguel’s brother is only a minor offense, but it still bugs me.

A wave of dizziness hits me at one of Hope’s three stop lights. I close my eyes, inadvertently let out a small moan. When my brain seems to settle, the light turns green on cue. Thankfully, no one is behind me as I slowly ease through town... then finally another three miles to my home on the outskirts.

I’m not totally alone out here. I have some neighbors along my street. I pass their rugged, hand-built homes, many of which have smoke pouring out of the chimneys. It’s March, which means there’s still a lot of snow on the ground, with a promise of more to come in a few days.

A lot could happen between now and the next snowstorm. A new werewolf is going to transition for her first time. And a deputy sheriff could attempt to exact his revenge on a whole pack of them.

But... can’t think about that now.

In fact, it’s all I can do to drive in a straight line down my residential street. Gorty, my oldest neighbor whose wife has long since passed, is tossing salt over his front steps in preparation for the coming storm. He waves at me as I pass. I give him a weak smile and an even weaker wave. He frowns a little and watches me. Wait, does he suspect something is... different about me? No way. How could he? I haven’t even flippin’ transformed yet. As far as he knows, I’m still his strikingly pretty chief of police neighbor. Well, some of that is true.

As soon as I pass his home, I forget about him completely.

I have bigger fish to fry...

And yeah, the thought of fish makes me want to gag.

***

Alex and I spend the rest of the day in bed—and not in the good way.

No, we toss and turn and sweat and moan. Okay, wait... that does sound like the good way, but I assure you, it’s not.

I’m in legit agony, and it seems Alex is too.

Which is confusing and alarming.

Between the cold sweats and the gasping (again, not sex), he tells me there’s always a point when the pain becomes unbearable... but for him, that point is shorter and shorter. Indeed, some time after noon, he no longer appears even remotely uncomfortable. I can’t say the same for me.

I get lost in the pain. No matter which way I turn or sit or move, it’s always there... in every possible part of my being. Alex, I think, has forgotten how terrible his first turning had been. If he had, he would have put me out of my misery. That he kept me alive to experience this... really shows what a dick he is. And yeah, I let him know it. When I’m not moaning in agony, I’m cussing him out with gusto.

He holds me tight, says soothing words. I tell him he can shove his soothing words where the sun don’t shine.

This goes on for hours... well into the late afternoon.

I must have sweated a gallon or two. Maybe more. How there is any liquid left in me at all, I haven’t a clue. Maybe there isn’t. Maybe I’m bone dry.

Except... I continue to sweat.

And shake.

And huddle in a tight little ball... until even huddling in the fetal position feels like agony.

There is no escape from the pain. No reprieve. I beg for death at one point. Alex holds me tighter. I try pushing him away, except I don’t have strength to do that. And so I do the only thing I can think of... I weep.

And weep.

Chapter Twenty

This isn’t as glamorous as Hollywood makes it out to be. Not even close. Nope. Not at all.

In fact, ‘glamour’ is the last word I would use.

Hell...

Torturous...

Fuckingbullshit...

All words that pop into my head way, way, way before glamorous. And yeah, one of the words might be more than one word. Like I care. Not in this moment. Maybe never again. I can’t imagine ever feeling good again. This is my life now... until my heart finally gives out from sheer pain.

This goes on all day.

Finally, at just past 6 p.m., something happens that I never expected to happen again. Or to feel again.

Relief.

Not much, granted. In fact, it might all be in my head.

My head... which hurts worse than anything.

I know why it hurts, of course. But knowing why doesn’t help it hurt less. According to Alex, the bones in my head will morph the most, elongating into something much, much longer... and thicker. It isn’t going to be easy.

Yeah, I get that. Boy, do I.

Back to my minor reprieve...

If the pain had been a hundred. I’m maybe at 98.5.

Though a small reprieve, it gives me hope, foolish as it might be to entertain.

The source of my discomfort comes from, well, everywhere. Simple as that. It seems to be centered in my bones, though, but my muscles hurt too. Meanwhile, my nerve endings crackle with literal electricity... as if I’m sitting on a pile of live wires.

Maybe I imagined the reprieve.

Hell, I might even feel worse, not better.

And yet...

Yes, I’m certain the metaphorical screws have lessened. Please let them have loosened.

Please, please, please.

I can’t go back to that bad place.

That hellscape of torment.

And now, the pain tapers off a bit more. This is noticeable. This is real. This isn’t imaginary.

Something has happened to my body. I can tell even if I haven’t moved from the bed. The bones seem... no way. This can’t be real. Then again... how else could someone turn from woman to wolf?

Yes indeed... my bones have softened somewhat.

When I raise my hand—ah, shit. My forearm... sags a little.

“It’s okay, sweetie,” I hear Alex whisper. “It’s happening to me, too. It happens to all of us.”

“What time is it, Alex?” My jaw hangs weirdly from my skull, doesn’t quite come back to the place where it naturally rests. My tendons have weakened, somehow loosened. Hell, even my teeth feel soft. I can veritably mush them with my tongue. I’m surprised I can form words at all.

“It’s just after six.”

“Will we be... turning... soon?” Ugh, I can’t quite get that last word out.

“It’s happening now, sweetie. Shush. you’re going to be okay.”

And, weirdly, his own words devolve into something closer to a grunt.

He’s right. It’s happening, and it is no way close to what I have seen on TV or in the movies. Or in all those Kindle romance novels where one woman mates with, like, an entire pack. Or so I heard. Sandy reads them. Not me.

I swear.

I’ve been too busy trying to police a small town.

A wild town at that.

I try to move my jaw back into place, but it seems a lost cause. And so I lay there, feeling the pain lessen even as my bones continue to soften. Alex keeps his eyes locked onto mine. I shouldn’t be surprised when I see them turn slowly from a beautiful light brown, to something closer to amber. The whites turn too. Now they are filled with angry red veins that seemingly sit directly on the surface of his eye. The pupils shrink, expand, shrink again.

Weirdly, I feel the same happening to my own eyes, though no light source seems to be affecting them. No, I don’t feel them turn color, though I suspect they have. If anything, I feel them growing in my skull.

The pain continues to lessen. Perhaps even by half. Maybe more. It’s not all the way gone, not by a long shot. But I can live with this amount pain. Oh, yes. This is tolerable.

The stubble on Alex’s jaw seems to be a bit thicker.

Then a lot thicker. It doesn’t happen super fast... and it almost seems a trick of the eye...

But, yeah. I’m pretty sure I’m watching hair sprouting from his cheeks and chin, around his eyes. His forehead, and on his ears. The ear part makes me giggle. It just looks so damn funny.

The pain lessens a bit more, but seems to hold steady at maybe forty. A part of me knows I can’t expect to feel better than this... at least not for the next few minutes.

That’s fine. Forty percent is a-okay with me.

The word ‘a-okay’ swirls around in my brain. I suddenly don’t know what it means or why I even thought it. What is the purpose of ‘a-okay’? Why do people use it? It sounds like a ranch or corral. Suddenly, even those words quit making sense to me, too.

All words quit making sense to me.

They flit across my thoughts, appearing and disappearing. They might as well have been foreign words for all the meaning they hold for me.

Amazingly, I do hear two words from Alex, though their meaning is lost on me:

“It’s happening.”

And that’s when I throw back my head and arch my back, and scream with a fresh round of pain. All over, I feel my body elongating, my limbs, my spine, my neck, my face. The pain, the pain, the pain...

My bones are hardening again now that they’ve achieved their new shape. As they harden, they grow stronger and stronger...

And stronger...

It’s happening.

My insides swirl and gurgle. It is a good thing there is no food in them now. They need to reform and shift and grow and contract.

Before me on this den of softness, I see my mate’s beautiful elongated face, full of teeth and fur. His eyes are wild, but not too wild. They study me closely.

Then this creature who I feel bonded to, springs to his powerfully muscled legs, his fur hanging down around him. He shakes his head, then his whole body. The soft den I find myself upon shakes, too.

He leans down with his handsome muzzle... and licks me above my eyes—

With that, I spring to my paws too. Not as quickly or confidently. I wobble a little, finding my footing upon the softness. I blink and shake my head rapidly, look back at my magnificent fur-covered body. I am tawny colored and I find such colorization beautiful and I stare for a moment or two... until I can’t remember what I’m staring at or why.

I turn back to the beautiful black wolf with the piercing grey eyes; we nuzzle briefly before he hops down from the raised mound of softness. He looks back, wanting me to follow him. I know this because I am alert to the needs of my mate, for some reason I do not question but only understand.

I leap off, too, and briefly marvel at the power of my forelimbs, even as my back limbs suggest strength that I have never known... but will soon become familiar with. I race through this strange cave-like structure, and follow my mate as he bursts through a wooden barrier that poses no problem for him.

We race across a flattened field and into the surrounding trees, as the full moon hangs above, and the owls hoot, and the vermin flee in all directions.

They should flee in all directions.

Oh yes.

Yes, yes!

Chapter Twenty-one

Much later, back in human form—and sitting alone on my porch with a cup of coffee in the early morning—I reflect on my first night as a wolf. I am beyond pleased that I remember almost everything.

Strangely, as the wolf, I remember almost nothing of being human.

As the wolf, I felt eternal... as if I have been doing this all my life, down through the centuries, back to the very first wolves...

As I followed Alex into the night, I recognized him as my mate... which is fascinating to me, because in our human form, I see him only as my kinda-sorta boyfriend. The wolf isn’t so wishy-washy with humanized designations. No, to me, in that form, he is my true mate...

And I love him more than anything.

Okay, wow...

I shake my head now, sipping my coffee... watching the eastern sky brighten with the coming dawn. I had only shifted into my human self not more than an hour ago. Alex is gone. He was spent, exhausted. I’m exhausted too, but I also don’t want to forget a single moment of what had just happened. Unlike Alex, who has been at this for decades, this is all new to me.

New and beautiful, and oh so weird...

***

Never have I run so fast.

Never have I felt such power in my body. I feel like I can leap high into trees, over the biggest boulders, across the widest rivers.

Running with four legs feels natural, feels right, feels perfect. The coordination to do so is instinctual... as if I’ve been running on all fours all my life. As I run, I know to reach out my forepaws... to place my rear paws in almost the exact same space, my body stretching and contracting as I run faster and faster, easily keeping up with my mate...

And no, I’m not sure I will admit to Alex that’s how I see him in my wolf form.

Or maybe I will... hmm.

For now, it’s my secret, since he can’t read my mind.

Thank goodness.

The black wolf races through the back woods behind my house. Trees rush by. We crash through smaller bushes—why bother going around them? My fur is thick, and so is my skin. It would take a lot more than a sharp branch to penetrate my hide. And even if it did, I know the wound will be brief, the damage healing almost instantly.

As I run, the excitement within me turns to something else... hunger.

After all, I hadn’t eaten much in preparation of the turning.

In my wolf form, I know only that I’m ravenous. My mate is, too... as are all the wolves in the pack. I know this because as we emerge from the dense woods, we appear together in an open field with others like us, all massive creatures, far bigger than any known wolves. Bigger by half, at least. I sense them out there as well... the natural wolves. I hear them... chuffing and snorting and hiding in the shadows. I sense their fear and awe and curiosity.

But mostly fear.

They do not understand us... or want to have any part of us. They know we are different, greater, and far more dangerous. They also know this display happens but once a month, and mostly they are used to it. How I know this, I don’t know, and as I sit in my chair, reflecting, I can only assume I’ve somehow tapped into some universal knowledge. No, not quite... I’ve tapped into the wolf mind. The one mind. It is a beautiful and valuable source of information. And it spans centuries... millenniums. I see the usefulness of it. After all, we are but wolves for twelve hours a month. Certainly not long enough to acquire the necessary skills to survive, or to learn to hunt, or to know where to gather. Each month, each transition, the knowledge of all of this and more is collected together in the one mind. This transcends tribes and cultures, though it does seem to focus upon this region. How this is so, I do not know. I suspect other weres around the globe have their own set of pooled knowledge.

I am aware that I am drawing from this knowledge, streaming it live through my brain. And it’s happening real time as I run with the black through the open field, as more and more of us emerge from the shadows of the forest and run with us.

I sip my coffee, knowing that a smile is plastered on my face.

Did last night really happen? Was it all a dream?

Hard to believe I ran with a pack of massive wolves, sprinting headlong across fields and through streams, over grassy hills and into deep forests...

All to meet the Alpha.

I sense him nearby, his power, his grace, his knowing, his love for all of us. Never would he let anyone or anything hurt us, and for that, I am grateful.

And there he is... standing high atop a knoll, silhouetted against the full moon, which hangs low to the earth. It is, after all, only the late evening. We have a full night of hunting, running... and experiencing ahead of us.

We gather around the alpha eagerly, dozens of us, and then hundreds. Never could I believe there could be so many shifters in one region. I suspect they live far beyond the reservations, living in groups or alone in the woods, with no tribal affiliations at all. Those who happen to have been turned, for one reason or another.

I feel as one with the others, but especially to my mate and to the Alpha. The love I feel for them is real, though I have never met the Alpha. I have a memory of him, and it is as real as if I had lived it. A collective memory of his bravery, his leadership, his power, and sometimes his fierce brutality to protect us. He sits calmly now upon his hind quarters as he surveys the gathering wolves. My mate and I stay close. Sometimes we nuzzle muzzles, or rub against each other, as do others. The musk of hundreds of wolves fills the air. As does the earthy upturned soil... together with the evergreens and plants, all melding into one magnificent scent. This is new to me. Never have I smelled so many heady scents all at once. The wolf’s nose is sensitive and powerful.

And so is their hearing. The thunder of paws from miles away. The rapid beating of smaller heartbeats in bushes and trees, from animals of all shapes and sizes. Mostly, though, I hear the powerful beating of hundreds of wolfen hearts. Each is a war drum. Each is nearly deafening. I live in a world of beating hearts and running paws, of tantalizing musk and sweet-smelling prey.

When all have gathered who would gather... I sense others milling still at the outskirts of the forest, for reasons all their own... our alpha rises to all fours and turns in a slow circle. I feel my hackles rise in anticipation, air sweeping along my exposed neck. I know what is about to happen, and I, like the others around me, shift and shuffle in eager anticipation.

Finally, our alpha seems to nod, then raises his head...

He lets loose with a magnificent, deep-throated, supernaturally loud howl that seems to roll down from the hill in every direction at once, and sweep out into the surrounding forests and hills, all the way to the distant mountains.

I shudder and tremble as something emerges from deep within me. The howl that erupts from my lungs and throat is loud enough to, at first, frighten me. Am I making this ungodly sound? I am, and I put even more behind it, lifting my head to the heavens as those around me did the same, and soon all of us are howling... not quite as one, but in unison, some holding the note longer than others. With muzzles raised, lips barred back, our voices lift to the heavens. How far such howling reaches, I don’t know, but surely hundreds of miles.

Little did the world at large know that a massive pack of werewolves has gathered before their alpha, each of us starving after a day or two of fasting.

Tonight will be a bloody feast, of that I know.

Finally, the alpha lowers his head and we all do the same, though many of us still yip and growl and bark. Myself, I howl once or twice more, not quite ready to give up on the feeling of camaraderie. People might wonder why dogs, coyotes, wolves howl together. It is easy enough to understand when one is in the midst of it. The feeling of unity is intense... and needed. More people should howl with their dogs. Little do they know how much their pets appreciate it... or need it.

For now, though... all such human thoughts are lost on me. I’m only in the moment, reveling in the feeling of togetherness... and eager for what I know is coming next, thanks to the shared memories.

There is a pause... so quiet and long that I can hear the wind blowing between all the powerfully beating hearts. We all stare eagerly at our black-as-night alpha... waiting... waiting.

And then he dashes helter-skelter down the hill, rushing past us so swiftly, that we are brushed to the side by the jetstream of air.

My mate presses his face next to mine, and I see deep into his grey eyes. They seem to smile—and then he is running, too, chasing after our alpha.

After all, the hunt has begun...

***

It goes well.

Many of us corner a herd of caribou in a canyon. I feel nothing for their deaths, and ignore their distressed cries; however, we do not engorge ourselves wantonly. We eat enough to be satisfied; indeed, most of the herd escape unscathed.

That I have a belly full of raw caribou in me even now is surreal at best. However, after spending the night running, and climbing, and chasing each other through the woods, for miles on ends—perhaps even hundreds of miles—I’m thinking the caribou meat has mostly been utilized as fuel.

In fact... yes, I actually feel a pang of hunger.

But no food yet.

I am enjoying this quiet moment of reflection... wanting to capture it fully before it fades to a dream-like state. After all, I’m already questioning the validity of my memories from last night.

Back to last night...

With the full moon having raced across the starlit sky and the distant glowing with first light, I begin to feel different and discover I’m not far from a familiar area. In my wolf state, I simply feel a sense of connection to the land. On all fours, I look around. The others wolves have dispersed, as they have been doing for the past few hours. Likely, heading to their own familiar grounds.

I am with my mate; his coat gleams in the morning light, wet with dew.

He shakes it, nuzzles me, and lies down in the grass. I know I am to lie down with him, and so I do. He moves over and rests his great head over my shoulder, and I feel his love and comfort and protection.

The wind picks up, bringing it with the smoke of nearby chimneys.

I close my eyes... and drift to sleep, too exhausted to stay awake any longer.

When I do finally come to my senses, I am quite naked... and human. Alex is asleep on top of me. The morning sun bathes the field in light, though there is no warmth. I guessed we had slept for maybe two hours, and during that time, I had shifted back with no pain. Or no memory of pain.

In fact, I feel amazing.

And seeing Alex’s naked body sprawled on top of mine...

Yeah, I feel something else, too.

Unlike my wolfen memories... what happened next is still fresh in my mind.

I smile as I relive it all over again...

Chapter Twenty-two

In the grass, I take Alex’s face in my hands, caress his lips with mine.

He’s so big and so warm. He belongs with me as much as I belong with him. I knot my hands into his hair and kiss him with everything I’ve got. Granted, I’m still beyond exhausted, but somehow I find the energy to keep going. Alex returns the kiss eagerly, moving his hands down along my side.

A familiar wetness comes from between my legs. “So I turned.”

“That, you did,” Alex says.

I eye him curiously. “Does that mean…”

He smiles. “That, it does.”

I swallow hard as he positions me under him. As he does, I run my hands up his chest, reveling in the feel of his muscles and the soft sprinkling of hair that covers his lower stomach and stretches across his pectorals. When I glance up at him, he is watching me. I swallow hard as I think about what we are doing and how long it has been for me. What if I disappoint him? What if I disappoint myself? What if I totally… suck? What if he sucks? Somehow, I really doubt that he will suck.

“Stop,” he whispers and brings his index finger to my lips. “Neither one of us is going to be bad at this, Elodie,” he finishes with a laugh.

“How did you...”

“I can see it all over your face.”

“It’s just…” I bite my lip as I tend to do when I’m nervous. “I haven’t been with anyone since my fiancé died and I’m scared that…”

This is the first time I’ve mentioned my fiancé to Alex, and he looks understandably surprised. He probably also figures now isn’t the place or time to discuss it, so he leaves it alone, thank God.

“There’s nothing to be scared about,” he assures me as he grazes the side of my face with the pads of his fingers.

I start to argue, but he silences me with a kiss. A kiss that deepens when his tongue seeks mine. He playfully bites my bottom lip a few times, which only seems to heighten my expectations of what is about to happen. Pulling away from me, he gazes down at me with an expression of caring that causes me to smile just because it is so… sweet. Truth be told, though, I can’t wait much longer. I am beyond turned on and the way he is taking his time is almost torture.

But it is also necessary. It is necessary based on who we are and what we’d been through together. Sex between us could, and hopefully would at some point, be fast and furious. But not for our first time. It is almost an unspoken understanding between the two of us—that this time would be slow, passionate, a growing experience.

Alex continues staring at me, his expression serene. He never breaks eye contact as he runs his hands over my naked torso. He pulls away from me as his gaze moves to my breasts and I suddenly feel self-conscious. I immediately bury the feeling, though, as soon as I witness the absolute hunger in his eyes. It is an expression I’d never seen him wear before and one that causes a burning sting deep within me.

Elodie, stop it, I tell myself. You are not going to let fear or anxiety or whatever this is get in the way. All that matters right now is you and him. Just focus on Alex, focus on the way he makes you feel and run with it.

I’m suddenly steadfast in maintaining my confidence and, as if to prove it to myself, I grip his shoulders and pull his face down to mine, kissing harder than I intended. Crazily, he seems to like the roughness.

I’m not sure if it is a growl, but Alex emits some sort of low, guttural sound as he leans back, pushes my legs apart and, before I can take another breath, his face is between them.

Maybe it has just been that long since I’ve had a man lick me in my most sensitive of areas, but I can’t remember it ever feeling this good. I nestle myself deeper into the grass as Alex tastes me. He has to hold my hips down on more than one occasion.

“I need you, Alex,” I moan, because it suddenly feels like I will explode if I don’t feel him inside me.

“Patience,” he says with a smile, before returning his tongue to my delicate nub.

I suddenly feel like I’m not in control of myself. Like my body is completely in charge and reacting instinctively to whatever it is Alex is doing to me. I’m surprised to find myself rocking against him, but moments later, the surprise dissolves as euphoria begins to fill my core. I slam my eyes shut and moan so loudly, I’m worried my distant neighbors might hear me. At the feel of his fingers at my opening, I eagerly push down against them, wanting nothing more than to feel some part of him inside me. He thrusts what feels like two fingers into me and I buck underneath him.

“There now, little filly,” he says with a laugh while I open my eyes and find him just above me.

“Please, Alex,” I say again as I push up to my elbows so I can take in the full extent of his body.

He doesn’t say anything, but pulls his fingers out of me and leans back on his knees. Instinctively, my gaze immediately lands on the area right between his legs and I can’t say I am at all disappointed.

“Wow,” is all I can think to say, and as soon as I do, I feel silly. Probably even more so when Alex starts chuckling.

Once he settles himself between my legs, though, the chuckle dies and all that is left is the two of us as we gaze at each other, both of us sweating with expectation. He rubs the head of his penis up and down me, but pauses once he reaches my opening. The anticipation is killing me and I attempt to push myself onto him, but he pulls away slightly, giving me a huge grin. Clearly, he likes being in charge when it comes to bedroom games. I can’t say I’m put off by it. If anything, it thrills me even more.

He grips each of my thighs and pushes my legs apart a little wider as he continues to tease me with his head. When he begins to swivel his hips up and down, teasing me even more, I’m certain he’s going to drive me to complete insanity. I don’t have to touch myself to know I’m dripping wet. I want him like I’ve never wanted anything before in my life.

When he pushes into me, there is no warning. He doesn’t go slowly. Instead, he thrusts his entire length into me all at the same time as I scream out in absolute ecstasy. There is no pain, but the feeling is intense, all the same. I immediately arch against him, throwing my head back as he grips my hips and pulls me upward so he can take up every inch of available space within me.

He thrusts in and out of me as I cling to him, digging my nails into his back. Sometimes, his strokes are long and slow, but then he shifts the rhythm and takes me hard and fast.

“Open your eyes,” he commands.

I haven’t even realized I’m clenching my eyes shut. When I open them, I find him staring down at me and I return his gaze, loving the feeling of getting lost in his eyes. I’m not sure if it is the sudden connection resulting from us staring at each other, but I feel an orgasm building from deep inside me. Alex, perhaps sensing this, begins to smile as he looks down at me. He quickens his pace and nods, apparently letting me know that he wants me to orgasm for him. That is all the encouragement I need because a moment or so later, I feel it seize me. I grip onto Alex as tightly as I can, burying my fingernails into his back without so much as a thought about whether or not it is hurting him. He pushes inside of me with even more gusto as drops of bliss rain down all over me.

Seconds later, I feel him seize up. I watch his face as he closes his eyes and his jaw goes tight. He pushes inside of me as hard as he can and then moans loudly as his own orgasm claims him. It lasts for a few seconds before he rests his head between my breasts, both of us sweaty and exhausted.

I run my fingers through his hair as he holds me and we both fight to catch our breath. After a few moments, he pulls out of me and then lays next to me in the grass. I lay my head against his chest as I spoon his right leg.

Loving the feel of his soft stomach hair, I run my fingers through it. When I glide along his outer stomach, toward his obliques, he shudders a bit and then hunches forward as a laugh escapes his mouth.

I laugh, too. What a night.

And what a morning.

Chapter Twenty-three

I call in and let Sandy know I’m going to be late today.

Curiously, when I roll in around noon, Teddy, a deputy who I haven’t had much interaction with yet, walks in with me. He looks a bit bedraggled... as if he’d had a long night.

“You just getting in to work, Teddy?” I ask, curious.

“Yeah... been sick. Are you just getting in, too, Chief?”

“Yeah,” I say, “been a little under the weather.”

He looks at me; I look at him. Dawning appears in both of our eyes. Though I can’t read his mind, I smell something on him. Not quite raw caribou... but a muskiness that hasn’t been completely washed away yet. Alex had it on himself this morning too... even after a few rolls in the hay.

Well, in the long grass, at least.

Meanwhile, Ted’s eyes bulge from his skull; I’m certain our ‘limited interaction’ status might have just changed. Pretty sure Teddy and I have something in common... something primal. That said, I’m sure he’s surprised to discover his new boss—and the chief of police, no less—is a fellow shifter. I’m not one hundred percent certain he’s from a neighboring tribe, though I think I heard he is. At any rate, he recovers from his shock and nods, smiling.

I do the same; two fellow wolfies.

Anyway, I’m not surprised someone on my staff could also be a shifter. After all, many here at the station are Native Americans—as is much of the town, for that matter. Surely some are from the nearby wolfen tribes. If so, I wonder just how secret lycanthropy is out here. I had assumed it was something legendary... tall tales only. I had thought people whispered about it only. Little did I know just how prevalent it just might be.

After all, I had seen hundreds of wolves last night.

And not natural ones either.

Then again, who’s to say what is natural and unnatural? Certainly, I don’t feel like I existed outside of natural laws. If anything, I feel more a part of nature than ever.

Once inside, we go our separate ways, though I’m pretty sure we’ll steal away some private conversations here and there. Then again, maybe other weres keep to themselves, especially those from other tribes. I don’t know. I only know Alex’s tribe keeps to themselves for the most part, though many work in town, too. Being semi-immortal is cool and all, but it doesn’t put food on the table or pay utility bills. Many still had to work... and Hope is the closest town.

I note a few eyeballs on me. And not just the eyes. I can hear snatches of thought, too... and two or three are wondering why I’m coming in late the day after the full moon. I take from this three things: 1) the suspicion of werewolves runs deeper than I thought, 2) My mind reading seems to have kicked into gear 3) My deputies and staff are nosy as hell.

I’m not terribly surprised by the mind reading business; after all, I did just have my first turning. Alex had said that the first turning is pivotal. The body adapts... and apparently the mind does, too. I’m also curious to note I’m not ravishingly hungry... or ravishingly the other thing, too. Yes, being with Alex this morning had taken care of the latter. But all in all... I feel at peace and happy... perhaps even the happiest I’ve been in quite some time.

That is, until my sweeping eyes note that Miguel isn’t here.

Of course, why would he return to work if the bastard is legit planning the deaths of hundreds of people? Yes, werewolves are people, too. I can attest to that.

“Any word from Miguel?” I ask Sandy at the front desk.

“Nothing,” she says, shaking her head.

Her thoughts are genuinely on Miguel and her concern for him. Nothing about me showing up late... even after last night’s full moon. I pause a moment longer in her mind—and see she’s aware of most of the town acting a little nutty around the full moon, but doesn’t think much of it. Just as well. And wow, I’m becoming quite the snoop. I’m not sure how I feel about that; after all, the mind-reading came in fits and starts over the past few weeks. Now, I have legit control of it. Maybe I should come up with some ground rules about how and when to use it? Hmm.

She continues, “Should we be worried, chief?”

“Not yet,” I say, though I keep my real concerns out of the conversation.

Truth is, I couldn’t care less about Miguel’s well-being. No, that’s not true. Dammit, I legitimately like the guy. He’d been the first deputy on staff to accept me and work with me (without giving me push back). Why did he, of all my other pig-headed deputies, have to be the one to go all Black Sunday on us. Except Miguel isn’t a terrorist, and he isn’t holding a Super Bowl hostage with a bomb. No, he had actual poison that could potentially, kill all my new brothers and sisters.

How real it is and how effective it is remains to be seen. But I’m pretty damn sure Miguel and Koko are up to something. Why she is involved, I haven’t a clue. Sure, she has a grievance or two against the tribe... but the thing is, the poison would also affect her.

Unless she got the hell out of Dodge.

Back in my office, I turn on my desktop. While it boots, I head out and grab a coffee in the break room. Yeah, like my third cup of the morning. Need a clear head, clear thoughts. Need to kick this brain into gear. Gotta find Miguel.

At my desk again, I do the only thing I can think of...

Drum my fingers.

Grr.

Where are you Miguel?

Alex thought my deputy would attack last night, or perhaps today. Based on how I’m feeling, I can see why Alex thought that today could also work. My brain hasn’t fully kicked into gear—which is why I’m on my third cup of Joe. Well, I’m gonna damn well force it to kick start. I have to. Every instinct in me suggests that my kind—my new kind—are in real danger.

C’mon brain... think!

I consider calling Alex and hashing this out with him. As a bounty hunter, the man knows a thing or two about finding people. And yeah, his job often takes him around the entire state of Alaska... and into Canada. These days, though, he’s been sticking by my side, helping me through my first turning. With that now behind us, I suspect he might start taking on jobs that might take him away for days or weeks at a time. That would seriously suck. Yeah, I’ve grown attached to the big lug. Not to mention...

Well, my ‘wolfie self’ saw him as my mate.

Though my human side shied away at such terminology, my wilder persona is perfectly happy running with it.

Hmm. I wonder if Alex’s wolf persona saw me as his mate, too?

Focus, Elodie!

I drum my fingers some more as my computer cycles through the booting process. Once it does, Miguel’s face materializes on my screen. No surprise there. Studying his personnel file had been one of the last things I’d done a few days ago; apparently, I never closed the screen.

Only a few of us have access to such files, notably Gail in human resources and me. Probably Sandy, too... since she knows how to find everything. That said, there still isn’t much here. As I’m beginning to learn those who grow up on the reservations tend to have incomplete profiles. No mention of his dead brother, of course. I knew that already.

I scan through his last five years of employment. No complaints, no suspensions, no missed days.

Until now.

I go back a little more... and actually find his resume and initial application. He’d applied at twenty-five, after having graduated from the police academy in Anchorage. He’d scored high marks across the board. Under “Hobbies,” I see something that gives me pause.

He mentions “hunting, hiking, fishing, and camping” (no surprise there, for these parts), but he also mentions something else:

Flying.

As in, he’d just received his pilot’s license after having recently (at the time) accumulated enough flying hours. I stare at the information in front of me.

Then sip my coffee.

Then take another sip.

And finally say, “Son of a bitch...”

***

I call Gail in human resources.

Granted, I can see her through my office window, but I’m still feeling a bit sluggish.

“Hi, Chief,” she says, perkily enough. From what I recall during my initial meeting with all staff members four months ago, Gail, in her mid-thirties, has worked at the station for most of her adult life. I also recall her saying something curious about her husband’s employment... something that might be pertinent here.

“Gail, didn’t you tell me your husband was a bush pilot?”

“Yes. Do you need his services, Chief? He does it all: travel, deliveries, search and rescue, crop dusting—”

“About that last part... can you tell me how that works?”

“Crop dusting? Sure... though that’s his least profitable side hustle, as he calls it.” She giggles, and, though we are on the phone, I can hear her thoughts. Then again, we are also looking at each other through our glass offices. Maybe all I need is eye contact? And what she’s thinking is... does the chief farm on the side, too?

“Tell me more about his side hustle,” I say. “And no, I do not farm on the side. This involves a case.”

“Oh, funny. I was just wondering that.”

“You don’t say?”

Her giggle turns into something nervous, especially now that it involves an investigation. “Well, local farms contract him to spray pesticides for them. He picks up the material, loads it, goes over the area on the map with the owner, sprays their crops.”

“Farming is big up here? In Alaska?”

“Big enough. Most farms were once tundra, which has been turned into farmlands.”

“That’s possible?”

“Takes a few years of work, but it can happen. A lot of other farms work in greenhouses, too. Those are those long tents you see outside of town.”

“Oh, right.”

“But yeah, there are enough farms around to keep him busy enough, though he prefers booking flights for travel. Pays a little more. And he gets to see new places, too. Remember him for all your travel needs, Chief. We can get you a good deal.”

I chuckle. “Will do. And tell me, how many other crop dusters are there in Hope?”

“He’s the only one.”

I try to hide the concern in my voice. “And where does he operate? The airfield?”

“Right, the one behind The Shake House. Our only air field, actually. He has a small hangar on the north end. In fact, he’s there now. A new client just hired him... weirdly, it was for pesticide work.”

“Weird indeed,” I say. “Thank you, Gail.”

“He can fly you anywhere, Chief.”

“I’ll remember that.”

I hang up and immediately and call Alex.

Then grab my keys.

Chapter Twenty-four

Alex and I arrive at roughly the same time.

Except I had gotten lost on the way. Lost... in a town of 12,000 people.

As we come to a stop together at the only road into the airfield... a road which runs past The Shake House. The name explained it all... a small house that served nothing but shakes. From what I gather, they do quite well for themselves. Even in the cold of Alaska. Go figure.

There is a small, unofficial structure that serves as a sort of gathering place for pilots and crew and passengers. The few times I’ve driven by it, there had always been cars parked there. Then again, the best way to get in and out of Hope is via air travel, though a painfully long road did the trick too. There are a handful of sister cities out here... but any real civilization is about an eight-hour drive south to Anchorage.

Scattered in a row along the airfield... and by airfield, I mean the neatly mowed strip of grass that runs between towering pine trees... are a handful of bigger barns which double as hangars. Luckily, Alex knows which hangar Justin—Gail’s husband—works out of. Alex hops out of his truck and into my assigned cruiser, which reads “Hope Chief of Police” along the side. I don’t often use it. I figure now is as good a time as any.

“That’s the one there,” says Alex, pointing. “Second to last one.”

“The one with the open doors?”

“That’s the one. How sure are we about this?” he asks.

“About Miguel being there now and likely up to no good? Pretty damn sure.”

“Then let’s punch it.”

Punch it I do. All the hangar barns are on this side of the strip, connected by a meager service road composed of crumbling asphalt. Good enough.

I find it curious that it’s the only hangar with wide-open doors. Then again, Gail had said her hubby Justin had been hired for crop-dusting work just this morning. Turns out, the man owned two planes... one for jaunts about the state... and the other for agriculture work. From here, the plane sitting just inside the hangar doors doesn’t look like any single-prop plane I’m familiar with. This thing is small and yellow, and looks like something out of World War II. It’s got a single propeller, a bright blue stripe along the side, and an oddly goofy look. Scratch that, this looks like something that belongs in a Pixar movie, Cars or Planes, or whatever the hell they’re called. Indeed, if anything, it looks like a giant toy that could definitely kill you, too.

“The question is...” says Alex, “Who crop dusts at the end of March, with snow still on the ground.”

“No one with good intentions,” I say.

“I doubt Justin would have agreed to this job,” says Alex.

“You know him?” I ask.

“Small town. He’s one of the few bush pilots we have—and apparently the only crop duster, too. Always struck me as a down-to-earth type. He did some work with the department a few years ago, if I recall, looking for missing hikers.”

“Searching for hikers would require a different plane, I imagine,” I say.

“Yeah, not that miniature thing we see sitting there.”

“You think Miguel called him with a fake name?” I ask.

“Yeah, probably. He just needed to get Justin out here, open the gates, and show him how to load the pesticide mixture...”

“Except it’s not pesticide,” I say.

“And I doubt Justin would have willingly showed Miguel how to use it if he knew what Miguel intended—even if he believed him.”

“All of which adds up to... Justin might be in danger.”

Alex nods grimly.

I press the gas harder.

“Look. There’s someone working around the Air Tractor—and it ain’t Justin.”

I nod, grimacing, as we come in hot toward the hangar. Miguel looks up from where he’s crouching under the plane. He appears to be removing a nozzle of some sort. He could either be adding gas... or the poisonous mixture to whatever compartment contains what would normally be the pesticide. This tank seems to hang a little low... directly under the plane, in fact.

“Poison’s been loaded,” I say. “I think.”

Alex nods. “I think so, too.”

“Look next to the plane, on the ground.” I point. “A man.”

Both of our eyes are pretty damn good. I suspect Alex’s are even better, since he’s been at this werewolf business a good deal longer than me. Still, mine have improved dramatically. And I can see the blood pooling around the man’s head. Goddammit, Miguel.

He turns and spots us, then tosses aside whatever hose he’s been using, dashes around the plane, climbs up it in a flash. The guy knows his way around a plane.

“What’s the plan, Ellie?” asks Alex.

This is something I’m used to... men deferring to me. It’s happened my whole life. I must give off a ‘take charge’ attitude. Probably why I naturally gravitated to being Chief of Police. Doesn’t mean Alex is weak or indecisive. It just means he recognizes my ideas are good, too. And, quite frankly, I’m responsible for this town... humans and weres.

Not only that, I’m kinda up for the challenge... though I’m not sure being “up” has anything to do with what’s happening now. Saving hundreds of lives... and getting Justin some help asap... is just something that has to be done.

No matter what.

And that’s when the propeller turns rapidly, sputters, then picks up speed, spinning faster and faster. The small Air Tractor, as Alex called it, taxis forward out of the hangar. We’re still about a hundred yards away—but picking up speed.

“Seriously—what’s the plan, Ellie?” asks Alex, looking over at me.

“We can’t let that plane take off,” I say.

“Agreed. So what are you thinking?”

“I’m thinking...” I say, smashing the gas. “... that we ram his ass.”

It’s a good plan, until I realize these little damn planes can pick up speed way faster than I realize. I consider the option of shooting out my driver’s side window, but don’t trust my aim in a rapidly speeding, bouncing vehicle.

We are gaining, but not by much. As I drive, I radio in for backup and an ambulance. Connie, who works dispatch, does a good job hiding the surprise in her voice. I click off and focus on gaining on the little yellow plane, presently picking up speed along the little grass airstrip. I pull off the crumbling side road and onto the strip as well. Alex holds on to the handle above the passenger door. I grip the steering wheel, keeping the accelerator floored. I fight the wheel here and there.

And that’s when it happens...

The damn plane begins to lift, the flaps angle down, the nose rising.

We’re coming up just behind it, but I don’t think we’re going to make it... and not making isn’t an option.

“Grab the wheel, Alex,” I say, mashing the window button, willing it to roll down faster. “And slide over here.”

He does so without question. Whether he approves or not is never discussed, nor should it be. We have seconds to stop Miguel from, I suspect, spraying the Ammagaruqnik reservation with poison, and perhaps killing all the weres living there. Perhaps he will go after other tribes as well. It depends on how much poison he has... and how high he sprays from. There is no need for Miguel to get too close to his targets. Spraying from high above would yield greater coverage and preserve the poison. For all I know, he is out to eradicate the entire region of all weres. Granted, had I not become one myself... and fallen in love with another, I might not have been terribly concerned.

Except werewolves, I know, are not evil. And they don’t prey upon living humans. They hunt in the wild only once a month, pursuing nothing more than freedom... and leaving their human counterparts alone... and far behind. In fact, when I had turned, my mind never once drifted to my human friends and co-workers. I harbored no ill-will towards them. Only a desire for boundless joy.

As I climb into the open window, while still keeping my right foot on the accelerator, Alex swings over his left foot and places it over my own foot. With pressure remaining on the gas, I move my own foot away and hand the steering wheel over to him, so to speak.

Once done, I fully climb out through the window.

Next to me, Alex slides adeptly all the way into the driver’s seat. Wind screams in my ears, hair whipping behind me. Had this been mosquito season, I might have even gotten a few of those buggers in my eyes and teeth. Now, it’s just icy cold air blasting my eyeballs.

A firm hand on my knee. I look down into Alex’s brown eyes. “Are you sure about this, Ells?” he asks above the roar of the engine and wind.

“Sure enough,” I shout back, and point, wanting him to move closer to the rising plane. He does so, veering hard left... and almost jolting me off the edge of my window perch.

Dammit, the plane is rising rapidly. Wind from the propeller blasts me full in the face. Miguel looks over the seat at me, his eyes wide behind goggles that sit askew, looking almost comical. That is, until he casually pulls his arm up from inside the cockpit... and points his department-issued handgun at me.

“This has nothing to do with you, Chief,” he shouts.

“It’s got something to do with me,” I shout back.

He stares at me, eyes widening further as he perhaps puts two and two together. I have been, after all, hanging out with a member of the Ammagaruqnik tribe. And at present I’m balanced precariously outside a rapidly moving vehicle. His eyes literally bulge. “You’re one of them!”

“Surprise,” I say, just as two things happen simultaneously.

One, I leap off the door of my vehicle.

Two, he pulls the trigger, firing into my chest.

Chapter Twenty-five

My chest explodes; at least, that’s how it feels.

Sweet Jesus, he aimed to kill. Except, he missed my heart, and he hadn’t shot me with a silver bullet. I know this because silver is hell on me, even just being around the stuff. Also, I’m still alive and presently flying through the air.

More like rocketing.

I slam into the starboard side of the plane, hang on by grabbing inside the open cockpit, damn near where Miguel is trying even now to move his arm to fire another shot, all while flying the plane. We’re thirty feet off the ground now. Pretty damn sure I just leaped about twenty feet straight into the air.

Except none of this matters; after all, blood is pumping from the wound in my chest, smearing the yellow paint as I hang on. Incredibly, the pain isn’t even close to what I’d experienced during last night’s shifting.

Still, blackness encroaches on my vision. Every instinct I have says to release the plane and drop back to the field. Except doing so means Miguel goes free to spread his poison... which may or may not be real. But who in God’s name would take that chance?

Not me.

Weirdly, a part of me is telling me that I’m going to be okay. I just need to not get shot again. The gunshot hadn’t been fatal. And, yes, I can already feel my chest healing. Clearly not a silver bullet.

The feeling is similar to the shifting I’d experienced last night—except in this case I can feel my skin moving over the open wound, closing it even as I hang from this damn plane, even as Miguel finally gets his gun free again, pointing it down toward me...

The encroaching darkness recedes just as the plane misses the surrounding pines. Which means we are much higher now, perhaps even a hundred feet above the ground. I could probably still leap down, grab hold of a tree top.

Except that’s not going to happen.

Miguel has just gone from a sterling employee.... to a piece of shit who shoots first and probably doesn’t ask questions later.

Stronger now, my left arm is still hooked over the side of the open cockpit. I reach over with my right and snatch the gun just as it appears, my reflexes faster than his ability to aim and pull the trigger.

He fights me, and the gun does indeed fire, the sound of it nearly lost in the growl of the distressed engine. Pretty sure this little yellow guy isn’t meant to carry two passengers... let alone one hanging off the side of it.

Where the second shot went, I don’t know.

He fights me some more, until I twist the gun away. His index finger still stuck in the safety loop. The bone cracks, he screams. Tough shit. I toss the gun over my head, making a mental note to retrieve it later, or try to. Hey, I’m still the chief of police. Wouldn’t want some kid finding a handgun in the woods.

What a thing to think about while hanging by one arm from the side of a rapidly rising airplane.

Weirdly, I don’t feel much concern for myself. I know I can still survive such a fall, even without the trees breaking my landing. It’ll hurt, but I’ll survive.

Best to hang on.

Meanwhile, Miguel’s face contorts in pain at the broken finger. Cry me a river, buddy. You shot me in the chest and are planning the deaths of hundreds of innocent people. Yes, they are werewolves. No, they do not deserve to die. Just as I don’t, and neither does Alex.

The plane swerves this way and that, as Miguel fights through his pain and the controls. At one point, we do a brief free dive, the engine seemingly stalling. But it starts up again, and banks hard to port, slamming me into the side panel, then angles to starboard, swinging me briefly out into space, dangling from my elbow.

When the plane levels off again, I make my move, finally feeling strong enough to do more than hang on for dear life.

I use both hands to pull myself up over the fuselage and into the open cockpit, not quite straddling Miguel, but finding myself behind him, legs wrapped over his shoulders. This thing is made for one person and only one person. Zero room for another passenger.

I make do.

Tempted to just snap his neck between my knees, I still need the bastard to get us down safely. Then again, I could probably survive a crash landing well enough.

Hopefully.

And yeah, being near immortal has given me all sort so of chutzpah. I seriously doubt I would be so calmly sitting behind this guy hundreds of feet in the air, with no seat belt on, with death staring me in the face before I was turned.

Miguel looks back at me, horror and shock on his own face.

“Surprise,” I say.

“You’re one of them!” he shouts.

“I am, but I’m also your friend—or was, until you shot me in the chest.”

“You should be dead.”

“So much for our friendship, eh? Land the plane, Miguel.”

He shakes his head, or tries to. For the most part, it’s trapped between my knees. “Hell no. this is my chance—my one chance to get rid of all of you!”

“Your brother was one, too, Miguel. So are some of the others from your own tribe, from what I understand.”

The plane swerves this way and that. Can’t quite tell if he’s trying to knock me off my perch behind him or he is just a bad pilot. Whatever he’s doing isn’t working.

“I don’t care. They all deserve to die—you deserve to die. When did you turn?”

“A few weeks ago.”

He shakes his head a little. “Doesn’t matter. You’re one of them now. Non-human. An animal that kills the innocent.”

“Not in my experience, Miguel.”

“Your experience? You just got here. You think because you’re fucking one of them and turned a few weeks ago you’re suddenly, what... an expert?” As he speaks, he occasionally throws his head back for added emphasis. For the most part, I’m catching about 80% of his words, as some are lost in the roar of wind and engine.

“They’re not killers, Miguel. They are shifters. They want only freedom and open spaces.”

“They turned my brother—then they killed him.”

“The turning part I don’t know much about. But the killing part is a cultural thing, Miguel. It’s how disputes were settled—are settled. I don’t approve, but your brother got caught up in it. He didn’t have to agree to fight.”

“He was a kid—a teen!” he shouts. “He didn’t know better. They bullied him!”

“You can’t punish an entire species, Miguel. There are hundreds of weres out there. Many are good people. Perhaps even most of them.”

“Abominations. You are an abomination, too!”

And with that, he turns the controls hard right. Except we don’t turn. No, we spin. Like a corkscrew. He screams with what sounds like fury. I scream in legit fear. We are damn near a thousand feet up now.

And what he does next spells his doom... and any weres below us.

God, I hope there’s no one below us—werewolves especially.

He begins releasing the poison, which spews out and around us in a spiraling red mist. I suspect he hit the lever a little harder than he meant, as it looks like most of the poison is dispersing. Lucky for me, it’s blasting behind us, to drift below. From where we are in the region, miles east of the airport, there are no known reservations. Though there might be smaller communities or solitary weres.

Unfortunately for me, the spinning plane sort of envelopes the reddish poison, which seems to also be mixed with real pesticide. Likely, Miguel dumped the poison into an already-filled tank. The combination of pesticide and poison does a number on me, and the blackness around my visions returns... and it does so with a vengeance.

My last conscious decision is to push Miguel aside, lean over him, and push the controls downward.

Spinning, we head toward the earth. Where to, exactly, I don’t know.

After all, I had already blacked out.

Chapter Twenty-six

I hear voices.

Faint voices that sound familiar, though others sound... professional and efficient. This second group are reading off numbers and vitals, giving commands to others. I feel myself jerked this way and that—then hear the slam of heavy doors.

I open my eyes.

I’m in the back of an ambulance.

Alex is sitting next to me. As far as I can tell, we’re not moving. Definitely don’t hear the sirens or engines. I try to look down at myself, but my head is made of stone.

“Relax, Ells.”

“What...” is all I can manage to say. Pretty sure my jaw is broken.

“The plane crashed, Ells. You were, ah... on fire.”

I smell it now. Burnt flesh. Sadly, I had smelled something similar years ago at the scene of a fiery crash in Anchorage. I flick my gaze down and raise a hand... it’s blackened. Holy crap. Except... I don’t feel a ton of pain.

“Probably fifty percent burns. Don’t worry about it. You’re already healing. The ambulance driver is one of our own. We’re staying put until you heal up enough to take you to the hospital.”

“I don’t...”

“Understand? We do things different out here, Ells. We can’t have you healing from significant burn wounds in the emergency room... especially when we can just wait things out here for another twenty or thirty minutes.”

“That...”

“Makes sense? Yeah, it kinda does. We have a few doctors on staff at the hospital, but there’s none currently working in the ER. So we’ll stay put here. That said, we do have to bring you in to make a show of things. After all, it’s been reported as one dead, and one injured.”

“Miguel...”

“Didn’t make it, Ells. Died upon impact.”

I close my eyes, swearing under my breath, noting that my tongue and teeth all seem to be in their right places. Dammit, Miguel. I liked you. You were a good cop, and good friend at times. But he harbored hate for damn near two decades... and blamed the weres for his loss. The circumstances of his brother’s turning aren’t known to me. I know it’s possible to be turned against one’s will—boy do I—so that’s always a possibility... and maybe there was something to that. Maybe his brother had unwillingly gotten involved with the local weres, and got sucked in, so to speak, to the lifestyle, and, ultimately, into a death duel. Of which he lost. To Alex’s brother, no less.

The death of Miguel’s brother, however, wasn’t necessarily due to the fact that both were werewolves, as far as I knew. It was due to a woman. That both young men happened to be weres was incidental. Both went into the woods, knowing that only one would emerge. It just happened to be Donovan.

To blame his death on all the local werewolves is misguided.

But say that to a ten-year-old boy, who likely lost his hero.

Worse, he’d found the body.

So damn tragic.

“The poison...”

Alex nods sadly. “Was released... but dropped rapidly, and seems to be contained to a localized area. I fear some got to you. On the parts of your body where you weren’t burned...” He studies my forearm and neck. “... there’s a strange redness; it isn’t healing as quickly.”

“I should be dead,” I say, finally finishing a sentence of my own.

“In theory, yes. Then again, that poison was old. Likely, it had lost its potency. Additionally, you are a new were. I think your newness has something to do with you not kicking the bucket.”

“How?”

“I dunno. We can ask the shaman later. But I surmise you still have some vestiges of humanness still in you. As in, not fully a wolf. Your remaining humanity kept you alive. Had you been full wolf, so to speak, things might have turned out differently for you. That said, we are going to organize a razing of the forest in the area. Already, members of the tribe are tracing where the poison likely spread.”

“Burning?”

“To the ground, Ells. It’s the only way to remove the poison forever. Can’t have one of our own hiking through here and touching the residue.”

Seems like overkill to me, but I’m too tired to protest.

I do feel... okay. Not great. And my body is telling me not to move, that it needs more time to heal. I have broken bones still. Lots of them. But the small itchings I feel throughout my body—inside my body—suggests the bones are mending.

So weird.

Yet, I’m so grateful.

“You saved a lot of people today, Ells. It’s safe to say the tribe is indebted to you—all weres everywhere, in fact. Spread carefully enough and slow enough, Miguel could have gotten us all. There is no hiding from the damned stuff. Especially for those unaware of the hellfire raining down on them. You took one for all of us.”

I manage a shrug and a small smile, wondering how badly my face is burned, if at all. Can’t quite tell. “All in a day’s work,” I manage to mumble.

He smiles and rests a hand gently on my shoulder, patting me, loving me, being there for me while this amazing new body heals...

Chapter Twenty-seven

It’s been two weeks since I flew the unfriendly skies.

The wounds from the poison still haven’t completely healed; my left arm is dotted with red marks. I look more like someone who’d emerged from the deep, dark Amazon covered in rare insect bites. Luckily, no one saw my arms, especially with the weather still so damned cold. My bones all mended days ago, along with the burns. In fact, I have grown brand-new skin; the old burned stuff having long since flaked away. My skin has never looked better.

The ultimate chemical peal.

As far as the world knows, Miguel hijacked the plane for unknown reasons. Yes, I had officially stopped him, and survived the plane crash; whereas he hadn’t. Justin survived the attack and gave witness that Miguel had attacked him, pistol whipping him. Miguel wanted sole use of the Air Tractor, without supervision. Justin couldn’t allow it, and was attacked for his efforts.

Why Miguel wanted the Air Tractor wasn’t known. Because he was a deputy, the case garnered further attention.

Officially, Miguel had snapped and sought revenge on his brother’s death, attempting to spray the Ammagaruqnik reservation with dangerous chemicals. Unofficially, we knew the chemicals were more than that... and that the man had planned the deaths of potentially hundreds of werewolves.

The world at large doesn’t know that last bit, of course. But there is no denying or hiding the fact that he had assaulted a pilot and stolen an airplane. Additionally, witnesses had seen me hop aboard it via the front window of my cruiser, so there is no denying that either.

So, officially, I survived the crash; he hadn’t.

Any mention of werewolves is brushed under the rug, though there are still rumors, most of which are dismissed.

Some of my staff looked at me sideways on my first day back on the job. No doubt they wondered how I had survived the crash and the deputy hadn’t. Reading their minds, none openly considered I had been turned into ‘one of them.’ Despite all the rumors, the legend of the werewolf is just that... a legend. Not a fact.

At least, not to the non-Native American humans of Hope.

The Inuit who grew up in the nearby reservations knew otherwise, of course. But they kept such secrets to themselves, thank God.

The City of Hope is truly a balance of legend, belief, and knowing. I happen to be in the last category. Just four months ago, I had been in the first.

The plane crash made state-wide news. I’d been interviewed by the FAA, too, considering it had been an aerial crash. In about a week, much of it had blown past. Dammit, Miguel. I’m still broken up by his loss. Yes, he tried to kill me. But that had been at the end, when he saw me as the enemy. Before that, he’d been a good kid... even though we were roughly the same age.

Oh, and Koko was long gone, as I suspected she would be. Undoubtedly, she had expected Miguel’s plan to work and was going to meet him somewhere far away to start a new life together.

She had been party to a mass murder attempt. I was going to keep an eye out for her. I couldn’t officially put an APB out on her, but I would do the next best thing. Keep digging... and see if she turns up somewhere.

Meanwhile, Alex and I had grown closer, too. I think in his wolf form, he had seen me, too, as his mate. I found that more exciting than I would admit. We kept the bonding experience to ourselves. Truth is, I can’t wait for the next full moon... and pray like crazy it will be just fractionally easier on my body.

To be clear, I’m definitely not looking forward to the shifting part. But running free with my mate, deep into the forests and across hundreds of miles of open land, running, running... running. Yes, very much so.

Ah, I never knew what I was missing.

But being a wolf is just what the doctor ordered.

To know that something so powerful, so alive, so hungry, so fast, and so connected to the earth lives inside me is surreal and special.

I need only to think of this to smile.

And experiencing all of this with Alex makes it all the more special.

I am more than I was before. Not less.

I have a tribe. And I have a mate.

And each month, I have something itching to break free.

The End

The Arctic Wolves return in:

Dark Wolf

Return to the Table of Contents

DARK WOLF

A novel by

J.R. RAIN &

H.P. MALLORY

Arctic Wolf #3

Dark Wolf

Published by Rain Press

Copyright © 2022 by J.R. Rain & H.P. Mallory

All rights reserved.

Ebook Edition, License Notes

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

Dark Wolf

Chapter One

As I stepped out of my squad car and into the chill spring air, Frank Dewey, owner of Frank’s Kitchen, threw open the stenciled glass door of his establishment and marched along the cement path to ‘greet’ me in the parking lot.

“Thank God you’re here, Chief! And none too soon. Will you please get this sad sack of shit out of my establishment?”

I wasn’t sure which sad sack of shit he was referring to—there were quite a few sacks of sad shit in this shitty sack of a sad town. Try saying that five times fast.

“Nice to see you, too, Frank,” I grumbled.

“Oh, sorry. Howdy, Chief.” He ran a hand through his thinning hair. “I can’t run a business like this!”

“Where’s the sad sack of shit in question?”

Frank waved over his shoulder. “You don’t need directions to find him. Just follow the smell.”

The instant I stepped inside the restaurant, the stench hammered me in the face.

Old urine, stale booze, and body odor for days. Then again, my sense of smell had been heightened of late. Truth be known, I fought an urge to gag.

Heightened indeed.

Frank hung back near the open door, where he could, no doubt, breathe in the fresh air. From what I could see—and smell—the cacophony of odors had caused a mass exodus, emptying the place of everyone except Felix Martin, who stood behind the bar.

I doubted he was the sad sack of shit.

I headed over to him. “How ya doing, Felix?”

“I’ll be just fine as soon as we air this place out.” He waved his hand in front of his face. “Smells like a dog shit got married to a rotted corpse and had a baby.”

“That’s… pleasant,” I groaned.

Felix wrinkled his nose and gestured toward a man sleeping it off in a back booth. Ah, yes, turns out, I was already familiar with the sad sack of shit (SSOS). So much for surprises in this town.

The SSOS was one Dr. Paul Moody. Yes, our town doctor, surgeon, and medical examiner. A film of drool puddled under his flabby, pallid cheeks.

“How many has he had?” I asked Felix.

Dr. Moody answered by letting off a rip-roaring fart.

“Good Lord,” I grumbled.

“Did he just shit hisself?” Frank roared. I turned to look at him, noticed he’d stepped a few feet inside the place and now was promptly going the other way.

“I haven’t given him anything; he showed up like this,” Felix answered my original question. “We gotta policy against serving anyone who appears intoxicated.” He motioned at the passed out—and once respectable—doctor. “Let’s say I made a judgment call. After demanding to be served and raising a stink—literally—he finally just passed out. He started coming to just a few minutes ago.”

Moody snorted and lifted his head. His bleary eyes didn’t focus on anything, least of all me. He made a garbled attempt at speech and failed, producing more drool. And another fart.

I thanked Felix and moved across the empty restaurant. Moody spied me coming and started chuckling as he pushed up to his elbow.

“Sheriff!”

“Close. Chief of Police.”

“Let’s have us a drink!”

I took a deep breath and then regretted it. Maybe Moody had shit himself. “Let’s go, Doc.”

He shook his head. “Arrest ‘em all, Chief.”

“Arrest who?”

He waved his hand around Frank’s Kitchen in a very drunk way. “All of ‘em.”

“On what grounds?”

“On account of them not servin’ a hard-workin’, law-abidin’ citizen.”

“Public drunkenness isn’t exactly law-abiding, Doc. C’mon, let’s sober you up.”

“I’m not crazy, you know.”

“No one said you were crazy,” I answered on a sigh.

“I know what I saw! You saw it too.”

“What is he talking about?” Frank asked, who’d followed behind me. He had half his face barricaded beneath his shirt.

“He’s talking crazy talk,” I answered. “He’s had too much to drink, and he’s imagining things,” I finished, lying. I knew very well what Dr. Moody was referring to, though I sure as hell wasn’t going to admit anything. At least, not here. Those were secrets I was sworn to keep.

Meanwhile, I could see Dr. Moody wouldn’t be able to stand, let alone walk, without some help. Once I coaxed him from the booth, I held my breath, got under his arm, and grunted as I expected my spine to snap, trying to support his considerable weight. But then I remember what I was. Being a werewolf gave me more than heightened senses—I was also much stronger than I had been. So, I pretended to struggle under the Doc’s weight and gave a little grunt.

“I’m not crazy!” he bellowed, this time in my ear. His weight wasn’t going to make me pass out, but his breath definitely would. I caught Frank and Felix staring at me. I tried to laugh off Doctor Moody’s ravings.

“The good doctor needs to sleep it off.”

Felix lent a hand—or spine—and together we maneuvered the raving doctor from the restaurant and into the sunlight of early evening. I almost face-planted in the snow, moving down the icy walkway. In the end, we loaded him into the backseat of my Jeep. Even after separating myself from him, Moody’s smell still clung to me. I’d need a shower and a change of uniform after this.

I stood there with my hands on my hips, irritated. Yes, both Dr. Moody and I had witnessed something disturbing... something no man or woman should ever see: a corpse rising up off an autopsy table and walking away. Just. Like. That.

Of course, my knowledge of this situation went a lot deeper than Moody’s did—once I fully understood what had happened. The ‘corpse’ had been a shifter... and nearly immortal. He hadn’t, in fact, been fully dead.

Luckily, I’d had Alex to explain the whole, impossible scenario. The doctor had no one. Well, he had alcohol, of which he’d been consuming copious amounts publicly since the ‘event’ took place. Worse, he’d been ranting about ‘not being crazy’ and ‘seeing the dead walk’. Thank God most residents assumed it was just the booze talking.

“We all know Moody,” Felix said as he and Frank stood on the sidewalk and faced me. “A nicer guy was never born. Dang, he delivered half the people in this town and he’s doctored everyone else.”

Frank nodded. “But something happened to him,” he answered on a sigh.

“He’s been going on about how he isn’t crazy and he ‘saw it with his own eyes,’ but he won’t come out and say exactly what he saw,” Felix continued. “Whatever it was, it musta been pretty bad. He might need some, ah, professional help.”

“Yeah, maybe, but that’s beyond my job description,” I answered. “I better get him locked up for now so he can sleep it off. I’ll make a note in his file recommending he be admitted to a psych unit for his own safety.” Then I faced Felix. “Thanks for your help, Felix.”

***

I unlocked the drunk tank.

Looked like Moody had the cell to himself this afternoon. Probably for the best with all his ramblings.

Instead of staggering in like a good boy, he slammed one beefy arm against the doorjamb. Then he put his stinking mouth right up next to my nose, leaving me with no choice but to smell his rancid breath and gag.

“My assistant saw it, and you did, too, Chief. We all saw that man get up off the examination table after I did a full autopsy on him. You saw him put his innards back into his body and walk out of here as pretty as you please.”

“Dr. Moody,” I started.

“I didn’t imagine it!” he railed, interrupting me. “And I hadn’t been drinking. No, the drinking started after. You better believe it!”

I cringed, and not from the horrors reeking off the man or his drink-induced emotional swings. Since this whole bizarre situation first happened, I couldn’t get the image the doctor had just described out of my head. Of course, I had the inside scoop. I knew why it happened, but that didn’t make the details any less easy to swallow. After all, at the end of the day, a corpse scooping up its innards is still a corpse scooping up its innards.

“Tell me...” Moody whispered, glazed eyes desperate. “Tell me you saw it, too. Tell me I’m not losing my mind.”

I held his drunken gaze. The man needed to hear the words. “I saw what you saw. You aren’t crazy.”

He stared at me as if he couldn’t quite understand what I’d just said. Finally, he said, “Really?”

“Really.”

“But why haven’t you said anything?” he demanded, his surprise giving way to hostility. “My assistant refused to speak to me after it happened! She moved away…” He seemed to lose his train of thought, but as soon as he remembered, his beady eyes were back on me. “Why did you leave me alone… on a limb, ranting and raving? Why did you let everyone think I was crazy?”

I sighed. Why indeed? At first, I thought the whole corpse-rising-from-the-dead thing was a practical joke—the good old boys of the remote Hope area hazing the new chief of police. If only it had been. Except what happened in the morgue was no prank. I found out only too soon that the supposedly dead man was actually Donovan Johnson, an ostracized member of the nearby Ammagaruqnik Inuit reservation.

The whole group of them turned out to be werewolves.

Donovan’s ‘dead’ body had been frozen in the snow and ice, with a silver dagger sticking out of his chest. The man, of course, had been a werewolf too, and the silver dagger we’d found lodged in his chest had missed his heart by inches... thus, not killing him. Instead, it had rendered him comatose. And when the dagger had finally been removed... he’d eventually started coming to again. He came to life on the morgue exam table, shoved his guts back into his empty stomach cavity and staggered away.

Right in front of Dr. Moody and me.

And then the investigation was underway. In the process, it nearly killed me. I got bitten by Donovan’s would-be killer, Achuk, and the bite turned me into a werewolf.

It wasn’t like I had a choice in the matter. Like I said, I barely survived it.

Being a werewolf in a town populated by humans proved trickier than I expected. Being a werewolf police chief complicated the situation to no end. I might have looked normal on the outside, but my transformation set me far apart from the exact people I was trying to protect. And Dr. Moody’s repeated outbursts didn’t help me fly under the radar.

I entered the cell and took hold of his elbow, steering him toward the cot in the corner. The instant I touched him, the old werewolf telepathy punched me in the head. I got a clear, undiluted rush of Moody’s thoughts. The image of Donovan rising from the table came back in all its gruesome horror. I got a full dose of Moody’s stark terror along with the visuals.

I felt it as the adrenaline poured into his blood. Every instinct told him to run for his life away from the nightmare before him, but his feet rooted themselves to the floor. He couldn’t move, no matter how hard he tried. He was forced to watch and let the terrible thing sear itself into his brain for the rest of his life.

Then his thoughts turned to me, where I was standing beside him by the autopsy table. It was surreal looking at myself speaking to him.

“Whisperings are that he’s a shape-shifter,” I said, and shrugged.

Those words echoed in his mind.

Moody sank onto the cot and my fingertips trailed off his elbow. I’d only been a werewolf for a few months. I still hadn’t mastered this whole telepathy thing. The mind reading came and went in staticky patches, but this one smashed into my brain with unbelievable power.

No wonder Moody drank so much to dull his memories. No wonder he went from one person to another, searching for anyone who would believe he wasn’t crazy. His assistant had abandoned him and so had I. If I hadn’t had Alex guiding me through the process, who knows how I would have handled it. Maybe I would have turned to drinking just like Dr. Moody had. One thing’s for sure—I would’ve gotten the hell out of Dodge.

“Why are we just… now talkin’ about this?” Moody asked.

I shrugged. “I’ve been busy dealing with it myself. That and I’m sure you heard about Miguel and the plane crash. Get some rest, Doc,” I said. “Sober up, clean up, and we’ll talk about what we saw… You aren’t alone anymore.”

He nodded and lay on the cot. He closed his eyes and his breathing lengthened.

I walked out and locked him inside, all the while trying to shake off both my own memory and Moody’s. My memory of Donovan rising was bad enough. I didn’t need a second dose.

I made a mental note on my way back to my office to ask Alex if there was a way to block this telepathy business. Both to keep out of other’s minds and to keep them out of mine. The Ammagaruqnik wolf pack couldn’t live like this all the time. They wouldn’t be able to stay sane if they did.

Also, and perhaps more important, I needed to find out if there was a way to remove the memory of the encounter with Donovan from Dr. Moody’s brain. For his own safety; after all, I suspected there were those in the tribe who wouldn’t take kindly to the good doctor rambling about their secret.

Their very big secret.

Chapter Two

This isn’t a date, I thought to myself.

Right. We’re just going out for a casual meal. And besides, we’ll be in public and it’s not like I want it to get out that Alex and I are… together. I want to keep my personal life strictly personal.

I rummaged through my makeup case and took out a plum-colored lipstick. I opened it, twisted it out, and bent toward my bathroom mirror to put it on. When I saw myself from close up, I cringed. I already had on way too much makeup and my sleek black dress wasn’t helping the whole ‘casual’ look. Yeah, I definitely looked like I was going on a date.

What are you going to do if he shows up in jeans and a t-shirt and you’re wearing that?

I stood back with the lipstick still clutched in my hand. I had a point. I needed to change.

But what to wear?

If you go too casual and he thinks it’s a date, he’ll be disappointed.

Hmm, could it be a date?

You know what your mother would say. The voice in my head sounded haughty, like she knew something I didn’t… which was impossible.

I groaned. I knew exactly what my mother would say.

‘You aren’t getting any younger, you know? One of these days, you’re going to wake up and find out you’re too old and then no one will want you. You put too much effort into your career. No man wants that. A man wants a woman to put his needs first.’

Okay, I told myself. You can stop now.

I tossed the lipstick into my makeup pouch and grabbed a tissue. Then I started wiping off the makeup on my way back to my room. Catching another glimpse of my reflection in the full-length mirror, I realized I did look like I was going on a date—a very expensive, important, romantic date. With a man who was my boyfriend.

I wriggled out of the dress and stuck my head in the closet.

While you’re at it, if you’re going to take your clothes off in front of him again, you might want to rethink your underwear.

I spun around and gaped at my reflection in the mirror. The bra and panty set was about as lackluster as it could be considering I couldn’t even remember when or where I’d bought it.

I took a deep breath and returned to the closet, flipping a few hangers along the closet rail. Should I wear my normal clothes and risk the embarrassment of him turning up for a date, or should I dress up and run the risk of embarrassment if he shows up not thinking about a date at all? I mean, he made it clear to the Elders that I was his partner and he did refer to me as his girlfriend…

With a glance up at the clock on the wall, I realized it was almost seven o’clock. Whatever I was going to wear, I needed to figure it out. He’d be here soon.

I opted to wear what I wanted to wear, the safe choice, and got a pair of jeans out of my drawer. I selected a semi-casual blouse for a top. Then I approached my underwear drawer and sorted through it, in search of something at least slightly more interesting than faded white cotton.

I took out the first pair of panties and bra I laid my hands on—a matching set with a bit of lace—both black. Not the sexiest, but not too embarrassing, either. I got dressed, then pulled my leather jacket over everything.

Just then, a knock echoed through the house. I damn near jumped a foot in the air, then dashed down the hall to answer the door.

Alex grinned at me when I opened it. I saw at a glance he was wearing dark jeans, scuffed leather boots and a dark blazer over a white t-shirt. At least he hadn’t dressed up, either, though he still looked beyond handsome.

His lips curled into a suggestive smile. “Oh, and by the way, it’s definitely a date. We can watch a movie and… hold hands and everything.”

My cheeks flushed and heat washed up my neck. “Ugh, how are you reading my mind? You told me that wasn’t possible.”

“It is possible… for us… now.”

His comment seemed odd, but I felt so uncomfortable with the whole mind-reading bit, all I could think about was trying to block my thoughts or focus on something stupid, like dish detergent.

“Let’s go,” I said and gave him a shove. He pretended to stumble off my front step and into a snowdrift next to it. He didn’t fall over though, the jerk, but he did get snow on his pants.

He laughed as he brushed it off. “You don’t have to dress up for me, Ellie. You’re beautiful no matter what you do. Especially the morning after a full moon.” He chuckled at his own cleverness.

“How about we try not to read each other’s thoughts—just for tonight?” I responded, breathing in deeply.

I dipped my eyes, but I made sure not to look too closely at his waist, hips, or legs. The memory of the first time we made love was too close to popping into my mind. That would only give him more ammunition to needle me with.

He pretended not to notice. “How’s that working for you?”

“Which part? Dating or reading minds?”

He exploded in laughter.

“What is so funny?” I snapped.

“I was talking about reading minds.”

I colored again. “Oh.”

“I was asking you how it was going? Have your abilities improved at all?”

I shrugged. “Not much improvement, to tell you the truth. Whenever I try to listen in on someone’s thoughts, it still sounds like a badly tuned radio—except…” I trailed off.

He cocked his head to study me. “Except what?”

“Nothing.” I turned away toward my Jeep. I didn’t want to talk about seeing the memories in Moody’s head. I didn’t want to talk about it with anyone, especially not Alex, given that Donovan was his brother, not that they were close.

But back to my abilities at reading other people’s minds, if I concentrated, I could get a scratchy, patchy read on their feelings. Moody’s memory of Donovan rising from the dead was the exception.

I changed tack and waved toward my Jeep. “Get in.”

I got behind the wheel and fired up the engine. Alex slid into the passenger seat. “I told you not to worry about the telepathy thing. It will come with time and practice.”

“So you keep saying.”

“Did something happen? You seem… upset?”

I shook my head. “I’m not upset. I’m fine.” I put the Jeep in gear and eased out of the driveway. Then I immediately started singing Hit Me, Baby, One More Time in my head, so he didn’t hear or read anything in my thoughts that I didn’t want him to.

He chuckled and started bouncing to the tune in his seat. “Hit me, baby, one more time! I always loved that song.”

“I want to shift tonight,” I told him.

His grin evaporated, and he shook his head. “You can’t force it. It comes with the moon and sometimes during life and death situations. If you shift, you shift. If you don’t, you don’t.”

“That’s crap,” I returned. “You do it all the time.”

“That’s different. You’re only a few months out from getting changed into a werewolf. It can take six months to a year before your body completes the transformation at the cellular level.”

“Okay,” I answered on a sigh, frustrated. “So… something else I’ve been wondering about… why is it that we can suddenly read each other’s minds?”

“The only werewolves who can read each other’s minds are those that are mated.”

“Mated? What does that mean?”

“It’s an outdated term,” Alex started, before sucking in a big breath.

“Okay, but what does it mean?”

“Well, you’re familiar with the term ‘soul mate’?”

“Yeah…”

“So being mated is like that. Like being soul mates.”

“Um,” I started, frowning at him. “So does that mean… we’re mated?”

Alex cleared his throat. “Well, that’s the explanation I was given.”

“I don’t remember you asking me to mate you,” I said with a frown.

Alex immediately started laughing. “That’s not… how it works.”

“Then how does it work?”

“It’s something our bodies do… naturally, instinctively. It’s not something you have a conversation about and sign on the dotted line and then, boom, you’re mated, Elodie.”

“Well, how was I supposed to know?”

He chuckled again. “By the way, you wanna mate me?”

“Ha ha, Alex, very funny,” I said, but managed to spare him a smile. “Back to the subject, please.”

He nodded. “From what I could understand, what’s happening between us isn’t normal. Actually, it’s pretty rare. In some cases, when a shifter couple has been together for hundreds of years, the mate bond happens. It’s believed to occur due to the powerful bond created between the two over time.”

“Um, I think we’ve been together, what two weeks?”

He chuckled again. “Depends on what your definition of ‘together’ means.”

I frowned at him. “The point being—we haven’t been together for anywhere near a hundred years.”

“Right. So… basically… I have no idea what I’m talking about.”

“Really?”

“Really.”

“Ugh, why didn’t you just say that?”

“I did just say that.”

“I mean, from the beginning.” He gave me a charming smile, and I just shook my head. “So, tell me what you do know about the mate bond.”

He shrugged. “A mate may know their partner has been hurt or is in danger. They may be able to find them when they’re lost.”

“How?”

“Because with every mate bond comes a pair of identical compasses.”

I looked at him.

“Instinct, Elodie, instinct.”

“So... the term ‘mate’, does that mean anything specific?”

“It just means that… somehow and some way… we managed to bond through sex.”

“Like forever?”

“I don’t know.”

“Oh.” I said, feeling a bit disappointed but not sure why.

Chapter Three

Frank set a huge dish of ribs in front of me.

Then he put down an equally large platter with two T-bone steaks, a bucket of boneless wings, an order of mozzarella sticks, and two large Cokes.

“Thanks, Frank.” I picked up a Coke and started sucking it up through the straw. “Looks great.”

“All that food’s for you?” Frank raised his eyebrows and frowned at me.

“Yep,” I answered.

Just then, Felix came over and laid out a similarly huge spread in front of Alex. “Thanks, man,” Alex told him. “I’m starved.”

“Just where you think you’re gonna pack all that away?” Frank continued, staring at me like I was some kind of alien life form.

Figuring I needed to explain why a woman my size was ordering enough food for three other people, I looked up at him. “I order enough food to last me the week. Leftovers… you know?”

He frowned again. “Are you sure you don’t want to order anything more? We have porterhouse steaks on special this week.”

“Thanks,” I repeated. “I might. I’ll let you know.”

As soon as Felix and Frank left, I picked up my knife and fork and set in. “I thought they’d never leave.” I picked up the first T-bone and ripped a piece of meat off the bone. “Do they always stare like that when you eat here?”

“Not anymore,” Alex answered on a laugh. “They only made a big deal about it with you because you usually only order a salad. Good save about the leftovers thing.”

“Ha, thanks,” I managed through a mouth full of meat cooked rare. “So… what is this extreme hunger about? Clearly, it never goes away if you’re still eating like this after all this time.”

“Full moon is coming,” he answered on a shrug. “Our bodies need to bulk up on protein in order to do what they do.”

I nodded as I finished my bite and chased it with a few gulps of soda. Truth be told, my brain still hadn’t accepted the mind-reading subject. “So, this mind-reading thing we share isn’t normal?”

“Right.”

“Does that mean I don’t have to worry about the Elders reading my mind?”

He shook his head and chuckled. “No, you’re fine. This isn’t like Twilight, where the wolves have a pack mentality.” He swallowed his bite and looked over at me. “Oh, and vampires don’t sparkle, either.”

Leaning forward, I could feel my mouth dropping open. “Wait, vampires are real?”

“Yeah, and there are a wide variety of species. Some walk in the sun and look human, and others hide in the shadows and look like death. There are vampires who drink blood and others, though more rare, who sustain themselves on energy.”

“Energy vampires are a real thing?”

“Right.”

I cocked my head to the side. “Who knew?”

“There are some who can even shape shift and that allows them to go out during the day.”

“Whoa.” I said and shoved a chicken wing in my mouth.

“Same goes with shifters. You know about werewolves, obviously, but there are others, too.”

“Like what?”

“Like bears, fox, coyote and even jackals.”

“Jackals?”

He nodded. “Oh, and Brass-Eye tells anyone who will listen about the time he met a rare Tiger shifter… back when he was young.”

There was a whole lot more to this world of shifters than I’d ever imagined. Not that I’d ever really imagined much before I became one. But, even so, it was overwhelming, to say the least.

I picked up my second Coke and downed that. Still, I was hungry. It was as though no matter how much I put into my stomach, it wasn’t enough. The expression ‘I’m starving’ never had true meaning until I became a werewolf. Now I really felt like I was starving. And I felt like that all the time.

I finished tearing the steak off the bone and then before I could realize what I was doing, I bit down on the bare bone and crunched through it, thinking only of the marrow within.

“Elodie, probably skip that part,” Alex whispered.

“Oh,” I said and then nodded, pushing the bones away. Instead, I stuffed a mozzarella stick in my mouth and hoped no one had seen me biting through cow bones like they were uncooked spaghetti. “So… what’s the story on Donovan? Any sign of him?”

Alex shook his head. He spoke around a wad of chicken wings stuffed into his cheek. “No sign. That’s why I was going to look around the reservation perimeter. If he came close enough last time to get himself killed—or nearly killed—he might be trying to get back home.”

“Coming back would get him killed all over again, wouldn’t it? The tribe threw him out, right?”

“Right, but the tribe wouldn’t kill him... They only kicked him out for stealing. Stealing doesn’t warrant a death sentence.”

“Ah. Then they look at it as—”

“That he made a poor choice—or several poor choices. He got himself mixed up with a banned group of shifters. If he cleaned up his act… hell, the tribe might even take him back.”

“Do you think he has cleaned up his act? Maybe that’s why he keeps hanging around—because he’s hoping to convince the elders to give him another chance.”

“I can’t think of any other logical explanation for why he’d come back to the area. Either that or he has nowhere else to go,” Alex continued on a shrug as he dug into his steak. “All his prospects have dried up and now he’s desperate. It’s one or the other.”

“That makes sense. So… who were they—this banned group of shifters you just mentioned? You never talk about them.”

“I don’t talk about them because I don’t like to think about what happened to Donovan,” he replied with a sigh. “I don’t like to think about my brother becoming my enemy.”

“Is he?” Alex nodded. “I didn’t realize it was that bad.”

He nodded again. “It is.”

“I know he stole your girlfriend and all that, but maybe you could see your way to forgiving him for that after she abandoned him the same way she abandoned you?”

“I’ve forgiven him for that—that’s way in the past, but… it doesn’t mean I want to take him back into my life. I’d have to go against the tribal elders to make up with him, and I’d have to sacrifice my own place in the tribe to have anything to do with him.”

“So why bother looking for him?” I swallowed my bite and paused before taking another because this was an important point. “You are still looking for him?”

He nodded. “I’m looking for him to make sure he’s all right—that he isn’t… dead. Taking him back into my life would be a whole different ballgame.”

I rested my elbows on the table. “I get what you mean.”

“Normally, I wouldn’t be too concerned about Donovan. I mean, he gets into trouble all the time, but this is different. After Dr. Moody did that autopsy on him, Donovan went a little nuts, you know?”

I grimaced. “Yeah. I know. He wasn’t the only one.”

“I’m worried about him. That’s the truth. I might not like the guy and all that, but that doesn’t mean I want to see him get hurt or killed. Getting autopsied while you’re still alive and being forced to flee while holding your guts in your gaping stomach isn’t likely to help a person’s mental state, if you know what I mean.”

Ugh, there was that image again.

I waved a spare rib, dripping with barbecue sauce. “Do you mind? I’m eating here.”

He grinned, but just then, I caught a flicker of a thought coming from him. In his mind’s eye, he saw a black wolf slinking toward the edge of town. Parts of the animal’s body were missing and its disfigured face was half-gone.

A stab of longing flooded my heart.

Alex loved that ragged creature. He didn’t see a monstrous beast on the brink of death. He saw his brother.

And in seeing his brother, my heart was clenched with a feeling of ache—a need for everything that once was but would never be again—for the two little boys skipping stones across a river and laughing as though they’d never grow up.

I dropped my food and felt my heartrate speed up.

Alex studied me over a giant pile of chicken wings, but he didn’t say anything. He didn’t have to. His thoughts and feelings said it all.

He broke eye contact to toss a rib bone onto a plate and pick up another. I shook the memory out of my head.

“You got that?” he asked nonchalantly.

“All of it… I think.”

“You’re getting better at it.”

I nodded, but still felt the weight of his sadness. “Must be.”

We were quiet for a few seconds and, all the while, I couldn’t get Alex’s memories and thoughts of his brother out of my head. Finally, I looked up at him. “There must be a way to find him. We’ll sweep the tribal boundaries like you said. We might catch a glimpse of him.”

“We would never catch a glimpse of him, but I might be able to pick up his scent trail.”

“I didn’t think of that… Then we could follow him to wherever he is.”

Alex’s eyes flashed. “We won’t be following him because you aren’t going.”

“What? Why not?”

“Too dangerous,” he answered, and started eating again.

“Um, last I checked, I’m now a werewolf,” I hiss-whispered to him. “And that’s got to put me at the top of the foodchain.”

“You’re new.”

“Oh, come on! What’s the point of having these abilities if I can’t use them? I know what it’s like to worry about family.”

“Answer’s still no.”

I shook my head. I didn’t like hearing ‘no’ from anyone. “I know it’s a long shot, but at least let me help if I can.”

He shook his head. “It’s too dangerous, and anyway, we wouldn’t find Donovan on tribal land. If he is hanging around, he’ll stay off our land until he gets permission to come back. He probably just wants to keep close in case his situation changes.”

“So where do you think he is, then?”

“He’ll be lurking around the no-man’s-land between our territory and another group’s nearby. It’s a dangerous place for any wolf to go without the invitation of that other clan and, I can promise you, Donovan doesn’t have any such invitation. He’s taking his life in his hands, if he is skulking around over there.”

I stared at him. “Does getting back into your tribe’s good graces really mean that much to him?”

“If he has nowhere else to go, then yes—and… before you ask, no, you aren’t going there, either. It would be suicide.”

I frowned at him. “It can’t be that dangerous, or Donovan would be dead by now.”

He shrugged. “Maybe he is. I don’t know.”

I put down the remains of my second T-bone. “Listen. I don’t do well with people telling me what I can and can’t do—I’m chief of police, in case you forgot.”

He burst out laughing. “Tell me something I don’t know.”

“How’s this?” I answered on a snide smile. “I’m going to search for Donovan, no matter what.”

He looked up and his expression went serious. “You aren’t going to back down, are you?”

“No. I’m the chief of police—this is what I do.”

“Right… but you’re also well aware that tribal issues are handled by tribal police, not by outsiders.”

“Um… last I checked, I’m also now a member of the tribe.”

“Dammit, Elodie.”

“Dammit yourself.”

He looked at me for a few seconds and I looked right back at him. Finally, a smile took hold of his mouth. “You’re too stubborn to take no for an answer, so you might as well come with me.”

“Now that that’s solved… You can tell me where to go and where not to go. If you’re right that this area is a no-man’s-land and it doesn’t belong to either group, then it isn’t any more dangerous for me to go there than it is for you.”

He picked up his glass of beer and swigged down half of it. “All right. You talked me into it. I’ll take you as soon as you finish your food.”

I gorged as quickly as I could. Eating this much a few months ago would have made me sick, actually I never could have done it. Yet, now I barely felt full at all. I guzzled another two Cokes and polished off the T-bones while Alex finished his wings and ate a porterhouse for good measure.

So much for having leftovers.

By the time we left, Felix was definitely looking at us strangely, and Frank was making himself scarce. I approached the bar. “What’s the damage, Felix?”

“Are you paying separately or together?”

I glanced over at Alex. I didn’t know what to say.

“I’m only asking, because you get the police discount, Chief.” Felix said. “Sorry, but we can’t extend that to anyone else. Just you, Chief.”

“Oh,” I laughed. “I didn’t expect that. Thanks, Felix.”

Felix told us the total and Alex paid, which Felix allowed to slide once Frank wasn’t looking. Afterward, we stumbled outside and ended up back in the Jeep.

Alex gazed through the front windshield for a few seconds, before turning to face me. “If we’re going to no-man’s-land, we should go now, while we still have some light.”

I didn’t argue.

Chapter Four

I concentrated hard on repeating the lyrics of Billie Jean over and over in my mind.

Doing so proved trickier than expected without driving off the road, but there was no way I was going to let Alex know about Moody. He might feel compelled to talk to the Elders about it and who knew how they would handle it. No, I needed to deal with Moody on my own.

“What are you doing?” Alex asked. “You’re driving me batshit crazy with that.”

I almost shut my eyes to focus my mind on the words and melody. Then I remembered I had to keep them open to see where I was going. “Don’t distract me. This is important.”

I kept singing the song.

“Will you please stop?” Alex interjected. “I can’t think with you singing that song nonstop.”

“I have to.” I shut my eyes again.

“Stop it!” he barked.

I tried to remember where I’d left off in the song, but it didn’t matter now. Instead, I pulled into my driveway and parked next to his car.

“Thank Christ that’s over,” he grumbled, shaking his head. “Now I’ll be singing it for a week.”

“It could be worse,” I called as he climbed out of the Jeep. “I could have gotten Like a Virgin stuck inside your mind instead.”

Alex snarled something unintelligible under his breath and slammed the door extra hard. I chuckled to myself. I took a chance that I might piss him off with that stunt, but at least I got him out of my immediate orbit without letting him read my thoughts.

Before setting out to find Donovan, Alex had let it be known that he needed to stop by his car. Thus, what we were now in the process of doing.

I waited for him to stalk across the driveway and get into his car before I dared to let my guard down. This telepathic connection between us was proving to be a pain in the ass, for the most part. In fact, I couldn’t think of one instance where it had actually come in handy.

This is a bad idea, I said to myself as soon as my thoughts turned back to Donovan and our attempt to find him.

When it came down to it, I really had no reason to try to find him. He wasn’t accused of any crime. He wasn’t causing any trouble—especially not for me. And he hadn’t been seen in months.

Maybe not, but letting him run around free is an even worse idea.

And there was also the part where I wanted to help Alex find his brother. Not only that, but I also wanted to ask Donovan some questions for curiosity’s sake—namely, was he aware while Moody performed the autopsy? Was he awake from the moment we found him staked in the snow, or did he only come to after the knife was removed?

I threw the cruiser into reverse and pulled out of the way so Alex could drive onto the road in front of me. Apparently, we were going to caravan.

After driving for ten or so minutes, Alex veered his car onto the shoulder by the road and I parked the cruiser just behind him. A smooth expanse of unmarked snow covered the frozen ground from the road to a stand of woods a mile or so away. The trees blocked me from seeing what might lie beyond them.

I got out of my Jeep. Alex got out of his car.

He squinted across the field toward the woods. “That’s it. Those trees mark the beginning of no-man’s-land. Everything on this side belongs to our tribe.”

“And on the other side?”

“Those mountains over there belong to the other tribe.”

“You still haven’t told me who this other tribe is. Are they shifters?”

“Yes.” He opened the back door of his car and took out a thick jacket with a fur-lined collar. He put the jacket on and then pulled on a pair of waterproof pants. He tugged them on over his slacks and then changed his leather shoes to snow boots.

“What are you doing?” I asked. “Aren’t you going to shift?”

“No. What made you think I would?”

I nodded toward the woods. “Wouldn’t it be easier to shift and run over there in a few minutes vs however long it’ll take us to get there on foot? What’s the point of trudging through all this snow as we are?”

“You’re way too new to even attempt to force a shift. Second, the tribe that controls that territory would flip if they discovered two wolves this close to the boundary. They wouldn’t wait until they caught us actually on their land to retaliate.”

“And a couple of humans?”

Alex nodded. “They won’t look twice at a couple of humans walking around—at least, I hope not.”

“Uh huh.”

He faux frowned at me. “Get whatever gear you’re going to bring and let’s go.”

I scrambled over to the cruiser and then climbed into every stitch of protective gear I could lay my hands on. Raving shifters were bad enough, but exposure and hypothermia killed quicker than anything in Alaska.

Being a werewolf didn’t suddenly erase my respect for the elements, even if my body ran much warmer now. I slung my pack over my shoulder and headed for the fence, where Alex was waiting for me. When I reached it, I stopped dead and blinked up at Alex. He was cradling a rifle in one elbow. I watched in stunned shock as he cracked open the action, stuffed several large bullet cartridges into the magazine, and then jammed the action home.

“What are you doing?” I croaked.

“I’m arming myself.”

“Why?”

“Don’t want to take any chances.”

“But, you said… you said these were shifters.”

“Right.”

“So, what do you need a gun for?”

He looked at me like I was the dumb kid in class. “Um, protection?”

I gave him the same look right back. “You’re bigger than most people and you seemed the same size as those wolves we fought last time. Can’t you just fight them?”

“I might be willing to fight them as a wolf if these shifters were also wolves, but they aren’t.”

“And let me guess… we are dealing with wereraccoons or werefoxes or, best case scenario, weresquirrels?”

Alex chuckled. “Cute, but no. These are bears.”

My stomach plummeted into my shoes. “If that’s your idea of a joke, Alex, it isn’t funny.”

“Do I look like I’m joking?”

He didn’t. “No.”

He nodded. “Right… so I like my chances better with a gun against a bear than in my wolf form. A shot to the head would give us enough time to get away.”

“Wait a second,” I said and paused, shaking my head. “I thought you told me the group that Donovan ran off with were… werewolves?”

“I don’t recall saying that.”

“Well, I know for damned sure you didn’t say the troublemakers he was running with werebears.” Just saying the word gave me a stomachache.

“Donovan did run off with a group of wolves and he did get banned for running with troublemakers and drug dealers. He didn’t run off with the bears. The bears wouldn’t take him.”

“So, these bears… are they…?”

“They’re our neighbors.” He gave a hoarse, wry laugh with no mirth in it.

“As in… jolly, friendly neighbors?”

“This isn’t the North Pole, Elodie,” Alex answered on a laugh. “There’s no love lost between our peoples, I can tell you. If I didn’t think I had a reasonable chance of finding Donovan, there’s no way I would go anywhere near the bear boundary. It’s too dangerous. But I already told you that… remember?”

My eyes migrated back to those dark, foreboding woods. “You said it was a no-man’s-land. You said it was neither on their territory nor on your tribal land. Technically, we have as much right to be there as anybody.”

“Yeah, well… things don’t always turn out the way they should, do they?”

“What will they do if they catch us?”

“The last time I came over here to look for my brother, I got the shit kicked out of me and a warning not to come back. And that was in my human form. I don’t know if I can survive a real fight against a couple of angry bears.”

My blood ran cold. Werebears. Before tonight, I never once considered such a thing might exist. Then again, I never believed in werewolves, either—not until I became one.

Alex always acted so confident—almost arrogant in his over-confidence. I shivered when he scanned the woods with a mix of apprehension and downright dread. I could feel it through our connection. Maybe the smart thing would have been to pull out, to leave the Donovan situation to the tribe. Yes, that would be for the best. Hell, I’d already put my life in jeopardy dealing with Miguel. I’d crash landed in an airplane full of poison and then landed myself in the hospital.

But I couldn’t abandon Alex. Not now. Not ever.

He didn’t notice me struggling with my doubts because I was apparently doing a good job of keeping them hidden (thank you Cher). He swept his forefinger across the tree line.

“We’ll start over there—at the top end of wolf territory. We’ll work our way down to bear boundary—there. We’ll finish near my family’s home. I don’t think Donovan will be that close to our land, but stranger things have happened.”

I inched closer to him. I didn’t realize until right now how much I relied on him. I had a lot to learn about this bizarre situation and about what it meant to be a wolf shifter in general. Alex understood the intricacies of this new world—intricacies I could only guess about. Who better to teach me than him?

We clearly share a bond.

“What can you tell me about these bears?” I asked.

He shrugged. “What do you want to know?”

“Tell me everything you know.”

“That would take too long. I’ll give you the short version instead. They live in a loose-knit community, but they’re mostly solitary hunters. They don’t use a pack structure, so they aren’t as organized as we are. That has advantages and disadvantages that I don’t pretend to understand. The last time I came over here, I got jumped by three brothers—Lucas, Talon, and Rhys. They acted like they were on a regular patrol of the boundary line, but those three always did have a knack for getting into trouble—just like Donovan. I fought Lucas once before when he jumped bail and I got the bounty to bring him in. We both got hurt in that one.”

He fell silent, and I made the command decision not to ask any more questions. I wasn’t sure I really wanted to know the answers. I definitely didn’t want to meet any of these bear shifters out in the woods, alone with just Alex.

Alex swung his leg over the barbed-wire fence and started plowing across the field. I hopped the fence and took off after him. By the time I caught up with him, he’d already covered half the field. He swept his sharp eyes back and forth over the snowy expanse. Strange colors shone on its glassy surface in the perpetual dusk of the far northern winter.

I looked around, too, but I didn’t see anything. Falling into step behind Alex, I walked in his footsteps. He broke a path through the snow that made my life easier, but even after an hour of hard hiking, I didn’t feel tired at all. I could keep up to his pace with no trouble. The wind cut straight through my parka, but I barely noticed it. That was only one benefit of becoming a werewolf. The elements no longer bothered me.

My eyes detected more details in the white-on-white landscape. I spotted a snowshoe hare crouched against the frost. I wouldn’t have seen it if becoming a werewolf hadn’t heightened my senses.

This werewolf life came with its perks, but I couldn’t help but wish I’d stayed plain old human Elodie. Even knowing so much more about the local culture didn’t make up for losing… well, my humanity. I’d landed smack-dab in the middle of a big, complicated tribal hassle. Having a bunch of wild werebears as my enemies really didn’t appeal to me at all.

Alex didn’t stop when he reached the tree line. He plunged into the woods where the trees blocked most of the snowdrifts. Then we marched one behind the other for another mile and a half, at least.

Alex turned back to where the trees curved downhill to a small stream.

“This is our boundary. We’ll retrace our steps from here.”

I only nodded. This was his circus. Well, actually, it was mine too now, but he was the one who knew his way around. I kept behind him and walked exactly where he walked to make sure I didn’t cross into forbidden territory. Provoking the werebears was the last thing I wanted to do.

We trekked back into the trees. This time, Alex altered his former course and curved to the north. This line led him straight toward the bear shifters’ territory, toward the mountains that Alex said were the werebears’ stronghold. I sure hoped he knew what he was doing, or he would blunder us both right onto their land.

As we hiked, I kept catching flickers of sadness, worry, and anger coming from him. He faithfully searched the woods for Donovan, but Donovan wasn’t here.

Those feelings brought up so many memories and feelings in me that I thought I’d buried in the darkest recess of the past.

For years after my fiancé, Nick, had been shot and killed right in front of me, I did the same thing. I kept searching for him in grocery stores, on the street, and in crowds. I kept expecting him to reappear, but of course, he never did.

In the end, the memories and hopeless hoping drove me crazy. I couldn’t stay in the same city where he died. That need to escape the pain and memories drove me to Alaska and finally to Hope.

Donovan wasn’t dead. That was the difference.

He was still out there somewhere, at least until we found his body and proved otherwise. As long as we might possibly find him and save him from his own self-destructive path, Alex couldn’t turn back.

I understood his feelings toward his brother. I understood only too well. Because I’d lived it and I couldn’t let what happened to me happen to anyone else. I had to help Alex find Donovan before it was too late.

Still, I didn’t expect much. For one thing, Donovan avoided his people. If he really was lurking around in this no-man’s-land, he would keep out of sight. He would definitely avoid getting found by the chief of police.

Alex halted in the center of the woods and turned all the way around in a complete circle. His breath puffed out in steam clouds, but I could tell he wasn’t tired after this hike any more than I was. He was just getting warmed up.

“That’s all of it,” he breathed. “From here, there are only two options—go over to our side or go over to theirs. That line of birches over there marks the bear’s boundary line. There’s no more no-man’s-land to hide in. If we didn’t find Donovan before now, it means he isn’t here.”

I nodded. I’d already come to the same conclusion. “What do you want to do? Go over to our land, or do you want to go back to town?” I peered through the trees toward the road where we’d left our cars.

Alex opened his mouth to answer when something cracked behind him. He spun around, swinging his rifle to his shoulder. Without thinking, I yanked my sidearm from its holster and pivoted to copy him.

The three men stalking toward us were all at least a foot taller than Alex and much broader. They wore shorts, no shirts, and no shoes. Their bare feet crunched on the frosty ground as if the elements were of no consequence to them. The fading light showed off all the chiseled ridges of muscle of their shoulders, chests, and washboard abs in startling detail.

The biggest one stepped forward. His lips curled back from his teeth and he let out a deep, bass growl. A very unhuman growl. The sound vibrated from way down deep in his barrel chest and into my very bones.

I tensed all over. My instincts told me to run, and when I glanced at the gun in my hands, it had never felt so puny and ridiculous.

Alex swiveled his rifle barrel to follow their movements. His cheek was glued to the wooden stock that muffled his voice.

“Lucas, Talon, and Rhys,” he said in pseudo greeting.

My head jerked sideways to stare at him before I corrected myself. The realization hit me hard, and I kept my gun trained on my target. These were the same men that Alex had crossed last time.

Shit. Shit and shit.

Chapter Five

The three huge bear shifters strolled nearer.

They split apart then, two inching left while the third headed to the right. I locked my gunsight on the two going left. Alex followed the one going right. We turned in opposite directions and my back came to rest against his.

The three brothers spread out to surround us. The giant leader rumbled at Alex behind my back. “We warned you last time, dog. I told you to stay off our land, but apparently, you don’t listen. Now you’re going to pay the price.”

“I’m not on your land,” Alex snarled back. “This is no-man’s-land, so don’t bullshit me, Lucas. Your boundary is over there and we both know it. If I’m trespassing, then you are, too. I’d be within my rights to shoot you right here and now.”

“You won’t do that,” Lucas answered on an unconcerned laugh. “You won’t start a war between our people.”

“You’re right—I don’t want to start a war,” Alex answered matter-of-factly.

“Then what the hell are you doing here?” Lucas pushed.

“I’m looking for Donovan,” Alex answered. “If you know where he is, tell me and then I won’t have to come back looking for him.”

While they talked, the three strangers rotated around Alex and me until Lucas migrated into my line of sight. The other two, Talon and Rhys, walked around to Alex’s side.

Lucas halted in front of me and raised his eyebrows as he took me in from head to toe. “Is this the new wolf I’ve heard so much about?” His lips cracked into a grin that lit up his countenance.

Heard so much about? I wasn’t aware that news about the wolves traveled all the way to the bears.

“What the hell are you talking about?” Alex demanded.

Lucas shrugged. “Word is you were in deep shit with the elders because you turned someone you shouldn’t have.” As he spoke, his eyes never strayed from mine. His smile broadened. “But looking at her now, I can see why you did what you did.”

“You son of a…” Alex started to swing his rifle around to confront Lucas, but he stopped himself. He couldn’t turn his back on Talon and Rhys.

“Is that true, little pup?” Lucas purred as he took a step closer to me, until I turned the sights of the gun right at him. “And she wears a badge.”

“Because she’s chief of police,” I spat the words at him.

He chuckled. “Does ‘she’ have a name?”

“Elodie Matthews,” I answered, figuring my name was public information.

“Well, little pup, it’d behoove you to learn where your territory ends and ours begins.”

“This isn’t your territory,” Alex repeated.

The other two laughed, but I didn’t blink. I kept my gun trained on Lucas’s impossibly broad chest. No matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t stop my gaze from drifting lower… to the rest of his body.

Either he was born lucky, or he put in tons of gym time because his abs were incredible. I could make out every mound and crevice. Deep, olive skin covered every bulging muscle.

Etched blue tattoos covered his torso and his straight, dark hair hung almost to his shoulders. Instead of making him look scruffy or unkempt, it set off his smooth skin and impressive physique. And the planes of his face were nothing short of architectural with their sharp edges and contours. His eyes were large and chocolate brown, his lips full.

“It would also behoove you, little pup, to realize a wolf is never going to win against a bear,” Lucas continued as he closed the gap between us. I didn’t shift the gun, but he didn’t seem to care.

His brothers looked similar to him, though they weren’t as tall nor as broad. Their eyes and faces didn’t exude such primal magnetism either. I couldn’t bring myself to look away even when I knew I should.

“Seeing as how Alex and I haven’t crossed over into your territory, I’m not sure what you’re still doing here, running your gums,” I managed.

Lucas’ eyes widened for a half second before he threw his head back and laughed.

I didn’t break my glare. “You can look at the snow for our footsteps and see we never crossed into your territory.” My thoughts cleared enough to realize something else. “But you must have been watching us, so you already knew that, didn’t you?”

“I was watching you, yes,” Lucas answered.

“And the whole reason you came over here was to trap Alex because you wanted to attack him,” I continued, eyes narrowing further. “You don’t give a damn if he crossed your boundary or not. You pretend to patrol your perimeter, but you’re really nothing but petty thugs.”

Lucas dragged his sultry, dark eyes down my waist and hips. He traced his tongue over his upper lip and made a soft grunt in his throat that shot straight to my guts. My body reacted to him, even though I was instantly filled with shock and shame. Yet, there was something about him that spoke to the animal within me. His sheer feral attractiveness acted on my senses even as my inner wolf also screamed to get as far away from these bears as possible. She was afraid of them.

I locked my gaze straight into his eyes and he smirked. I had to wonder if he could smell my pheromones or something, or maybe if he could feel the heat roiling off me. There was something in his cocky manner that said he knew exactly how I felt towards him, even if I hated myself for it.

“I tell you what, new pup. You scurry along home with a warning since you didn’t know any better, but big boy here has to stay and take his whipping like a good dog.” He looked over at Alex then. “He’s flirted with the boundary line one too many times. He knows better and I’ve warned him enough.” He raised his wrist and pretended to look at a non-existent wristwatch as his eyes fell on me again. “I’ll give you exactly sixty seconds to run away or I won’t take responsibility for the outcome.”

“Go, Elodie,” Alex growled.

But there was no way in hell I was leaving.

I tried to glance at Alex, but I wound up with the same problem. I didn’t dare take my eyes off Lucas. He might attack if I slackened my vigilance for an instant.

“Thirty seconds gone, little pup,” Lucas breezed.

I thought fast, jammed my hand into my pocket, and pulled out my badge. I held it up. “Hope Police Department. I might not have any jurisdiction on tribal land, but if you lay a finger on either of us, I’ll make sure you face justice.”

Lucas’s smirk evaporated. “Bullshit.”

My heart hammered against my ribs. I clenched my gun in my right hand and my badge in my left to stop Lucas from seeing my hands trembling. “Now I’m giving you thirty seconds to stand down and get back inside your boundary line. If anyone is trespassing here, it’s you.” He made no move to leave, but just stood there, grinning at me. “If you don’t get back across the line, I won’t be responsible for the outcome.”

“Mmm, the wolf has teeth…” he chuckled.

“Fifteen seconds!” I bellowed.

Lucas bared his teeth and smiled at me, but a few seconds later, he jerked his chin at his brothers. “Let’s go.”

I rotated around to keep them in my sights as they walked backward toward the birches. They didn’t turn their backs on us until they crossed back into their own territory. Lucas pointed a warning finger at Alex. “I’ll be seeing you real soon, dog. Count on it.” Then he looked at me. “And I hope to see you too, little wolf. Maybe I can teach you a thing or two about what it means for a wolf to submit to a bear.”

With that, the three of them crossed the line of birches, turned, and stormed off into the falling dusk.

The instant they left, Alex dropped his rifle. It fell against his shoulder strap. I holstered my gun and tried to process what had just happened. He seized my hand and yanked me forward, taking off. “Come on! Hurry.”

I rocketed after him, and we broke into a dead run for the road. We covered the snowfield much faster than before. Our feet barely touched the ground. We sprinted over the crusted surface, turning purple in the evening light.

We didn’t stop until we climbed over the fence and gained the safety of the road. I slouched against my Jeep to catch my breath, even though I was barely breathing hard. I was more scared than anything.

Alex rushed me. “Get in the car, Elodie. Follow right behind me. Understand? Don’t stop for anything until I say.”

“What’s the matter with you? We’re on Alaska State Highways now. They can’t do anything to us.”

“Follow me, I said!” he thundered.

“What’s going on?”

“They could be watching us right now. They could tail us all the way back to Hope. Just follow me.”

“Fine. Where are we going?”

“You’ll find out. I have to make sure no one shadows us on the road.”

He got in his car and fired up the engine. I shook my head, but did as he said. As I reminded myself so many times in the last few months, Alex knew a lot more about this whole situation than I did. If he thought someone might follow us, he must be right. And after meeting those three assholes, I figured Alex was right to be concerned.

I angled my Jeep behind his car and we headed off. We didn’t drive back to Hope, though. He went the opposite direction and drove into an even more remote part of the wilderness.

He took a roundabout route far to the north, way past Hope, and then south. He finally pulled over in a wooded clearing unseen from any established road. A frost-covered track wound through the undergrowth and came out on the edge of a forgotten lake.

Snow surrounded the bank and piled on the ice across the whole round bowl. The sky changed from greenish-purple to deep blue. The stars pricked through as the landscape descended into night.

Alex got out and strode toward my car. I switched off the Jeep and got out to meet him. “Well? Are we safe now?”

“You shouldn’t have done that, Elodie.”

“What? I shouldn’t have followed you?”

“Not that. You shouldn’t have shown him your badge or told him who you were.”

“What was I supposed to do—walk away and leave you there alone with them? Forget it.”

He shook his head, then propped his hands on his hips and paced back and forth in front of me. “Now they can track you down. They know you work for the Hope Police.”

“I find that hard to believe. They might be trouble-makers out here, but they wouldn’t go so far as to attack a police officer—much less the chief of police. No one is that stupid.”

“You don’t understand how things work out here. Lucas has a lot more power than you think. He’s slated to take his father’s place as leader of the bear shifters. He can’t let you or anyone else show him up, especially in front of his brothers. He’ll try to make an example out of you.”

“He can have all the influence he likes,” I countered. “That doesn’t put him above the law. Besides, it’s just a matter of time before they find themselves in Hope and see me in uniform, anyway.” I remembered how Lucas’ eyes roamed all over me. “Pretty sure I’d be recognized.”

“He would never get caught, Elodie. It would be easy for Lucas to make your death look like a lethal bear attack. The police would never even bother to investigate.”

A chill went up my spine.

I shook off my fear. “Regardless, I couldn’t just walk away and let them finish you.” I thought, Because I care about you.

He softened, and he stopped pacing. “I care about you, too. That’s why I don’t want you to put yourself in danger for me.”

My cheeks flared with heat and I cursed myself for not stopping him from reading my thoughts. “Look, you don’t have to protect me all the time, Alex. I didn’t become Chief of Police by winning a beauty pageant. Go home. I can find my way back to Hope on my own.”

“The bears will be all over you which means… I’m not going to leave your side.”

My pulse quickened, but I couldn’t figure out why. “I have a job to do, and so do you. Just go on with your business, and leave me to mine.”

“I don’t care if I have to get myself arrested, Elodie.”

I planted my feet. Now it was my turn to prop my hands on my hips. “I can take care of myself. I don’t need a babysitter.”

“When it comes to bear shifters, you do need a babysitter.”

I spun on my heel and walked away from him. He made me so damn mad I could spit. I didn’t care where I went as long as I put some space between us for a minute. I headed along where the lakeshore would have been, but I only took three steps before my boot crunched down through a thin crust over the frozen soil. Turns out, this was more lake and less shore. Before I knew what was happening, I felt myself falling as I dropped into a deep depression into the ground, all the way past my knees. My thigh hit the rim and broke off a wider section of the brittle layer of ice. My whole weight threatened to plummet me into depths unknown. I cringed.

Chapter Six

I flailed about, trying desperately to keep myself from falling all the way into the sinkhole.

During the rainy season, this part of the lakeshore could have held a lot of water. For now, it was an empty, deadly hole. I grabbed the nearest clump of grass I could lay my hand on, but it pulled out with nothing solid to hold it in the ground. The icy surface area around me shattered as the thin film fully collapsed to reveal a massive air pocket underneath me.

Alex rocketed forward. “Elodie!”

“Shit!” I screeched, but when he got near me, his foot punched through, deep into the hollow space below. He retreated to safe ground and started probing the icy surface for something solid to stand on.

That left me floundering. I slapped the ground all around me, searching for anything solid to grasp and cling to, but I came up empty-handed. I was completely surrounded by flimsy ice. Everything I touched disintegrated to ice shards and powdered soil.

“Elodie!” Alex called. “Over here!”

I glanced in his direction. He stretched out flat on his stomach, in the exact spot where I first fell through. My flailing had taken me further from shore than I realized. I knew panicking would just make things worse, but there was definitely a part of me that wanted to do just that.

Alex managed to look calm as he extended his hand to me, but he dared not come any closer.

My futile efforts had held me aloft just long enough to paw my way toward him, breaking fresh ice and widening the hole even more. Thinking I had one chance at this, I made one desperate dive and lunged for his hand. My fingers grappled around his wrist and I held on with everything I had.

We both yelled in alarm as the rest of the ice around me gave way and I plunged into the frozen dark, but Alex held on. I twirled over what appeared to be a shimmering, frozen river. My feet rotated fifteen feet above the mirrored surface. It almost appeared to be the open mouth of a cave that I’d somehow busted through.

“Hold on!” he bellowed. “I’ll get you out of there!”

I held on, all right. I flung my other arm up and grabbed his wrist with both hands. He scooted backward and hauled me up one painstaking inch at a time. My head rose into the dim light and the stars welcomed me into fresh air.

Alex grabbed a fistful of my jacket, and I scrambled onto the bank. I flopped down next to him, panting for every ragged breath. “Why… does this… crazy shit… keep… happening… to me?”

“Why does this crazy shit keep happening to me?” he returned. “Just when I thought you couldn’t be a bigger pain in the ass, you have to go and do something like that.”

We both swiveled around to take a look into the sinkhole. Just out of curiosity to see how deep it was, I pulled out my flashlight, clicked it on, and shone it into the opening.

The light flashed over the silver ice and then… stopped. To one side, out of sight from where I looked down past my boots a few minutes ago, something stuck out of the ice. It wasn’t just something, either. It was a person—a man.

My eyes about bulged out of their sockets.

Alex leaned in next to me and peered down into the circle of light. “What the…?”

We both blinked at the frozen figure in stunned shock. Ice encased the body up to the chest and ice crystals clung to the victim’s plaid flannel shirt and to the hairs on his cheeks and eyebrows. His clear, steel-grey eyes stared up at the stars with a blank expression. I almost could have believed we were looking at a wax figure, the features were so perfectly preserved in the freezing temperature. How long had this guy been there?

Dark curls surrounded his face—a face I knew all too well.

“Um,” I started as I turned to look at Alex. “I don’t know how to say this—”

“But that guy looks exactly like me,” he finished for me.

I nodded. “If by ‘looks like you’ you mean he’s a dead ringer for you, then yes, he does.”

“Either you have a twin that you don’t know about or this is… I don’t know. Maybe he’s your father.”

Alex’s expression changed in a heartbeat. He gulped. “That’s impossible.”

“Why is it impossible? Everyone has a father, Alex,” I added with a smile, still trying to calm my heartbeat from the very near fall through the ice.

“I understand that, Elodie,” he answered, frowning. “But that,” and he pointed at the body. “Can’t be my father.”

“Or your biological brother?”

“No,” he shook his head, eyebrows furrowing.

“Why not?”

He shrugged. “It just… can’t be.”

“No one knows anything about who you are or where you came from. No one knows your biological family. You could have been separated from a twin brother before your adoptive mother found you in the woods. You could have grown up separately and then he fell through the ice and froze to death. I don’t know. Anything is possible.” I was running my mouth too much, going on about things I knew nothing about. Alex looked shell-shocked. I couldn’t blame him.

I shone my flashlight into the hole again. Now that I was over my initial shock and fear, I took a second look, and the resemblance really struck me. This dead man, whoever he was, had to be related to Alex somehow. Gazing down at the dead man’s face really did feel like looking at Alex. I could almost trick myself into thinking they were the same person. This guy looked too young to be Alex’s dad, though.

My curiosity piqued.

I had to find out what was going on and glanced toward the cars. “I’m going back to Hope. I have to report this. We can call out the forensics crew. They’ll rope off the area and extricate the body. Maybe they’ll find something to help us.”

Alex shot out his hand and grabbed my arm. “You can’t!”

“I can’t what?”

“You can’t report this. We’re on reservation land. This is a tribal matter.”

“I still have to report it, Alex, you know that. The tribe might investigate on their own, but I can’t leave a dead body unreported—doesn’t matter where it is. The legal system doesn’t work that way. I don’t work that way.”

He didn’t let go. “You can’t investigate this, Elodie. And you sure as hell can’t call out the forensics crew, not without tribal permission.”

I jerked my arm out of his grasp. “I’m the chief of police. What do you expect me to do—hang up my badge?”

“You better hang it up if you cross the tribes. Your job is to protect their sovereignty as much as US law. If you can’t do your job, you don’t have any business carrying a badge at all.”

Fuming inside, I glared at him. I hated him for being right. I might not like it, but I had to follow the rules of the tribe, especially now that I was a member.

Too angry to answer, I turned back to the hole and shone my flashlight into it. “I wish I knew who he was.”

Alex’s voice murmured in my ear. “Do you see what I see?” The flashlight beam glanced off the dead man’s shirt. A leather wallet stuck out of the breast pocket. I looked up at Alex and he looked back at me.

“That would be considered tampering with evidence,” I told him on a sigh.

“It would answer both our questions.”

I swallowed hard. “How would we even get to it?”

“I have some rope in the back of my car,” he whispered. “I could lower you down and pull you back up.”

I looked up at him. His steel-grey eyes sparkled in the dim light. He bore an uncanny resemblance to this dead man and there was something insistent within me that said there was a reason why. Alex was somehow related to this guy—of that, I was sure. And that was his wallet sticking out of his shirt…

Were we really going to do this? Was I really going to tamper with what might turn out to be a murder scene after I just acknowledged that I couldn’t investigate?

I didn’t have to answer. Alex was already on his way to his car and when he returned, he had a coil of rope with him. He lashed one end around a sturdy tree, well away from the sinkhole. Then he ran the length out to where I stood and passed the remainder around his midsection. He did it all so quickly, my brain didn’t have much time to debate my better judgment.

He held out the other end to me. “Tie this around your waist.”

I took it from him and wrapped my fingers around it. In that moment, all my doubts evaporated. Now that I knew this dead man existed, I couldn’t cover up what I knew. My job required me to leave the investigation to the tribe in question, but I could still report finding the body.

To do that, I had to identify him. I wouldn’t be interfering in a tribal investigation if I did that. Feeling slightly better about the situation, I passed the rope between my legs and looped it around both my thighs. I then turned a half-hitch around my chest to make a harness. Alex raised his eyebrows at my ingenuity, but I didn’t tell him where I learned that trick. I felt a sense of urgency to ID the victim and get out of there.

Alex stretched out on the ground again. Without a word, I sat down and eased over to the rim. He took up the slack. “Ready?”

Nodding, I flipped onto my stomach and lowered myself into the hole. Having a nice, stout rope holding me and my flashlight in my hand made the experience considerably less terrifying than my first descent into this hole.

My flashlight danced around the sinkhole. Black ice lined the whole air pocket. The beam refracted through the ice layer surrounding the body. I didn’t see any moving water underneath. The ice might be solid all the way through, but I didn’t plan on taking any chances. Ice could easily look solid, but looks could be deceiving, as I’d just found out a moment ago.

Alex inched me down bit by bit until I called, “That’s enough!” My voice sounded high pitched as it bounced off the ice.

I hovered right over the body and then reached down, plucking the wallet from the dead man’s pocket. I couldn’t escape the haunting stare of the victim’s eyes—it almost felt as if he was watching me. I shivered. Taking his wallet right from under his nose seemed brazen, but it had to be done. “All right! I have it. Pull me up!”

The trip up took longer as I tried to keep from getting flung into the wall of the hole—the last thing I wanted was getting roughed up by the rocks. When I reached the top, I swung myself over the icy edge and thumped my full weight onto the solid ground. Then I released the rope, separated myself from it and, with a deep breath, sat up to examine the wallet.

I opened it and with Alex right behind me, we both stared at the driver’s license picture gazing back up at us. The name read, Aaron Cooke. And whoever this Aaron guy was, he looked even more like a mirror image of Alex in his picture than he did preserved in the ice.

“Whoa!” Alex murmured. “This is so weird.”

“Look at his date of birth,” I pointed out. “He was born fifty-four years ago. That rules out a twin brother.”

“That’s impossible. He can’t be fifty-four. He doesn’t look a day over twenty.”

“Right—he’s been stuck in the ice all this time. Preserved.”

“I just don’t understand—”

“He has to be your father, Alex,” I answered as I shook my head. “There’s no way he couldn’t be—not when you look so similar. And if he is your father, he could have had you when he was twenty and then died shortly thereafter.”

“But—”

“It fits the timeline. And I don’t see any other explanation.” I stood up.

Alex’s jaw dropped. “My father—my real father?”

“Maybe. We’ll have to look into it, anyway. We might just have solved a cold case that’s been sitting on some shelf for thirty-odd years.”

I headed back to my Jeep. Alex hurried to catch up with me. “What are you going to do?”

“I told you. I’m going to report this. If I don’t, no one will ever know this man died.”

“The tribe,” he started as I turned to face him.

“You told me yourself the tribal police are basically useless. For all we know, they might not investigate this at all.”

“You can’t call it in!” Alex repeated. “Do you have any idea what Dr. Moody will do if he finds evidence that this man was killed by shifters?”

“We don’t know that’s how he died.”

“Right and we also don’t know it’s how he didn’t die.”

 “Elodie, it’s bad enough Moody knows about Donovan. We don’t want him knowing more about our kind than he already does.”

I hesitated. “Okay, but if we leave this to the tribe, they might not get Moody to perform the autopsy at all. They might just say that Aaron Cooke died of hypothermia or drowning or something like that—that is, if they even care enough to look that far into it. For all they know, he was a lost hiker.”

“You’re taking a hell of a chance on a bunch of ‘mights’ and ‘ifs’. This is exactly why some of the tribal elders don’t trust you, by the way. Do you really want to make your relationship with them worse than it already is?”

Gesturing at myself, I said. “If someone finds out this Aaron Cooke died on tribal land, your people could take the blame for his death. You don’t want that. Neither will they. Leaving it to the tribe to investigate only opens the door for someone to accuse the tribe of covering something up.”

He held up both hands. “Just wait until the tribe takes a look. That’s all I’m saying. Let them decide on the cause of death. If Aaron Cooke was killed by shifters, the body will show that. And, if he was killed by wolf shifters, then we’ll have a real problem on our hands.”

“Fine,” I returned. “We’ll play it your way, but I want you to know I don’t like it.” Even as Alex nodded back at me, I realized I wasn’t going to just let this go. I was going to look into it on my own and that little tidbit didn’t need to be repeated.

Chapter Seven

Alex leaned against his car while I made several phone calls to various people.

I made no headway at all until I finally got Teddy on the phone. Teddy was the great nephew of a tribal elder named Gina and it was easier to go through him when dealing with the tribe. I explained the situation with Aaron Cooke’s body being frozen under the lake. Then he called the Ammagaruqnik elders.

Just as I was starting to get back into the Jeep, figuring this whole dog and pony show was going to take a while, Teddy called me back.

“The forensics crew is on their way to your location right now,” Teddy told me.

“Let me guess,” I muttered. “The elders want concessions for letting the police take over the investigation.”

“Not at all. They want you to take it over.”

I was surprised. “How did you convince them?”

“Given the fact that it was a stranger, not someone from the tribe, they thought it would be better if you handled it.”

“Well, that’s good news,” I answered.

“Just make sure you find out how the guy really died,” Teddy continued. “If you can prove he wasn’t killed by someone from our reservation, all the better.”

***

An hour or so later, a white van motored into view and flashed its headlights at us to let us know it was the team we were waiting on.

Alex and I watched as the Forensics team taped off the whole area before they turned to figure out how to extricate Aaron Cooke from the sinkhole. That little operation ended up taking another hour or so. From there, it took them another three hours to take pictures of the scene.

They finished at four o’clock in the morning.

Exhausted, I climbed into the Jeep and followed the van back to Hope. I’d told Alex I needed a little time to myself (which was the truth—I couldn’t remember the last time I’d had a good soaking in a bath and listened to music while I zoned out on nothing. That was exactly what I needed at the moment. Begrudgingly, Alex had agreed.

Now that the body was headed to the morgue, I wondered how I was going to get an autopsy done on it. It wasn’t as though I could ask Dr. Moody. Hmm, maybe I’d have to send the body to Nome or even Anchorage. And that was going to take a while. A long while.

And one I didn’t want to wait.

I pulled into my driveway and parked. Feeling beyond drained, as soon as I walked into the house, I stripped down and started for the bath. And all the while, I continued to try to figure out how I could get an autopsy done asap. Those thoughts then gave way to thoughts about finding the body there and then to thoughts about the three asshole bear shifters. And, one in particular.

I didn’t know what it was that I’d felt with Lucas—but whatever it was, it was still with me and the feeling bothered me. I knew he was trouble; he was an asshole and a bully and yet there was something within me that didn’t care—something that was drawn to him.

Ugh, it was so frustrating.

I fell asleep and had one of the most peaceful night’s sleep I could remember in a long time. I didn’t dream about wolves or bears or dead bodies or anything else.

***

The next day, I went through my usual routine at the office, albeit with a considerably later start after the late night before. I didn’t feel tired, though. Instead, I felt uncannily chipper. I filed paperwork, handled staffing issues, and finished payroll for the month before I got a second to sit down.

I was just getting ready to pull my laptop toward me when someone tapped on my door. I looked up to find Dr. Moody standing on the threshold.

“Doc!” I exclaimed. “What are you doing here?”

I gave the man a once-over. He looked tidy and smelled of aftershave, and as far as I could tell, hadn’t spent another night in the tank.

“I heard you had a body in need of an autopsy. I couldn’t let you call in someone else, so I’m here to do it.”

I frowned at him, wondering how in the world word traveled so fast. “I know you’ve been under the weather lately, Doc. I can get the body sent down to Nome for autopsy if no other ME is available to come up here.” I nodded at him cordially and turned back to my computer. He didn’t leave. I sighed and looked back at him.

He was shaking his head. “I don’t want you sending the body out of town and I don’t want you calling in another ME. I have a job to do and I’m going to do it. I haven’t been under the weather. I’ve been drunk off my ass. You’re just too polite to say so.”

My cheeks burned. “These last few months have been hard on you and no one understands that better than I do.” I winced internally after I said that. I didn’t want to open any discourse on the topic and, hopefully, he wouldn’t start.

He ignored my statement and inclined his head to one side, then dropped his voice. “This body you brought in yesterday… is it… normal?”

I took a split second to realize what he meant. He wanted to make certain he didn’t go through another Donovan incident. I thought fast.

If Aaron Cooke was Alex Johnson’s real father—and I couldn’t understand how it could be otherwise—then Aaron would have been human. He would have to be for Alex to have been born human.

“Yes,” I replied confidently. “The dead man is as normal as a summer’s day.”

Dr. Moody threw back his shoulders. “Then I want to do the autopsy. I need to prove to you and everyone else in town that I’m not completely useless. I’m sober, Chief. You can breathalyze me if you want to.”

I looked at him and gave him a little smile. “I’ll take your word for it.”

He nodded. “I’d prefer you test me so you can see the truth in my words, Chief. I have a reputation to regain.”

I got to my feet. He looked so earnest, I felt bad for the man, so I steered him down to the station entrance and found a breathalyzer.

I studied the side of his face while he blew into it. His face looked haggard and more wrinkled than I remember. I would have been surprised if he’d gotten a single decent night’s sleep since the Donovan debacle turned both our lives upside down.

The Dr. Moody I met when I first moved to Hope was a joker, a jolly soul with a slightly warped sense of humor—not that a slightly warped sense of humor was anything out of the ordinary in this remote corner of Alaska. Even heavily warped senses of humor were the norm rather than the exception.

This Dr. Moody stayed serious throughout our whole interview. His eyes had lost their twinkle and his frame seemed thinner. He didn’t seem capable of humor at all anymore. Maybe his sense of humor died when Donovan came back to life. Maybe Donovan scared Moody enough into changing into a completely different person.

The breathalyzer read 0.01%. Even as I watched, the reading fluttered between 0.01% and 0.00%, which meant it was even less than 0.01%.

I looked up to find Moody waiting for my ruling. He didn’t look away. He didn’t shuffle his feet or fidget. He stood still with his head up and his shoulders straight. Considering how drunk he had been just a few days ago, he must have stayed on the straight-and-narrow ever since to bring his blood alcohol concentration down this far, this fast.

“Well done, Doc.”

He gave a single nod. “I’m very serious about this, Chief. I want to do this autopsy.”

“All right. You talked me into it.” I put the breathalyzer away as I thanked my own good luck. Sending the body to Nome or Anchorage would have taken a lot longer than I wanted to give. “You can go ahead and get started. I’ll check in with you later to see what you found, but we don’t know if this man died from foul play or natural causes. He could have fallen into the freezing water and died of hypothermia.”

He dipped his chin again, then walked away toward the morgue as though he’d never fallen off the wagon at all. He earned this, and he knew it. I shook my head in amazement. Wonders would never cease.

I went back to my office and found a tupperware bowl of what smelled like moose stew, a Ziploc bag filled with bannok and another bowl filled with wildberry compote. I turned around and looked around the station. Teddy caught my eye and grinned.

“Thank your aunt for me, Teddy.” I said.

Ever since the Miguel incident, I’d been receiving gifts of food from the Ammagaruqnik tribe. The gifts showed up on my desk, on the hood of the Jeep and even on my porch at home. I’d never need to purchase plastic ware ever again.

He nodded. “You got it, Chief, and she says you look too thin.”

I laughed, and he gave me a sheepish grin. Then I turned around and sat down in front of my laptop while Moody got to work on the autopsy on Aaron Cooke. It left me free to finally do some digging on Aaron’s death and time to enjoy the benefits of saving the local shifters.

I turned on my laptop and pulled up the Alaska State Missing Persons database. I typed in, Aaron Cooke. Then I opened the container to the stew, dunked a bannok in it and took a big bite. Delish! A year ago, I would never have thought I’d be eating moose stew and furthermore, that I’d enjoy eating moose stew. And how I’d lived this long without having bannok, a sort of flat bread the locals fried up, was beyond me. It was perfect for dipping in stew and divine with wildberry compote.

Only one Aaron Cooke came up on the database, but the name immediately beneath it leaped off the screen at me. Amelia Cooke. Could they be related? No way this was a coincidence.

I clicked on Aaron’s entry. The first thing I noticed was his stated next of kin: Amelia Cooke, wife. Another dead end. Amelia was a Missing Person, too.

I read Aaron’s file. His last known address was in Dutch Harbor, Alaska. He listed his occupation as freezer hold operator on a fishing trawler. No big surprise there, considering where he lived. The fishing industry was Dutch Harbor’s biggest employment sector.

The file notes stated that Aaron and Amelia disappeared eighteen miles from Hope, Alaska, thirty-four years ago. My scalp prickled. Thirty-four years. Alex was thirty-four years old and his adoptive mother found him when he was a baby. This case looked more and more like Aaron and Amelia were Alex’s parents—his real birth parents.

So, what were they doing in Hope—not that they needed a reason, of course. But they had disappeared in May, which was the off-season for Dutch Harbor fishing boats. Maybe they took a road trip before the season really kicked off. They’d be too busy to get away once it started.

My predecessor as Hope Chief of Police, Chief Conrad Evans, had investigated Aaron and Amelia’s disappearance. And Frank Dewey, owner of Frank’s Kitchen, had found their car front-ended into a tree by the side of the road not far from the Ammagaruqnik reservation.

Chief Evans found no evidence of foul play on the car. He also found no evidence of what happened to Aaron and Amelia. Their bodies were never found, but he did find bloody drag marks leading away from the wreck.

May nighttime temperatures dropped below freezing, so Chief Evans figured they got hurt in the wreck and wandered away from the car in a daze and never came back again. He listed the probable cause of death as exposure, but without the bodies to confirm it, he couldn’t close the case.

Just one more piece of the puzzle remained. I searched the Dutch Harbor community health clinic visits record. Sure enough, Amelia gave birth to a baby boy nine months before she disappeared. The child’s birth certificate stated that the parents named him Ralph.

I indulged in a private laugh. I couldn’t imagine Alex as a Ralph. I couldn’t wait to tease him about it once I broke the news that I finally found his parents.

But that was also a sticking point—the fact that Chief Evans hadn’t found evidence of a child around the wreck. At least, he hadn’t mentioned a baby in the notes. No way would Aaron and Amelia take a road trip to the other side of Alaska without taking their baby boy with them.

This was more than thirty years ago—long before car seats were mandatory the way they are now. Amelia could have been holding her baby on her lap when Aaron crashed.

This explained how Alex wound up in Hope in the first place. At nine months, he could have been crawling well enough to make it quite a distance from the wreck. Alex’s adoptive mother, Amala, could have heard him crying and found him without ever knowing where he came from.

No wonder no one knew the specifics about Alex. If the Ammagaruqnik elders informed Chief Evans that they found this abandoned baby boy in the woods, Chief Evans wouldn’t have connected Alex with the wrecked car, either. Because, as far as I could tell, he didn’t realize there was any baby in the car to begin with.

I checked Aaron and Amelia’s employment records. Neither listed any other next of kin besides each other and neither left a will. They must have been alone in the world, and now they were gone. Alex had gotten really lucky when Amala found and adopted him the way she had. She gave him a home, a family, a community. A life.

I shut my laptop and wrapped up my meal while processing all of the information. The pieces of the picture came together into a coherent whole. Alex. Aaron. Amelia. Amala. It all fit.

Standing up, I headed for the morgue, where I found Dr. Moody dressed in his rubber apron. Blood spattered his body, his protective face shield, and coated the gloves pulled up to his elbows.

He bent over Aaron’s body, holding a scalpel. The instant I walked in, Moody pulled Aaron’s heart out of the body’s ribcage and held it up while the blood dripped off it.

I wrinkled my nose in repulsion. “Ugh! What are you doing, Doc?”

“I have to weigh and test every organ to see if any of them have been damaged in the death process. It’s just procedure, but I think it’s pretty obvious what killed this guy.”

“Really? What killed him?”

“He has what’s called a flail chest, which means he had multiple rib fractures going down both sides of the chest—here and here.” He traced one gory finger in the air along both sides of Aaron’s chest. Moody ran them vertically from the collarbone downward, past the nipple toward the abdomen.

“Flail chest is a life-threatening injury common to motor vehicle accidents. The victim gets hurled chest-first against the steering wheel. The impact fractures a large section of the rib structure, so the flail segment just floats there. It isn’t attached to any other ribs, so it doesn’t work anymore to help the person breathe. The person suffocates if they don’t bleed out from internal injuries first.”

I gazed down at the body. “So that’s it. He really did die in the car accident.”

“Not quite. He would have, but he froze first. His heart was still beating when his internal core temperature dropped below the lethal level, but it was only barely beating.”

“Are you saying he could have survived the flail chest if he hadn’t succumbed to hypothermia?”

“No. We have a saying in the medical field. ‘A person isn’t dead until they’re warm and dead.’ People have been chilled to the point where their heartbeat and respirations stop. Then, when they get warm again, they revive. Their bodies start working. Their hearts start beating. They start breathing and they’re fine.”

“But if that had been the case with this victim, he would have bled out the minute he thawed out.”

“He wouldn’t have because he was already as good as dead. No one could survive a flail chest like that, no matter how long they’d been frozen, and this guy was trapped in the ice for over thirty years.”

I frowned, thinking it over. “How long could someone survive with a flail chest as bad as this?”

Moody shrugged. “Maybe five minutes. Maybe less. Definitely not more than ten. Imagine how long you would be able to survive without being able to breathe.”

“So… someone with a flail chest couldn’t walk more than thirty miles before they collapsed?”

Moody snorted. Before today, he would have burst out laughing. “No. No way.”

“Not even if he was delirious from the crash?”

“No. If he was delirious from the crash, he would have died even sooner. Why do you ask?”

I shrugged. “Just wondering. Can you tell me anything else about the victim?”

“That’s about it. Besides the trauma to his chest, he was perfectly normal in every way. He had no medical conditions. He wasn’t on any medications. He didn’t smoke or take drugs. From the state of his liver, I would say he never even drank alcohol. He was a straight shooter in every sense of the word. He was also very hardworking. He did his job well and with energy.”

“How can you tell that?”

He picked up the victim’s right arm. Moody pointed his bloody forefinger at the rim of skin between Aaron’s thumb and forefinger. “See these calluses? A person only gets those from slinging a shovel or pitchfork around on a daily basis. This guy worked hard to earn a living.”

Chapter Eight

I meandered out of the station with my mind in a whirl about everything I’d just learned.

I had to tell Alex about Aaron and Amelia and the accident. I couldn’t sit on this a second longer. The question was where to find him.

I headed for my Jeep, but when I got ready to climb into the driver’s seat, I spotted Alex coming out of Frank’s Kitchen. I slammed the car door, and the noise made Alex look up.

He advanced to meet me as soon as he saw me. “Well?” he asked. “Did you find out anything about the dead guy?”

“Yep.” I rested my shoulder against the wall and did my best not to grin in his face. “I found out all about him… Ralph.”

He blinked. Then he frowned. “What?”

“I said… I found out all about him… Ralph.”

He frowned at me again. Then he grimaced. “Why do you keep calling me that?”

I burst out laughing. “Because it was your name before Alex was your name.”

“Um, what?”

“I found out all about Aaron and I’m fairly sure he really is your father—of course, a DNA test will confirm it.”

“What did you find out?”

“He and his wife Amelia disappeared thirty-four years ago when you were nine months old—right around the time Amala found you in the woods. Your biological parents came from Dutch Harbor and they totaled their car not far out of Hope. You must have crawled away from the wreck to wherever Amala found you.”

“So, what’s all this Ralph stuff?”

“That was your original name. Ralph Cooke.”

He nodded and seemed interested but also taken aback, which I supposed made sense considering this case was so close to him. “So, Aaron totaled his car by the side of the road. That doesn’t explain how he ended up under the ice. Did he total his car near that lake?”

“No, he wrecked his car thirty miles from where we found him.”

Alex frowned. “Thirty miles?! How do you explain that? How in the world did his body end up thirty miles away?”

I scratched my head. “According to the paperwork, Chief Evans thought Aaron and Amelia got hurt in the wreck and wandered off. He surmised that they died of exposure, but you’re right… they couldn’t have wandered as far as thirty miles. I don’t think they could have made it that far, even if they’d been in perfect health.”

Now it was my turn to frown. How did I explain this? If Aaron and Amelia’s death was an innocent car accident complicated by hypothermia or maybe drowning, how did they cover so many miles between the crash and where we found Aaron’s body? And we still had no idea what happened to Amelia at all.

Just then, my phone buzzed in my pocket. I took it out and answered. “Great news, Chief,” Sal, the dispatch operator, chirped. “You got another drunk and disorderly call on our good friend, Dr. Moody.”

I groaned and rolled my eyes. “No way! I just left him and he was fine.”

“Yep. The caller said Moody was threatening and violent, so you better go collar him before he hurts himself or someone else.”

That was odd. I’d just left him a little while ago and he was fine. And, furthermore, he’d never acted threatening or violent before. “Dammit,” I muttered.

“There’s more,” she told me. “He isn’t at Frank’s this time. He’s at The Swinery.”

I stiffened.

No wonder Dr. Moody was acting threatening and violent. The Swinery was nothing like Frank’s. I found that out within days of moving to Hope. The owners didn’t give a rip about serving intoxicated people. A person could stagger into The Swinery already blind drunk and spend the next three weeks drinking themselves into a coma. No one at The Swinery gave a crap, from the owners to the bartenders, all the way down to the janitor.

Moody shouldn’t have been anywhere within a hundred miles of The Swinery, especially since I’d left him at the morgue only a few minutes ago. Then again, if Frank really did ban Moody from his establishment, the good doc would be looking for somewhere else to slake his need to forget. Maybe another autopsy this soon after the last one was too much of a trigger for the guy and he’d gone right back to the bottle. I could only hope Aaron hadn’t gotten up in the middle of it, asked for his guts back, and then high-tailed it out of the morgue.

I hung up. “I gotta go,” I said to Alex. “Let me know if you want to talk further about your birth parents’ case. We can go back over the documents. I’m sure there’s more to discover if we dig deeper.”

“We still don’t know if they’re my parents.”

“Let’s take some of your blood and compare it to Aaron’s and then we will know,” I answered.

Alex nodded, but he didn’t look at me. He stared across the street at nothing, and I caught a flash of his thoughts. A confused jumble of memories and emotions, most of it from his childhood, blocked out all awareness of the lost parents I’d just told him about.

Try as he might to rummage in his memory for Aaron and Amelia, Alex would never find them. They didn’t exist for him. He would never be Ralph Cooke. That life ended when the car crashed. Now nothing remained but Alex Johnson, the wolf shifter from Ammagaruqnik.

I left him to his thoughts and headed for The Swinery. I didn’t like going in there myself, and I double-checked my sidearm on the way. Ed, the owner, was a good guy, but things tended to get rowdy in his establishment. Then I checked the time. It was barely eleven o’clock in the morning. Anyone Moody threatened at the pool hall would likely be raging drunk themselves.

I heard loud voices yelling long before I got near the door. Bellowing came from the upstairs window. I braced myself and climbed the stairs.

Pool tables lined the upper level, but instead of an all-out brawl, most of the patrons were backed against the walls. No one was playing pool. They all watched two men standing nose to nose in the middle of the room.

Moody faced off against a massive man who was more than twice his size. The other man towered over him and his thunderous roars drowned out Moody’s retorts, but Moody didn’t back down. He gave as good as he got, and it looked to all the world like the two were about to start swinging fists any second.

The stranger’s salt-and-pepper hair tossed in his eyes when he bellowed down at Moody. It gave the larger man a rugged, attractive look that made me think he looked familiar. I could swear I’d never met him before, but the suspicion kept nagging me that I knew him.

I holstered my gun… for now. Stalking over to them. I elbowed my way between them. “All right. That’s enough. Break it up. Back off, Doc. Move back, sir. That’s right. Give each other some space.”

The two men ignored me and immediately started yelling at each other again. Moody stabbed one finger over my shoulder into his adversary’s face. The big guy dove for Moody at the same moment.

Somehow, I got caught in the middle. Both men bumped into me and squashed me between them. They would crush me in a second and I couldn’t even make out what they were arguing about—not that it mattered.

I got a definite fragrance of stale booze coming from the big stranger, too. I was right. Both men were as drunk as skunks and smelled about as bad.

Pushing Moody back, I succeeded in winning a squeak of breathing space. No such luck with the big guy. I grabbed his wrist and twisted his arm behind his back. He roared in indignation, but no one could fight that hold.

I flipped him around and pushed him off. He took a few steps and whirled toward me. His face transformed into a twisted mask of venomous rage. He bared his teeth in an unmistakable snarl, and I recognized him instantly. He was a shifter, a werebear possibly.

The drunk man thrust out both arms with his hands flexed, aiming straight for my throat. He lunged for me and I dug in my heels for the fight of my life. Out of nowhere, someone grabbed his elbow before he could grab me.

The big stranger whipped around to confront his new opponent, which definitely confirmed the fact that they were related.

“Oh, no you don’t,” Lucas drawled. “We talked about this, remember? If you want to get hammered, you do it at home.”

“I’ll get hammered anywhere I damn well please,” the big man thundered. “A pissant like you can’t stop me.”

“You always get into trouble when you drink in town,” Lucas replied. “You know you do. Now come on. I’m taking you home where you belong.”

He tried to get hold of the older man’s arm again. I assumed the big guy was Lucas’ father.

The old man didn’t hesitate a second. He swung his fist at Lucas. Lucas didn’t try to dodge, even though he was perfectly lucid, and could have avoided such a sloppy punch. I winced at what I knew was coming.

The old man’s knuckles smashed Lucas in the face. Lucas staggered back and banged into the nearest pool table. The old man pounced and seized Lucas by the shirt collar. He pummeled Lucas’ face with a dozen punches and blood welled from Lucas’ nose.

I sprang forward just as fast and hooked my elbow around the old man’s arm, but he overpowered me and landed another blow on his son’s face. Without thinking twice, I yanked my sidearm and jammed the barrel against the old man’s temple.

“Get your hands above your head and get down on the ground!” I roared. “Don’t make me have to use this.”

The old guy erupted into a standing position so fast that he knocked me backward. He ripped his arm out of my grasp. His elbow nailed me in the chest and I stumbled. Before I could stop him, he stormed out and vanished.

Silence descended over the bar—except for the pounding of my pulse in my brain. I couldn’t believe I almost shot a man in the head in front of a bar full of people.

I shook all over, but I didn’t have time to worry about myself. I was fairly certain no one was paying attention to me. I holstered my weapon and turned around to find Lucas picking himself up off the pool table. Blood smeared his face and a wicked cut swelled his lower lip like a balloon.

“Your nose is broken,” I panted. “We need to get you to a doctor.”

I glanced over my shoulder toward Moody. He slumped on a barstool and stared at the floor. He registered no awareness at all that someone got hurt right in front of him. I didn’t want to rely on him to take care of Lucas’ injuries.

The other patrons watched from the safety of the walls with huge eyes. No one made any move to come near us or to intervene.

“Don’t worry about it, Chief,” Lucas murmured in my ear. “I’ll be fine. I don’t need a doctor. You know that.”

His eyes sparkled with a strange light when I faced him. Where had I seen that look before? This man didn’t radiate danger and menace the way he had in the woods. And he’d just saved me from a drunk I was fairly sure was his father.

I took a deep breath. “I’ll find someone to take a look at your nose. Your lip might need sutures. In the meantime, I need you to come down to the station to give a statement. I’ll take Moody to the drunk tank at the same time.”

He nodded. “Sure thing, Chief. Anything you say.”

I shot him a sharp look, but he didn’t smile. He looked perfectly serious. He didn’t say anything else while I escorted him and Moody back to the police station.

I parked Lucas in my office while I took Moody to the drunk tank—again. By the time we got to the cell, he’d left belligerent behind and descended into stupefied again. He stumbled and almost fell over when I steered him inside.

I kept hold of his arm to make sure he sank down onto the bed instead of collapsing right there on the cold concrete floor. His head fell on the pillow and he heaved a fetid sigh. “Thank you, Elodie. I appreciate your consideration.”

“What happened to you, Doc? You were doing so great earlier. The next minute, you’re down at The Swinery pickling yourself again.” I peered down into his face. His irises blurred and his eyelids hung at half-mast, but his voice sounded so lucid, so familiar.

“I did the autopsy. I did what I said I would do. And… and it was just too much. I kept wondering when he was going to get up off of the table and walk out.”

Now it was my turn to sigh. “I sure wish you’d come back to us, Doc. We need you. We don’t need another town drunk.”

Chapter Nine

I left Moody lying there and locked him in.

I’d bet any amount of money he hadn’t heard or understood what I’d said, but at least I’d said it.

Turning, I left the cell and sent a quick email to the Substance Abuse Counselor in Nome. I requested placement for the good doctor in an alcohol rehab program. Then I added a note that he should be placed under an administrative hold as a danger to himself. He wouldn’t be able to check himself out of the rehab until he proved he could handle himself.

That was the best I could do for him, but I regretted doing it. I wished we could keep him around Hope. We needed him a lot more than he realized—and not just for one autopsy. When he left, we’d lose a valuable doctor. I had no way of knowing when, or if, we’d get another one.

Ugh. I somewhat blamed myself, even though I hadn’t done anything to cause Moody’s downfall. I just happened to be in the same room when Donovan came back to life on Moody’s exam table. We both faced that horror together, and I’d left him in the trenches while Alex had helped me deal with the unthinkable. Of course, even if I hadn’t had Alex, I wouldn’t have gone off the deep end and turned to alcohol, such that Moody had.

Now I had to deal with Lucas.

I put my phone back in my pocket, returned to my office, and dropped into my chair. “Sorry for the delay—I had to deal with Moody.”

“No prob,” Lucas returned with a winning smile. “There are only two kinds of people in this town.”

I looked up at him with a frown. “Are there?”

He nodded. “Those who don’t already know about the mongrel shifters—”

“Wolf,” I corrected him with a glare.

“Those who don’t know about the wolf shifters… and who won’t believe Moody’s drunken ravings and the shifters who already do know. Problem solved.”

“Wow, that was easy.” I gave him another frown.

He cracked a huge grin and split his lip open again. “Next topic.” He licked the blood off his lip. “I want to take you out.”

I looked up at him. “Like kill me?”

He chuckled. “No. Like out to dinner.”

I made a face. “I wouldn’t go out with you if you were the last man alive.”

“Yeah,” he started as he eyed me and then shook his head. “I think you would.”

“I wouldn’t.”

“I think you might like a little bit of bear meat to satisfy that hunger of yours.”

My head shot up, but I managed to stop myself from asking how the hell he knew about my… hunger… I could only assume he meant this intense feeling of need I had when he was near me. Even now, I could feel it. Did that mean he could he read my mind, too?

“So that man…” I stammered. “Was that your father?”

“That’s right.”

“Didn’t seem very fatherly.”

“He isn’t.”

“Sorry.”

He cocked his head to the side. “Don’t be. I’m not.”

“Okay.”

“So… how about it? I could take you to a nice restaurant and we share a candlelight dinner with a bottle of wine and caviar and you tell me all about Elodie, the chief of police of this ass crack of a town.”

“Ha. No.”

“Don’t you know what they say about trying new things?”

I looked up from where I’d started jotting down notes about what had happened earlier at Frank’s, not that I needed to write them—I just wanted to give myself something to do because looking at Lucas… well, I could feel my temperature increasing.

I ignored him. “Your father—what’s his name?”

“Harvey.”

“Last name or first?”

“First.”

“What’s his last name.”

“Doesn’t have one.”

I looked up at him and he shrugged. So I just waited. “No last name? I find that hard to believe.”

He grinned again, but this one looked forced and it didn’t quite reach his eyes. “I won’t rat out my father or any other member of our community.”

“Even though your father’s an asshole?”

“Even though good ol’ dad’s a dick.”

I couldn’t help the smile that took hold of my lips. “From what you said at The Swinery, your father is one of the aforementioned drunks roaming the streets of Hope.”

“Right and… for the record, no one ever tried to lock him in any alcohol rehab. They would have been on their way to the hospital… or the morgue… if they had tried.”

“You heard all that with Moody?” I asked, eyeing him narrowly.

He shrugged. “I’m a bear shifter—I’ve got good hearing also.”

“Of course you do,” I said on a sigh, shaking my head. “So, Chief Evans never tried to rein him in?”

“Chief Evans? No! He knew better than to mess with my dad.”

“And I don’t?”

“Apparently not, since he almost tore your head off your shoulders less than an hour ago.”

“Yeah… right…” I took a deep breath. “Thank you for stepping in. It makes me think you might not actually be the dregs of the earth like I’d previously thought.”

“Well, you are right welcome, chief.” He dipped his long eyelashes and then gave me a smile that had to have won him over his last few bedmates. “Does that mean you’ll go out with me?”

I peeled my eyes off him and propped both elbows on the table. “What makes you think I would ever even entertain the idea of going out with you? You threatened to kill me yesterday.”

“I never threatened to kill you. I let you go, remember?”

“You threatened to kill Alex and you would have killed us both if I hadn’t pulled my badge on you. Do you really think you can just flip from doing that to asking me out?”

“I just did.”

“Yeah? And what would your people say about a bear shifter going out with a ‘mongrel’, as you call us?”

He guffawed with laughter. “Well, they wouldn’t have anything nice to say about it.”

“So, why are you asking me?”

“Because I don’t give a shit about what anyone else thinks.”

“Lucky for me,” I muttered.

“It could be lucky for you… if you’d say yes.”

“I won’t.”

“You haven’t… yet.”

“Back to answering my questions and stop blowing smoke up my ass.”

He ran his tongue along his upper teeth. “I would absolutely love to blow smoke up your ass, Elodie.”

“I didn’t give you permission to call me by my first name,” I glared at him. “You call me Chief Matthews.”

He chopped at his head in a mock salute. “Yes, Ma’am. Mmm, I do love me a dominant woman.”

Heat rushed to my cheeks and when someone knocked on my office door, I was beyond relieved. The door opened, and I looked up to see Teddy standing there. I waved him in. “I’m questioning a witness, Teddy. What can I do for you?”

Teddy looked down at Lucas and bristled noticeably. “You show this woman the respect she is due.”

Lucas’ eyebrows shot up in surprise, no doubt because he wasn’t expecting a wolf to lecture a bear, but he nodded.

“Thank you, Teddy. Did you need something else?” I asked.

Teddy turned his attention to me. “Yes, Chief. Just wanted to let you know that I took care of Doc’s marching orders. They’ll be picking him up in the morning.”

Sighing in relief, I said, “Thanks, Teddy.”

Teddy nodded, left the office, and closed the door behind him.

“Going back to the topic at hand,” I started, looking back at Lucas even though I didn’t want to. “I suppose your dad has more than one drunk and disorderly complaint against him?”

I opened my laptop.

“Of course he does.” Then he smiled again. “About you ask me a question and I ask you one?”

“How about not?”

His smile only grew. “So how did you get mixed up with the mongrels?”

“I told you not to call them that,” I snapped a lot more harshly than I meant to. There was just something about this man that was getting underneath my skin.

He grinned even more broadly. The blood from his split lip darkened his gums and made him look truly ferocious. “I like feisty women.”

“I don’t care.”

“I think you do.”

I leaned in, narrowing my eyes. Whatever was going on between us, it needed to stop right now. “You don’t have a hope in hell with me, so do yourself a big favor and just answer the questions before you piss me off and get into even more trouble than you’re already in.”

As soon as the last word exited my mouth, I blinked at him in amazement, because in front of my eyes, the cut on his lip knit itself together and closed up. His smashed nose straightened and returned to its original shape. Besides the blood all over him, no sign remained that he’d ever gotten hurt in the first place. “What the…?”

“What did you ask me about again, Chief? What did you want to know about my dad?”

I opened and closed my mouth, but I couldn’t speak. Every last one of his cuts and bruises had completely healed—right in front of my eyes. I knew I was gaping at him, but this took the cake, and I needed a minute to recover. Finally, I managed to clear my throat. “I was going to ask… does your dad… well, is he violent… regularly?”

“Only when he drinks. He always had a temper, but he never took a swing at his kids until he got at least two six-packs under his belt. I learned a long time ago that it was quicker and easier just to let him get that anger of his out. Figured I’d heal in short order, anyway.”

A pang of sympathy made me take another look at him. I didn’t get a flash of memories or emotions like I got from Alex, but some connection softened me toward him. Lucas might have been a jerk, but I could kind of understand how he’d come to be this way.

“I’m sorry,” I started, but then he blew out a breath of impatience, as if he didn’t want any of my sympathy.

“Is there anything else you wanted to ask me, Chief?” he asked. “I don’t really need to give a statement, do I? You were there. You saw what happened.”

“I know you’re going to tell me to forget the whole thing, but I have no choice but to press assault charges against your father.”

He snorted. “You’re right. I am going to tell you to forget the whole thing.”

“Letting his behavior slide is a classic symptom of trauma and abuse.”

He appeared bored. “How’s that?”

I shrugged. “You identify with your abuser because he’s your father. And you letting him off so easily only encourages him to keep attacking you. You’re a grown man and I daresay you could take him on yourself.”

“I could… easily.”

“Right, so… you don’t have to put up with this abuse.”

“Doesn’t mean I want to press charges.”

“Right, but it’s also exactly why I have to press charges… because you won’t. I’m an impartial witness.”

He yawned purposely. “Whatever you say, Chief. You’re the boss here, not me.”

“Don’t you want to press charges against him?” I asked, frowning.

“What I want doesn’t matter.”

“Why?”

“Because my father is our Alpha. If I were to fight back, then I’d be challenging him as our Alpha. Pressing charges against him would just make me look weak.”

My sympathy switched back to annoyance, but before I could tell him off for being a pompous idiot, my office door burst open. Alex stormed in, took one look at me, and then stabbed an accusing finger at Lucas. “What the hell are you doing here?”

Lucas sneered up at him. “Calm down, lover boy. I didn’t even so much as kiss her.” Then he looked at me. “Though I still want to.”

I frowned at Lucas and then frowned up at Alex. “I’m taking his statement.”

He rounded on me, and the snarl of pure anger surprised me. “If you ever so much as lay one finger on her,” he started.

“I can handle this myself,” I interrupted, glaring at them both. “I don’t need each one of you trying to mark your territory.”

“I just wanted to make sure you were okay,” Alex said, as he looked at me.

“And that makes two of us,” Lucas answered.

“What is he talking about?” Alex demanded of me.

I sighed, long and hard. “Lucas got into a fight with his dad at Frank’s. I just brought him here to take his statement.”

“Do you have any idea what this piece of shit would do to both of us if he got the chance?” He spun around and accosted Lucas again. “Get out of here and don’t let me see you near her again.”

“You have no right barging in here and ordering people around!” I insisted, glaring up at him.

“Don’t worry about it, Chief.” Lucas got to his feet. “I’ll leave peacefully, but only because I don’t want the authorities involved in my family business.” He stepped toward my desk and dropped a slip of paper in front of me. “Here’s my number if you need to contact me for any more information.”

He gave me an indecent wink and headed for the door. When he got near Alex, Lucas sidled extra close so the two men bumped chests. Lucas muttered in a dangerous undertone that I barely heard. “You and I have unfinished business to attend to, wolf. Don’t think I forgot about that. I’ll be seeing you real soon.”

He stalked out of the office. A tense silence descended as Alex watched him walk out of sight. A split second later, Alex whipped around, planted both fists on my desk. “What the hell is going on? What was he doing here? And what is he doing giving you his number?”

My hackles stood on end. “First of all, you don’t come into my office shooting questions at me. I already told you what happened, and while we’re at it, I don’t have to explain anything to you. I’m the chief of police in this town. I execute my job my way.” Alex had overstepped here, and he needed to know it.

“This has nothing to do with your stupid professional pride, Elodie,” he fired back. “You aren’t just the chief of police in this town. You’re a wolf, just like the rest of us. What happens to you affects all of us.”

“So what?”

“So, I’m going out of my way to protect you from that shithead and his brothers. Do you have any idea of the risk I’m taking for your sake?”

“As patronizing and demeaning as that is, you don’t have to protect me from Lucas. He took a pounding from his father to protect me. Dr. Moody would have been killed, and I would probably be in the hospital by now if Lucas hadn’t interfered. You should be thanking him instead of getting in his face like a petulant child.”

“So now Lucas is protecting you? Have you conveniently forgotten that he threatened us… oh, less than twelve hours ago? You don’t think he just forgot about us trespassing on his land?”

“You said yourself we never trespassed. Either you lied about those birch trees being the boundary or you’re exaggerating to get me to bow down to your chauvinistic bullshit.” I felt the ice in my tone. I was in the right, and I knew it.

“My chauvinistic…” He stammered to a stop, staring at me and then swallowed hard. “If that’s the way you see it, I can see I don’t have to bother trying to protect you.”

“Yeah,” I retorted. “I can take care of myself.”

I pretended not to see him standing across the desk. I shuffled paperwork and tapped on my laptop, all the while seething with indignant fury at his audacity. How dare he storm into my office and start throwing his demands around like he owned the place?

Chapter Ten

For the rest of the day, I concentrated on work.

I’d had enough to keep me occupied that I didn’t think about Alex once.

By the time I left to go home, I felt calmer. I checked the town over on my way to my Jeep. All was quiet. The brothers from the woods didn’t make an appearance. Maybe Lucas told them to back off.

Then there was the possibility that Alex blew the whole encounter out of proportion. Lucas and his brothers had never actually threatened me. Furthermore, why would Lucas have helped me in the pool hall if he wanted to hurt me?

Calling it a day, I got into the Jeep and headed for home. Meanwhile, a little voice nagged inside my head: Lucas had definitely changed his tactics from when we’d first met him in the woods to now, after he’d found out I was the chief of police. Now it seemed he was trying to date me.

In a much more subdued mood, I drove home. What was I going to do? I still refused to acknowledge that I might have made a mistake, but Alex knew Lucas and his brothers better than I did. I couldn’t fault him for trying to warn me about them.

Picking up a bag full of food someone had left there, no doubt from the tribe, I went into the house and locked the door behind me. When I glanced back at the bag, I noticed the note which read, ‘You need lots of protein in the coming days.’

Agreed. The full moon cycle was coming soon, and opening the bag, I noticed quite a bit of what appeared to be jerky of some kind. These gifts from the tribe were greatly appreciated. My freezer was full of goodies, and I hadn’t had to cook for myself in weeks.

I sat down on the couch and breathed out a sigh of a bunch of conflicting emotions. I didn’t like arguing with Alex. And I didn’t know what to make of Lucas. And… for the first time in eight years, I suddenly realized how cold, dark, and lonely my house was with only me in it.

I fished my phone out of my pocket and checked the notifications. There was nothing from Alex. Why should there be when I basically told him to go jump off a cliff?

I put the phone down and sank deeper into the couch as I thought about the argument I’d had with Alex—and his jealousy. Granted, he was only trying to help but I didn’t like the way he’d thrown his weight around with me—as though I wasn’t capable of protecting myself, doing my job.

After another few seconds, I picked up the phone again. Still nothing. I put it down with a sinking feeling. Alex wouldn’t call. He wouldn’t text. He wouldn’t do anything to make up with me.

He wouldn’t contact me first. He would wait until I contacted him. Even then, I couldn’t be sure he would answer. I told him to get lost and that’s what he’d done—given me the space I’d demanded. Except now… now I wasn’t sure I still wanted that space.

I stuffed the phone back in my pocket.

Well, that was just fine. Maybe we both needed space. Maybe we’d been too much in each other’s personal space lately, and we needed a time out. Right. That sounded logical.

A second later, I took out the phone again.

I navigated to my messages app and tapped Alex’s contact. I would just send him a quick text to say… well, what could I say? I couldn’t apologize. Forget it. That was out of the question. He’d burst into my office and insinuated all kinds of things. He should have apologized to me.

If I wasn’t going to apologize, what should I say instead to break the ice—I mean, I had to say something.

My thumb hung suspended over the keyboard, but I couldn’t think of one decent thing to say to him… except to apologize for being so quick to jump down his throat. I wasn’t wrong here, but I could have deescalated the situation, I thought. I was trained on how to do that.

I put the phone down—on the cushion this time—as my mind churned in a thousand directions. Now that I’d made up my mind to initiate contact, I couldn’t ignore it.

I picked up the phone. My messages app remained open, and I read the last few texts from Alex about meeting for dinner at Frank’s. Life had been so much easier then—before we’d had words and now weren’t having any at all.

I put the phone down and picked it up at least three more times before I made up my mind. I texted: If you aren’t doing anything tomorrow, why don’t we get together for lunch? We could make a plan on our next move to find Donovan.

Send.

There. Simple, but to the point.

He’d asked me to help him find Donovan, so I’d be doing him a favor for once instead of the other way around. I didn’t need his protection for that.

I put the phone down, hopefully for the last time. Now all I had to do was wait for him to reply. I waited five minutes. Ten minutes. He didn’t answer.

I picked up the phone and looked at the screen. Should I send another text? Maybe he was asleep… or in the shower. Maybe he was in a meeting. Maybe he dropped his phone in a mud puddle.

Or maybe he just didn’t want to talk to me.

***

Sitting at my desk at the station, I picked up my phone and checked the notifications for the nth time.

I hadn’t heard from Alex in days, and the full moon cycle would be starting soon. After our giant blowout over Lucas, Alex had been ignoring me. He never responded to my text. I hadn’t even seen him around town. The kids would call this ‘ghosting’ someone, and it felt like that exactly. The man had just vanished.

Had I made a mistake trying to help Lucas? Had I thrown away something good with Alex—and for what? Alex never wanted to do anything but protect me. And… Lucas had threatened me. He’d threatened both of us. No wonder Alex lost it when he found Lucas in my office.

Still, my pride wouldn’t allow me to bite the bullet and back down. I’d rehearsed all the ways I would justify my decision if and when I ever had another conversation with Alex.

Here I thought I was doing the noble thing by reaching out to him, but I never planned to do anything other than defend my actions. I certainly never intended to backpedal or apologize. No flippin’ way. I was the chief of police and he was undermining my authority in my own damn office.

I went back to working on my laptop. The case of Aaron and Amelia Cooke became more convoluted the deeper I dug. Both Aaron and Amelia filed for restraining orders against Amelia’s first husband, Harvey Salia.

Harvey… hmm, that was the name Lucas had given me—his father’s name.

Coincidence? Yeah, probably. It wasn’t as though Harvey was such an uncommon name.

I continued to research. The police records logged at least five domestic disturbance calls while all three of them lived in Dutch Harbor. First, Amelia called the police about Harvey while she was still living with him.

Then, after she left him and moved in with Aaron, she and Aaron both called the police about Harvey harassing and threatening them. The couple even complained about Harvey’s family causing them problems.

The complaints ended about six months before the crash that killed Aaron and Amelia. The police records couldn’t tell me why complaints stopped and the whole situation sounded fishy to me. I was missing something, but what?

Switching over to the DMV database, I typed in ‘Harvey Salia’. Given what we all knew about domestic violence, he was looking like my number one suspect for Aaron and Amelia meeting with an unfortunate accident.

Sure enough, I found only one Harvey Salia in the whole great state of Alaska, and he didn’t live in Dutch Harbor anymore. He lived in a town called Ironclaw. I frowned at the screen. That was a strange name for a town, but I’d heard stranger.

Even more strange than where he now lived, the database didn’t contain a picture for Harvey Salia. The gray square in the corner of the screen where the picture should have been read, No photo. That shouldn’t have been possible. No US citizen could get a driver’s license without a picture.

I looked up Ironclaw on Google Maps and my worst fears materialized before my eyes. Of all the places in Alaska where the tiny settlement of four hundred people might be, it perched right behind the mountains Alex pointed out to me from the boundary between werewolf territory and werebear territory.

The town of Ironclaw sat right smack in the center of a giant patch of green labeled, Ironclaw National Wildlife Sanctuary. A single gravel road led in and out of the settlement that was surrounded by thousands of miles of trackless wilderness.

My spine tingled staring at it. Harvey Salia lived in the very heart of werebear country… and Lucas’ father’s name was Harvey… hmm, maybe not so coincidental after all. So that led me to my next question: what if Lucas’s father, the infamous leader of the Ironclaw werebear community, was the one who’d had a hand in the accident that killed Aaron and Amelia—Alex’s parents?

I shook the idea out of my head. For a start, I still had no proof that Aaron and Amelia were killed by anything other than their own bad driving habits. Harvey could be innocent.

So he’d had an unstable marriage with Amelia and he hadn’t gotten along with Aaron after the fact. Lots of circumstances could explain that.

I picked up my phone again. Still no notifications from Alex. How much longer did he plan to punish me for arguing with him? I bit the bullet and dialed his number.

My heart fluttered while the phone rang. Then my insides plummeted when it switched to his voice mail.

“Hi, you’ve reached Alex. I’m not available right now, but if you leave your name and number, I’ll get back to you as soon as possible. Thanks. Bye.”

As soon as I heard the beep, I started talking fast. “Listen, Alex. I know you’re mad at me, but I really need to talk to you. I’m investigating a person of interest who might be able to give us more information about Aaron and Amelia Cooke. His name is Harvey Salia, and he lives in Ironclaw, which is right on the other side of those mountains you pointed out to me—but I guess you already knew that. Call me back. I really need to talk to you.”

I hung up, feeling worse than if I hadn’t called him at all. Maybe I shouldn’t have. Maybe I should have just let him stew and come back to me when he was ready. Obviously, I was letting my emotions get the best of me. But the truth was, I did need Alex’s help.

Besides, I made the call for professional reasons and I wouldn’t take it back even if I could. Let the man pout if he wanted to pout. I had to find out what had happened with Aaron and Amelia. Alex wasn’t going to stop me, whether he wanted to help or not.

After I finished a few more searches on my laptop, I put the computer away. I planned to drive straight to Ironclaw and then thought better of it. I couldn’t go there alone. I might be the chief of police, but as Alex so astutely pointed out, I was also a wolf. Strutting into the werebears’ territory would be the quickest way to get myself killed.

I scrounged in my desk until I found Lucas’s phone number. Of course he’d given it to me for a completely different purpose, but here went nothing. I dialed it and kicked myself for getting excited while I listened to the phone ring. This was police business—nothing else. Alex might be mad enough not to speak to me at the moment, but we definitely had something going. I shouldn’t have been excited to speak to another man.

Chapter Eleven

“Well, if it isn’t the chief.”

He answered in that deep, rumbling voice that reverberated all the way into my bone marrow.

“Lucas,” I said in greeting.

“So you rethought that dinner with me?”

I cleared my throat with difficulty. “Keep your clothes on, Lucas. I’m calling on a police matter.”

“Ah, I’m gutted.”

“Anyway… there’s a cold case I’m investigating and there’s a person of interest I need to question in Ironclaw.”

He didn’t reply. A tense silence echoed down the phone. It set my already frayed nerves even further on edge.

“Who’s the person?”

“I’m not at liberty to say.”

There was silence.

“Anyway,” I continued, “I’m calling to ask if you would be my… escort through town and vouch for me while I interview the person of interest. Will you help?”

Another long silence stretched into infinity.

“Hello?” I asked.

“I think you know I didn’t give you my phone number for anything like this, Chief.”

“Well, then you shouldn’t have given it to me.”

He cleared his throat. “Wolves aren’t allowed in Ironclaw.”

“Yeah, I know. That’s why I’m calling you instead of…”

“I could get in trouble for this,” he went on. “That beating I took at The Swinery would look like a mosquito bite by comparison.”

I cringed. “Look, just forget it…”

“But… I’ll do it,” he interrupted.

My heart leaped into my mouth. “You will?”

“Under one condition.”

“What is it?”

“You have to go on a date with me,” he replied.

“I never said anything about…”

“That’s the deal, Chief,” he interjected. “Take it or leave it.”

“Then I’m leaving it.”

“And… I can promise you won’t get within a hundred miles of Ironclaw without me.”

I swallowed down my objections.

“So? Dinner?”

I had two unexplained deaths on my hands. If I had to go to Ironclaw to find the answers, what did one date here or there matter in the end? Well, your boyfriend Alex might object.

Yeah, a boyfriend who won’t return my calls and one who’s been ignoring me for the last three days.

“All right,” I grumbled.

His tone changed instantly. “When do I pick you up?”

“I have some conditions of my own.”

He chuckled. “Of course. No kissing on the first date?”

“Knock it off.”

“It’s been knocked off.”

I breathed in deeply and wondered if I’d just made a huge mistake. “If I agree to go on… er, if I agree to dinner with you, I choose where we go.”

“That’s fair.”

“And… this can’t get back to Alex.”

I held my breath again, waiting for his reaction. Would he laugh? Would he withdraw his agreement? I couldn’t let Alex find out I was going on a date with Lucas. Alex was already furious with me for even talking to Lucas and now I’d asked Lucas to take me to his hometown—his stronghold—I didn’t think Alex would ever forgive me.

What if the only reason Lucas had asked me to go on a date with him was just to needle Alex? That made a lot of sense—he’d dropped that phone number in front of Alex very purposely. What better way to aggravate Alex than through me? This strategy headed Lucas off at the pass.

Now it was my turn to break the silence. “Well? Do we have a deal?”

Lucas gave an exaggerated sigh. “If that’s the way you want it, I won’t tell Alex unless you ask me to.”

“Deal.”

“So… how about I meet you out front in a few minutes?”

“Now?”

“No, a few minutes… like I just said.”

“I mean,” I started, heart pounding, though I wasn’t sure why. “You want to get together today?”

“Yes.”

He hung up before I could reply.

I thought twice about that phone call on my way out of the station. Had I just made another colossal blunder? If Lucas took me to Ironclaw, what would prevent him from keeping me there? Or killing me? If these werebears could disappear into their own territory and never come out, what guarantee did I have that Lucas would bring me back to Hope after our trip?

Hell, I might go all the way out there and never find this Harvey Salia. Harvey could remain hidden while I fumbled around, getting nowhere. And I was fairly sure Lucas would be beyond pissed once he found out that the person I wanted to question was his father.

I stepped out into the Arctic semi-darkness and stopped next to the Jeep. I pulled out my phone, hoping against hope I’d see some response from Alex, but no such luck.

As I started to put my phone away, I heard footsteps. Turning in their direction, expecting to see Lucas coming to meet me, my jaw dropped as Alex barreled up the street.

“You can’t do this, Elodie!” he blurted out, no doubt having been eavesdropping on my innermost thoughts. Damn this wolf bond between us!

“Um, what?”

He was angry. “You can’t go to Ironclaw! I don’t care what you think. It’s suicide. Any wolf on the bears’ side of the boundary is a dead wolf.”

“I… um… I have an escort,” I answered as I shook my head.

“An escort?” he demanded, eyeing me narrowly.

I breathed in a deep breath and prayed Lucas wouldn’t show up anytime soon. That was the last thing I needed. “I have to look into this, Alex. If someone killed Aaron and Amelia Cooke, I have to find out who did it.”

“Ironclaw…”

“Isn’t on tribal land. If I find out there was foul play involved, I can arrest the person responsible. We can put your parents’ killers behind bars—if there is a killer.”

“You aren’t listening, Elodie!” he blared. “This has nothing to do with getting justice for someone’s murder. This is about territory—and your safety.”

Just then, Lucas pulled up in a chopped low-rider and I wanted to kick myself as Alex turned to face him and then faced me with even more anger in his eyes.

Dark sunglasses covered Lucas’ eyes even in the dim winter light. He wore a plain white t-shirt and dangled one muscular arm out of the driver’s window.

He cast a withering sneer at Alex. “Ready?” he asked me.

Alex took hold of my arm and turned my back to Lucas as he yanked me towards the precinct and out of hearing distance of Lucas. He lowered his voice to a breathless hiss before facing me again.

“That’s your escort? You’re trusting him to take you into werebear country? I thought you were smarter than that, Elodie.”

“Who the hell else was I supposed to ask?”

“Did he tell you his last name?” Alex whispered to me. “In case that answer’s no, it’s Salia. This Harvey Salia that you say might have killed Aaron and Amelia—it’s the same Harvey as Lucas’s father, Elodie. Harvey is the leader of the werebear community. If you think for two seconds that you can arrest him for a double murder, you’re out of your tree.”

I stiffened. Then I relaxed. “I figured.”

Alex’s eyes popped. “You figured? You knew you were investigating Lucas’s father? Did you tell him that?”

“No. Why should I?”

“If you cross their boundary investigating Harvey Salia, the bears will take that as an excuse to kill you.”

“What?” I started, shaking my head.

“In our tribe, murder is only permitted during dominance battles, territory disputes, and self-defense. The bears have a similar code, but you’d be threatening their leadership as well as trespassing if you went there to investigate Harvey.”

“I’m chief of police, Alex, no one is just going to kill me.”

“I don’t give a shit! I can’t let you do this. It’s too dangerous.”

Before he could respond, Lucas sauntered over. “Do you mind telling me what the big secret is?”

“It’s nothing,” I replied over my shoulder. “We just had to work something out, but it’s no big deal.” I looked at Alex and gave him a pronounced frown before turning back to face Lucas. “We can go now.”

“Listen to me, Elodie,” Alex warned in an undertone. “You’re flirting with disaster here. You could trigger a war between our people. Do you really want that on your hands?”

Lucas didn’t move. “A war between our people?” Lucas repeated as he looked from Alex to me. “What’s going on?”

“Look,” I started. “I’m not at liberty to discuss police matters.”

Lucas laughed, but it was without humor. “I won’t take you anywhere if you don’t tell me.”

I took a deep breath and faced him. “I want to go to Ironclaw to investigate your father, Lucas. Harvey had a wife when he worked in Dutch Harbor—a human wife. Did you know that?”

He nodded. “Sure. Everybody knows it.”

“Well, the marriage ended badly. There were domestic violence complaints against your father which, to be totally frank, would be right in line with what you told me about him and what I witnessed for myself.”

Lucas shrugged. “So what if there were? Half the damn state has domestic violence complaints against them.”

“Unfortunately, it turns out that your father’s ex-wife and her new husband both wound up dead a few miles from Hope. Their car crashed and Chief Evans never found their bodies or any evidence of foul play. I want to go to Ironclaw to investigate whether your father had anything to do with their deaths. That’s why I want you to take me there.”

“You make this sound like it happened recently?” Lucas started, shaking his head. “My father was married to a human wife a long time ago.”

“Thirty-four years ago,” I supplied, and he nodded.

“If you don’t want to take me to Ironclaw because the suspect is your father, I’ll respect your decision.”

“You didn’t say he was a suspect,” Lucas pointed out, eyes narrowed on me. “You said there was no evidence of foul play.”

“Except that we just found a dead body frozen in an underground river more than thirty miles from the crash site—the husband of your father’s ex-wife,” Alex butted in. “I think we can safely assume he didn’t walk there and he damn sure didn’t fly there.”

Lucas frowned, but then his features cleared just as quickly. “Well, if my father did have something to do with their deaths, he’ll have to face justice. Our people don’t put up with murderers.”

“So…” I started.

He shrugged. “So, I’ll take you to Ironclaw and you can question him about it.”

Alex took a few steps closer to Lucas. “You aren’t taking her anywhere by herself. I’m going with you.”

“You aren’t going anywhere near Ironclaw, big dog,” Lucas rumbled. “I said I’d take Elodie. She’s the police chief. You’re nothing.”

Alex narrowed his eyes at Lucas. “I don’t trust you to take her to the damn ice cream parlor. If I say you aren’t taking her by herself, that’s the end of the debate.”

I tapped Alex’s elbow. “He doesn’t have to take me anywhere. Look.”

The two men followed the direction of my gaze. All three of us watched as Harvey Salia barged out of Frank’s Kitchen. He marched in a straight line without staggering or wavering. He just might have been drop-dead sober for once in his life.

Every nerve tensed. Here he was, the man I wanted to find, strutting down the streets of Hope as bold as brass. He wasn’t hiding. But why should he? If he did have something to do with Aaron and Amelia’s deaths, he must have figured he’d never get caught—thirty-four years was a long time to go free.

“Well, I’ll be damned,” Alex rasped.

“Do you want to talk to him now?” Lucas asked.

“You don’t have to come with us,” I told him. “I understand if you want to make yourself scarce.”

“Hell no, I’m not making myself scarce. I want answers. If he did this, then someone from our family needs to be there to take him into custody. The two of you sure as shit won’t be doing it.”

“Thank you,” I breathed. “I really appreciate your help, Lucas. You know better than anyone what he’s capable of.”

“For fuck’s sake,” Alex started, but we both ignored him.

Lucas fixed a flinty scowl on his retreating father. “Yeah. I do.”

I unclipped the safety snap on my sidearm. “Let’s go—and remember, we’re just talking. We don’t have enough to accuse him of anything. We’re just asking him for information about his relationship with the victims.”

Alex nodded. Lucas said nothing. He continued to drill holes in his father’s back with his eyes. If looks could kill, Harvey would have been a dead man.

Chapter Twelve

Alex, Lucas, and I advanced slowly behind Harvey Salia.

The big man didn’t see or hear us. He turned a corner, heading for some houses on the outskirts of town. When he turned the corner, he must have caught a flash of movement, because he looked over and stopped dead in his tracks when he saw his son walking next to two wolf shifters.

His expression went through a series of rapid changes. He bared his teeth in a deadly snarl at Alex. He made a weak attempt to change that to placid curiosity when he saw me. Then he spotted Lucas.

“What the fuck do you want?” he slurred, which answered the question of whether or not he was sober. I didn’t imagine this man was sober a day in his life.

Lucas waved at me. “I don’t want anything. Chief Matthews here wants a word with you.”

“I don’t waste my time on mongrels.” Harvey curled his upper lip, first at Lucas and then at me. “If you don’t got a warrant, then get the hell away from me before you regret it.” Then he looked at Lucas. “An’ you got plenty of explaining to do, boy.”

It was odd to hear someone refer to Lucas as ‘boy’ when he was anything but.

Harvey then turned to Alex and his expression dropped.

“No,” he said, shaking his head. “It can’t be.”

“What?” Alex started, as he frowned.

I nudged him. “He thinks you’re Aaron,” I whispered.

Harvey shook his head again and closed his eyes, like he thought Alex was just a vision he could block. When he opened his eyes and saw Alex again, there was sudden terror in them and he took off toward the houses again.

Lucas strode fast enough to catch up with him. “You’re going to answer her questions whether you want to or not.”

“Who the hell do you think you are?!”

Lucas didn’t back down. “Do yourself and our people a favor and get it over with.”

Harvey meandered over to a little rundown cottage at the end of the row, cursing and yelling to himself as he nearly tripped over his own feet a few times. He blasted through the door and entered a shabby living room clouded with cigarette smoke.

The instant he walked in, Talon, Rhys, and a bunch of other enormous guys shot off the tattered furniture. They launched to their feet in surprise. What looked like drug paraphernalia covered a dented wooden coffee table in front of them.

They ended up arranged like a line of muscle, facing me, Alex, and Lucas. Harvey stood between us and jerked his thumb over his shoulder. “Get these shitheads out of here.”

Rhys and Talon didn’t move. They glanced at Lucas and then at me, but their friends reacted instantly. They split into two groups to walk around the coffee table. I could see this going sideways in a big, fat hurry.

My hand migrated closer to my sidearm when Lucas shot out his hand.

“Stop! Chief Matthews has reason to believe Harvey might be mixed up in two pre-meditated murders,” he spat the words as he glared at his father. “And every one of you knows how our clan feels about murderers.”

“This is bullshit,” Harvey answered. “I didn’t do a fucking thing.” He was so drunk, he had to stabilize himself against the wall. Then he faced Alex again and his eyes went wide. “Get outta my fucking head!”

“If you didn’t do anything, you shouldn’t have any problem answering the chief’s questions, dad,” Lucas spat the words out.

The guys all stopped and their eyebrows shot up. They gave me an appraising look. Rhys and Talon exchanged glances. Then they looked at their father. “What’s this all about?”

“Don’t listen to a word that bitch says,” Harvey fired back as he glared at me. “I didn’t kill anybody that didn’t have it coming to ‘em.” He jabbed a finger at Lucas. “You’re out, you ungrateful little bastard. Don’t bother coming back to Ironclaw.”

“I think our people would be very interested to hear what happened to your ex-wife and her husband. They died just outside of Hope,” Lucas continued. “But you already knew that, didn’t you?”

Harvey whipped around and burst into braying laughter. “Is that what this is all about?” Then he appeared to lose his train of thought and started shaking his head again. He looked back at Alex. “You aren’t real!”

“I am real, but I’m not who you think I am,” Alex answered.

And then Harvey seemed to understand because he nodded, before his expression changed again when he looked at me. “You think big, bad Harvey hurt the little puppy’s mommy and daddy?” He jerked his chin at Alex and laughed until he clutched his sides.

“Nobody said they were my parents,” Alex said, with fire in his eyes. “So how the fuck did you know that?”

Harvey laughed way too loudly. For a second, I wondered if he really was drunk after all. “When was the last time you saw your ex-wife, Amelia?” I asked, wanting to take control of the situation before it turned into a shit show. “She and her second husband, Aaron Cooke, lodged domestic violence complaints against you in Dutch Harbor. Is that why you left town and moved back home to Ironclaw? Did you move back here when things didn’t work out with her and she got together with Aaron? Is that it?”

“Dad?” Talon asked. “Answer her questions.”

Harvey exploded into more cruel laughter. “That little bitch was nothing but a cheating whore. She slutted around with that piece of shit Aaron while she was still married to me. Then she slutted around with me after she moved in with him. She’d bend over for anything that moved.” He rounded on Alex again and studied him for a moment or two, as if trying to decide if he was really there or not. After another second, he nodded, and the fear left his eyes. “Your mother was a whore. What are you gonna do about it?”

“Alex,” I said in a warning tone, but I could tell by his expression that he was handling it.

Alex shrugged. “Nothing. I don’t know anything about her. As far as I’m concerned, Amala is the only mother I’ve ever had.”

Harvey didn’t seem to hear him. “That little skank came to see me for one last hurrah—except she only did it about fifty times. Fifty last hurrahs! That was her way of moving on with someone new.” He chuckled even louder. “Then came the day when she said she planned to spill the beans to Aaron so she wouldn’t be able to come back. I could tell she meant it, so I left town. I didn’t want to risk running into her. The sight of her made me sick.”

“So that’s it?” Rhys asked. “You moved home to Ironclaw and never saw them again?”

“What about it, Harvey?” I added. “Did you ever see Aaron and Amelia again—around Hope, maybe?”

Harvey went very still. His laughter vanished and his eyes rotated toward the window. Everyone in the room held their breath to hear what he would say next.

If Harvey hadn’t killed them, then Aaron and Amelia crashing their car would have been nothing more than a tragic accident. I had no reason, even now, to think they hadn’t just lost control, driven their car into a tree, and drowned in the lake like Chief Evans thought. But then how did Aaron manage to move thirty miles away from the crash and what happened to Amelia?

Lucas startled everyone by bellowing at his father. “Answer the question! Answer the question now or, I swear to Christ, I’ll make sure you’re hounded out of Ironclaw at the point of a gun. I’ll impeach you in front of the whole town as a traitor and a murderer. Every bear shifter in the country will be after your blood.”

Harvey looked up at his son. Possibly for the first time in his life, he saw how large and imposing Lucas really was. Lucas dwarfed his father. His shoulders swelled to an even larger size. He clenched his fists and seethed with rage.

Harvey’s expression changed in a blink. He lowered his gaze to the threadbare carpet. “I tried to put them out of my mind. I married your mother, and I tried to forget everything that happened in Dutch Harbor. I wanted to wipe it from my memory and I guess I kinda succeeded. I forgot about them, and then one day, out of nowhere, I saw them… in Hope.”

No one breathed.

“They looked so happy,” Harvey murmured, and I could smell the liquor on his breath. “Amelia was holding hands with Aaron and laughing the way she used to with me.”

“That must have pissed you off,” I said.

“Of course it pissed me off!” he railed at me. “She was carrying a baby on one arm and I just… snapped.”

“Because she screwed you over,” I continued, playing my part.

Harvey nodded. “I guess the devil comes for you when it’s your time to pay his price.” I didn’t have any idea what he was talking about, but went with it.

“If the devil’s here and it’s time for you to pay, then you’d better start talking.”

He nodded, long and slow, and breathed out a sigh that I had to imagine he’d been holding for the last thirty plus years. “Something broke inside me and I tasted blood. I wanted to make that foul bitch pay for what she did to me.”

“What did you do?” Lucas boomed. “Did you follow them out of town?”

Harvey nodded down at the floor. “They didn’t notice me tailing them. They were heading south like they were on their way home to Dutch Harbor. I knew I had to act fast, so I snuck up behind them and nudged their bumper.”

“And then what did you do?” I asked, urging him onward.

“I sped up to pull alongside ‘em.” Harvey looked up and a sick grin spread across his lips. His psychotic eyes skipped from one face to another. He leered at his sons’ horrified stares. “You should have seen Amelia when she saw me. I can still hear her screams coming through the open window. The baby was screaming, too. Aaron fought the wheel, but when I dove for them, he yanked sideways.”

“And then what?” I asked.

He lowered his voice to a deadly purr. He savored every brutal word of this awful story. “The whole thing played out perfect. Aaron jerked onto the shoulder. He hit the brake and tried to correct. His tires skidded on the verge and he plowed right into a tree.” He giggled at the memory.

“The impact knocked him and Amelia out instantly. The baby was still screeching in Amelia’s arms. I took him out and put him on the ground. For a second, I considered ending him, too, but then I thought there might be a chance he was mine so, no, I couldn’t kill him.”

All eyes pivoted to Alex. There was no question about it, he was Aaron’s son. Alex looked exactly like the man. He simply glared at Harvey.

“The kid crawled away, and I put him outta my mind. I had my work cut out for me with Aaron and Amelia. I took Aaron outta the car first. He had a bump on the head, but nothing serious enough to kill him.”

“So, what did you do to him?” I asked.

“He came to when I took him outta the car. He struggled some, but I overpowered him. He recognized me right away and tried to threaten me. When that didn’t work, he tried begging for his life, but I didn’t listen. That piece of shit stole my girl. He was the one who got me into this fix in the first place.”

Another silence descended. I thought one of Harvey’s sons would prompt him to go on, but they didn’t need to. Once Harvey started talking, he didn’t stop until the whole terrible story came out. Holding it in must have been driving him out of his mind all these years.

“I crushed his ribcage with one punch. I made sure it looked just exactly like he hit the steering wheel in the crash—not that it made much difference. I planned to put him somewhere no one would ever find him.”

“And where was that?” I asked, knowing full well where it was.

“I put him in my truck and drove him out to Blue Lake. I dug down into the mud until I hit the water table. Then I dropped him in and covered him up.”

I puffed out both cheeks. “That explains the sinkhole… and his injuries.”

“What about Amelia?” Lucas demanded. “Did you go back for her?”

Harvey nodded. His lips curled upward in a gruesome smile. “I went back for her. I put her in my truck and I drove her to a little deer blind in the woods. I kept her there for over three weeks. I made sure she regretted ever screwing me over. Oh, she said she was sorry a million times, but I didn’t feel like letting her go until I finished with her.”

I shuddered. “So you killed her.”

“I didn’t have to.” He gave a sadistic chuckle. “By the time I finished playing with her, she wasn’t good for much. She collapsed, and that was the end of that.”

“Where did you hide the body?” Lucas asked. “Did you bury her somewhere?”

“I didn’t bury her. I burned what was left.”

“So you just left the baby crawling around in the woods?” Rhys interjected. “You thought he might be yours and you left him to die out there? That baby could have been our brother!”

“I never planned to leave him there, but when I went to look for him, he was gone. It was just dumb luck that someone found him before I did.” Harvey shrugged. “He grew up.” Then he looked over at Alex. “And he’s clearly Aaron’s son. I should have killed him, too. I should have erased all trace of those two.”

I laid a hand on Alex’s arm, but there didn’t seem to be any expression on his face.

“You can’t prove anything,” Talon countered. “You’ve got no proof.”

“We have Aaron’s body and we’ll find Amelia’s remains.”

“That body is gone,” Harvey said.

I shook my head. “Burning doesn’t destroy enough of a human body to completely erase all evidence that it is a human body. We’ll find some bones. We’ll be able to prove you took her to the deer blind.”

“You’ll never find anything at the deer blind because no one from Ironclaw will ever show you where it is,” Talon snarled back. “No one will take you onto our land to prove a murder charge against our own leader. You’re barking up the wrong tree, little pup.”

I waved his taunts aside. “Your father is a murderer, and he will go away for this.”

Talon clenched his burly hands into fists. “You’ll have to get out of here first.”

Lucas pivoted to confront his brothers. For a moment, the situation looked hopeless with Alex, Lucas, and I facing off against all these massive werebears. Could we really get out of this house alive?

Rhys whapped his knuckles against his brother Talon’s shoulder. “We can’t let him off. He just confessed to a double murder and leaving a baby to die in the woods.”

“And he’s also drunk as shit!” Talon railed. “He doesn’t even know what he’s admitting to!”

“That… baby could be our brother,” Rhys said as he glanced at Alex, who just stared straight ahead, and I had no idea what was going through his mind. I didn’t even want to try to check.

“If he doesn’t face justice from the police, we have to do it ourselves. His own code of honor demands it,” Lucas added.

“You are not siding with these dogs against our own father!” Talon boomed. “I swear I’ll tear you apart before I let you lay a finger on him.”

Harvey took that opportunity to make his power play. He motioned all the onlookers forward. “Put ‘em in the ground and no one has to know anything about this.”

The gathered bear shifters advanced on us. Quick as thought, I yanked out my sidearm and pointed it at them, sweeping it from one huge figure to the next. Lucas threw back his shoulders and rotated between me and the oncoming enemy.

Before anyone could move, Harvey spun around. In a blinding flash of movement, his back and shoulders split down his spine. The outer shell of a human man peeled downward as though he was throwing off a coat that was too tight for him. His human form disappeared, and a gargantuan bear erupted from inside him.

He lunged for Lucas, baring razor fangs and bristling with shaggy brown fur. Lucas shifted so fast I didn’t see the transformation. One second, Lucas stood there as human as any man. The next instant, an even bigger bear met Harvey in a clash of teeth, claws, and fury.

Chapter Thirteen

The instant Harvey attacked Lucas, Rhys launched at Talon and shifted in midair.

Talon and the other shifters all transformed at once. The house disintegrated into a confused mayhem of bellows, ripping attacks, and thunderous snarls.

Rhys and Talon rolled over repeatedly across the floor. They slashed their fangs, swiped their deadly claws, and knocked over furniture in their pitched battle to overpower each other.

First, Rhys got the upper hand and pinned his brother between the couch and the wall. He mounted to straddle his brother’s prostrate body and dove for Talon’s throat. He got within an inch of tearing out his brother’s life when Talon lunged upward with impossible strength.

He toppled Rhys, and the two giant bears scuffled for dominance again. Their curved claws scored the carpet. Talon toppled his brother into the coffee table and shattered the flimsy wood under their combined weight. Five of them then turned to charge Alex and me, but the others cut in front of them to drive them off. The two groups met in a clash of muscle, fur, and snorting rage that shook the floorboards beneath my feet.

For a moment, I couldn’t make up my mind where to point my gun. Rhys and Talon matched each other in might and ferocity. If either one tried to break free, the other hauled him down and gave him a thrashing that kept him occupied.

“Don’t think about shifting to join the fray,” I whispered to Alex because I could feel his desire to do just that.

He nodded. “I won’t. They’d rip me to shreds.”

Lucas and Harvey, both in their bear forms, tussled in a similar battle to that between Talon and Rhys. I took a minute to realize that Harvey was outmatching Lucas and given Harvey’s age and the fact that he was drunk (or had been before he’d taken his bear form), that didn’t seem right. It could only have meant one thing—Lucas was holding back from unleashing his full power against his father.

Harvey showed no such consideration. He slashed Lucas with his fangs and Lucas wheeled around, snarling to defend himself. When he landed on his front feet, Harvey ducked under Lucas’s muzzle and clamped his brutal jaws around Lucas’s foreleg. Lucas growled out in pain.

With one cruel jerk, Harvey flipped Lucas onto his back, then sprang on top of his son and, holding nothing back, lunged for Lucas’s throat. Lucas floundered to protect himself, but Harvey darted in and out so fast that Lucas couldn’t keep up. I aimed to take a shot at Harvey, but Alex reached over and placed a hand on my arm, intending for me to lower the gun.

“All that will do is piss him off,” he said as he shook his head. “This is their fight, so let them fight it.”

Harvey nipped at Lucas’s right shoulder and cut the skin to the muscle. Blood flowed into Lucas’s fur, but when Lucas rotated in that direction, Harvey adjusted his attack to drive from the left.

The brothers’ friends descended into a free-for-all skirmish with bears attacking bears on all sides. I couldn’t tell who was who, who was for Harvey, or who was trying to help us arrest him. One of them plowed into Harvey and pushed him away from Lucas.

The scuffle raged all around us until Harvey made his move. He pounced on top of Lucas and flattened his son under his giant bulk. Then he pinned Lucas under him and now Lucas’s greater size worked against him.

Harvey ducked his chin to his chest. Lucas hunched over, trying to bite his father, but Harvey’s maneuver stopped Lucas from damaging him. Harvey bit down hard in the muscle of Lucas’s chest and sank his fangs into the joint connecting Lucas’s foreleg to the rest of his torso.

Lucas let out a shriek that set my hair on end. Harvey leaped clear and, in that moment, three of the strangers freed themselves from their adversaries. They left their opponents mangled and crippled on the floor. They all answered that scream by piling on top of Lucas to finish him off.

“No,” I started as I instinctively took a step forward.

“It’s not our fight, Elodie,” Alex whispered as he gripped me around the arm and pulled me back. Part of me wanted to call for backup but then I thought about how I’d even call that backup in—“Um, a bunch of werebears are tearing each other to shit. I need some humans to help break it up.” Yeah… no.

With Lucas taken care of, Harvey turned his molten brown eyes to the only enemies left—the two of us. Harvey took two stalking steps toward me, lowering his head between his shoulders as a menacing growl boiled out of his great chest.

Even though it was useless, I swung my gun around and aimed my sights right between his eyes, but Harvey didn’t back down. In that awful moment, I wasn’t sure what else to do. The bullets inside the gun were silver, but I didn’t even know if these werebears had the same vulnerabilities as wolves? Were they all but invincible, short of a silver bullet or a silver blade to the heart.

Regardless, Harvey paid no attention to the gun at all. He kept advancing with a murderous glint in his eyes. It was then that Alex shifted. Once in his wolf form, he dodged between Harvey and me, but anyone could see this confrontation was no contest. His werewolf looked huge compared to me, but Harvey made Alex look tiny.

Alex arched his back, and the hair rose along his spine. Harvey fluffed up his fur to make himself look even bigger. He shook his shaggy neck and bellowed his challenge. He stalked ever closer, but he kept his gaze locked on me. Alex apparently meant nothing to him.

Alex rushed him with a hair-raising snarl. Harvey batted one great paw and swatted Alex out of the way. Alex bowled head over heels and smashed into the wall. At the same moment, Rhys broke free from Talon.

Rhys dove for Harvey, only to get tackled by Talon from behind. The brothers went down in another brawl. Rhys tried to reach Harvey and Talon did everything possible to stop him.

I couldn’t see Lucas anymore. Across the room, the three enemy bears covered him in a heap of bodies. Screams, bellows, tears, and crunches came from underneath it. I didn’t want to think about what they were doing to him.

Harvey stepped into my line of sight and cut off my view of the battle. He walked right into the path of my gun. Without thinking, I pulled the trigger. The weapon exploded, and the bullet flew straight and true, right into Harvey’s head.

The bullet hit Harvey’s head, but then clinked down to the floor. It barely penetrated his skin and left him completely unharmed. He strutted another threatening step nearer. I had to do something.

My new heightened wolf instincts told me to shift and fight for my life, even though I was fairly sure that was going to be useless, given what Harvey had just done to Alex in simply swatting him away like he was an errant fly. Inexpressible rage welled out of my soul at the same moment that Alex launched off the floor.

He soared at Harvey from the side. Harvey didn’t see him coming and Alex landed on Harvey’s back. For a second, the snarling wolf sank teeth and claws into Harvey’s side. Alex’s claws and fangs ripped a section of flesh off Harvey’s bones, and the bear whirled around with an angry bellow.

Alex’s hold released, and he slammed down on the floor right next to Harvey. The bear lunged for him. Blood and gore sprayed from the ripped flap in Harvey’s side, but Harvey didn’t notice. He vaulted on top of Alex.

Alex cowered on his back, baring his fangs and growling. He met Harvey, coming with slashing paws and snapping bites. Harvey landed on top of him and Alex kicked and bit to rip Harvey apart.

Harvey pulled the same trick he had on Lucas and overpowered Alex in a flat second with his great weight. He lowered himself on top of Alex and smashed Alex’s limbs against the floor. Alex’s claws didn’t penetrate Harvey’s thick fur, and with Harvey’s bulk on top of him, Alex couldn’t escape, either.

Harvey dove down for Alex’s throat as I screamed. Alex tried to snap at him again, but Harvey knocked Alex’s head aside with a single bat of his muzzle. In a split second, he locked his jaws around Alex’s neck and squeezed. Alex froze against the floor, waiting for the killing stroke.

At that moment, something happened.

The sight of Alex about to die at this demon bear’s bite did something to me—electrified me, every ounce of my being revolting against it. That feeling erupted out of me in a molten torrent of energy. I felt myself melt and wilt to the ground. Everything I thought I knew about myself sloughed off and landed on the floor like an old, discarded coat.

One thought commanded me to act.

I had to save Alex from this bear. I had to do something, anything, to neutralize Harvey.

Before I could even realize what was happening, I felt myself shifting, felt the power of the wolf overcoming me. Soon I was no longer standing on two feet, but on all fours, and I could hear the angry growl ricocheting off my lips.

I rocketed across the room. Halfway to the pair, Harvey reared off the floor. He rose on his hind legs, looking beyond enormous as he brandished his stricken enemy in his jaws. He flailed Alex’s limp body and a muffled roar of triumph came from Harvey’s rib cage.

I didn’t know what I would do until I did it. I adjusted my course and hit Harvey in the chest with my body. I grappled for some hold and my jaws latched onto the first thing I touched.

My teeth met in a mouthful of fur. The next second, I pierced living skin and I tasted blood. This was it. This was the moment toward which I’d been moving ever since I’d became a wolf.

Swinging all four limbs forward, I kicked out. My weight towed me to the floor. I opened my mouth and angled my teeth sideways as I dropped and sliced my fangs down Harvey’s flank. Blood rushed into my mouth and a feral bellow shattered my awareness.

I landed on my back, still gripping the flap of flesh I’d ripped off Harvey. I spat it out and vaulted to my feet again, ready to fight to the death. I peeled my lips back from my teeth and wailed out a mournful howl.

Harvey lurched in front of me. Alex lay on the floor, trying to scramble out of the way, and then attempted to stand up on all fours but failed. Harvey teetered one way and then the other. His organs flopped out of the massive tear in his abdomen.

He didn’t seem to understand what had happened to him and looked back and forth as though searching for an explanation.

Rhys and Talon watched him from over by the couch. Neither bear moved to help him. They didn’t seem to understand what they were witnessing, either. Maybe it was just shock. Probably.

Harvey staggered in my direction. I raised my hackles and snarled at him. One false move and I’d finish him for good, but he didn’t attack. He tripped and folded in a pile of fur on the floor.

I watched him fall, but I didn’t relax my stance. I braced myself to fight him again, because I couldn’t imagine the enormous bear was down for good.

Harvey rolled over on his side. His entrails spilled onto the carpet. In front of my eyes, he changed back into a man. He let out an agonized groan and flopped onto his back. His arms bounced against the floor. Blood and other horrible things oozed from his wound.

I didn’t see Rhys and Talon shift back into their human forms. I didn’t even notice them until they walked over and stood over their father. Blood dripped from countless wounds on both brothers.

Rhys bent down and inspected the mess of Harvey’s disembowelment. “It isn’t that bad. He can heal from this. I’ve seen worse. All we have to do is put everything back and stitch him up. He can face prosecution and…”

He glanced over his shoulder toward me. Something told me I should shift back. I should put on the coat of chief of police. I should be the one to deal with Harvey, but I couldn’t shift back. I couldn’t figure out how to. My brain didn’t seem to be working.

Talon looked at me, too, but before anyone could say anything, Alex, in his human form, soared past me. When had he shifted back? He knocked Rhys out of the way and landed in a crouch on top of Harvey. Before anyone could say a word, Alex raised a silver dagger up high and drilled the shining blade into Harvey’s heart.

Chapter Fourteen

A dangerous silence fell over the living room as I felt myself suddenly collapse against the floor. A second later and I could feel the change coming over me—I was slipping back into my human self and I didn’t even understand how it was happening. As soon as I could see my hands and legs, I pushed to my feet and, taking the few steps that separated me, grabbed a blanket from over the couch so I could cover my nudity. Any time someone shifted, their clothes were destroyed in the process. As I glanced over at Alex, I realized he’d already covered himself. The bears didn’t appear as concerned.

The Salia brothers and their friends stared down at Harvey’s mangled form. They bowed their heads over the body.

“We have to take him home,” Talon croaked. “He can heal from this.”

“The blade penetrated the heart,” one of the other guys pointed out. “We have to burn the body.”

“We can’t!” Talon exclaimed. “He’s our leader. We have to find a way to bring him back.”

“There is no way to bring him back,” Rhys countered. “He’s gone.”

Talon rounded on him. “This is all your fault! If you hadn’t betrayed him when he needed you, he’d still be alive right now. You’re a murderer!” He shot Lucas a venomous glare. “Both of you!”

“That’s enough.”

I turned to see Lucas, in his human form, sitting by the far wall of the house. And I was shocked—not only had I assumed he was dead, but I’d also assumed he was beyond saving.

Yet, here he was. As I watched, he pushed to his feet. There was blood covering his body, but as far as I could tell, no open wounds. He must have healed himself when he shifted back to his human form.

“He’s gone, and even if there was a way to bring him back, our laws forbid it. He’s the only murderer here, and the penalty for what he did is death.”

Rhys nodded. “We all heard him confess to his crimes.”

“He killed that man in cold blood and then he held his ex-wife a prisoner,” Lucas continued. “He terrorized her to death and then destroyed the body. All of us bear the obligation to end his life as punishment. Alex delivered the punishment Harvey deserved for leaving him for dead in the woods and murdering his parents.”

Talon glared at his brother. “I guess you think you’re going to take charge now.”

“That’s right,” Lucas breathed, moving forward in some kind of miraculous feat of strength. It was as if his crushed bones had already started mending, or maybe they’d already finished the job. Either way, he was as naked as the day he was born—they all were. I did my best not to notice. “Do you have a problem with that, Talon?”

Talon froze. No one breathed as the two brothers confronted each other, but just as fast, Talon relented. He slumped and lost a few inches in height before his brother’s authority. “No. I don’t.”

Lucas turned to the others. “Patch, you go get your truck and pull it up to the door. Lance, you go to the bedroom over there and bring out as many blankets as you can find. We have to take Dad back to Ironclaw without anyone seeing him. Rhys and Talon, you get busy cleaning this place up.”

Rhys and Talon shot a quick glance at me. The others scattered. Lucas turned to Alex… and me. “You two should get out of here. It wouldn’t look good for someone to spot you anywhere near this.”

“Thanks, man,” Alex almost whispered. “I appreciate you covering for me.”

“You did what you had to do. I understand and I would have had to do it myself if you didn’t do it first. You did me a favor. I should be the one to thank you.”

Rhys was dressed again and handed clothes to Lucas and Alex. The two dressed quickly.

“Can you handle smuggling him out of town?” Alex shot me a look, too. “I don’t think you’ll have any problem with the police.”

“You won’t,” I answered.

Lucas crossed the room to help his brothers and their friends wrap Harvey’s body in the blankets. The men had to tie several of them together to make a sling big enough for Harvey and all the organs trailing out of him. They wrapped the body so no one would be able to tell what was inside the strangely shaped lump.

Lucas straightened up and nodded to Alex. “It’s time. Let’s go.”

I walked to the door and looked back. Lucas and the others waited for us to leave. Alex opened the door and we stepped out into the streets of Hope.

“You wait right there—maybe behind that tree,” Alex said to me as he motioned to the blanket wrapped around me. “I’m going to go get the car so no one sees the chief of police dressed… like that.”

I nodded. It was a good plan and I was appreciative.

As Alex darted down the street, heading for his car and, wherever he’d parked it, I turned and watched the guys stumbling out of the house, lugging their massive burden. They heaved it aboard the waiting truck. Lucas climbed into the cab with Patch while the others got in the back. They stood guard while Patch eased onto the street. Lucas waved to me and then the truck motored out of town on the way back to Ironclaw.

A second later, Alex pulled up in his car and jumping out, opened the door for me. I was quick to pile inside.

“Let’s get out of here,” Alex murmured to me and I nodded.

***

The second we reached my house, I hopped out of Alex’s car, ran up the front steps and into the house. Then I dropped the blanket from around me and started for the sliding door that led to my backyard. I didn’t know why, but the need to be in nature, to be hidden in the forest was calling and I couldn’t deny it.

I could hear Alex behind me as I stepped into the trees and he followed. The instant I set foot in those woods, the wolf overtook me once more and I felt myself shedding my human skin for the fur of the wolf. I dropped down on all fours and was overcome with overpowering smells as they flooded my brain. Trees. Mold. Rabbits. Mice. Cars. People. Gasoline.

I smelled the whole world in such an overwhelming intensity that I couldn’t take it all in at once. Each of those scents acted on my instincts. I had to investigate each one.

The woods themselves intoxicated my mind. The land breathed with life in thousands of forms. I belonged to those woods and they belonged to me. And it felt right for me to be out here—in the primal wilderness.

Alex didn’t wait around for me to follow him, but took off through the trees heading east. I didn’t know where he was going, but I wasn’t ready to go off by myself yet. I loped after him, pausing here and there to investigate an interesting scent, until he turned onto a gravel road. The place looked familiar. I inched up to it until I emerged from the trees at a house. I knew this house. I recognized its smell. It was his house.

Alex walked up to the front door and paused on the step. He glanced over his shoulder at me. I didn’t approach. I didn’t want to go in there. I didn’t feel like I belonged there anymore.

A questioning expression darkened his features. I looked behind me toward the woods. Too many things out there called to me. I faced Alex again. Would he understand?

“Go on,” he told me. “Go if you want to go. I won’t stop you.”

I looked behind me again. I wanted to leave, but I didn’t want to leave him. I wanted to go into that house with him. Some part of me belonged there, too, even if I couldn’t grasp that part of myself right now. I belonged in both worlds. They tore me in half and I had no way to reconcile them.

“Go on,” he repeated. “You need to do this, so go. I need to handle things here. I will join you soon.”

Go—just like that? Would I be safe out there?

“You’ll be fine,” he told me. “Just stay away from Ammagaruqnik and Ironclaw… and Hope. Stick to the wilderness and you can’t go wrong.”

He started to turn away and took his keys out to unlock the door. He crossed the threshold and looked back at me. I looked toward the woods and then at him.

That moment hung suspended in time. Two worlds. Two places. Two lives intersected by one person—me.

He indulged in a small smile and vanished inside the house, leaving the door open, but he didn’t show himself again.

The wilderness called me, and I had to answer.

I turned around and trotted off into the trees.

***

I woke up on the couch in Alex’s living room and looked around. I was naked and my disheveled hair tousled over my eyes. A woolen blanket covered me to keep me warm in the cold house.

I hugged the scratchy blanket closer to hide myself. Being naked like this without a stitch of clothes made me feel vulnerable and exposed, but it also made me feel excited in a wild, animalistic way. Then I remembered.

I’d spent the night running in the woods as a wolf.

I started to sit up and look around for my clothes when the front door rattled. Alex unlocked the door and let himself in. He shut the door behind him and set a paper takeout bag on the kitchen counter. He started to whistle a tune under his breath, but when he glanced into the living room, he stopped on the spot.

“Oh! You’re awake.”

“I’m awake,” I managed.

Alex grabbed his takeout bag and flopped into the nearest armchair. He dug into his bag and took out a pair of chopsticks.

I sat up again before I remembered I wasn’t wearing a stitch of clothing, so I hugged the blanket around my body. When I checked on Alex, I discovered him getting an eyeful from across the living room. He grinned like a fool.

I sprang off the couch. Still clutching the blanket for protection, I searched through Alex’s drawers until I found a pair of boxers and a t-shirt. I got dressed as quickly as possible and twisted my hair into a messy ponytail. By the time I returned to the living room, I felt better.

He didn’t bat an eyelash at me or his clothes. He pulled a cardboard takeout box from his bag and passed it to me. “This is for you. I thought you might want something else to eat besides meat.”

“Mmm, thank you.”

He held the chopsticks out to me and I took them from him, opened the box, and shoveled the food down my throat. No food ever tasted so good. I finished it to the last noodle.

After eating, I slouched around on the couch and read a magazine—today was my day off and good thing too because I was exhausted.

Even so, I still wanted to check on Teddy, so I called the station.

“Is there any word on Harvey Salia’s disappearance?” I asked when Teddy picked up.

“What disappearance?” Teddy returned. “No one around here knows anything about Harvey Salia disappearing. Why do you ask? Did he disappear?”

I detected a lilt in his voice. He must have been in mixed company at the station. Only a select few knew what had really happened to Harvey Salia. Alex and I agreed to keep it on the down-low out of respect for Lucas and his family.

Teddy and I traded chit-chat and then I hung up. I breathed a sigh of relief, knowing the station was swimming along just fine in my absence.

I put the phone down to find Alex studying me. “So?”

“So… weren’t we in an argument before all this happened?” he asked with a smile.

“I believe we were,” I answered.

“I think we should resolve it,” he pushed.

“Okay. And how do you want to do that?”

He chuckled. “There’s nothing better than makeup sex, is there?”

It was my turn to laugh. “I can’t argue with that.”

Chapter Fifteen

Two Days Later

I stayed with Alex at his house for the next two days.

I’d decided to cash in on a couple of my mass of unused vacation days, even if I did call Teddy up a few times each day. My excuse to Teddy for not coming in? I thought I had the flu. I had a feeling he knew better but he just went along with it, being sure to ask me how I was feeling every time I called.

“What do you think about us… living together?” Alex asked out of the blue while I was choking down some corn flakes.

“Um, I don’t… I mean… I haven’t,” I answered, frowning at him.

He smiled. “Well, think about it now and then tell me what you think.”

I swallowed hard at the same time that someone knocked on the door.

Alex opened it and I gasped, standing up. I was wearing a new set of Alex’s boxers and t-shirt.

“Lucas? What brings you here?” I asked as I approached the front door and stood just beside Alex, being sure to put my arm around him to show Lucas, in no uncertain terms, that Alex and I were together.

Because we were… in no uncertain terms.

“How did you know where I live?” Alex grumbled?

“Easy to find out,” Lucas answered with that winning smile. “You’re listed.”

“Whatever,” Alex grumbled. “We’re both a little worn out from bear business.” He opened the door wide though and allowed Lucas to step inside, and that was a pretty big deal from where I was sitting.

I studied Lucas’ face. He looked completely healed from his near-death beating.

“I just wanted to let you know it’s finished. I didn’t want to tell you over the phone. We burned the body yesterday. Dad’s gone and he won’t be coming back.”

“I’m sorry for your loss, Lucas,” I told him. “I wish things could have gone another way.”

“The only other way they could have gone was for Aaron and Amelia Cooke never to have driven through Hope and for Dad to not be a psychotic, murdering son of a bitch.”

“Well… true,” I admitted.

Lucas nodded. “Unfortunately, he was a psychotic murdering son of a bitch and they did drive through Hope, so I don’t really see how things could go another way. He was bound to meet up with his demons, eventually. He just happened to do it with us in the room. End of story.”

“It isn’t exactly the end of the story, is it, though?” Alex chimed in. “You’re in charge over at Ironclaw now, right?”

“I am.”

“How does it feel to shoulder all that responsibility?” I asked.

“I won’t lie to you. It feels… different. I only just realized what a spoiled little shit I’ve been for the last thirty years,” he continued on a laugh. “I wasted my life and let my brothers turn into spoiled little shits, too. That ends now. I’m in charge and I’m gonna do the job the way Dad never did. I’m gonna be the leader my people need me to be and my brothers better sack it up if they want to ride with me.”

“That’s great, Lucas,” I told him. “I’m proud of you.”

He held my gaze and there was something warm in his eyes. “I couldn’t have done any of it without you. You were the one who ultimately took him down.”

“It’s… my job,” I answered on a shrug.

“Well, regardless, I came to give my thanks,” Lucas said.

“You’re going to be a great leader,” I told him. “Your people are lucky to have you.”

“They might not be now, but they will be.” He turned to Alex. “I have something for you.”

He handed over a small wooden box with a gold clasp. Alex turned it over in his hands, examining the workmanship. The wood showed the unmistakable marks of a pocketknife and sandpaper. It was handmade.

“What is it?” he asked.

“That box contains a few bones, teeth, strands of hair, and cloth fragments. The boys and I found them at the deer blind where Dad killed Amelia Cooke. You’ll be able to DNA test what’s left and confirm that Dad killed her the way he said he did. Once you do that, you can bury her properly… if you want to. You deserve closure after what Dad did to your folks. I’m… I’m sorry.”

“You don’t have to apologize,” Alex started.

Lucas nodded. “I know I don’t have to apologize for Dad’s actions, but I am anyway. I guess what I’m really saying is… I’m sorry for your loss. I wish things could have been different.” He paused and swallowed as he nodded. “We might have been brothers.”

“Yeah,” Alex murmured. “That would have been something, huh?”

Lucas put his hand in his pocket and took out something else. He held it out to Alex. “I want you to have this and… don’t turn it over to the police,” he continued as he gave me a little smile and I returned it. He faced Alex again. “I want you to keep this for yourself.”

He placed a small, shiny object in Alex’s palm. I looked down at a tiny stud earring. A glistening opal occupied the setting at the end.

“We found that in the blind, too,” Lucas went on. “It had to come from Amelia. We found it buried in the mud against one corner of the wall. You should have it. It might be all you have left of her.”

Alex stared down at the earring. He nodded, but he didn’t say anything. That left the talking part up to me. “Thank you, Lucas. We’re really grateful for all your help. I hope the future brings you some peace.”

“Yeah. Peace. About that… I was thinking, you know, if we had been brothers, we wouldn’t be fighting like this.”

Alex looked up at him. “Right.”

Lucas nodded. “Maybe we can bridge the gap between Ammagaruqnik and Ironclaw. Maybe we don’t have to be brothers to bury the hatchet, as it were.”

Alex cleared his throat with difficulty. “I’d like that. I just don’t know how the rest of the tribe will feel about it.”

“Ironclaw is dead set against it, but that’s what comes of more than forty years of having Dad in charge. Maybe, with time, we can change things. And word is getting around about how Chief Matthews saved all of us shifters from that poison a while back. Rhys is all right and a few of the others want to patch things up, too. They’re sick of fighting with you… wolves.”

“I wish I could say there were others at the res who felt that way, but for now, you’re stuck with Elodie and me.”

“That’s a good start. As a gesture of goodwill, I will let you know if Donovan turns up on our land or in the no-man’s-land adjacent to the reservation. If I or any of my people spot him, you’ll be the first to know. We won’t try to intercept him or punish him for trespassing until you and your tribe have a chance to bring him in first.”

“I appreciate that, Lucas, more than you can know.”

Lucas nodded to him. Then he cracked one of his mischievous grins at me. “See you around.”

Then he walked back down the front walkway, got into his car and drove away. Alex and I stared at the empty driveway for a few seconds before either of us spoke.

“Wow,” I breathed. “He really grew up fast.”

“He did. I never thought I’d say this, but I’m relieved he’s now the leader of Ironclaw and not someone else.”

I sauntered back into the house, but I couldn’t help studying Alex walking by my side. He clutched the box under one arm and he kept turning the earring over and over in his palm. “Are you okay? This is a lot to take in.”

“I’m fine.”

“Do you want to talk about it?”

He looked from the earring to me and then back again and sighed. “I look at this earring and I just feel… well, the truth is, I don’t feel anything. I don’t remember Aaron or Amelia. I don’t think of them as my parents. They’re strangers. I’m sorry for what happened to them, but it has nothing to do with me.”

“It’s normal to feel that way, Alex.”

He nodded. “Amala is my mother. She always will be.”

“She’s a good person for taking you in the way she did.”

He nodded again. “It would be really good if Ammagaruqnik and Ironclaw could make peace.”

“I think we’re on the right track.”

“Now if Ironclaw finds Donovan, we’ll be set.”

He furrowed his brow. “Maybe.”

“Don’t you want to find Donovan?”

“I wish I could, but there’s no sign of him.” he shook his head, looking completely broken.

Now it was my turn to furrow my brow. “Where do you think he could be?”

“I’m beginning to wonder if he might be… dead.”

I nodded, because it was a possibility I’d already considered. Donovan couldn’t seem to stay out of trouble and maybe trouble had finally cashed in his ‘get out of jail free’ card.

“I’d even say it’s the most logical explanation. Someone stabbed him in the chest not that long ago. He’s got plenty of enemies. It wouldn’t take much for someone else to do the same thing and do the job right this time.”

“Well, I don’t think we should give up.”

He breathed out a long breath and I could tell there was something else on his mind. “Elodie…”

“What?” I asked.

“I have to tell you something.”

“Okay.”

“I want to apologize.”

My eyes widened in surprise. “What for?”

“For overreacting when you showed your badge to the Salia boys in the woods. You were right. You saved both our lives and I’m grateful. I’m sorry I reacted the way I did. That was disrespectful. Remind me to kick my own ass if I ever doubt you again.”

I stifled a laugh. “Okay. I can definitely do that.”

He didn’t take the joke. “Thank you for investigating Aaron and Amelia’s disappearance, also. I’m grateful for finally finding out what happened to my biological parents.”

“Of course. I was just doing my job.”

“Chief Evans did his job, and he didn’t find out what happened to them. You were the one who finally cracked the case.”

“Maybe Chief Evans would have done the same thing if he’d found Aaron’s body. He took the available evidence he had at the time. He did his job as well as he could under the circumstances.”

“Don’t ruin the moment,” he countered with a smile. “Can’t you see I’m trying to…” He trailed off again.

“Trying to what?”

“This.” He eased an inch closer. Before I realized what was happening, he kissed me.

He leaned back and studied me for a moment. He kissed me again, and this time, he lingered with our lips locked together.

The delicious, satin texture of his lips radiated outward to waves of sweetness sweeping through my body. I started to relax into the moment when I remembered: I owed Lucas a date. Was Lucas still expecting it?

“I have to tell you something. I... uh... I told Lucas I’d go on a date with him for helping me with questioning his father.”

His countenance darkened into a scowl. “A date—with Lucas?”

“That was before everything… happened.”

“I’m sure he’s not expecting it now.”

I nodded but then decided to play a little game with him—just to stoke that fire of jealousy so I could use them to my advantage—my sexual advantage, that is.

“I promised I’d go out with him if he took me to Ironclaw to question Harvey and I can’t get out of it.”

“But he didn’t take you to Ironclaw, so the deal is off.”

“He would have.”

“Tell him the deal’s off.”

“Ah, come on, Alex, he’s a decent guy.” I purred up at him and I could tell by his expression that he was onto me. He smiled down at me.

“He could be the Mahatma Gandhi of the bear shifter world for all I care. You aren’t going out with him. You’re…” He broke off, but the word hanging on his lips came into my brain through the airwaves.

You’re mine.

Chapter Sixteen

A thousand emotions reared their heads in my mind.

Excitement. Shock. Peaceful calm. They all struggled to cope with those two simple words.

You’re mine.

Alex slid his fingers a fraction of an inch along my cheek and snapped me out of my thoughts.

Then he pulled away. “Come on.”

“Where are we going?”

“We’re going to practice you taking your wolf form a few times more,” he finished with a laugh as he took me in from head to toe.

He paced to the door and yanked it open. A puff of fresh air blew in. My nose picked up the world of scents and impressions from the woods outside. Those smells drew me into that other world. Alex stepped outside and scanned the trees around the house. His nostrils flared and he tensed.

He cocked his head at me. “Well? Go on. You know you want to.” He waved toward the world out there, the world of wilderness, a world without thought.

Excitement and anticipation quickened my blood. I remembered the untamed glory of the last few times I shifted. I wanted to go and run through the snowy wilderness as a wolf.

Alex stepped off the porch. He shot me a look over his shoulder and strode toward the woods, peeling off his shirt as he went and, in half a second, he hit the ground on all fours and streaked into the undergrowth.

I couldn’t let him leave me behind. Before I knew what I was doing, my human body dropped away the way it had when I got in the fight with Harvey.

The next thing I knew, I dove into the trees, too. My nose picked up Alex’s scent immediately. I didn’t need to see him or hear his footsteps snapping twigs to know he was heading east.

I soared over the miles. My feet barely touched the ground. I floated on the wind. The air brought me more information than my rational mind could fathom. That didn’t matter, though, because my rational mind shut down. It left only instinct to guide me.

I sprinted level with Alex. We skimmed on and on without ever growing tired, each of us scenting the smells, entranced with the natural world around us. This wolf body flowed so easily on the slightest ripple of breeze.

Out of nowhere, Alex dove for me. He sprang into the air and came down almost on top of me. I yelped and skidded to avoid hitting him, but he only dove for me a second time. He snapped his jaws, but he deliberately missed biting me.

His teeth clicked inches away from my shoulder. I retaliated by nipping him in the backside and I did NOT miss my aim. I pinched his skin and he let out of high-pitched yip of pain and surprise.

He rounded on me and tried to pounce again, but I understood this game too well now. I rocketed upward, still running at full speed. I twirled in midair as he pirouetted to figure out where I would come down, but I adjusted my position while still suspended above him.

I dropped and crashed right onto his back. He whirled around, first to the left and then to the right. He couldn’t quite contort himself far enough backward to reach me, so his teeth closed on nothing.

I leaped clear and rocketed, feeling a laugh building in my chest as I ran away as fast as ever. He took a moment to recover from his surprise and raced up behind me, but I put on more speed. I couldn’t remember having this much fun in a long time.

We wove in and out of each other’s path, pretending to attack one another as we play-fought. I finally managed to nip him again, but he didn’t make it easy. He got wise to my tactics, no doubt since he’d been doing this wolf thing a lot longer than I had.

As soon as I darted clear, he changed tack. He had to skirt a fallen tree trunk, and when he veered to rejoin me, he didn’t adjust his trajectory. He barreled straight for me and plowed into my side, crashing into me with colossal force. Stunned, I toppled sideways and bowled ass over tea kettle into another tree. By the time I got to my feet and blinked the stars out of my head, he was already running away at top speed.

He left me there, trying to figure out what just happened. It was fairly obvious that he could flatten me without much effort. He was a much larger wolf than I was, so I figured that was a given.

I trotted after him in no particular hurry to catch up. I took my time and didn’t need to rush, because I could smell exactly where he put each foot.

I descended a small rise to find him waiting for me at the bottom. He squatted, now in his human form, and naked in the snow with the ice crystals sparkling on his bare back and shoulders. I advanced slowly, wondering if he was about to pull another fast one on me.

He didn’t. He smiled and held out his hand. I hung back, but when he still didn’t move, I inched closer. He trailed his fingers through my fur and murmured low in my ear.

“Have you had enough yet? Are you ready to go home?”

I wasn’t. I peered through the trees toward the east. I still wanted to find out what lay out there beyond sight. I could keep exploring for years and never grow bored with this life.

Alex squinted in that direction and read my mind. “All right.”

He straightened up and shifted back into his wolf form. He could switch back and forth without a thought. We both loped off at a more leisurely pace. We didn’t race or play. Something ahead seemed to be calling to both of us and we approached it cautiously.

We traveled for over an hour, but the charged tension between us didn’t slacken. If anything, it got stronger the farther we went. We both slowed even more as we approached… whatever it was.

Alex halted at the edge of the trees. I stopped at his side and peered through the foliage. A long stretch of empty land spread before us. The snow obscured any features buried underneath.

A scattered collection of houses and buildings dotted the glistening white landscape. A sign in front of them read, Ammagaruqnik. The road coming from Hope cut across the front entrance. Alex and I weren’t on reservation land… yet.

Alex stuck his nose through the bushes and sniffed, but he didn’t approach his home reservation. What was he searching for? He turned aside and tiptoed just inside the tree line to run parallel to the road.

He lowered his nose to the ground, and that was when I smelled it.

Blood—and not just any blood.

Donovan’s blood.

The unmistakable scent of another wolf dotted the ground where he’d put his paws and I didn’t know why, but there was no doubt in my mind as to whom that blood belonged to. I followed Alex, but after only a few minutes, I wandered off on my own track. That scent pulled me along with it.

I sniffed the ground and could clearly detect footprints stamped with Donovan’s presence. He took a roundabout route that occasionally halted at the tree line. He must have been gazing out at his home reservation, too. He lurked around the fringes, longing for the home he’d never have again.

Alex’s track led him into the woods. He trailed a snowshoe hare for a while, but when he tried to chase it, it outran him easily. It took refuge in its burrow and left Donovan to roam as desolate as before. If he was still in as bad shape as when he’d left the morgue, he must have been really hungry.

I found a few drops of blood where he’d stopped at the rabbit’s burrow. They sprinkled the snow and emitted a foul scent. Donovan still hadn’t completely recovered from his near-death experience, if the blood was any clue. He might take months or even years to heal from having all his internal organs removed like they had been.

The blood drops fell in a steady line with his footprints. He headed back toward the reservation. I could only imagine the call of home was an irresistible pull. Several blood drops marked the spot where he stopped again to steal another glance.

Alex trotted toward me from the opposite direction. He ran his nose along the ground, following a different scent trail. It led him to the same place, so he must have located Donovan, too.

We both paused there. Our gazes migrated toward the reservation. Donovan wouldn’t be there. I didn’t understand being a wolf well enough to know how I knew these tracks and blood drops were definitely fresh. But I could sense it—could smell it in the scent that identified their owner. Donovan had stopped here in the last few days, I was sure of it.

He wasn’t here now, though. Wherever he was hiding out, he was long gone. We could follow his tracks for weeks and never find him. But at least he wasn’t dead.

Alex turned away and shot me a glance over his shoulder. I didn’t want to leave, but we’d found what we came here to find. I sauntered after him on the long trail back home. I had a job to do and I couldn’t do it in wolf form.

We picked up the pace until we streaked through the frosty woods again. Once again, I got that feeling of flying without ever setting my feet on solid earth. I could run like this forever.

An unspeakable thrill fired my blood. I didn’t want to go back to being a normal person. My wolf soul wanted to take over. It wanted to stay a wolf forever.

Alex and I didn’t leap and frolic and play on the trip back. We didn’t nip and wrestle. A sense of seriousness hung over both of us. Finding out that Donovan was alive changed everything. It brought home the fact that all wasn’t perfectly peaceful in Hope, Alaska.

I took a different route back to my house. I didn’t need Alex to show me where to go. Unerring instinct drove me back to my obligations. People depended on me to do a job. I couldn’t let them down.

I paced into the yard, but when I got near the house, I stopped. I looked over my shoulder toward the impenetrable woods. They called me as never before. They whispered their secrets in ways they never did when I was human.

When I was human.

Those words echoed down the long years of my life. I was human when I was engaged to Nick. I was human in Anchorage. Being human was my past. My future extended before me into an unknown existence. I didn’t understand the rules, but one thing was certain. I would never be human again.

Alex waited for me on my front step. He’d already shifted back into a man and now was naked and looking decidedly eager about getting inside. He looked so… so human, but he wasn’t. He belonged to that group of outsiders skirting the fringes of humanity. He understood subtleties and nuances of this life I had yet to learn.

He smiled at me as I approached. “Well? Let’s see you shift back.”

I studied him. I understood his words, but the real meaning came through our telepathic connection. I grasped them at a visceral level beyond words.

Shift? This wolf self didn’t know what it meant to be human or even to be superficially human-shaped. This wolf self understood only the wilderness of the woods and hills. This wolf self wouldn’t want to go back, even if it knew how—which it didn’t.

He studied me and waited, but he didn’t hurry me. He knew what it was like because he’d gone through this himself. I was lucky to have him to guide me.

He smiled again when I thought that. He’d heard me, but I didn’t mind. I liked having a telepathic connection with him.

His continued silence prompted me to get serious. I had to shift. I knew that. I just couldn’t get my brain to switch gears. Somewhere in this new reality, I had to find the trick that would let me change back into… into that other thing. I had to put the jacket of humanity back on over my wolf being.

Alex stood there patiently, watching and waiting, and took a step toward me. He stopped to stand next to me and held out his hand.

“Remember how this feels, Elodie.” He trailed his fingertips through the fur down my back. “Do you remember what this feels like?”

A shiver of excitement went up my spine at his touch. His fingers glided down my neck and back to the base of my tail. He made four passes, each one as gentle and delicate as the last. If I’d been human, that touch would have felt romantic—intimate—erotic, even.

I quivered all over. It was the touch of a lover initiating some passionate encounter of bodies coming together in sweaty, throbbing desire. It meant something so different, now that I was a wolf instead of a woman.

I looked up at him. He’d kissed me… and I wanted to kiss him again. I wanted to kiss him again a lot. We’d made love, but that felt like ages ago. I needed to experience it again. And I could only experience him the way I wanted to as a woman.

My eyes met his and I remembered. The façade of humanity slithered up my legs, around my hips and torso, over my arms, and finally consumed my head. It buried my wolf self under this rational, measured, thinking veneer.

Alex burst into a grin. “You did it! Good job.”

I was human again—on the outside, at least. Things like nakedness mattered in this strange world. His hands lingered on my shoulders. He squeezed me, then leaned in and kissed me again. Ah, yes. This was the real reason I came back—to feel this.

“How about producing the key to your house before we scare all the neighbors?” Alex whispered as I reached down to the rock in the front garden, under which I’d hid a key.

The wild world of woods, trees, land, and sky would always call me back, but this reality held its attractions, too. That bond between the two of us—it found its full expression here, as man and woman. I couldn’t know him or experience him—not fully—without both.

Epilogue

Over a month had passed since the incident with Harvey, and life had been blissfully peaceful in our neck of the woods.

Lucas was now the leader of Ironclaw and, for the most part, they accepted him as their head. It was fairly clear that they were eager for a fresh start with a leader who wasn’t toxic for their people.

Alex, Lucas and I had been working together with the Elders of Ammagaruqnik toward peace and friendship among the two tribes. It wasn’t as difficult as I would have thought. Turns out Ironclaw and Ammagaruqnik used to be strong allies once upon a time.

The Ironclaw had settled so near to Ammagaruqnik because their ancestors had been like brothers. Harvey was the reason for the animosity between the two tribes in more recent times, and Lucas was eager to mend those bridges. Brass-Eye was even quoted as saying, “The wolf and the bear are brothers. Standing together, we are powerful.”

Speaking of Alex, we were now living together in my house full time. We were most definitely a couple, and I was proud of that fact. On my days off, we stayed at his cabin on the reservation and I immersed myself in tribal life. What was more, I enjoyed it.

So, yeah. Life was pretty darn good.

Doc Moody was back from rehab, and I had high hopes he’d be okay. His son Michael was visiting, and it looked like he might end up making the leap and move to Hope. This would be great for the town because he was a general practitioner and we could always use a full-time doctor.

I was currently sitting at my desk, enjoying a piping hot bowl of Three Sisters Soup. It was easily my favorite, and it was chock full of corn, green beans, butternut squash, and potatoes. The gifts from the tribe of delicious food hadn’t slowed down one bit. If anything, with our new ties with Ironclaw, they’d doubled. Turns out the bear shifters were just as grateful I’d saved their lives as the wolves.

When I asked Alex about it, he said the women were proud to have me representing them and that someone in my position couldn’t be expected to have time to cook proper meals. They were taking care of me as I took care of them. I really was one of the tribe now and it felt good to belong.

As I slurped up the last of my soup, the phone on my desk rang. I set the empty bowl down and hit the speaker key.

“Chief Matthews.”

“I need help.” A child’s voice said.

My heart raced, and I sat forward in my seat. “Who is this, and where are you?” I asked.

“This is Irniq. I met you when you came to talk to Amala about her boys. Do you remember?”

A picture of the character Mowgli popped in my head. “Yes, of course, I remember you. You were very helpful. Are you okay, Irniq?”

“Yeah. I’m fine, but I do need your help... and you better bring Taktuq, too. But only you two. Nobody else.” the boy responded.

Alex was Taktuq—the latter being his tribal name. “Irniq, where are you?”

“We’re at my house. Come quick, Chief. I don’t wanna get in trouble.” The boy sounded as if he were probably safe, I figured, though nervous.

“I’m on my way, Irniq.”

“Do you remember where I live?”

“House with four cars sitting out front?” I asked.

“Yeah.” he said, sounding distracted and in the background I heard something crash.

Heart in my throat, I called out, “Irniq, are you okay?”

“Yeah, I gotta go. Hurry.” and he hung up the phone.

My cellphone erupted in John Legend singing All of Me and I answered. It was Alex.

“On my way, Elodie,” he said, and I figured he must have overheard the conversation with Irniq in my mind. “Let’s take my truck. Meet me outside.”

“Gotcha,” I responded. The telepathic connection we had was handy, if not consistent.

***

When we pulled up to the little house with four rusted cars sitting in front, I could see Irniq’s small angular face peeking out from behind a curtain. He appeared relieved. We hurried to the door, and he opened it and ushered us in quickly.

“I didn’t know what to do with him,” Irniq said, waving at a massive black wolf who was currently laying quietly in front of the fireplace.

Donovan.

Beside me, Alex gasped. “Irniq. Where did you find him?”

“Up north, while I was hunting. He ate the rabbit I caught.”

“And you brought him back here,” Alex said. “Where is everyone?” he asked, looking around.

“Dad and my brothers are off hunting seal. They should be back tonight, which is why I was hunting rabbit to make stew. Mom is at work.”

Hunting? He was only eleven or so, maybe even younger!

“You did good, Irniq,” I said with a little smile, but Irniq’s attention was on Alex.

“Taktuq, what do we do?”

We all looked at the wolf sleeping soundly. “I’ll need to bring him to the Elders now.” Alex pulled out his phone and sent a quick text.

“I’m coming with you,” I said.

Alex looked at me and the debate of whether or not he wanted me involved played out through his eyes. Finally, he gave me a quick nod, then turned and lifted the sleeping wolf up in his arms. The wolf didn’t even twitch, but I did notice scars on his stomach. Scars left behind from an autopsy. After all this time, shouldn’t they have been gone by now?

We loaded Donovan into the truck and went to face the music.

***

When Alex and I entered Ammagaruqnik tribal hall, only the Elders were there.

“Come in,” Gina called out. “Please set him down there on the floor and have a seat.”

We did as we were told, and I couldn’t help but feel Alex’s anxiety. It felt as if it were my own brother facing a death sentence for trespassing into Ammagaruqnik. Alex was holding my hand so tightly, I was sure to have a bruise by the end of this.

“Taktuq, why have you brought Makoktok here? He has been banished,” Brass-Eye said, pointing to Donovan.

Alex stood and replied, “He was up north, found by a hunter who contacted me immediately.”

I noticed he didn’t mention Irniq, and I understood why—he didn’t want to get the boy into trouble. Neither did I.

“Why is he here?” Brass-Eye repeated.

“I didn’t know what to do with him, so I contacted all of you.” Alex looked down at the floor.

Gina gasped. “Those scars on his chest…”

“They’re from an autopsy,” I answered the question in her eyes.

She looked up at me. “What happened to him?”

Alex cleared his throat, looking her in the eye, “My brother hasn’t had an easy path since he was banished.”

The other Elders took a closer look at Makoktok, at Donovan, and bristled.

“The full moon was a week ago, and yet he’s still in wolf form.” an old wizened man said. “This young wolf has been damaged.”

Everyone nodded.

“He has made mistakes, sure,” Alex started, but he was cut off by the oldest of the elders.

“He has suffered enough,” the man said.

Gina nodded. “We must bring him back into the fold. This is no way for one of our own to live.”

Brass-Eye bristled, but eventually agreed with the other Elders. “He is damaged. What do we do with him?”

“I will take him under my wing and help him along his journey back,” the oldest of the elders said.

“Thank you, shaman.” Alex said, and nodded at the old man in question.

“Go. I will send word when you may visit with Makoktok,” the old man finished firmly.

We both nodded, stood, and left. The relief coming off of Alex was tangible. His brother was home again. Safe and among his own people—people who had very graciously (and surprisingly) invited him back.

Once outside, Alex wrapped his arms around me, kissed me deeply, and I could see the shine of tears in his eyes. “That couldn’t have gone any better,” he whispered.

“I’m so glad they welcomed him back in,” I answered, as he nodded.

“Let’s go home,” he finished on a sigh as we approached his truck and he opened my door.

Home.

It was a word, the meaning of which I hadn’t understood for a long time, maybe ever. But now, with Alex by my side and the tribe at my back, it was a word I understood and one that felt really, really good.

The End

This concludes the Arctic Wolf trilogy! We hope you enjoyed it!

~~~~~

Turn the page to begin the Wolves of Valhalla trilogy!

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THE VIKING WOLF

A novel by

J.R. RAIN &

H.P. MALLORY

Wolves of Valhalla #1

The Viking Wolf

Published by Rain Press

Copyright © 2021 by J.R. Rain & H.P. Mallory

All rights reserved.

Ebook Edition, License Notes

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

The Viking Wolf

Prologue

The War Of The Gods

There was a time, long ago, when the two pantheons of gods were at peace with one another. Then, the Aesir, comprised of the gods Odin, Thor and the goddess Frigg, and the Vanir, comprised of the god Njordr and the goddess Freya, had learned to accept one another.

In an attempt to maintain the peace, Freya came to Asgard, the home of the Aesir. The Aesir were taken by Freya’s magical powers and zealously sought her services. But soon they were overcome with selfish desires they sought to fulfill with Freya’s magic. Blaming Freya for their own shortcomings, the Aesir attempted to murder her. Three times they burned her, and three times she was reborn from the ashes.

Soon, the Aesir and Vanir came to hate and fear one another, and these hostilities threatened war. The Aesir fought by the rules of plain combat, with weapons and brute force, while the Vanir used magic. The Aesir, realizing their weakness against magic, decided to take the favorite of all Freya’s creations, the wolf, and interbreed it with man. In doing so, the Aesir created the ultimate warrior—a man-wolf shifter. But, they did not stop there. The Aesir encouraged immense strength and speed within this new magical breed of creature, and they encouraged it to fight with a sense of maniacal fury.

They created what they termed a berserker…

The Aesir trained these berserkers to seek out and destroy any who possessed magic, because those who did were considered the children of Freya, born with a magical seed that would one day blossom. The Aesir feared that all those possessing magic would rejoin Freya and act as her warriors, thus they wanted every last one of them destroyed.

Chapter One

Jovi

Maybe it was a bad idea coming to this run-down, hole-in-the-wall town in the middle of nowhere. It didn’t even have any of that small-town charm. It was just small. When they depicted places like this in the movies, they always made these little towns seem quaint and homey. Like the kind of place you wished you could live in where everyone knew you and called you by your name, and kids rode bikes down the street, and no one worried about anything.

Well, that’s what it looked like in my head when I’d first heard the name, Marshall Heights. Now that I was actually here, though, I wanted nothing more than to get back to civilization. But I had to remind myself this was my new life; this was what was good for me. Or, at least that’s what I hoped would be the case. As it was, I didn’t know much about the place. All I did know was that I had this indescribable… need to come here.

That need had started about two or so weeks ago. I’d been checking my email, hoping for a response from one of the many jobs to which I’d sent a resume, when I’d noticed an email from an unknown sender. The title was ‘Marshall Heights’ and the content had been akin to a brochure about the little town. After reading the email, I’d promptly deleted it, but I hadn’t been able to escape thoughts about Marshall Heights. There was just this feeling inside me that I needed to… go there.

Such feelings aren’t rare for me—I tend to feel and know things I shouldn’t—some people call it being psychic, but I’m not sure I’d go that far. It’s not like I can read fortunes or find dead bodies in stalled police cases. It’s more like I’ve always had these little whispers in my head that tell me when to do or when not to do something.

So, here I was, having just turned twenty-seven, relocated to this tiny little town, even as I wondered how crazy I really was. I mean, I’d just up and left on a whim. On a feeling. Not that I had anything keeping me in Las Vegas. Nothing but an ex-husband and haunted dreams of a past love I’d never fully gotten over.

Now, I regarded the room around me with barely concealed distaste. It wasn’t a dirty room; everything in it just looked old and unfashionable. From the eyelet curtains to the shaggy carpet to the seventies-ish furniture, it looked like it was in need of a makeover and then some. At least none of it was mine. It was a furnished studio apartment on the far east end of town. I’d been renting it for the last week or so, and even though Marshall Heights was considerably less expensive than Las Vegas, I still couldn’t afford much.

I scratched my head as I spotted the dishes overflowing in the sink. As far as chores went, laundry was my favorite and dishes, my least. Of course, I had no one to blame but myself since it wasn’t like anyone was living with me. I had myself to blame for my own mess. But I let out a sigh anyway, as if someone would come hurrying to my rescue, as if someone would tell me what I already knew—that Jovi Billings should never have up and moved to a strange, little town for no reason at all.

No one came to my rescue, of course, but it was nice to imagine all the same. Maybe in another life. In my old life, someone would have… he would have.

 I stood up abruptly as I realized I’d better get to work, otherwise my boss would fire me, and I couldn’t afford to lose this job. Not when it was the only one I’d been offered.

“Sorry, dishes,” I said to the pile. “But, you’ll have to wait until I get home.”

***

I smacked my bubblegum loudly as I snaked through the people littering the sidewalk, taking care not to come into contact with anyone. There had been enough times in my life when I’d inadvertently touched someone and I’d received an influx of feelings or images of their lives, when I’d felt and known things they’d never told me. That might not sound like such a bad experience, but when you aren’t expecting it, it can be jarring, to say the least.

My mouth curled up in a big smile as I spotted an old and arthritic-looking sheepdog who was wagging its tail at strangers who stopped to pet it. When the dog looked up at me, its tongue hanging out of its mouth as it panted, I stopped to pet it.

I looked at the happy creature and his eyes caught mine for a moment or two. They just seemed so knowledgeable, so human.

The time is coming, a woman’s voice suddenly announced in my head as soon as I touched the top of the dog’s head. Be vigilant.

Immediately, I dropped my hand as my heart almost leapt from my chest. It was a voice I’d never heard before, and certainly not my own inner and usually critical voice. Steeling myself and trying to regulate my heartrate and breathing, I left the dog and hurried down the sidewalk.

***

“Morning, Jovi.” Sandy smiled. “How are you?”

“Good morning,” I offered as I gave her my best smile, even though I was still reeling about that voice I’d heard in my head, as well as the message.

What time was coming, and why I had to be vigilant, I had no idea.

So, just stop worrying about it, I told myself. Clearly, it’s one of those little snippets of information you pick up and it has nothing to do with anything.

“You good, honey?” Sandy continued. “You look a little rattled.”

A cursory scan of the salon revealed no clients had arrived yet. I walked to my station and unloaded my purse, taking off my jacket and my scarf. Even though it was springtime in Marshall Heights, the mornings were still chilly. “I’m good, but thanks, Sandy.”

Sandy gave me a reassuring smile as she walked over and squeezed my shoulder. “I’m really happy to have you here, Jovi.”

Sandy Hayes was one of the nicest people I’d ever met. And it just so happened that hers was the first job ad I’d answered. When she’d interviewed me for the position—hair stylist—she’d hired me on the spot, even though I hadn’t done hair in years. In over ten years, to be exact. Before I was married, I was a hairdresser, but then Gabriel had come into my life and he hadn’t wanted a wife who worked, so that was that.

With her big bangle earrings, her too-short bangs, her bright colors, and her new age beliefs, she was almost like a caricature of a person. Yet, I was so grateful to her. I was basically a blank slate, and Sandy had been nice enough to take me under her wing.

“There’s a customer comin’ in who needs a shampoo, rinse, and blow-dry; you think you could take care of it?” Sandy asked as the customer in question walked through the door, the little bell overhead going off. I nodded towards the middle-aged, overweight, and pockmarked woman who immediately smiled back at me.

“Annabelle, you mind if my new girl, Jovi, does you up this mornin’?” Sandy asked. Her accent almost sounded like she was from the south, but there was something not quite right about it.

“I don’t mind at all,” Annabelle answered and gave me a big smile. “You certainly are a pretty thing, aren’t you?”

I felt a blush creep over my cheeks and dropped my head a bit. I never had been good at taking compliments.

“Ain’t she just a beauty?” Sandy asked as she shook her head. “And that hair color is the real deal. No bleach there!”

“Is it?” Annabelle asked as they both admired my platinum blonde hair.

“And so is my lack of eyebrows,” I answered with a little laugh. “I have to pencil them in.”

Sandy laughed. “Well, you just thank your mama for giving you such a gorgeous face and figure, Miss Jovi!”

And on that subject, I would have loved to thank my mother if I knew who she was. It wasn’t that I was adopted (or maybe I had been?). I just suffered from a brain trauma that meant I couldn’t remember anything about my young and formative years. Anything prior to meeting Gabriel was nothing but a blur. As I understood it, I’d suffered some sort of fall and I’d hit my head fairly hard. Hard enough to wipe away any memory of who I was or where I’d come from.

“Right this way, please.” I gestured at Annabelle, and she followed me quietly to my chair. Once she sat down, I tilted her head back and began to methodically wash her hair with the no-name shampoo. At least it smelled good.

At the thought that the shampoo smelled good, I had to wonder at the turn my life had taken. Not even a year ago, I’d led a life of privilege, having other women wash my hair and do my nails and give me Brazilian bikini waxes. I’d lived a life of glitz, glam, parties, and titillating conversation. And, yet, I couldn’t say I missed any of it. No amount of money in the world was worth living beneath the boot of a man like Gabriel.

After I was done conditioning Annabelle’s hair, I towel-dried it and then bent over to plug in the blow dryer. I carefully smoothed out her hair and began to work it into something stylish, which was slow going considering the awful state her hair was in.

“There he goes again,” Sandy commented as she stared out the window, clearly studying someone. She tossed her orange hair behind her back as I caught sight of a large, older-model Ford F250 parking in front of the grocery store across the street from us. As I watched, the driver’s door opened, and he stepped out.

And everything within me stopped. I couldn’t breathe, couldn’t think, couldn’t move.

It was him.

Torsten.

Here.

“He is a mystery, that one,” Sandy continued, clearly unaware of the shock running through me.

How was it possible? How in the world had I ended up in this postage stamp of a town—the exact same town with Torsten Black?

And then I understood. It was my gift—my intuition or my subconscious mind, whatever you wanted to call it, had known Torsten was here. And that was exactly why I hadn’t been able to get Marshall Heights out of my mind. As to how or why I’d received the email in the first place? I didn’t have an answer for that.

I pretended I didn’t know who she was talking about, but of course I knew.

“Who?” I feigned indifference as I swiveled the chair around so it was facing one of the three mirrors on the wall. Annabelle admired her reflection as I wondered if we were looking at the same reflection. It sort of looked like she’d stuck her finger into a socket, but she smiled appreciatively, so I figured I’d done a good enough job.

“Torsten Black,” Sandy answered, matter-of-factly. “Marshall Heights’ very own mountain man.” She sighed, like he was some misunderstood superhero. “Coming down off the mountain to do his grocery shopping and banking just like he does twice a month.”

“Does he ever… come in here?” I asked, suddenly nervous he might. The last thing I needed was for him to see me. I wasn’t ready for that yet. I wasn’t sure I’d ever be ready. I mean, how in the world was I going to explain to him how I’d ended up here? Would he think I’d followed him or that I was stalking him?

Sandy looked at me like I’d lost my mind. “Him? Come in here? Not on your life. A man like Torsten Black wouldn’t go to a woman’s salon for a haircut if I paid him!”

Thank God.

At the point Torsten did realize I was here, I wasn’t even sure how he’d react. Things hadn’t exactly ended badly between us—they’d just ended. With no explanation. One day he’d been there and the next day, he hadn’t. And I’d had too much time to ask myself why. Too much time to try to figure out what had happened, but I’d always come up with a blank. All I did know was that from what I could see, Torsten Black hadn’t changed very much. And ‘Mountain Man’ was a good term for him. He was as rough and untamable as a mountain. That was the sort of man Torsten was, he was something to be reckoned with.

A force of nature.

Chapter Two

Jovi

“I feel for him,” Sandy said as she shook her head.

“Why?” I asked, legitimately interested.

“Because all he’s ever known is people staring at him and whispering behind his back. Just must get old after a while,” Sandy finished as if she, too, knew what that felt like. Actually, given how bizarre she was, she probably did.

“Why do people whisper about him?” I busied myself with cleaning up my station while I darted glances out the window every so often.

Torsten had already walked into the grocery store, and now I was waiting to catch a glimpse of him coming back out. My heart was still beating like a furious bird in a tiny cage and I felt dizzy, winded.

“I’m not one to indulge gossip,” Sandy said as she eyed me narrowly. I almost wanted to laugh, because even though I hadn’t been in Marshall Heights long, it had been long enough that I’d learned Sandy was about as big a gossip as they came. “But I can tell you what everyone else says.”

I shrugged as if it didn’t matter to me one way or another, but it did. It definitely did, because I wanted to find out as much as I could about Torsten Black and what he’d been up to since the last time I’d seen him, six years ago. “You can if you want to.”

“Well, rumor has it that he used to live in Las Vegas, where he was a cop and as the stories go, he killed his partner.”

I grimaced, although it was a true enough account. But, in this case, it was the specifics that were the most important. “What happened? Why isn’t he in jail serving time?”

“Eventually he was cleared of all charges,” Sandy answered with a shrug. “Apparently, the partner died from some sort of freak animal attack.”

“So, why is everyone still whispering about him if the charges were dropped?”

“You know how narrow-minded people can be. The minute they get a whiff of a scandal, the person is immediately found guilty in the eyes of the public.”

I made a noise in the back of my throat.

I glanced out the window again and watched as Torsten emerged from the grocery store with numerous brown paper bags that he piled between both his burly arms. He took the two flights of stairs that led up to the street where he’d parked his truck. Why he didn’t just park in the store lot and use a cart to unload his groceries was beyond me. Actually, it wasn’t that much of a surprise. Torsten had always made things more difficult on himself than he needed to. Some things clearly hadn’t changed.

From this vantage point, he didn’t look like a criminal. Just an abnormally tall and broad, unkempt man who happened to be sexy as all get out. Our history was complicated, but I couldn’t deny his effect on me. Though years had passed since we last saw each other, there was no doubt in my mind that the passion between us would be just as strong as ever. Not that I would ever allow that passion to see the light of day again. No, it was dead and buried just like that chapter of our lives.

“It hardly seems right to be judged for something you aren’t guilty of,” I said as I saw surprise register on Sandy’s face. Maybe most people who didn’t know the incidentals figured Torsten was guilty. It was definitely a more interesting story if he was guilty of murder and had somehow beaten the system.

Quickly, she shook her head and gave me a puzzled smile. “Yep, but you know how these things go. Once you screw up, real or fictional, you’re going to have a hell of time convincing people you’re still a good person.”

“Has he ever tried defending himself against the rumors?” I asked as my eyes remained glued to where he was standing, and I imagined tracing the faint scar that cut through his thick brow. More scars peeked out from beneath the unruly beard that covered his face—I had them all committed to memory.

“No, he never bothers with anyone. Honestly, I don’t think he cares.”

“Thank you so much, Jan, I love my hair,” my customer commented as she ran her hands through it and smiled happily at me. She’d slipped away to the bathroom while Sandy and I were having our discussion, and I’d promptly forgotten about her.

“It’s Jovi,” I corrected her with a little smile.

“Oh, I’m sorry,” she said and then smiled like she was embarrassed. She paid Sandy and then walked out the door, leaving me to watch Torsten get into his truck and start the engine. The thing was old and sounded like it.

“Now he’ll go to the gas station and fill up his tank,” Sandy said as she faced me with a smile. “And then he’ll head to the bank before he goes back up the mountain.”

“The bank?” I repeated, suddenly wanting to see him. Actually, scratch that, I needed to see him. Yes, I knew it was risky, but I couldn’t get rid of the need, all the same. The more I thought about it, the more I convinced myself I could follow him into the bank and make sure I stayed out of sight. I just wanted to watch that big, burly body as he walked and take in those long, lean legs and those insanely broad shoulders. It had been so long, I just… I just didn’t want to take my eyes off him.

Don’t lose it, girl, I warned myself. Don’t let your feelings get in the way again.

“Do you want me to do the bank drop before we close?” I asked, knowing tomorrow was the day I normally went to the bank, but maybe Sandy wouldn’t mind.

She looked at me and raised her eyebrows in a knowing sort of way. “Looks like you might be interested in getting a little more up close and personal with our mountain man.” she chuckled annoyingly. “Eh?”

“He seems interesting,” I admitted.

She didn’t say anything more, but started for the cash register. She rifled through the bills and then looked back up at me. “We had a pretty good week so far so yes, that’s fine if you want to deposit it now instead of tomorrow morning.”

“Okay,” I said as I approached her and accepted the wad of bills.

“Now don’t go getting a crush on him, Jovi, because I’d say he’s bad news. Even if the rumors aren’t all the way true, he isn’t exactly the friendliest of people.”

“I won’t get a crush on him,” I said, almost reluctantly.

I started for the door again, but not before reaching inside my purse and pulling out my large sunglasses. Better to try to remain as inconspicuous as I could, just in case Torsten happened to notice me.

***

I pushed my way inside the bank and walked through the lobby. I scanned the faces among the throng of people that moseyed towards the lines, the deposit clutched in my hand with a grip so tight, my knuckles started to ache. The click of my heels on the linoleum tile echoed like a gunshot in a cave. Sandy had told me I didn’t need to wear heels to work, but I’d wanted to make a good impression, but I had a feeling it would be flats for me from here on out. Marshall Heights just wasn’t a heels sort of place.

Heads turned and stared as I passed by.

I chose a line two away from Torsten’s.

The width of his shoulders beckoned my gaze just as the soft, meek voice of the bank teller reached my ears. I looked over at the flustered young woman who stared up at Torsten, slack jawed, like a dying fish.

And speaking of Torsten, the man was just as gorgeous as he always had been—potentially even more so. Age had done nothing to fade his handsome and chiseled face and now the gray that peppered his stubble and hair gave him a sophisticated sort of look, even with his lumberjack clothing. What would he be now, thirty-eight? Somewhere around there.

I watched as the teller’s face turned an unflattering shade of red. The poor girl looked on the verge of a stroke. I lowered my chin and stared over the rim of my sunglasses, tracking each of Torsten’s movements.

The girl smiled up at Torsten and asked, “How’s your day going, Mr. Black?”

“It’s going,” he replied in that gruff voice that used to drive me to distraction.

I was next in line, two lines over from Torsten, and when it was my turn to walk up to the counter, I noticed the bank teller in front of me smelled like a damp cellar and boiled cabbage. The shirt he wore was three sizes too small, his dingy khaki pants were wrinkled, and his ghastly purple tie was askew. I pasted on a smile that failed to reach my eyes and approached the counter. There was no mistaking the lust in the bank teller’s gaze as he took in my appearance. Even under normal circumstances, I wouldn’t have found his attention flattering, let alone with Torsten Black occupying my thoughts.

“I haven’t seen you in here before,” said Boiled Cabbage. “Are you new in town?”

“Yes. Just doing Sandy a favor.”

“You work at the salon?”

I struggled to keep my expression in check even as I nodded in response to his question. There was being kind and there was being nosey. Boiled Cabbage was the latter. Dark, bulbous eyes raked over my ample chest as a lecherous smile curled his lips. There was something rather frog-ish about his face that made my skin crawl.

“What’s your name?”

“Um,” I started and dropped my face, trying to keep my voice low. “Jovi,” I nearly whispered.

“What?”

“Jovi?” rumbled a deep voice that was all too familiar. How Torsten had managed to hear me when the teller, who stood just in front of me, hadn’t, I would never know.

But, he’d heard me, all the same.

Damn it.

I took a breath as my heart jumped into my throat.

My cover had been blown and I wasn’t sure whether I should face the threat head on or… run.

I closed my eyes, counted to ten, and turned towards Torsten slowly.

The shock in his deep blue gaze filled me with a wave of nervous energy that prickled beneath my skin. It felt like time stopped and everyone in the world faded from existence.

“Jovi?”

“Oh,” I started and pushed my glasses up my nose as I gave him an embarrassed smile that I hoped would make him think I was someone else.

“Jovi, that’s you, right?” he asked.

I fought to find my tongue.

“You, uh, look different,” I said stupidly. I wanted to slap myself the moment the words left my mouth but too late. “That’s, uh, why I didn’t recognize you, I mean.” I cleared my throat as he continued to stare at me. Or maybe it was glare at me. “You’re a bit… furrier than I remember.”

He stroked the thick beard on his face and I breathed out my own anxiety. I’d never cared for small talk, but with Torsten, it seemed like small talk was the only way to converse with him. I mean, he never offered any personal information and even though we both would sometimes fall victim to the long stretches of silence between us, our eyes were always connected. In any case, even small, polite chitchat was better than nothing at all. And nothing was what most people got from him, so I’d always been grateful he at least took the time to talk to me, even if that talk was about mundane and trivial things.

A woman behind me cleared her throat and gave me a hurried look. I turned back towards Boiled Cabbage and handed him the pink deposit slip and the handful of cash Sandy had given me. He grumbled under his breath, taking his time to count everything by hand instead of using the machine right beside him. He added the money to a small pouch with an irritable huff and filled out the receipt.

“Will that be all for you today, Ma’am?”

“Yes,” I said and took the paper from between his pudgy fingers as I spun on my heels. I turned my attention back to Torsten, where he stood near the doors, shifting his weight from one leg to the other.

He licked his lips and lowered his head to accommodate our height difference. “What are you doing here, Jovi? This is the last place in the world I thought you’d end up.”

“I could say the same about you,” I said playfully, not even sure what to say about how I’d ended up here. I mean, I guessed there really was nothing to say but the truth.

Torsten gave me a small smile and I was ruined by the oceans of blue in the depths of his eyes, and I had to look away.

“It’s good to see you, Angel.”

Hearing my old nickname again broke something inside me. I blinked away the burn in my eyes from the unshed tears and looked away from his stare. “It’s good to see you too, Torsten.”

His smile dropped before he replied, “So… are you living here now?”

“Um, sort of?” I answered with a shrug. Suddenly the need to leave was almost overwhelming. It was as though all the memories, feelings and emotions from all those years ago suddenly poured down on top of my head, submerging me until I couldn’t breathe. “I, um, I have to… to get going.”

I adjusted my sunglasses, pushed them up the bridge of my nose, and scurried out the doors of the bank like a gutless idiot. The man of my dreams, the only man I’d ever truly loved, had run when his life hit rock bottom. It seemed only fitting I do the same.

I wasn’t ready to talk to him because I knew what would come up—the day he left or the days that came after. No, I couldn’t talk to him yet, not when seeing him had been such a shock to my system. I needed time to think, to reevaluate how Torsten made me feel. Time had done nothing to quiet the deafening roar of emotion that blared inside my head with just one glance from him.

And I had a promise to keep to myself: I would never let anyone make me feel that weak ever again.

Chapter Three

Jovi

I walked through the center of town, whistling a tune in time with the falls of my feet. I was happy. I felt like I was exactly where I was meant to be, where I was supposed to be. The sun was shining; the birds were singing, and all was good with the world.

As soon as the thought left my head, a light dusting of snow began to fall from the sky. As I watched, the yellow glow of the sun began to dampen and clouds obscured the brightness, drowning everything in shades of grey.

Holding my hands out, I watched as the snow piled in my palms; the flakes growing larger and coming down faster as I watched. People began to scurry to take cover in their cars or inside nearby buildings—because a cold wind started up, catching the snow in miniature tornadoes.

I wrapped my arms around myself, now freezing in my simple shift dress.

I didn’t understand the change in the weather—it was just so extreme, so quick.

The time is coming.

It was the woman’s voice and it sounded in my head again.

Be vigilant.

What is coming? I demanded, but I received no answer. Instead, I watched as the snow began to melt. After another few seconds, it hardened into thick sheets of ice. And it covered everything—the trees, the streets, the cars, the benches, the telephone poles.

The ice was thick and it sparkled like diamonds in the low light.

“Go!” I yelled to the people on the street. “Get inside!”

But, they didn’t listen.

Instead, they marveled at the change in temperature and as I watched, they began to freeze in place, their mouths now frozen mid-sentence, one foot in the air as they took a step they’d never be able to complete.

No, I thought to myself as I wondered why I wasn’t frozen solid. I don’t understand what’s happening!

The time is coming, the voice said again, seemingly coming from the sky. Be vigilant.

 I turned the corner and ran headlong into the dog I’d seen earlier. And he was frozen stiff, little icicles forming off the tufts of his fur. And his eyes were just as human as I remembered them.

I sat bolt upright and found myself in the middle of my bed, sweat breaking out across my forehead. The room was dark and according to the clock above my dresser, it was the three in the morning.

It was just a dream, Jovi, I comforted myself. It was just a dream.

So, why then did it feel more like a premonition?

***

The following day I returned to work with my head held high and my pride intact. After the awful dream, I’d stayed awake for the next hour or so, doing affirmations and writing in my journal.

I was convinced the unsettling dream was somehow an echo of the fact that not only had I seen Torsten again after six long and lonely years, but I hadn’t been prepared to see him and, furthermore, seeing him had unhinged me. It had thrown me off course and now I was doing everything I could to get control of my ship again.

I could not and would not allow this man to upend my life again. It had taken me way too long to get myself and my life back together after he’d left that day. Now that I was living in the same town, I had to steel myself against the pain and the memories that were already doing their best to take me under.

Repeatedly, I kept telling myself that I was strong enough to get through this. I was strong enough to guard myself against my feelings for Torsten. I was strong enough not to fall in love with him again.

I’d even taken care of the dishes…

My first appointment was with an elderly woman looking to hide the silver that streaked her naturally dark hair. I threw myself into my work, enjoying the break from thoughts about Torsten.

The clock on the wall near the office door ticked obscenely loudly, punctuating the torturously slow pace in which the time passed. The bell above the door chimed as I rinsed dye down the drain of the wash station. My hands smelled of radioactive chemicals and some floral fragrance a scientist cooked up in a lab somewhere. I dried my hands on one of the cheap towels beside the station just as Sandy nearly tripped over herself from where she stood at the reception desk.

“Mr. Black, c-can I help you with something?” she asked.

I felt my stomach drop as I slowly turned around and found Torsten looking at me as he whispered something to Sandy. Remembering myself, I snapped back into action, keeping busy by pretending to clean up my area. I wasn’t sure why, but his sudden appearance had gone straight to my head and now it throbbed painfully, matching the frantic rhythm of my heart. It wasn’t long before Torsten approached me.

“I didn’t know you could… do hair,” he offered.

Sandy looked at me, her eyes nearly bulging out of her face.

“Torsten and I met at the bank yesterday,” I offered with a casual shrug and an equally casual, yet mousy smile. I looked at him again and cleared my throat. “I used to be a hairstylist… way back when.”

“Ah,” he answered and then looked like he was at a loss for words. Make that two of us.

“It looks like you’re in need of a good razor.”

Torsten ran his fingers through his unruly hair, then scratched the stubble all over his face and cleared his throat. “While that may be true, I didn’t come for a shave.”

“Oh. What did you come for?”

“To ask what time you get off work.”

I swallowed hard and caught Sandy mouthing ‘Oh my God’ behind Torsten. I did my best to ignore her. Back to Torsten, I wasn’t sure if he was asking me out? On a date?

My night had been filled with restless bursts of sleep as I wrestled with the realization that I wasn’t ready to talk to Torsten. Or see him. I needed to steel myself, needed to make sure I was in a different head space than I currently was. “I get off at five, but I don’t… um, I don’t think it’s a good idea—”

“Great, I’ll pick you up then.”

“Torsten,” I started. “I just said—”

“I know what you just said. But, we need to talk.”

“We do?”

He nodded. “I’ll pick you up when you get off work.”

“What is there to talk about?”

He looked at me and chuckled. “Are you serious?”

I took a deep breath, but didn’t respond.

“I just… just need a few minutes of your time,” he finished.

I didn’t want Sandy overhearing our conversation, so I motioned to the door and followed him outside. Once the door closed, I chanced a look up at him and immediately regretted it. God, he was just as gorgeous as the last time I’d seen him—the day he’d left without a word. The day he’d broken my heart and left my life in a tailspin.

I felt my stomach drop again and all those memories I’d done my best to lock away forever suddenly returned. I had to forcibly push them out of my mind so I could focus on the conversation. “I have a really busy day today and I didn’t get much sleep last night,” I started.

He looked at me, and his eyes were narrowed. From his expression, it didn’t appear that he was happy to see me. And I guessed I could imagine why—he’d left and he’d left without a word, and I’d never heard from him in six years. Clearly, our love affair had meant nothing to him. So, now that I randomly turned up in his town, I’m sure he wanted to know why. And, furthermore, I was also sure he didn’t want me here.

“I’m sure you didn’t randomly end up in Marshall Heights, Jovi,” he said as he looked over at me, his furry eyebrows reaching for the sky. “A woman like you doesn’t end up in a town like this unless she has a reason.” He paused for a second or two. “And I’m fairly sure I’m that reason.”

“Actually, you weren’t the reason,” I insisted as I started to burn at the thought that he’d assumed I’d come here with my tail between my legs, after he’d left me all those years ago, to beg him to take me back. And, all along, he’d made a new life for himself in this little town and he’d never bothered to reach out to me!

“Then you randomly ended up here?” he asked, frowning.

I held my jaw tight. “I did.”

He was quiet for a few seconds and then shook his head. “Jovi, we… we need to talk.”

“There’s nothing to talk about.”

He almost glared at me. “There’s everything to talk about.” He paused for a moment or two. “I want you to go to dinner with me tonight… please.”

“I can’t do it,” I answered, my lips tight.

“Why?”

“Because.”

“That’s not an answer.”

“I’m… just… not ready to talk to you yet.”

He nodded as if that response made sense to him. “All I ask is that you listen to what I have to say. That’s it.” Torsten reached out and touched my arm gently and I watched him do it, feeling as though I was a foreign entity within my own body.

The feel of his fingers on my skin caused sparks to race through my body. I trembled slightly and bit down on my lip as I began to drown in his eyes. It wasn’t long before I heard myself say, “Alright. Dinner.”

Torsten stepped away from me with a quick smile and a nod, and I hurried back inside, not bothering to say goodbye. I heard the sound of his truck firing up and took a deep breath, telling myself I could do this. I could face the man who’d broken my heart. I was strong enough. After all these years, I was strong enough.

As soon as I walked back into the salon, I caught Sandy’s gaze. I could tell she was dying to ask me a million questions, but luckily she was with a client and didn’t have the opportunity. I quickly tidied up my station and wandered into the back room to put a few things away, just as the client in question walked into the restroom.

I turned around and there was Sandy, with that knowing smile on her face that told me she was only seconds away from prying. She stood, blocking my way with her arms crossed over her chest, beaded bracelets jingling with every move she made.

“He asked you out on a date?”

“I guess so.”

She smiled broadly. “I can’t wait to hear how it goes! I’m just so… shocked! I’ve never seen Torsten Black talk to anyone!”

“I guess there’s a first time for everything,” I grumbled as I walked past her.

“As soon as you went to the bank, I just thought to myself—Torsten Black is going to be absolutely taken with our Jovi! And just look! I was right!” she beamed and waved at me as my next client walked through the door.

Chapter Four

Jovi

I found Torsten leaning against his truck where it was parked outside the salon. It was five pm on the dot. His head was lowered and his shoulders were slouched. But, when he saw me, he stood at attention and gave me a quick smile. It didn’t quite reach his eyes and I suddenly wanted to turn around and run back into the salon.

But, I didn’t.

“Where to?” I asked.

My nerves were still on high alert and the more time I spent with this man, the more I wondered if moving here had been a total and complete mistake. Maybe I should have taken this as a reason to move back to Vegas. Or, anywhere else, for that matter!

But, no, I couldn’t help but wonder if there was a reason why I’d ended up here—if there was some reason why the universe wanted my path to intersect Torsten’s. I could only assume there was a reason or I’d never received that email and I never would have ended up here…

Those cerulean orbs flickered down to my face, locked onto my stare, and held me captive. Just like they always had. God, but he seemed so enormous as he stood in front of me. At five-six, I wasn’t a short woman, but next to him, I felt like a gnome. But, that was just how Torsten was. Yes, he was tall, six-five or so, but he just had this presence about him that even if he were five-nine, you’d think he was much taller.

“I don’t really know any of the restaurants around here,” he admitted with an unconcerned shrug.

“Yet, you’ve lived here for how long?”

“I don’t technically live ‘here’,” he answered as he opened the door for me. I made no motion to get in. Instead, I just stood there, looking up at him as he looked down at me.

“Well, where do you live then?”

“On the mountain,” he answered and pointed to the tall peak in question. It towered over the small town and appeared to be miles away. No wonder he only came to town twice a month. “Peak Mountain, it’s called.”

“I didn’t even know there were houses up there.”

“There are a few,” he answered.

“Why don’t you just live in town?”

He shook his head. “I make it my business to keep to myself.”

“You used to be the social type,” I countered.

“Used to being the operative words in that sentence,” he answered, and his voice took on a gruffness that wasn’t there before. It was as though a reminder of the way he used to be upset him.

“If you don’t know any restaurants, where are we supposed to go?” I asked, wondering what the whole point to this outing was anyway. I wasn’t even hungry. And whatever he had to say to me wasn’t going to wash away years of anger and loneliness.

“Would you be opposed to coming to my place?” he asked.

Lust burned hot in the pit of my stomach as soon as he mentioned it. The two of us… alone again after all these years. I cleared my throat and tried not to fidget, but failed. “Do you think that’s a good idea?” I asked, feeling the heat of my flushed face growing hotter.

“I can control myself, Jovi,” he said as he faced me and gave me an earnest expression. “As beautiful as you still are, I can control myself.”

Then he offered his hand to help me into the truck. I held onto it, used it to balance as I hoisted myself into the giant hunk of metal, and slid onto the bench seat with more grace than I thought was possible. The floors were caked in dried mud, stray leaves, and pine needles. Yes, he definitely lived on a mountain.

My wandering thoughts were reined in when Torsten shut my door, then walked around the truck and hoisted himself into the driver’s seat. Now inside, the interior of the truck suddenly seemed so much smaller. I looked over at him and found him taking up nearly the entire space on the driver’s side. He really was immense—larger than life.

“I just… I just want to speak my peace,” he continued. “And then I’ll take you home.”

“Okay,” I heard myself answering, even though I still doubted the sanity of my decision.

He slammed his door shut and turned the key in the ignition, making the engine roar to life with a deafening rumble that shook the entire truck. I snapped on my seatbelt and clutched my purse in my lap as he pulled into the street and guided the truck down the main road that cut through town.

Dirt was kicked up by the wheels. Plumes of dust passed the window. I stared out the glass until the buildings faded into the distance and rolling hills gave way to a magnificent forest.

Hues of green went by in a blur. The scent of pine and damp earth clung to the air that floated into the truck through the crack in Torsten’s window.

“I’ve never brought anyone up here before,” he said, his voice tight.

“Should I feel special?” I replied with a slight smile—one I didn’t feel. My head was so full of confusion and worry and bad memories, it was all I could do not to throw up. “It’s hard to believe the most famous man in Marshall Heights hasn’t brought a lady up to his mountain retreat.”

“It’s true.”

“Why do I find that impossible to believe, Torsten?” I asked as he turned to me, no doubt surprised to hear me use his nickname, the name I’d always called him. “Torsten,” I corrected myself.

“Things change, Jovi. I’m not the same man I was back then.”

He fell silent as we both sat in our seats and the quiet in the truck gnawed at me. I wanted to fill the silence, the void, but I couldn’t think of anything to say. After all these years and everything that had passed between us, I just… couldn’t think of one thing to say.

I chewed on the inside of my cheek as I ran through an endless stream of painful memories. Old insecurities started to resurface, clawing at the back of my mind just as the truck came to a stop.

Part of me expected Torsten to be living in a small hovel with a thatched roof. Instead, standing before me was a large and beautiful log cabin with a wide stone chimney, slanted steel roof, floor to ceiling windows, and sturdy walls made of sanded timber logs. “Wow,” I breathed in awe. “This is your house?”

“It is.”

“It’s really… beautiful.”

“Thanks,” he answered with a quick smile as he looked at the cabin. He was proud of it; I could tell. “I built it myself.”

“Seriously?” I was surprised, I couldn’t hide it.

He nodded and parked the truck, killing the engine. I opened my door and dropped down to the gravel driveway below. Then I faced the log house before me and took a deep breath.

Be strong, Jovi, be strong.

I walked up the steps and brushed my hand along the solid wood door. The warmth from the inside of the house radiated against my palm. Torsten pulled the keys from his pocket, unlocked the door, and allowed me entrance. I stepped into the shadows, only to be washed in the soft amber glow of the chandelier when Torsten turned on the lights. The inside was even more beautiful than the exterior of the cabin.

Glistening hardwood floors and polished furniture gave the space a serenity I wouldn’t have expected from such a rough, man’s man. It was as though Torsten had managed to capture the essence of the forest and the mountain, infusing both into the house.

“You built this place?” I asked, shaking my head in awe.

“I’m good with my hands.” Torsten answered as he removed his jacket. He hung the jacket on the hook beside the door and moved to light a fire in the fireplace. I watched the way the muscles beneath his shirt flexed as he stacked the wood. The strike of the Sulphur match against the stone wall reverberated through the house. I caught a whiff of smoke as soon as the kindling was set ablaze.

“You’re extremely talented, Torsten,” I said softly. “I never knew there was a creative side to you.”

“The time we spent together didn’t involve a lot of projects.”

I swallowed thickly as I recalled many of our horizontal activities and, no, they had never included any kinds of projects. They had involved passion, stark and naked. And love. Desire. Need. Control and a lack thereof. Pain and anger. Then a feeling of complete and total loss. Sadness and regret.

I didn’t want our relationship to pick up where it had left off. No, I was a different woman now. He was a different man. Things were different now and I didn’t imagine they would ever be the same again. There was just too much damage. Too much had happened.

Yes, there was nothing between us now, and there never would be ever again. Torsten Black was my past, and that was exactly where he’d stay.

“I… um,” I started and then lost my train of thought.

“You what?”

He looked over at me and I felt like I’d swallowed my tongue. I opened my mouth to speak but nothing came out and that fact made me blush even harder than I already was.

It was a mistake coming here! I thought to myself. I should just ask Torsten to take me home. Now!

The natural need to speak forced me to talk without thinking, saying the first thing that came into my head. “No offense, but you seem to have a problem.”

“A problem?”

“You take better care of your house than your beard.”

Torsten almost looked offended, but a second later a smile spread across his handsome face and that smile was… devastating.

***

Torsten

Jovi was just as beautiful as she always had been. Sure, she looked a bit older—it had been a good six years or so since I’d seen her last. But, she was just as lovely, if not more so, than I remembered.

As to my own unkempt appearance, I felt a bit foolish. I’d failed to shave or get a haircut in I didn’t even know how long. What was wrong with me that I wouldn’t have checked my reflection in the mirror before making the trek down the mountain? I figured it was just one of those things—when you live a life of solitude—you stop caring what others think about you.

Throw in the fact that you’re a monster… well, then it’s all you can do to keep people at a distance.

“I,” she started, a crimson blush stealing over her cheeks. I’d embarrassed her by being embarrassed by her, and I had no clue how to rewind things so they were back to being comfortable again. Conversation had never been one of my strong suits, and since I’d been living by myself for so long, I’d gotten even worse at it.

“I didn’t mean to offend you,” she finished finally, her huge, sky-blue eyes lifting to meet mine. Her milky blonde hair framed her face in waves of platinum, cascading down around her shoulders and ending just beyond her breasts. Breasts which I had a hell of a time ignoring, especially since her t-shirt was a size or more too small.

And that was a dangerous thing. It was why I’d avoided the company of women all this time. Feeling sexual urges wasn’t something I could face—not when the beast living inside me couldn’t control himself.

Not when I couldn’t control myself.

“You didn’t offend me,” I answered quickly, my voice probably coming out a little too harsh. She just nodded and then dropped her attention to the fire within the hearth. It was spring in Marshall Heights, but the evenings were still cold, so as soon as we’d walked into the house, I’d decided to make a fire.

The light flickered and danced in her eyes as I stood up and grasped the wooden angel figure from the mantle. I’d made it a long time ago—something in her honor. Something I’d kept above the fireplace to remind me of her, even though I doubted I’d ever see her again.

And seeing her now… it was bittersweet. Of course, I was beyond happy to know she was alive and well, that she was here. And there was something so wonderful about the fact that she’d come here for me—even if she argued the fact. But, how else would she have ended up here? It’s not like Marshall Heights was a bustling city. It was a tiny outpost of civilization in the middle of nowhere.

It doesn’t matter, Torsten, I told myself as a deep sadness settled in my gut. Nothing can ever exist between the two of you again. Not after what you are.

Not when I couldn’t protect her against myself.

Now, I debated whether or not to give the angel figurine to Jovi. Part of me just wanted to see her smile, and I had a feeling my gift would do just that. The other part of me, though, felt like I was just some stupid oaf that never got over a woman who was all kinds of wrong for me.

First of all, she’d been married when we met—well, separated to be exact. Her life had always been sticky and she had a way of sucking a man in with those big blues and that impish smile. That was only the icing on the cake, though. Deep down, inside the cake, was a whole other story.

Jovi, my angel, as I’d always called her was a good woman—she’d just been dealt a bad hand. I didn’t need to know why she was here to realize that seeing her again was the best thing that had happened to me since I left Las Vegas. Sure, Jovi seemed more guarded than before, but I knew that beautiful soul was still there. Maybe the time apart had toughened her up, maybe she was a different person now, but I doubted it. The Jovi I knew had always been kind, never lost her temper with anyone. For my part, I never understood her unflagging patience.

No, Jovi was no good for me because she was too good for me. I was darkness, blackness—my entire being ugly and scarred. Whereas she was sunlight and butterflies and all that other girly shit, there was nothing but sludge within me. I was consumed by a sickness, a scourge that penetrated all the way into the depths of my being. I was broken and defective.

I was no good.

“Torsten,” she started and her tone was hesitant. “Tell me I wasn’t the reason you left,” she said as she lifted her eyes to mine once more and her full lips began to part, revealing her straight white teeth. My gaze immediately shifted to those plump lips as I started to feel that familiar thrill of excitement she always sent through me. I fisted my hands into my pockets, feeling completely ashamed of myself.

This was proof—proof of the fact that I was a bad seed, perverted and rotten all the way down to my core. And it was also proof that I couldn’t be around her much longer. I needed to stay in control of the beast, couldn’t let him get control of me or Jovi would be in danger.

I had to focus on the setting sun outside the window and the way it bathed the surroundings outside in hues of deep yellow and orange. It was much easier to focus on the landscape than it was the stunningly beautiful woman who was sitting in my living room.

“It wasn’t you,” I lied as I took a deep breath and wrapped my hand around the figurine. “I just… I had to get out. I had to leave that life behind me. I couldn’t stay. Not after… what happened.”

It was all a bunch of bullshit, but I couldn’t tell her the real truth—that I’d left to protect her. That once I’d figured out what she was—that she possessed magic—I was meant to destroy her. And there was no way in hell I ever would have been able to do that. Even with the understanding of what I was and what she was—even with the understanding that we were enemies and there would come a day when we could very well do battle, I couldn’t destroy her.

Not when she didn’t even know what she was, and not when I… loved her.

“And, unfortunately, I was part of that life?”

I sighed as I looked at her and then nodded. “Unfortunately so.”

Either I was going to give the figurine to her or I wasn’t. But the time to make up my mind was here because we were just standing there, staring at each other like imbeciles. Gripping the wooden figurine, I nearly threw it at her. “Here,” I said, even as I ridiculed myself for my delivery. “I, uh, I made this for you… a long time ago.”

She glanced down at the object as I handed it to her. Then she just held it in her hand and studied it. A smile parted those sumptuous lips as she rotated and inspected it. I had to force my gaze away again and clenching my eyes shut; I talked myself down. Talked the eagerness in my body away. I had to keep control. I couldn’t lose it, not when she was this close.

My body’s sexual reaction to her never made sense to me. I should have felt nothing but hatred—nothing but the need to force the life out of her, owing to what she was—a witch, a seer. She was the seed of Freya, the seed of the Vanir. And the Vanir were the sworn enemies of my own kind, the Aesir. Not that I was firmly entrenched in my own clan—I’d turned my back on them six years ago, the day I’d left Jovi.

When she glanced back up at me, surprise echoed in her stunning eyes.

“You made this for me?” she repeated, notes of awe sounding in her voice. “It’s an angel.”

“Right.”

“Angel… the name you used to call me.”

“Right,” I answered as I tried to subdue the sudden need to get the hell out of the room. I took deep breaths, counting in for three, out for four. This was bad. This need that was almost suffocating me was really bad.

“How… how did you make it?” she asked.

“I carved it,” I answered, refusing to look at her. I was so close to losing it… so close to grabbing her and ripping her clothes off and reminding her exactly how passionate our relationship had once been. But, if I did that, there would be no turning back. And that just couldn’t happen. We couldn’t happen.

“You carved it?”

“From a branch of a tree that fell down outside.”

She was quiet for a moment as I continued to breathe in through my nose and out through my mouth. God, what had I been thinking in bringing her here? I’d thought I was strong enough to control the beast, but clearly that wasn’t the case.

“Thank you, Torsten,” Jovi said as she lifted her gaze and her eyes shone with real gratitude. “No one has ever given me anything they made before.”

“You’re… welcome.”

“I love it,” she replied and held the wooden angel up to her chest, as if holding it close to her heart. I’d never been envious of an inanimate object before, but I could honestly say I was jealous of that one. “I will cherish it,” she finished as she beamed up at me. “Thank you.”

And I suddenly felt pride surging within me—an emotion I hadn’t felt in a very long time. It felt alien to me. Weird. I cleared my throat and held back the urge to run. I’d just gotten the widest smile I’d ever seen from Jovi and there was something stirring in me—something that felt strangely like happiness. I was out of my comfort zone and staring down my past and I didn’t like it. Not one bit.

She is your enemy and if any of your kin find her here, they would kill her on the spot, I reminded myself. And that was the truth of the matter. Jovi wasn’t safe here. She wasn’t safe anywhere near me.

The air was still, but it wasn’t a comforting stillness—it was foreshadowing, warning. I hadn’t shifted in at least a month, so the change was due. It was overdue, actually.

God, I’d been a fool to bring Jovi here!

The calm that had previously reigned supreme was now nowhere to be felt. The internal warning was a sensation I knew well—one I’d learned to pay strict attention to because it always acted as a harbinger of a situation that could mean life or death.

And, yet, I couldn’t bring myself to tell her to get back to the truck. I couldn’t bring myself to part ways with her. Not yet. Not when I still didn’t know what had happened after the last time I’d seen her.

“What happened with Gabriel, Jovi?”

Chapter Five

Jovi

There it was.

The moment I’d been dreading had finally arrived.

The tension continued to climb as I stood up and walked over to the sofa angled strategically in front of the fireplace. Torsten watched me until I sat down. I didn’t want to get into this conversation, but at the same time, I felt like he deserved to know what happened after he left. He deserved to understand. “I guess there’s no use in hiding it anymore.”

“Hiding what?”

I lifted my hand, gesturing to my ring-less finger. “Things with Gabriel were rough even before you and I had our… thing. But when you left, I fell into a depression, the sort of depression that reveals more than you want it to. He suspected that I’d met someone and he thought that was the reason I’d asked him for a divorce, even though you met me after he and I were already separated.”

“I’m aware.”

“Anyway, maybe I should have lied about it, but I didn’t,” I explained as a wave of nausea burned in my throat. “He never wanted the divorce, as you know. He kept avoiding discussions about it, avoided it when I tried to serve him the papers. But, when he found out about you… he just sort of… lost it. I’d never seen him so angry, so out of control.”

“What happened?”

“He… lost his temper.” I fought to block out the hatred that still festered inside me as memories of that night returned to haunt me all over again.

Torsten narrowed his eyes. “Did he hurt you?”

I looked up at him and laughed acidly because it was a stupid question. Of course he hurt me! Gabriel was the type of man who controlled everything in his life, including his woman. Get out of line, and you suffered for it. I just nodded as I brought my gaze back down to the fire and watched it dance.

“He hit you?”

“Among other things, yes.”

The anger I felt radiating off Torsten was frightening. A dark storm had entered his gaze, churning with a fierce rage that made my mind turn down a dark path.

“How did you get away, Jovi?” Torsten grasped my hand in his and held my gaze.

“At that point, he no longer wanted me. I guess knowing I was in love with another man was too much for his ego to handle. So, he finally agreed to the divorce, but of course he hired the best lawyers he could and in the end, I had nothing at all—no money, no home, nothing left to my name.” I took a deep breath. “But, I had my freedom and that’s all I cared about.”

“How did you find me?” Torsten asked. “Marshall Heights isn’t exactly on the beaten track.”

“I didn’t come here for you,” I answered and then took a deep breath. “I know how that sounds, but it’s the truth.”

“Then how?”

“I got an email one day—randomly. And it mentioned Marshall Heights. And then… it was as if I just couldn’t get this town out of my head. From that point on, I just had this feeling—this need to… come here. It was like I was meant to… I can’t really explain it.”

“Like the premonitions you used to have?” he asked, and I was surprised he remembered them.

I nodded. “Yeah, just like that. It was like something was telling me to come here. And then I saw you while I was at the salon one day and I figured you had to be the reason.”

“Who sent the email?”

I shrugged. “I don’t know.”

Torsten gave my hand a gentle squeeze even as I felt him withdraw further into himself. “It isn’t safe for you here, Jovi,” he said finally. “And you shouldn’t stay here.”

I looked up at him with a frown as my stomach dropped. I’d figured he wouldn’t want me here, but to actually hear it hurt more than I imagined it would. “Not safe here? This sleepy, little town seems like the safest place to be. If you’re worried Gabriel is going to follow me—”

“I’m not worried about that,” he interrupted. “It’s not safe for you here because there are… things about me you don’t know…”

“Like what?”

He shook his head. “Things I can’t… talk about, but I’ve changed. The me you used to know is a completely different man now.”

“I understand that time changes you, but you are the same person deep-down, Torsten.”

He continued to shake his head. “There are… attributes about me that would change the way you see the world around you.”

I stood up and took the few steps that separated us, even though I wasn’t even sure what I was doing. Torsten had always had this intense self-loathing and it seemed like that hadn’t changed, even if he had. In the past, I’d always wanted to protect him from his own self-hatred, and that feeling was just as thick in me as it always had been. The need to be close to him was almost suffocating. I reached out and cupped his bearded cheek. “I’m not afraid of whatever you’ve been through.”

“You don’t understand, Jovi.”

“Look, the past is what it is. We both are different because we’ve both been through hell, but we survived and that’s the point.”

“No, that’s not the point.”

I studied him for a few seconds because I couldn’t understand what he was getting at. This changing business sounded like nothing more than an excuse—I was starting to understand the real reason he was holding back was simply because… he didn’t want me to be here. He didn’t like the fact that I’d found him. Clearly, he didn’t want to be found.

“Is it another woman?” I asked in a small voice as I stepped away. “Are you in love with someone?”

“No, this has nothing to do with another woman,” he answered and waved away the thought with one of his enormous hands. “I haven’t dated in I don’t even know how long—since I moved up here.”

“Then?”

He paused and there was something that passed across his face, something that looked like regret.

“We can’t pick up where we left off, Jovi.”

I nodded. “I wasn’t asking for that.”

“Then what are you asking for?”

“I…” I started, but my voice trailed away. What was I asking him for? I wasn’t even sure.

“I should take you home now, Jovi,” he said as he inhaled deeply. “It was a mistake to have brought you here—I don’t know what I was thinking.”

“Torsten…”

“No, I’m not a good man.” Then he chuckled and the sound was as cold as ice. “I’m not a man at all, I’m a monster. A killer. And you can’t stay here, Jovi. You need… you need to find some other place to live.”

I shook my head. “I know what happened with your partner, Torsten. I know the rumors aren’t true. You didn’t kill anyone.”

“I wasn’t… I wasn’t talking about that,” he nearly snapped at me. “The truth of the matter is that whatever reason you came here, whatever led you here… it shouldn’t have happened. I left Vegas and came here for a reason. Because I wanted… I need to be alone, Jovi.”

“I don’t understand why.”

“Because I’m a danger to anyone around me and I’m the biggest danger to you.”

I watched in shock as he pulled on his jacket and stared at me expectantly. The stubborn set of his shoulders told me that arguing wasn’t worth my efforts. Instead, I followed him right back out the door. The silence between us grew thick with unspoken truths as I climbed into the truck, ignoring the helping hand he offered. I just… I was so confused. What had just happened? In the course of the last ten minutes, everything had just fallen apart. And I didn’t know how or why!

“Why did you invite me here in the first place?” I demanded as soon as he’d seated himself. “Why did you give me this angel?”

“I don’t know and I’m sorry.”

I shook my head and wrapped my arms against my chest. “Save your apologies. I don’t need to hear them.”

“You don’t understand,” he said and turned to face me.

“Then make me understand! Tell me the truth!”

He leaned back into his seat and sat there quietly for a few seconds. He hadn’t turned on the truck and the cold was starting to cut through my jacket.

“Just talk to me, Torsten,” I said in a softer voice.

He looked at me and sighed. “I wish I could.”

“I just… I don’t get it. Do you really hate me so much that you can’t even stomach living in the same town?”

“I don’t hate you,” he answered immediately. “I could never hate you, and that’s… that’s just the problem.”

I tried to catch my breath, to force the tears back. The last thing I wanted to do was lose all composure and explode into a sobbing heap. Instead, I focused on Torsten, where he sat stoically in the driver’s seat, clenching his jaw while staring out the windshield.

“Whatever happened in the past, I don’t care about that anymore, Torsten,” I said softly as barely restrained tears caused my voice to crack.

“What happened in the past has shaped me and I can’t escape it.”

***

The drive back into town was long and far more uncomfortable than it should have been. I stared at the digital clock on the radio, watching as the little red numbers changed with the passage of time. And it felt like time was on a molasses drip.

“I’m trying… I’m trying to protect you,” Torsten said finally, after nearly forty-five minutes of glaring out at the road in silence. “It was never my intention to hurt you. Not back then. Not now. Not ever.”

“You have a funny way of showing it,” I grumbled, refusing to look at him.

“Something is wrong with me, Jovi.”

“I don’t even know what that means.”

“I know you don’t,” he said and sounded just as irritated as I did. “Suffice to say, I thought things would be different now that I’ve had control over my urges for a few years, but there’s something dangerous inside me.”

“What are you talking about? What urges?”

“Primitive urges.”

“Sexual urges?” I asked, completely at a loss.

“They are part of it, sure.”

“Save the excuses for someone else,” I said, shaking my head because now it seemed like he was just trying to make me feel better about myself. Maybe it was a simple matter that I was older and, as such, he was no longer interested.

“It’s not an excuse.”

“I’m not stupid, Torsten, and I realize I’m older now…”

“Jesus,” he laughed without humor as he looked at me and shook his head. “You really think this has something to do with you?”

“Of course.”

“Jovi, you are just as beautiful as you always were.”

“But, no longer young enough.”

I hoped my anger disguised the genuine hurt I felt.

“I wish I could make you understand,” he said in a soft voice.

“Well, the only way to make someone understand is to tell them the truth.”

When Torsten pulled over in front of the salon, I barely waited for the truck to stop before I threw open the door and hopped out.

“Jovi,” he called but I ignored him.

All I wanted to do was get into my car and drive home. Then I could console myself with a pint of Ben and Jerry’s and reruns of Seinfeld.

I heard the sound of Torsten’s door opening and shutting, but I kept walking. My heels clicked on the concrete sidewalk as I cut through the back alleyway, heading for the rear parking lot and my old, beater of a car.

I just… I couldn’t stand to be near him for a second longer.

“Wait, Jovi,” he said in a loud voice.

“Please, just go home and leave me alone.” My steps quickened as I tried to put some distance between us.

“I don’t want to leave things like this between us.”

Torsten grabbed my hand and tugged me against his chest and I nearly fell over, he was so strong and I was unstable on my heels. He immediately wrapped his arms around me and I gasped as I felt his heartbeat, his warmth, his strength.

“I can’t help this, Jovi,” he whispered as he leaned down and kissed the top of my head. “As much as I want this… us… I can’t have it.”

I shoved him away. The chill of the night air caused goosebumps to appear on my arms the second I wasn’t wrapped in his embrace. “If you wanted it, you would make it happen.”

“I’m not the man you think I am,” he said again, shaking his head as if he didn’t know what else to say. Well, his excuses were lost on me.

“Let’s just be adult enough to leave and never look back. We did it years ago, so we can do it now,” I said and pushed my bag further up my arm as I did exactly what I should have done a long time ago.

I walked away from Torsten Black.

***

Dark clouds swarmed overhead as I continued down the alley, towards my old Toyota Camry which was parked behind the salon. It was now night and the wind began to pick up, and with it, the scent of rain. The moon was high and full in the sky, giving me plenty of light to see by. Thankfully, Torsten had decided not to come after me so I had time to actually catch my breath. And in catching my breath, I also had time to release my emotions.

I started crying and let the tears come, just grateful they hadn’t hit me while I’d been with him. I didn’t want him to know how much he’d hurt me.

You have yourself to thank, that awful voice inside my head reminded me. You thought you were strong enough to face him again, but you weren’t.

That stupid voice was right. I’d made a mistake and it was one that was going to hurt, but I’d survive. I’d survive just like I’d always survived. From this point forward, I was done being jerked around by men who didn’t care about me.

Someone shouldered me as I turned the corner and I started to lose my balance. I screamed as rough, calloused hands grabbed my arm and yanked me backwards, shoving me painfully against the brick wall of the rear of the salon. The back of my head hit the brick and pain throbbed through me as my vision blurred for a second or two. Warmth trickled down my neck, sticky and wet. My head started to throb in earnest as a sense of vertigo overcame me and my legs turned to jelly.

My purse fell but the man didn’t go for it.

Clearly, this wasn’t a robbery.

Icy tendrils of fear coursed through my veins as a second man appeared behind the first.

“Jovi Billings,” he said, giving me a flash of mangled rotten teeth.

“We got a message for you,” the man holding me added, his breath rank with alcohol. “You ain’t ‘sposed to be here.”

The other man, who carried a shotgun, blocked the end of the alley and just behind him was a parked van, no one in the driver’s seat.

I brought my knee up and rammed it into the man’s groin. He stumbled slightly only before recovering quickly enough to wrap his hands around my throat, pressing me against the wall until I could hardly draw another breath. I wheezed painfully, trying to find the strength to fight, but my head was aching and dizziness was already threatening to take me under.

Darkness swam behind my eyelids, and I nearly chased the shadows. Everything in me wanted to beg the man to get it over with. If not for the last shred of dignity that still lingered in my soul, I would have.

“You ain’t ‘sposed to be anywhere near him,” he sneered directly into my face. Rancid breath tickled my neck and made me squirm in his hold. Stale liquor and sweat soaked the front of his shirt. My body shivered with repulsion.

“Who sent you?” I managed. “Gabriel?”

“Ain’t him,” the man answered, shaking his head. “An’ we ain’t at liberty to tell, neither.”

His friend at the end of the alley gave a casual shrug and chuckled, “I reckon someone really didn’t want you comin’ to this town.”

Chapter Six

Torsten

Anger.

Raw and powerful.

Rage so pronounced and deadly, I couldn’t remember ever feeling anything like this before. But as I watched the son-of-a-bitch shoulder Jovi, before turning on her and pushing her into the wall, the fury inside me began to manifest into an inferno of rage that fully consumed me.

From where I was standing, I couldn’t see her face, which was probably just as well because if I had to witness those beautiful blue eyes wide with fear, I’d probably lose all control and do something stupid. As it was, I needed a clear head. Clarity of thought would allow me to devise a way to ensure these pieces of shit never touched her again.

And, yes, it wasn’t lost on me that I shouldn’t have cared what happened to her. Others of my clan would tell me this was a blessing—to let them kill her, just as I should have done a long time ago. But, none of those feelings hit me now. Instead, I wanted to nothing other than protect her. And that was exactly what I was going to do.

Watching the thug directly in front of me, I took the two small steps that would find my back against the wall. Then I very slowly reached down, underneath my jacket, keeping my eyes firmly planted on the man in front of me, who was currently looking at the other side of the alley.

When I felt the leather strap of the holster around my waist, I walked my fingers to the butt of the pistol. As a retired cop, I was always armed. The Glock 9mm might as well have been another of my appendages, considering how I never went anywhere without it. Besides, stopping an attack with a gun was easier to explain than what I’d face if I chose to rip his throat out with my teeth.

The waste of human life in front of me was none the wiser, even though his attention was now aimed in my direction. But I wasn’t concerned. He was as predictable as a sprinkler in the way he lifted the sawed-off shotgun out in front of him, moving it from one side of the alley to the other and then back again.

There were two thugs in total. One of them was standing on the opposite side of the alley, all the way at the end of the narrow passage. He was the one with the shotgun. From where I stood, the wall was covering me so there was no way he’d be able to see me without coming into my immediate line of sight. That just left the son-of-a-bitch who still had his hands on Jovi. My gaze drifted back to the man I wanted to tear apart limb from limb. If he had any idea what kind of thoughts I was having right now, he wouldn’t be so comfortable with his hands all over her as if she belonged to him.

There was no way I could get a clean shot, and that caused a heavy bout of frustration to course through me. In general, my target needed to be one to seven yards away from me. Plus, he was standing too close to Jovi, and I refused to put her in danger. Chances were that he’d release her anyway after he took whatever he wanted from her. But, owing to the fact that her purse and everything inside it was strewn across the pavement, it didn’t appear he was interested in money.

Even though I had been a cop in a previous life, I’d also been on the wrong side of the law enough times to decide I didn’t want to go there again.

I tensed as the man holding Jovi dragged her near a dumpster. He pushed her in front of him, wrapping his free arm around her chest and gripping her left breast underneath her shirt.

Something feral and possessive nearly choked me. I wanted to kill, wanted to taste blood and flesh in my mouth. His.

Jovi was as white as a sheet with her mouth pressed into a firm line, and barely concealed disgust and fear blending on her face. My heart ached to reach out to her and let her know that I was here and nothing was going to happen to her, that everything was going to be okay, but I couldn’t yet.

Suddenly, it felt as if the blood in my veins had caught fire and that meant one thing.

Calm yourself, Torsten, I told myself. The last thing I needed was to shift now. Not when there were witnesses. There wouldn’t be witnesses if you took care of both of them…

No, I firmly set my mind. I couldn’t let the beast, the berserker, overtake me. Not now. Not with Jovi so close.

The thug forced Jovi forward, towards the van, as the man closest to him, the one with the shotgun, whom the other one had called Curt, approached them both.

“What are you doing?” Curt asked the other man in a low tone. “We gotta go, John,” he finished. Clearly, he still had his eyes on the main goal of escaping, and he was none too happy with the unexpected turn of events. “We delivered our message an’ that’s enough.”

“We’re taking her with us. Gonna have us a little fun,” John answered as a blaze of fire shot through me. Like hell he was taking her with him! His stare seemed to dare Curt to contradict what he’d said, and it made me wonder about the chain of command.

“This isn’t what we were paid for!” Curt started, immediately shaking his head. “Scare her an’ rough her up some an’ that was it!”

“We get the valuables from her bag so it looks like a mugging, and then we do with the bitch what we want,” John barked back.

“Please,” Jovi said as she started to pull away from him. “Please leave me alone,” she begged, tears streaming down her cheeks.

“Shut up,” Curt yelled and brandished the shotgun at her as if he was going to strike her with it. In response, she visibly withered, wincing as if she expected the blow. I suddenly wished I didn’t have to shoot him—that I could shift and take my time, make him suffer painstakingly slowly for ever having dared to scare her in the first place.

“You don’t have to do this,” she continued as John thrust her forward. Curt picked up her purse and took the lead, heading for the van at the end of the alley.

There was no way in hell I would let them make it to that van. If they escaped with Jovi, there was no telling what fate had in store for her. I’d seen this kidnapping situation one too many times, and I knew what the outcome would be. If they took Jovi with them, she was as good as dead.

And there was no way I was going to let that happen.

That meant I’d have to shoot the SOB, even with Jovi so close to him. But I was prepared to do exactly that. God knew I’d already had to do the same once upon a time. And I knew I could do it again.

I would do whatever it took.

I would protect her at all costs.

“You say one more word, and I’ll shut you up myself,” he spat at her as an image of him hitting her exploded into my head, and I nearly shot him right then and there. But then I took a deep breath and forced myself to calm down.

Now was not the opportune moment—not when he was still standing too far away from me. Jovi needed me, and acting out of desperation wasn’t going to help her.

The thug with the shotgun walked past me, and started for the driver’s side of the van. He opened the door and turned on the engine, settling behind the wheel. Of course I was aware that as soon as I came out from under cover, Curt would fire at me while I was busy firing at John. Not that a bullet would kill me. It would hurt like an SOB and it would slow me down, yes, but it wouldn’t kill me.

As soon as they were a few feet in front of me, I made my move.

I brought the Glock up to my face and aiming with my dominant eye, I focused on the asshole right beside Jovi. As soon as I stole out of the shadows, Jovi’s gaze met mine and widened at the same time that I stared into her eyes and sent her one pointed, specific thought:

Duck.

Her eyes widened as she received my message and a second later, she dropped down to her knees, leaving a sizable gap between her and the guy holding her.

I aligned the front and back sights of the pistol and stepping out from the darkness, yelled “Stop!”

But, of course, neither of them did. Not that I was expecting them to—it was more that I wanted to give them a warning before I started shooting. And now the warning was given, I squeezed the trigger. Then I squeezed it again and again once more. One bullet missed John, whizzing past him and lodging itself into the wall behind him. I’d already checked to make sure the background was clear of would-be victims, otherwise I never would have fired, knowing chances were I’d miss a couple of rounds. It wasn’t easy to hit a moving target.

The second and third bullets hit him square in the chest, immediately causing him to drop. I heard the sound of screams from the neighboring buildings, but I didn’t focus on them.

Instead, I immediately brought my line of sight to Curt who hadn’t taken the chance to flee and, instead, stepped around the van, holding his shotgun out in front of him. He was standing just behind Jovi, where she was still crouching on the ground.

“Stop right there, buddy,” he said as he aimed the end of the shotgun at her head.

So I stopped. I had to.

I held my hands up and leaning over very slowly, I put my gun on the ground, just as he aimed the shotgun from her head, to mine.

And that was when I allowed the animal inside me to come out. I didn’t shift all the way, but I could feel the boost in my adrenaline and the subsequent increase to my strength as I allowed the wolf to take over. As soon as it did, the anger was quick to follow. I had to keep the wolf somewhat in check because I couldn’t afford to fully shift—not in front of Jovi and not when there were too many witnesses around. I had to remain human, but at the same time, I had to allow the berserker fury to overcome me.

So, I opened myself to my Viking roots, opened myself to the shifter that was part of me and allowed the strength of the wolf to flood me. A second or so later, I was bounding forward, coming for him and running at a speed that wouldn’t allow him to see me.

He fumbled with the shotgun but it was too late, because I already had a hand around his throat and a second later, I launched him straight into the air. He flew maybe twenty or thirty feet and when he came down, he hit the pavement hard, with a crunching sound that meant he was very much dead.

Calm, Torsten, I soothed my inner beast as I paced forward, away from the man’s body and away from Jovi. I clenched my eyes shut tight as I fought to get control of myself, fought to subdue the beast. He couldn’t come out yet, not now, not here. I had to be ensconced in the shelter of the forest for him to make an appearance.

Not here, I warned him. Later.

I breathed in deeply for a count of four and breathed out for a count of six. Calm yourself.

When I felt like I had control of myself, I turned to face Jovi who was already coherent and sitting up, shock written all over her face. I approached her and reached for her, helping to pull her up to her feet. Her wide-eyed gaze met mine and she started shaking her head as if she were in disbelief, blood spattered across her nose and cheeks.

Even though she was clearly shocked and struggling with what had just happened, I wasn’t sure what I should do. So, I just stood there, watching her. I dimly wondered if maybe I should offer her physical comfort, but I was afraid of stirring the beast again. And if he came out once more, I wasn’t sure I could control him. And that would be bad, very bad.

I didn’t have time to consider it much longer because Jovi closed the distance between us and threw her arms around me, laid her head against my chest and began sobbing. I wasn’t accustomed to holding a woman and hadn’t done so in longer than I could remember which was probably why I didn’t put my arms around her right away. I just stood there dumbly, trying to keep myself in check, trying to subdue the beast to make sure it didn’t make an appearance at the worst possible time. Not when she was so close to me.

Reaching for the ground, I retrieved the Glock and put it back in its holster as I lamely wrapped one arm around her and patted her on the back like she was a trusted dog. It was ridiculous, and I felt like a fool, but I wasn’t good at this sort of thing.

Jovi knew that, so it made things easier.

Feeling like I needed to break away from her heat and her… femininity and knowing what would have to happen next, I stepped away and pulled out my cell phone, dialing 9-1-1. There was already too big a chance that someone had seen something. I could only hope they hadn’t seen me pick Curt up like he weighed nothing and launch him thirty feet into the air. That one, I wouldn’t be able to explain.

Once the operator answered, I explained the situation and gave a detailed description of Jovi and myself to ensure the police didn’t shoot us once they arrived.

Then I ended the call, placing my cell phone back inside my pocket, and I faced Jovi again. I took another series of breaths, continuing to try to calm myself. Tonight had been close. Too close.

“Torsten,” she whispered as she glanced up at me, tears streaming down her lovely face. “I don’t understand how….”

“Shhh,” I answered, not able to explain anything to her at the moment, even as I realized she’d seen everything. Of course she’d seen everything! I should have been more careful. I should have thought about the fact… but, now it was too late.

“I heard your voice in my head… as clearly as if you were talking to me,” she insisted as she shook her head and looked up at me, her expression one that said she was trying to piece together the information, but it wasn’t coming together cleanly. “And you picked up that man and threw him like he was a doll.”

“You’ve suffered trauma, Jovi,” I answered, hoping she’d leave it at that, even as I knew better.

She gave me a quizzical expression. “I know what I saw.”

“Can we talk about this later?” I asked her. “The cops are on their way.”

She nodded. “Torsten—”

“I need you to do me a favor, Jovi,” I continued as she looked up at me and nodded again. “I need you to leave out the part where I lifted the guy up, okay?”

“Okay,” she said and I took a deep breath as the beast inside me growled. It wasn’t satisfied, wasn’t appeased. And the only thing that would appease it was further violence… or sex. Neither of which I could grant it at the moment. I’d make up for it later. I’d have to.

“Thank you, Torsten,” she whispered.

“Don’t thank me,” I insisted. “I’m just glad you’re safe.”

A plethora of memories flooded my brain—memories of the life I used to have—that of a cop working the streets of Vegas, chasing down and busting the bad guys. I’d been a shifter then too, of course, but things had been different. That was a time before the change—before the berserker tendencies had taken root within me. It had been a time that I could control the wolf. But, now that I’d matured fully into the warrior I was destined to be, I wasn’t in as much control. The truth was—I was afraid of myself.

The sound of sirens interrupted my inner monologue and I turned to face the blaring of lights.

The cops were finally here.

Chapter Seven

Jovi

Officers filled the alley.

Yellow tape blocked off the entrances and exits, barring anyone access to the crime scene. Flashing lights from cell phones and squad cars illuminated the dark corners between the buildings. It was almost exactly how the same scenario looked on TV only there were no quick-witted detectives in trench coats or suspicious loiterers. I almost forgot about the dead bodies being carted away in the midst of all the chaos.

While Torsten was giving his statement, the EMTs checked my head and bandaged it up, saying I had a mild concussion and to stay awake for the next five hours. And that wasn’t going to be an easy thing to do because I was beyond exhausted. Luckily, owing to my head injury, I didn’t have to say much to the police. Torsten gave his statement and promised the cops we’d be available for follow-up questions later.

After another couple of hours, I climbed into Torsten’s truck (the paramedics told me not to drive my own car) and gave him directions to my apartment. My head ached and inside, I just felt numb, like everything that had just happened was simply the stuff of dreams, nightmares. It was like I couldn’t connect the happenings to me—like I’d watched them on a movie screen.

I winced at the thought, and Torsten glanced over at me for a split second. “Remember to stay awake, okay?”

“Thanks for the concern.” My tone was short and snippy, but I was tired and I’d had enough of this awful day. “Just drop me off and we can pretend like none of this ever happened.”

“You’ve been through a distressing experience, Jovi.”

“My whole life is a distressing experience,” I snorted, shaking my head, which quickly made me regret doing so.

Torsten pulled into the parking lot of my crappy building. He cut the engine with a barely audible groan, hopped out, and walked around to the passenger side to open my door. My stomach heaved as I stepped down from the seat. Strong arms wrapped around me and the scent of pine and soap filled my nose. Torsten lowered his left arm and tucked it under my knees before he lifted me off my feet. I was about to argue, to tell him I could walk, but my body didn’t want to argue. Then he reached down again and grabbed my purse from the truck floor. I took it from him and cradled it in my lap as he closed the passenger door with a kick.

It had been a long time since I’d been held in someone’s big, brawny arms and the feel of his arms around me was better than it should have been. He carried me towards the back door and I reached into my purse and pulled out my keys. Torsten took them from me, balanced me carefully in his arms, and unlocked the door. I was amazed by the show of strength. There was no hiding the fact that he was a large man, but he shouldn’t have been able to juggle me so easily while carrying out the task of entering my apartment. And that was when I remembered the way he’d picked that thug up as if he’d weighed five pounds, and when he threw him into the air, the guy looked like he’d been launched out of a cannon.

When the man had landed on his head, the sound…

A shiver raced down my spine as I pushed the memory away and closed my eyes, my head starting to ache all over again.

Torsten turned on the lights to the apartment and when he carried me over the threshold, it was as if an eerie presence had entered my apartment with us. I could feel it, but couldn’t see anything. But, it was enough to cause goosebumps to break out all across my skin.

“I feel like… there’s something here with us,” I whispered.

Torsten looked around as he set me down on the ground but shook his head and frowned as he faced me. “I don’t see anyone.”

I nodded, even as something flickered in my peripheral vision, but figuring I had a head injury, I decided just to ignore it for the time being. Torsten walked me over to the couch and helped me sit down.

“I’ll grab some ice from the kitchen,” he said.

“Ha, what kitchen?”

He looked around and shrugged at the confined space before he approached the tiny fridge tucked in the corner. The sound of his boots against the matted down, shag carpet sounded foreign to my ears. I was used to being the only person in the small living space, and Torsten’s broad shoulders and long legs made it seem even smaller.

And that was when I remembered something particular about the attack, something that hadn’t hit me until now. Maybe it was a delayed reaction, owing to my injury, or maybe I’d blocked the details as a way of dealing with them. I wasn’t sure.

“Torsten?” I started. He looked over at me. “The men who attacked me… they said something about being sent by someone.”

His eyes narrowed on me. “Go on.”

“They mentioned that I wasn’t supposed to be here, in Marshall Heights. I think someone had hired them to intimidate me and to make me leave.”

“And they never mentioned a name?”

I shook my head. “No.”

I watched him and as I did, a shadow crept along the wall. It was nearly as tall and wide as Torsten. I turned my gaze to the floor, praying it was just a hallucination brought on by my head injury. My hand reached up, as if of its own volition, and touched the tender spot at the back of my skull. I grimaced as my head reminded me it really was hurt.

The shadow disappeared when Torsten returned to my side. He was carrying a bag of frozen corn, wrapped in a surprisingly clean dishrag, which he gently placed on my head. I couldn’t help but stare at the grim expression on his face. The light scars that marred his once perfect complexion did nothing to obscure his masculine beauty—if anything, they added to it. And so did the wrinkles that hadn’t been there before—just a few of them around his eyes. An ache began to settle in my heart, because I couldn’t fathom why a man I’d once loved had chosen to leave me. Was it to spare my feelings? Or had it been an act of self-preservation?

In the beginning, Gabriel and Torsten had been good friends. They first met at a charity event. With Torsten’s suave, stoic personality and Gabriel’s cunning intellect, it was no surprise they connected instantly. Then Torsten started to come over for poker nights every Saturday, Superbowl parties, and even casual barbeques. It had been almost impossible to avoid Torsten and my attraction to him.

It wasn’t until he kissed me on New Year’s Eve that I realized he felt the same way. And that kiss had happened while I was still married. Of course, I hadn’t let things proceed beyond that point and, instead, told Gabriel I wanted a divorce—something which hadn’t gone over well.

***

Torsten

All of this was suddenly feeling too real, too close, and I started to feel the need to maintain my distance. I was having a hard enough time with the fact that I was even still here, in Jovi’s apartment, in the first place. But it was almost as if I couldn’t help myself. Even though I’d refused to say much to the police without having a lawyer present, and they’d released me with the understanding that I’d return to the station with my lawyer in the morning, I found I couldn’t leave. Not until I knew Jovi was safe. And that was the rub.

Because she wasn’t safe. As long as she remained in Marshall Heights and she remained near me, she wouldn’t be safe. And I had to wonder who had sent the thugs to deliver the message that Jovi wasn’t welcome in Marshall Heights. Actually, the message had nothing to do with Marshall Heights, but everything to do with me. Someone didn’t want Jovi near me. But, why?

Back when our affair started, it was merely an explosion of passion between two lonely, desperate people who had always admired one another. At that time, I hadn’t known what a selfish piece of shit Gabriel was. He’d put on a good show and Jovi had played along with it, too embarrassed for the truth of her situation to come out. As such, the guilt I’d felt after our New Year’s kiss was almost too much to handle. I’d considered Gabriel my friend and yet, I’d done something with his wife that friends just didn’t do to each other. After that, I avoided her for a while, until she reached out a few weeks later to tell me she was separated from Gabriel and that she’d asked him for a divorce, something he’d denied. And that had been the start of our long and lurid affair. It had been the start of something that had rocked my foundation, something that had been completely different from all the affairs and flings I’d had before.

Because, I’d fallen in love.

I’d fallen in love and then one night she started tossing and turning—seemingly caught in a nightmare. But, it wasn’t just a nightmare—it had turned out to be a vision. The moment I’d touched her, trying to wake her, I’d felt the truth of her ancestry. I recognized the energy in her blood because as an Aesir wolf, I was meant to seek out that blood. I was meant to hunt it and destroy it because it was Freya’s blood that polluted her veins. And once I realized that, I knew there was no chance for us.

Jovi meant something to me still, and I couldn’t say I was altogether comfortable with that realization. Maybe that much should have been obvious to me, but I was a man and therefore dense when it came to matters of the heart. Yet, any way I looked at it, I had to admit this woman still mattered. I still cared about her. And I still felt protective toward her. Of course I knew she and I could never be together the way we were in the past—there was no doubt of that in my mind. Not when I’d experienced the final chapter of my shifting—not when I was now a berserker, someone who was meant to hunt her kind, someone who was meant to hunt her.

The answer was that I would simply have to convince her to move away, or I’d have to move away. Jovi would have to exist in my mind as a memory and a fantasy that could never come to fruition, to reality ever again. And that would have to be enough for me. It was enough for me—I would make damn sure of it.

In order to make it easier, I promised myself I would replay this evening over and over in my head. I would make sure the memories of our time together would be etched forever in my brain where I could return to them whenever I needed to.

“I know that look,” she said with a sad little smile. “You wore it the night you left Vegas.”

The beast within me yearned to mark her—to claim her as his own, and keep her protected, but I’d hurt her once before and I swore I’d never do it again. I dropped my hand and removed the frozen vegetables from the back of her head. Her beautiful gaze tracked my movements as I checked the locks on the windows and the door. The apartment was beyond crappy and I hated the idea of her living here, especially after the opulence she was used to. Clearly, Gabriel hadn’t given a damn about her needs and wasn’t paying her a penny or she wouldn’t be living here, in this dump.

“Does the building have surveillance?” I asked.

“Torsten, does this place look like it would have surveillance?” Jovi snorted as she attempted to stand up from the couch. I shook my head and forced her to lay down once more.

“Don’t move. You need to just relax.”

“I’m fine,” she replied shortly. “I’ve had a concussion before. Two times, actually. They aren’t such a big deal.”

I eyed her narrowly. “What do you mean?”

She eased herself off the couch, ignoring my earlier instructions. “I mean, I don’t want to talk about it. Or anything else, for that matter. I’m nauseous because I haven’t eaten all day and that asshole tried to rearrange my memories by bashing my head against a brick wall.” She looked up at me. “Go home, Torsten. I’d rather not embarrass myself by throwing up on you.”

The stubbornness of this woman was beyond me. I reminded myself that I had no right to argue with her. I held no claim over Jovi, I’d given her no promises, and I had no obligations to fulfill. It was enough that she was safe.

“Thank you again for everything you did for me tonight,” Jovi said as she looked up at me once more with those wide blue eyes. “I will never forget it.”

I nodded as I walked over to the door, not wanting to leave her alone, but I had to. The longer I spent in her company, the more dangerous the situation became. Because Jovi did something to me—she awakened the sleeping monster within me and that wasn’t something I wanted to face. “I did what I had to do,” I said simply.

She followed closely behind me. “You’re a good man, Torsten Black,” she said with a large smile, but it was a sad one all the same, almost as if she was aware that this would be our last encounter.

“You don’t know me as well as you think you do,” I answered almost immediately, shaking my head as I frowned and found my gaze resting on my boots.

“I know enough to know that what you did for me today is the marking of someone good,” she rebutted, holding her nose in the air. I yearned to wipe the sweet expression off her face with a kiss that would set us both ablaze, but the voice of reason in the back of my mind told me to get away from Jovi and the temptation she offered as fast as I could.

“Maybe,” I answered as I met her challenge and suddenly had to fight the urge to take her right then and there. There was just something about this woman that made me lose control, and the need to claim her became an all-out war. And I would lose that war because the animal inside me needed to be set free and soon. I needed to leave, she was right. “But I’m not that man.”

She didn’t say anything more, but took the few steps that separated us and reached forward, gripping the lapel of my coat. She pulled herself into me and then, standing on her tip toes, she chastely kissed me on the cheek.

“I’m not convinced,” she whispered as soon as she pulled away. I wasn’t sure when it happened, but I was suddenly aware that my arms were around her. “You can try to push me away all you like, but you can’t deny that something was between us and that something is still there.”

I shook my head. “This isn’t a conversation you’ll win.” Jovi had no idea what she was talking about. She didn’t know who I was, what I was made of. She didn’t know my most recent background, the things I’d done, the people I’d killed, the ugliness I’d seen. She was pure, and she was naïve, and she was everything that wasn’t good for me. So why couldn’t I release her?

Neither of us said anything as we stood there, staring at each other. The need to lean down and take her lips was nearly overwhelming, but there was also something inside me that wouldn’t allow me to make a move. Instead, I held stock-still like a deer in headlights.

Finally it was Jovi who lifted her face and leaned in, placing those beautiful lips on mine. And once she did, something fierce and primal erupted inside me. I felt my arms tightening around her of their own accord as a guttural sound emanated from my throat. I pushed my lips into hers, forcing hers open with my tongue because I needed nothing more than to taste her. She responded by moaning and leaning into me as her tongue sought mine. I lapped at her feverishly, hungrily.

I want her.

Once that thought crossed my mind, I froze. A deluge of thoughts rained down into my head, each one insisting that what I was doing was wrong. Jovi was too good for me. She was human, and that alone meant I could hurt her. She didn’t deserve to be stained by my touch. I immediately pulled away and broke our embrace. I took a step back at the same time that I took a deep breath.

“Torsten?” she asked, obviously surprised by my change of mood.

“You should eat and then rest,” I insisted as I backed away another step, needing to get to the door as quickly as I could. I was panting and I could feel the change just minutes away.

“Stop thinking so much,” Jovi answered as she started toward me, but I held her off with an outstretched arm. I had to keep her away.

“I, I have to go,” I said as I turned around and opened the door. I stepped through it and would have started down the hallway if she hadn’t grabbed my arm.

“I don’t understand! Did I do something wrong?”

I immediately turned around to face her and shook my head, feeling like an asshole through and through. “No, it’s nothing you did,” I insisted. “It’s just that… this… it just can’t happen. Not with the beast...”

She was surprised, and it showed in her face. “The beast?” she asked as her eyes went wide. “That’s why you were able to throw that man into the air like he didn’t weigh anything, isn’t it?”

I took a deep breath. She wasn’t supposed to know the truth, but she’d seen what I’d done, all the same. I’d been careless. “Yes, that’s why.”

“What are you?”

“I have to go!” I nearly barked back at her “It’s better you don’t ask me questions because I can’t answer them. It’s safer for you if you don’t know everything.”

“What are you, Torsten?” she demanded.

I paused as I stood there, staring at her, the wolf within me telling me to claim her, to take what was rightfully mine. Except, she wasn’t rightfully mine. She wasn’t mine at all. She was my enemy, the exact thing I was meant to search and destroy.

“I am wolf,” I answered. “And I am berserker.”

She didn’t say anything, and the silence blared between us, the beast threatening to overtake me then and there. I immediately started down the hall at a hurried clip. I didn’t wait to hear her reply.

Chapter Eight

Jovi

The door to my apartment shut quietly behind me. I slid the lock into place and then just stood there, wondering if I was losing my mind. My brain was reeling, overcome with more shock than I could handle in one night.

I am wolf.

I didn’t even know what to make of the words. What did they even mean? How was Torsten a wolf? Was I just having some sort of crazy, panicky moment? Was any of this even real? I mean, it felt real. It really felt real. But, I’d also suffered a head injury…

All I could think about was Torsten and what he’d done to that man and how I’d heard Torsten’s voice in my head as clear as day and how he’d just admitted he was a wolf. And a berserker, whatever that was.

I immediately reached for my cell phone and asked Siri that exact question, to which she responded: “According to Old Norse tradition, berserkers were those who were said to have fought in a trance-like fury, a characteristic which later gave rise to the modern English word berserk.”

My head started aching all over again.

Torsten’s presence had taken up so much of the tiny apartment, it felt almost cavernous now. As I stood standing there, darkness appeared from the floor, spreading to the opposite wall. It overtook the wall, moving upwards until it reached the ceiling and bathed the entire corner of the apartment in darkness.

I shook my head, doubting my eyes, even as I watched the shadow grow larger, as if it were walking towards me. Little by little, fear replaced the exhaustion left over from the earlier attack, stealing my breath away.

The shadow rippled like a stone tossed into a placid lake before it parted like curtains and a man stepped into my line of sight. My eyes widened and a scream leapt to the tip of my tongue. I didn’t even see the man move, but moments later, he was standing directly in front of me, his scarred hands wrapped around my mouth before the scream could escape.

“Do not even consider it,” the man sneered.

No… this was no ordinary man, but he was someone, something else. Something different. His accent and his clothing… both appeared from a time long gone. A time in history, something you wouldn’t see today unless he was on screen or stage.

His massive shoulders were swathed in leather armor that connected to his iron bracers and chest plate, a grey wolf pelt draped around his neck. Leathers covered his thick thighs—thighs that stretched the material to its limits. Long, ebony locks were pulled back into a rope braid at the base of his neck. The sides of his head were shaved to reveal the runes tattooed along his scalp before they disappeared beneath the neckline of his armor. An axe was strapped to his back along with a round shield.

I stared into haunting crystal blue eyes that seemed somehow… familiar? His hold on my mouth lightened. And then he seemed to take note of something he didn’t like because his eyes narrowed.

“You are one of them,” he said, gritting his teeth. And before I could even wonder what he was talking about, he tightened his hold around my neck, lifting me off the ground as if I didn’t weigh a thing. I couldn’t breathe at all and gripped at his hands, trying to pry his fingers apart, but they were as hard as iron.

The breath was leaving my lungs and the back of my head started to ache again as dizziness claimed me. Of course, I had no idea who this man was, but he was going to kill me. Of that, I was sure.

I kicked out at him, but it was like a mouse trying to fight a lion. There was little fight left in me and with this man’s iron hold, fighting him was useless.

Awareness was slowly leaving my mind as the lack of oxygen began to take its toll. I felt like I was on autopilot as I stared into his eyes and words suddenly popped into my head—words I didn’t understand.

Ek em dóttirinn ór odin sem mjök sem ek em dóttirinn ór freya!

His eyes widened and he immediately released his hold around my neck as I dropped to the ground and he caught me before I face-planted. He allowed me to rest on my hands and knees as I fought to catch my breath and my lungs burned while they filled with air.

Where had the words come from and what had they meant, I wondered. I had no answer for myself, of course, but I was more than relieved that whatever the words meant and however I’d happened to think of them, they’d meant something to this oaf of a man.

“I do not understand,” he said as I seriously doubted my sanity.

“W-who are you?” I stammered as I looked up at him, still trying to shake the vertigo from my head and catch my breath at the same time. My eyes danced over the enormous… Viking with a confusing concoction of amazement and terror. And disbelief. Seriously, I had to be imagining this. I mean, I did have a concussion so…

A cruel smile slithered across his full lips.

The perfection of his angled features made him look almost beautiful—if a Viking could be called such a word. It was as if he’d been carved lovingly out of stone by skilled hands instead of birthed by any mortal woman. He gave a flourishing bow as an arrogant chuckle fluttered from his mouth.

“I am Skarde ‘Fatekissed’, Conqueror of Norway, Son of Queen Katla and King Slothi,” he announced, as if any of that meant anything to me. “And now the question remains—who are you?” He didn’t wait for me to respond, but narrowed his eyes. “And how is it possible you are the daughter of both Odin and Freya?”

I looked up at him and frowned. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“You should—as those were the words you just thought to me—spoken in the old language.”

Hmm, even though I was at a loss as to how or why the words had appeared in my head, apparently he’d not only received them in thought, but he’d also understood what they meant.

“I don’t… I don’t have an answer for you. Odin and Freya mean nothing to me.”

“Be careful what you say, woman,” he nearly spat the words back at me. “The gods do not care for blatant disrespect.”

The gods? What?

Skarde straightened to his full height and dropped his pelts on the floor without care. He didn’t wait for my response, but turned in a circle, taking in my apartment for the first time. He walked around, picking things up that seemed to puzzle him like the remote control for the TV and my laptop.

“I’m dreaming,” I said to myself as I shook my head and tried to pop myself out of it. I pushed to my knees and didn’t feel like I was going to fall over, so there was that.

“You most certainly are not,” he answered as he walked to the coffee table and lifted the angel figurine Torsten had made for me, inspecting it.

“Don’t… don’t touch that,” I said.

He shrugged and placed it back on the table, before looking at me again. And this time, he took me in from head to toe and then smiled again—more lasciviously.

“How is it possible that a Viking is standing in the middle of my living room?” I demanded, not even sure how I was able to string the sentence together.

He considered me with an expression of disinterest. “The goddess, Frigg, sent me to return my brother to Asgard—to face punishment for turning his back on his own kind.”

“Your brother?”

“The berserker,” he said, as if that explained everything. He waved an unconcerned hand at me, then started studying the angel figurine again. “We are of the same blood, Stormblood and I—”

“Stormblood?”

“I believe you refer to him as Torsten?”

“Oh.”

He waved an unconcerned hand in my direction. “As I was saying, Frigg asked me to return Stormblood to Asgard personally… and the last read I had on him… he was here.”

“Asgard?”

“Have you not heard of it?”

“I mean… yes, but I… I don’t really remember what it is.”

I had to admit, my Norse mythology wasn’t up to snuff. Skarde frowned at me. “Asgard is the home of the Aesir gods and it is located in the sky.”

“Oh.”

“But, none of this explains who or what you are,” he said as he turned his suspicious expression on me once again.

“I’m Jovi.”

“And as far as I can tell, you are a witch and a seer and yet…” He rubbed his chin as he continued to study me. “I can detect… the blood of the Valkyrie as well.” He released a pent up breath as his furry eyebrows reached for the ceiling. “Perhaps it is true, after all—perhaps you are the offspring of Odin and Freya. I suppose stranger things have happened.”

I closed my eyes and pressed my fingers against my temples, breathing deeply through my nose as I tried to massage away the headache that began to unfold behind my eyelids.

“Are you even listening to me?!” Skarde snapped like a petulant child. He took the steps that separated us, and forced me to meet his stare as he gripped my arm. “Does Stormblood know what you are?”

“I don’t… know.” It seemed a good response, because I had no idea what he was going on about so there was no reason to pretend I did. Just as long as he didn’t try to kill me again… I snatched my arm out of his grasp and put some distance between us. The sudden change between playful curiosity and anger was jarring, to say the least. I had a feeling Skarde was just as insane as I was. “And it really doesn’t matter what Torsten told me because… I… I don’t believe in that stuff.”

Skarde frowned at me, his bushy eyebrows pulling together. “You do not believe in the gods?” The genuine shock on his face stirred something inside me. Skarde looked younger than Torsten, but there was a wisdom and cunning in his eyes that just barely eclipsed the madness beneath the surface.

“The gods?” I repeated, frowning. “As in, plural?”

He nodded. “I know the Christians all but destroyed our heritage, but I thought perhaps someone like you would believe in the old ways.”

“Someone like me?”

“The Völva,” Skarde sighed.

“Um, isn’t that part of the female anatomy?” Last I’d checked, it was.

He glared at me, apparently not appreciating the comparison. “Seeress. A witch.”

While part of me wanted to believe I was making this whole thing up, another part of me argued I wasn’t smart or imaginative enough. “Witch?!” I laughed. “I can promise you, I’m no witch. I’m just me… Jovi the boring human.”

His glare became more pronounced, as though he didn’t want to bother taking the time to explain any of this to me. “Witches are human. They hold the favor of the Vanir gods. They channel the energies that surround them and use that energy to fuel their magics, but they are mortal just the same.” He shook his head in disappointment and grabbed my arm again. I watched as he brushed my forearm with his finger. Runes, as dark as the ones that marred his own flesh, appeared on mine. I gasped in amazement even though the fear still lingered.

“You have forgotten about the gods, witch, but they have not forsaken you—at least Freya has not.” His jaw grew tighter. “And yet, I do detect the blood of Valkyries that flows through your veins, as well. This is most… unusual.”

My jaw dropped. I just… I didn’t know anything about Vikings, gods, Valkyries or seeresses so how in the world was I making this up? “What are Valkyries?”

“Who is the correct word.”

“Who are Valkyries?”

“A Valkyrie is a female who has the power to choose those who die in battle and those who live. The Valkyries take their chosen to the afterlife hall of the slain, Valhalla, which is ruled over by the god, Odin.” He took a breath. “Valkyries are of the Aesir clan and witches are Vanir, thus I am certain you can understand why I am quite flummoxed by this situation.”

“Um, none of that makes any sense to me.”

Runes continued to crawl up my arm, stopping only when they reached my shoulder. I pulled up the short sleeve of my t-shirt and marveled at the intricate designs. My skin felt tingly and sensitive as I brushed my hand over the marks. “Are these permanent?” I asked, as I looked up at him. “What did you just do to me?”

Skarde rolled his eyes and flopped down onto the couch, propping his filthy boots on the coffee table which was already stained with condensation rings and now, mud.

“I did nothing but reveal to you what was already there.”

“I don’t understand.”

“Clearly,” he chuckled. “Frigg sent me here to return Stormblood to Asgard, but she never mentioned you, thus I just imagined you were to be a casualty—that I had luckily fallen upon a Vanir witch who required dispatching.” Then he looked over at me and shook his head. “This changes things.”

I closed my eyes and counted to ten as I tried to will myself awake.

“What are you doing?”

“Trying to wake up,” I answered, not bothering to open my eyes.

Skarde shifted on the couch and the sound made me blink my eyes open because I didn’t trust him and wasn’t sure what he was going to do next. He sighed irritably, sliding to his feet with a grace that should have been impossible for a man his size.

“If this were a dream, would not that mean you were already asleep?” Skarde asked with a lift of his brow. “Humans are peculiar. I have not been here long, but I have seen much that disturbs me.”

“Says the man who claims to be part of a race of barbarians that raped and pillaged villages just for the hell of it,” I snapped back in response. That was about all I remembered concerning the Vikings.

The widening of his eyes was followed by a smile that could have been a sign of approval, but I forced the thought out of my mind. Instead of arguing with Skarde, I walked over to the bed that was in the other corner of the studio apartment and pulled back the covers.

“See?” Skarde asked. “You are not already in bed, asleep, thus you are not dreaming.”

I didn’t respond, but watched him linger near the couch as I unzipped and tugged down my jeans. The whisper of fabric in the dimly lit apartment seemed nearly as loud as the cars that drove by outside.

Then I slipped beneath the covers without paying Skarde any mind at all—something I realized annoyed the Viking because he began to pace at the foot of my bed as I shut my eyes and attempted to fall asleep. It took hours before the sound of his boots against the matted carpet faded along with the memory of Torsten’s lips against mine.

Chapter Nine

Jovi

A cold drop of water hit my forehead, startling me out of a deep sleep. I bolted upright and then promptly rolled out of the bed, hitting the floor, and banging my leg on the shabby little dresser in the corner. The pain forced my eyes open. I rubbed the sore spot on my shin and hobbled to my feet.

The sun was already high in the sky and bathing everything within the small apartment in hues of bright yellow. And that was when I spotted Skarde leaning against the wall with a murderous expression on his face.

Seeing him snapped me out of my early morning daze. He’d removed his armor, leaving his tattooed torso bared to my gaze. Muscles flexed beneath the spotlight of my attention, and I could have sworn I saw his chest swell with pride—probably owing to the fact that I couldn’t take my eyes off him. He was nothing short of… amazing.

“If you are finished lazing about, we should get to work,” he grumbled.

At the mention of work, I realized I was supposed to be at Sandy’s this morning. I glanced at the clock above the television and realized I was already late. “Damn it!”

Skarde’s face pulled into a confused frown at my outburst. And that was when I realized three things: 1) I had to figure out what to do with him, 2) I was still undressed and 3) There was no way I could go to work when either I was completely crazy or there really was a Viking warrior standing in my crappy apartment, intent to carry out some mission.

I scrambled around him, picking up stray pieces of clothing along the way, and wiggled into a pair of leggings and a sweatshirt.

“We need to discuss the coming war,” Skarde announced, eyeing me as he crossed his enormous arms against his naked chest.

“What?”

“The coming war!”

I allowed my arms to fall to my sides as I stared up into his eyes. There were no signs of sarcasm or dishonesty that I could find there. When he noticed the change in my demeanor, Skarde pointed to the tattoo over his heart: it was an image of a monstrous wolf chasing the sun.

“Then you’re a wolf shifter too?” I asked.

“I am.”

“And you’re also one of those… berserk guys? I forgot what you called them.”

“A berserker,” he answered, frowning.

“Yeah, that.”

“Yes, I am a warrior. I protect the Aesir against any and all threats.”

“Well, that’s good…” I wasn’t sure what more to say and gave him an encouraging smile.

“The three winters will be upon us soon, witch,” Skarde said quietly.

“Three winters?”

“Three winters filled with war and carnage Midgard has never seen before. These three winters signal the start of the war between the Aesir and the Vanir.”

“Wait, back up. Midgard? The Aesir and the Vanir?” I remembered he’d mentioned the bizarre words the night before, but then I’d been fairly convinced he was merely a hallucination, so I hadn’t put much stock into whatever he said.

“Uh,” Skarde grunted as he wrapped his massive arms against his equally massive chest and regarded me with frustration. “Midgard is Earth. It is this place on which we are currently standing.”

“I’m aware where Earth is, thank you,” I grunted at him.

“At least you know that much, for you understand little of anything else.”

I chose to ignore him. He then continued to explain to me how the Aesir and the Vanir were two separate pantheons of gods that warred with one another and that Freya, goddess of the Vanir, was intent on creating three winters which would freeze all of Midgard until the Aesir apologized for having tried to murder her three times.

I shook my head and rubbed my temples as I tried to take all of this in. “This is insane…”

“Have you not looked out the window?” he asked, jerking his head in the direction of the window near the bed. Once I did, I noticed large flakes of snow drifting towards the ground as dark clouds swarmed overhead. I approached the frosted glass in a state of disbelief.

“It’s Spring.”

“You will soon forget there was ever such a thing.”

The heat of my breath melted away some of the frost on the glass. Rooftops were covered in a thick blanket of snow, trucks and cars swerved on the icy road, and the digital thermometer on the clock revealed the temperature had dropped from sixty degrees to thirty overnight. Gusts of wind blew the snow around, pelting pedestrians that walked along the sidewalk. “This can’t be happening,” I breathed heavily as I tried to understand what in the heck had happened to me over the last forty-eight hours. Everything I knew was turned on its side, and the world wasn’t what it had been. I’d clearly lost my mind—there was no other explanation!

And that was when I remembered the blow to the head I’d taken and the fact that I definitely had a concussion. Skarde, Fate whatever the heck he was called, had to be a hallucination and nothing more.

“This can’t be happening,” I said and shook my head, hoping everything would get back to normal ASAP, hoping I would wake up from this disaster of a nightmare. “If I’d known what awaited me in Marshall Heights, I never would have come here!”

“You came here because you were called here.”

I whirled around to face him. “What do you mean?”

He shrugged. “It was your purpose to reunite with my brother. Though I mistakenly first believed you to be an agent of Freya, I now understand your magic is necessary to our side, to help the Aesir overcome these winters and overcome Freya.”

I eyed him narrowly. “Wait just a second… were you the one who sent me that email about Marshall Heights?”

“I do not know of what you speak. What is an email?”

Rather than getting into a long conversation that didn’t interest me at all, I figured Skarde probably wasn’t the one who sent me the email. It didn’t seem like he would understand how to operate a computer. Furthermore, if he had sent me the email, he probably wouldn’t have attacked me upon first encountering me.

“As I was saying, you are crucial to defeating Freya, witch.” Skarde shrugged and toyed with his braid.

“Well, you are wrong, Viking.” We stood facing each other for several heartbeats. It was strange, but a feeling of warmth suddenly flowed through me. It was a feeling that said I could trust this man. It was as if a strange sense of fate had woven between us, sending chills down my spine. I took a step nearer him and narrowed my eyes as I looked up at him. “If all of this is real and I really am a witch, then why don’t I have magic?”

“You do have magic,” he stated confidently.

“Ha! There you are wrong.”

He shook his head and didn’t appear to enjoy being proven incorrect. “You bear the marks,” he started as he pointed to my arm, where the runes had appeared. “And you speak my language even though you are not from my time.” The slow quirk of his lips didn’t distract me from the sudden realization that we weren’t speaking English any longer.

My eyes went wide and one hand immediately covered my lips as I looked up at him and he chuckled.

“Test your tongue,” he said.

“Test. Testing. I am speaking a different language.” My tongue felt thick as it rolled over the vowels and consonants of the words that were completely foreign to me. “What language am I speaking?”

“Ancient Norse.”

I took a deep breath and held it as I wondered how this was possible. How was any of this possible? “How can you… prove anything you’re saying?” I continued. “I mean… aside from the fact that we’re speaking Ancient Norse?”

I imagined the words that had randomly crossed my mind when he’d been choking me were also Ancient Norse. Because I still didn’t have an answer as to how any of this was possible, Skarde’s explanation was starting to settle in, starting to appear… possible.

Skarde clapped his hands loudly and grabbed his shirt from the back of the couch. He pulled it over his head as he replied, “I can prove it.”

Once his shirt was tucked into his leathers, the Viking strapped on his armor and fastened his pelt around his neck. “Seems I dressed appropriately for the weather, no?”

He was excited; I realized. “You actually want this battle between the Aesir and… and Freya to happen?”

“All Vikings wish to enter Valhalla. Now that I was forced to leave and am back on Midgard, I am eager to return to my paradise,” he snickered happily. “If there are to be great battles and glorious beasts on our way into the afterlife, then I look forward to such with gladness.” He paused for a moment as he studied me.

“What?” I demanded.

“When you stop fighting who you are, the gods will shine their favor upon you and your powers will be restored. But, first, we must visit Stormblood and you will convince him to no longer turn his back on his destiny.”

Giddy energy resonated off Skarde.

“Me? I’m supposed to convince him?”

Skarde nodded. “I believe he will listen to you.”

I shook my head. “Then you don’t know your brother at all.”

I took another deep breath and just decided to go with it. Whether I was crazy or suffering from hallucinations brought on by a concussion or Skarde really was standing in my living room. What did it matter? This was now my reality and however I looked at it, I couldn’t just step back and return to the way things used to be. Either I would be committed for the rest of my life or I really was a witch…

“I guess I’m not making it into work today,” I said as I looked at the snow outside my window again. Not to mention the fact that my car was still parked in the lot, in the back of the salon.

“Look outside, witch. No one is making it to work today.”

***

Torsten

Later That Day

I couldn’t stop thinking about how I’d left things with Jovi the day before. I felt like an asshole. But I figured there was nothing I could do about it now. And there was nothing I should do about it either because she and I weren’t a good fit, and the sooner I got that through my thick skull, the better.

It was the reason I’d been taking a drive for the last two hours—sometimes when my thoughts became too much for me to handle, I had to get out of my house. I had to busy myself in order to settle my rampaging thoughts.

And that was when the weather had completely changed. Instead of the bright and sunny spring day, the sun had become mostly obscured by dense clouds. And a greyness overtook everything, bathing the world in shadow. Soon afterwards, the clouds opened and a freak snowstorm covered everything in pure white.

I knew what this meant.

And even as I pulled up to my house, my heart was pounding and I was already coming up with a plan—a plan that had everything to do with Freya.

The headlights of the truck immediately illuminated a blonde woman who was sitting on my doorstep with her head between her hands. I had no idea what business she had here, but I figured I would soon find out.

Turning into my parking spot, I killed the engine, and tried to keep my annoyance from bubbling over. The last thing I wanted to deal with was some random woman. Not when there was a potential battle on the horizon—not when I still had so much to do.

But back to the woman on my porch. Her hair covered half her face, so I couldn’t see what sort of state she was in—whether she was crying, confused, drunk, what.

“Can I help you?” I called out as I opened the truck door and approached the steps to my front porch.

She didn’t move, but her eyes slowly rose to meet mine. As her hair fell away from her face, my heart started pounding as my breath hitched. I just stood there for a few seconds, wondering why Jovi was sitting here on my porch steps. I glanced around, having not spotted her car.

“Torsten.”

She stood up and wiped her hands on her leggings as if she were nervous to see me. What little light was offered by the thin rays that broke through the sudden snowstorm highlighted her until she looked like a ghost.

“What are you doing here?” I asked, barely concealing the confusion and worry seeping into my voice. “And how did you get here?”

“Uber,” she answered and then took a deep breath. “My car is still in the parking lot behind Sandy’s.”

“Why did you get an Uber here?”

“Because,” she answered, almost in surprise that I was asking. “After you left, I met someone who seems to think your story about being a wolf or whatever is true. And I need to know he’s real and that I’m not going crazy.”

I swallowed hard as soon as I realized what this meant. But I didn’t have time to respond because Skarde Fatekissed stepped out of the shadows with the same insufferable smile he’d worn the last time I saw him. Anger, pain, and hatred coursed through me as my enemy moved to stand beside Jovi, and that was when I realized what he was—a witch hunter—and what she was—a witch.

The stirrings of intense and protective anger overcame me as I bolted forward, running for my brother, fully intent on taking him out before he could touch Jovi. Before he could do what he’d inevitably come here to do—destroy her.

“Torsten, no!” she called out as I rammed into Skarde and sent him careening into the nearest pine tree. He rebounded, just as I knew he would and then chuckled at me.

“I am not here to kill the woman,” he said as he held me off with an extended arm.

It took me a second or two to understand what he was telling me. “Explain.”

He took a deep breath. “I will not harm her.”

“Then why are you here?”

“I was sent here by Frigg,” he answered as he eyed me.

“How did you find me?”

“You accessed the magic within you, brother,” he answered as I wracked my brain, trying to understand how that could be. Shifting into my wolf form didn’t access the wolf’s magic, but sending a telepathic thought to Jovi, telling her to ‘duck’ while she was being attacked, would have.

“It has been a long time since you visited me, Stormblood. I was starting to take your desertion personally. After all, we are brothers,” Skarde continued.

Jovi whirled around and looked at Skarde before she muttered something in a language I hadn’t heard since my brother’s axe had been buried in my skull. Then she looked at me.

“There’s a lot you haven’t told me, Torsten,” she said, looking at me as she wrapped her arms around herself and shivered in the cold air.

“You have five minutes,” I said, focusing on my brother.

“I find out you have a brother that thinks some big battle is coming and you give us five minutes to talk?” she demanded, eyes blazing. “You have a brother you failed to ever mention! And a Viking brother, at that!”

“I don’t mean to be unkind, Jovi, but I trust no one who appears on my doorstep with him,” I spat back.

“Why?” she demanded.

I never took my eyes from my brother. I knew better. But, I explained, all the same. “When our paths last crossed, Skarde triggered the berserker within me and lost to the fury, I tore my partner’s throat out. I woke up drenched in blood with no memory of what happened.”

Jovi’s mouth dropped open. “Then it was true! You really did kill your partner,” she finished, her tone lowering as the words spilled from her mouth.

“It was true,” I answered, nodding. Though I’d never been charged for his murder, that didn’t make the story any less true.

“It is not my fault you spiritwalked into Valhalla in your sleep,” Skarde demanded. “Nor was it my fault you failed to believe me when I tried to warn you the berserker change was coming,” he said and paused. “You brought your circumstances upon yourself.”

“You didn’t have to bury your axe in my skull!” I railed at him.

“Silence!” My brother slammed his fist against the trunk of the tree I’d slammed him into, cracking the wood as he struggled to contain his own rage. “I had no choice, Stormblood. You were trapped in the berserker bloodlust. Nothing short of paralyzing you would have stopped it.”

“You expect me to believe it was an act of mercy?!” I asked him, very aware that whatever came out of his mouth would be anything but the truth. Skarde probably figured as much, which was why he’d brought Jovi—to attempt to soften me.

She stepped between us.

“What your brother has to say to you is going to take more than five minutes, Torsten,” Jovi whispered. I didn’t have the heart to tell her it didn’t matter how much she lowered her voice, Skarde would hear everything with his wolf abilities.

I wasn’t sure why, but I was suddenly struck with a memory of the day I’d left her. It was one of those memories that was so vivid; I doubted I’d ever forget it, even though it was close to the worst memory I’d ever experienced.

The day I’d decided to leave Jovi, I’d packed my bags, and I’d packed my truck, and then I’d gotten out of town as quickly as I could. I’d never talked to her again, and I’d never looked back. I couldn’t. After realizing what I was, after having the change thrust on me by my brother, I couldn’t stay. Not after I knew what she was and what I was meant to do to her.

But now, as I looked at her, all those awful feelings came roaring back again. I’d left to keep myself from hurting Jovi because she was the one person in my life who had given me joy. Now, I was terrified of being alone with her again, in case I lost control.

She took a deep breath. “Can we please go inside? I’m freezing.”

I didn’t say anything but just nodded as I opened the door for her. Skarde followed. There was no use in telling him to stay outside. He would have crept into the shadows and entered, anyway. I glared at him over my shoulder before shutting the door behind me.

Jovi removed her waterlogged sneakers and curled up on the edge of my sofa, as though she belonged there. As much as I hated to admit it, I liked her in my space. But, I always had. Circumstances had been the only thing that had torn us apart. My heart was still as much hers as it always had been.

Skarde tracked snow and mud across my hardwood floors, the bastard. Some things never changed.

“Skarde told me everything,” she said softly. “About you being a wolf shifter, a berserker—”

“I told you that,” I interrupted.

“Right,” she nodded. “But he also told me you turned your back on your people, that you wanted nothing to do with them. And he told me… about myself. He told me what I am.”

I looked at my brother then. “Were you sent here to kill her?”

Skarde breathed in deeply and he approached Jovi, taking her by the hand and looking at her as if she were the most precious jewel in Midgard. It sickened me to see his hand on her, to breathe in the scent of his pheromones as they swirled around her. He was attracted to her, that much was obvious. But, truly, how could he not be? She was undeniably beautiful, and my brother had always had a soft spot for beautiful women.

“I apologize for ever attempting to harm you,” I heard my brother say. “At the time, I did not understand who… er, what you were.”

To my surprise and relief, Jovi seemed uncomfortable by Skarde’s touch. She shuffled awkwardly, eyes never leaving mine. Meanwhile, Skarde pulled away from her and turned to face me.

“I was sent here to return you to Asgard.”

“Why?”

“So you could be held accountable for turning your back on the gods, and I believe Frigg wants to discuss the coming of the three winters with you.”

There was more to it, and I was well aware of that. Not even my brother knew the specifics of what had happened. I had to wonder if the gods knew…

“The three winters? We don’t even know if Freya has—”

“Look outside, brother!” Skarde thundered, but his anger didn’t intimidate me. “Of course she has set her wicked plans in motion!”

I looked at Jovi. “This could all be some elaborate plan of Skarde’s to get me to—”

“How do you explain the sudden winter that has claimed your mountain?!” My brother’s voice boomed through the open space, reverberating off the walls. “Or that I died in the wars against the Christians, and yet here I stand before you now?! I am supposed to be in Valhalla, but I was called here!”

I grabbed Skarde by the arm and in one motion, slammed him to the ground. Rage filled me with a strength that no mortal man had ever possessed. “I never asked for this! I never wanted to see you again! As Odin is my witness, I will be the one who kills you, Skarde, and it will be a death more permanent than your spirit ascending to Valhalla!”

“Torsten!” Jovi attempted to pull me off my brother, but I was lost to the beast already. The glow from my eyes bathed my brother’s face in an eerie blue light that came from the very depths of my soul.

A feral roar burst from between my lips, and the last thing I heard before losing consciousness was the sound of Jovi’s blood-chilling scream that sounded like a banshee in the night.

Chapter Ten

Jovi

The furious roar that belted from Torsten’s chest morphed into something that was far from human. I leapt out of the way, eyes straining to watch as his body contorted. The sound of bones popping filled my ears. A startled groan of pain shook Torsten’s entire body as it grew twice the size of his already impressive height and build. Muscles shredded the fabric of his shirt until it was barely recognizable, scraps of tattered cloth floating to the floor. Torsten thrashed like a wild animal, bulging out of his skin in a way that absolutely terrified me.

Skarde rolled out from under his brother, wearing a grin that told me he was pleased with himself. He chuckled as he looked at me. “Perhaps you should run. He is about to lose control and I do not want your blood on my pelts.”

I did run.

With one last glance over my shoulder, I ran out the door and into the snow-covered yard. The snow was coming down in earnest now, and I didn’t know where I should go or how far. The sounds coming from inside the cabin filled me with curiosity and I crawled around the back of the house, peering into the window just as Torsten climbed to his feet.

Actually, I hesitated to even call him Torsten because he wasn’t… human.

The creature stood at least eight feet tall with the head of a wolf on human shoulders. Only human shoulders that were about double the width of any bodybuilder’s. A thick coat of fur trailed down a torso that was still strangely shaped like a man’s. Torn jeans stretched taut over his long, muscular legs. Though he wasn’t the Torsten I recognized, I didn’t see a monster in his place either. A beast, yes, but no monster.

Skarde had more control over his berserker rage. He calmly removed his shirt as he circled Torsten’s beast form. “I’ve been itching for a good fight, bróðir. Perhaps you will prove yourself to be a challenge,” he taunted arrogantly.

But I saw the truth behind the confidence. It was clear from the moment I met him that Skarde was a force of nature, one that could destroy anything in his path if he wanted to.

Torsten looked up at the ceiling and let out a howl that chilled me to my bones. I glanced behind myself, wondering where I could hide in case they took this fight outside the house. I spied a wood shed behind me and figured I could hide in it, if I needed to.

“You feel pain because you fight the change, Torsten,” Skarde said, pulling my attention back to the two of them. “Embrace it as I have done and you will know no weakness! Embrace what you are—become the berserker wolf you were always meant to be.”

Torsten dropped his wolf head and glared at his brother, his canine eyes narrowed and angry. He moved with each step that Skarde took, but made no move to attack. Maybe the beast wasn’t mindless.

“We are the sons of King Slothi. The blood of the All Father is within us, Stormblood,” Skarde continued. “Do not tell me you would rather hide in the mountains rather than claim your birthright?!”

Torsten growled at him, but I wasn’t sure if it was a warning or if he was actually communicating in some form of wolf language?

“You have brought shame to our legacy.”

Skarde lunged at Torsten. They crashed into one another, all sharp teeth and brute strength. Torsten hit the side table, which crashed as the lamp atop it went hurtling against the wall, breaking into a thousand pieces. But neither of them seemed to notice.

Skarde pummeled Torsten with vicious blows that caused the berserker to stumble back, slamming into the couch, which shrieked in protest as it shifted across the room, but Skarde didn’t stop there. He released a battle cry that shook the cabin. I held my breath as the enraged Viking tackled Torsten, forcing them both through the window at the opposite end of the house. Glass shattered, peppering the floor like tiny diamonds that sparkled in the faint light of the chandelier.

I swallowed my own scream and hurried around the side of the house, taking shelter beneath the stairs. From there, I still had a good vantage point to see what was going on.

The brothers hit snow beneath the window in a puff of white, and the bitter taste of fear coated my tongue. The beast stalked Skarde, slashing its claws whenever the Viking got too close, but Skarde’s ruthless aggression and cunning proved useful. Targeted hits rained down on Torsten in rapid succession. Even though Skarde was smaller than Torsten in his beast form, he wasn’t any less powerful. The wolf man fell to his knees before his brother, and the glow in his eyes flickered.

I could see Torsten fighting against the beast for control—trying to subdue the berserker rage which appeared to be simmering just beneath the surface. Skarde slapped the creature across the face in a manner that was meant to be more disrespectful than deal any actual damage.

“Feel that?” Skarde asked through large, sharp teeth that altered his voice. It was as though the words struggled to leave the mouth of his half-shifted face, causing them to sound harsh and gravelly. “The pain you force yourself to endure will only get worse. The three winters are upon us! And now the change will only become harder to resist.”

A low rumble vibrated the beast’s chest. He looked ready to attack, but Skarde pulled his arm back and then let his fist fly, knocking Torsten unconscious with a burst of light. Torsten’s body trembled as it reshaped itself back into a man. I breathed a sigh of relief at the sight of the thick fur receding. After another few seconds, I thought it was safe enough to come out from my hiding place.

Skarde looked over at me and lifted Torsten into his arms, carried him into the cabin, and depositing him none-too-gently on the couch, I covered him with the fleece-lined blanket from a basket near the foot of the sofa.

“You didn’t have to push him so far,” I hissed at the Viking. “He’s been through a lot already.”

“He is selfish,” Skarde replied with a shrug. He was panting and a sheen of sweat coated his forehead and his chest—a chest I did my best not to notice. “You must convince him of his duty to his brethren.”

“I don’t have to do anything,” I spat the words back at him. “This is Torsten’s choice to make.”

“No,” Skarde said, shaking his head. “As one of the last living descendants of Odin, Stormblood has an obligation to the gods. An obligation he chose to ignore. Turning his back on the ways of old and fighting the warrior inside him has angered the gods.”

For the first time since I met him, Skarde seemed genuinely angry. “The gods are preparing for war. They are coming to Midgard. I believe Frigg’s true reason for sending me here is tied to you.”

“Tied to me how?”

He shook his head. “I am not certain yet.”

I slid to my knees beside the couch and brushed my hand along Torsten’s jaw. “This is all just… too much,” I whispered as I closed my eyes and breathed in deeply.

“You are Valkyrie… you are the strongest of the strong,” Skarde insisted.

“I don’t feel strong.”

Without any warning, Skarde grabbed me by my upper arm and hauled me to my feet. His massive chest moved up and down with each breath as I stared up at him, suddenly frightened. He was just so… unpredictable.

“Are you prepared to open your eyes to the truth of this world?” he demanded.

I wasn’t sure what that meant. I breathed in deeply as I figured I’d already come this far—already found out things that defied logic. Truly, there was no going back. “Yes.”

He nodded grimly before releasing me. “I must go. There are things I must do before we begin. Stay with him and make sure he does not try to leave. If we lose him now, I fear we will not find him a second time.”

Skarde’s image warped before it seemed to implode, turning him into the shadow figure I’d seen at my apartment.

And then he was gone.

***

I ventured down the corridor and into the first bathroom. Oak cabinets lined one side of a small linen closet off to the left. I grabbed a handful of rags along with some soap, a bowl of water, and a razor. When I turned back around again, I caught sight of my reflection in the mirror above the sink.

My features appeared sunken, almost skeletal as my skin stretched tightly across my face. I had been through so much in such a short amount of time, no wonder the stress was taking its toll. That, and I couldn’t remember the last time I’d had something to eat. Still, there was no denying my natural beauty, even if it was obscured by exhaustion and fear. I shook myself mentally and quickly returned to Torsten’s side.

I’d expected to fear him, to see him as anything other than the man I’d once cared for, but seeing him shift had changed nothing and, at the same time, it had changed everything. In my heart, I both pitied Torsten and envied him. His fate had been written in the stars long ago—he was destined for greatness while the rest of us struggled just to make it one day at a time. I couldn’t help but wonder why anyone would choose not to belong to a world of wonder and magic. Why did Torsten run away from his brother rather than embrace the wisdom he offered and embrace his future? Especially when it appeared to be the future of a hero?

Skarde was right. If this Freya goddess was planning on icing out Earth, Midgard, and Torsten could help stop it, he had to help! The fate of billions relied on him. Granted, he might fail, but he had to at least try!

And the more I thought about it, the more I couldn’t deny the fact that fate seemed to have something in store for us. Why else would I have come to Marshall Heights? And, furthermore, why was it that Torsten and I had ever crossed each other’s paths in the first place? If it was true and I really was this witch or seer or whatever Skarde had called me, then it wasn’t simply coincidence that Torsten had come into my life.

It was destiny.

Fate.

Torsten’s eyes fluttered open and I stroked his forehead, smiling down at him. “Are you feeling okay?”

His face scrunched up in confusion. “Jovi?”

“I’m here. And everything is okay… it’s all going to be okay.”

He sat up and looked around, taking in the broken glass littering the ground and looking up, the shards that still remained of the window. He turned back to me.

“Did I hurt you?”

I smiled as I shook my head. “No, you didn’t hurt me… but you do have a lot of explaining to do.”

***

Torsten

I still hadn’t gotten over the surprise of finding Jovi here, inside my house as she nervously knelt beside me. I sat up. “Where is Skarde?”

“Gone,” she answered. Then she reached out and gripped my chin, turning my face back towards her. “Torsten,” she started and looked away. “After everything that’s happened, I need… I need to know your feelings for me.”

As soon as she said the words, they hung in the air and were followed by silence. I just couldn’t respond. I felt my palms go clammy and I swallowed hard repeatedly.

I’d never been good with emotional stuff—it made me uncomfortable. And as far as this situation went, it was probably the most uncomfortable one I’d had to deal with in a long time. Well, minus the happy little reunion I’d had with my brother.

“My feelings for you?” I asked as I shook my head and tried to get a grip on myself. Whenever I came back to my human form, after taking the shape of the wolf, I was a bit groggy. It was as though two different minds existed within me—the man brain and the wolf brain.

“I’m sorry,” Jovi said as she shook her head and inhaled deeply. “If what your brother says is true, then I believe… I believe fate brought us together, Torsten.” She immediately turned around and started for the kitchen.

I pushed myself up to my feet and intersected Jovi at the door as she nearly stepped right into my chest. She brought her hands up, as if afraid she was going to collide with me, at the same time that I gripped her around her upper arms and held her in place. Both of us started to breathe a little more heavily as we stood there so close together, staring at each other.

“I… I should go.”

“I don’t want you to go,” I managed felt myself flush from the top of my head all the way to my feet. I cleared my throat and wished I wasn’t so subject to my feral needs when it came to Jovi. “I’m sorry if it seemed like I forgot my manners.”

“No,” she insisted immediately, nearly interrupting me, as she shook her head. I had to fight to keep my eyes on hers because every time she moved, the scent of her shampoo wafted into the air and filled my senses. Beneath the artificial sweetness was the earthy aroma of her skin. It was a scent I wanted on me.

“I just I… I’m the one who showed up here unannounced and took you by surprise so, if anyone is forgetting her manners, it’s me.”

“It’s okay,” I said as I released her and tried to ignore the flush that was still warming my entire body. This woman just did something to me—she made me feel things I hadn’t felt in a long time. Of course, as a man, I had sexual needs, but I usually dismissed them easily enough by taking care of business and then focusing on other things. But not with Jovi. Ever since I’d first spotted her at that charity banquet, on Gabriel’s arm, every longing I had centered around claiming her.

And she was right, now that I thought about it, it had felt like fate had somehow intervened, making sure our paths intersected. But once I’d learned what she was—magic, I’d thought my fate was to kill her—something I could never do.

She laughed nervously as she looked up at me, a pinkish hue staining her cheeks. She was the most beautiful creature I’d ever seen. So gorgeous. So strong. So passionate. Jovi was easily the most amazing woman I’d ever known.

“You want to know my feelings for you?” I repeated, realizing she was now too embarrassed to broach the subject again.

She dropped her gaze, looking down at her toes, and I could tell she was feeling about as awkward as I was. “Not if it makes you uncomfortable.”

“It does,” I answered, figuring there was no reason to lie. She glanced up at me again, her blue eyes wide pools of mortification.

“I’m sorry,” she started.

“Don’t apologize.” I wasn’t sure what my eyes reflected, but I was hoping they were conveying the depth of my sincerity and my profound apology for what I was about to do, or rather not do.

I was quiet for a few seconds as I searched for the right words. But once that search yielded nothing but more confusion and discomfort, I just decided to say whatever came into my head.

“I can’t offer you anything, Jovi,” I started on an exhale as I watched her expression fall. I wanted to kick my own ass right now. But, the fact still remained that I was a shifter and all it would take was one moment for me to take the shape of the wolf and then she would be in danger. I would never do that to her.

She was disappointed. It was there in the way her upper eyelashes dusted her cheeks and in the visible sag of her shoulders. Her reaction made no sense to me because I was more than sure she had to know she and I had no business together—she was magic and I was berserker. We were enemies, and we always had been.

“I understand,” she said solemnly. “And I appreciate the truth, Torsten.”

“You haven’t allowed me to explain.”

“It’s okay,” she said as she pasted on an artificial smile and tried to force herself to look at me. But as soon as her eyes met mine, she dropped hers again as if she were admitting defeat.

“Jovi,” I started.

“You don’t have to explain. I understand.”

“No, you don’t,” I insisted.

She still wouldn’t look at me, and her cheeks were bright red with what I imagined was embarrassment. I was suddenly angry with myself because what I’d said and how I felt were so completely, drastically different.

I just couldn’t seem to put words to the feelings, something which only frustrated me more. Especially when I could see she didn’t understand me.

“We can’t be together because of what I am.”

Chapter Eleven

Torsten

Jovi looked up at me then, her eyes wide and so perfectly blue. Her eyebrows furrowed as she shook her head. “What you are? You mean a wolf?” She shook her head again. “I don’t care about that.”

“You should,” I started.

“No, I know what you are. I saw you change and I’m not afraid.”

“I’m not a good man,” I explained as I exhaled, the feelings of self-hatred and disgust tarnishing me all over again. Usually, I tried to avoid thinking about myself, about what I was, about my past. But the thoughts never left me, especially at night when I couldn’t keep my physical body active, so my brain took over.

And then it would be a flood of memories, a deluge of remembrances that caused me nothing but angst and fatigue. The memories of the past were ruthless, relentless, constantly beating down on me, night after night.

And after my stand-off with Skarde, what I was afraid of was already beginning to happen. Jovi had reopened a can of worms I’d buried in the deepest, darkest corners of my mind where I wouldn’t have to examine them in the harsh light of day.

“That isn’t true!” Jovi yelled at me, her expression one of pure defiance. “You are the reason I’m standing here right now and not missing or dead somewhere,” she continued as she took a quick breath. “You are a good man because only a good man would have done something like what you did for me when I got attacked by those men.” She took another big breath as her chest continued to rise and fall quickly. “You saved my life, Torsten.”

“I did, but...” I started, my voice coming out harsher than I intended. This was just a subject on which I wouldn’t be swayed. Jovi could say what she wanted, but she didn’t know the truth—the whole truth. Yes, she knew what I was, but there was more—more that even Skarde didn’t know. And if she knew that truth, she wouldn’t still be standing here. She wouldn’t want anything to do with me. “Saving you doesn’t make me a good man.”

“You risked your life for me!” she yelled at me, shaking her head like she was in disbelief as she shrugged out of my hold. “You protected me at the cost of your own safety!”

“Yes, I protected you!” I spat the words back at her. “And if I had it to do over again, I would do exactly the same thing! I will always protect you because you mean more to me than anyone does!”

Shit.

That wasn’t supposed to come out.

She looked surprised then and swallowed down whatever she’d been about to say. My chest was still heaving, and my heartbeat was pounding through me because I was still aggravated that she was even daring to argue with me. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d had an argument with someone.

I couldn’t even remember the last time I’d had a conversation with someone beyond mostly uneasy hellos and goodbyes. Most people didn’t want anything to do with me—they’d see me coming and they’d give me a wide berth. And that was more than fine by me. But Jovi… this woman who was little more than half my size had the audacity to challenge me.

Me?

“I mean more to you than anyone does and yet you can’t be with me?” she asked finally, her voice as quiet as a whisper. She continued to watch me. Her solemn stare was accusatory and disbelieving.

“No,” I admitted as I took another deep breath and then exhaled it slowly, wondering if I should or if I could tell her how I really felt. Maybe if she knew the truth, it would be enough. Maybe it would scare her to such an extent that she’d keep her distance from me which was exactly what I wanted. No, it was what I needed, what we both needed.

I wished I had more time to debate the pros and cons of such a lethal choice because once I opened my mouth, and the truth spilled out, there would be no taking it back.

No rewinding the clock.

“No?” she repeated, sounding dumbfounded. Not that I could blame her. I was saying one thing then contradicting it.

I stalled, hating the anxiety that was already threatening to explode inside me as I considered opening up to her, telling her the truth about my past. But then I realized the truth was the only thing that was left. There was nothing more to discuss. She obviously wasn’t going to take me at my word, so I’d have to explain. What was more, she deserved to know. “The truth is,” I started as my heart rode up into my throat. I paused again, searching for the right words.

“The truth is?”

“I still love you,” I finally spat the words out and watched her expression change to one of surprise. “In a perfect world, I would want to be your man. I’d jump at the chance to make you mine, to protect you, and to provide for you,” I started but then shook my head at the wistful expression that clouded her eyes.

“But this isn’t a perfect world, Jovi.”

“It doesn’t have to be.”

“No,” I shook my head. “As much as I feel for you, I can’t offer you anything.”

“Why not?!” she insisted, her tone of voice sounding exasperated, verging on angry.

“Because I am meant to kill you!” I barked at her, the words coming out more harshly than I intended. But I had to be direct. She needed to understand why there could never be anything between us.

“What?” she asked, her expression falling.

“You possess magic and I’m a berserker wolf,” I started, taking a deep breath. “I am sworn to destroy any creatures who possess magic because…”

“Because why?” she insisted once my voice trailed off.

“Because you are a child of Freya,” I answered. “Anyone who possesses magic is.”

She was quiet for a moment as she shook her head. “But, Skarde…” And then dawning realization claimed her expression. “He tried to kill me, but then he… stopped.”

And on that subject I, too, was interested as to why. “Why?”

She shook her head. “He said something about me possessing the blood of Freya, but also possessing the blood of the Valkyrie.”

“Blood of the Valkyrie?” I asked, even as I shook my head because I had never and still didn’t feel the pull I would have if she truly was part Valkyrie.

“And then… then Skarde looked at me and it was like… he was looking at someone else. It was almost as if he thought I was someone else.”

Of course, that made no sense to me, but at the moment, I didn’t want to think about Skarde or Jovi potentially being Valkyrie because the end result was still the same. “Jovi, you aren’t safe around me. We are sworn enemies just as Freya is the enemy of the Aesir gods.”

“This isn’t fair!” she almost yelled back as she shook her head fiercely and threw her hands on her hips, facing me with an expression I’d never seen before. Anger and defiance emanated out of her and it started doing something to me—stirring me, exciting me. It made that dominant and alpha side of me suddenly rise up to the surface. It made me want to claim her, to let her know who was in charge, to bend her to my will, to make her mine.

“Fair has nothing to do with it! Life isn’t fair!” I snapped at her. “And this is just how it has to be!”

“No!” she insisted as she took a step closer and her eyes narrowed, the blue now blazing with anger. “What about what I want? What about how I feel?”

I hated having to be hard on her when I wanted nothing more than to keep her inside my little house and spend the next few weeks worshipping her body. God, I wanted to pick her up and throw her down on top of my bed before tearing her clothes off and getting lost in the passion that once had ensnared us both.

“It doesn’t matter,” I muttered as I forced the thoughts out of my head. I focused on the falling snow outside my window because I couldn’t look at her. Not when my body was having such a response to her that it was all I could do to hold myself back. I had to remind myself I wasn’t a mindless animal who couldn’t help himself, but that didn’t mean it was easy to resist her.

It wasn’t.

She took another step closer until only a few inches separated us and, in response, my breath hitched.

“Look at me, Torsten,” she whispered and even though I knew it wasn’t a good idea, I brought my eyes down to hers.

Hers were challenging, adversarial. “My feelings matter too.”

“No, they don’t,” I responded flatly. “I can’t, and I won’t let your feelings matter to me. I can only care for you from far away. I promise to protect you, and to make damn sure that no one ever hurts you,” I continued as I felt my hands fisting at my sides at the thought of someone trying to hurt her, my Jovi.

My angel.

“I want you, Torsten,” she asserted. “I’ve never stopped wanting you.”

“I can’t give myself to you,” I answered sternly, solemnly. “But I can be there for you…”

“Just not the way I want you to be,” she interrupted as she folded her arms across her buxom chest. She was still standing just as close as she had been and she was still testing every inch of my restraint.

“I don’t know what more you want from me,” I started, feeling the intense need to claim her again. I wanted nothing more than to wipe that challenging expression off her face and replace it with the expression of intense passion as I kissed her, taking what I so badly wanted, taking what should have been mine, and what she so obviously desired as well.

And, yet, here we were—in the worst of possible situations. I was supposed to kill her, and even as I could recognize the fact that I still loved her, that didn’t change anything. She was one of Freya’s own; she was magic. She could help to bring down the end of the Aesir. And even if I’d turned my back on my own kind, I was still one of them.

I was wolf. Jovi was magic.

“I want you to tell me you don’t want me,” she started as her eyes narrowed even more. The challenge was set.

“I can’t want you,” I started, but she immediately shook her head.

“No,” she demanded. “Tell me you don’t want me.”

I shook my head and took a step away from her, knowing that if I didn’t retreat soon, I wouldn’t be able to control myself much longer. I was mere seconds from showing her exactly how much I wanted her.

But I couldn’t do that. I wouldn’t do that.

“Me wanting you doesn’t matter a damn,” I growled at her, the fury of frustration inside me rising. It wasn’t anger directed at her, though. It was purely directed at the situation, at the fact that I was a man who was used to getting what he wanted, taking what he wanted. Ever since I’d accepted the wolf within, I’d become more so. “You don’t know who I am.”

“I know enough to know that I want to understand the man you’ve become… the wolf you’ve become,” she answered furiously. “The real you. Whatever that means. I see how you look at me,” she continued. “I know you care about me and I know you aren’t over what we had in the past.”

“Yes,” I seethed at her. “I care more about you than I do myself… but none of that matters.”

“It matters to me.” She paused. “I know you would treat me well, you would take care of me, protect me.”

“I would worship you, and I would kill anyone who ever tried to hurt you.”

“And yet you can’t be with me?” she demanded, her expression revealing her disbelief.

“Jovi, what part of I’m meant to kill you do you not understand,” I spat the words out.

“You have had every opportunity to murder me and you never have. You’ve protected me.”

“But that doesn’t mean others wouldn’t! I’m still wondering why Skarde didn’t kill you. And if you and I are together… it’s just a matter of time before someone comes for you.” I took a deep breath and shook my head. “Nevermind the fact that I’m a shifter which means I could turn and then rip your throat out.” She said nothing, so I continued. “I spend all my time trying to fight the wolf within me, trying to subdue it and get control of it and half the time, it’s a losing battle. The point is that you aren’t safe around me, Jovi.”

“You would never hurt me.”

“I would never do so intentionally, but what happens if I’m caught in the middle of shifting? You saw what happened between my brother and me. You saw the nightmare I turned into.”

“You didn’t hurt him.”

“I threw him through a window, Jovi!”

She shook her head. “I know you would never hurt me, whether you were in your wolf form or not.”

I pulled my attention from the building snow outside and glanced at her, immediately regretting it. She was just so damned beautiful, and I wanted her like I’d never wanted anything.

“We could find a way, Torsten...” She took another step closer until her breath tickled my neck when she stepped onto her toes and whispered: “I like that you’re wild and you answer to no one. I wish I could be more like you.”

“Damn it, Jovi.” I gripped her by the arms again and pushed her away a step or two. I had to do it because my control was rapidly slipping. She was just too close—she was making it so I wasn’t thinking straight. “You’re caught up over the fact that I saved you, and it’s making you look at me in a way that’s blinding you from the truth. But you don’t know me—the real me—and you never will.”

“You’re afraid.”

“I’m not afraid of anything,” I spat back at her, irritated she’d even suggest such a ridiculous thing. “And I’m definitely not afraid of a tiny blonde that I could snap in half without even breaking a sweat. The beast wants to possess you almost as much as I want to protect you.” The words came out of my mouth before I could stop them.

Her eyes widened for a few seconds as if she wasn’t expecting such a caveman reaction, but then a smile of victory parted her delectable lips.

“I think you are afraid,” she continued as she nodded repeatedly. “You’re afraid that if I see the real you and accept you anyway, you’ll have to come to terms with the fact that you’re not the monster or the bad guy you think you are. And when that happens, you’re going to have an identity crisis because this persona you’re hiding behind, these walls you’ve built to keep people out, will come crumbling down.”

“Wrong,” I responded as I gripped her arm again and turned toward the door, now no longer interested in playing host. She’d gone too far, and I wasn’t interested in talking anymore. But she dug her heels into the floor and refused to budge. She was stronger than I gave her credit for.

Granted, I could have easily picked her up and thrown her over my shoulder before depositing her outside and locking the door, but I didn’t.

“Tell me you don’t want me,” she said again as I found myself staring at the rise and fall of her breasts through the sheer material of her turtleneck.

She didn’t wait for me to respond but hooked her fingers underneath the hemline of her shirt and pulled it up and over her head. She began playing with the clasp to her bra, only to pull the straps down each of her arms before she discarded it against my floor and stood there proudly as I ravenously took in her beautiful body.

“You are stunning,” I whispered. I was rapidly losing the fight within myself.

I may have prided myself on my self-control, but right now I was taut as a string, and she had no idea how close I was to caving. Of course the voice in the back of my head yelled at me that I couldn’t do this—what would happen if I shifted during the process? If I hurt or killed her, I would never forgive myself.

“Tell me you don’t want me,” she continued as she toyed with the button on her jeans and then freeing it, she unzipped them before pulling them down the line of her legs. When she stood up, I found my gaze riveted to her white, lace panties.

“I don’t want,” I started, but the words died as soon as she reached down and grasped the zipper of my jeans. She slowly slid it along the track as chills raced up and down my spine. I grabbed her hand, but I didn’t remove it. I just held it there.

“I don’t believe you,” she purred as she continued to undress me, and I started to melt like hot butter in her hands.

“I can’t do this,” I answered as a cold wave of reality washed over me. I wrapped my fingers around her hand and shoved it away. I couldn’t claim her. Not yet. Not when I didn’t have full control over the beast.

“You can. We can.”

“I will not do this to you,” I announced firmly as I took a step away from her and dropped my attention to the floor because I couldn’t look at her gorgeous naked body any longer. I took a deep breath, as all I could do was try to regain my sanity.

When I looked at her again, her gaze dropped to the very obvious bulge warping the front of my pants, and she smiled up at me, fully aware she’d won. She didn’t say anything, but simply looped her fingers underneath her panties above either hip and then pulled them down.

“Jovi, please,” I started, my voice weak with desire. I was losing this battle, even though I wasn’t ready to admit it. “Please don’t do this. I’m not that strong to continue fighting it.”

“Stop fighting it then because I want you, Torsten Black,” she said with authority as she stared at me squarely.

“Jovi,” I rasped.

She smiled at me and it was the smile that had first melted my heart—all feeling and kindness and love—it was everything that was Jovi.

And I lost.

I lost to the alpha.

I lost to the feral, wild and dominant side of me even though I’d tried so hard to keep him locked up.

Chapter Twelve

Jovi

As I leaned down onto the rug in front of Torsten’s fireplace, I had no idea what I was doing. It was as if something had possessed me. Something that wanted to give my soul and my body to Torsten without a second thought of the possible consequences. All I knew was that when Torsten looked at me, I was filled with the need to submit, to bow to his will like a sacrificial lamb. The fire in his eyes thrilled me beyond belief.

And there was no doubt in my mind that this man would never hurt me. I didn’t care if he was part wolf, part Viking, all warrior, whatever. I didn’t care if he was my enemy and meant to kill me. I didn’t care, because I trusted him—just like I always had. Yes, he’d hurt me in the past when he’d left, but now I understood why he’d left—to protect me.

From the second I started taking off my clothes, I was making things up as I went along. But, I also knew the only way to get Torsten to face the reality of our love was to boldly stride forward and not give him the chance to change his mind.

I looked up at him and shivered. Every part of my being buzzed with adrenaline.

And right now, with Torsten, everything felt right—the timing, him, me. Even though I’d only been reunited with him for a short amount of time, I was ready. Yes, commitment and Torsten didn’t exactly go together. It was like wanting to cage the wind. But that didn’t change the fact that I wanted him, and I had from the first moment he’d walked into my life. But I didn’t just want him in a sexual way.

No, I wanted him, all of him. The man, the wolf, the Viking. To me, they were now one and the same.

He was the man for me—I was convinced. And I was also convinced it was my job to prove to him that he wasn’t the awful person he believed himself to be. Just how I was going to do that, though, I wasn’t sure. But I had to hope love would be enough. If I loved him with my entire being, I hoped I could help him to see the truth about himself, that he really was a good man.

But none of that mattered right now. All that did matter was that Torsten wanted me, and I wanted him.

“Jovi,” he whispered, his voice coming out raw, throaty.

“I’m ready for you.” I could see a battle playing out in his eyes as he hesitated. Even though he didn’t say anything, it was clear his mind was fighting his emotions. He didn’t want to want me, but he couldn’t help it.

“Please don’t deny me,” I whispered as I suddenly worried his more logical side might win out. “Please don’t do that to me, Torsten.”

He brought his deep blue eyes to mine, and we just stared at each other for what felt like minutes but was probably a second or so. And then he was directly in front of me, on his knees as he wrapped his hands around my thighs and yanked me forward, closer to him. He continued to hold my gaze and when he spoke, his voice was deep.

“I don’t ever want to hurt you, Jovi,” he said, his voice stern. “And I want you to know I do care for you, more than I can ever say.” He dropped his gaze then as if he had a hard time with what he’d just said. “I always have.”

“Make love to me, Torsten,” I said as I reached for him and lifted his chin, forcing him to look me in the eyes again. “After all the years between us… all that time… my feelings for you never went away. And I… I trust you.”

He nodded but then shook his head. “Sex with me isn’t what you’re used to,” he started.

I gave him an expression that said I wasn’t following.

He breathed in deeply. “I’m part animal, Jovi. That means my instincts are animal.”

I still wasn’t following.

He sighed. “I can’t… make love. I just don’t have it in me.”

I knew our time together was going to be different because he was a wolf and beyond that, a warrior, a berserker, but I also knew he’d never hurt me.

I smiled up at him. “I just want you. Whatever that means. I don’t want you to pretend. I want you to be you.”

He nodded as he dropped his gaze to my breasts and then lower still, taking in every inch of my exposed nudity. As he looked at me, I felt butterflies begin building in my stomach and my heartbeat picked up with my breathing.

Part of me felt embarrassed because I hadn’t been exposed like this in front of a man in a very long time and I couldn’t help but wonder what he thought of my body. I was definitely older than the last time he’d seen me.

“I hope you aren’t disappointed?” I asked in a timid voice.

Suddenly the brazen seductress from before was gone, and I was left with this shy girl, riddled with insecurities.

“Disappointed?” he scoffed as he finally freed his eyes from roving my body and brought them to mine. He shook his head. “You are the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen,” he said as his eyes raked my nudity again. “This body,” he continued and then just shook his head as the words seemed to fail him.

When he met my gaze again, his eyes were deeper, full of something I couldn’t put my finger on. Passion maybe. He reached forward and ran his large hand down the top of one of my thighs, and I felt goosebumps crop up behind it as he did. “You’re perfect.”

“Thank you,” I said with a flush.

He lowered himself over me, and our eyes locked.

“I need to prepare you,” he finished, and I was left wondering what he meant because I was no virgin, but I appreciated the thoughtfulness. Gripping my arms, he pulled me up higher on the rug and then wrapped his hands around either of my thighs as he dipped his head down to my navel. The breath caught in my throat as I felt his tongue trace a ticklish trail lower. Heat engulfed my tender flesh. Rolling pressure caused my back to arch off the floor as my hair fell in loose strands over my forehead.

My hips rocked back and forth as I closed my eyes and moaned, feeling a coil of tension deep inside me already beginning to build.

Torsten pulled away from me suddenly and it was then that I saw the glow in his eyes churning like a current of electricity. I’d never seen this devilish side to him. Usually he was so serious, well, going on the handful of times we’d interacted recently, anyway. Regardless, I had to admit this side of Torsten thrilled me.

He pushed my legs wider apart and then sealed his lips over my soft, pink folds. I couldn’t help the cry that escaped me as my hips raised off the floor and I undulated against him, pushing my pelvis into his mouth as he gripped my thighs and held me in place.

When I felt his index finger tracing contours of my clenching core, I started to moan again as I closed my eyes.

“Look at me, Jovi.”

I opened my eyes again at his command and faced him as he continued to tease me with his soft caresses. I bucked against him, trying to get him to do something to relieve the tension that was bringing me to the brink of tears. But Torsten held me down with a heavy hand on my chest.

“What do you want, Jovi? Tell me.”

“You,” I answered immediately. “I want you.”

He didn’t say anything but stared at me, his eyes smoldering as his hand continued to stroke between my thighs. “You want me where?”

My entire body was about to come apart at his mere touch, and he wanted to discuss semantics? I knew he was teasing me, and while it was sexy, the truth was that I wanted nothing more than to wrap my legs around him and make him take me.

“I want,” I started but lost my train of thought.

How was I supposed to think anything, let alone get my mouth to work in order to say something?

I immediately closed my eyes and started to moan until I felt him lightly slap my right butt cheek. Opening my eyes, I focused on him, not understanding what I’d done wrong.

“Don’t close your eyes,” he said as excited and nervous chills raced down my spine.

Even though I knew Torsten to be an absolute alpha male, I’d never imagined he would be like this sexually—so very dominant and in control. He’d been dominant in the past, yes, but not like this.

Even though I had no experience with berserkers or the particular type of sex that came with shifters, I could already tell I liked it like this—a little rough.

“I want you to watch me when I claim you,” Torsten continued as he started to curl his fingers upward. Sparks appeared in my vision, blinding me to the world around us for just a moment.

Holy hell.

Hearing him say that did weird things to my insides. I fought the need to throw my head back and close my eyes.

But then something changed. And not in a good way.

Suddenly, the feel of him was gone.

Something ruptured inside me, and I was catapulted from my body.

***

Torches of iridescent light flickered wildly, illuminating the shadows of the forest. The goddess, Freya, sat among the leaves on the ground, beside a man, wearing a crown of mistletoe. A tear fell from her glittering eyes like rain on emerald jewels. She stared ahead into the shadows and met my gaze. I felt the weight of her sight boring into my soul as a faint smile painted her lips.

The goddess stood up and disappeared behind the trees.

My feet carried me across the wet grass, but no sound reached my ears. The man seated beside her didn’t turn to watch me go.

All I knew was that I had to find Freya, I couldn’t allow her to leave me here—alone in this forest. Not when I possessed a part of her—magic. I was one of her many children—a seer, a witch.

“Come, child,” she beckoned me and I caught sight of her just up ahead, behind one of the trees.

When I reached her, she threw her arms around me, and though I was certain I’d never met her before, somehow she felt familiar, as though I’d known her all my life.

“How did I get here?” I asked.

She held me tight, running her hands through my hair as I breathed in the scent of spring that clung to her robes. The warmth that filled me in her embrace was unlike anything I’d ever felt. It was as if I’d finally come home after being lost.

“We do not have long.” Freya pulled back and brushed my cheek with her thumb. “But you must listen,” she whispered. “You are in danger, my child.”

“Danger?”

“Resist the beast,” Freya said. “Do not let the bond between you and the berserker cloud your judgement. I fear your wolf will prove himself to be similar to his ancestors—those who destroy our kind. Keep the berserker close… both of them. Watch them carefully. And guard your heart.”

The shock of Freya’s words nearly brought me to my knees.

“The winters are upon us, my child,” she continued.

I looked up at her then. “Winters you started.”

But, she shook her head. “The cold is not my doing, child.”

There was a sound in the distance and she looked up, a nervous expression taking hold of her beautiful face. When she looked at me again, she swallowed hard and her eyes were wide.

“You must find me,” she said.

“Why?”

“Together, our magic will empower each other.”

“I don’t have any magic,” I insisted.

She nodded. “You do.”

The sound in the distance repeated and she pulled away from me. “Use the Brisingamen, child. Use it to find me.”

“Where do I find it?”

“It is with the only woman you know in your town, the only one who took you in, under her wing. The seer.”

“Sandy?” I asked, shaking my head because I’d never imagined she might be a seer, a knower.

Freya nodded and then said more, but her words were suddenly stolen by a gentle wind that cropped up and whistled through the trees. Still, she kept talking.

I didn’t understand. Her words were lost on the breeze. But, in them, I understood one thing—this mating with Torsten—it couldn’t happen.

Chapter Thirteen

Torsten

Jovi seized up, muscles snapped tight with tension as her eyes glazed over. I grabbed a blanket from the sofa and wrapped it around her as she seemed to struggle internally with something beyond my comprehension.

Her eyelids fluttered and her eyes rolled into the back of her head before she deflated in my arms. Long strands of her hair fanned out on the floor beneath her.

“Jovi,” I said, but she didn’t wake up.

There was only one person I could call for help, and just the thought of relying on my brother made my stomach turn. Even so, I found myself whispering the words of the summoning spell in my ancestors’ ancient tongue.

In response and almost immediately, black smoke roiled across the hardwood floors until it engulfed the room. I couldn’t see through the thick mist as the world of Midgard disappeared in muffled echoes.

The cold hand of death reached out and touched my soul, clawing its talons along the edges of the beast within. Steam curled up from my lips as the smoke parted to reveal a frozen lake surrounded by frost-covered mirrors as tall as a skyscraper.

“You should not be here, Stormblood,” Skarde snarled as he stepped from behind a mirror. “This place is forbidden to you.”

I glared at him. “I meant to summon you, not to bring myself here,” I snapped harshly in return. ‘Here’ was a land between lands, a place that existed in the in-between. It wasn’t Midgard, but it wasn’t Asgard or Valhalla. It just was.

“What do you want?”

“Something is wrong with Jovi and I need your help.”

Skarde smiled broadly and I realized he thought he had me pinned. As with all things regarding my brother, he wouldn’t help me unless I helped him. And that was where the danger lay, because doing favors for Skarde was never without problem.

“First, give me the Bifrost fragment you stole from my grave in Norway.” Skarde crossed his arms over his chest and took on the stance of an immovable obstacle. “An even trade, I think.”

The Bifrost was a fragment of the rainbow bridge, connecting Asgard to the many different realms, from Midgard to Helheim, the realm of the dead. My head was shaking even before the rejection left my lips. “It wasn’t yours, to begin with.”

“And that matters to me why?”

“Because the gods forbid you from using it, Skarde.” I took a deep breath. There was no way I would agree to this demand. The Bifrost would never be safe in Skarde’s possession. “Last time I checked, you were deemed unworthy of that particular responsibility.”

My brother tossed his arms into the air in a show of frustration. “If we do not use it to aid us during this battle, then what good is it?! We must recruit as many as possible to our side and we must locate Freya.”

Little did he know, I already knew how to locate Freya, something I wouldn’t admit. “The Bifrost must be kept safe and kept hidden.”

“That’s your answer for everything,” my brother sighed. “Hide and try to pretend like the world isn’t crumbling around you… that is not something I will do! I am a Viking! It is in my nature to fight!”

“There are only three Bifrost fragments remaining,” I argued. “Knowing they are out of your reach helps me sleep better at night.” I glanced down at the unconscious woman in my arms. “Now, help Jovi.”

“Your Valkyrie will be fine.”

“Valkyrie?” I repeated, frowning.

“Did you not know?” He shook his head and faced Jovi again, as I did my best to cover her nudity with the blanket. My brother was a letch and the last thing I wanted was for him to gaze on her naked body. Just the thought caused a stir of protective anger to course through me.

“I know she possesses magic,” I answered. “And you knew that too, which begs the question… why didn’t you kill her?”

“Because while she possesses magic, she also carries the blood of the Valkyrie within her.”

I breathed in deeply. The Valkyrie were strictly warriors of the Aesir—in opposition to the Vanir. Thus, there was no way Jovi could be both.

“That’s ridiculous,” I started, but I swallowed hard, all the same.

“Look at her and tell me you don’t detect it,” Skarde insisted. “You’ve been kidding yourself all this time if you believe she just possesses Vanir magic. Why do you suppose the two of you crossed paths in the first place? Because your blood, the blood you share, spoke to one another.”

I looked at her, really looked at her, and although I didn’t want to admit as much, it dawned on me that what Skarde was saying… was actually true. It was there in the humming of her blood—in the way the same humming echoed through me. An otherworldly energy that created a cord between us. I’d never felt it before—but I’d been in Midgard where magic was dulled. Yet, here, in this no-land, I could feel the connection between us easily.

Skarde pulled a handful of golden powder from his satchel. I watched the Viking with a critical eye as he sprinkled the odd powder onto Jovi’s forehead.

“She will return to her body soon,” he continued.

I tightened the blanket around her as she twitched and spasmed.

“She will be fine,” he said, but there was a slight echo of doubt in his voice and as he looked at Jovi, there was something else in his eyes. Caring. For the life of me, I didn’t understand why this emotion was revealing itself in my brother’s eyes. He wasn’t the caring sort—he was selfish, manipulative, and only concerned with his needs.

So, why…

I knew practically nothing about my brother or the life he’d lived in the days when Vikings waged wars against the ancient kingdoms, but the worry barely concealed in his tone revealed a lot. My brother had a heart—one he’d apparently given to a woman long ago.

And that was when it dawned on me. I looked up at him. “That’s why you need the Bifrost? You want to find a woman.”

The pain in Skarde’s gaze was revealing. “She is in Helheim.”

“Who is she?”

“A shieldmaiden worthy of Valhalla and she sits alone, restlessly, in the realm of shadow and mist.”

“Going to Helheim won’t bring her back.”

He shook his head. “If Frigg brought me back to Midgard from Valhalla, then Eir can rise from Helheim.”

I didn’t know of any shieldmaidens named Eir. Not that that meant anything. “Skarde, Helheim is a place like Midgard—a place where the dead are allowed to exist beyond the realm of the living… and they exist there in peace.” I knew Skarde’s mind wouldn’t change, but he needed to know his mate, or whoever this woman was, wasn’t suffering any harm in the realm of the dead.

“Don’t you see?” Skarde snorted. “For a warrior like Eir, peace is the ultimate punishment! She belongs in Valhalla, battling among the other Vikings, basking in the glory of Odin.” He shook his head and blew out a breath. “Not in some death kingdom.”

I lowered my head and tried to summon every ounce of restraint I could muster. My chest felt tight as I breathed deeply, pulling stale air into my lungs. In the back of my mind, I knew we were between realms, suspended in a timeless pocket of energy surrounded by the worlds we couldn’t enter without the Bifrost fragment. “If what you say is true and the three winters are now upon us, then the last thing we need to do is activate the bridge,” I said rationally. “Especially not if you intend to open Helheim.”

Skarde fell silent and I felt uncomfortable, kneeling there as my brother stared at me with a blanketed expression.

“Where is father?” I finally asked. “And what does he know about the wars to come?”

“King Slothi has lived a life longer than both of ours combined. He has no desire to help put a stop to this.” Skarde spread his arms wide with a mocking grin on his smug face. “Face it, Stormblood. I am your only hope. Frigg sent me here, knowing no one else would be willing to tolerate your blatant disregard for our heritage.”

Great, I thought sarcastically. I was stuck with the one being in all the realms I hated more than my father.

***

Jovi

My arms and legs felt as if they were being held down by lead weights. A throbbing pain in the back of my head forced my eyes open just as a beam of pale light streamed in through a window. I hissed and buried my face in a feather pillow that smelled of the forest. Silk sheets and soft furs kept my body warm as snow continued to fall beyond the cabin walls.

A knock on the door startled me and I pulled the largest pelt over my chest, sitting up against the headboard. I did my best to ignore the cloying nausea that still lingered in my stomach as the door opened and Torsten peered inside.

“I guess I should be flattered,” he said. The deep baritone of his voice caused me to shiver. “But I suspect it wasn’t my sexual prowess that caused you to lose consciousness.”

I shook my head, devastated by the embarrassment of the situation. “No. I… uhh… I had a vision. At least, I think that’s what it was.”

“Because you’re a seer and you have Valkyrie blood.”

“I mean, I guess,” I answered and shrugged as I looked up at him. “At least, that’s what your brother told me.”

Torsten nodded and then moved to stand beside the bed. His shadow eclipsed me and I was once more stunned by the sheer size of his body. “Well, it’s true.”

“How come you didn’t ever tell me this before?”

He shrugged. “I couldn’t tell you about the fact that I was meant to kill you—I didn’t… how would I even explain that? And the Valkyrie blood—I didn’t know about it until Skarde pointed it out.”

“Um, I mentioned it to you first.”

He nodded but didn’t say anything more, so I continued. “How do you know it’s true now?”

“Because I can sense it.” He paused for a moment or two. “What was this vision, Jovi?”

I took a deep breath as I returned to the vision that had hit me like a ton of bricks just before Torsten and I almost had sex. I explained the whole thing, in as much detail as I could muster. Yet, I decided to leave out the part when Freya told me I couldn’t have sex with Torsten—that he would endanger me. In my heart of hearts, I knew Torsten would never hurt me. So, I left that piece out.

The smile on Torsten’s face began to fade, replaced by the guarded expression I’d grown used to seeing. But, there was more to it—there was surprise somewhere in the depths of his gaze.

“So, apparently Freya isn’t the one who started this winter, Torsten. And that must mean someone else did.”

He moved to sit on the edge of his bed with a groan of pain, favoring his side after the fight with his brother. “Jovi, it’s important you understand… hmm… it’s important you realize you can’t trust any of the gods,” he warned grimly. “They are all out for themselves so whatever visions they send you, whatever things they tell you, don’t always take it for the truth. You’ll have to learn how to decipher what’s real and what’s purely the gods trying to control you.”

I studied him for a moment or two. “Is that why you have nothing to do with them, or your brother? That’s why you’ve moved to Peak Mountain and that’s why you’ve lived a life in hiding?”

He nodded. “They will destroy you and everything you love.”

“Why… why would they do that?”

He gave me a deadpan expression. “Because it’s what they do. The best thing you could do is forget all of this—forget the gods, forget whatever bullshit they’re filling your head with. And just live your life like none of this had ever happened.”

My head was spinning and I couldn’t explain why, but anger began to wash over me. It just seemed like the more time I spent with Torsten, the more secrets came out. I had to wonder what else he was hiding from me. I didn’t have to be psychic, or a witch, seer, or a Valkyrie to know there was more. I could feel it, see it in the depths of his eyes.

“How can I trust you if you hide things from me?” I asked with a touch of resentment in my voice that surprised me.

I tossed aside the pelts and slid out of the bed. My clothing had been folded and set down on a chair near the door. Torsten made an attempt to touch my arm as I reached for my clothes, but I sidestepped him and grabbed my leggings.

 “Hide things from you?”

“All of this—your brother, what you are, where you come from! What I am!” I said, throwing my hands up into the air. “If I can’t trust your gods, then I know I can’t trust you.”

“What are you talking about?”

I looked at him angrily. “Torsten, you’re from Odin’s bloodline. The blood of the Aesir is inside you

“And it’s also inside you. As is the blood of the Vanir and as far as I’m concerned, that means you can’t trust anyone.”

I shook my head, still intent on finishing my former point. “Regardless, you can’t just ignore the fact that you are a Viking warrior and, yet, you choose to live like a human man, hidden away up here in the mountains.” I took a deep breath. “I’ve always wondered why I was different from everyone around me—how I knew the things I did, felt the things I did, and had the visions I had. And now that I finally have an answer, you want me to turn my back on it.”

“I’ll give you whatever answers you’re looking for.”

I dressed and then started for the door. I just felt like I needed to get away from him, I needed some space to breathe, some room to think. I stopped just before reaching the door. Even though I didn’t turn around to face him, I could hear him stand up and then I heard his heavy footsteps against the hardwood floor. It was another second before he placed his hands on my hips.

“No more lies,” he continued. “I’ll answer all your questions. I promise.”

“Tell me about the Bifrost,” I requested with a hushed breath that fluttered the lock of hair that fell over his face.

He stiffened in my arms. “Then you heard the conversation between Skarde and me?”

I nodded. “Yes, even though I was in a place I don’t know how to name—it was dark and I couldn’t see you, but I heard everything you and Skarde discussed… and I want to understand it.”

He held his breath for a few seconds before releasing it with a nod. “King Slothi, my father, has been rotting in a temple since the golden age of the Vikings came to an end,” he started after several more seconds of silence. “A seer told him it was fated by the gods for one of his sons to kill him and release him from the chains of immortality. Skarde was blessed at birth, destined to die in battle and be embraced by the glory of Valhalla. My father sired thirteen sons before I was born, all of them were slain by his axe when the seer told him they were not the ones who would deliver him to his grave.”

“He wanted to be delivered to his grave?”

Torsten nodded. “It is a great honor to enter Valhalla and immortality isn’t the prize everyone makes it out to be.”

“And you told your father you wouldn’t kill him?”

“I wanted him to suffer,” Torsten confessed. “I wanted him to live in agony over the unjust murder of my brothers.”

“Why did he murder them for not murdering him? That sounds… strange.”

“My father was insane, and he believed the measure of a man’s worth was in his courage. A son who would not deliver his father to Valhalla was an unworthy son in his eyes. And my father didn’t want unworthiness associated with him. So, he killed them.”

“But, you didn’t deliver him to Valhalla either?”

He nodded. “But I was the only one who could do it—at least that was the story the seer told him.”

I nodded slowly, holding his gaze as he revealed the darkness he’d been born into.

“Frigg took me away when I was a child and hid me, making sure I was raised by humans. Over time, I forgot what and who I was,” he sighed. “But then I visited Asgard and everything came crashing back—all the memories I’d purposely buried.”

“Before you get further into your story, what even is the Bifrost?”

“It’s the rainbow bridge which connects the various planes of existence. It’s how you access Asgard or Helheim.” He took a breath. “Anyway, Thor and I battled on the bridge and during that battle, an explosion shattered the Bifrost and a shard was lodged into my side as I crawled through the portal that led back to Midgard.”

“But Skarde thought you took the Bifrost?”

He nodded. “Skarde is convinced I took one of the Bifrosts he’d hidden in his grave, but I didn’t take it. The fragment I have is the one that was inside me when I left Asgard.”

“So, there’s someone out there with another Bifrost fragment?”

“Yes. And we need to find it and keep it safe before Skarde realizes I lied about having it.” Torsten stroked my hip as his words drifted off to silence once more.

“Why does Skarde want the Bifrost so badly?”

“Because he wants to access Helheim to rescue a woman trapped there.”

I cocked my head to the side as I considered it. “Why is that so terrible?”

“Because Skarde isn’t meant to travel through the realms. Only the gods are. And, furthermore, Skarde has a way of attracting trouble and the last thing he wants or needs is the god of Helheim, Hel, after him. And breaking into that realm would do exactly that.”

I nodded, because I figured Torsten knew the ins and outs of all of this business better than I did. I looked up at him again, as another subject occurred to me. “When I started to come out of the vision with Freya, but before I found myself in that dark place where I couldn’t see anything, I heard Freya telling me there was a seer here… in Marshall Heights. And, apparently, this seer has Freya’s Brisingamen… and I have no idea what that even is.”

“It’s a necklace,” Torsten answered.

“Oh. Well, according to Freya, this necklace will allow me to find her and she wants me to find her so I can fully mature into my magic and, together, our magic will be strengthened.”

Torsten’s expression dropped, and his eyes narrowed. “Did she say who this seer is or how we can find her?”

I wasn’t exactly sure how to tell him it was Sandy.

Chapter Fourteen

Jovi

The truck barely made it down the mountain, let alone through town, where it seemed no one had even attempted to remove the snow from the roads. Sidewalks were empty and ‘closed’ signs hung on every door we passed. A knot began to form in the pit of my stomach as I searched for any signs of life. “Where is everyone?”

“If this is truly the start of the first of the three winters, there might not be anyone left,” Torsten said. The heat of his breath melted some of the frost on the window, only for the cold to replace it again.

“Then everyone left?” I asked, looking over at him with wide eyes.

“Not exactly.”

“Then exactly what?”

He breathed in deeply. “They will either freeze in an eternal hibernation or be called to fight in the wars to come.”

It was clear that Torsten was deeply disturbed by the sudden changes in Earth, or Midgard, as he called it, and I was still uncertain how he’d cope with the foundations of his dreams of a normal life shattering so violently. Because, now there was no turning back.

“Park here,” I ordered. “And I think… I think I should talk to Sandy alone.” I wasn’t sure why I felt this way, but I did all the same. It was just a… feeling I had and I’d learned not to question such feelings.

Torsten nodded. “I’ll walk you in and wait for you outside.”

The truck slowed, before stopping in front of the salon. I unclipped the seatbelt and climbed out before Torsten cut the engine. He followed me through the door, looming like a rugged guardian angel as I knocked.

The thought of Sandy being a seer was baffling. But, at the same time, it made sense because I’d felt somehow called to the salon upon arriving in Marshall Heights. So, this was just another instance where fate had led me along on a leash—another instance where I felt like I had absolutely no control over my own life. The more I pondered that subject, the more it bothered me. I didn’t like the idea of having no choice in my destiny, of being played like a pawn in some chess game of the gods.

Maybe it wasn’t as dramatic as that, but I was beginning to wonder.

“I’ll be in the truck,” Torsten said as I nodded to him and watched him leave.

My attention returned to the door when it squeaked open and a cloud of patchouli and baby powder drifted through the slight opening. I stood there and gave Sandy a smile as soon as she recognized me. Then she reached out, her boney fingers curling into the fabric of my jacket as she yanked me inside her cluttered little apartment.

It looked like an episode of Hoarders had exploded in the front entrance. Stacks of dust-covered books, old newspapers, porcelain dolls, and photo albums lined the walls of the narrow corridor. I was forced to step over a frisky little calico that slithered between my legs as I followed Sandy through a beaded curtain that led to her dining room.

Only when we reached the circular table at the center of the room did she speak. “What happened? What brought you here, Jovi?” she asked. The frantic darting of her eyes as she shuffled nervously around the dining room put me on edge. “Did you have a vision? Did someone tell you to come here?”

So, I guessed there wasn’t going to be any conversation along the lines of: Oh, you’re a seer? Well, that’s cool, so am I.

“Where do I start?”

“The beginning is as good a place as any.”

“The beginning?” I inhaled and then exhaled as I tried to remember the first step that had started this whole, crazy process. “Well, I received an email back when I was in Las Vegas that was all about Marshall Heights.”

“Yep, I know that.”

I studied her for a minute. “It was you! You sent me that email, didn’t you?”

She smiled broadly. “Guilty as charged.”

“Then you knew I was supposed to meet with Torsten again? You sent me the email because you wanted us to cross paths again?”

She cocked her head to the side and then shook it. “No, I didn’t know anything about you and Torsten, actually. I didn’t know you and he had a past.”

“Then why?” I started as she shrugged and interrupted.

“I just knew what Freya told me—and that was to reach out to you and plant a little seed about Marshall Heights in your brain. So that’s what I did.”

“Then you didn’t and don’t know why Freya wanted me to come here?”

Sandy smiled at me. “I got no idea, honey.”

“Hmm… well, I believe Torsten and I reunited because we were… marked by fate, I guess you could say,” I replied with a shrug. “I think destiny brought us together.”

Sandy waved her hand at me and motioned for me to sit down in one of her mismatched chairs, as she did the same. “So how was it that Freya came to you?”

“Um…” I took a breath. “I just had this vision and in it, I was talking to her in the forest.”

“Oh.” There was disappointment in Sandy’s eyes, but she dismissed it so quickly, I wouldn’t have noticed if I hadn’t been staring at her. “I spent my entire life acting as the voice of my goddess, and I have never been permitted to visit her in person. She just sends me… mental messages.”

I wasn’t really sure what to say to that, so I didn’t say anything at all. Sandy sighed, long and hard. “I’m not a witch like you, Jovi. Freya hasn’t blessed me with magic and light. I’m just a medium.”

“Then you’ve known all along that I was a witch?”

She nodded. “Of course.”

I wondered if she also knew I was Valkryie but decided to keep that little bit to myself. If Sandy was the eyes and ears of Freya and Freya didn’t realize I also possessed Aesir blood, there was no reason to enlighten either of them to that now. Furthermore, Torsten’s announcement that I shouldn’t trust any of the gods continued to echo through me. It was probably smart to heed his warning.

I cleared my throat, figuring I should get down to business. “I’m here for the necklace,” I said. “Freya told me you had the Brisingamen and that it would help me locate her. Freya said she wanted me to find her.”

Sandy glanced from her old fingers to my eyes and paused for a second or two, as if she were clearly lost in her own thoughts. Then she stood up and spun on her heels and rifled through the cluttered drawer of her curio cabinet as she whistled a happy tune that seemed inappropriate under the circumstances.

“Ah!” she cried victoriously. “Here it is! I knew I had it stashed around here somewhere.”

I waited as she fumbled with a tangle of chains and jewelry that were wrapped around a much larger necklace which I assumed was the Brisingamen. Ornate patterns of vibrant gold swirled around polished jewels and amber gems. The intricate piece took my breath away.

“What does it do exactly?” I asked in awe of the item’s beauty.

“Well, it has been used for many things—each of those things dependent on Freya’s will,” Sandy sighed exhaustedly. “Apparently she wants you to use it to find her.”

“Great. That’s all I needed to know.” I turned my back to her and pulled my hair aside so she could fasten the necklace around my neck. When she did so, the metal was cold against my skin and the weight took me by surprise. I hadn’t expected the precious artifact to be made mostly of solid gold and jewels. Clearly, the gods were nothing if not extravagant.

“Done?” I asked as I sensed Sandy stepping back.

Already the Brisingamen began to buzz along my skin, feeling like it was the home of a thousand bees.

“I hope you find her,” Sandy offered.

***

Torsten

I didn’t like this one bit.

Jovi’s vision of Freya—the goddess asking her to get the Brisingamen, so Jovi would find her and the two would be reunited. As far as I was concerned, it couldn’t happen. No, because I didn’t trust Freya as far as I could throw her.

And that was exactly why I started up my truck, leaving Jovi at Sandy’s. Not another second could be spared. I needed to find Freya, and I needed to convince her to leave Jovi alone. I was more than sure Freya’s plan included recruiting Jovi to her side so she could use Jovi’s magic against me, against the Aesir.

Freya had pledged vengeance against the Aesir long ago and I’d been acting as her little pawn, unable to stop her, owing to the oath I’d sworn. Well, I’d had enough. And there was no way I was going to allow Jovi to be her next hostage.

Furthermore, I wasn’t sure what Freya would do if she detected the Valkyrie blood that also filled Jovi’s veins, alongside that of the Vanir. Freya would, no doubt, consider Jovi tainted, no longer one of her children. And then I wouldn’t put it past Freya to murder Jovi.

No, I couldn’t wait a moment longer to figure out this situation with Freya—a situation that had brought me nothing but grief.

I glanced down at Freya’s enchanted ribbon that was wrapped around my wrist. It was the way I was able to find her—something she’d given me when I’d first taken my oath. And now, it led the way to her sanctuary by lifting in the air and indicating which direction I should turn, acting like a compass of sorts.

I would have to tell Jovi everything—the rest of the convoluted truth I’d kept from her. I’d have to open up and lay it all out on the table and if she hated me for it, then I’d face that too. Yes, it was time I became completely honest and transparent with her. Something I’d never done. With anyone.

Yet the thought of telling Jovi the truth about my past and about how I’d gotten tangled up in Freya’s mess left me cold. I was afraid. I didn’t want to see the look of disappointment and pain that would no doubt appear in Jovi’s eyes.

Even if I did decide to open up to Jovi, I wasn’t sure I could actually go through with it. Opening up like that wasn’t part of my personality. I was secretive, private, and I liked keeping to myself. I didn’t like the idea of someone being close to me and knowing things about me that I’d buried deeply within myself.

But I couldn’t think about that right now. I had more pressing matters on my mind.

Like Freya.

I had to take care of this mess, and I needed to do it now.

Once I drew closer to the forest, the ribbon motioned to the area just before me—a break in the tree line of the forest, just out of town limits. I pulled off the road and then backed into the open spot of grass just a short distance away. I killed the engine and took a deep breath.

Then I jumped down from the truck, slamming the door behind me. I strode along a path shrouded by overgrown foliage with the ribbon in hand. It slithered between my fingers and darted through the trees. I followed the trembling line of red silk as quickly as I could, and it led me to an enormous tree.

As soon as I came within five feet of the tree, a door suddenly appeared within the center. I reached out and knocked on the door a bit harder than I intended to. Clearly, I was upset.

It took Freya a few seconds to open the door, but once she did, her wary expression gave way to one of amusement.

“Stormblood… Well, this is a surprise.”

“We need to talk,” I answered as I noticed she was draped in nothing but a sheer robe of ethereal fabric.

“Who kicked your dog?”

I scowled as she opened the door wide in invitation and then strolled back into the main room of her unusual home. I followed her, closing the door behind me.

“I’m here to talk about our arrangement,” I snapped, harsher than I intended to as I took in the sight of her leaning against the wall with a silver feather in her hand and a bored look on her face.

Freya raised one eyebrow and stroked the glittering feather with a faraway look in her eyes. “Someone is testy. Did you wake up on the wrong side of the bed, Stormblood?” Her lips curled back in what was intended to be a smile, but there wasn’t anything warm about it.

“We need to talk,” I said through gritted teeth. I wasn’t going to let her get a rise out of me, but it seemed she was succeeding, and it wasn’t her fault. I was already flustered.

“Yes, we do. You can talk while I dress,” she said as she set the feather on the mantle above the hearth before dropping the robe to the floor, now standing before me completely naked. I looked away.

“I am due to have another visitor quite soon,” she said. “Thus, we will have to make our carnal appointment a short one, lover.”

“There is no carnal appointment,” I seethed at her. “And by a visitor, you mean Jovi?”

She smiled at me. “I am very eager to meet one of my children, though, I admit, I am quite disappointed to know you didn’t come here to make love to me. Shall I remind you it has been a while, lover?”

I swallowed hard and watched her as she started for her bedroom and disappeared down the hall as I remained in the main room. I looked around at the trinkets and gifts given to the goddess by her faithful followers.

“If you harm Jovi,” I started.

Her tinkling bell laugh interrupted me. “Harm her? Why would I harm her when she’s one of my own?”

“You’re unpredictable,” I answered, not wanting to give anything away. I cleared my throat. “How long are you planning on staying in Marshall Heights?”

“How long am I planning on staying?” she called out, like the question was completely absurd. “I live here now.”

“Marshall Heights isn’t your speed, Freya, and we both know that.”

“I didn’t come here for the town, silly,” she started as she appeared in the main room again, in the midst of lacing up a gown made of pure starlight.

“What did you come for?”

“You,” she answered with a shrug. “I hoped we could let go of our differences and forget that nasty, little argument we had last.”

“The nasty, little argument where I asked you to release me from my bonds and in response, you forced a blade to my throat and took what you wanted from me, anyway?”

She laughed and waved away my statement with an unconcerned hand. “If I recall correctly, you certainly… rose to the occasion.” She stopped laughing and looked at me, her beautiful eyes like jewels glistening in the moonlight. “I came to Marshall Heights because I want us to be together, Stormblood.”

I didn’t say anything right away, because I wasn’t sure what to say. Finally, I settled on: “Are you crazy?”

“Well, if you’d asked me that question a few decades ago, I guess I would have had to say yes?” she asked with a smile as if she wasn’t taking my question seriously. “But no, I’m not crazy.”

“There is no chance we’ll ever be together. Not after what you’ve done to me,” I pointed out, angrily.

“I think that’s a little unfair,” she answered as she crossed her arms over her chest and regarded me coolly. “If I recall correctly, you were the one who came after me, intending to kill me… isn’t that correct? Can I be blamed for seizing an opportunity?”

“An opportunity? You turned my nature against me.”

“I simply stopped you from murdering me, lover.” Then she laughed, shaking her head. “Really, what were those foolish gods thinking? Did Odin really believe he could turn my wolves against me? The wolf was my most favorite of my creations.”

“You never treated me as if I was a favorite,” I answered, shaking my head. “You turned my will against me and you… used me.”

She glared at me, eyes narrowing. “You came to murder me, what did you intend for me to do? Allow you?”

“You forced me into the slavery of my body I didn’t want.”

She laughed at that. “Perhaps you should have tried convincing yourself of such when you were in the middle of orgasm after orgasm?”

Her words burned me, probably because they were true. There were many years when I was blinded by her beauty and her manipulation. Many years when I’d actually thought she cared for me—that I wasn’t just a pawn in her game. “Regardless, I no longer want this bond between us. It’s time to walk away and not look back.”

“Shall I remind you that the oath was never my idea? I never asked you to go to Asgard and fight Thor on my behalf. I never forced you to fall in love with me. And, yes, we both made mistakes in the past, but that doesn’t mean we can’t make things work in the present and the future.”

“We have no future together, Freya.” I took a deep breath. “You’re a goddess and I’m a warrior—belonging to the clan of your enemy.”

She pushed herself off the wall and placed her hand on top of mine. She let it linger as she lightly stroked my arm above the fabric of my shirt. With a cold sense of detachment, I stared at her fingers before I shrugged them off.

“I don’t care what we are or aren’t,” she started, but I interrupted her.

“And I’m not interested in anything where you’re concerned, other than finding out when you’re leaving Midgard again.”

Freya’s eyes flashed angrily. “You think you can just make me go away, Stormblood? That’s not how this works. Do I have to remind you there’s a blood oath involved?”

“I’m very well aware there’s an oath involved—an oath I’m not convinced I’m obligated to uphold.”

“You belong to me,” she insisted. “One hundred years of servitude, that was the deal.”

I shrugged. “I want out of the deal.”

Her eyes narrowed and that lofty expression she’d been wearing disappeared, replaced with something far uglier. “Have you replaced me, then?”

I knew better than to stoke the fires of her jealousy. “No, but I don’t want to continue feeling like I’m fighting the truth in who I really am. I’m a berserker, not the sex slave to a goddess.”

“No,” she said as she studied me, wearing that infuriating smirk. “There is more to this situation... I can always tell when you’re lying, you know,” she continued. “You have tells.”

“As far as you and I are concerned, we are nothing to each other.”

“An oath is an oath,” she answered with a shrug. “And you have twenty years remaining on yours.” She took a breath. “It has been an enjoyable visit, Stormblood,” she finished casually as a small smile spread across her face. There was nothing pleasant about her smile, though. It was cruel and vindictive. “And, now you should leave, as I am expecting my… child to arrive soon.”

“Jovi is off limits,” I warned.

“This woman means something to you,” she accused as her eyes grew wide with surprise and then narrowed in jealousy.

“My relationship or lack thereof with Jovi isn’t your concern.”

“Yes, this is the missing piece,” she said as she approached me again. “Have you fallen in love with her, my wolf?” she insisted, an ugly expression taking hold of her face.

“What is it you want, Freya?” I asked and then narrowed my eyes at her. “What are you doing in Marshall Heights and what are you doing on Midgard? You know you don’t belong here.” I paused. “Furthermore, why try to freeze Midgard when your ‘children’ as you call them, are here?”

“I am not responsible for this ice storm,” she insisted, telling me the same thing she’d told Jovi in the vision Jovi had of her.

“Are you attempting to build an army of the magical?” I continued. “Is that why you’re here?”

The silence stretched between us. And the silence was telling.

“To attract all those who share your blood back to you? In the hopes you’ll have enough of them to go up against the Aesir?”

She was building an army—that was exactly the reason she was here in Marshall Heights. It had nothing to do with the oath that bound me as her slave, but everything to do with the fact that she was hungry for power and she was riddled with the need for revenge.

Freya jutted out her chin defiantly. “How could you even suggest such a thing? I want peace just as much as the next person.”

I laughed because the comment was so ridiculous, she had trouble getting the words out of her mouth. “I know you.”

“You think you know me,” she spat back at me. “And whether you like it or not, you belong to me! You are as much my own creation as those who are magically inclined. I created the wolf and that means I created you.”

“I belong to no one.”

Chapter Fifteen

Jovi

The cold was expanding, seemingly thickening its icy embrace.

Sandy and I walked down the staircase that led to the shop below her apartment. I glanced outside, but didn’t see Torsten’s truck and that was strange, considering he’d said he was going to wait for me outside.

My attention was returned to Sandy as she unlocked the door to the salon with a key from the ring that hung from her belt loop. Once the door opened, I walked into the salon, immediately noticing my breath that looked like a series of white ghosts emanating out of my mouth. The cold was invasive and I had to wrap my arms around myself to ward it away.

When my eyes fell on the view outside the windows, I let out what was supposed to be a horrified scream that turned into nothing more than a puff of steam against the freezing cold air.

Everything outside was covered in a thick layer of ice—the trees, the benches, the telephone poles, the road, the buildings… everything. The ice glistened and gleamed, looking like everything had been sealed in a layer of diamond.

It was just like the vision I’d had when I’d first arrived in Marshall Heights—when I’d seen everything covered in a layer of frost.

It’s coming true, I thought to myself, as my heart started to pound.

I hurried across the salon and pushed open the door, and stepping outside, I found all the cars stopped. The road was eerily empty. People were frozen in their automobiles, on the street, in restaurants—it was as if a flash of icy cold had suddenly zapped them, trapping them forever. And there was no sign of Torsten anywhere.

Hurrying into a coffee shop next door, I noticed the patrons were frozen in their chairs, mouths open as if they’d been in the middle of a conversation when the frost came. Some were mid-bite, others still holding cups of coffee. There was no rise and fall of their chests, no soul in their milky eyes, no pulse when I pressed my fingers against an elderly man’s wrist.

“It’s happened,” Sandy said.

“What’s happened?” I asked as I turned to face her.

“The first of the three winters.”

“Freya?” I repeated as I looked back at her. “Is this her doing?”

Sandy shook her head. “I don’t think so. Freya is the goddess of magic, love, fertility. She’s beyond powerful, but this… this doesn’t feel like her magic.”

“Then whose magic does it feel like?”

Sandy shook her head again. “I don’t know but…” she reached out and touched the ice on the window. “It feels like scorn, anger, vengeance.”

“Is this the act of a god or goddess?”

Sandy nodded as she closed her eyes. “It almost feels like… Frigg.”

I glanced down the line of Sandy’s arm to her hand and walked over to stand beside her. Then I reached down and touched the ice.

And when I did, I was struck by a blinding cold.

***

I walked down a long hallway of stone. Stone walls crowded me on either side, and burning torches cast shadows all over the Hall of The Aesir. Odin, the All Father, sat on his throne at the head of the table as warriors of his lineage feasted with feral abandon among the gods. Salted meats and savory pies cluttered the tops of the long wooden tables that stretched from one end of the hall to the other.

The goddess, Frigg, sat beside her husband, Odin, and she stared ahead into the shadows. When I walked into the room, she turned and met my gaze.

There was scorn and anger in her gaze as she saw through me—to what I was—magic.

The goddess stood up from her seat and, looking at me, beckoned me forth with a long index finger. Then she walked out of the room.

I followed, cutting my way through the bustling dining hall, eager not to lose her.

I moved unseen through the throng of people who filled the hall and made my way through the large double doors forged from iron.

Once the doors closed behind me, I was bathed in the darkness of the night. Standing in the center of a great courtyard was Frigg. Her back was facing me and her long braid of red hair, ended at her lower back.

“How did I get here?” I asked.

“I summoned you.” Frigg turned around to face me, and her face bore an expression of stern anger. As I understood it, her anger wasn’t aimed at me though.

“This ice storm,” I started. “It’s your doing, isn’t it?”

She smiled and the expression was far colder than the ice. “It is a message to your mother,” she started.

“My mother?” I repeated, at a loss. “I don’t know my mother.”

“Your earth mother,” she corrected herself. “It’s a message to Freya.”

“What is the message?”

“That she’s not to enter into a battle with a pantheon that is far more powerful than she could ever hope to be. I wish for you to deliver that message to her, child.”

“How am I supposed to deliver that message to her?”

“Because you are one of her own—Freya’s blood runs through your veins,” she started as her jaw tightened.

“But I also share the blood of the Valkyrie.”

“Yes.”

“How is that possible when the Valkyrie are enemies of witches and seers?”

She inhaled deeply and there was fire in her eyes. Jealous anger. “Odin.”

And then I started to understand. “Odin is my father?”

She nodded.

“And Freya is my mother?”

“No,” she answered and shook her head. “You are a descendant of Freya’s, thus her blood fills you—that’s why you are a seer, a witch.”

“How do I stop the three winters?”

“You convince Freya to stand down. You convince her to disband whatever army she is currently raising and you convince her to leave Asgard in peace.”

I had a feeling I had my work cut out for me, and I had no idea how Freya would respond to the fact that Frigg had these demands of her. Furthermore, would Freya even accept me as her own once she realized I had the blood of Odin, just as much as I had her blood?

“On one condition,” I started.

Frigg glared at me. “Who are you to make demands of a goddess?”

“I am the daughter of Odin and I bear the blood of a goddess,” I answered, figuring that made me pretty darn important.

She swallowed hard. “What is your wish?”

“That you don’t force Torsten Stormblood to return to Asgard. That you relinquish whatever punishment you were planning for him.”

“You don’t understand,” she started, shaking her head. “Torsten is the answer to forcing Freya’s submission.”

“If you expect Freya to drop her attack on Asgard and the Aesir, then likewise, you will have to drop your attack on the Vanir and on Freya, herself.”

The goddess’ eyes narrowed and she was quiet for a few seconds before she simply nodded. A second later, I found myself returned to the salon, where I was suddenly standing beside Sandy.

***

Sandy clasped my hand in her own as I came out of the vision with a gasp. I took a deep breath and then exhaled it, trying to find my bearings. The warmth of Sandy’s skin was comforting as she looked me in the eyes. “Are you alright, Jovi?”

“I… I think so.”

“Did you have a vision?”

I nodded.

“Do you want to talk about it?”

I shook my head. I wasn’t sure what to make of it, and I wasn’t sure how much I could tell Sandy because she was clearly loyal to Freya. Now that I’d received a message from Frigg, I had a feeling I was straddling a line between both pantheons. Because I was both Aesir and Vanir, I didn’t know who I could trust, or if I could trust anyone at all.

Sandy looked outside the window again and breathed in deeply. “The frost is spreading. Midgard will soon be overcome by eternal winter.”

“I have to find Freya,” I said, breathing in deeply.

Sandy shrugged. “You have the Brisingamen.”

I glanced outside again as I searched the empty street for Torsten or his truck. Nothing and no one was there. And then I remembered my car was still in the lot, still parked in the same place where I’d left it after the attack.

I was out the door before Sandy could respond. The temperature had dropped even more in the hour or so I’d spent in Sandy’s home, and I feared the blood in my veins might freeze if I lingered outside for too long.

***

As soon as I stepped into my car, my phone rang. Looking down, I realized it was Torsten, so I answered it.

“I’m sorry I left, Jovi,” he started. “But, I had to take care of some business that couldn’t wait.”

“It’s okay. I picked up my car and I’m heading—”

“Jovi, you can’t go to see Freya, it’s not… it’s not safe for you to see her. Not when you have Aesir blood running through your veins. She’ll pick up on that as soon as she sees you.”

“Torsten, I have to see her. I have to explain a few things to her that I don’t have time to get into right now,” I answered, trying to navigate the streets as the snow continued to fall. I really shouldn’t have been on my phone, but there it was.

“Freya is… dangerous.”

“I understand that, but I have to deliver a message to her in order to stop this winter...”

“Please… just come to your apartment first. I’m here, waiting for you.” He paused and then cleared his throat. “There are a few things you… need to know about Freya before you… consider seeing her.”

I agreed and then hung up the phone as I turned down my street. Everything was covered in ice, just as it was in town, and there were people frozen solid on either side of the street.

It was now nearly midnight and I could see Torsten’s truck parked just outside my apartment building. I parked my car and then stepped out, trying to ward the freezing cold away, but it was all-encompassing. It felt as if it were sinking into my bones as I stood there.

As soon as Torsten saw me, he stepped out and walked up to me, leaning down to gather me into his arms. The stench of whiskey was thick in the air around him, and his eyes were bloodshot as they trailed appreciatively along the contours of my body.

“You’ve been drinking,” I muttered in irritation as I started for my front door. “Where have you been all this time?”

I unlocked the door to my apartment and Torsten shoved past me, opening it wide as he checked the small place as if he expected someone to already be there. Apparently not finding anyone there, he flopped onto the couch. The springs groaned beneath his weight as he tried to get comfortable. I shut the door, slid the lock into place, and turned to face him.

“What happened, Torsten? Why did you leave me at Sandy’s?”

The anger in his expression melted away into a look of pain and regret that broke something inside me. This beautiful, tormented man looked like he was staring down into a dark abyss.

I sat on the edge of the coffee table as I faced him. “Talk to me.”

He scrubbed a hand over his face and growled, “I don’t even know where to… start.”

“You can’t come here, drunk as hell and explain nothing,” I answered. “And, in case you haven’t noticed, the entire town is frozen solid.”

“Of course I’ve noticed!” Torsten nearly yelled at me as he sat up and taking a deep breath, shook his head. “I’m sorry.”

“What happened to you?”

“This… isn’t easy for me to tell you,” he started.

I nodded. “Just take your time.”

He inhaled deeply and then focused on something at the end of the hall. “It was a long time ago—eighty years ago, to be exact. I was out of my mind with rage, feral with the strength of the wolf.”

“Wait,” I stopped him. “Eighty years ago you weren’t alive.”

He looked at me and took a deep breath. “I age… considerably slower than your average man.”

Another secret, another shock to accept. “Then… how old are you?”

He paused. “Two hundred.”

“Oh my God,” I said and shook my head as I wondered who this man really was. The Torsten I knew was just… I’d never really known him at all, I realized. The man I’d thought he was was nothing more than a lie. “And Skarde?”

“He’s over two thousand,” Torsten answered.

I swallowed hard and my mouth went suddenly dry. I didn’t know how much more I could handle. How much more of this could I take?

“Jovi, I need you to concentrate on what I’m saying, okay?”

I looked at him and nodded, so he continued.

“Anyway, the rage wouldn’t leave me and I was unable to shift back into my human shape. I was stuck between two identities—that of the wolf and that of a human. This is common with some shifters—sometimes we get stuck in between.”

“And then what happens?”

“Either we successfully shift back into our human shapes or we live the rest of our days as feral wolves. Because Skarde was afraid I was going to become exactly that—a feral wolf, he took me to Freya.”

“Why Freya?”

“Because she is the mother of wolves—she created them when she created the beasts of the forest. Furthermore, she’s a witch and possesses magic, so Skarde figured if anyone could fix me, she could.”

“But Freya was the enemy of the Aesir?”

He shook his head. “At that time, the two pantheons were playing nice. Or pretending to. That was the only reason Skarde trusted Freya.”

“What happened?” I asked as he paused and didn’t appear like he wanted to say much more.

“Freya helped me shift into a man once again. But, I continued to regress, continued to take on the form of the wolf repeatedly. So, Freya gave Skarde two options—either he returns with his brother, the wolf, or he leaves me with her—so she could reinforce her magic in me and make sure I didn’t revert back to the shape of the wolf, unless I chose to.”

“And so you stayed with her?” I finished for him.

He nodded. “I remained with Freya as I learned how to control my abilities and we grew… close.”

I felt my stomach drop. “How close?”

“We became lovers.”

I felt sick, but I waved at him to continue, because I needed to hear the rest of the story.

“One day, before the rise of the battle between both pantheons, Freya was taken to Asgard by Thor to face Odin because she’d broken a promise to Odin.”

“What was the promise she’d broken?”

“Freya was the foremost practitioner of a type of art called seidr, the most powerful form of magic. And the other gods were terrified of her. They still are. Anyway, she was practicing a form of this seidr that involved death magic—something Odin had strictly forbidden. So, she was brought to Asgard to be reprimanded for raising the dead. I followed her.”

And then I started to understand. “That’s why you fought Thor? You went to fight in honor of Freya?”

He nodded. “Little did I know that at the time I was fighting Thor, Odin had ordered Freya to his bedroom and the two were… having sex.”

“Oh.”

He swallowed hard. “They had been lovers in the past and, apparently, hadn’t gotten enough of each other. Regardless, yes, I fought Thor to defend Freya’s honor and afterwards, I was the laughingstock of Asgard, as you can well imagine.”

“Yes.” And then something else started to make sense—Frigg’s hatred and jealousy of Freya. No wonder she hated the goddess—because Frigg’s husband, Odin, was having an affair with Freya.

“In the process of the fight with Thor, I broke the Bifrost.” There was barely a hint of emotion in his voice, but his eyes were more expressive than I suspected he was aware. “And Freya took my punishment by being excommunicated. She has been on her own ever since,” he continued. “I had to repay her somehow, so I took a blood oath and promised myself to her, as her slave, for one hundred years.”

Chapter Sixteen

Torsten

Now that the truth was out, I didn’t want to look Jovi in the eyes. I was afraid of what she thought of me, afraid she’d hate me, that she’d despise me. Now that she knew what a disaster I was, there was no way she could love me. And, of course, I couldn’t blame her. And, yes, I was angry with myself that I hadn’t told her about Freya earlier.

I was exhausted. It felt like I was supporting the weight of the world on my shoulders, a weight that was forcing me down, crushing me little by little.

“I understand if you hate me,” I continued as I glanced over at her and found her gaze riveted to her hands. “I hate myself for not being able to tell you the truth earlier.”

She looked up at me then, her beautiful blue eyes deep, reflective pools. They were glassy with unshed tears. “I don’t hate you, Torsten,” she said in nearly a whisper. “And you shouldn’t hate yourself.”

“I should have had more control with Freya. I should never have agreed to this oath and I should never have… allowed her to manipulate me,” I insisted as I shook my head and berated myself for my weakness. Of all the times I should have been strong... “But I was weak.”

“No,” she said as she scooted closer to me, so that she was practically on my lap.

“I’m sorry,” I said as I faced her, feeling an emptiness that weighted my entire body.

“Shhh,” she said as she brought her index finger to my lips and wrapped her arms around me, resting her head against my chest. I inhaled deeply, loving the clean, floral scent of her hair and skin.

“I forgive you, Torsten,” she whispered into my ear. “I forgive you just like you need to forgive yourself.”

I couldn’t understand what she was saying. I heard the words, of course, but they held no meaning. I gripped her by the arms and pulled her away from me as I faced her. Smiling, she reached out and traced her index finger down the line of my cheek.

“I forgive you for everything you’re holding onto. For your own self-hatred. I forgive you… because you won’t forgive yourself.”

“I don’t,” I started. “I don’t understand how you can feel that way. Didn’t you hear what I just told you? Didn’t you hear what I said?”

“Yes, of course,” she answered with that unreadable expression on her face. “I heard every word you said, and I don’t care about any of it. All I care about are your choices moving forward and the man you are today, the here and the now.” She reached forward and placed her palm against my heart. “And I know that man can be a good one, a kind one, a caring and loving one.”

“Jovi,” I muttered as I shook my head. “You can’t,” I started.

“I can and I do. As much as it bothers me that we both have become pawns of fate, we can’t help the fact that we are destined for each other, Torsten Black. And we can’t make progress if we’re held back by our pasts.”

I didn’t know what to say, so I didn’t say anything at all. After everything I’d just said to her about Freya, about the oath, Jovi should have been looking for the nearest escape route.

“I don’t deserve your forgiveness,” I said finally, dropping my gaze because I couldn’t bear to look her in the eyes. “I don’t deserve your kindness and I don’t deserve… you.”

“Yes, you do,” she insisted as she took my hand. “Look at me, Torsten.”

I brought my eyes back to hers, although it was an inordinately difficult task. There was no judgment in them; they were just open pools of beautiful azure, reflecting nothing but love and understanding.

“I’m not going to turn my back on you or us just because you have a history. Everyone does, and I won’t hold yours against you. It made you the man you are today, and you should look at it the same way,” she insisted, her chin held high.

“I don’t even know what to say.”

“Say you’ll give this a try,” she answered with a smile as she squeezed my hand. “Say you’ll help me stop whatever Freya and Frigg started.”

As much as I wanted to, this wasn’t a fair situation at all, and I needed to avoid it until I figured out how to break the oath I’d taken for Freya. I couldn’t be with Jovi until I was no longer subject to Freya. Because being subject to Freya was dangerous—she could force me to do whatever she wanted me to, and I didn’t want to find out just how sick and twisted Freya could be.

“I don’t want to disappoint you,” I started with a sigh. “But… I can’t be what you want me to be.”

“No,” she said as she shushed me with her index finger on my lips. “I’m tired of fighting destiny.”

I inhaled deeply as I thought about what she was asking of me and whether or not I was prepared to give it to her. Did that mean I was actually considering what Jovi was proposing? Even though I was scared shitless at the idea of opening myself up to her, I also knew there was no way I was prepared to allow Jovi to walk out of my life.

Yet, I couldn’t get past this issue with Freya—if I remained bonded to her through the oath, I was a wild card. I wasn’t reliable because I was subject to Freya, doomed to enact whatever she wanted me to.

“The bond with Freya won’t allow me to be with you, Jovi,” I said.

She swallowed hard, but didn’t take her eyes from me. “Is there a way to negate that bond?”

I nodded as I considered her question. “There is, but it won’t be easy.”

“Then that’s enough for me,” she answered. “All I need to know from you, though, is whether or not you’re willing to make it work between the two of us, Torsten.”

I wasn’t good at conversation, so I didn’t even try. Instead, I gripped her around the waist and pulled her into me. Her eyes widened momentarily, but then a smile spread across her lips because she understood what I was saying without my having to say it. We both stared into each other’s eyes for a few seconds before I did what I’d been waiting to do for so long.

I brought my lips down to hers.

I kissed her in such a way that she understood what my answer was—that she understood what she meant to me. She was my woman, and she always would be. I would be the man she wanted and needed me to be, and I would do it all because I did love her, because there was no way I couldn’t love her.

“We have to find a way to break this bond,” I said to her. “Because if I’m still bound to Freya through this oath, you aren’t safe.”

***

Though I was still getting over the bottle of whiskey I’d attempted to drown in, I was clear enough now in my mission. No sooner did the thought cross my mind then shadows began to infiltrate the corner of the room, before Skarde stepped out of them. He shrugged off his pelt, revealing the intricate armor beneath.

“What do you want, Skarde?” I demanded.

“Ah, brother, I imagine you know what I want.”

“Hopefully to put a stop to what’s happening in this town?” Jovi asked.

My brother strutted around Jovi’s apartment like he owned the place. “That is part of the reason for my visit, yes.”

“I’m going to see Freya,” I said. “I need to convince her to dissolve this oath.”

“And what are you going to offer her in return?” Skarde demanded, glaring at me.

I inhaled deeply. “I don’t know.”

“Then you won’t get very far,” he answered.

Skarde stared at me from over his shoulder and then turned around to stalk towards me. I stood firmly beside the couch, not moving even when he was just inches away from my face.

“There… is another way,” Skarde started.

“And what’s that?” I asked.

He swallowed hard before he looked at me. “Fyrcat.”

“Fyrcat?” I repeated, shaking my head. “You’ve got to be kidding.”

“She possesses the power to break the bond.”

“Yes, and she also possesses the power to send me to Helheim!” I almost yelled back.

“I know it’s a risk,” Skarde said as he inhaled deeply. “But your choices are Freya or Fyrcat. And we both know Freya isn’t going to allow you out of your bonds. If anything, she’ll search for a way to prolong them.”

“Who is Fyrcat?” Jovi asked as she stepped between us, giving Skarde a little shove until he leaned away from me.

“She’s a soothsayer,” Skarde started.

“She’s an undead witch,” I nearly interrupted. “And her moods are unpredictable. She would just as easily send me to my death as sever this bond.”

Skarde sidestepped Jovi and came to stand in front of me once again. The Viking had little care for personal space. “Freya will use her magic against you.”

“Torsten?” Jovi asked.

I took a deep breath. My brother was right—Fyrcat was the better option.

***

Jovi

I sat between Torsten and Skarde as Torsten drove the large truck through the deep snow that had accumulated on the roads. Their shoulders pressed in on me from both sides, making the confined space seem even smaller as I fidgeted with the heat settings. The unnatural winter was draining the warmth from everything in Marshall Heights. Even Skarde’s pelts were cold where they brushed up against my cheek.

The large Viking seemed out of place in the vehicle, but I didn’t point it out.

“Gods spare me from this wretched cold,” the Viking muttered. “It was always cold in Norway, but never like this. It’s as if Niflheim has collided with Midgard.”

“What is Niflheim?” I asked.

Torsten answered. “It’s one of the Nine Worlds and the homeland of primordial darkness, cold, mist, and ice.”

Skarde breathed warm breath into his calloused palms.

Torsten snorted at Skarde’s response, but there was something to what Skarde had said. There was a darkness growing inside me, a foreboding tension warning me that something wasn’t right.

It was then that something seemed to drop out of the sky, landing heavily on top of the truck as Torsten struggled to keep control of it. I screamed as claws scraped on the roof and every tiny hair on my body raised. Skarde’s axe was out of reach, tucked in the small area behind the seats, and the truck was too crowded for Torsten to be able to reach for his gun.

“Hold on,” Torsten said, and then hit the brakes as hard as he could. The truck started to seize up as it slipped this way and that on the icy road, spinning around once until it finally came to a stop. It was then that I saw a hideously deformed wolf with sharp claws looming directly in front of us. It was larger than any wolf I’d ever seen. Patches of fur covered bulging muscles and a rib cage protruded from one side of it.

“What’s wrong with it?” I asked.

“It’s dead,” Torsten answered.

“It’s one of Freya’s,” Skarde said as he turned to face Torsten. “We must kill it.”

Torsten nodded, and the two of them opened their doors as the beast snarled, its lip pulled back to reveal several rows of jagged, razor sharp teeth.

“You stay here and you don’t move,” Torsten said as he faced me.

I just nodded, figuring between the two of them, they could destroy the undead wolf. There was nothing I was going to be able to do to it. I swallowed hard as they slammed their doors shut and then started walking back towards the zombie beast. I turned around to watch them from the back window, but the night was so dark, I couldn’t see anything.

So I faced forward and counted the seconds as they slipped by. Seconds turned to minutes and neither of them returned. I faced the back window again, searching for a sign of something, but there was nothing—just darkness. So, I opened the passenger door and leaned out. Still nothing. I couldn’t hear anything either. I scooted all the way to the end of the bench seat and peered out further. Still nothing.

My heart was pounding, and I was suddenly beyond nervous for Torsten and Skarde. What if they’d been bitten by the thing and were bleeding out on the road or turning into something undead, themselves? I stepped down from the truck, and leaving the door open behind me, took a few steps towards the rear of the truck.

And that was when I heard it.

Growling.

It was coming from right behind me.

Feeling like my feet were stuck in tar, I turned around slowly. It was another split second before I found myself face to face with the creature. And there was still no sign of Torsten and Skarde.

Saliva dripped from the creature’s gaping mouth and landed on the frost-street. The spit sizzled like acid and I held myself back from gagging over the putrid smell.

When the thing lunged at me, I didn’t even see it move. It was as if it simply blipped through the air—one second it was a few feet away and the next, it was right on top of me. I fell back onto my hands and my butt. My right hand came up to defend myself as the creature leapt and came down on top of me. As I held my hand out, a bright explosion of light burst from my palm. The light hit the creature in the chest, catapulting it into the air and throwing it back at least thirty feet, into the forest.

As it fell, I could hear branches breaking beneath its weight. It was then that I heard Skarde and Torsten’s voices coming from the treeline. Still trying to subdue my own shock, I forced myself forward.

As soon as I spotted them, I watched Skarde bring his axe down on the creature’s neck, severing its head from the body.

“What was that?” I asked.

Torsten and Skarde looked up at me, clearly surprised to see me.

“That is a vargr,” Skarde answered. “Even I would not battle one alone.” There was a look of concern etched into his perfect features.

Torsten immediately frowned at me. “I told you not to get out of the truck.”

I gasped for breath as my entire body shook with adrenaline. “I… I used magic.”

“What?” the fear in Torsten’s eyes surprised me.

“That was the bright light we saw,” Skarde said as he exchanged an expression of shock with his brother.

Torsten looked back at me. “You used physical magic in Midgard?”

I looked to Skarde, hoping his expression would at least explain Torsten’s question, but the Viking simply smiled back at me.

“Is that a bad thing?”

“It’s supposed to be impossible,” Skarde explained as the two of them approached me, “The Aesir banned physical magic from Midgard after the Vikings faded from the world. Seers and witches were able to use their connections with the gods, but that was it.”

“Connections with the gods?” I repeated. “You mean they just became psychics?”

“Exactly,” Torsten answered in his brother’s stead. “Real, tangible magic hasn’t existed in Midgard for centuries.”

“Then how do you explain what happened?” I asked.

“We can’t,” Skarde answered.

Chapter Seventeen

Jovi

Torsten led us through the forest while Skarde and I followed. The narrow path was the only thing that wasn’t completely buried in snow as we made our way towards Fyrcat’s home.

I stared at Torsten’s back, watching the way his shoulders tensed as he stopped short in front of a strange, circular hovel of a place. I wouldn’t exactly call it a house because it looked more like a round cave, but made out of sticks and earth. It was maybe six feet tall and twelve feet wide and was covered with moss.

“We’re here,” Torsten growled. The air around him grew colder—if that was even possible. It was as if his emotions had manifested into a chill far more deadly than the phantom winter that had claimed Marshall Heights. He reached out and knocked on a door that was barely visible among the overlapping branches that made up the hovel.

The hut seemed to vibrate with energy, and I couldn’t help but reach out and touch the wall of bent and twisting branches. Whispers of the past flooded my mind. I closed my eyes and squeezed them tight, trying to listen to the voices. My hand grew warm against the criss-crossing wood as I searched for a sign… I didn’t know what sort of sign or why it seemed so important in that moment, but I poured all of my energy into the structure. A switch flipped in my mind and I felt a heart beating—at least until Torsten pulled me away, breaking the connection.

“Careful,” he warned. “Some skeletons aren’t hidden in closets.”

The door to Fyrcat’s opened and the witch suddenly appeared there. But ‘witch’ wasn’t exactly a good word for her because she was stunningly beautiful. Long, strawberry-blond tresses draped over her petite shoulders and came to a stop at her impossibly tiny waist. Her features were striking, both sharp and soft in a way that reminded me of a Snowy Owl. A light flush to her pale complexion made her look perpetually bashful, even as the shadows in her eyes spoke of an immeasurable wisdom.

“Good evening,” Fyrcat said as she faced me. “You hold the wisdom of the magical.”

I nodded. She reached out and took my hand, and even though Torsten took a step toward her, concern written in his features, I allowed her to take it. She closed her eyes and her eyelids twitched as her lips moved.

When she opened her eyes again, she stared at me, but didn’t release my hand. “You were attacked,” she said. I nodded as a memory of the two thugs in the alley came back to haunt me. I didn’t say anything, so she continued. “Frigg was behind the attack.”

“Why?” Torsten demanded as I swallowed hard.

Fyrcat didn’t bother looking at him, but kept her gaze on me. “She didn’t want the two of you to find each other—united you both are much stronger than you are separate.” She paused and narrowed her eyes as something else seemed to occur to her. “You cannot go to Freya,” she said as she closed her eyes. “She can never know of the dual blood that keeps you alive.”

Then Fyrcat opened her eyes and dropped my hand. She opened the door wider to allow us entrance into her tiny home. Skarde shouldered his way past us and walked in first, acting as sort of a buffer between us.

Fyrcat waved her hand and a fire sparked in the hearth, filling the enchanted home with warmth. And, inside, that’s exactly what the hovel was—enchanting. It appeared four times as large, with tall ceilings and expensive furnishings.

Fyrcat faced me again, curiosity obvious in her features. “What do you remember of your past?”

There was a hint of suspicion in her gaze that made me uncomfortable. What reason did she have to be suspicious of me? I wondered.

“What do you remember of your childhood?” she continued.

I was surprised by her question, but not so surprised that I failed to realize just how difficult it was to answer. Because there was no answer.

“You have no memory of who you were, do you?” Fyrcat chuckled. “Fascinating. Very fascinating.”

I felt like an ant beneath a microscope. Thankfully, Skarde and Torsten moved to block the witch’s view of me. Their enormous physiques made it easy to hide from her prying eyes.

Fyrcat turned her attention to Torsten then. “Let’s talk about the blood oath. I assume you are here to be released, yes?”

***

Torsten

I looked at Fyrcat long and hard before I breathed deeply to calm the concern brewing inside me. I didn’t like this interest she’d taken in Jovi. I’d known of Fyrcat long enough to understand she was a heartless monster masquerading as a beautiful woman.

“What will it take to set me free?” I demanded.

Fyrcat walked towards me with a swish of her hips. The cunning smile on her face turned my blood to ice. “I am not your enemy,” she said simply.

“No? Then who is?”

“The Aesir,” she stated very matter of factly. Then she turned to face Jovi, once again. “I was mortal once, like you, but my magic was very powerful, and I was able to transcend my mortal coils.”

As Fyrcat spoke, I watched the tension leave Jovi’s posture. I prayed the witch wasn’t manipulating us, but I continued to listen, all the same, because so far, she wasn’t telling lies.

Fyrcat took a deep breath as she noticed the Brisingamen around Jovi’s neck. Fyrcat approached her and reached out as Jovi took a step back. But then she stopped herself and allowed Fyrcat to touch the gold.

“Do you know the story of the Brisingamen?” Fyrcat asked Jovi, who shook her head. “It is the necklace belonging to the goddess, Freya.”

“I knew that much,” Jovi said.

Fyrcat looked at her and smiled, as if to say Jovi didn’t know the whole story. “In the past, Freya offered the services of her magic, the seidr, to others, helping and healing the villagers in the various towns she passed through. Word of her abilities spread and she was sent to Asgard to meet with the Aesir. The gods were intrigued by her powers and they asked for her services, as well.”

“And then what happened?” Jovi asked.

“The gods’ hunger for Freya’s magic quickly consumed them,” Fyrcat continued. “They blamed her for their compulsion and sentenced her to death.”

“Death?” Jovi asked as Fyrcat regarded her with one drawn eyebrow.

She nodded. “Freya has been burned, stabbed, hanged, and burned again. Each time she died, she crawled out of the ashes and like a phoenix she rose again. Others soon joined her and they became the Vanir, gods and goddesses of their own right.”

“Are you part of the Vanir?” Jovi asked.

Fyrcat shook her head. “I answer to no one, save myself.”

“Oh.”

Fyrcat continued her story. “The Vanir challenged the Aesir and battled them often.” She took a deep breath. “Freya was married back then, and she and her husband had two daughters. They were Freya’s world… but they were taken from her by the Aesir. She wept tears of gold for her lost family.” Fyrcat pointed to the necklace around Jovi’s neck. “The dwarves used those tears to forge the Brisingamen. Its true purpose was to help Freya find her husband and locate her daughters in Helheim.” Then she looked at Jovi again. “Helheim is the place where the dead who do not get into Valhalla go.”

“How are we to know that everything you say is true?” Skarde asked.

In response, Fyrcat approached Jovi, looked at her and smiled. “You are a seer, a knower,” she said and held out her hand to Jovi. “Touch me and you will see for yourself that I speak the truth.”

“You could be counterfeiting the truth still,” Skarde said. “You could be creating the vestiges of truth to trick Jovi into believing you.”

Fyrcat looked up at him. “Even I cannot hold the truth back from a seer.”

Jovi touched Fyrcat’s hand and closed her eyes. And almost immediately her eyelids began moving, as if her eyes were rolling around behind them. After another second, she opened her eyes and stepped back.

“She’s telling the truth,” Jovi announced.

I, for one, stood with my jaw slack and my eyebrows raised. Nothing could have surprised me more. Was it possible my own feelings towards Fyrcat had been obscured by false tales?

“What about Torsten’s oath?” Jovi asked. “How do we break it?”

Fyrcat looked deeply into Jovi’s eyes. “Torsten was bound to the oath with blood and, thus, he can be freed with blood.”

“How?” Jovi asked before I could reply.

“He must bleed for someone he cares for more than he cared for Freya when the oath was taken.”

“I will bleed for Jovi,” I said as she turned to give me a big smile.

Fyrcat walked over to a table cluttered with herbs, vials, pouches, and jars. She picked up a dagger that crackled with lightning. It cast a blue light on her face as she held it out for me to take.

“What is it?” I asked.

“This blade was forged from a piece of the Mjolnir,” she explained. The Mjolnir was the hammer of Thor. “Go to the top of the mountain, speak the same oath you once said to Freya, but this time speak it to Jovi and carve the runes into your flesh.”

“Then I will be free?”

“Yes and no,” she answered cryptically. “The ritual will transfer the oath from Freya to Jovi. And that means your body will be promised to Jovi alone for one hundred years, just as it was promised to Freya.”

“Wait,” Jovi started. “I don’t understand.”

“Much as Freya owned Torsten, you would own him,” Fyrcat explained.

“That sounds like… slavery,” Jovi started as she looked up at me and frowned.

“Yes, it is akin to slavery,” Fyrcat answered.

Jovi didn’t break her attention from my face. “I can’t do that to you, Torsten,” she said. “Then I wouldn’t be any better than Freya. You can’t… you can’t do this.”

I looked from Jovi to Skarde and then inhaled deeply as I faced Fyrcat. Jovi was right—I couldn’t be a slave to anyone ever again. “Is there any other way to break the oath?”

Fyrcat inhaled deeply and paused for a moment or two, but then nodded. “There is. But it’s very dangerous.”

“Dangerous?” I repeated.

Fyrcat nodded. “It would require going to a land of… monsters.”

“Torsten, no!” Jovi started, taking a step closer to me.

I held my chin up firmly. Monsters I wasn’t afraid of. Slavery I was. “Then that is my decision.”

“Torsten,” Jovi started, shaking her head as her eyes went wide.

Fyrcat moved over to the fireplace and turned around to face me. “If this is your will, then remove your clothing, Stormblood,” she ordered.

“Brother,” Skarde said as he stepped forward, looking earnestly at me. “We do not know for certain,” he started, but I interrupted him.

“I will not be bound to anyone as their slave.”

“Do you trust,” Skarde started as he looked at Fyrcat, but I interrupted him.

“If Jovi trusts her, I trust her.”

My brother looked at Jovi, who gave him a slight smile. He then looked at me and sighed, as though he couldn’t debate the word of a witch; the word of Jovi. I didn’t understand Skarde’s connection with Jovi, but I was willing to bet he felt almost as protective of her as I did. My brother truly seemed to have her best interest in mind, and that alone was a shock. For many years, I’d convinced myself that Skarde cared for no one but himself. Now I started to wonder if I knew anything about my brother at all.

“I trust the witch, as well,” he said without a hint of doubt in his voice. Then he looked over at her again. The way Skarde quietly stared at Jovi and there was something in his eyes—something that said he saw more in Jovi than I assumed.

“Speak, Skarde,” I said.

Skarde cleared his throat and turned to me. “I believe this subject is not one that should be shared among those who are not kith and kin.”

“Then we will go outside, brother,” I said.

Skarde nodded and I followed him through the door of the hovel. He walked until he was at least twenty feet from Fyrcat’s home, and when he faced me again, he hesitated, seemingly unsure how to continue.

“I know nothing for certain. I only know what I believe to be true,” he started in a low voice. “Jovi possesses enough power to use physical magic in Midgard, and I have sensed the blood of Valkyries within her.”

I stared at my brother, convinced there was something he still wasn’t saying. I could see it in his tight lipped expression.

“Speak plainly.”

“Eir,” Skarde answered, repeating the name of his lost mate.

“Eir?”

He nodded. “She went missing not long after the first battle between the Aesir and the Vanir. Loki insisted she’d simply left Asgard to live in peace in another realm, but I never believed his stories.”

“Yes, you believed she was in Helheim?”

“I believed that to be the case, yes, but that was before…” He stopped to take in a deep breath.

Pressure built inside my chest until it began to ache as I tried to wrap my head around what Skarde was hinting at. I exhaled slowly and asked, “Are you saying that Jovi might be Eir?”

Skarde looked at me, and his expression was steely. “Eir was a Valkyrie with just enough power behind her magic to be considered a goddess,” my brother explained. “She was an enigma—even to the Aesir. She was a proud shield maiden, a warrior who chose to be a handmaid to Frigg and to heal the sick and wounded.”

“Jovi being the same person as Eir is a stretch,” I started.

“As I said, I do not know for certain,” Skarde continued. “But it would not be the first time Loki has erased someone’s memories and dropped them in the realms to fend for themselves.”

An unwelcome feeling of envy came over me—if Jovi was Eir, my brother’s mate, then…

***

Jovi

When Torsten and Skarde returned, I walked up to Torsten and wrapped my arms around him, just needing to feel him close. He returned the embrace and buried his face in my neck, breathing in my scent.

Torsten pressed a kiss to my neck and released me.

Fyrcat stepped forward. “The ritual you are about to perform is… complicated.”

“I am aware,” Torsten said as he started removing his clothing, as Fyrcat had ordered him to do earlier.

Torsten held my gaze for a moment before turning to face the witch. Fyrcat laid out a woven tapestry that depicted a burning landscape of stone and ash. Skarde stared down at the tapestry with a dark hatred in his eyes.

“Muspelheim,” he growled, looking up at her in anger. “You are sending him to the giants?”

Fyrcat avoided answering.

“Why send Torsten there?” I asked.

“Because he must bathe in the fires of Muspelheim—the same fires that created the sun, the moon, and the stars. Torsten must be reborn from the ash, just as Freya was,” Fyrcat replied, as if she were talking about the weather.

“What?” I demanded? “He has to die?”

She nodded. “To be reborn, one must die.” She took a breath and faced Torsten. “In your new form, you will no longer be bound to Freya by the blood oath. You will be cleansed, free.”

“How does he do that?” I demanded.

“I will take him to Muspelheim, where a dwarf named Brisingr is exiled from his clan,” she explained. “Brisingr is the one who helped forge the Brisingamen around your neck,” she said as she motioned to the necklace in question. “Stormblood will walk into the fires of Brisingr’s forge, complete the ritual, and return to Midgard.”

“Then why did you say it was dangerous?” I demanded.

It was Skarde who answered. “Because once my brother enters Muspelheim, the giants will be drawn to him. The blood of Odin is in his veins and it will light up like a beacon to all those who despise the All Father. Giants are big and stupid, but they are formidable fighters. One alone is enough to kill a god, but an entire family of fire giants would slaughter Stormblood and leave nothing behind to grieve.”

My heart began to thunder in my chest, knocking against my ribs painfully. I held on to Torsten’s hand as he lowered himself on the tapestry. To anyone else, he would have appeared unbothered by his brother’s words, but I could sense the trepidation in him.

He shut his eyes and held my hand tight as he breathed deeply. I squeezed his hand back and ran my fingers through his hair while Fyrcat began to chant. It was strange to hear such a deep timbre coming from a petite woman, but I pulled my attention away from everything that wasn’t Torsten.

Fyrcat’s chanting grew to a crescendo.

My ears throbbed from the roar of the witch’s voice. The house shook. Bottles fell to the floor and shattered as the fire within the hearth began to burn brighter and hotter than before. Sweat trickled down my back, soaking into the fabric of my sweater, but I never let go of Torsten’s hand. He trembled and twitched on the tapestry, growing more restless with each word Fyrcat spoke.

It was then that the tapestry suddenly burst into flames, with Torsten still sitting in the center of it. Skarde lunged for me.

The Viking tore me from his brother’s side as a scream erupted from my lips. Fyrcat lifted her arms high and slammed her palms together, putting the flames out with a gust of wind. I clenched my eyes shut against the roar of the wind and when I opened them, there was only a dark black smudge on the ground where Torsten had been.

Fyrcat collapsed to the ground beside the hearth and appeared to be unconscious. Skarde made it to her side in two long strides. He touched two of his fingers to her neck gently and then looked at me.

“She is alive,” he announced. “But I will kill her myself if Stormblood does not return from Muspelheim before sunset.”

“Before sunset?” I repeated.

He nodded. “He has fifteen hours to make it back to Midgard, lest he be lost to the realm of fire forever.”

I nodded, but my mind was still preoccupied with another perilous part of Torsten’s journey. “The giants… they’ll hunt him down right away?”

Skarde nodded. “Their sole purpose is to destroy the gods and the legacy of the Aesir and Vanir. If Stormblood is lucky, he will find the dwarf immediately, upon reaching the other side. If he hesitates for even a single heartbeat, then he is putting his life in danger.”

“Will the dwarf protect him?”

“No,” the Viking grumbled irritably. “But dwarves can shield themselves from most creatures. They are small and they possess a bit of magic. Best pray to Odin that Brisingr is not like the dwarves I’ve met in my lifetime or else my brother is doomed.”

I remained seated by the soot that marred the floor and tucked my legs beneath myself. Skarde laid a blanket across my shoulders as the chill from outside started to seep into the house through the cracks along the walls caused by Fyrcat’s chanting.

He then picked the witch up off the floor and carried her to her bedroom. When Skarde returned, he sat beside me, without uttering a single word.

We waited in our companionable silence, waiting for Torsten to return to Midgard.

The End

Discover what happens next in the WOLVES OF VALHALLA series with

Wolves of Winter

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WOLVES OF WINTER

A novel by

H.P. MALLORY

J.R. RAIN

Wolves of Winter

Published by Rain Press

Copyright © 2022 by J.R. Rain & H.P. Mallory

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Wolves of Winter

Prologue

Freya

This winter grated against my teeth like the serrated edge of a knife.

It was unnatural, brought forth with stolen magic. Magic that the Aesir had coveted for ages, until finally conning my kin into parting with it.

This was Frigg’s doing, no doubt. The backbiting, jealous bitch.

The first winter had been bad enough, boxing me into this dank little corner of Midgard. The second winter bit viciously into my bones, digging at the marrow as though she could scoop it out and consume what was left of me.

The walls of my home bowed inward as the weight of winter bent Midgard’s branch on the world tree. A second, more cautious tremble ruffled what leaves were left as Torsten’s defiant half-breed discovered her abilities. She was growing stronger, almost as if the binding spell funneled my power to her, instead of the All-Father.

I threw back the bed linens and attempted to stand up, but the world tilted as my feet hit the floor. Placing my hands on the wall to keep from falling over, with every cautious step I took, a bit more of my strength left me. My fingers hit the side of the apothecary cabinet and I nearly wept with joy.

I rifled through the drawers until I found the elderberry that I was looking for. Grabbing a handful, I stuffed the elderberries and tree sap from Yggdrasil into the mortar, smashing the berries and sap together with my fingers before I mixed the concoction into a goblet of water from a wellspring in Alfheim.

The tonic was tart and earthy, but it stopped my head from spinning.

“Loki,” I breathed. I couldn’t find the energy for a proper shout. “Get your ass down here! I need to speak with you.”

A trill of mischievous laughter echoed off the walls of my home, proceeding its owner. The trickster god made my skin crawl. I felt a disgust for him that transcended reason—a hatred that had darkened my soul for eons. And yet, he’d been the only one willing to help me, thus far. I didn’t trust him any further than I could kick him. His allegiance was variable, depending on his mood. But helping me had caused chaos, which was a good enough reason for him to continue. For now, anyway.

The god of Mischief appeared in a ray of rainbow light, heralded by an array of notes from the Bifrost. He manifested as a stunning brunette with glowing emerald eyes. She alighted on the bed with a vulpine smile.

“Ah, Freya, darling. It’s been a while.”

“Not long enough.”

“And yet, here I am,” she chirped. The cold didn’t seem to bother her at all. “You rang?”

I pushed my sweat-dampened hair out of my face and turned to meet Loki’s stare. The sweat turned almost immediately to frost, despite the roaring fire in the hearth. I wished he was a man. It was somewhat easier to face Loki without the blonde hair and slender, masculine features I was used to.

“The second winter is here. Soon all of Midgard will be consumed by the frost,” I said.

“Magic yourself away, then,” she answered with a cheeky grin. “You mustn’t let Mother Frigg turn you into a popsicle. It’s bad for the image. Not to mention a mortifying epitaph.”

“You know I can’t do that.”

“Have your minions spirit you away, then.”

I glowered at her. What part of this was the twit failing to understand? She was too clever by half not to know what her blood-brother and his wife had conspired to do to me. She must also know me well enough to guess I’d kept it to myself.

“I can’t do that either.”

Loki rolled her eyes. “Pride. I’ll never understand it.”

“Because you are a craven little thing,” I shot back.

“Cowardice can save your life. Would it truly hurt you so much to admit that you were bested? That Odin bound you to Midgard until the death of your spirit?”

“Of course, it would,” I hissed. “If they know I’m bound, they’ll end me permanently to save themselves. No one wants an ice age.”

“I don’t see why. I quite like ice.”

“You would,” I muttered bitterly, snatching the blankets and curling them around my shoulders like a cloak.

I sank onto the edge of the bed beside Loki. “You must help me,” I pressed. “Give me the pieces of Bifrost. I know you have them.”

“Why should I do that?”

She cocked her head to the side in a curiously birdlike motion. The look of benign confusion didn’t fool me. She knew damn well why.

“Because,” I began testily. “When I’m gone, the Aesir will turn their hatred onto someone else. They despise you, Loki, perhaps even more than they despise me. You’ve done enough damage over the years, and Odin would do anything to prevent Ragnarök. Killing you would ensure it never comes to pass. You need me to live.”

Loki laughed gently and placed her hand on my arm. “You’re funny. You think I can’t outrun them with the Bifrost in my grasp?”

I ground my teeth. I’d been hoping she’d overlook that flaw in my logic.

I shoved her arm away and leaped to my feet. “So, you’ll run?! Just like you did after you murdered my son?”

“That was a simple prank!” she snapped defensively. “How was I supposed to know the mistletoe spear would kill Baldur? My intention wasn’t to kill him, Freya, it was just to prove that NO ONE—not even the most beloved god in Asgard—can live without weaknesses. If we could, then what value does that place on life and death?”

Loki went quiet for a moment before her eyes went wide. Thankfully, she then transformed into her male counterpart. The blonde hair and dark green eyes that haunted my dreams snapped me back to reality.

“Unless… you are the one who places no value on life and death,” he chuckled. “Tell me, Freya, does this plan of yours include bringing your precious Baldur back out of Helheim? You want to cheat my daughter out of one of her subjects?”

“You all have left me no choice.” My shoulders stiffened, and I was forced to glance away from Loki as tears flooded my eyes. “I’ve begged them over and over to release my family. Even you won’t call on half-born Hel to release him.”

“Don’t call her that,” Loki said, eyes glinting dangerously.

“Hel,” I amended. “You could talk her into it.”

“Doubtful. And even if I could manage it, you think they’ll call an end to the war when you’re satisfied? You’re too much trouble, dear. It won’t end there.” He sighed then. “Let the past be the past. Find another strapping young god to mount and leave the Aesir in peace. It’s better than that.”

“Get out,” I snapped. “I tire of your face.”

He just laughed. “Let’s say you defeat the Aesir, get your husband and daughters back, and save Midgard. Let’s pretend for a second that’s even possible… How are you planning on getting Baldur out of the depths of the hell he’s in? What can you offer Hel that the Aesir cannot? She’s rewarded for keeping them securely in place.”

“I… don’t know,” I admitted. “I was onto something big before I was banished from Vanaheim.”

Loki snapped his fingers. A pair of expensive designer sunglasses dropped into his hand. He shoved them onto his nose in a purely dismissive gesture, as if he couldn’t stand the pathetic sight of me any longer. The feeling was mutual.

“I’m not sure if working together will be of any benefit to me,” he said on a yawn, before pointing at me. “Look at you—you can hardly even stand, Freya. But I will give you a bit of advice.”

“What?”

“There is nothing that Odin fears in the realms more than your bastard daughter. You ought to use that.”

“Jovi?”

“Yes, that one,” he said. He tapped his chin for a moment and then added, “Ah, and another thing. My brother has summoned the Wild Hunt in anticipation of his victory. The dead should rise within the hour.”

And with a burst of rainbow light, Loki disappeared, leaving me to ponder what he’d just said. The Wild Hunt was stirring, and the dead would prowl through the winter-draped landscape of Midgard to find me, killing anyone who got in their way.

“Son of a bitch!”

Chapter One

Jovi

The smell of charred flesh still lingered in the air.

Torsten was gone, and all that remained was a tapestry and a fine coat of white ash.

I turned away from the sight, stomach heaving. Saliva pooled in my mouth, nausea wreaking havoc on my nerves. When I thought I could manage it without throwing up, I reached out with unsteady hands, picked up the tapestry, and shook off the dark ash that obscured the beautifully embroidered picture of Muspelheim. Dread settled like a weight in the pit of my stomach. Blood-chilling images of Torsten being torn apart by the giants stitched onto the tapestry played over and over in the back of my mind.

I prayed to whatever god would listen that Torsten’s abilities would protect him.

He’s a berserker, I reasoned, curling my fingers into the fabric to conceal the fact that my hands had started to shake. He’s a wolf shifter from an ancient bloodline that traces back to the All-Father himself. No stinking giant is going to beat him.

But I couldn’t stop myself from worrying. What did I really know about his world? Yes, he seemed tough to me, but I was a witch. An uneducated witch, at that. Any non-human would fare better in a fight than I would. I didn’t know how time passed in Muspelheim. Maybe it ran parallel to Midgard. Or maybe we were dealing with a Narnia-style situation, and he’d come winking back into existence seconds from now, claiming he’d been gone for months. Or, and I didn’t want to think of it, maybe time moved faster there. I just didn’t know, and the uncertainty was killing me. Torsten only had until sunset to return from the realm of fire or else he would be trapped there forever.

“What if he didn’t make it?” I asked Skarde, Torsten’s brother. “What if he just burned during the ritual and he never got to Muspelheim?”

The large Viking loomed nearby, seeming as uncomfortable as I was after Fyrcat’s ritual. He crossed his impossibly thick arms over his massive chest, face scrunching into a grimace. Knowing Skarde, it was probably his attempt to look thoughtful. Then again, I didn’t know much about Skarde either. He was just as much a mystery to me as the world he came from.

“My kind believes that all witches are vile creatures that feed off the torment of others,” Skarde replied. “And Fyrcat is far worse than any ordinary witch. Her dabbling in death magic makes her far less trustworthy…”

“So, you’re saying we shouldn’t trust her?”

He shrugged his massive shoulders. “We don’t have much choice, do we? I never thought it would come to this. Putting our fate into the hands of a witch. Unbelievable…”

The way Skarde sneered the word ‘witch’ made my stomach turn with fresh nausea. He couldn’t be bothered to conceal just how much contempt he had for those like me. I cursed myself for feeling even an inkling of attraction toward him. I’d already been in a relationship with a man who looked down on me. I wouldn’t make the same mistake again. I had Torsten, and that was what mattered.

Or at least, I hoped I still had Torsten. Maybe the dusting of ash on my boots was all that was left of him.

“Is there any way for us to go after him?” I asked quietly. “Maybe one of us could go in and yank him out of there.”

Skarde shook his head. “I do not know the first thing about that sort of ritual.”

“Do you know if time is passing the same way in Muspelheim as it is here?”

His scowl deepened. “What do I look like, a damned Völva? It’s not usually our place to travel between the branches of the World Tree. If you want answers, ask the seeress.”

I sighed and rubbed my eyes, accidentally smearing black soot on my face. “I wish there was a way to leave her out of this. She’s already doing so much.”

“For her own gain,” he muttered. “A witch like that doesn’t deal in altruism.”

I studied my reflection in a shiny disc laying on one of the tables so he wouldn’t see the flinching around my eyes. Did he understand how his words landed? Did he care? And why did I care what he thought? He was Torsten’s brother, not my boyfriend. We didn’t have to get along to care about Torsten. We were on the same side.

The silence stretched, and Skarde let out a long-suffering sigh.

“She should be awake now,” he grumbled, then he looked at me. “Follow me. Don’t trip into an elixir while you’re at it. I won’t be able to turn you back from whatever abomination you transform into.”

Skarde led me down the short corridor and knocked on Fyrcat’s door. It was glowing faintly, which I took to mean it was locked. Or warded. Or something equally as magical. He looked me up and down as we waited. I shifted self-consciously beneath his scrutiny. What did he see when he looked at me? A witch? Torsten’s mate? Was I an enemy or ally in his mind?

There was a muffled sound from behind the door, like someone muttering under their breath, before Fyrcat finally called, “Come in.”

When the door pushed open, my eyes didn’t know where to settle. To call the place cluttered was an understatement. The bed in one corner was in danger of being buried by a towering stack of books. Armchairs and settees were arranged without much regard for walking room, and candles decorated almost every nightstand. A few glass globes were suspended from the ceiling, dangling at head height. Skarde actually bumped into one before he could stop himself. I had to fight an irrational urge to giggle when his hand flew to the hilt of his sword, ready to do battle with the bulbous plant growing within.

Fyrcat was lounging on a settee like some sort of lazy feline. She twirled a tendril of hair around her finger, examining a flickering candle flame, rather than looking at us. It was as if she was bored with our company already. Her nonchalance pissed me off. How could she just casually burn a man alive, and then lounge around in her bedroom as if nothing had happened?

“I need answers,” I snapped.

“You’ll have to ask a question first, dear,” she said, offering me a lazy smile to match the indolent posture.

Heat flushed across my chest, and I chewed my tongue to keep from shouting at her. What she said was technically true, but the delivery just dripped of condescension. Maybe Skarde was right to dislike her.

“How does time pass in Muspelheim? When should we expect him back?”

Fyrcat twined the lock of hair more slowly, biting her lip. “It’s hard to say. Muspelheim burns slowly, so it could take him months to find the dwarf. Years, if he’s unlucky. The time between realms is difficult to calculate, and I haven’t the energy for such trifles.”

“Trifles?” I repeated, the heat spreading up into my neck. I wasn’t sure how this magic stuff worked yet, but if Fyrcat wasn’t careful, she was going to be my first lesson. “We’re trying to free him from slavery, so he can help us stop this damned war. That’s not a trifle.”

“There were easier ways,” she countered. “Binding him as your companion, for example. He’d be beholden to you, but you would be an improvement over his current circumstance, I think.”

“What if he… what if Torsten dies in there?”

Fyrcat shrugged. “I warned you that there were risks. It was his decision to embark on a madman’s quest to rid himself of Freya.”

I tossed my hands into the air, exasperated by this so-called witch. “As if being my slave is any better! He’s a warrior. He shouldn’t bend the knee to anyone.” My feet tried to carry me across the room, intent on ripping the smug expression from her face with my nails, before I collided with a wall of muscle. Skarde stood between us, obviously sensing my urge to tear the woman’s head from her shoulders.

“Bad idea, sæta,” he said with a small shake of the head.

The word brought me up short. The rational forefront of my brain couldn’t decipher the word, but whatever small part of my mind housed my nebulous, so-called magic understood. Sæta. Sweetheart. Cutie. And oddly enough, he didn’t sound sarcastic. Had Skarde just given me a pet name?

I craned my neck, trying to glare past him. “If you’re not going to take this seriously, at least tell me how to get to Muspelheim. Now.”

“Your lover is right. It’s a bad idea.”

“He’s not my lover,” I snapped as Skarde chuckled.

“You won’t survive, you know,” she said blithely. “Untrained as you are, I doubt you’ll last more than a few minutes.”

“I don’t care,” I said, trying to wriggle past Skarde. He wouldn’t budge. “Send me after Torsten.”

Her smile was sharp and predatory, a cat relishing a chase. “So be it. But don’t say I didn’t warn you, little girl.”

Fyrcat floated to her feet with a grace I envied. She grabbed my forearm and squeezed so hard, I heard her knuckles crack. I fought back a scream as her fingers sank into my arm, as hot as brands. The flesh beneath them seared, smoke curling up where they made contact. The smell of burnt hair curled in my nostrils. When Fyrcat pulled back, there was a throbbing red handprint emblazoned on my arm, singed black at the edges. Involuntary tears dripped down my eyes, to my cheeks, and I wrenched my hand away before they could drip into the open wound. Talk about adding insult to injury.

“There. It will take you back to Muspelheim.”

“Give Skarde one too,” I insisted.

“I cannot. I’ve used too much magic already. The berserker and I will stay here and await your return. Use the tapestry and speak to the roots of Yggdrasil. The world tree will answer.”

Skarde took a cautious step towards Fyrcat and wrapped his fingers around her wrist. He examined the hand that had grabbed me suspiciously. “How is it that you can travel between the realms without the bifrost? You are no god.”

It was like he hadn’t spoken. She tugged her hand away, and he let her, seeming unwilling to hurt her until he had an answer. It wasn’t forthcoming. She turned away from us, a clear dismissal.

“Answer me, witch!”

“Don’t fight while I’m gone,” I said as I tried to ease Skarde away. There were more important things to worry about than Fyrcat’s magic.

“If she behaves herself, I won’t be forced to kill her.”

“Ah, the game of ‘he/she started it’ I’m glad we can all act like mature adults,” I said.

“But—” Skarde started.

“No more arguments,” Fyrcat interrupted.

“We need to work quickly,” I added as I looked at the enormous Viking.

Skarde looked vaguely mutinous, but he still followed me back into the main room of Fyrcat’s home. We tried our hand at replicating the ritual that she’d used on Torsten, but nothing happened. When I laid on top of the tapestry with my arms flat to the floor and closed my eyes, I expected a tingle. But nothing. Skarde spoke the magical words that were supposed to spread along the roots of Yggdrasil but, again, nothing happened.

“Why isn’t this working?” I asked.

“Because I am not like you,” he said impatiently. “Only two people in this home can use seidr, and I’m not one of them. You’ll have to use your magic, Jovi.”

He stuttered over my name for a second, as though he wanted to say something else. Weird.

“I don’t know how. When I defended myself against the vargr… I didn’t know what I was doing then, either.” My mind still rebelled against the idea that I was a witch, a daughter of Freya, and a Valkyrie, a warrior of Odin. The blood of the gods supposedly flowed through my veins. It was like something out of a fairy tale. My world had always been a reasonable place. The strange premonitions I’d had could be chalked up to luck and good instincts. Until Torsten and Skarde, I couldn’t have dreamed my way into something this fantastical. That was part of the problem. I was just a garden-variety screw-up with no special abilities. How could I believe I was special when everyone in my life up to this point had tried to convince me otherwise?

Even so, I held my hand out with my palm facing the fire. There was a slight cramp in my middle finger before a small spark appeared. It died out instantly, dousing what little hope I had.

“This is useless,” I muttered under my breath, standing up long enough to roll up the tapestry before I clutched it against my chest and laid back down on the floor. Skarde knelt beside me. He brushed his hand across my forehead with a strangely tender look in his eyes.

“Reach deep inside yourself and look for the fire that burns within your soul,” he said softly. “There is much you have to learn but I think… no, I know in my heart that you are far more than even the gods can see.”

“I’m glad at least one of us believes in me,” I said, a tiny sardonic smile twisting my lips. “I just don’t see how this is going to work. Dying and coming back is just… impossible.”

Skarde shook his head. “Not true. The All-Father hung himself on a branch of the World Tree to gain knowledge and rose from it stronger than before. Freya’s body has been killed several times before, and she lives to tell of it. It’s just the body that dies, Jovi. Whatever makes you uniquely you will endure. Only the death of the spirit can end a witch for good.”

“And how do I avoid that again?”

Skarde shook his head in amusement. “By learning, which will take longer than we have. You’ve barely managed to sit still long enough to sense your magic, but yet you are willing to try traveling by flame to a realm full of giants who want to eat you. You’re insane.”

“Just shut up and say the chant.”

His sarcasm needled its way into me. He was probably right. This was advanced work. But I had to try, right? I refused to give up on Torsten so I supposed I had my answer. I closed my eyes once more and blocked out everything but the sound of Skarde’s deep voice and the crackle of the fire in the hearth.

Breathe in, breathe out. Focus, Jovi. Feel the magic. Don’t regret skipping all those meditation and yoga classes…

Around breath ten, a warm flush spread across my face and chest. An unnatural vibration crawled along my bones and the darkness behind my eyelids gave way to a stunning forest. Its trees glowed with a blue light that resonated from runes that had been carved into the bark. Though I couldn’t identify the symbols themselves, I somehow knew they told a story of creation… the creation of the universe and everything in it.

My feet crunched on dried leaves that were black as the wings of a raven, shining blue in the eerie light, and sometimes swirling with colors I had no name for. I walked slowly through the forest, following the enormous roots of the trees that poked out of the ground. Every so often the ground would undulate, the earth cracking as something moved beneath it. I thought I spied an acid-green scale at one point, but decided I must have imagined it. There was no snake in existence that huge… right?

A soft hum floated on the wind, filling my head with a song I didn’t recognize. At the heart of the forest was a tree that towered over all the rest. Yggdrasil. The humming grew louder as I drew nearer.

One of the roots appeared cracked and worn, glowing a deep crimson, contrasted against the light of the runes. I pressed my hand to the root and threw my head back with a scream that shook the forest. Every nerve in my body felt like it was on fire. It was pain on a magnitude I could have never imagined, a pain that made Fyrcat’s burning grip feel like a bout of arm-twisting on the playground. It scorched a trail along my spine and sank into the very fabric of my being until I fell into merciful oblivion.

Chapter Two

Skarde

“What in the All-Father’s name are you doing?” I demanded.

The witch had dropped to her knees shortly after Eir had disappeared, slinking into the room like the cat she so resembled, long nails testing the floor of her domicile like she was trying to find the most comfortable place to settle. Her eyes were faraway and sleepy, and a stream of nonsensical sound burbled from her lips.

I caught myself with a soft snarl. No, Jovi wasn’t Eir. At least, I couldn’t be sure of it, though I had my suspicions. Beneath the fruity scent of Jovi’s hair and body wash was something familiar. The charged smell of lightning just before it strikes the earth. It was a smell humans had no name for—danger, magic and raw force. I’d known what it was to ride the lightning once. When she’d been living. My fierce Valkyrie. My Eir.

And yet, she’d recognized me, on some level. That meant Jovi had to be her, right?

But I couldn’t take the chance. Not until I knew without a doubt. I wouldn’t steal my brother’s mate if she was truly his. I could only hope he’d extend me the same courtesy if our roles were reversed. But given Torsten’s nature, I doubted it.

“Do you feel it?” Fyrcat muttered, patting the ground as she went.

“I feel irked,” I muttered. “Speak plainly, witch.”

“The tree,” she continued as if I hadn’t spoken. “This branch. It’s caught in a gale.”

It took me a moment to comprehend her meaning. Witches had a nasty habit of speaking in riddles and rhymes, and I so seldom had the patience for it. But when I finally understood, that understanding made my skin run cold.

“Something is coming to Midgard,” I said slowly, praying I was wrong. “Something from another realm.”

“From Asgard,” she said, eyes finally leaving the floor. They were solemn as they landed on me. “You know why. You’re probably feeling the pull, even now.”

I shivered. So, the unfurling feeling of dread in my gut hadn’t been the fear of letting Eir… no, Jovi burn herself to death in the vain hope she could rescue my idiot brother from Muspelheim. It was something far worse.

“The Hunt,” I said quietly. “He’s summoned the Einherjar.”

And I was one of their number. All who died well, often in battle, were called to the halls of the gods. Once upon a time, they’d been split, half to Odin, half to Freya, but that time was long past. I answered to the gods of Asgard. Odin was my general. I was called to fight for him. Had I been in Valhalla at this very moment, I wouldn’t have had a choice. But I was here, feet firmly planted in Midgard, in the flesh for the first time in millennia. I could resist the call. I would resist it, until my brother and our shared woman returned.

“How close are they?” I asked.

“Feel for yourself.”

I stared blankly at her. What in the name of Hel did she expect me to do to feel the World Tree? Her meaning became clear when she motioned to the ground impatiently.

“On your knees, berserker. Hands on mine.”

“You’re a madwoman,” I snapped. “I won’t kneel to you or any other witch.”

Only Eir, and that was only under special circumstances. Often when I had her thighs braced against my face, quivering under the attention of my teeth and tongue.

Fyrcat made an impatient sound in the back of her throat and gestured lazily at the patch of ground under my boots. It slid out from under me as if she’d pulled a rug. I went down on my ass with a curse and, before I could stop her, she’d crawled on top of me.

She was lithe and distractedly feminine above me, every curve molded against mine. She wedged one of her slender knees between my thighs as she came to hover inches away. She smirked when she felt my cock stir. The traitorous thing had a mind of its own. It had been some time since I had a woman. No one since Eir.

We were nose-to-nose, now, close enough to kiss. Her tiny hands encircled my wrists, pressing the backs of my hands against the ground. Her body was dewy with sweet-smelling oil, no doubt to aid her visions and spells. Power shivered in the air between us, like a string that had been plucked. It made my insides quake.

Then I felt it. The cold wind that touched the dead. Any who had died violently in the surrounding countryside would rise first, possessed by the spirits of my brethren. Eventually, all of them who succumbed to the winter would rise as well. It was already touching Marshall Heights. I felt the souls cowering in their homes, struck by fear they couldn’t fully understand. They’d be the first to die. Jovi’s clients, her neighbors, her friends. All of them soon to be slaughtered.

“We have to stop them,” I said.

“We don’t have to do anything,” Fyrcat answered. Her breath smelled like spices. “This house is warded. The dead won’t pass my wards.”

“They will, in time. But even if they don’t, you’ll die long before they reach you.”

I twisted my hips, dislodging the comparatively light witch. She may have been powerfully magical, but she was no match for a warrior in his prime. She let out a soft yelp when I rolled her beneath me. It was my turn to wedge a knee between her legs. The heat between her thighs was distracting. I could scent her desire in the air. I wanted it to disgust me, for I had the possibility of Eir once more and this witch was dangerous. She was casting a spell on me; I was sure of it. She sucked in a breath when I brought the tip of a dagger to rest just beneath her navel.

“Because I will end you first,” I said just as quietly. “You will help me against the dead, or I will spill your entrails on the ground. Which do you choose?”

Her eyes smoldered. With hate or desire, I wasn’t sure.

“I understand, berserker,” she said. “I will help you.”

Then she leaned up, cupping the bulge that strained my leathers. I reared back with a curse, and she laughed.

“Help me up, fool,” she said. “And gather my things. We have a piddling little town to save.”

***

Jovi

I screamed to high heaven. Or… would that be high Valhalla, given where I was? Did the concepts I grew up with apply in this new, topsy-turvy world I found myself in?

The sound bounced back from the darkness, careening off some unseen barrier to hit my ears again. It was a shrill sound that wound down into a soft, pitiful whine before I had the presence of mind to slap a hand over my mouth. Stupid to scream in a place so dangerous that a seeress and a werewolf berserker hesitated to go.

But gods-fucking-dammit it hurt!

Even when I’d managed to get myself under a modicum of control, I couldn’t stop myself from breathing short, emphatic recitations of, “Ow, ow, ow!”

I was afraid to look down and see how my body had fared. Every inch of me was still peppered with pain, like a swarm of fire ants had burrowed under my skin and made a home there. Eventually, though, I managed to talk myself down from my own cowardice.

I opened my eyes and cautiously examined my body, expecting to find the flesh burning off my bones. But there was no fire. Well, not on me, anyway. In fact, there wasn’t a single burn on me. As if realizing as much, the pain began to lessen. My clothes, however were only so much dust. It would have been nice of Fyrcat to warn me I’d be pursuing Torsten in the nude. Maybe she’d thought the spectacle would be funny. Or maybe she hadn’t counted on me living long enough to make it here.

At least I had the comfort of knowing I wasn’t alone. Torsten would be buck-naked too, if he’d also survived the journey. I had to admit the prospect of a hulking, nude, and sweaty wolf fending off demons had warmth shooting places it shouldn’t be. Stupid to be thrilled at the thought of watching my boyfriend doing battle with monsters. But a tiny, guilty part of my mind was.

I mean, come on, how often did you get to see a real-life sex god go 300-style on some fire-giant ass? Never. That’s when.

I panted heavily, trying to suck in a full breath. The air in Muspelheim was thin, most of it sucked away by the fires that raged in the distance. I swore the heat was drying out my eyes, even as I tried to make out my surroundings. Squinting through the ripples of heat at the dark stone paths that cut through a landscape, I was only able to make out the vague outlines of ash-covered outcroppings and the winding rivers of magma somewhere far below. Ash fell from the sky, clinging to my arms as sweat wept from my pores. The molten glow from below reflected off the ash clouds, casting diffused, orange-red light over my surroundings. It was impossible to tell whether the long shadows cast by boulders moved because of the quality of the light, or some scuttling thing hiding within them.

“This had to be the inspiration for Hell,” I muttered, though it was an effort to even speak the words. I was breathing hard, even while standing still. If I wasn’t careful, I’d faint from lack of oxygen, and then I was demon chow. This place wasn’t built with humans in mind.

Nothing for it now. The clock was ticking, and Torsten could be anywhere. I shuffled forward along the path, wincing with every step. It was like walking on summer asphalt. So warm, I wanted to dance backward, but there was no safe place to put my feet. I had to resort to an odd shuffle-hop, until my feet were so numb, I could walk flat-footed. It was a bad sign. I could only hope I’d be healed on the way back to Midgard. It would be a shame to lose my feet.

But it was a sacrifice I was willing to make for Torsten.

A sudden roaring in the distance sent a wave of terror washing over me. I looked around in a panic, dropping to a low crouch. Knocking a knee against another outcropping, I bit back a curse.

Hell, I decided. This place was definitely Hell. A lake of fire, complete with wailing and gnashing of teeth.

The sounds seemed to be coming from a vast mountain range just beyond a slow-moving river of lava. No… that was no mountain.

“Oh,” I gasped, sucking in a lungful of too-warm air. It scalded my lungs, and I had to smother a coughing fit. “Oh, God…”

The shape was moving. The ground beneath it shook, sending shock-waves through the cracked earth. I felt it, even through my numbed feet, far enough away it was just a fine tremor. The ground beneath it heaved, spitting clods of the desiccated stuff into the air, falling to earth with cracks as loud as cannon blasts. It left a crater beneath it, the gaping hole pooling with lava even as I watched. It straightened to its full height, and another whimper escaped me.

It was double Torsten’s height, which meant it was at least twelve feet tall. Its huge, barrel chest was the size of a house and covered in what looked like plates of thick obsidian armor. And as more shapes rose nearby, shifting the earth beneath my feet, I realized it was one of the smallest ones.

Though I’d only seen these in the woven pattern of Fyrcat’s tapestry, there was no doubt in my mind that the figures were fire-giants. The ground groaned in protest as it marched purposefully toward the sounds I’d heard, seemingly drawn to them like a magnet to steel.

Torsten.

Skarde had said the giants could sense the blood of Odin. Deep inside I hoped my connection to Freya would keep the giants from sensing my own divine connection to the Aesir gods. There was nothing on Midgard that could compare to the sheer size of the ancient being that eclipsed the entire realm of Muspelheim.

I grabbed onto the stone wall to my left, feeling as if my knees were going to give out any second. The last thing I needed was to fall into a vat of churning fire. I breathed through my nose as best as I could and crept along the wall. There was no way of knowing how much time had passed in Midgard or whether Torsten and I could even get back, but I had no choice but to push on.

“Bold o’ ye ta come out ‘ere,” rasped a disembodied voice. “Fer we don’t get many o’ yer kind ‘round these parts.”

I blinked away the sweat that poured into my eyes and searched for the origin of the voice.

“Show yourself,” I said, hating the way my voice cracked. My tongue felt very dry and thick. A rough cough burned my throat as I struggled to breathe through the smoke and dry air.

I almost swung at the figure that rounded my hiding place before I caught myself. The thing was stocky, hairy, and unmistakably male, even through the haze that hung over everything in this cursed place. I had to blink hard to make out anything more than an unclear outline, but when I had, I almost wished I hadn’t. He was less unsettling than the giants, but only just.

He was barely four-feet tall and his braided beard was half his size. Large hoops dangled from plump earlobes, hanging like weights rather than like jewelry. His eyes were beady, too small for the broad planes of his face. His nose was also too large, the craggy brow ridges and hairy brows casting doubt on what color his eyes were. His gold-plated armor was smudged with soot, dulling the color to a feeble yellow gleam. A layer of ash had settled on the broadsword strapped to his back. It was at least as broad as one of his beefy arms. Plenty large enough to cleave a relatively average human in two.

I swallowed nervously. It hurt. A lot. But I finally managed to croak, “Who are you?”

“Name’s Brisingr,” he replied, eyes glinting far back in their sockets. I thought he was smiling, but it was difficult to tell through the beard. “An’ ye’re wearin’ one o’ my creations ‘round ye’re neck.”

I touched the brisingamen in surprise. I belatedly realized it hadn’t disappeared with the rest of my clothing and had to wonder why that was. Probably not important, in light of the more pressing dangers. I filed it away for later. I could ask questions when Torsten wasn’t in danger.

My arms dropped to cover myself self-consciously. The dwarf (at least I assumed it was a dwarf) chuckled.

“I wouldn’t worry about that at the moment, girl,” he said, gesturing broadly over my shoulder. “You have bigger problems.”

A huge, basso sound erupted behind me. At first, I thought it was another giant bursting from its rest in the earth, but when I turned, I found something smaller. It was roughly the size of a mastiff, barely distinguishable from the surrounding rock, but for the ember-like glow of its eyes. Its lips pulled back, displaying a row of sharp, needle-like teeth. Another growl rumbled in its chest, and I went a little weak in the knees.

“What is that?” I whispered.

“Pit-mutts” the man said, reaching behind him to grip the hilt of his sword. It cleared the scabbard with a neat snick of sound. “They’re loyal to the royal family. The pack won’t be far behind. It’s open season on your lot around here.”

So, the giants and their kind could sense my blood. Great. That was exactly what I needed.

He brought the sword into a guard position with a fierce grin.

“I suggest you run.”

Chapter Three

Skarde

“I am not a pack mule,” I said, and couldn’t keep an edge of growl out of my voice. The witch was doing this on purpose. “Carry your own damn bags!”

Fyrcat had been fiddling with some trinket in her hand, but at the sound of my voice, she raised her face to mine. She had the audacity to grin at me, displaying dazzlingly white teeth. The smile pushed up into her eyes, setting them gleaming with a mischievous light. She tossed her red-gold hair over one slim shoulder. Even bundled as that shoulder was in furs, it still seemed impossibly slim. In a purely physical battle, I could best her handily. She looked so frail that a sharp gust of wind might snap her like a dry branch. Of course, I knew better.

“Do you really think I can carry all that?” she asked, tone taunting, despite the innocence of the words.

“Yes,” I said curtly. “You’re a witch, not a weakling. You can carry your elixirs and trinkets without my help.”

Her lips curled into a sultry smirk. “Are you saying you’re too weak to shoulder the burden? I would have thought one of Odin’s finest could haul twenty or thirty pounds on his broad, muscled back in addition to his armor and sword.”

She wormed a few fingers under my leathers, stroking the bare skin of my back for emphasis. Her fingers were like ice on my flesh, and I jerked away from the contact on reflex, cursing in my mother tongue. Fyrcat laughed, dancing out of arm’s reach when I tried to swat her hands away. She was deceptively fast for a mortal woman. Or perhaps it was a trick, her magic slowing my senses long enough to allow her to escape. I wouldn’t have put it past a witch of her caliber.

My teeth ground audibly. This witch belonged in the ground, not prancing around, testing the patience of a warrior. I supposed this was what I got for recruiting a seeress to do the pack’s work.

I hiked the bag further on my arm with another growl. Glasses clinked against one another inside, one striking a rod that let out a discordant sound. It made my ears ache and my nerves jangle.

“What in the name of Hel is that?” I demanded.

“A divining rod,” she answered, reaching up to adjust the cloth sack. The sound stopped, much to my relief. “I thought it could come in handy, given what we’re up against.”

“How is that supposed to help us?”

She rolled her eyes. “You don’t even try to understand magic, do you?”

“Why should I? It’s an offense against the gods.” She rolled her eyes at me. “I know enough to defeat you. That is all I need to know.”

She stopped so suddenly that I ran into her back. She pitched forward with a small cry, and my hands shot out to brace her waist, catching her before she could land face-first in the powdery drifts of snow. The drifts were almost waist high in some places, and a small avalanche would bury someone Fyrcat’s size. Gripping her as I did brought her back against my front, and the part of me that was male couldn’t help but find that fact intriguing.

I realized what I’d done a second later and cursed myself. I should have let her fall into the snow. It would have been the just course of action.

Fyrcat twisted in my arms, small hands coming to rest on my chest, rather than hang awkwardly at her sides. I felt them like tiny brands against my skin, though there were layers of cloth and armor in the way. Definitely magic. Her eyes were wide and earnest, no trace of teasing in her face when she stared up at me.

“Do you really hate us that much, even after Eir?” she murmured.

The name hit me like a bolt from Thor himself, and I shoved her away. She windmilled her arms, catching herself before her tiny ass could plant in the snow.

“Don’t say her name,” I hissed. “You’re not worthy to speak it. Not a single one of you foul impostors.”

“I am hardly an impostor.” Fyrcat’s expression hardened. She straightened, brushing herself off with a scowl. “You loved her, and she was just like us. Magic and power, and you ought to have done your duty by ending her. The Aesir are perfectly willing to use Freya’s magic, work out its secrets, and horde some for themselves. But when their teacher became a burden, they cast her aside. You’re a filthy hypocrite, just like all the rest of your kind.”

I had a sudden, visceral urge to draw my blade and thrust it beneath her ribs. The angle would reach her heart and exit out her slim shoulder. It would be fast and clean. Crimson would stain the snow where she fell, a satisfying picture after all the blasphemous words that had dared fall off her tongue.

But I couldn’t. I couldn’t defeat an army of the undead without help, and she was the most talented caster in the area, aside from Freya herself. So, I stalked past her, muttering under my breath. She didn’t know a damn thing about me or Eir, and I wasn’t about to enlighten her.

Fyrcat had to wade through snow drifts to catch up. It was almost amusing to watch her struggle through them. She was like a small, ginger kitten. Actually, more like a dangerous, feral kitten.

“A divining rod ordinarily detects water and minerals underground,” she said, apparently done provoking me for now.

“I take it this one doesn’t?”

Fyrcat reached up, shoved a hand into her pack, and rummaged around. She pulled out what looked like a forked branch, albeit one made of copper, rather than wood.

“This detects paranormal energies. Laylines, creatures, objects and the like. Watch and learn,” she continued as she held the thing out in front of her. “The nearest should be my home. It’ll sound faint, since we’ve made it quite a ways into the woods.” But when she knelt and struck the frozen ground, the rod let out a tone so loud, it made us both wince. Fyrcat’s eyes widened. “That’s not right,” she whispered, shaking her head.

“Why isn’t it right?”

She looked at me, still in confusion. “It means something is nearby. Almost on top of us, really.”

Then I heard it. Heavy footfalls, and wavering howls. My stomach dropped to my toes.

“Wolves.”

***

Torsten

An axe the size of a lamp pole swung for my head. The blade was almost as long as I was tall, and must have weighed twice as much as I did.

The giant hefted it with ease, unperturbed when he missed me by a hair. The bastard actually laughed, the sound rolling like a landslide over the plain of volcanic glass we stood on.

The asshole had backed me onto the obsidian field, knowing full well it would be hard for my claws to find purchase on the smooth surface. My bare human feet would be completely useless here, slipping and sliding like the ground had been coated in grease. As it was, I was mostly evading the axes and spears with a combination of luck and good timing. One solid hit, and the titanic weapons would pin me to the glass, or split me open like an overripe gourd, spilling my guts. That would please their pit-mutts. Would they wait until I’d stopped breathing to dig in, or start eating me while I was still screaming?

Best not to find out.

The giant let out another bellow, swinging the axe back into position. The air screamed as he swung it down. The jagged edges nearly grazed my flesh as I juked sideways, sliding past the pit-mutt that emerged from the smoke. I raked my claws across his eyes, savoring the squelch of blood and jelly between my paw pads as I drew back. The mutt screamed, shaking its head, pawing at its ruined eyes. It stumbled into the path of one of its fellows, giving me a moment’s respite.

A spear punched into the ground near my rear paw, singing the fur off my hindquarters. I let out a yip of shock, shying away from the thing before the giant could retrieve his weapon. The burn was superficial, but the near-hit still left me shaky. Fire demons had me surrounded. Every time I narrowly escaped a set of razor-sharp teeth, talons, blades, or spears, I was sure my luck was about to run out. I ended up throwing myself at another enemy. There was barely room to maneuver. There were too many of them, and not enough of me. They didn’t have to kill me straight away. Eventually I would tire and then they’d have me.

Jovi, I thought desperately. I have to do this for Jovi. If I die here, it was all for nothing.

One of the mutts leaped onto my back, claws singing deep into my flanks. I let out a roar of pain and challenge. The pit-mutts were smaller than me, but only just. King Surtr had bred them to hunt the salamanders that made their home in the magma running under the surface of Muspelheim, as well as the feral predators that lurked in the deep mountains. They were lean, able to burrow short distances, and could withstand the temperatures in the slow-moving rivers of lava.

I twisted and then threw myself backward with every ounce of strength I could muster, throwing my shoulder into the thing’s belly. It drove the air from the mutt’s lungs with a surprised ‘oof.’ It was a brief pause, but more than enough. It let out a pitiful scream when my claws opened its belly.

 I looked up and spied another of Surtr’s generals lumbering toward the fight. If I’d had a mouth capable of speech, I’d have shouted “For fuck’s sake!” As it was, I had to content myself with a frustrated snarl.

There hadn’t been a moment’s rest since I passed into the realm of fire. I was tiring, slowly but surely. I grabbed onto a meaty, horned head of a spiked boar as it rushed me, yanking the head off with a twist. The body fell to the ash-covered ground with a sickening thud. Red eyes snapped with fury, and I had a split second to dodge yet another spear that whistled through the air, passing inches from my face before coming to a shuddering halt, stuck in a volcanic outcrop to my left.

The booted foot swung out of nowhere. One moment I was on four paws, shakily navigating past the boar, and the next I was airborne. Every rib on my left side snapped, an explosion of agony that rendered me temporarily blind. I heard a breathless scream split the air. It took me a moment to realize it was my own voice screaming my agony.

“Insolent pup,” the general rumbled with a laugh. “I think I’ll mount your head on a wall in my hall and the rest of your useless body to the All-Father. It will teach him not to send his dogs where they’re not wanted.” He smirked after a moment. At least, I was pretty sure it was a smirk. “The bitch though… her, I will keep.”

My head spun. What bitch? I hadn’t come with a woman. It was only me, naked and alone, braving the fields of Muspelheim for the promise of freedom.

“Your bitch is pretty,” he continued, paying me no mind. He sauntered forward, laughing when I barely managed to climb to my feet. Another kick and I was done for. We both knew it. “Soft hair, beautiful breasts. Shapely legs. And just enough magic to offset Odin’s foul blood. We’ll see how she likes the taste of fire.”

The bastard made a jerking motion around his groin, gripping himself through his armor. He groaned in satisfaction, clearly getting off on my helplessness.

Then his meaning really struck home. A beautiful woman with magic and a direct connection to Odin.

Jovi.

 Rage ignited within me. Before I could register moving, I was on my feet, leaping into the air, the fury pounding in my head drowning the agony of my wounds. I cleared the burning blade, landing with a snarl on the flat of it.

I bared my teeth, let out a furious howl, and went for the general’s eyes.

Chapter four

Jovi

Brisingr moved surprisingly fast for someone his size.

I had at least a foot and a half on him, and he was outstripping me by a mile. He hadn’t even shed his armor or dropped the heavy one-handed sword he carried. It seemed grossly unfair that I was the one slowing us down.

“How did you find me?” I asked, gasping in a huge lungful of air. It didn’t help as much as I’d hoped. I still felt dizzy and sick.

Brisingr hooked a thumb over his shoulder. “The same way them dogs did. Yer blood isn’t half as offensive as that pup’s over there, but anything near enough will sense it.”

Panic clenched my heart in a fist. The sounds in the distance had been Torsten. All the hulking shapes that rose from the volcanic ash were moving toward him. If even one of them got within striking distance, he was dead.

“If we keep heading along this course, I think we can—hey, where are you running off to?”

The thin crust of the earth crunched beneath my feet as I pelted back the way we’d come. The baying dogs were closer, but it didn’t matter to me. I just had to get ahead of them and lead them in the opposite direction. If enough of their dogs followed me, their owners would have to investigate, which would leave fewer people trying to kill Torsten.

I hadn’t made it ten feet before a huge arm looped around my waist and lifted me from the ground. A hand the size of a baseball mitt palmed my navel, tucking me in tight under one arm. Its owner whipped around so fast it wrenched my neck and threw my hair into my face.

I had to spit hair from my mouth to gasp, “Let me go!”

“When you stop moving in the wrong direction, I might,” Brisingr panted. “What in Hel’s name do you think you’re doing? Those mutts will rip you to pretty little shreds!”

“You said they’ll follow the smell of my blood. I can lead them away from Torsten. Now put me down!”

Brisingr let out a billowy sigh. Somehow, through the labored breathing, the sweat, and the thunder of his footsteps, I could hear the echo of frustration in it. It reminded me of a parent watching the antics of a child, and the sound raised my hackles. I’d had my fill of patronizing men.

The howl of a nearby mutt spurred Brisingr on, and he picked up the pace, running as fast as his undersized legs would carry him. Which turned out to be very fast. Heated air raked across my face, tearing tears from my eyes.

“This isn’t an epic poem, girl. There’s no mason here to etch your noble sacrifice into stone, no bard here to tell the tale in song. You throw yourself to the dogs, you die. That’s it. It’s not heroic, it’s not romantic, it’s stupid.”

“You don’t understand!”

A wall of charred stone blocked the path ahead. I expected Brisingr to make a hard left and run along its length, searching for a narrow place to cross. Instead, he sheathed his sword and shifted me to his back. It forced me to sling my legs and arms around his broad waist and beefy neck to remain upright. The massive sword sheath dug into my front, and every footstep knocked my shoulder against the hilt. Then he simply leaped ten feet into the air, digging his sausage-like fingers into a handhold I couldn’t see. Or maybe he'd carved the handhold from his strength alone. I made a mental note not to piss the dwarf off.

He began climbing straight up, an angle that would have been difficult for me on my best day. With the smoke and oppressive heat of Muspelheim choking off my air, it would be impossible.

“Do you really think that pup of yours would appreciate the gesture?” Brisingr asked coolly, continuing the conversation as though he hadn’t just performed a feat worthy of Spiderman. “You think he would want you to feed yourself to the mutts for his sake?”

I couldn’t answer. Of course, Torsten wouldn’t want that. He’d be pissed I’d entered Muspelheim to rescue him. But how could I just turn tail and run when I knew he was in danger?

Brisingr reached the top of the wall a few minutes later and swung our combined weight onto the ledge. It was about as wide across as I was tall, which didn’t leave much room to navigate. The piggyback ride was starting to feel a little undignified. I tried to climb down, but Brisingr seized my wrists and held them tight.

“You’re not going to want to do that,” he warned.

“Why?” I asked. “You’re going to wear yourself out if you continue like this. Let me down and give me a weapon. A sword. A knife. Anything. I am literally naked and unarmed. Give me a little dignity.”

He chuckled and held me fast. “Trust me. We time this right, and we won’t need to run anywhere.”

I stared at the back of his neck, willing my gaze to bore a hole through the thick, hairy skin. Couldn’t someone speak plain English for once? Was detailing a plan really that much of a hassle?

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

Brisingr turned his head so I could see the wicked gleam in his eyes. He pressed a meaty finger to his lips, then pointed down. The ground on the opposite side of the wall was heaving, and as we watched, another giant burst free of the ground and began to lumber past.

“Hold on tight,” Brisingr whispered.

Then he threw himself off the wall, aiming for the giant’s armored back. The wind whistled past my ears, and I clung to him, too shocked to even summon a scream.

***

Skarde

My boots sank into the snow, obliterating Fyrcat’s smaller tracks. I smiled grimly. That seemed appropriate. I was meant to stomp her out after all. The fact that she was sheltering behind my back shamed me. It was tempting to throw her to the oncoming wolves. If the winters were not already upon us, and the need so dire, I would have.

Maybe.

I kept very still, straining my ears. Four. Maybe five. I would have been able to detect them with more accuracy as a wolf, but it wasn’t worth the tradeoff. In human form, I kept my mind and could recall all the reasons it would be a terrible idea to kill Fyrcat. I had no such restraint as a wolf.

“Run,” I urged. “There are too many for you to handle.”

“Don’t presume to know what I can handle, berserker,” Fyrcat said tartly.

She moved to stand beside me and I saw something akin to fear in her eyes. It was gratifying to know the little sorceress could behave in a sane fashion if the stakes were high enough. She reached into her bag and withdrew a bottle and a slender length of wood. It was free of runes but still thrummed with power. It smelled like rich, verdant spring, of old waters, and the stillness between worlds.

“Is that—?”

“Harvested from Yggdrasil. It took me many years to obtain enough for a wand. How many of them are there?”

Odin’s eye, the witch was powerful. It would have been impressive if it didn’t pose such a danger.

“Four, possibly five. I mean it. You should run.”

She flashed me a fierce grin. “And where would the fun in that be?”

“Crazy witch,” I muttered. Then, louder, “Come out brothers. This need not end in violence.”

The footfalls paused, and faint huffing breaths traveled to me on the winds. No predator likes to know it’s been spotted. They’d probably been planning an ambush, aided by the witch’s never-ending prattle. A wary enemy was harder to defeat. They’d have to reconsider their tactics.

Which was exactly what I’d been hoping for. At least one of them would have to shift back to speak with me.

Sure enough, familiar magic shivered in the air, and moments later, four of my kinsmen stepped through the gaps in the trees, placing themselves in a strategic semi-circle. The only escape was backward, and they were sure to have more men lying in wait, should we be cowardly enough to attempt it.

The first to emerge had me by a few inches and thirty pounds of muscle. He pulled to the front and unsheathed a short sword that was stained with blood. He must have killed recently. That, or he was reckless. The blade wouldn’t last long if mistreated.

 “I am Sigrun,” he announced. “Alpha of the Timber Wolf Pack. The bowman is Nyk. His twin, the shield bearer, is Gunda.” A tall, red-haired woman bared her teeth at us.

Sigrun smiled arrogantly and gestured to a man brandishing a war hammer. “That is Bjorn. My second in command, Beta of our pack.”

Well, fuck. I’d heard of Nyk and Gunda, even though I’d never met them in the halls of Valhalla. Some tales carried to your ears and settled between them even when you tried to forget. If Sigrun had bested them both, he was more powerful than they were combined. It seemed inconceivable he wouldn’t have tales told about him. Did it make him less than, or just smarter than the rest of us? Harder to predict if no one knew you.

“I am Skarde Fatekissed, Conqueror of Norway, Son of Queen Katla and King Slothi,” I replied, shifting my weight in his direction.

Sigrun’s eyes flicked to Fyrcat, his lip curling in contempt. “And the witch at your elbow? What do you call her?”

Was he toying with us, or was it possible that he didn’t know who Fyrcat was and what she could do?

Fyrcat moved toward him, cheeks flaming with color. He’d managed to prick her pride. Just what I needed. A spiteful witch lobbing magic because her feelings were hurt. I thrust out a hand, holding her back.

Let me through, Fyrcat hissed, the thought dripping enough venom to make my skull itch.

I jerked in surprise. The pack could speak mind-to-mind, but I’d never met a witch who could claim the same. Not until Jovi, and she was of our blood, at least in part.

Can you hear me? I thought tentatively.

Yes, fool, she thought back. Any witch with real power could speak with you. Freya created wolves. Odin perverted their purpose. We share a connection, whether you like it or not.

The thought of being connected to a witch in any sense made my stomach ache. To be connected so intimately to Fyrcat was infinitely worse. She was a snake. Beautiful in the abstract, and deadly in practice.

You should go. If I am forced to shift, I am just as likely to kill you as they are.

I’d kept track of her in my periphery, so I caught the quirk of her lips, watched her full mouth shape the word to a spell. Her power coalesced in the air around us, and before I could stop her, she’d pushed up onto her toes and planted a chaste kiss on my lips.

Fire pulsed through me at the point of contact, scorched down my throat, and unfurled in my stomach. Her scent filled my nose and an awareness of her sprung into my mind.

What did you do? I roared.

Bound us together, she replied smugly. For the duration of our quest to save the insipid humans from the Aesir’s madness.

I wanted to shift, to howl my outrage to the moon, to rend and tear until there was nothing left of the seeress but bone and blood.

I will make you pay for this.

She shrugged. Perhaps. We have to survive first.

My teeth ground together audibly. With all of Asgard as my witness, I was going to kill her. She would rue the day she bound me to her like some common beast. It would have to wait until the bond was gone, or I would kill myself along with her, but the day was coming.

“Did you hear me, Fatekissed?” Sigrun asked in a mocking voice. “Who is the witch?”

“No one you need be concerned about,” I said aloud, then hurled myself at the first warrior to step out of line. Bjorn.

We collided with an audible crash and danced apart. He was quicker than I assumed and caught me with the handle of his ax. It knocked the breath out of me, and I staggered back, almost falling into a snow drift before I could catch myself.

“My, how the mighty have fallen,” Sigrun taunted, circling to my other side. “The great Skarde Fatekissed has fallen out of Odin’s favor. It is clear that divine blood is not everything!”

Sigrun twirled his sword with a melodramatic flourish that diminished the impact. That answered that question then. Stupid but strong. Taunting an enemy and making a show of it was a good way to end up maggot food.

Fyrcat splashed the snow at her feet with the contents of her vial, scooped up a handful, and hurled it at Sigrun’s back while it was turned. It shattered on impact, and Sigrun’s back arched, a low moan trickling through his teeth. It was his turn to stagger back, giving me enough time to catch my breath and bring my sword back to guard position.

“Watch out!” I managed.

Fyrcat turned to see Gunda sprinting toward her. She was fast. Faster than any shieldmaiden I’d ever seen, with the exception of Eir. Though it was probably uncharitable to compare Gunda to my lost love. Eir was divinity, a Valkyrie of renown. Gunda was as mortal as the rest of us, which perhaps made her skill that much more admirable.

The witch dropped to the ground a fraction of a second before Gunda swung her sword in a mighty arc that would send Fyrcat’s head spinning into the air. It did manage to take inches off Fyrcat’s hair, a fact that seemed to bother her more than her near-death. I snorted. Witches with their skewed priorities…

She crooked her fingers into the shape of a rune and muttered a word. Gunda’s boot, which had been set to crush her skull, slipped on a shiny patch of ice. Gunda went down with a cry. Her shield came down on top of her, pinning one arm. Fyrcat scrambled onto her knees, crawling purposefully toward the downed shieldmaiden, her wand clutched loosely in one hand.

A cry caught in my throat when she raised it high, poised like a dagger to take Gunda’s heart. They might have been here to kill me, but in many senses, they were still my kin. Letting a witch slay them was blasphemous. I half-turned, unsure of how to stop her. I couldn’t stab the damn woman now that we were bound. Her life was tied to mine, and doing so would be as good as turning the blade on myself.

My hesitation cost Gunda. Fyrcat brought the wand down with a shout, jamming it into the woman’s chest. It couldn’t pierce the armor, but in the end, it didn’t have to. The moment it made contact, she simply vanished, leaving the impression of her back and legs in the snow as the only evidence she’d been there at all.

“Gunda!” Nyk cried.

A punch to the sternum caught me off guard. I hadn’t heard him approach. The blow knocked the wind out of me and thrust me a few steps back. I found Nyk inches away, bow abandoned in favor of beating me with his bare fists. Sigrun remained in his human form while Bjorn’s body twisted, transforming into his beast form.

“I’ll kill you,” Nyk said, striking again.

He landed an uppercut that launched me into the air. My sword tumbled from my fingers, and I distantly heard Fyrcat scream. I hit the snow several feet away from where I’d stood. It brought me down inches from his abandoned bow. Not my preferred weapon, but it would have to do.

I notched an arrow, pulled the string back until my knuckles brushed my cheek, sent a brief prayer to whatever god would listen, and then sent the arrow whistling through the air. Dizzy as I was, I wasn’t sure which version of Nyk was advancing on me. The one on the left, right, or center?

There was a meaty thunk of impact and Nyk paused, staring in shock at the arrow protruding from his throat. Then he went down. I didn’t have long to celebrate. Bjorn pounced on me, ripping the bow out of my hand, his snapping jaws rooting for my throat.

Fyrcat appeared just above his shoulder. Before he could process what was happening, her spell threw him across the clearing. He smacked into a tree, letting out a pitiful whine and shifting out of wolf form. He lay very still. Dead, or merely stunned?

It didn’t ultimately matter. Fyrcat stalked over to the downed wolf and jabbed her wand into the base of his neck. Another flash of light, and he disappeared as well. She repeated the process with Sigrun, who hadn’t managed to struggle to his feet. He let out a vicious snarl and backhanded her before blipping out of existence, gone to wherever the others had disappeared to.

Fyrcat limped over to me, the right side of her gown torn away. Blood ran down her pale thighs from a gash in her leg. Long, weeping furrows marred her right cheek, and one eye was swelling shut. Something like pride and amusement gleamed in the other.

“Well done with the arrow,” she said. “I wouldn’t have managed to stop him in time.”

“Where are the others?” I demanded. “Did you kill them as well?”

Fyrcat rolled her eyes. “No, fool, I cast them further down the world tree. With my strength this low, I could only manage a distant part of Midgard. I would have preferred to send them straight to Helheim.”

A tightness in my chest eased. They were alive. For now, at least.

Her lips pursed as she read my expression. “I don’t see why that makes you happy. They were trying to kill you. They’ll try again, if the dead don’t beat them to it.”

“It’s their duty.”

“And your duty is to kill me,” Fyrcat pointed out. “And yet my heart still beats. Perhaps duty isn’t everything.”

“The day is still young,” I muttered. “Help me up. We have a city to save.”

Fyrcat opened her mouth to reply, then turned abruptly at the sound of pounding paws. A fifth wolf we’d missed came bounding out of the woods, jaws open and poised to tear out Fyrcat’s throat. I lunged forward without thinking, placing my body between hers and the oncoming wolf. It hit with the force of a war hammer, driving me to the ground. A slash of white-hot pain exploded through my chest and then…

Nothing.

Chapter Five

Fyrcat

Blood… there was so much blood.

Blood staining the snow, the front of his leathers, and his clawed hands. The taste of iron was thick in the air. In my many years on the soil of Midgard, I’d never known a man to lose so much and survive.

But Skarde was a berserker, one of the damned things that had made my life a misery all these long years. They were nigh impossible to kill. And here was my chance to test that theory—to leave him and see what happened.

And yet…

And yet I couldn’t—something which bothered me extremely. Why did I care? He’d held me at knifepoint and bullied me relentlessly. I ought to have turned my back on him and let his blood melt the unnatural snow. I didn’t know what possessed me to drop down beside him and pull his face into my lap.

Self-interest, I assured myself. You can’t escape the dead on your own.

“Fool,” I croaked. “Damned fool.”

 His cheeks were pale and cold. A pulse beat weakly in his neck. Too slow. He wouldn’t last another five minutes unless I intervened.

“Skarde,” I ventured. Names had power. Using his name couldn’t hurt. “Skarde Fatekissed. Answer me.”

I lifted his head a little and struck his cheek. He twitched, and a low hiss of pain sent a rush of relief through me. He was alive. Angry but alive.

His eyes opened ever so slowly, revealing a sickly green ring around the irises. The veins in his neck were also green. I hadn’t noticed in the frantic moments after the wolf disappeared. It wasn’t the teeth marks I had to worry about now. It was the wound on his chest. The wolf had made a suicide run, coating his claws in poison before attacking.

“Mistletoe,” I hissed. “Damn him!”

After Baldur’s death, Freya cursed the realms with all the force of her grief and made it so that no being would be safe from the seemingly innocuous plant. Mistletoe was a deadly poison to all who were not born of Midgard. Odin had banished Mistletoe from Asgard and the rest of the nine realms… or so we had been led to believe. Some had apparently been saved by Frigg. And it would kill Skarde within minutes.

 Not if I can help it, I thought fiercely. No one kills this hidebound bastard but me.

I seized my wand and sank the tip into the ground. The trees writhed like living beings, their roots shooting up from the frozen earth and reaching. Still more branches formed a protective barrier between us and the rest of the forest. No more surprise attacks.

“What are you doing?” Skarde managed. His voice was barely intelligible—more the sound of wind than speech. His lips were turning a sickly shade of green. If the poison reached his brain, it was all over.

“Saving you.”

“Can’t,” he whispered and then coughed. His spittle came out green-brown. Damn it. The poison was working faster than I’d expected.

“Don’t tell me what I can do, wolf,” I snapped. “Now shut your mouth and brace yourself. This will hurt.”

I beckoned the roots and vines closer until they lay by Skarde’s side. One slender root plunged into the fallen Viking’s body. His head lolled to the side, dark eyes fixed and unseeing. Skarde’s reaction when a second root thrust into his neck was more pronounced. He threw his head back and opened his mouth wide as he attempted to scream but only a winded sound came out. Sweat poured down his face, tendons straining tight as the root went about its unpleasant business, siphoning the poison out of him.

I closed my eyes, hands pressed against his chest, caressing the frantically beating heart with magic, willing it to continue to beat. I didn’t dare draw away until his cries were audible, and even then, I was reticent.

Skarde lay in a pool of his own blood, breathing shallow but sure. His eyes fluttered open a moment later, a scowl creasing his face. The ass was well and truly back then. His face didn’t look right without a slant of firm disapproval.

“What was that?”

I shrugged. “Does it matter? You’re alive.”

“You cast magic on me,” he snapped. His tone carried less venom than usual, but I doubted it would last. He was still weak from the poison. Soon he’d be back to himself and sizing me up as an opponent once more. “Tell me what you did.”

“I siphoned the poison out of your body, you clod. That’s all you need to know. Now get up. We can’t remain here.”

Skarde grimaced. I could have sworn he looked… embarrassed.

“I’m not certain… I can walk.”

Of course, he couldn’t. Things could never be simple. I gestured broadly at the vines slithering across the ground. At a muttered word, they shot upward, braiding themselves into a canopy above us. It wasn’t foolproof, but it would keep the wind off us and give us advance warning if something approached. With some rest, I might have enough energy to take us directly to Marshall Heights instead of indulging the berserker’s obsession with the outdoors.

“What do you expect in return for saving me?” he asked, attempting to sit up.

It put his back to my front, and I was acutely aware of the way his muscles bunched against me. He was strong. Strong enough to keep the others off me until I could act.

“Nothing,” I said wearily. “You saved my life, and I saved yours. We’re even.”

He shot me a skeptical look over one shoulder. “I am grateful you saved my life, but I do not believe you.”

“And why is that?”

He narrowed his eyes. “Since when do you have a code of honor?”

 “Since Jovi. Death magic changes you,” I said with a shrug. “I hear the voices of the dead louder than I ever heard the living. They cloud my mind and often lead me astray, but… lately, they ask that I help Jovi. It seems the spirits of Midgard have put their faith in the half-breed.”

At the less-than-friendly term, there was a shudder that rippled through the forest. I didn’t want to help the half-breed. She was ridiculously naïve, willing to fling herself into Muspelheim after a man who should have known better, ignoring the one who was truly loyal to her. If she had any sense of her own magic, she’d see exactly who he was to her. But I owed it to my goddess to try, even if I found her newest favorite unworthy.

Skarde’s eyes softened as he stared at me. “You speak with the dead?”

“Yes.” A question trembled in the air between us, but his lips didn’t move. I breathed sharply through my nose and snapped, “Just ask, fool.”

“What of Eir?” he whispered. “Has she truly passed into Niflheim?”

I could lie. It would be easy, and it could very well deliver him into my hands. Grieving men were easily manipulated men. But… he’d saved me without a thought and now that I’d saved him, I felt as if we were bonded in some small way. There was a compassionate man in there somewhere. I couldn’t look Skarde in the eyes when the answer finally came.

“I do not sense Eir among the dead in Midgard and yet I do not hear her echoes in Niflheim.”

“Then that must mean… she… is alive?” he asked, voice strained with barely suppressed hope. “But how?! I watched her die! I held her in my arms!”

“The gods are fickle,” I answered vaguely.

“Is Eir really Torsten’s woman?” he asked. “Are Jovi and Eir the same being?”

And there it was. The question I’d been dreading. Mostly because I didn’t have a satisfying answer, and I hated admitting weakness.

“How am I supposed to know? I am not a god. The answer lies beyond the range of my power. I am powerful, yes, though not omniscient.”

That response seemed to satisfy him. He lapsed into pensive silence. It took us both a moment to realize I’d threaded my fingers into his hair and was tracing patterns onto his scalp idly with my nails. He went very still under my hands.

“What are you doing?” he asked.

“I’m bored,” I lied. “And I’m trying not to notice the cold.”

“It’s easier to share heat if we’re side by side.”

“Are you saying you want to cuddle a witch?” I teased.

A growl rumbled through Skarde’s chest. “It is not a matter of want, but a matter of need.”

“Oh, you need me,” I said, pressing the back of my hand to my forehead in a mock swoon. “Well, in that case I have no choice. I’ll strip off and—”

Powdery snow struck me in the face. I coughed and spluttered. When I could blink my way clear of it, I found Skarde smirking up at me unrepentantly.

“Don’t mock me, witch,” he said. “I do not like being toyed with.”

That might be, but he didn’t scoot away when I sat down beside him, before lying down and curling my body close to his side. Roots wound around us, holding in our body heat. It was cozy and his breath was warm on the back of my neck. Silence reigned for a few minutes before I had the courage to speak.

“Skarde?”

“Hmm?” he mumbled.

“What scares you more?” I asked. “That Jovi is Eir, or that she isn’t?”

I thought he wouldn’t answer, but was surprised when he said, “I don’t know. Both unsettle me. I don’t want to fight my brother. But if she’s not…”

“Eir is still missing,” I finished for him. “And you have no idea where to search for her. But what if… what if she’s gone? What if she doesn’t want to be found?”

To that, there was no reply.

***

Torsten

The general fell to the ground, clutching his ruined eyes. Blood and thick, viscous jelly slicked my fur flat. It bubbled in my wounds and seared my fur, cauterizing the gaping wounds I’d sustained. Fortunate for me, in a way, but it still stung like hell.

The other generals and their creatures eyed me warily as I leaped from the fallen giant’s chest and prowled forward, powering through the pain. My ribs ground together, tightening like a band around my lungs. It was hard to pull in a breath. The giants would recover themselves any minute now and kill me. I’d go down fighting, taking as many of them to Helheim with me as I could. One or two less giants to hunt Jovi down.

Suddenly, as if summoned out of thin air, Jovi swung down from a nearby giant’s back. She dropped almost fifteen feet straight down, using one of the giant’s leather straps like a makeshift vine. Her pale hair had darkened to a deep grey hue and there were smudges on her face and body, but never had I seen a sight more beautiful. Part of me worried that Jovi’s presence had been just a dream or a cruel trick. The other part was certain that my blue-eyed witch had found her way into Muspelheim.

She impacted the earth with a soft crunch, barely audible above the general’s continued roars of pain. It wasn’t until she’d straightened to her full height that I realized she was naked. Completely and gloriously nude. When she stepped out of a cloud of smoke and ash, the firelight painted her in shades of gold and red. Her eyes glinted dangerously, and she clutched an oversized sword in her hands, wielding it like a true warrior.

However, my gaze was torn away from her when a fire giant took notice of her presence. He lifted his blade to shoulder height, preparing a swing that would cleave her in two. I tried to fling myself forward, just as a pit-mutt lunged from the darkness and latched its teeth onto my shoulder, dragging me backward.

I needn’t have worried. Before the giant could let loose, Jovi twisted her hips and thrust her sword into the ankle of the nearest giant, slicing through its tendons like they were fishing twine. By the time the giant swung, its fellow was pitching forward, unable to support its own weight. The axe sunk in with a sickening thunk, splattering us in scalding ichor.

That succeeded in drawing all attention to Jovi. Every giant and monster on the hill were now swarming her direction. I opened my mouth to warn her, but she was knocked off her feet. A puff of ash and dust was kicked up into muggy air. In the blink of an eye, Jovi was out of my sight. Her screams echoed in the valley, and in response, I tried to summon my berserker strength. But the wolf never surfaced. The rage and beast-like savagery I’d run from for so many years was suddenly gone. My entire life I’d wanted nothing more than to be rid of the curse of my father’s bloodline, but to be without it now left me feeling extremely vulnerable.

I struggled onto all fours and limped after her. When I caught sight of her again, she was dashing across a plateau of volcanic stone. She stumbled around the fray, miraculously avoiding any injury. But the smell of sizzling skin reached my nose when she got too close to a giant’s blade. She blew on her palm with a wince, momentarily distracted by the pain, as one of the mutts made a grab for her.

“Watch out!” I shouted.

She ducked just in time. The mutt went sailing over her head, crashing into the leader of the pack as it readied its own leap. As the demons closed in around Jovi, I sprinted towards her. Her eyes flew open as she finally noticed me, but then a sudden crack in the ground grabbed our attention as it released a burst of fire, forcing her to leap out of the way. Before I could blink, a giant was on her. It seized her in a fist the size of a Sedan and I felt my heart start pounding as I realized what this beast could do to her. Not to mention how incredibly fragile she looked, dangling from its meaty hand, a matchstick in the grip of a vise.

Chapter Six

Torsten

“Torsten,” Jovi screamed. “Torsten!”

“Magic!” I screamed into her mind. “Use magic and go for the eyes!”

A hand circled around my throat, and I was slammed into the hard rock at the feet of a particularly nasty looking giant. This one was smaller than the others, but seemed to make up for a lack of height and girth in strength. Spots danced before my vision, and I was sure I’d pass out.

Just then, the hand that squeezed my windpipe was knocked loose when Jovi brazenly jumped onto the demon’s back. I didn’t know how she’d freed herself, but I was grateful as she grabbed onto his horns, yanking his head back. It gave me the opening I needed. The giant’s scream died to a gurgle when I tore into his throat, then pulled off the arm of the giant that stood over me, just for good measure. Blood sprayed across my face, wetting the stone beside my head.

I threw myself at her, cushioning the fall before the giant had a chance to fling her across the valley with what remained of its strength. Jovi’s pale blue eyes sparkled up at me like a thousand diamonds, catching the light of the fires of Muspelheim. She smelled like brimstone wrapped in a summer rainfall. The feel of her curves against my body made me lick my lips.

“You shouldn’t be here, Jovi,” I whispered.

“Yet here I am,” she said with a breathless sigh.

I tugged her chin up and pressed my mouth to hers in a searing kiss.

***

Jovi

The heat in Torsten’s eyes rivaled the geysers that shot lava out of the ground. He growled deep in his throat and the bulge of his erection against my thigh was unmistakable. My body reacted to him immediately. He closed his eyes and breathed deeply as if he’d caught the scent of my arousal. I thought he might have kissed me again, but a look of terror entered his gorgeous eyes instead.

Torsten peered over his shoulder, and I followed his line of sight towards another giant that had been slowly making its way toward the valley. The fire giant let out a roar that caused my ears to ring painfully. It ran straight for us, moving at a speed that seemed impossible for a creature that size. Torsten was frozen and there was panic in his eyes, only then did I realize he was shaking. His side was misshapen, bones pressing sickeningly outward. Clearly, his ribs were broken. What else had he suffered at the hands of these assholes? And the better question: did he have another fight left in him?

Probably not. We needed to hide. Maybe Brisingr could handle this one.

I crawled out from under him and dragged him behind a cluster of jagged stones. My hands scrambled over his face, trying to snap him out of the daze into which he’d fallen.

“Torsten!” I cried. “We need to get out of here before we’re stuck in this godforsaken hellscape.” His head started to droop as his eyes grew sleepy. I shook him. “Talk to me, Torsten.”

He opened his eyes. “Jovi?”

“Yeah, I’m right here, big guy,” I replied. “Now, tell me how we get out of this.”

“There’s nowhere we could hide in Muspelheim that the giants would not find me.” He pulled my hands away from his face and said, “I’ll distract the thing long enough for you to run. Find the dwarf and get out of this realm.”

“No! I’m not going anywhere without you.” I shook off Torsten’s hold and tried to look around for a way out. Instead, I saw a familiar dwarf sidestepping and occasionally killing pit-mutts. He made his way over to the rocks we’d hidden behind. Blood soaked his armor, startlingly red against the metal.

“Feck, feck, feck,” Brisingr slid to a stop and pressed his back against the stones beside Torsten. He took one look at the wolf shifter and scoffed. “Cause enough trouble, did ye? Yer kind never did quite master the art o’ subtlety.”

 “From my experience, your kind isn’t much better.” Torsten’s dislike for the dwarf was evident in his tone. The tension between them was most likely tied to some ancient feud that I didn’t have the energy to think about.

“Focus, please,” I shouted. “Surviving seems like the most important topic at the moment.” I looked between the two of them. “So, who has a plan?”

Brisingr slapped an axe into my palm. It wasn’t very big, but the sharp edge appeared lethal enough. The axe felt like ice in my hand and yet it was lighter than I expected.

“We fight,” said Brisingr, despite the pointed glare from Torsten. “Try that one, me lass. It’s more your size.”

“Where’s my weapon?” Torsten asked.

“I would never give one o’ yer sort a weapon.” The dwarf came face to face with the berserker’s furious expression.

I ignored both of them and charged towards the first mutt that came near the cluster of stones where we hid. The axe sent a tingle up my arm and frost collected on my fingertips as I buried it into the flaming canine’s skull. The beast turned to ice and shattered like glass. I stared at it for a moment before breaking into a wide grin.

“Cool.” I laughed. “Literally, I guess.”

Torsten grabbed the broadsword that Brisingr had strapped to his back. Then, as much as he was able, he rushed to my side with the sword raised high. Three of the mutts dropped one after another, their heads rolling into the fiery cracks in the stone beneath my feet.

The fire giant jumped high off the ground and landed with such force that the remaining demons scattered like cockroaches. Its scarred hand reached for us, but Torsten swung the mighty sword and severed two of the giant’s fingers. Black, sticky blood squirted out of the wounds, dousing me before I had the chance to get out of the way. I shivered in repulsion as Brisingr pulled something off his armor and tossed it into the air. A rift opened when it hit the ground, sucking Torsten and I into a dark abyss before the giant could capture us.

The last thing I saw as we were swallowed by darkness was a great eye with a slitted pupil.

***

Skarde

I woke in an upright position, strapped to a chair, and moving at great speed. For a moment, I was certain the witch had taken my hostage and was preparing to fling me into a far corner of Midgard. Then my vision cleared, and I found I was staring out a clear pane of glass, watching trees flash by in my periphery.

One of Torsten’s vehicles, then. Ugh. I wasn’t sure what sort of sorcery Fyrcat had used to get me inside without waking me. Or how we’d reached Torsten’s home to begin with. We were moving faster than we had on foot, but it didn’t mean I liked it.

“Blast,” Fyrcat hissed from my left. I turned my head in time to see her yank the steering wheel to the side. The truck skidded on the ice, but she somehow managed to wrangle the beastly machine under control. Every now and then she looked up at the rearview mirror.

“What’s wrong?” I asked. Or tried to ask. My tongue felt fat and swollen in my mouth, a side-effect of the mistletoe. I hadn’t felt this rotten since my first round of ale with my brothers.

“The dead,” she muttered, deciphering my meaning. “They’re coming, and I can’t push this rust bucket any faster. We’re going to crash if I’m not careful.”

“We should go on foot.”

“And get torn to pieces by draugrs? Are you mad or just stupid?” she hissed. “I’d rather you tear my throat out. It would be quicker and less humiliating than being ended by a dead man.”

I frowned. “What do you suggest then?”

Fyrcat squinted out the front window. The snow was coming down so thick and fast, it piled onto the hood even at this speed. The wind would fling it up and into the glass once more, obscuring our line of sight. The conditions were treacherous. I stood by my reasoning. It would be safer on foot than in this death trap.

“There’s a tunnel near the train station on the outskirts of town.”

“And how do you know that?” I asked. “Do you use it to perform your blasted rituals?”

Fyrcat let out a bark of deranged laughter. “Yes, I slaughter babies and paint the walls in blood. I invoke my goddess and I pray daily for the death of the Aesir.”

I stared at her. She made a disgusted sound when I didn’t say anything.

“It’s a joke, Skarde. Do you think you could extract your broadsword from your magnificent ass for once and act like I’m a human being?”

“You’re not.”

“Fuck you.” Her eyes blazed with anger as she stared into the blank whiteness outside the window. If I squinted, I could make out the shapes of buildings, but no more than that. “And I use the tunnel to cultivate herbs. Some of them do well in darkness and no one disturbs them.”

It was such an innocuous answer, I couldn’t come up with a reply. It was hard to picture the witch doing anything as innocent as tending a garden.

“And what will we do in this tunnel?” I asked.

“I don’t know; what do you suggest?”

My cock twitched at her words, as if she were inviting the lewdest of all suggestions. She had a way of calling to the thing in my trousers, and I hated her for it. I hated that she’d shoved the thought into my head. With the prospect of death looming so close, it was tempting. It would be a simple matter of hiking her skirts around her pale thighs. Her hair was soft, her quim warm. It would be easy.

And wrong.

“Perhaps I shouldn’t have asked the question,” she said, glancing from me to the erection straining against my trousers.

“I have a mate.”

She laughed again. “Do you really? Because from where I stand, Eir is lost to you either way.”

A snarl ripped its way out of my chest before I could stop it. It was almost deafening in the confines of the vehicle. Fyrcat cringed away from it, hunching over the steering wheel.

“Bite your tongue, witch!”

She took her eyes off the road for a moment, glaring at me with a look so contemptuous, it made my hackles rise, even in human form.

“Think, fool. Even if she is Eir, what then? She’s in love with your brother.”

“She’ll love me too,” I argued. “When she knows the truth, she’ll—”

“She’ll what? Leave Torsten for you? Unlikely.” She shook her head. “You’ve seen how they look at each other. They’re mates, whether you like it or not.” Then she laughed at me. “Don’t tell me you think your brother will share?”

Fury twisted in my chest, and I dug my hands into my sides in an effort not to go for her throat. Lies. Witches spoke them fluently. And yet…

“Her memory has been altered. If she remembers, she’ll feel differently.”

Fyrcat deflated, and whatever sense of indignance had fueled her evaporated. It left her looking smaller, frailer. Dark circles ringed her eyes, and worry lines creased her brow.

“Memories make us what we are, Skarde,” she said quietly. “And Jovi has a lifetime of them. False or not, they have changed her. If you tear down a house and build another over the wreckage, does it change the structure of the new house when you discover what existed before?”

“What are you saying?” I demanded.

She blew out a frustrated breath. “That Jovi doesn’t owe you anything, fool. If she is Eir and she does learn the truth of her heritage, she will still choose Torsten. She loves him.” She looked at me then. “Will you kill your brother to win a woman who doesn’t want you?”

I glared out the window. I didn’t have an answer to the question. No, I didn’t want to hurt my brother. On the other hand, the thought of Eir choosing another was intolerable. She was my mate. I’d moved through the nine worlds trying to find her. To lose her now would be unthinkable.

“We’ll see.”

“Not that this conversation matters anyway because I wasn’t suggesting we…” she continued, losing the train of her thought. She cleared her throat. “Regardless, you’re still a fool.”

“Come up with something more original,” I snapped.

“Halfwit?” she suggested. “Pillock? Dullard?”

“Bitch.”

That brought a faint smile to her face. “Ah, at last. The witch stuff was getting tiresome. I’ll also accept ‘harridan’ and ‘termagant’.”

“You’re enjoying this,” I said.

Her smile twisted into something sharp and cruel. “Of course. I relish your suffering. You are the one who dragged me into this mess, after all. If we’d stayed in my home, we’d have been safe.”

At the thought of what we could be doing, had we remained in her home, my mind betrayed me once more, thrusting images of her pale, supple flesh onto me. It was only too easy to imagine her splayed on the ground, naked and writhing as I took her. I could imagine the graceful slope of her spine as I bent her forward, the soft keening sounds she’d make when I drove her toward climax. The way her legs would tremble and ultimately buckle. The breathy sigh of my name from those full lips.

I snarled.

Sorcery. It was her fault.

“You’re right. You do want me to suffer.”

She trilled a laugh that hung in the air, as clear and beautiful as the notes of a struck bell. “Isn’t that what I said?”

At this rate, I’d bed her just to get her to shut up. And then I’d torment myself about it, wondering if I’d broken my oaths to Eir. If Eir lived, that is. And if she wanted me after all this time.

Chapter Seven

Skarde

I glanced out the window, eyeing the town.

I didn’t see what kept Jovi so enraptured about this place. Under the layers of ice and snow, it didn’t look like much.

“She said it was beautiful,” I said slowly. “I don’t understand why. I’ve seen demon lairs with more character than this place.”

“It has its charms,” Fyrcat replied.

I frowned at her. “What charms?”

“It’s quiet, for one. No wolves prowling around, looking to kill us. At least until you showed up.”

She shot me a dirty look out of the corner of one eye, slowing the hulking metal vehicle as we turned onto the main road that cut through town. The snow was so deep in some areas that the lower half of the other vehicles were barely visible. If not for the flicker of candlelight in upstairs windows, the town would have appeared abandoned. The clouds above were so thick and oppressive, it was difficult to tell day from night. Had Torsten and Jovi made it out of Muspelheim yet? Or had they died in the attempt?

Fyrcat eased over a small incline before steering the truck toward a pair of perpendicular metal lines. They must have been the train tracks she’d mentioned. The truck bounced as we rolled over them, making my teeth clack together.

When the tires hit the slick stone on the other side of the road, the truck jounced, sliding dangerously to the right. Fyrcat let out a litany of curses and tried to turn into the motion, but the back tire hit something in the road. The vehicle went up on two wheels, and I braced my hand against the roof of the thing with a curse as it toppled over.

Fyrcat screamed, and the sound was so shrill, it nearly shattered my ear drums. I watched in mounting fear as spider cracks appeared on the glass in front of us. The truck hit the ground on its side, and something huge and white simply exploded out of the vehicle’s casing and into my face. I struck out with my claws on pure reflex before it could reach me.

The white thing turned out to be a bag of some sort. It let out a pitiful whine as it deflated. When I could take stock of myself, I found myself suspended above the ground, held up by the belt around my chest and waist.

“Fyrcat?” I asked, reaching out a shaky hand to shove her shoulder. “Are you living, witch?”

Fyrcat stirred and let out a groan. Blood streaked down her temple, running into her one eye and down over her split lips. Her small, pink tongue flicked out to test the wound with a grimace.

“We have to get out of here,” she moaned.

“I can’t,” I said, gesturing at the belt around my waist. “Your binding has me pinned.”

She managed a breathless laugh, even through the pain. “Dullard. It’s a seatbelt. Press the red button at your waist. Or failing that, rend the bloody thing with your claws. I know you’re strong enough.” She looked down at herself. “Then do me a favor and undo mine. I doubt the doors will work, so we’ll have to go out the windows.”

Well, that was easy enough, even strapped to a seat.

“Close your eyes,” I said, then swung a booted foot at the window, hurling kick after kick at the pane until it gave way. Glass peppered the frozen ground outside and a blast of cold air hit my face. I struggled with the button on the lap band for a moment until it popped free. I considered leaving Fyrcat dangling from the ceiling, but remembered exactly why it would be a bad idea a moment later. If she was killed, I’d die, as well.

So I undid her buckle, and Fyrcat fell limply into my arms. It seemed to cost her an enormous effort, but she crawled past me, moving toward the window slowly. Terror flashed across her eyes, and she scurried backward a few inches, her round backside pushing into my front.

“What are you doing?”

“Draugr!” she hissed. “Lots and lots of draugr. The noise must have drawn them to us.”

“Fuck!”

“My sentiments exactly,” she said with a nod. “There are at least three or four dozen of them, and I’m not sure if I have the magic to fend them off. When they’ve finished with us, they’ll rip into the mortals.”

Which was precisely what we’d come here to stop. I ground my teeth, glaring at the top of her head. “I thought the rest would have replenished some of your powers.”

“It did,” she said just as waspishly. “And then I wasted whatever was replenished by dragging your sorry ass to Marshall Heights. I shouldn’t have bothered.”

“Fine,” I said, reaching for my sword. It had landed on the roof, which was now the floor. I was fortunate it hadn’t struck me as the vehicle flipped. “I’ll deal with this on my own.”

“No!” Fyrcat said, seizing my wrist. Her nails dug into my forearm, and in the low light I spotted the glimmer of tears in her eyes. With her guard down she looked deceptively small. Defenseless even. “Don’t leave me here by myself.”

Damn my soft heart. I pulled the witch into my side, sheltering her from the wind as we pulled ourselves free of the wreck.

 A chorus of snarls drew closer as we waded through the snow. A mangled hand swiped at my face and missed. I followed the line of the arm up to a face, even as the stench of rotted flesh assaulted my nose.

The draugrs had grayish skin that was torn and shredded in places, revealing their rotted insides. A ghostly glow emanated from empty eye sockets. They lacked armor, which gave us a fighting chance. Unfortunately, they had scrounged weapons they could from the town. Broken fence posts, shards of metal that Jovi had called ‘rebar,’ spades, and more.

I’d heard of these fuckers, but I’d never fought one. This particular one had once been a Midgardian man of considerable height and weight. Three hundred pounds of putrefying flesh with a warrior’s intellect shining from its eyes. I wondered which of my brothers or sisters had slipped into the man’s skin. Did it matter if they were trying to kill me?

Another corpse, this time female, lunged for Fyrcat. The witch swatted uselessly at the pus-covered hand. A dry, raspy sound wheezed from the woman’s mouth. It took me a moment to realize it was a laugh.

“We are done,” Fyrcat whispered.

“You have to fight,” I growled. “There must be a way to restore your magic. What can I do?”

Fyrcat hesitated. When her eyes rolled up to meet mine, they were wet. “You won’t like it.”

“I’ll do whatever it takes.”

She sucked in a shuddering breath. “Fine. I need you to kiss me.”

***

Jovi

A whirling vortex of shadow spun us around before dropping us somewhere unknown. I landed on top of Torsten. He hissed through his teeth when my hand accidentally brushed over the wound in his chest.

“Sorry,” I whispered, hands fluttering in the air above it. If I’d had Fyrcat’s skill or knowledge, I could have probably waved them confidently over the mutilated flesh and healed him. But I wasn’t Fyrcat. I wasn’t even really sure who I was these days.

“Don’t worry about it,” he grunted, giving me a light push. “If nothing gets in the wound, it should heal shortly.”

“Really?”

I couldn’t see him in the gloom, but I could picture his solemn nod. “It’s part of our gift. Or curse, depending on how you look at it. We can ignore pain when it happens and heal it quickly when the fight is over. Assuming we haven’t lost our heads or a major limb.”

“But ribs and a collapsed lung are just peachy?”

“Oh, it hurts like hell, but I will heal, and that’s what matters.”

I let out a low whistle. It echoed back to me in the confined space. I scrambled off him and tried to feel my way around in the dark. The silence that surrounded us was eerie after nearly being killed by supernatural creatures. I tried to calm my racing heart by counting Torsten’s breaths. They sounded less labored with every minute that passed. Torsten may have hated what he was, but I was grateful for it and him. The things we’d gone through would have killed an ordinary man.

The surface beneath us was smooth and cold, an Arctic juxtaposition to the place we’d been moments before. I felt around for what felt like an eternity before my hand touched something long and slender. When I jiggled it, it moved.

“I found something,” I whispered.

“What is it?” he asked, and his voice sounded stronger. No more wheeze.

“I don’t know exactly, but I think it’s a lever. Pulling it could either kill us or get us out of here.” The axe in my other hand began to throb like a heartbeat. “What should I do?”

I suddenly felt Torsten’s hand on my shoulder. “We just battled fire giants. What’s the worst that could happen?” he snorted. “Pull it.”

I turned my head, but couldn’t find a shape in the darkness to glare at. “Oh, now you’ve done it?”

“Done what?”

“You said ‘What’s the worst that could happen?’ Haven’t you ever watched a movie? You don’t say stuff like that when you’re stuck in a hell dimension. It’s just asking for trouble.”

He sighed. “This isn’t a movie, Jovi.”

“It had better not be,” I muttered, getting a better grip on the lever. “Because I don’t like the plot one bit, and the stingy bitch who sent us here won’t offer a refund.”

He laughed weakly. “Come on, Jovi. We’re wasting time. If it’s bad, we’ll deal with it. We always do.” He was right. If we’d dropped from the fire into something worse, we’d find a way to muddle through it.

My muscles clenched as I eased the lever down. A loud whoosh was followed by the sound of grinding metal. Light spilled into our hiding place as the portion of wall I’d been leaning against simply fell away. Torsten’s hand shot out, seizing me by the elbow before I could tumble town the sloping corridor that had opened before us.

“Careful,” he said quietly, guiding me back from the ledge. “You defeated fire giants. It would be embarrassing to be defeated by the floor.”

I couldn’t help a laugh. “Right? ‘Squashed by giant’ sounds way cooler than ‘tripped and broke her neck.’”

He chuckled before nudging me to one side. “I don’t want you in the lead if this turns out to be some kind of trap.”

“It was Brisingr who brought us here,” I pointed out. “He saved my life out there, over and over again. Doesn’t that earn him a little goodwill?”

“A little. But in my experience, dwarves don’t do things for free. He’ll want something in return. I’ll take the lead until we know what angle he’s playing.”

I couldn’t argue with that, so I stepped to the side. Torsten held the sword out, moving to take the lead, ready to defend me if necessary. Meanwhile, I lifted my own weapon just in case.

We moved slowly down an enormous corridor with gilded columns that revealed the same runes as Brisingr’s armor.

“Are we… underground?”

“Yes. This is a dwarven refuge,” Torsten answered. “I had thought all of them were destroyed in Muspelheim during the great wars.”

“You’re going to have to tell me about those sometime,” I said, staring up the line of one column. If we had time, I would have stayed and admired it for a bit. The craftsmanship was superb. Every sight, sound, and experience I’d had since leaving Midgard had been nothing short of awe-inspiring. Terrifying, yes, but still awe-inspiring.

“I’ll give you a history lesson after we deliver the world from the three winters. Now hush. I think I hear something.”

He was right. The sound of a hammer banging on an anvil echoed off the walls, and grew louder as a blacksmith’s forge came into view. Brisingr’s armor was displayed on a leather mannequin near several racks of weapons. The dwarf barely spared a glance in our direction as he continued working.

“I saved ye both. Ye owe me an explanation. Why are ye ‘ere an’ why do I get the feelin’ ye be needin’ me?”

Torsten moved to stand in front of me, completely shielding my body from view. I stepped to one side and gave him a reproving look. If Brisingr had wanted to hurt or kill me, he had plenty of opportunities before now.

“We do,” I said, blinking to clear the heat from my eyes. The warmth coming off the forge was incredible, and possibly even more sweltering than the hellscape above. At least that had been spread out over an open area. In an enclosed space, I felt like a piece of meat being slowly broiled.

“And what exactly do ye be needin’ my help with?”

“Torsten wishes to be free of an oath he took many years ago,” I explained. “He needs to be reborn in the fires of Muspelheim but… as you’ve seen, things haven’t gone to plan. We’re running out of time, and we need your help.”

“Who sent ye?”

“Fyrcat,” Torsten growled.

Chapter Eight

Jovi

Brisingr seemed to recognize the name ‘Fyrcat’, though he didn’t appear as standoffish as Skarde and Torsten had when they discussed the witch.

He scratched his chin thoughtfully, the heavy mitts he wore smearing soot across his jaw as he did so.

“My forge could get the job done well enough, but my help won’t come free o’ charge.”

“I knew it,” Torsten muttered. “Dwarves always want something.”

“Just the same as any other faction o’ creature,” Brisingr replied.

Torsten shook his head. “No, your greed is unmatched within all the realms. In fact, I distinctly remember your kind refusing to help during the first war.”

“It was none of our business, pup,” Brisingr replied hotly. “Freya’s foolishness had ne’ to do with me or my people.”

Torsten snickered at that. “Many would disagree.”

Brisingr narrowed his eyes at the much larger man. “You really think we’d die for the All Father’s vendetta against one goddess? We’re craftsmen. You want weapons we’ll sell ‘em to you, but that’s it. Leave us outta yer petty squabbles.”

Torsten opened his mouth to reply, but I’d had enough. I turned to Brisingr and said, “Don’t lay into him like that. He’s got a sacred duty, and this is hard enough for him as it is.” Then I rounded on Torsten. “And you should keep your opinions about our host to yourself. We’re asking him to save our asses, so taking a chunk out of his is a very bad idea.”

Torsten rocked back on his heels, eyes wide. The harshness of my tone seemed to shock him. He backed away with a bewildered expression.

Why can’t he see that I’m trying to help him? I wondered to myself.

“Name your price, Brisingr,” Torsten said as he faced the dwarf.

Brisingr’s expression was solemn and a bit sinister in the red-gold glow of the forge. The light cast long shadows across his craggy face, pooling in his sockets so I could only make out the glimmer of his eyes. I had to admit he fascinated me. I tried not to stare as he pounded away at a scrap of metal on the anvil. Somehow, seeing Brisingr made Torsten’s world more real to me than it had been before I came to Muspelheim.

“My nephew, Ogun, is peculiar,” Brisingr said finally. “He has no place among the other dwarves. His head is cluttered with what he be readin’ in books an’ such. I got no use fer him. The lad got no talent fer smithin’ nor does he have any interest in learnin’ how ta craft weapons or armor. Can’t fight worth a damn, neither.”

“You want us to babysit your nephew?” I asked and couldn’t keep the surprise out of my voice. All this animosity and posturing for that simple request? It seemed too easy. Too modest a request for it not to have a catch.

“Not like that. Just… look after him, is all.” Brisingr stopped hammering and looked at me with a frown etched onto his bearded face. “Ye got mixed blood, I can tell. Well, so does Ogun. The others… they don’t see him as one o’ us. An’ he might be able ta help ye on whatever quest ye be on. He’s real smart, that one. Once he stops gabbin’, that is. Got a real mouthpiece on him.”

“So, let me get this right,” I said slowly. “We let your nephew tag along with us back to Midgard and keep an eye on him and you’ll help us?”

“Aye.”

“What’s he supposed to do in Midgard if he’s never been there?” I continued.

“Ogun has been obsessed with Midgard since he was young. He knows enough to get by, I suppose. Don’t take my word fer it, though. Ye can meet him yerself.”

Brisingr crossed over to a large door that I hadn’t noticed when we first stepped into the hall. He swung the heavy oak back a fraction, stuck his head in the gap, and yelled, “Ogun! Get your scrawny backside to the forge now!”

The bellow bounced off the stone and back to us in deafening waves. Talk about acoustics. An opera singer could make a killing in here.

 A few minutes later a figure appeared in the doorway. He was a small man, thinner and younger than Brisingr. His eyes were dark like obsidian stones, his skin a grey-blue color that was so different from his uncle’s, and, though he had a beard and braided hair like Brisingr, his ears were pointed.

“Visitors?!” the young dwarf exclaimed excitedly. His voice was higher than I expected. Brisingr’s rich basso hit the ears like a battering ram. In comparison, Ogun’s voice was the whistle of an arrow. “We never get visitors down here!”

Before any of us could reply, Ogun ran over to me and circled me, the motion so fast, it was difficult to track. He touched my hair and poked me in the bottom. I yelped and flushed with embarrassment; the touch reminding me that I was naked and covered in giant blood. I hurried to cover myself, wishing I had the mitt-like hands of Brisingr. At least they’d cover more.

Ogun, to his credit, blushed vibrantly and clapped his hands over his eyes. “Sorry! I read that people from Midgard were a bit funny about their bodies. You’re pretty, though. Not that you’re my type of pretty or anything. I’m just saying.”

He kept babbling, quoting this, that, and the other about beauty standards. I suddenly understood why Brisingr was a bit eager to get rid of his nephew. Ogun rambled. A lot. And, from the looks of things, he was rather clumsy as well. The young dwarf tripped over his own feet twice, just trying to make his way over to a table where a tankard of mead sat. Torsten didn’t seem thrilled at the idea of bringing Ogun along, but we were out of time and out of options. I could feel the last of Fyrcat’s magic dribbling away, like sand in an hourglass. We had to leave and soon.

“All right.”

“Jovi, think about this,” Torsten implored as he whispered at me so no one else would hear him. “We don’t know who we can trust. I don’t think this dwarf or his nephew are who they say they are. It could be a trap, or worse, they could be spies.”

I ignored him. In the end, it didn’t matter whose side they were on. We had to leave, unless we wanted to be trapped in Muspelheim forever.

“We’ll bring him along,” I said.

“Jovi,”

I looked at Torsten with a stern expression. “Please, we have to hurry or else we might not be able to make it back.”

“Don’t ye fret,” Brisingr chuckled as he walked up behind me. “Ye still have an hour before nightfall in Midgard. Plenty o’ time ta have a bite ta eat an let the lad get his things packed up.”

I could practically feel Torsten’s eyes burning holes into the back of my head. Ogun let out a happy squeak, grabbed my hand, and led us into Brisingr’s home as his uncle prepared the forge for our journey. When we got away from the forge, the inside of the refuge was much colder than the rest of Muspelheim, something I suspected had to do with the amount of energy that radiated through the place.

“So, dwarves have magic?” I asked, looking around the place. The architecture looked even grander away from the main hall. “I can feel something running through this place, but I’m not sure what it is.”

Ogun shrugged. “No, not usually. We can enchant things using runes and magical elements, but we can’t make magic ourselves. I, on the other hand, am the exception to the rule. Like you.”

I blinked. “Uh… how do you know about me?”

Ogun stopped mid-stride and craned his neck so he could look up at me. There was a hint of something in his dark eyes, but it was gone almost as quickly as it had appeared.

“Nothing, really. Just a feeling.” He shrugged again and pushed open a swinging door that led to a kitchen with stone counters. The stove, much like everything else crafted by Brisingr, was made of gold. “Would you like some lamb? You’re probably hungry.”

“Starved,” I said. “But first… could you find me something to wear?”

***

Torsten

I declined the portion of meat the dwarf offered and kept an eye on Jovi as she ate. If she collapsed or started foaming at the mouth, I was going to end the half-breed and damn the consequences. Jovi was far too willing to trust the creatures of our world, creatures that were more likely to slit her throat than to lend a helping hand. Furthermore, Dwarves were not known for their kindness nor were they particularly interested in involving themselves in matters of other races. They’d proved as much when they’d refused to ride under Odin’s banner and stomp out Freya’s host of witches.

As a rule, dwarves stuck to themselves and made it well-known that outsiders were not welcome. Brisingr and his nephew were far too generous for their kind. And as far as I was concerned, a generous dwarf was a dishonest dwarf. Why would Brisingr go to the trouble of saving us, just to pawn off his nephew? And honestly, the alternative was worse. If he was willing to impose the boy’s company on us, that meant Ogun had to be insufferable, and I’d be bound by Jovi’s pact not to kill him.

As if to prove me right, Ogun told a joke about a wolf shifter he’d met that caught fleas from a stray dog.

“And I said, haven’t you heard the saying? Lie down with dogs, get up with fleas! And he just looked back at me and said, ‘Well, them bitches be crazy, right?’” Ogun threw back his head and let out a braying laugh. The sound clawed at my ears. The surface was beginning to look more tolerable by the second.

I bared my teeth in a snarl, not finding Ogun’s off-beat personality amusing in the least. Though the Dwarves made me angry as a whole, I had to admit there was a reason I hated this one in particular. He made Jovi smile and laugh. Somehow, and I wasn’t sure how it was possible, they’d managed to bond over one meal. She was now wearing one of his shirts, as it was the only one in all of the Dwarven kingdom that came close to fitting her. She’d sinched the middle with a length of leather, accentuating the perfect curve of her waist. The hem of the shirt fluttered around her upper thighs, showing off an obscene amount of leg. I wanted to pluck Ogun’s eyes out just for catching a glimpse of them.

And yes, I was jealous of how quickly the Dwarves had earned Jovi’s affection. I couldn’t deny that she’d been right to accept Brisingr’s terms. There weren’t many options left on the table. I owed her this. She’d come after me, saved me from the giants and my own hot temper. I might have refused Brisingr out of spite, and where would that have left me? Her courage and loyalty were beyond anything I’d ever seen.

But prickles of envy caused the hair on my arms to stand as she whispered something to Ogun. His appearance wasn’t common among Dwarves like his uncle. I didn’t know why I hadn’t realized it before, but I recognized the youngling as a Svartálfr. Often thought of as the dark elves of our world, Svartálfr were actually a Dwarven race that possessed elven magic. Some believed it was a result of crossbreeding with the elves of Alfheim.

“Got something you want to ask me, grumpy?” Ogun asked, catching me staring at him, no doubt with a scowl on my face. “Keep looking at me like that and you’ll have to buy me dinner when we get to Midgard.”

If not for the beard, short stature, and dark eyes, I wouldn’t have known he was a Dwarf at all. I bared my teeth in an expression that was more sneer than smile. It did succeed in wiping the smirk off his face.

“Could you possibly find me a shirt and a pair of trousers?”

Ogun’s eyes twinkled. “None of us have anything in your size, man-wolf.” Then the smirk reappeared. “You could use the tablecloth.”

“Don’t think I won’t,” I answered as Ogun balled his fist into the tablecloth and yanked it from the table in one smooth motion. It came free without rattling any of the dishes. Even I was impressed. It was a move worthy of a magician. His smirk came back in full force when he caught sight of our expressions. Then he tossed the wad of fabric underhand. I caught it on reflex.

Jovi failed to mask her excitement and curiosity as she looked around the room. The kitchen counters were littered with junk. To her, it must have been like walking into a treasure trove. Enchanted artifacts were tossed in with everyday appliances. She picked up a music box and lifted the lid before slamming it shut.

Then she turned to me, eyes wide, “I—it’s a head. A singing head!”

Ogun took the box from Jovi’s hand. “A gift from a merchant that passed through here before the bifrost was shattered,” he explained. “Quite a lovely voice, I think.”

I wrapped the tablecloth around my waist as they talked. The fabric was thin and nearly shredded as I pulled it over my thighs. This was almost as bad as still being naked.

Ogun whistled like a cartoon wolf and wagged his brows when I stood. “You don’t look half-bad, grumpy. Very caveman chic,” he said with an infuriating smirk on his lips.

I shoved past Ogun and approached Jovi. The closer I got to her, the more flustered I became. No matter how much we’d been through together, there was something about her that made me a tongue-tied fool whenever she glanced up at me through those long lashes and gave me that sweet little smile.

“Are you alright?” she asked. Her hand lifted to my chest as she gently probed along my side. It was tender, but the bones no longer jutted through the skin. The wound was sealed along the edges with a faint line of dark pink still peeking out.

“I’ll live,” I replied. “So long as Ogun’s rambling doesn’t put me in an early grave.”

Jovi slapped my shoulder playfully and then adjusted her makeshift dress. “I happen to like him so far. He’s growing on me.”

“Yeah… like a fungus.”

Ogun whirled around and scoffed at me with his stubby hands on his wide hips. “If I was a sensitive Dwarf, I might take offense to that,” he said. But there was a spark of mischief in his gaze as he said it.

Jovi and I nibbled at strange bread and funky smelling cheeses in the kitchen as Ogun bustled away, preparing for our departure.

“I hope you’re keeping your guard up,” I whispered. Dwarves had incredible hearing, but I made sure my words were for Jovi’s ears only. “It would be a mistake to think these men are our friends, Jovi. They could be taking advantage of you in ways you might not see.”

Her shoulders slumped a bit as she avoided my gaze. “I’m sad for you, Torsten. You’re from a world filled with magic and you’re so paranoid that everyone is out to get you that you won’t let yourself enjoy it.”

“I was born to this world,” I replied, tone frosty. “But I want no part of it.”

“I don’t understand why.”

“Magic has brought me nothing but pain. This was the first time I was able to fully summon my beast in so long, and I still couldn’t save you. Magic is fickle—it’s not reliable.”

“Being human isn’t any better,” she said as she picked at another slice of nut bread. “You can’t let yourself be too afraid to live.”

“So long as I’m breathing, I’ll consider myself lucky. Being Freya’s toy—her pleasure slave—killed something inside me.” The honesty of my words was shocking even to me. “My mistakes brought me to this point and I’m paying for them dearly.”

She shook her head slowly. “You’re a slave to your own anger more than you were ever Freya’s slave.” Jovi took her leave of me then and wandered off to find Ogun.

I stood in an unfamiliar kitchen hidden somewhere in the realm of fire, and yet it was Jovi’s words that made me feel like a stranger in a strange land. Perhaps she was right. Perhaps I had allowed myself to wallow in self-pity and angry paranoia for too long.

Chapter Nine

Skarde

I didn’t allow myself to think, only to act.

Before the army of berserkers could take another lurching step toward us, I bent and seized Fyrcat by her hair, hauling her to her feet. She made a sound in the back of her throat that was caught somewhere between a yelp and a moan. Her eyes, already unfocused, went glassy with pleasure, and her lush lips parted a fraction. Another breathy sound escaped her when I hauled her against my chest and slanted my mouth over hers.

She tasted like blood, and the ominous charge that came before lightning struck. Magic, heat, and the memory of battle with foes stirred my beast, brought it raging to the surface. The wolf howled its frustration, throwing itself against the binding she’d slipped over its muzzle. My claws extended, biting into her sides, and the urge to tear through her clothing slammed through my veins.

Fyrcat pressed herself as tightly to my front as she could manage, hands flying up to cup my face. Her nails teased my skin before biting in deep, drawing crescents of blood. Her magic slipped inside the wounds, as insidious as a weed, siphoning some of the rage, the confusion, the lust. It cleared enough to allow me to think and by the time she stepped out of the circle of my arms, my thoughts were as sharp and clear as the glass that littered the ground around us.

“What did you do?” I asked, dabbing at the blood on my cheeks. The wounds stung more than I thought they ought to. Probably a holdover from the mistletoe poisoning. I’d be healing slowly for the next few days.

“Transfer,” she said, stooping to seize a large piece of the window. The jagged edges cut at her palms as she did. “Emotions have power. Sex would have been ideal to take from you, but I doubt our pestilent foes would appreciate the show.”

The stirrings I felt with her pressed against me evaporated and in their place, a chill ran over my skin at the reminder of exactly what she was. How far I’d allowed myself to fall—allying myself with a witch who stood against my own kinsmen. And I’d very nearly just bedded her.

Disgraceful.

Fyrcat dipped a slender finger into the blood running from her temple and traced a rune onto her makeshift weapon. Ideally, she could have used the wand and the many potions she’d stored in her bags, but they’d been in the death trap when we’d crashed. She’d be fortunate if any of her magical aids had survived the encounter.

“You plan to melee with that?” I asked, flicking a dubious look at the shard in her hand. “They’ll take your head before you get close.”

“Worry about yourself,” she shot back. “Pay attention, fool. They’re coming.”

I sensed the draugr before I saw it. The heavy-set man who’d advanced on us moments before was back, swinging a fence post in a wide arc toward my head. I maneuvered my blade into position an instant before the rusty nails jutting from the bottom would have made contact with my skin. The wood split with a crack, raining splinters down on my head.

The draugr stared down at the pieces in his hands for a moment before taking another swing, jabbing one of the broken pieces toward my ribs, and the other toward my face.

 “Move!” Fyrcat cried.

Again, I didn’t think, I only acted. I backed away, narrowly avoiding a blow from behind. The emaciated woman holding a length of rebar went down easily. One kick to the knees, and she was on her back, unable to right herself enough to fight. The warrior inside would have to get on its knees to come after me again, which would put it within easy striking distance.

An ear-rending bellow came from the draugr I’d battled only moments before. It clutched the smoking ruin of its host’s eyes, staggering around in bewilderment, bowling a half-dozen of his fellows as he went. The eerie glow of the berserker spirit couldn’t be seen in the hollows of the skull.

I turned to find Fyrcat who was watching the spectacle with some satisfaction. Another of the berserkers, meanwhile, staggered forward, swinging a spade at her face. She turned the shard of glass toward the man with a contemptuous flick of her wrist, catching the dim winter light in its reflection. And the second the light touched the hollow eye sockets, the warrior began to scream in pain. What little flesh remained on the corpse bubbled and dribbled down into the hole, burying the ghostly light under a tide of viscera.

“What in Hel’s name is that?” I shouted over the continued cries of the draugrs. The others had slowed a little, wary of the witch’s new trick.

“I’ll tell you if we survive,” she answered, baring her teeth in a fierce grin. “I’ll disable them, and you can handle the rest.”

“They’ll find other bodies.”

“Then they’ll have to search elsewhere, which will give us time to get the blasted humans you care so much about out of town. Now get down!”

A blade slashed through the air just as I lowered my head. Several strands of my hair fluttered to the ground. I pivoted just in time to see another of the draugrs lose its eyes. The body it inhabited was a slender woman, so light on her feet that I hadn’t sensed her approach. The smell of rotting flesh was so pervasive, the thunder of their steps so all-encompassing, that I couldn’t have made it out if I tried. One upward slash sent the head flying. It bounced to a stop a few feet away, tripping another of its fellows.

“To your left!” Fyrcat called, swinging her shining toy in the direction she’d indicated. I turned, sword at the ready and took off the arm of a child who’d been attempting to jab a knife through the chink in my armor. I did feel a small pang of remorse when the body tumbled to the ground. Not enough to keep me from removing its head, but the emotion was still there.

Stupid, really. The child had been dead long before one of my kinsmen commandeered his body. Still, mutilating him post-mortem seemed… wrong.

A large bear of a man staggered into me from my right. I slipped on a patch of ice and scarcely managed to right my balance. The thing came after me, sensing an opening. I feinted left, and then buried my blade up to the hilt in the draugr’s putrid flesh. It let out a gurgling moan but didn’t collapse like the others had.

“Go for the head,” I called to Fyrcat.

She actually had the nerve to roll her eyes at me. “Of course, you go for the head, you ponce. Haven’t you watched zombie movies?”

“What?”

“Oh, for fuck’s sake,” she muttered. “If you survive, I’m giving you a crash course in Midgard’s modern culture. Another one is coming up behind you, by the way. And… ah, it has a chainsaw. Lovely. Take a few steps back if you value your eyes.”

A hideous sound split the air, and the next draugr came at me with a scything blade. The thing was moving so rapidly, I could scarcely keep track of it. I staggered back as ordered, narrowly avoiding the beam of Fyrcat’s improvised weapon.

It reacted just like the others, flesh melting away on contact with the light. I saw my opening as the corpse listed to the side. My sword arched down, severing the draugr’s arms with a spray of pus and clotted blood. The foreign weapon dropped to the ground, continuing to roar for a few seconds before sputtering out. More and more draugr swarmed us. I carved a path through them until there was enough room for an escape.

I seized Fyrcat’s arm when she tried to dive toward the death trap and the tools of her trade. She made a kitten-like sound of frustration when I tucked her beneath one arm and began hauling her in the opposite direction.

“I need my bag!” she snapped.

“You need to live,” I snapped back. “If we make it out of this, you can always make more tools. You can’t use them if you’re dead.”

“You almost sound like you care,” she said waspishly.

“Like it or not, we’re stuck with one another. Now move.”

I gave her a push toward the opposite end of the street. Stubby fingers clawed at my clothes from behind and jagged, broken teeth attempted to take a bite out of me.

“Over here!” she yelled, pointing toward a building ahead.

She darted across the street and threw herself at an old, wooden door. It didn’t look like much, but any barrier between our bodies and the Hunt was better than nothing at all. The lock broke as the door opened, allowing us entry. Fyrcat slammed it shut the moment I tumbled in. We grabbed a table then and together, pushed it in front of the entrance, barricading ourselves inside.

“You aren’t the worst battle buddy I’ve ever had,” Fyrcat said, bending double as she tried to catch her breath.

“I’m not your buddy,” I snapped.

My lungs burned, and pain piled onto me. The high of battle was fading, alerting me to my many wounds. Damn near every muscle ached with exertion and the aftereffects of the mistletoe poisoning. I must have looked worse than I felt, because Fyrcat winced at the sight of me.

“Damn, Skarde. You look terrible.”

“Look who’s talking.”

Blood was still oozing from Fyrcat’s forehead, and half her face was mottled purple and black courtesy of Sigrun’s pack. Her smile was a bit lopsided, but sincere.

“Fair enough.”

I plopped down on the chair that had stood beside the table. We were trapped in some kind of hovel on the edge of Marshall Heights as draugr banged on the windowless walls. They’d break the defenses sooner or later. There was nothing left to do but wait. If Jovi and Torsten returned, we’d have reinforcements. If not, we’d rest and recover our strength for the next round. I watched Fyrcat round the ramshackle room and paint still more runes on the windows.

“What was that?” I asked finally. “The weapon you made, I mean. I assume that’s what you’re doing now.”

“Freya calls the spell ‘Odin’s Blind Eye’.”

I snorted. Of course, she did. Freya had no respect for anyone, least of all the gods of Asgard. Even the spells she wrought were designed to fly in the face of the All-Father.

“And what does it do?”

“It weakens his stolen magic. It’s part of the reason she’s able to shield herself from his eyes. After their love affair, she knows his power intimately, and how to guard against it. She taught her most capable acolytes how to ward him off, as well. I was among the most powerful of her followers.”

And because the Hunt was summoned by Odin, the draugrs would be vulnerable to the enchantment. It must have been the reason Fyrcat had survived this long. There was an undercurrent to the last admission that made me chuckle.

“Until Jovi arrived. You’re jealous.”

“I am not,” she said a touch too quickly. “There’s nothing to be envious of. She’s a child. An untrained, impulsive child.”

I leaned back in the chair, still laughing. “And yet she’ll have the skill to best you in time. I imagine that’s why you sent her to Muspelheim. Were you hoping to remain Freya’s favorite in the event of Jovi’s death?”

Fyrcat sent a gentle pulse of power into the runes and the hair on the back of my neck stood on end. Every fiber of my being wanted to shy away from the enchantment she’d just woven over our little hideout. The unease didn’t fade until she crossed over to me and put her small, bloody hand on my forearm. She leaned in close, eyes glinting dangerously.

“Don’t mock me,” she whispered. She was close enough that our lips almost touched. “I’ve put up with your ill-advised heroism thus far. I’ve saved your life and offered your brother a chance at freedom. I’ve even given you the answers you sought about your precious Eir, and you throw it all back in my face. Do it again and I will leave you to rot.”

The words were quiet, but there was steel behind them. She wasn’t bluffing. Another perceptive remark and she’d leave me to the non-existent mercy of the dead outside.

“Are you expecting me to apologize?” I asked.

Fyrcat leaned away, a chilly smile playing at the edges of her mouth. The air around me felt suddenly colder.

“No. I don’t expect anything at all from you, Skarde. I try not to expect anything from anyone. It’s the best way to stay alive.”

Fyrcat turned her back to me then and paced to the opposite side of the shack, propping her head against the wall. She was out in seconds, the exertion of the day’s events catching up to her at last.

I watched the gentle rise and fall of her chest for a few moments wondering what exactly she’d meant by that. Then the darkness rose and claimed me as well.

Chapter Ten

Skarde

I couldn’t be sure when I passed out or how long I had been unconscious, but the smell of burning wood brought me round, seeming out of place in the small hovel.

My head spun when I tried to sit up, and I only managed to slump back into my chair, boneless with agony.

“What hit me?” I growled.

“Mistletoe,” Fyrcat answered, her tart voice bringing me back to the reality of our situation. “Be grateful you only have a hangover. The dose that bastard had on his claws should have felled three warriors your size. Here, eat this.”

The witch didn’t wait for me to open my mouth. She shoved a spoon past my lips, smirking when I gagged. The taste of blood and grit filled my mouth, a mix so foul that it took effort not to spit it back out and onto the ground. Whatever she’d mixed into it was grainy and tasted like dirt. But the moment the stuff hit my stomach, the worst of the pain dissipated.

I blinked myself fully awake and took a look around. Fyrcat had gotten a fire started in a metal bin of some sort. The flames popped and sent sparks over the edge, but it was warm. She’d slung some sort of pot over the top of the pit and stirred the contents as I watched.

“What was that you just forced down my throat?”

“Charcoal,” she responded, not looking up as she continued her work. “And some of my blood. I had to use power to activate its cleansing properties. I’d have preferred my elixirs, but someone wouldn’t allow me to retrieve them. So, I made do with what I had on hand.”

“You would have died,” I insisted.

She looked up at me then in anger. “And why do you care?”

I opened my mouth to agree with her, but then just as quickly shut it. The truth was… I did care. Yes, the witch was the bane of my existence, but she was in as much danger as I was. In a way, she was the closest companion I’d had in a long time. And she’d cooperated with me for longer than my own brother had. She’d saved my life twice over. I owed her for that.

“I… I just…” I sucked in a breath. Why was this so difficult? “Thank you, w… er, Fyrcat.”

Fyrcat dropped the spoon into the pot with an audible clatter. She realized what she’d done a second later and dove for the handle before it could disappear into the bubbling brew. She then cursed as the stuff burned her fingers, but she managed to save her spoon.

“See what you made me do?”

“What?”

“I’m not used to you being nice, obviously.” She pointed at the spoon.

“Well, don’t get used to it.”

She snickered at that. “Don’t worry—I’m sure it was a once-in-a-lifetime, fleeting moment.”

I couldn’t help but chuckle at that, until I remembered the predicament we were in, as well as the walking dead who had been after us most recently. I craned my neck, trying to see out the windows. There weren’t any dead lurking outside that I could see or smell.

“They were drawn away by the only remaining witch in the area,” Fyrcat explained.

“Another witch?”

She nodded. “We’ve been playing tag with the undead while you snored.”

“Who is this witch?”

Fyrcat shrugged. “She’s not overtly magical, so she can’t sling spells at them. Thankfully, she can receive instructions psychically. She’s gathered the few humans who survived the winters and the dead and she’s protecting them. We’ll lead them away when Torsten and Jovi return. If they return.”

I sat up straighter. Gods, how had I forgotten my brother’s mad dash through Muspelheim?

“How long—?” I began.

“An hour, maybe less.” She waved at the fire in the bin. “I started this because there must be a fire ready to receive Jovi and Torsten. If they spill out of my fireplace, they’ll try to go looking for us, and they won’t be ready for the draugrs that greet them. Now try to stay still and let the potion do its work. Your armor is the only thing that kept the wound on your leg from being fatal.”

I shifted in spite of her warning and pain shot through my leg. Sure enough, a rust-colored stain mottled my armor and thigh.

“When did that happen?”

“I said hold still,” she chided, and then knelt between my legs. She helped me remove pieces of the armor, dabbing at the gash with a sodden cloth. It hit the skin like liquid fire, and I bit my tongue to hold in a howl of pain. “And to answer your question, it probably happened when you pulled me away from the fray.”

“How didn’t I notice?”

“Adrenaline? The freezing cold temperature? The dead come back to make us like them? How should I know?” she quipped. Her small, nimble fingers pulled out gravel and glass from inside the wound. “Am I allowed to seal this with magic, or will you insist on torturing yourself? I don’t have to tell you that the mistletoe slowed your healing.”

I gnawed the inside of my cheek to contain another shout. I wasn’t the one torturing myself. That was her job, and she was accomplishing it very well.

“Why ask? You never asked before.”

“You weren’t in any condition to answer,” she replied. “Do you want me to heal this or what?”

I considered saying ‘no’. If Jovi and my brother’s lives didn’t depend on my continued survival, I might have. But they did. So, I inclined my head in lieu of a spoken reply.

Fyrcat gave me a tiny nod in return and then waved a hand over the wound, muttering an incantation. The words were familiar and yet totally alien on her tongue. She’d called upon the healing power of Eir. Every nerve in my body snapped with energy and then a bone-deep sorrow at the reminder of her loss.

“You called on Eir. Why?”

“We see her as the patron deity of healing,” she answered with a shrug. “Though she never officially accepted the offer to join the Aesir or the Vanir, her followers still see her as more than just a Valkyrie or a witch.”

“Then you hold her in much esteem.”

She nodded, then frowned at me. “While I think you’re a pigheaded idiot, I can’t fault you for taste. She was the best of all of us.”

“Thank you for that,” I said and frowned.

She raised an eyebrow. “Two ‘thank yous’ in one day. My, my. You’re going soft, berserker.”

I growled, which only made her laugh. The sound was soft and intimate in the cramped confines of the hovel. Only then did it sink in that there was an attractive woman kneeling between my legs, soft hands splayed to either side of my groin. From the wicked glint in her eyes, I could tell she’d noticed too.

“Fyrcat…” I began.

But it was as far as I got. She lunged for the fire, removing the pot from the flames an instant before they leaped into the air, punching a hole through the ceiling of our hiding place. The walls shook, and the heat rolling through the room damn near seared my eyebrows off.

“Ah,” she sighed, and I could have sworn I heard disappointment in her voice. “It looks like they’re coming back, after all. We should get outside.”

“Why?”

“Because,” she said, tugging me to my feet. “This place is about to go up in flames.”

***

Jovi

The heat from the furnace released a burst of steam as Brisingr tossed a handful of odd powder into the flames. He pressed down on the forge bellows that blew air into the kindling to keep the fire burning. I stood beside Torsten, waiting for the moment when the flames were their hottest. Then Brisingr signaled for us to enter the forge and I held Torsten’s hand tightly.

“Are you sure this will work?” I whispered, so low that only he’d be able to hear.

“Pretty sure,” he replied.

“Well, that’s reassuring. At least the Magic Eight Ball is giving you good news. I’d hate to get ‘reply hazy try again’ or ‘outlook not so good.’”

I couldn’t contain a wispy chuckle. We were about to step into a furnace of our own free will. This was nuts. I was half-convinced that I was going to wake up at any moment and discover this had all been some wild dream. It was too bizarre to be my life.

Torsten smiled down at me. “You’re babbling because you’re nervous.”

I waved a hand at the flames and drawled, “Oh no, what could I possibly have to be worried about?”

He laughed, and the sound was so rich and full, it eased some of the tension that held my guts in a knot. It was an echo of the Torsten I’d loved years ago. The man he’d been before the heavy mantle of destiny had settled over his broad shoulders and made him whatever he was now. It was good to know that man still existed somewhere deep down. If we survived, there was a chance I could see him more often.

And all we had to do was step into a raging fire and hope for the best. Super.

“I’ll step in first. Whatever you do, don’t let go of my hand, okay?”

“Right,” I said, my voice coming out on a tight whisper. I wasn’t sure he’d heard it over the sound of the billows. Either way, Torsten took a breath, squared his shoulders, and stepped off the ledge and into the forge. He breached the flames first, pulling me along with him. And…

Gods, the pain.

The human brain had a remarkable capacity to forget just how unpleasant an experience was once it’s over. I’m convinced it’s the only reason a woman would put herself through labor more than once. Somehow, over the course of a few hours, I’d managed to blunt the memory of my journey here. Now I was getting a refresher course in pain, and cursing myself every second of it.

Stepping through the flames was a pain so horrific, it rendered me silent. No screams broke through the crackle of the coals. I writhed and trembled, sucking fire into my lungs with every breath. My skin cracked, my lungs baked, my eyes felt like they were going to bubble out of my sockets, and then…

White light too bright to comprehend spread across my consciousness, my soul pouring like cool water into a newly formed body. My old shell burned away, leaving any memory of that body in Muspelheim where it belonged. The absence of pain was such a heady thing that I wanted to laugh, to spin around Fyrcat’s parlor in sheer exultation. We’d done it! Torsten was free, we were alive, and that much closer to defeating the Winters.

But when my eyes opened of their own accord, I didn’t find myself in back in Fyrcat’s parlor with the tapestry clutched to my chest, as I’d firmly expected. Instead, I was in a room with the dimensions of a broom closet, a dirt floor, and a sagging roof.

Oh, and it was on fire. Because of course it was. Things could never be simple. Torsten panted beside me, hands on his knees—apparently the journey here had been as painful on him as it had to me. His eyes wheeled around, trying to take stock of our location, even as flames licked along the walls. He coughed up a pile of dark soot, and reached for his chest to tug a shirt over his mouth and nose, belatedly realizing he was naked.

“Oh, for the love of the Gods,” he coughed. I had the sense he’d have been shouting at the sky if he had the breath. “Where are we now?”

“It doesn’t matter,” I said, tugging his elbow. I pointed toward a half-open door. Cold was pouring in through the gap. “We have to go. Where’s Ogun? Did he come through behind us?”

As if the question had summoned him, the fire behind us opened like a curtain and Ogun fell ass-first onto the floor. He cursed and swatted at the tiny flames that scorched his clothing. Like Torsten, he couldn’t resist looking around, but appeared more befuddled than scared. I supposed that wasn’t surprising, given where he’d grown up. Fire was sort of a given when you lived in Muspelheim.

“Is this Midgard?” he asked, standing shakily, brushing his knees free of dirt. “I thought it would be less… you know… flame-y than Muspelheim.”

“This isn’t normal, trust me,” I panted. The choking smoke was clogging my mouth and nose. If we didn’t get out soon, I’d pass out. “Come on. Outside, both of you.”

“You’re naked again,” Ogun pointed out to Torsten. “Your tablecloth get burned up?”

“Something like that,” Torsten growled in response.

Then Ogun looked at me. “You both are.”

“We have bigger things to consider at the moment,” I answered.

“Wonder why I’m not naked,” Ogun continued, shaking his head in obvious wonder.

I pushed Torsten out ahead of me and dragged Ogun behind. If I let him gawp at… wherever we’d ended up, he’d end up deep-fried dwarf, and that wasn’t something his uncle would be inclined to forgive. I didn’t want Brisingr as an enemy. Besides, Ogun had grown on me in the short time we’d known each other.

We sprinted out the door, just as the already unsteady ceiling collapsed, burying a small shack and everything inside in flaming wreckage. I couldn’t help but stare. This was definitely not where we’d started from. Where was the mantle? The carefully cultivated opulence of Fyrcat’s domain? How had we ended up naked and shaking, feet-deep in snow?

I was so preoccupied that it took me a moment to realize that a pair of familiar voices were sniping at each other from just behind us.

“You couldn’t have contained the flames?” Skarde half-growled. “You’re a damned witch, aren’t you? Now our shelter is gone.”

“If you wanted shelter, we should have stayed in my home,” Fyrcat hissed back. “If we had, the mantle I enchanted over the course of months could have withstood Muspelheim’s flames. That little hovel didn’t stand a chance, especially depleted as I am. This entire farce is your fault, berserker.”

I half-turned, wrapping my arms around myself in a vain attempt to protect my modesty. Not that it mattered much, in the long run. At this rate I’d get frostbite someplace unfortunate either way. But the sight before me was enough to make me forget the biting cold for a few seconds.

Skarde and Fyrcat were nose-to-nose, bloodied, bruised, and completely disheveled. And yet, neither of them was attacking the other. In terms of witch-berserker relations, it was practically like they were hugging it out. This was nothing short of a miracle. What had happened while we were away?

Chapter Eleven

Jovi

Skarde snorted contemptuously, glowering down at the sorceress.

“Yes, all my fault. As if you couldn’t have blasted me halfway across the room if you so chose. As if you couldn’t have scampered away when we were attacked by Sigrun and his pack. Yet you stayed with me. You wanted to save what was left of the town as much as I do, even if you won’t admit it.”

Fyrcat rolled her eyes and turned away with him, unable to come up with an eloquent response. Her eyes landed on me and she paused, lips quirking with amusement.

“My, my. Someone looks cold. Does the winter not agree with you after so long in Muspelheim?”

“S-shut up,” I managed through chattering teeth. “Why the h-hell are we in the s-snow?”

Fyrcat’s eyes rolled up to fix on Skarde’s face, full lips pursed in distaste. “Ask the berserker. He’s the one who forced me to embark on this fool’s errand.”

I followed her gaze and found Skarde trying and failing not to look at my bare body. It made Torsten tense beside me. I could practically feel testosterone boiling in the air between them. If they fought over something as stupid as Skarde getting an eyeful, I’d have to kick both of their asses. I laid a gentle hand on Torsten’s bicep, ready to hold him back if necessary.

“Well?” I asked.

“The Second Winter began while you were in Muspelheim,” Skarde muttered, not quite meeting my eyes. “The humans were going to freeze in their beds. You care about them, so I thought it was worth trying to get as many to safety as possible. But the dead rose, and it’s made the situation next to impossible.”

That was oddly… touching, especially from a man as laconic and practical as Skarde. He’d thought of me, even while I was gone. He’d done what I would have wanted to do if I’d been present and I couldn’t understand why. What did the inhabitants of one small, human town mean to a man like Skarde?

“Thank you,” I said quietly. Then the rest of what he’d said registered. “Wait a second. The dead? What do you mean, the dead?”

“Draugrs,” Torsten answered. He let out a vicious sounding word in a language I couldn’t understand. I imagined it was the Norse equivalent of ‘fuck.’

“What’s a draugr?”

“A zombie, for all intents and purposes,” Ogun said brightly, altogether too chipper for the topic at hand. “They’re the spirits of Odin’s chosen and they’ll rise from the deaths of anyone in the area.”

“That’s bad,” I said.

“Yes, I suppose it is,” Ogun said, his smile fading around the edges. “Do you happen to know how many people might be buried in this town? Or who might have died from cold?”

Oh, God. The cemetery in Marshall Heights was old. There had to be hundreds of bodies in there. And if the cold was half as bad as it felt, the same number could have frozen to death in their homes.

“Too many,” Skarde responded, scowling at Ogun. His hand fell to the hilt of his weapon, an unspoken threat. “Who in Hel’s name are you?”

“Ogun,” the dwarf replied, clearly not catching the menace emanating from the man. “My uncle saved your friends, and he asked they bring me back to Midgard to repay him.”

“We wouldn’t have gotten out if not for Brisingr,” I added.

“He looks more elf than dwarf,” Skarde said, still eyeing Ogun with suspicion.

Ogun wasn’t the sort to avoid confrontation, even though he wasn’t much of a fighter. It was a little funny to see the young dwarf glare up at a Viking who towered over him by a few feet. His backside was smoking, and parts of his beard were gone, lost to the flaming shack. None of that seemed to bother him though. He just stood there, hands on his hips, giving Skarde every bit the threatening expression Skarde was giving him. I bit back the desire to laugh. I was probably going nuts. This wasn’t the time to laugh. There were zombies after us. Literal zombies. My life just couldn’t get any stranger.

“I’m half-and-half, if you must know,” Ogun said finally, probably to break the ice. “I have an uncle in Svartalfheim who can give us shelter. You know, if we make it out of here alive. I think the first step would be to get us some clothes. This cold is going to make my nuts drop off.”

That last comment drew a short, nervous laugh from me. I just couldn’t help it.

“We need to get a move on,” Fyrcat said. “The dead will spot the smoke and they will come. We need to be elsewhere when they arrive.”

She was right. We’d stepped out of the forge and into the fire now.

“Did you have somewhere in mind?” I asked.

“I do,” she answered with a slight nod. “We need to go to Freya. But first, we carry out the fool’s wish. We save these tiresome humans.”

“I can get on board with that. Where are we going?” I asked.

Fyrcat gave me a sidelong glance. Was it just my imagination, or was she doing some ogling herself? The look she gave me wasn’t sexual but more… adversarial, like she was sizing up the competition.

“I instructed our sister witch to move toward the tunnels. I can transport the humans from there to safety. Then we find Freya. She has much to discuss with you.”

“Goodie,” I muttered. “Because the last meeting went so well.”

“Are you going to come with me, or whine like some puling infant?” she snapped.

“What’s puling?”

Fyrcat let out a long-suffering sigh. “Never mind, child. Let’s go, before I abandon all of you to your idiocy.”

“Love you too, bitch,” I muttered under my breath.

But she was right. We had people to save, and if that meant working with the witch with a hole where her heart should be, I’d do it. So, I trudged after her in the snow, wishing desperately for a parka.

***

Sandy’s house wasn’t built to accommodate over sixty people, but she’d stuffed them in anyway. I felt like a sardine jumping into a can already over capacity when I stepped through the door.

All eyes turned toward us, shining and scared. Putting on stolen clothes did nothing. Their stares stripped me bare again and left me feeling small. It was my fault that they were here, huddling together for warmth, instead of in their homes reading a nice book or watching TV to round out the evening. If I hadn’t come to Marshall Heights, none of this would have happened.

“Where is everyone?” Torsten asked, taking stock of them.

Sandy stood, fixing him with an unfriendly stare. “They’re all dead. Fyrcat and I went from house to house, dodging the dead, and this was all we found. Sixty-five people out of a town of thousands. You have to hand it to the All-Father. He’s thorough.”

“Blame Freya for the Winters,” Torsten snapped. “This is her doing.”

“It isn’t,” Fyrcat said. She sounded tired. She was leaning against Skarde, and he wasn’t pushing her away. Which was more tolerance than I thought Skarde had in him, unless... Was it possible the two of them? No, no, it definitely wasn’t possible.

“What do you mean?” I asked.

“Odin bound Freya’s spirit to Midgard until such time as she can be killed,” Fyrcat explained. “The Winters are meant to keep her in place or freeze her out. You’ve all been fed a careful fiction. If we don’t stop him, she will die. And no one cares how much of Midgard dies with her.”

Torsten looked mutinous. I took a small side-step, putting myself between Torsten and the much smaller Fyrcat. If he lost control of his beast, he’d rip her apart, and we still needed her to save the survivors. I figured it was a safe bet he wouldn’t tear into me to get to her.

“You lie.”

Fyrcat threw her hands up in frustration. “What possible reason could I have to lie, Stormblood? What possible reason could I have for putting up with your odious brother, if not to stop this? You think I like freezing my ass off? You think I wouldn’t have begged Freya to call it off if I could? No. This isn’t her doing.”

“But—” he began.

“Brother,” Skarde cut across him, sounding as tired as Fyrcat looked. “She’s telling the truth. I’ve seen the evidence with my own eyes. I don’t like it, but if we want to reverse this winter, we have to help the bitch goddess.”

Torsten’s mouth opened, closed, then pressed into an unhappy line.

“Did you do what you set out to do?” Skarde asked.

I’d been wondering that myself, but hadn’t found time to ask, what with the snow and potential ice zombies wandering around. I ran my hands down his back to feel the corded muscle beneath the man’s button-down we’d stolen from a nearby house. He was warm against my hands, warding away the worst of the chill.

“Are you free?” I asked. “I mean, do you feel any different?”

“Yes. I can no longer feel the shackles of my oath holding me down.”

He pulled away slightly, cupped the back of my head, and brought our lips together. He tasted like a campfire and the mead he’d drunk in Muspelheim. I gasped when I felt his tongue against my lips. My hands clutched onto his hips to steady myself as he broke the kiss.

“Thank you, Jovi. You freed me.”

“That’s… a hell of a thank you,” I responded as Torsten released me. My hands took their sweet time to relinquish their hold on his hips. When we finally separated, however, we were both faced with Sandy’s firm disapproval.

“And it’s totally inappropriate, given our circumstances,” she said tightly. “These people don’t have the benefit of an inner beast or magic to keep their blood warm. If we don’t hurry, we’ll drop from sixty-five to sixty-three. Then from sixty-three to sixty. And so on and so forth. So, what’s the plan?”

I stared out over the sea of faces, guilt punching me in the gut. I wanted to throw up. My fault. All my fault.

“We bundle up and we run,” I said. “There are only a few miles between your house and the train tunnel. Fyrcat will take it from there.”

Sandy licked her lips nervously. “And what exactly will we be doing if we make it that far?”

Fyrcat drew a length of pale wood from her sleeve with a smirk.

“You slide a little further down this branch of the World Tree. I’m thinking somewhere sunny. How does Florida sound?”

Chapter Twelve

Torsten

I always forget that civilians aren’t a well-oiled machine.

They weren’t taught efficiency nor urgency, it seemed. With sixty of them in one space, it was like trying to herd kittens.

Ogun’s rambling distracted Fyrcat long enough for me to speak with Jovi and Skarde in private. The witch looked slightly amused by the endless stream of words coming from the ridiculous man. I knew the amusement wouldn’t last long. The three of us stood beside the front door with our voices lowered to a whisper.

Jovi grimaced, pulling the hem of her borrowed jeans down to examine a mark on her upper thigh. Her eyes snapped up to mine, and she asked, “When did this happen?”

The mark was long, thin, and jagged. It branched out like thin spider legs, as if she’d been struck by lightning.

“It’s what happens when you travel between realms without using the Bifrost,” my brother answered. Then he looked at me and his jaw was tight. “What happened while you were away? I want details. Now.”

Jovi explained what had happened in Muspelheim. She took her time and made sure to give enough details to Skarde to lessen the worry in his eyes. My brother often pretended to be heartless, but I knew differently. Not only was he capable of love, he was also capable of fighting for it. Skarde was on a quest to find his mate. A shieldmaiden named Eir had fought valiantly on the battlefield until being struck down by an enemy’s sword. Skarde told me she’d died in his arms, promising they would meet again in Valhalla.

However, Eir was never able to sup with the All Father. She became a Valkyrie, tasked with the honor of watching over the wars of Midgard. Eir had chosen to spare many lives, using her powers to heal others as she watched Skarde fight against the Christian army.

Frigg had seen great potential in Eir and had offered her a place among the Aesir. Eir rejected the offer, hoping to be with her mate when the day came that he was slain. But Eir was killed once more. Skarde blamed the Vanir Gods for her death. And when he finally reached Valhalla, he learned that Eir had been refused entrance. She was sent to Niflheim, the realm of the dead. Niflheim was a peaceful place where the dead could be as they had been in life. For a shieldmaiden like Eir, that was a fate worse than Helheim itself.

It pained me to think that Skarde sensed Eir whenever he was near Jovi. Jovi was a mystery. Part Valkyrie, part witch, a unification of Aesir and Vanir blood that should never have existed. But she was also the woman I had loved in the past. Our whirlwind affair had ended badly, but my feelings for her hadn’t dissipated over the years. If she really was my brother’s mate… No. I couldn’t even allow myself to think about it.

“Torsten?”

I closed my eyes and let the smoothness of her voice ease the tension that coiled inside of me. “Sorry, I… I’m just tired,” I said. “I didn’t mean to lose focus.”

Jovi nodded in understanding. It had been a long day for both of us. Our bodies had been reborn as Freya’s had, but the excitement of our little adventure had taken a toll. Jovi’s mouth stretched wide as she yawned.

“Perhaps we should wait until morning,” Skarde suggested kindly, eyes soft as he stared down at Jovi. Unthinking jealousy rippled through me. Jovi was my mate. Mine. He didn’t have a right to look at her like that.

Unless he did. And it was I who didn’t have the rights I was currently enjoying.

“No,” Fyrcat said, glaring at him from across the room, and before the others had the chance to get us into more trouble said, “This cannot wait. We get the mortals to safety and then we find Freya. Waiting could cost us everything.”

Jovi pinched Skarde’s arm. “I’ll be fine. Now stop glaring at Ogun. I don’t know why you two are so suspicious of dwarfs when that wackjob, Fyrcat, is walking around. She’s clearly up to something. This little quest of hers isn’t normal.”

“She isn’t a wackjob,” Skarde said sharply. “She helped me, even when she had no cause to do so.”

“I’m telling you, death magic aside, there’s something not right about her.” Jovi tapped her foot rhythmically, chewing on her bottom lip as she eyed Fyrcat from across the room. “Don’t you guys think it’s a little odd that she was so eager to help you get rid of your oath to Freya and then got cold feet about taking me to Muspelheim? And then all this stuff with the people here? It’s not like her.”

“What are you talking about?”

“I don’t think she wanted Torsten to come back,” Jovi said worriedly.

Skarde followed Jovi’s gaze over to where Fyrcat stood, propped against a window sill. She was only half-listening to what the dwarf was saying and by the expression on her face, he’d already worn out his welcome.

“I trust my instincts, Jovi. Fyrcat wants to save Freya. Beyond that, I can’t parse her motives,” Skarde responded, breathing in deeply as he nodded. “I’ll deal with whatever comes. She won’t touch you or my idiot brother, if that’s what you’re worried about.”

I didn’t like the way Skarde was looking at the witch. It was almost like… almost like he liked her. Which was impossible. They’d been at each other’s throats before we’d gone into the fire. So much had changed in a day, but I couldn’t imagine any force that would make my brother look at a witch with anything other than abject hatred. And yet… he wasn’t.

“Let’s gather our things and then head out,” I suggested. “Sandy is right. If we don’t get these people out of here, they’re going to die. The cold is only getting worse. Jovi and I will find improvised weapons for the survivors. You check in with Fyrcat.”

I expected him to argue, but he just turned his back on us and went to stand by the witch’s side.

“That’s strange,” Jovi said. “I thought he hated her.”

“I thought so too,” I muttered. “Something is very wrong there.”

Ogun latched onto Jovi the second she passed him in the corridor. The awkward dwarf babbled on and on about everything he knew of Midgard.

“And I cannot wait to try mac’n’cheese. It looks absolutely delicious!” Ogun said. He held a box of the stuff in his hands and rushed to explain, “It was in the kitchen. I thought we might need supplies.”

“How do you know what any of this stuff this?” Jovi chuckled. “Is there like… a TV or something in Muspelheim?”

Ogun blushed and tried to hide a little snicker behind his hand. “Uncle B has an enchanted mirror that I used to watch humans sometimes.”

“An enchanted mirror? Like from a fairytale?” Jovi walked over to the mirror that hung on the wall. “How do you know if it’s enchanted?”

“Oh, dwarfs can sense that sort of thing.” Ogun replied just as Skarde returned.

My brother and I shared a look of curiosity as Jovi seemed to grow more confused and Ogun rambled on. She did, however, have more sense than the two of us combined as she inquired how the dwarf was able to “detect” objects of magical significance.

“She’s ready,” Skarde said shortly. “We’re just waiting on you lot now.”

“You can sense magical objects,” Jovi said slowly. “So… could you find the Bifrost fragments? Because we could really use them about now.”

I found myself holding my breath in anticipation as we waited for his answer.

Ogun toyed with his beard for a moment before he exclaimed, “I don’t see why not! It shouldn’t be much different than sensing any other enchanted item from Asgard.”

***

Jovi

My head was pounding by the time we were ready to brave the wintry elements outside. Ogun knew so much about magic and mythology that it was hard to keep up. The tiny dwarf was nearly three thousand years old, and he’d spent the bulk of his life reading and watching Midgard through an enchanted mirror rather than learning the trade of his people. Ogun’s presence brought me an odd sense of comfort in addition to the headache from his clumsy data-dump of information. Neither of us were supposed to exist and yet we stood less than a foot away from two berserker wolves… and a witch with dubious intentions.

This entire situation seemed utterly impossible. Less than a week ago, I was doing hair in Sandy’s salon. Now I felt as if a whole decade had gone by in a matter of days.

I stood on tiptoe and pulled Torsten down for an ardent liplock. He responded enthusiastically. It was a little awkward with all the layers in the way, but we managed.

“I’m ready,” I said.

“I just bet you are,” Ogun said with a laugh.

Torsten’s lips lifted into a smile. He took my bag from my hands and turned to leave.

Skarde snatched Ogun off his feet. “One more word out of you, mouse, and I’ll feed you to a vargr.”

Ogun hadn’t missed a beat. He stroked his hand along Skarde’s jaw and batted his eyes. Then he drawled his words out flirtatiously. “My, my, Mr. Fatekissed. My pa would be positively scandalized if he saw you handling me with such… intimacy. A respectable lady should never be seen with a man of ill repute, like your handsome self.” He clutched a hand to his chest and scoffed in mock indignation.

I swallowed my laughter as Skarde’s face contorted into a look of bewilderment. He dropped Ogun and dusted his hands off as if touching the dwarf had dirtied him in some way.

“The others are outside with their pitiful weapons,” he snapped. “Honestly, brother, kitchen knives and garden tools? If a draugr is close enough to catch a knife to the face, those poor bastards are already dead.”

Torsten shrugged. “It’s less about arming them and more about calming them down. Being armed gives them a sense of control. Trust me, I’ve seen what happens when crowds get spooked. We don’t want that, especially with draugrs on the loose.”

Skarde let out a soft snort. “Sharp, reassuring teddy bears, hmm?”

“Something like that.”

Torsten slung our bags across his broad back and trudged out the door ahead of us. The Arctic gale that poured through the front door blew by hair back and jerked tears from my eyes. It was somehow impossibly colder than it had been only an hour before. I jogged forward, past the throngs of people that followed Torsten. I wanted to face whatever was coming alongside him.

It also put me shoulder-to-shoulder with Fyrcat, which I was less than thrilled about.

“You’re angry,” she said.

“Damn right, I’m angry,” I muttered. “This winter killed most of the people I cared about and it’s Freya’s fault, no matter how you slice it.”

“I do not believe Freya is your enemy, Jovi. Her past with Stormblood is complicated, but she is on a mission of her own. She will not stand in your way if you do not stand in hers.”

“What is Freya after then?” I asked, frowning at her. “Frigg must have started this winter for a reason.”

“Why the winter has started, I do not know,” Fyrcat sighed. “But Freya only wants what was taken from her.”

“Her family?”

Fyrcat nodded. “Thor and Odin know where her husband and daughters are. If they are still alive, then Freya wishes to free them. She wants all of her family. That means she would have to bring Baldr back as well.”

“Can she?” I wondered aloud. “Bring a god back from the dead, I mean?”

“If Eir is not in Valhalla and she is not in Niflheim, then someone must have brought her back.” Fyrcat’s tone took on a bitter edge. “It is proof that once a spirit dies, it can be resurrected. The Vanir were once human, so perhaps they too can be brought back.”

“I don’t understand… Freya has died and been reborn many times. Isn’t that proof enough that it’s possible?”

“No,” the witch stated plainly, shaking her head. “Freya has only died in body, never in spirit. A physical form to a god is nothing more than a shell. But to have one’s soul banished from the realm of the living? That is a true death. The mistletoe that killed Baldr kept him from being reborn like Freya.”

“She’s hoping to find a way to resurrect his spirit and rebirth his body,” I said.

“Yes.”

It was quite an ambitious quest. I understood her motivation, but I had doubts that Freya’s mission could succeed, even without the Winter standing in her way.

“Even if she did somehow find a way to resurrect his spirit, that goes against everything the gods stood for,” Skarde said. “The Aesir would never let her bring Baldr back. His fate has been sealed.”

A cunning light twinkled in Fyrcat’s gaze. “And yet you persist on finding your precious Eir. You’re no stranger to spitting into the eyes of the gods yourself, Fatekissed. Perhaps that is Frigg’s reason for wanting to start the war. Maybe the gods do not want us to believe that we write our own destinies.”

There was definitely something going on between those two, but I didn’t have the time or energy to figure out what, let alone puzzle out my feelings about it.

Watching them together made me feel a little sick. I tried to tell myself it was worry, not jealousy. Torsten loved his brother in his own way, and it would kill a part of him to see Skarde hurt. And I was more than sure that any affiliation with Fyrcat would leave Skarde exactly that.

Yeah, I’d go with that. I wanted Skarde happy and safe. I wasn’t jealous. At all.

The path to the train tunnel was completely unimpeded, which set my Spidey Senses on high alert. There should have been draugr waiting for us. Which made me absolutely certain they were watching and waiting to ambush us.

Ogun shivered as his teeth clicked loudly in my ear. The cold was so bad that I almost missed the fires of Muspelheim. Almost. Fire giants and demons with blazing swords were a deal-breaker. According to Ogun, Muspelheim was like a vacation compared to some of the parts of Helheim.

“The marshes are the worst! Imagine an endless bog stretching into oblivion, the stench of decaying flesh filling your lungs as monsters writhe in the murky waters below.”

“Not to mention Fenrir,” Skarde added.

“Fenrir?” I asked.

Torsten grimaced. “Fenrir is a wolf that makes the fire giants seem tiny in comparison. He is a child of Loki and the means by which Odin will meet his end, come Ragnarök.”

Yeah, Helheim was a no for me. I had no interest in meeting a monstrous wolf or taking a stroll through a marsh. Then again, I didn’t like the idea of facing down zombies. Midgard wasn’t turning out to be a picnic either.

“Pick your poison, Jovi,” I muttered. “But either way you die.”

“What was that?” Torsten asked.

I forced a smile. “Nothing. Nothing at all.”

Chapter Thirteen

Torsten

Jovi had saved my life.

No matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t rid myself of the memory of her fighting off those demons. There had been no skill or natural talent in the way she handled herself, but the courage of her actions alone was enough to impress me. She was fearless in battle, and I was honored to have been saved by her… but I was not the only one who was impressed. My brother hadn’t been able to keep his eyes off her since we returned from Muspelheim.

Even as we trudged through the snow, I felt his interest, as sharp as any blade. He squeezed his eyes shut every few seconds as if just the sight of her brought him pain. I knew he still grieved for Eir as strongly as he had the day she died in his arms, but that didn’t make the pull he felt towards Jovi proof that she was his mate. Sure, Jovi was different than I remembered. Hell, she was different than how she’d been before Muspelheim.

Kissing her in front of Skarde had made me feel guilty, but it was a hollow guilt. My brother had no claim on Jovi and, until we knew for certain if she was Eir, I considered Jovi to be mine. The reason we’d wanted to break my oath to Freya in the first place was that I had promised to be with Jovi, to try and love her in a way I’d never allowed myself before. What lay between Jovi and I was beyond mere physical attraction.

“Do you hear that?” Jovi asked.

I came to a stop, straining my wolf’s keen senses to pick up on whatever had put Jovi on edge. There was nothing but the whistle of the wind, the trudge of many feet through snow, and around sixty-nine heartbeats pounding unsteadily. Even Fyrcat’s pulse was a little faster than usual. The air around us stunk of fear.

“I don’t hear anything.”

“Exactly,” Jovi said, holding herself tightly. “I don’t sense anything. That has to be bad, right? They could be waiting for us in the tunnel. I’m not sure how we’re going to be able to keep these people safe if they trap us inside it.”

“Not necessarily,” Ogun said. The dwarf spun around with his arms spread wide and his tongue hanging out of his mouth. He licked away snowflakes from his lips with child-like excitement. His cavalier attitude was really beginning to piss me off.

“What do you mean?” Jovi asked.

“The large numbers may have given them pause. They may be waiting for the mortals to clear out before moving on us. It’s what I would do if I were them.”

That was a chilling thought. And probably accurate. Four people were easier to overpower than a group almost seventy strong.

“We’ll deal with that when it comes,” Skarde said tersely. “I’ve seen Fyrcat’s wand in action. We’ll be able to jump to Freya’s location. We just have to give Fyrcat enough time to cast.”

I just stared at my brother. If I didn’t sense his beast prowling inside him, I’d have said he’d been replaced by a pod person.

“I don’t understand why you’re defending her. What happened while we were gone?”

Skarde grimaced. “Too much to recount at the moment. All you need to know is that she saved me from mistletoe poisoning. I owe her a debt. A debt which ends when we reach Freya. Even a debt can only stretch so far.”

I wasn’t sure that was the whole story, but I didn’t press him for more. We didn’t have time. The humans were slowing down. If we didn’t get them out of here soon, they’d collapse.

Jovi hurried ahead, catching up with Fyrcat. The dark train tunnel loomed ahead, dark and deep, like the cavernous mouth of a giant. It was an unpleasant comparison after our time in Muspelheim.

Soon Fyrcat turned to face us and addressed Skarde when she said, “we need wood for a fire.”

“Why do you need a fire?” Jovi asked. “Can’t you just… you know… zap everyone to safety?”

Fyrcat’s face twisted in irritation. “For the same reason I needed a fire to transport you. I am not at my full strength, so there will be no zapping.”

“I don’t see how we’re going to make one,” Jovi said as she looked around herself and no doubt only saw snow. “Everything is wet.”

“Then try to cast, child,” Fyrcat snapped. “You just emerged from the realm of fire. Surely you can conjure a memory strong enough to bring forth a flame.”

Jovi looked nervously around. She clutched herself even tighter. “I… I’m not sure I can.”

“Then they freeze.”

“Stop antagonizing her,” Skarde said, taking a step closer to Jovi. “She’s new to this.”

“Exactly, which is why you have to stop coddling her. She won’t learn anything if you constantly tell her that it’s fine to take her time.”

Skarde opened his mouth to snarl something foul, but Jovi cut him off with a look.

“She’s right. I have to do this.” She turned to Fyrcat. “What do I do?”

Fyrcat took a step into the dark tunnel mouth and held out a hand to Jovi. “You come with me. If someone has to hold your hand through this, it should be a witch, not a berserker. He is at odds with all that you are.”

Jovi cast a doubtful glance at Skarde but nodded slowly. “If you say so.”

She slipped her hand into Fyrcat’s with palpable reluctance. I tensed when she slipped into the shadows and was lost from sight. Skarde’s posture mirrored mine, muscles taut as a bow string.

“I don’t like her being alone with Fyrcat,” I said in an undertone.

“Nor I, but I don’t see what choice we have.”

We were silent, listening to the muttered incantations of the two women. The humans filed in after them, orienting from the soft glow coming from their linked hands. Then the question that had been burning the tip of my tongue for hours slipped out.

“Do you want Fyrcat? As a mate, I mean.”

I had to admit, part of me liked the idea. If he was looking elsewhere, it meant I had Jovi to myself. On the other hand, it also meant my brother was tangling with one of the most powerful and deceitful witches of all time. It could get him hurt or killed or potentially worse.

“No,” he said immediately, but I could hear the lie in his voice. Skarde sighed and then amended, “Not as a mate. She’s a beautiful woman, and we have fought side by side. It gives a man ideas. But she is not my mate. I am still looking for Eir. I will find her.”

The glow grew, illuminating both Fyrcat and Jovi’s faces, as well as the ring of humans around them. Skarde was right. Fyrcat was beautiful, but she was no Jovi. Her face was sharper. Crueler. She had an edge that Jovi lacked. I couldn’t have found Fyrcat attractive, even if Jovi and I had never met.

Without warning, the glow between the two women went supernova, expanding outward in a flash of gold-white light that seared my senses. It drove me back a few steps, like the backwash from a blast furnace. It made my wolf lift its head and bay its displeasure at the sky, an unsettling reminder of what I was born to do.

Jovi wasn’t meant to be mine any more than Fyrcat was meant to be Skarde’s. We were built to kill them.

No. Never.

When I blinked past the spots in my eyes, the ring of humans were gone, leaving melted snow and charred walls in their place. I didn’t envy them the journey to sunnier climes. Traveling by fire hurt like a son of a bitch.

“Our turn,” Skarde said.

He’d taken a step forward when a man leapt down from above, landing with an earth-shaking impact before the mouth of the tunnel. But this was no man. It’s face was bloated and discolored, and its eyes were a flat, unseeing gray. Draugr.

More followed the first, moving to block our path. I reached for my makeshift weapon—I’d been lucky to find the tree cutter in Sandy’s garage. The blade whirred to life with a little coaxing, just as Skarde’s blade cleared his sheath. He glanced down at my saw and smiled, just a little.

“I must get one of those when this is all over.”

“I’ll get you one for Christmas,” I answered with a grin of my own.

Then we charged the draugrs, making short work of the first three. More were coming, dropping down from the bridge above the tunnel like lemmings off a cliff face. I didn’t pay them any mind. We didn’t need to beat them, just make a gap.

Skarde pelted forward, kicking the remnants of his foe to the ground before vaulting over it. He landed nimbly and disappeared into the shadows beyond. I followed, aiming a kick of my own at a draugr’s face when it tried to rise to its knees. Ogun kicked it again, just to be sure. Or maybe just to feel useful.

Jovi and Fyrcat were still kneeling. The latter was pale and sheened in sweat. She hadn’t been kidding about her magic.

“They’re coming,” I panted. “We need to go.”

Fyrcat’s head bobbed in acknowledgment.

“I’m not sure she can,” Jovi said doubtfully. “She’s exhausted.”

“Don’t count me out,” Fyrcat snapped, but even that lacked her usual venom. “I have one more spell in me.”

Skarde put a hand on her shoulder. “I’ll help you when we get clear.”

They shared a look full of meaning. I wished I could have deciphered that, but we didn’t have the time.

“You’d better.”

Fyrcat held her wand tight in one hand and clutched Jovi’s tight in the other. Her eyes burned with determination.

“All of you touch a piece of our bare skin and hold on tight. This won’t be a smooth ride.”

I had just enough time to lay a hand on the soft fall of Jovi’s hair before the light flashed through the tunnel once more.

The world went white. And then we were gone.

***

Jovi

“What can you tell us about Freya? What do you know about her?” I asked Ogun.

His chest swelled with pride. His stride lengthened. We were heading up a steep incline toward Freya’s home. We’d taken a short break when we emerged in a snowy field. Fyrcat had collapsed into a section of wilting crops and only Skarde’s quick reflexes kept her from planting face-first in a drift. He’d slung her over one shoulder and was carrying her as we walked, staying uncharacteristically silent. He was almost as intent on the conversation as I was.

“I know something about Freya no one else knows, outside of her and Odin, of course.”

Skarde’s eyes were dark with intrigue.

“Odin seduced Freya.” The dwarf gestured with his hands as he spoke. “He pleaded with her to meet him outside of Asgard and she agreed to find him in Midgard so that they could share one magical evening together.”

“Everyone knows this,” Skarde grumbled, deflating.

But Ogun continued, unaffected by the bigger man’s attitude, “What they don’t know is that Freya possessed the body of one of her magical daughters. The witch was more than happy to allow the goddess into her body for the night if it meant Freya would be safe from Frigg’s prying eyes.”

Well, that was all kinds of strange. And a little gross. I couldn’t imagine giving up my body to let Freya boink the leader of the Aesir. Then again, I hadn’t grown up in a cult.

“Everyone assumed Freya and Odin had their affair openly,” Torsten said. “And Odin? Did he disguise himself, as well?”

“Odin created a physical form, but he did not hide behind a human face, no,” Ogun said. “He saw no shame in his infidelity. And he met with Freya more than once. Eventually, Frigg became aware of what was going on and threatened to kill the witch if Freya did not put an end to her affair with Odin. But what they did not know was that the witch Freya had possessed had become pregnant.”

I sucked in a harsh breath and grabbed Torsten’s hand. This was it. This had to be the truth that everyone was trying to hide from me.

“It wasn’t uncommon for the gods to breed with humans,” Ogun said casually. “But for an Aesir to impregnate a witch? That was unheard of.”

“What happened to the witch?” Skarde asked. He seemed more interested in the story now.

“She was killed. But not before she gave birth.” The dwarf reached into his bag and pulled out an old leather book with runes scratched into the surface. “The witch begged Freya to save the child. Imagine how surprised I was when a baby showed up in Uncle B’s forge in Muspelheim!” Ogun flipped open to a drawing of a beautiful woman. “The child grew up strong and healthy despite having been raised by a dwarf. Her name was Eir! And she was the most beautiful, selfless shieldmaiden to have ever lived.”

That name…

That name meant something to Skarde and Torsten, that much I could tell. Their awkward posture and sideways glances were far less subtle than they thought. But I hadn’t expected to feel a tremor of recognition when Ogun spoke the shieldmaiden’s name. The drawing of the woman’s features was beautifully done. It captured the emotion in her eyes and I felt as if she was staring back at me through the paper.

Chapter Fourteen

Jovi

Skarde took the book and brushed his fingers over the image as the expression on his face grew solemn.

Hadn’t Torsten mentioned that Skarde was trying to find his mate? Was Eir the woman who had claimed the Viking’s heart? Whoever Eir truly was, it was obvious that she’d changed many lives and endured severe hardship before she went missing. Our little party was silent for a moment. Then Skarde hefted Fyrcat into Torsten’s arms.

“What are you doing?” Torsten demanded.

“Taking a walk. I need to think.”

“We don’t have time for this,” Torsten said.

“Fuck off,” Skarde snarled back, loping into the woods. I went after him.

“Skarde.”

“Go back to Torsten,” he growled.

“Skarde, wait!”

My bare feet sank into the deep snow. I grabbed Skarde’s, arm and he recoiled from my touch. Strange, I thought. Skarde had never rejected my touch before, despite being on opposite sides of an ancient feud.

“Hey,” I said. “Don’t be like that. You can’t lecture Torsten about running away and then shut me out the same way he does. Tell me what’s going on.”

Before I could even register what he was doing, Skarde pulled me into his arms. My hands curled into the pelt draped across his shoulders.

“I cannot speak of Eir,” he whispered. Steam coiled from between his lips with each word. “At least, not yet. I thought I had become stronger in my grief, but I was wrong.”

“You lost someone. Grieving is natural.”

“I didn’t lose her in this life, I lost her in all lives. I can’t find her anywhere. And now there’s… you.”

“I get that, but you don’t have to hide from me. From us,” I replied. “I know you’re supposed to kill witches—that you’re supposed to kill me—but I’m more than that, remember? If Torsten and I are going to try and make things work between us, I’d like for you to at least be my friend. Things are complicated enough, don’t you think?”

Skarde nodded. “Things are indeed complicated. More so than I think you’re aware.” He released me and backed away. “But no, Jovi, I do not believe we can be friends.”

“Tell me you’ll forgive me,” I whispered. “For whatever I’ve done. I don’t want you to leave when this is all over.”

“I can make no promises,” he said, his jaw tight. “After all, the house stands on the ruins of the old. I don’t have a claim to it.”

“You’re not making sense.”

He smiled sadly. “I know. But if I can’t live in the house, I’d rather not step foot in it at all.”

Whatever that was supposed to mean. Skarde was growing more confusing by the minute.

“I’ll come back, Jovi. Just leave me alone. I need to think.”

I didn’t want to leave. I wanted to stay here and shake him until he agreed to talk to me, until he opened up and let me in. But if I forced his hand, we’d argue, and we didn’t have time for that. Giving him space was probably the best option.

“Promise you’ll come back.”

“I promise.”

I watched him walk away, staring blankly at his back until he disappeared into the trees. Torsten had said something similar during one of our arguments. He’d said it not long before confessing his feelings. The brothers were just similar enough that it wasn’t a stretch to think that Skarde’s rejection was just a front like Torsten’s had been. I didn’t believe Skarde had romantic feelings for me, but he trusted me on a level I still didn’t quite understand. And that trust was something I didn’t want to lose.

I turned back the way I’d come, feelings smarting. Which made no sense at all. We hadn’t known each other long enough to be buddies. We weren’t lovers. Skarde wasn’t anything to me really, other than Torsten’s brother.

So why did it feel like he was more than that?

***

“Jovi,” Torsten said, breath coming out on a grateful exhale. He’d set the snoozing Fyrcat aside and moved to embrace me. “You’re back.”

“Why wouldn’t I be?” I responded, stepping into the circle of his arms.

His lips brushed my neck, and the heat from his body caused me to shiver. The smell of something dark and woody filled my nose. Torsten’s chest rumbled, vibrating my back and sending tingles racing down my spine. I leaned into the solid wall of his muscular torso, which supported my weight easily.

Ogun picked up his book, pulling us out of the moment. The dwarf tucked his journal back into his bag. “I didn’t even get to the good part of the story,” he said absentmindedly.

“There’s more?” I asked.

Ogun snapped his mouth shut and shrugged. “Maybe I’ll tell you another time.” His gaze lifted to Torsten for a brief second, seemingly unsure of himself.

“We should follow the witch’s example and get some sleep,” Torsten suggested. “You snuggle Fyrcat and I’ll keep Jovi warm.”

“If you want privacy to have sex, just say so,” Ogun said, an impish twinkle in his eye.

“I am going to wring your neck at some point, dwarf,” Torsten replied.

“You’ll have to catch me first,” Ogun said. “Go on. I’ll guard the witch while we wait for the grumpy one to return.”

***

Torsten

Jovi stood awkwardly beside me, eyeing the space in the hollow trunk. The dying oak was a rare find in this part of the woods. I patted the space beside me. I didn’t know what to say or what to do to make her more comfortable.

“Do you want to take a quick sponge bath? I think I can melt a little of the snow with my body heat.”

Jovi smiled. “Is that a transparent ploy to get me naked?”

“No! I meant…” I covered my face with my hands and groaned. My hands had barely left her body since that kiss, so perhaps she had reason to think I was just trying to get her naked, as she’d said. “Look, my intentions are pure. I promise. It’s been a long day and getting clean might help you relax.”

Jovi chewed on her bottom lip and I felt myself grow hard at the sight of the plump red flesh. “It’s a little cold for that out here.”

“It’s just a suggestion. You look stressed.”

She laughed. “We’re about to meet the goddess who bound you into sexual slavery. I don’t think she’ll take your rejection lightly. Even if she puts it aside for the moment, there will be a reckoning for it later.”

“Probably, but I won’t let her touch you. I fought Thor and I’ll fight Freya.”

Jovi smiled and turned her back to me, slipping the sleeves of her blouse down to expose her collarbones and the tops of her breasts.

“Start here.”

My heart beat a little faster as I scooped up a handful of snow and held it between my hands. It melted quickly. She jumped when the cool water touched her skin, goosebumps rising in the wake of my fingers.

“Is this good or bad?” I asked.

“Good,” she sighed. “Though I wish it was a warm shower, instead of freezing. This whole winter thing sucks.”

I snorted. “That’s an understatement.” Pushing myself closer to her, I used my shirt to wipe away the now grimy water of her back. We were both coated in the ash of Muspelheim.

“Do you want me to do you next?”

Oh yes, I wanted her to do me. Just the feeling of her soft skin under my hands was enough to bring back a lifetime of memories. It was all I could do to keep myself from throwing her to the ground and tearing her clothes off.

“It’s a bad idea,” I said with a regretful sigh.

She sighed too. “That’s a shame.”

“When we’re through saving the world,” I promised. “I will ravish you then and only then. When it’s safe.”

She craned her neck to look at me, flashing me a wicked smile. “I’ll hold you to that.”

“What did you talk about with Skarde?” I asked before I could stop myself. As soon as the thought entered my head and I imagined the two of them together and alone… I squeezed my hands into tight fists, melting more snow, fighting back the urge to hit something. If he’d touched her, kissed her…

She shrugged. “He wasn’t making much sense. He said that we couldn’t be friends which was hurtful, not to mention confusing. Then he started going on about houses. It was weird.”

 That was… surprising. We still didn’t know if Jovi and Eir were the same person. And as far as I was concerned, until we had concrete proof that Skarde’s claims were true, they weren’t. Skarde’s mate could still be out there and I would have expected him to pursue her, no matter what.

I shouldn’t have cared what Skarde had to say. Jovi’s opinion was the only one that mattered. She was my angel, my last hope that I wasn’t lost to the chaos of the gods and their games.

 I finished cleaning up every inch of skin Jovi was willing to bare. Then we settled into the hollow tree trunk. She laid her head on my shoulder and closed her eyes. I kept my eyes open. Someone had to stand guard.

Trying to keep my brain occupied, I took stock of my surroundings. The cold had snuffed the life out of the forest. There were no leaves on the trees. Even the evergreens had lost their needles. Looking at the forest I once loved, I was angry at the sight of the numerous bare, brittle branches. Midgard wouldn’t last long if the cold continued to spread at such a rapid pace.

I blew into my hands to keep my fingers from going numb. There were no tracks in the area to indicate draugrs, but that didn’t mean much. They’d be canny enough to cover their tracks.

Jovi was well and truly asleep when Fyrcat decided to make an appearance. I bristled at the sight of her.

“What did you do to my brother, witch?”

“Nothing of consequence. He has his mind, if that’s what you’re worried about.”

“Bullshit.”

Her brow creased in consternation. “You’re more like him than you want to admit. Both stubborn and rude.”

“He should hate you and yet, he doesn’t.”

She shrugged. “I saved his life. He saved mine. Battle has a way of bringing people together.” Then she breathed in deeply. “I came to tell you that I hear Freya’s voice.”

“So, has Freya decided to fight the Aesir?”

Fyrcat nodded. “She sees no other way. She needs our help, though. And I meant what I said. She tells me she is bound. If we can’t stop the Aesir, terrible things will happen.”

“They’re already happening.”

“I’m not talking about the Winters. Terrible things will happen to us, her descendants. If she falls, we fall too.”

My arms curled possessively around Jovi. “You mean…”

“She could die, yes. As would I. We need to go.”

“Just a little longer. We all need rest.”

She waved airily. “Fine, but don’t blame me if she dies in her sleep. She’s new and it will affect her faster. Only Freya can save us, but we must save her first.”

“Freya doesn’t want to save anyone. She’s a selfish bitch.”

“True, but her selfish agenda aligns with ours at the moment. Carry her if you must. I’m going to find Skarde while the tiresome dwarf snores.”

She sauntered away, a sway in her hips that had nothing to do with entrancing me. So, the attraction wasn’t one-sided. Fyrcat liked my brother about as much as he liked her. Hatred with a side of sexual tension. Strange.

But I didn’t want to think about my brother and the witch any longer. Instead, I wanted to focus on the woman in my arms. Jovi’s face was peaceful. I didn’t want to disturb her sleep, but Fyrcat was right. We had to move. So, I gently awoke Jovi, then climbed to my feet and trudged back to where Ogun had settled. He was snoring like a chainsaw. Even at rest he was annoying.

I stood waiting for the witch to return with my brother, the beserker. The thought was enough to make me laugh. The world had flipped on its head and nothing made sense anymore.

Here was to hoping we could set it right again.

Chapter Fifteen

Fyrcat

“You called?” Skarde leaned against the bare trunk of an evergreen.

His pelt flapped in the wind as the temperature continued to drop. Only the faint light that spilled from between the clouds illuminated his tall silhouette. The rest of the forest was covered in shadow. “What was so urgent that you had to summon me by thought?”

“It’s time to go.”

“No.”

“You might not want to do your duty to your people, but I have no choice,” I said tartly. “It’s madness out there. Our species are at each other’s throats.”

“How would you even know what’s going on out there?”

I frowned at him. He should have known the answer to that stupid question. “Freya speaks to me. Witches have been killing your wolves and skinning them, using their parts in rituals! If we don’t stop this, we’ll destroy each other.”

I shoved at his chest and he stumbled backwards, glaring at me with a murderous look in his eyes.

“You think I care what that false god says?” Skarde roared. “If we Spare Freya’s life, the war will still continue. I should just shove my blade between her ribs and be done with it.”

“You do that, and Jovi dies. We all do.”

He blinked. “What?”

“Jovi is your first priority, yes? If Freya dies, our magic goes with her. It’s an essential part of us as witches. We fade without it.”

“Lies,” he insisted and shook his head. “You only want to save your own skin.”

Fool. He was a pathetic fool, pining over a woman he couldn’t have. A self-destructive idiot that would take the world with him if he continued on this way.

 “Say whatever you like about me, but it’s the truth. If she dies, we die. Jovi, Sandy, me. All of us. Don’t be an ass.”

“Who sent the Vargr?” he asked, still not looking at me.

“What does it matter?”

“It matters to me. Who sent it?”

“I thought it might have been Freya,” I admitted before shaking my head. “But she would never have sent such a horrible creature to find Jovi, no matter how envious she is.”

“Frigg then? Odin?”

I continued shaking my head. “It was not Frigg, and it was not Odin.”

“Loki?”

“If he found out that both the Aesir and the Vanir have an interest in Freya, it would make sense that he sent one of his abominations to Midgard.”

Skarde stretched his arm out until the light of the moon touched his hand. “It makes sense. Freya is not the only one who commands wolves, after all. It is the children of Loki that chase the moon and the sun. Skol and Hati.”

“Let us not forget Fenrir.”

He tossed his head back and laughed. “Yes, and Fenrir. May he rot in Helheim for eternity.”

“Amen,” I muttered.

“If Loki is responsible for sending the Vargr, what does it mean? What does he stand to gain by doing so?”

“Chaos? It is his way. Perhaps he has an interest in Jovi, as well.”

“It was Frigg who awakened me from Valhalla,” Skarde said quietly. “She sent me here to find Jovi and to convince my brother to return to the Aesir’s favor. How was I to know she had planned a new war?”

“You could have asked,” I replied sharply. “Is it not in your nature to question the gods and their plans? You are also children of Freya. Wolves were created from her power. Just because the blood of Odin twisted you into monsters, doesn’t mean you are not still her beasts.”

Skarde scraped his claws down the tree, shredding through the bark like it was wet paper. He stared at his hand as it sank deeper into the tree’s trunk. It was an unsettling reminder of just how dangerous he was. How powerful. He could shred me as easily as the tree.

“You fear me.”

“Yes,” I answered.

He nodded. “All witches do. It feels good. They know when I walk out of the shadows that their time in this realm has come to an end.” He pulled his hand free. Blood from his fingers stained the pale flesh inside the evergreen. “You think your folk are innocent and that we hunt you for no reason. You haven’t seen all horrors I’ve witnessed. You have never had to carry the corpses of your fallen sisters across the battlefield as some witch-for-hire set the fields aflame just to line her pockets with Christian gold.”

“No,” I said. “I never fought in the wars.”

“Then what gives you the right to judge my actions?” He towered over me. So strong. So full of righteous indignation. I wanted to wipe the arrogance from his face.

“What right do you have to judge mine?” I countered.

“Torsten is weak,” Skarde said. “He thinks that killing witches is wrong. He would rather be marked as a traitor in Odin’s eyes. The woman I lo—… the woman I care for is a witch. I will not kill her. And neither will you.” I felt my jaw tighten. “I know you envy Jovi. You’ll hurt her at some point. I will kill you before I let that happen.”

“Even if she never loves you back?”

“Even then. She is his mate, even if she isn’t mine. I won’t let you hurt me or mine.”

“What makes you think I will hurt you?” I asked, taking a step closer. He stepped into me so we were nose to nose.

“It is your way.”

I pushed up on tiptoe, brushing my mouth over his. He didn’t rear back. His hands tightened at his sides, blood dripping onto the snow from his injured fist. He was seconds away from violent action. To kill me or kiss me.

“If you don’t trust my sincerity, trust my self-preservation, Skarde. I want to come out of this alive. Maybe you’ll stop being such a fool when you see an end to this winter.”

“Doubtful,” he said.

That made me laugh. Our lips brushed again. Perhaps I was the fool, because I wanted him to kiss me.

“A truer word has never been spoken,” I whispered against his skin. “Now will you come back to us?”

“Fine. But don’t try this again, witch. You won’t like what happens.”

“Oh, I think I’ll like it very much.” I glanced down then. “The bulge in your pants betrays you.”

He snarled a curse, turned on his heel, and strolled away. I watched him go.

Skarde was a killer. And yet, despite my greatest efforts, I cared for him. If Odin were ever to catch wind of Skarde’s schemes, he was a dead man. The stubborn, selfish Viking was going to get himself killed. It shouldn’t have mattered to me.

But it did. And that made me the fool.

***

Jovi

We were running. Because I couldn’t keep up, Torsten had picked me up and now his shoulders were heaving against my middle, and the ground was a white blur beneath his boots. The sounds of the draugr could be heard in the distance, their guttural groans floating into the air.

I shivered. All those people had died while I’d been in Muspelheim. Could I have saved even one of them if I’d stayed? Fyrcat and I were a force to be reckoned with if we worked together. She’d guided my magic in ways I hadn’t known were possible. What was she like at her full strength? What would I be like at full strength? What would we be like together?

“Put me down,” I said, not sure if Torsten would hear me over the pulse in his ears and the growing sound of the draugrs. I repeated myself, a little louder. “Torsten, put me down. You don’t have to keep hauling me like a sack of potatoes. I can manage.”

Torsten staggered to a halt, sliding me off his shoulder as he went. His face was flushed from cold and exertion, but his eyes were bright and focused on me.

“You’re sure you can keep up?”

“You should reserve your energy,” Skarde said. “You’re the best chance we have at getting out of this alive.”

“What am I, chopped meat?” Fyrcat muttered under her breath.

She shot me a poisonous look over Torsten’s shoulder. She didn’t like me one bit—that much was very obviously clear. Which was fine with me. The feeling was mutual.

I pulled my sleeves and searched within for the energy to keep moving. Glancing down, I looked at the marks that were etched into the skin of my forearms. The marks had begun to fade ever since I’d left Muspelheim. Their meaning was lost to me. Not even Ogun could decipher the strange markings.

“The dead are coming closer,” Fyrcat said, leveling each of us with her cold stare.

“I need to learn how to defend myself,” I said as I followed them, doing my best to keep up. “But I wouldn’t even know where to start.”

I was surprised when Skarde stopped running and turned to face me. “Start with what is in here.” He placed his hand flat against my chest where my heart was. “You are strong and resilient. There’s a warrior inside you, but she will not fight her way to the surface if you doubt yourself.”

I can’t explain why, but I hugged him. He was a bit awkward, his hand caught between us, but I felt a bit of the sadness leave his body. It was then that it suddenly dawned on me—that things had been tough on Skarde. It had to have been difficult being snatched out of the afterlife and catapulted into a world that was no longer familiar to him. Then he’d been forced to side with a woman he hated in an effort to save the people I cared about. He’d done so much for me, and I hadn’t thought of him until now.

Skarde was secretive, and I still didn’t know if I could trust him, but I wanted to. His hand slid up to my neck, thumb settling at my pulse point. He bit his lip, and a shiver raced down my spine.

“Keep moving,” Torsten growled at the same time that Fyrcat cleared her throat.

“Draugrs,” she said, enunciating the word so that crisp irritation rang in every syllable.

I’d been leaning toward him, but at her words, I took a step back. My back hit a tree trunk hard enough that it knocked the wind out of me. Ogun reached out a hand to steady me.

“Looks like you’re not just the flavor of the one brother,” he said in a light, teasing tone.

“Shut your mouth, Ogun,” Torsten responded.

But Ogun continued to look at me, arching his left brow suggestively. There was an amused smirk on his face that was wiped away the second Skarde snatched the dwarf off his feet.

“Mind your tongue.”

“All of you are so tangled up in your romances that it’s amazing you haven’t been completely overrun by zombies by now.”

Skarde dropped Ogun and stalked ahead.

“Fool,” Fyrcat sighed.

“Would you stop calling him that?” I asked. “You’ve tied him in enough knots already. Don’t add name-calling to the list. One day with you and he’s muttering about houses and acting crazy.”

Fyrcat’s eyebrows shot up and a small, secretive smile curled her lips. “I see.”

Well, I didn’t, and it was beginning to piss me off.

“How far away are we?” I asked.

“Close. It’s up ahead, in about two miles, but we have to hurry.” She paused a moment and then nodded. “Freya tells me there are several dozen draugr in the way. They’ve come to kill her.”

Chapter Sixteen

Torsten

My brother was hurting, and my mate looked seconds away from running after him.

It set my teeth on edge. Though it was the height of selfishness, there was a beastly part of me that wanted to sling Jovi over my shoulder again, just to keep her nearby.

There was nothing I could have said that would have brought Skarde comfort. Leaving the favor of the Aesir was more than just changing allegiance, it was a change in one’s identity. Skarde had been one of Odin’s attack dogs for so long, I wasn’t sure if he knew who he really was outside of his duties. The lost look on his face had said everything. The only constant we both had was Jovi and Skarde didn’t even have the assurance that even that was real.

But thoughts about Skarde and Jovi would have to wait. For now, we needed to concentrate on the walking dead who were still a threat.

“How many are there?” I asked.

Fyrcat nodded and reached into a pack she’d slung over her shoulders. She produced a pair of dowsing rods and tapped the ground. Her eyes fluttered shut, and she mouthed silently, counting in her head.

“Thirty ahead, twenty behind. I’d say we have five minutes before they close in. Maybe less.”

“We’ll be lucky if they’re not closer,” Skarde sighed. “You can only catch what’s on the ground with clarity, correct?”

She nodded.

“Some could be hiding in the trees and those will wait until our guard is down before making their presence known.”

“How do you know?”

“It’s what I would do.” Skarde’s eyes had always seemed sad, but there was an emptiness in his gaze now that made me uneasy. It was as if he thought his life had no purpose. I urgently hoped such wasn’t the case.

I held my hand out to Skarde. It wasn’t much, but it was more than we had been capable of in the past. He said nothing as he grasped my hand. A moment later, he pulled me into a brotherly hug, clapping me on the back affectionately before he released me.

“If we die, we die like warriors,” he said with a smile.

“Of course.”

“Let’s not and say we did,” Jovi said. “That whole dying thing is very overrated, if you ask me. No offense, Skarde.”

He grunted in lieu of reply. That was my brother. Articulate to a fault.

Jovi looked up at me with a tinge of embarrassment that colored her cheeks. I wasn’t sure I wanted to know what thoughts had prompted it.

“What do I do?” she asked. “I’m not exactly a whiz with weapons, you know.”

“Let us deal with the draugrs,” I said. “But when we’re clear, we’ll find a weapon that suits you and start training. It would be good if you knew how to fight.”

“I know a bit of self-defense, but again, I don’t know how effective I’m going to be against a dead man. It’s not like a broken nose will mean much to them.”

“I don’t think you’ve ever learned how to fend off shifters or draugr.” A faint chuckle left my lips, and I leaned against the truck. “But some of what you know might come in handy. You did okay in Muspelheim.”

“I did save your ass, didn’t I?” Jovi cocked her hip and smirked at me. I wanted to reach out and grab her and pull her into my arms and never let go, but the uncertainty that warred within me quelled those urges. Jovi must have seen the change in my demeanor, because she shifted awkwardly on her feet. “If I’m this Eir person that Skarde keeps hinting at, wouldn’t I know how to fight?”

“Not exactly,” I replied. “Both Loki and Frigg have been known to alter memories or erase them entirely. If Frigg knew Eir was the product of Odin’s affair with Freya, then it would make sense that she might erase the new Eir’s memories and banish her to Midgard.”

“Frigg was the one who gave you to your human parents, wasn’t she?” Jovi asked as we continued to make our way, following Fyrcat’s lead.

I replied with a simple nod.

Jovi looked over at me as the wheels began to turn in her mind. She snapped her fingers and then looked at Skarde. “Frigg separated you from your world and placed you with the humans. She then kept Eir out of the afterlife to spite her unfaithful husband and his mistress. What about Skarde? Why would Frigg have sent him here to find you if…”

“What?” I asked.

“That’s it!” she said, her eyes going wide.

“Jovi,” I urged. “What are you talking about?”

“Skarde had it all wrong! He wasn’t sent here to find you or to kill me! Frigg just wanted him out of Valhalla so the berserkers wouldn’t be able to help Odin once the war started,” she exclaimed. Her eyes urged me to agree.

“Everyone strong enough to turn the tides of the war is trapped in Midgard,” I said in realization. “At this rate, Frigg could take over Asgard and no one would be able to stop her.”

“What about Odin?”

“He has betrayed many of his fellow Aesir several times.” I scrubbed a hand over my face. “But we can never know what the gods are thinking. Let’s just stop the war before it even starts and make sure the Bifrost fragments are safe.”

“Which is why we have to help Freya. She’s the only one who can beat Frigg,” Jovi said as she bit her lip nervously. “I want to help, but I don’t know how.”

“Just stay back,” I answered. “You being safe helps us.”

“Staying back sucks,” she said with a small pout. I wanted to kiss her, to taste that pout.

“It does,” I agreed. “But it’s the way it has to be. When you see a clear path, run through. Freya needs you, more than any of us.”

“And more’s the pity,” Fyrcat said.

A loud growl broke through the moment. I turned on the spot, drawing my improvised weapon from its awkward strap on my waist. A corpse was cresting the ridge behind us.

We’d run out of time.

“They’re here.” The color drained from Skarde’s face. “Go now, Stormblood. I’ll handle those coming from this direction.”

Ogun shrieked and ran to hide behind Jovi. She let him cower at her back. Her eyes were wide and imploring when she turned to Skarde.

“You can’t face them alone.”

“I must,” he said, eyes glinting with steely determination. “Go, now. Save the bitch goddess and perhaps she can put a stop to this madness.”

Jovi looked like she might argue. I gave her a shove in the right direction, needing her to be away from everything that was soon to happen.

“This way. Be ready to run when there’s an opening.”

***

Jovi

Torsten tossed something to me. I had just enough time to catch it before it could disappear into the snow. I found myself holding a short kitchen knife, one of about a dozen that the townspeople had armed themselves with.

“You want me to fight with this?” I asked.

“It’s a last resort,” he replied tersely. “If they come for you, blind them. It’s your best shot. But don’t rush in trying to be a hero. We need you to stay alive.”

That was easier said than done. It was physically painful to see him pelt forward on a collision course with a swarm of undead soldiers just ahead.

Fyrcat seized my arm, her witchy nails digging into my flesh. “Come with me.”

“I can’t leave him,” I whispered.

Fyrcat dragged me further from Torsten. I had to strain to keep him in my line of sight. He disappeared in a wave of the undead and seconds later, the snow was scarlet. An arm went flying, landing with a wet smack on the hard ground.

“He’s got this well in hand, child,” Fyrcat hissed. “He can’t fight if he’s worried about you. Please, trust me about this.”

Trust her? That was the last thing I wanted to do. She had an angle in all of this, I was sure of it.

“Come on,” she urged.

I gave Torsten one last look. His head had breached the crowd of undead for mere moments. He’d been covered in blood, eyes wide and feral. Then I turned away and let Fyrcat lead me forward.

“Don’t let go,” she warned. “Repeat whatever I say and throw your will at whatever runs in our direction.”

She made it sound so easy, as if I could just accept that there was magic somewhere inside me. This whole thing was insane. I’d gone from being a hairdresser in a tiny town to the chosen one fated to save a goddess in just a little over twenty-four hours. Torsten believed I was his mate and, though he wouldn’t say it outright, Skarde seemed to think the same. I was running alongside a witch of yore, who had a bad attitude and an uncomfortable interest in one of my suitors. I’d cast magic with her. I’d felt our combined power thrum through my bones when we flung the survivors down the World Tree. That, combined with the memory of what I’d seen while traveling to Muspelheim convinced me that this was real, that there really was a pair of zombies running toward us, and this wasn’t some terrible nightmare.

Fyrcat raised a hand and shouted a word. I echoed it a moment later, sure I’d butchered the pronunciation, even as I put my will behind it. To my shock, light issued from between my fingers. It streaked like a comet toward the dead, bowling them over like ninepins when it struck. I didn’t stop to see what else it had done. I’d have enough nightmares as it was, without having to see the faces the warriors were wearing, let alone what that burst of power had done to them. It could be the nosy neighbor down the lane. It could also be a friend. Someone I’d failed to save.

Fyrcat used the felled draugr’s chest like a springboard, leaping several feet into the air before landing on her heels. I tried to mimic her and almost landed on my face. Why did all these Norse types get to leap around like freaking gymnasts while I was stuck in the land of left feet? It was unfair. I didn’t have a lot of time to ponder my clumsy lot in life, though. More draugrs were coming.

Fyrcat jabbed her wand into a large man dressed in his Sunday best and poof, he was gone. That wand was really something. If we made it out alive, I wanted one of those pronto. It looked a lot easier to poof them out of existence than blast them or set them on fire. I raised my hand to deal with the next corpse coming our way, but found myself staring at a rather pretty man instead. He was alive, and he grinned at me, flashing dazzlingly white teeth as he neatly, casually, sliced the head off a dead man.

“Well, hello there, pretty,” he said, flipping a sheet of blonde hair behind one shoulder. “You must be the one causing my brother so much grief.” He winked.

His brother? I frowned as I tried to understand.

He chuckled. “Don’t worry, I’m not here to kill you. I have my orders, and he does want you alive.”

Brother? Orders? What the hell was he talking about? I didn’t know but one thing I did know was that I didn’t trust him. I raised my own knife, slashing it at his face like Torsten had said. He just danced back a step with another laugh, green eyes twinkling with impish delight.

“Feisty. I like it. Unfortunately, I don’t have time to dance, pretty. Places to be, goddesses to gank. You understand.”

He disappeared in a sparkling wave of rainbow light, leaving me staring at an empty patch of snow, only to blip into existence again, feet ahead. Fyrcat had time to stagger to a stop, eyes wide, wand held aloft.

“Loki!” she hissed. “You snake! Freya trusted you!”

“And that was her mistake,” he purred, plucking the wand from her hand. “Thank you for this, by the way. It’s more convenient this way. Less mess than stabbing her with the Bifrost shards.”

He delivered a casual backhand, knocking Fyrcat off her feet. She flew a few feet, coming to rest near me. Her eyes rolled, showing white. She was down for the count and if I tried to hit him, I’d probably meet the same fate. Torsten was too far away to help. But if I didn’t follow him...

Loki disappeared again, and I took off at a dead sprint, trying to beat him to the door. But when I burst through, it was too late.

Freya stared at Loki, mouth open in shock as he thrust the tip of the wand into her chest. He leaned in to give her a mocking kiss on one cheek.

“Safe travels, my dear.”

Then Freya just... disappeared in a puff of mist.

Gone.

The ground shifted beneath my feet. Or more accurately, my knees gave out, and I found myself staring up at the room at an angle. The floor was hard. My head hurt. Black spots danced over my vision. In the distance I heard someone screaming my name.

“Jovi!” Torsten howled. “Jovi, no!” Then, “I’ll kill you, you jotun bastard!”

Loki laughed. “You’ll have to catch me first.”

Then he was gone.

And shortly after, so was I.

Epilogue

Freya

Helheim was colder than I’d expected.

Silly, perhaps, but still true. After all, only the dead resided here, and they didn’t get upset at trifles like comfort. Temperature was irrelevant when you didn’t have a flesh and blood body. Which… I still had.

Curious.

A glance around revealed I was in the middle of a swirling cloud. I could see shapes through the mist, but couldn’t quite grasp what they might be. The dead? A monster? Fenrir unleashed to eat me?

Someone cleared his throat behind me. It startled me so much, I shrieked, whirling toward the sound with my hands raised, power at the ready.

It brought me face to face with Loki.

I didn’t think. I just drew my hand back and slapped him hard across his stupidly pretty face. He took it with a grin, not even dignifying my attempt with a wince. Bastard.

“Testy, testy. Is that any way to greet someone who did you a favor?”

“Favor?” I screeched. “You call this doing me a favor? I’m dead, you smirking little coward! You sold me out to Odin!”

Loki paced away, somehow finding a rock amidst the mist. He leaned against it, that self-satisfied smile never dropping from his face.

“I did no such thing. I let him think that’s what I was doing. It’s the only way Frigg would lift the Winters.”

I stared at him, uncomprehending. When I didn’t say anything, he continued.

“They were set to destroy Midgard, Freya. I couldn’t have that. I like the humans too much to allow it.”

“You like the humans?”

He nodded. “They make some of my favorite things: music. Sunglasses. Sketch comedy. Cold is a bad way to go. So, I improvised. I broke your chains by supposedly killing you. They’re satisfied that you’re gone and you have what you want.”

I found a rock of my own and leaned heavily on it. Some of my strength was returning, but it would take a while to regain my full power.

“And what is it I want?” I bit out.

“A chance,” he answered, waving an arm to indicate our misty surroundings. “We’re in my daughter’s realm. Rescue your family if you can.”

I eyed him suspiciously. “And how do I get home when I do?”

His smirk was positively fiendish. “Now that’s your problem, isn’t it? I can’t do all the work for you. Figure it out, my dear.”

And then he was gone in a flash of light and color.

“You sick, sick son of a bitch,” I muttered to no one in particular. “What have you doomed us to now?”

There was no answer, of course. So, after stopping to breathe in the damp air, I straightened and stared ahead.

My precious family was hidden somewhere in the dark and the mist.

Now, I just had to find them.

The End

Discover what happens next in the WOLVES OF VALHALLA series with:

Wolves of Asgard

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WOLVES OF ASGARD

A novel by

H.P. MALLORY

J.R. RAIN

Wolves of Valhalla #3

Wolves of Asgard

Published by Rain Press

Copyright © 2022 by J.R. Rain & H.P. Mallory

All rights reserved.

Ebook Edition, License Notes

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

Wolves of Asgard

Prologue

Freya

Blood dripped onto the ground as I wrung out what remained of my dress.

It had been an exquisite emerald color and fashioned by dwarven seamstresses many centuries ago. It was simple and comfortable, something I wore when I wasn’t expecting visitors. The frock had already suffered quite a bit before I’d ever set foot in Helheim, wicking away the cold sweat that popped along my skin as Frigg lay waste to my little corner of Midgard in an attempt to drive me out. Now it was so slicked with blood and filth that the original color was gone, the cloth remaining a stubborn red-brown even after multiple washings. At this point, I was just grateful when I could get the damn thing to dry. 

When it had shed the last crimson drop, I laid the dress out to dry on a nearby boulder and sank onto the ground to wait an hour. Any longer than that, and I was likely to be sought out by one of Hel’s many beasts. Her father may have tipped her to his plans, but she couldn’t afford to allow me to roam freely in her realm. It would raise eyebrows if the Aesir’s supposed ally allowed an enemy to waltz out without so much as raising a hand. The beasts after me had no idea that they were pawns in a game, and one I’d been winning ably… in the beginning. 

I stretched out my legs with a grimace. Claws had ripped through one of my thighs in an attempt to hamstring me. I’d twisted in time to keep the attack from crippling me, but I couldn’t move quickly any longer. I could heal the wounds with magic, but I had precious little to spare. Furthermore, it would alert every monster in proximity that I was here. The sword and shield I’d scavenged off the first shade would have to do. Shame his armor had been too large for me to use. If I found a taller, slighter man I’d be sure to gut him, just for the use of his armor alone.

Minutes dragged by slowly, torture of glacial proportions. I needed to move, to be on the offensive, to find my family before something nasty found me. Crouching on the ground, shivering, wouldn’t do me much good. But neither would letting my clothing get so stiff that it hampered my movement. So, I stayed on the ground, legs drawn up to my chest, thoroughly miserable, counting my heartbeats to gauge the time.

Damn Loki. He’d done it this way on purpose. He loved seeing people suffer. An hour passed before something changed—the quality of light, flickering like a candle flame in a darkened room. That usually heralded the appearance of the aspect of someone’s hugr, or what the modern day, largely Christian populace thought of as their ‘soul’. Normally it formed a nimbus around the shade in question, shining in a steady shade of blue or gray. This light was... different. A shade of yellow-green that evoked the memory of pus, vomit, or any number of putrid things. It wasn’t right for a soul to appear that way—and I knew for a fact it was a soul. The most dangerous thing about the monsters that prowled Helheim was their lack of aura. I could never sense the bastards coming. 

I moved toward the light cautiously, keeping low to the ground. If this was some sort of lure, I didn’t want to give my would-be killers a clear target. The terrain was rocky, skinning my knees and elbows, but it still beats becoming a pincushion. When I finally reached the top of a hill and peered down the slope to the valley below, I was struck dumb by what I saw. 

It was a soul, not a monster, and it didn’t appear to be a trap either. Extending my magical senses for just a few moments confirmed that. A female shape lay sprawled on the hard ground, eyes wide, mouth fixed into a scream of pain. The light jumped and fizzled like the staticky picture on an old television screen, the woman’s body shifting into different shapes every few seconds. 

The first was unmistakably Jovi, with her pale hair and guileless face. There was a softness to her that she’d managed to keep, despite the adversity in her life. There’d been more than she even knew. I’d had Loki scrub some of the worst parts before placing her onto the path that would eventually lead her to Marshall Heights. 

I’d tried to recreate Eir completely, using the bodies of my own fallen children. Odin and I had several, though Frigg had seen to it that all but one died before reaching their prime. I’d been able to find her hamingja, passing it on to another in her family line, as it should have been. The hamr (or appearance) was right too. Herfylgja, the animal aspect of a person, was gone, but it was something she could live without. It had all been perfect... until I tried to call hugr but nothing happened. I could not find Eir’s soul anywhere in Helheim nor could I sense the free-floating spirit anywhere else in the nine realms. I’d had to make do with the incomplete creation that was Jovi, instead of having Eir reborn. 

And now I knew why. When the picture flickered, I found myself staring at the vulpine face of one of my most loyal followers. She was beautiful, though nothing like Eir in appearance. She’d been beautiful even as a child, when her mother had prayed for my help. The child’s lips had been deep purple, her eyes already closed, and her body very still when I’d arrived. Stillborn, soul already gone. There’d been no healing I could offer that would return the child to life. I could only offer her parents a pretty lie, opening a small tear into Helheim to allow a single soul to escape and inhabit the baby instead. 

“Fyrcat,” I breathed. 

And something Loki had said shortly before my banishment to this wretched place finally made sense.

“There is nothing that Odin fears in the realms more than your bastard daughter. You ought to use that.”

“Jovi?” 

“Yes, that one,” he’d said.

That one.

Which, if I’d been thinking clearly, would have implied that there was another child for Odin to be concerned about. Jovi had everything I could give her. My magic, Eir’s appearance, her family legacy, the few memories that I could impart but not the most crucial part I could give her. She didn’t have Eir’s hugr. Fyrcat did, and I’d given it to her centuries before trying to build my own champion. 

Ah, but the Gods could be fickle and stupid. 

The shape flickered to its fylgja last, taking the form of a huge eagle, wings extended. It flapped nervously when I held out a hand to it, backing away on its taloned feet. I caught it before it could flicker back to the two women I’d managed to thoroughly mangle in my quest for vengeance. It snapped its beak at me at first, but relaxed when I disentangled it from the image of the other two. The fylgja was meant to be here, the other two were not. 

It settled on my arm after a moment of hesitation, folding its wings behind its back as it considered me. Its talons dug into my flesh, but hope came with the pain. At last, I had an ally. 

“I need to find Baldr,” I said quietly. “Would you be my guide?” 

The eagle took to the air in reply, and circled over my head, rather than flap into the misty dark. I took that as an affirmative and limped back to the rock. My dress wasn’t dry, but it didn’t concern me now. I was going in the right direction. 

Soon, I’d see my husband and children.

Chapter One

Jovi

A loud, metronomic rattle woke me.

The darkness was cool and free of pain. I was tempted to turn onto my side and bury my head further into Torsten’s jacket in an effort to continue resting. The scent of him was familiar and comforting, soothing the aches I could feel building as I rose toward consciousness.

But alas, sleep couldn’t last forever. When I blinked my eyes open, I spied pine and fir trees passing by in streaks of green. The piercing whistle of a train grated against my ears, jolting me fully awake.

Train. I was on a train.

How had I gotten here? I’d been on the battlefield only a moment ago, right? Someone had shown up and stabbed Freya and then…

I couldn’t remember anything after that. Just pain and blackness. Was I dead? I’d always pictured the afterlife as a tunnel or a bright light. Maybe an angel or two to guide you up and out. I guess in my case, it’d probably be a Valkyrie. I’d never anticipated getting to the hereafter by Amtrak.

A broad, calloused hand cupped my face, the man it belonged to making soft shushing sounds as I stirred. The material of his jacket scraped across my cheek, too rough against my sensitized skin. Everything hurt. Why did it hurt this much? Freya had been stabbed, not me.

“Jovi,” Torsten said, voice low and layered with concern. “Oh, thank the Gods you’re awake. I was beginning to worry.”

“I told you she’d wake, you overprotective puppy,” a female voice replied, tone soft and lacking its usual venom.

I twisted to catch sight of the speaker, and in so doing, discovered I’d been laid crosswise across a padded seat, my head pillowed in Torsten’s lap. The coat wasn’t exactly comfortable, but I’d apparently been too far gone to care.

My eyes landed on a petite woman curled into the seat opposite mine. The last time I’d seen Fyrcat, she’d been bloodied and bruised, but still recognizably beautiful. Her long, strawberry blonde hair had been pulled away from her face so she could fight, bound into a braid that hung to her waist. Her angular features had been set in determination as we raced to save Freya.

And we’d failed. Spectacularly.

The defeat was obviously weighing on her now, curling her shoulders forward. But it wasn’t just a sense of despair that had dulled her shine. It was physical. Her hair was lank and had lost most of its luster. The cuts and bruises showed starkly against her skin, which had adopted the color of skim milk. Bruise-like shadows ringed her eyes. She was leaning some of her weight on Skarde, which only went to show how awful she felt. The two had something going on but liked to pretend that they loathed each other. The fact she was openly relying on him was a testament to how badly off she was.

I cleared my throat, which proved to be a mistake of epic proportions. I ended up coughing, tears springing to my eyes. It felt like I’d gargled glass and washed it down with rubbing alcohol to make sure the cuts stung. I swore I could taste blood and bile on my tongue.

“What happened?” I asked. My voice sounded rough, as though I’d been screaming for a while. Maybe I had been. Everything, after Freya disappeared, had gotten hazy.

“After Freya disappeared the pair of you collapsed,” Skarde said, regarding me solemnly. “There were a few minutes where we were certain we’d lost you. Fyrcat was pale and cold, and you weren’t breathing. Torsten brought you back with that odd routine of his.”

Torsten sighed. “It’s called CPR, Skarde, and you helped after I showed you the right way to do it. It took us a few minutes, but we got you back. Not every one of Freya’s descendants was as lucky.”

A frisson of fear ran over my skin. That couldn’t mean what I thought it meant, right?

“Are they dead?”

“Not all of them,” Torsten hedged. “But the newest and the weakest are gone. The rest are sick, and they’ll get sicker if we can’t drag Freya back from Helheim. Magic is a part of a witch’s essential makeup, and you can’t live without it. You and Fyrcat have the most concentrated doses of power, so you’ll last longer, but even that will fade over time. I’d say we have two weeks tops.”

A thought occurred to me, fresh fear and horror sliding like an icy dagger between my ribs. I curled my arms over my chest, trying to fight off the rising sense of dread. But no matter how hard I tried not to consider it, the question kept pounding against my skull. Eventually, I could contain it no longer.

“Sandy is a witch like me,” I whispered, my heart squeezing tight. “Is she…?”

Torsten averted his eyes, which was answer enough. I tugged my knees up to my chest, choking on a sound of misery. The motion hurt. In fact, there wasn’t a part of me that didn’t twinge, ache, or itch fiercely. Was this what Torsten had meant by ‘sick’? Because it didn’t feel like any disease I’d ever had. It tracked a lot closer to withdrawal than a flu.

“There’s no time for that,” Fyrcat snapped. But even her anger lacked a real punch. She sounded as tired as I felt. “Mourn after we have returned Freya to Midgard. If we fail in our mission, we might as well crawl into the grave with all our fallen sisters. We dishonor their memory if we curl up and die.”

I pushed up onto my elbows so I could fix her with a sullen glare. “I’m not curling up and dying. It feels like I am, but I’m not going to give up. But you can’t just drop that news on me and expect me not to react!”

Fyrcat’s eyes narrowed, and she opened her mouth to reply, but Skarde cut her off with a look. They held each other’s gaze for a long moment, and eventually she lost, looking away from him with a scowl.

“I understand, Jovi,” he said with more gentleness than I expected or deserve. “But it doesn’t change the fact that the time for that sort of thing is brief. Take the rest of our journey in this death trap to sort out your feelings. But when we arrive at The Den, you will need to put this behind you.”

“The Den?” I repeated.

“It’s basically a lodge,” Torsten explained. “It’s sort of a hub for the local supernatural community, as well as a pit stop for people just passing through. Skarde and I have arranged a meeting with a black-market smuggler there. We think he’s in possession of something we can use to travel to Helheim without the use of the Bifrost.”

“He’ll want the Brisingamen,” Ogun said, speaking for the first time since I’d woken.

I had to crane my neck to see him where he was sitting near the compartment door. Like Fyrcat, he looked pale, but I put that down to worry instead of illness. Somehow, despite only knowing each other for a short time, we’d forged the beginnings of a friendship.

I brought my hand up to touch the necklace still at my throat, the intricate tangle of jewels and precious metals cool against my skin. The jewelry hadn’t parted ways with my skin since I put it on, even when exposed to the fires of Muspelheim. Everything else had burned away, but it had remained. I had to admit I was reluctant to part with it.

“What for?”

Ogun shrugged. “A black-market auction, I’d assume. It’s a rare piece, and he can make a great deal of money by selling it. If I tip off Uncle, he may be able to buy it back, so it won’t fall into the hands of the Aesir. But that’s a big if. Travel between worlds was difficult enough before the destruction of the Bifrost. Now it’s incredibly tricky and time-consuming, and a drain on one’s personal power.”

The look Ogun gave Torsten at those words was unfriendly. It took me a moment to remember why he was on the receiving end of that glower. Torsten had destroyed the Bifrost while fighting Thor on Freya’s behalf. Skarde had been searching for shards of the broken bridge ever since, and only Loki seemed to possess enough of them to hop around as often as he pleased.

“Sorry,” Torsten mumbled, looking uncharacteristically sheepish.

It was cute, and if I’d felt like myself, I’d have probably kissed his cheek to feel the warmth of his blush. Instead, I levered myself into a sitting position and stared out the window.

We passed a ranch on the outskirts of Marshall Heights that was completely abandoned. Horses ran free, bounding over the fence to escape the sudden freeze. The ranch hands that should have been attending them were fixed in whatever position they’d been in when the Winter descended. It looked like anyone who’d been caught out in the open when true Winter struck Midgard was now a corpsesicle. We’d lost most of the town that way. Out of a town of thousands, only a few dozen lived through the day.

“How far outside did it spread? Has anyone been able to get enough reception to check the news?” I asked.

 “I checked as soon as we boarded the train. They called it a weather phenomenon, some sort of anomaly they didn’t see coming on the radar,” Torsten answered. “The government was trying to find a way to predict the spread, but the storm vanished before anyone could make heads or tails of it.”

“So, the gods Day After Tomorrow-ed Midgard?”

Ogun laughed, while the rest of them just stared at me blankly. I guessed he was the only one who shared my morbid, trainwreck fascination with Roland Emmerich films.

“Exactly,” Ogun said after his chuckles subsided. “It would have been worse, spreading like a superstorm if Freya hadn’t been sent to Helheim. I guess they figure the coast is clear. They just have to wait out the rest of her descendants, and then they’re in the clear.”

“Or so they think,” Fyrcat said, eyes glinting dangerously. “I say we use the element of surprise to shove their arrogance up their asses.”

“I second the motion,” I said weakly.

A kindly old man slid open the door of the compartment and commented cheerfully on the weather before asking if we’d like anything to eat or drink from his trolley. Torsten selected and paid for four bottles of water, soda, and an abundance of mini-liquor bottles.

Skarde accepted the Coke can the man offered him with a bemused frown.

“What is this?” he asked.

Ogun’s lips pressed into a line as he fought a grin. “It’s soda. A beverage the humans here in Midgard just love. I can show you how to open it. You really have to try it.”

Skarde eyed him with skepticism but took a sip of the drink after Ogun popped the tab. The reaction was almost instantaneous. His eyes flew open wide, and he tried to spit the stuff out, only succeeding in choking on a huge mouthful. He spluttered, glaring at Fyrcat through streaming eyes as she dissolved into gales of laughter. I couldn’t help a chuckle myself.

When Skarde could finally breathe again, he hit Ogun’s arm so hard that the sound of the slap reverberated off the walls. The dwarf winced but looked unrepentant.

“Try to poison me again, welp, and I will take your head off your shoulders!” Skarde half-roared.

“It’s not poison, Skarde,” I said, smiling in spite of myself. “At least, not in the technical sense. It’s carbonated water with syrup in it. Take my whiskey and I’ll finish your Coke. I think you’d prefer the booze.”

I offered him the mini bottle of Jack Daniels, accepting the Coke when he thrust it toward me. Some of the disgust on his face eased after the first swig.

“Mead is better,” he grumbled after a moment. But it didn’t stop him from taking another sip.

“Yes, it is,” I agreed, sipping his Coke. It was cold and felt good against my skin. I hadn’t realized it before now, but I was probably running a fever. “We’ll have some at The Den. If any Vikings roll through, there’s sure to be some on tap. If I can find my wallet, I’ll pay.”

Skarde’s teeth were very white in the dimness of the compartment.

“I will hold you to that.

Chapter Two

Fyrcat

A woman watched us from the hall.

I was certain I was the only one who noticed her slow when she passed our passenger car. I couldn’t sense anything mystical from her, which meant that she probably didn’t serve Odin and his ilk. It was impossible to tell these days, with so many half-breeds running around. Odin himself had fathered several by-blows over the years, and their descendants could theoretically pass for human now.

But there was a simpler explanation. We looked odd. Skarde, in his bloodied pelts and leather armor. My ruined dress. Torsten and Jovi in their ill-fitting castoffs. The latter could be explained as bad fashion sense. Skarde’s getup, however… We’d have to do something about that, at least for the time being.

I stepped out of the compartment the next time she passed through, trying hard to notice without being noticed. She startled a little when I cut into her sightline, but she recovered quickly, the picture of a consummate professional. Her uniform was neatly pressed, and she looked freshly showered. Gods, but I missed showers. The ground-in filth was like a second skin, an added misery on top of the ones already occupying my attention.

“Hello,” I said. “What’s your name.”

“Tammy,” the woman said, flushing pink. She’d been caught, and she knew it. “Is there anything I can do for you Miss…?”

“Cat,” I said, shortening my name in hopes it would be less distinctive. Any berserkers on our trail would perk up at the sound of my full name.

“I don’t want to be a bother, but do you have any clothing I could use?” I asked, aiming for sweet. The words came out tired and flat, because I was out of practice. But at the very least I didn’t sound sullen or hostile. “I’ll be happy to pay for them. It’s just…”

I gestured to myself. Thankfully, the blood stains had darkened to large brown splotches and most of the chunks of draugr flesh had been brushed off by Torsten or Skarde. The dress was still in tatters. I felt grimy and probably smelled worse.

“We got a little carried away at a party,” I finished with a brittle smile. “My boyfriend looks worse than I do. He’s very committed to staying in character.”

Tammy grinned. “A convention, huh? I remember my first. I was so excited to dress up that I forgot to pack regular clothes. I ended up wearing platform heels and a mini skirt on the bus home. Why don’t you rifle through the lost and found? Don’t worry about paying for whatever you find, a lot of the stuff has been in there for more than a year. I’ll show you to the bathroom so you can change. Your makeup is excellent by the way. It really looks like you got thrashed.”

I forced a smile. It pulled at the torn flesh of my lip. “Thanks.”

I followed her to the bathroom. She disappeared behind an area of the train set aside for the employees. She returned with a beat-up box of clothes and handed them to me. I locked myself in the bathroom, dug through the box, and washed up in the sink. The small mirror reflected a woman I barely recognized.

My skin was sallow and drawn tight against my bones. A dark bruise discolored one of my cheeks, a cut had caused my lip to swell, and welts had begun to form where fire had touched me. Skarde and I hadn’t been able to completely evade the spectacular conflagration that preceded Torsten and Jovi’s return from Muspelheim.

But my eyes were brighter. Fever-bright and huge in the pale expanse of my face. I looked a fright, and it would only get worse from here. I selected a simple blue shirt and a dark pair of jeans and pulled my hair back away from my face, rather than stare at the unwashed curtain. It made me appear smaller. Weaker. And I hated it.

The bathroom door opened suddenly, and I jumped. Skarde stood in the gap. I expected him to turn around as I pulled on the ‘new’ clothing. But he didn’t. Instead, he watched me through hungry, guarded eyes.

“Do you mind?” I asked, arching an imperious brow at him.

“No, I don’t.”

I bit the inside of my cheek. He wouldn’t take it well if I smirked at him. It was easy to forget that he was familiar with Midgard in only the abstract, and the nuances of this language would be lost on him. The last time he’d been a living, breathing man they were still speaking Latin. Whatever magic had brought him here could translate words, but not cultural context.

“I’m dressing,” I said, gesturing at my mostly bare torso. “You should turn around while I disrobe.”

He scowled. “And give you a clear shot at my back? I think not. Why are you undressing in any case? Your gown covered what needed to be covered.”

I glanced down at the tattered remains of my dress. It had been one of my favorites, almost a hundred years old and completely irreplaceable. I was sad to see it go.

“It’s also drawing unwanted attention. I’ve made our excuses to the human staff, but we need to blend in better if we want to shake anyone tailing us. Which is why you need to wear this.”

I shoved a navy polo and a pair of dark wash jeans into his arms. He stared down at them, uncomprehending.

“These won’t provide adequate protection.”

“Exactly,” I said, reaching for the straps on his armor. “You’ll thank me when you’re not being asked what Ren Faire you’re off to.”

Skarde took a step back, moving the straps out of my reach. “I won’t take the armor off.”

I blew out a frustrated breath. “Fine. It’s not like you’d be putting Jovi or I in danger with any delays your appearance might cause. After all, we have a long, healthy life ahead of us now that Freya is gone.”

Skarde’s snarl sounded like thunder in the enclosed space. For a moment I thought he’d go for my throat. Then he began jerking his armor off, dropping it to the floor of the small bathroom with audible thumps.

We squeezed past one another in the tight space, Skarde scrubbing himself clean in the sink, presenting me with a view of his bare back. Long, barely healed claw marks marred his skin. He jerked away from me when I laid a palm flat against one.

“What are you doing?”

“Trying to help,” I snapped. “Hold still. Let me see what I can do about these.”

“Don’t bother,” he muttered. “There’s no point in wasting your magic on them.”

“I wasn’t going to use magic,” I said, reaching past him to flick the cabinet doors open. I had to feel around, but I eventually found what I was looking for. I held the First Aid Kit aloft with a triumphant smirk and pointed a finger at the toilet, with an imperious, “Sit!”

There was a tense moment when I was sure he’d stalk out of the bathroom, bare but for his underthings. But he sat with a muttered curse, crossing his arms over his chest. I had to round him on one side, leaning on the shower doors to get at his back.

He hissed more oaths when I smeared triple antibiotic ointment onto his wounds and began to wrap them.

“Problem, fool?” I asked, unable to help the laughter in my voice. The man couldn’t even take help without cursing sulphurously.

“Not at all, witch.”

He was silent while I treated his wounds, relaxing ever-so-slightly when it was over. It took him a while to figure out how his new clothing worked, and he took grudging instruction from me when he continued to flounder. In the end, he stood, dressed in jeans that were loose around his chiseled waist and a shirt that stretched tight over his impressive chest. He was still going to draw attention, but not the kind that might get us jailed for disturbing the peace.

“Don’t deceive yourself,” he warned. “I’m well aware that you might appear to be helping us for now, while it is in your best interest, but that won’t last. If you use your magic to harm anyone on our travels, I will kill you with my bare hands and take your skull back to Odin.”

“So noted,” I said, reaching for my own clothing. He watched me pull them on, seeming conflicted when they settled into place over my bare flesh. “But I can’t help but think you’re bluffing.”

His hands were suddenly on me, one circling my waist, the other trailing up my thigh. It wasn’t as intimate as it could have been with the denim in the way, but it was still enough to make my heart race. “And what makes you so sure I care what you think?”

“You could have killed me at any point up to now. A real berserker would have. I think you may be fond of me.”

“We’re bound by your magic, and I owe you a life debt. If you’re lucky, that will earn you a chance to run when the time comes.”

I leaned toward him and brushed my lips against his ear. His entire body stiffened, and I smelled something dark and earthy swirling around us. Desire. I recognized the taste. He’d fed me enough of it while we fought off draugrs. There was passion between us, no matter what incarnation it took.

“And what will you do with me when you have me there?” “

The train pulled to a stop outside the Asylum Station, the first step on our long journey to find the goddess. I exited the bathroom first and walked away from Skarde with a bit of sway in my hips. Ogun had been leaning out of the compartment watching for our return and gave us a knowing look.

 I ignored him and stepped onto the platform. Asylum was a bustling city. People walked between shops, children rode their bikes, and everyone carried on as if there wasn’t a massive winter storm headed this way.

“Wow,” Jovi said, stepping off the platform after me. She spun in a circle, a wide smile curling her lips. “This looks so different from the last time I came through. It was a ghost town then. Have there always been people here?”

“Yes,” Torsten said. “You just didn’t have the skill set to spot them.”

“They’re Supernaturals… er… the Magical,” Ogun said. “All of them.”

“You mean, none of them are human?”

The look on Skarde’s face as he watched her made me want to devolve into a scathing tirade. Of course, no one here was human. What else would compel them to remain hidden from the eyes of the world?

But I didn’t say my thoughts aloud. If I did, there would be an argument, and we didn’t have time to waste on that sort of stupidity. I’d lambaste the naive little girl when there was less at stake.

“Mortal, yes, but not human,” Ogun answered.

We passed a small child sitting on the front steps of the post office. He leapt off the stair and hissed. Fangs appeared as his face contorted into a mask of hatred. Skarde flicked him on the nose and the small boy ran away.

“Filthy parasites,” the Viking grumbled. “I hate vampires.”

Chapter Three

Jovi

The Den looked like a Viking longhouse on the outside and a mead hall on the inside.

Demons, shifters, witches, trolls, dwarfs, and something Ogun called a Norn sat at the long tables. Barrels of ale and mead lined the far wall. Chandeliers made of horns and antlers hung above our heads, dripping candle wax onto the floor. Loungers were tucked into the corners, covered in pelts and plush pillows. Serving girls carried trays stacked high with decadent food and tankards of ale.

“So, we’re looking for a bear shifter?” I asked.

Ogun nodded. Then he waved down one of the servers and requested to see Rangorn. A group of dwarfs looked over at us and started to laugh. Several of them gestured to Ogun specifically, muttering something about his pointed ears. I felt bad for him. Though I was ignorant of my own culture, I couldn’t imagine being ridiculed just for looking different. Even in my old life I was someone people wanted to know.

We found a seat in the back, near the kitchen doors, satisfying Skarde and Torsten’s need to have a wall between them and anyone who might want to put a knife in their backs. Ogun ordered us a round of drinks, but only the boys deigned to touch theirs. My stomach was still rolling, and Fyrcat, while composed, didn’t look half as haughty as usual. I took that to mean that her appetite had fled the country hand-in-hand with mine.

I eventually gave in to the urge to sleep, laying my head down on the cool wood of the table, letting the hustle and bustle of The Den fade into the background. It seemed like only seconds had passed when Ogun elbowed me in the ribs, rousing me from sleep.

I raised my head in time to hear an unfamiliar voice rumble, “You asked for me?”

I wasn’t sure what I expected to see, but Rangorn was not at all what I thought a bear shifter would have looked like. He was tall and muscular with the face of a model. His bare torso was covered in both old and new scars and the leather pauldrons on his shoulders were decorated with live draugr heads. A long mane of blonde hair reached the middle of his spine.

He looked even more rugged and animalistic when I juxtaposed him with Torsten and Skarde. I wasn’t sure what magic she’d used to do it, but Fyrcat had wrestled Skarde into civilian clothes. He filled out the navy polo shirt well, and people around us noticed. Some of the women were giving him speculative looks.

“We did,” Torsten said, straightening. “We need to speak with you.”

“In private,” Skarde added in Ancient Norse.

Rangorn’s eyes swept over us, narrowing on the faces he didn’t know. Mine. Ogun’s. They went flat and cold when they landed on Fyrcat.

“And will the witch be accompanying you?” he asked, glowering down at her.

To her credit, Fyrcat returned the stare without flinching. I couldn’t have done the same in her place. This was all so new, so strange, and so dangerous. How did she maintain her composure in a world that wanted her dead?

“Witches,” she corrected him. “And yes, we’ll be coming. We have a vested interest in remaining alive, and Stormblood, Fatekissed, and the ceaselessly chatty dwarf have agreed to help us.”

“I’m not ceaselessly chatty,” Ogun said. He turned to me with a frown. “Am I?”

I bit my lip to contain a smile. “Not ceaselessly. You’re just… verbose.”

Rangorn gave us all another long, searching look before he escorted us to a room off the main hall. The room was small, with a rustic, circular table and several chairs. We took our seats and waited patiently as Torsten and Skarde explained our mission.

Rangorn sucked in air through his teeth. “You’re playing a dangerous game. It’s never wise to defy the gods. Maybe it would be best if you just…” he glanced at us. “Accepted the loss. No one wants the Winters to continue.”

“They won’t,” Skarde said. “If we restore Freya, she will no longer be tied to Midgard and can return to her hall in Folkvangr, where her loyalists lay in wait. Then she can take the battle to her enemies.”

“If they defeat her and they still want a war, then we’ll take the fight to Asgard,” Torsten said. “No need to exterminate the entire human race by having a massive battle in Midgard.”

“Agreed,” Rangorn said, though the admission seemed to pain him. He looked around the table at us. “You’ll need allies, of course, and weapons.”

“That’s why we’re here. We need to make a trade with Valok. We have an item he might be interested in. In return, we’ll want weapons, armor, and safe passage to and from Helheim.”

“Valok?” I asked. “Is that the man you were talking about on the train?”

Ogun nodded. “He’s an elf. He smuggled goods from Alfheim to Midgard, most recently, but there aren’t many places he hasn’t been. I only know so much about Midgard because of the things he sells to Uncle.”

The bear shifter sat up straighter in his chair and said, “I have three rooms available, but they won’t come cheap with the prices on your heads. If you want them, I’ll have the staff get some baths prepared. One of you will have a room to themselves while the others will need to double up. It’s the best I can offer you.”

“Yes. We’ll take the rooms and the baths. Thank you,” Torsten replied politely.

“I’m with Torsten,” I said, sliding my hand into his before anyone could object.

“Aww rats,” Ogun said with a cheeky smile. “I wanted to cuddle with the big lug tonight. Who’ll keep me warm now? How ‘bout you, Fyrcat? Want to share a bed with a dwarf in need?”

Fyrcat gave Ogun a look that could have melted glass. “No.”

“So, you’ll be sharing a bed with the berserker, then?” he teased.

“He’ll be taking the floor,” she said with a frosty smile. “But don’t worry, if you keep this up, I’ll be sure to find a nice companion to share your bed this evening. A rat perhaps. Or a snake.”

Ogun didn’t look too frightened by the prospect, and it wasn’t hard to see why. Fyrcat had broken out into a light sweat. Even staying upright was a challenge for us at the moment.

I left the brothers with Rangorn to find our elven smuggler. Lively music played through the mead hall. A server handed me a goblet, and I drank down the thick, sweet liquid inside. It didn’t help with my dizziness, but it did make me pay less attention to the aches in my body. Ogun finished his drink and then tugged on my sleeve and pointed to an elf at the bar. Torsten and Skarde had approached him and were speaking in low, fervent whispers, gesturing with their hands every now and then as the negotiations progressed.

“That’s Valok,” Ogun slurred. “He doesn’t look all that threatening. Are you sure he’s our ticket into Helheim?”

“He was exiled from Alfheim for using dark magic. It’s the only other way around the barriers between worlds. He’s more dangerous than he looks.”

“Do you think we can trust him?”

Ogun laughed. “No. If we face any real danger, he’ll leave us to die. It’s why you have to make sure that we get the compass he’s using before you hand over the Brisingamen. Otherwise, we’re stuck with no way back, just like Freya.”

I saw that Torsten and Skarde had approached the elf already, so I decided to sightsee. If I’d been feeling better, I’d have danced to the jovial music. Ogun swayed in place next to me, completely devoid of rhythm. He started doing a routine called ‘The Microwave’ after the chorus, which made me double over in laughter. He followed it up with ‘The Sprinkler’ and ‘The Shopping Cart’. By the time the song finished, I was breathless, flushed, and had almost sprayed mead out my nose.

Serving girls hiked up their skirts and poured drinks. A tankard of ale was shoved into my hand as a new song started up. I spared a glance in Torsten’s direction and saw him watching us with a scowl. He began moving toward us a moment later.

“You have to watch the jealous ones,” Ogun confided in me.

“He’s just overprotective. He thinks I’m his mate.”

Ogun propped himself on the bar and gave me a searching look. “Are you?”

“Am I what?”

“His mate?”

I shrugged. “Beats me.”

Ogun nodded. “The way I see it, both brothers seem to think they have a claim on you, and you’re not the passive type. You’re not going to wait and let magic tell you how to live your life.”

“True.”

“So, it follows that you have to choose. Skarde or Torsten? Which one do you want? Because you can’t have both. And standing back and waiting to let fate decide seems cowardly. Are you a coward, Jovi?”

My chin jerked up. I wasn’t sure what look crossed my face, but it made him grin.

“No, I didn’t think so,” he said quietly. “You already know the answer. You just have to tell them.”

“It’s not a good time,” I hissed back. “Not directly before battle.”

“True,” he said, lifting his tankard. He drained the last of it and smacked his lips. “But soon. You can’t put it off forever.”

He was right. But maybe I wouldn’t have to say a word. Maybe I could just show him how I felt. Torsten came to a stop less than a foot away, still scowling.

“Torsten,” I began.

He seized my arm and pulled me into his chest. “Come on. You should be lying down, trying to save your strength, not downing drinks with a dwarf.”

“Did you get what you came for?” I asked, disregarding the latter half of the statement.

“Sort of. He’s agreed to bring us armor, weapons, and his compass if you give him the Brisingamen.”

I touched Freya’s gold necklace and shook my head. “Ogun says he can’t be trusted. What if he takes the necklace and then runs?”

“He won’t make it far,” Torsten said, a slight growl to his voice. “Now, come on. You look like you need a shower.”

I smiled faintly. “A shower sounds great.”

With any luck, I could convince Torsten to step in with me, and then I’d let my body do all the talking.

***

Torsten

Jovi was attracting attention, even without meaning to.

Even sick, tipsy, and still speckled with some of the ash of Muspelheim, she was beautiful. Her laugh rang like a silver bell over the sounds of music and conversation, and every male in The Den took notice. I wanted to tear each and every one of their heads off. Hands roamed her body as we tried to navigate the crowd, making me fume even hotter.

And then she looked up at me, grinning. The cunning edge to her smile caused a forbidden heat to churn inside me. She leaned into me with a tipsy giggle.

“You’re so grumpy,” she cooed. “I bet I can put a smile on your face.”

She pressed closer to me by way of demonstration. The lush curves of her body were distracting as hell. I pushed my fingers into her hair. It was slightly damp from her sweat, smelling like coconut shampoo.

She arched into me as I tasted her lips in a succulent kiss. A moan ghosted between us when my tongue darted out to swipe against hers. Jovi curled her fingers into my jacket. She rocked her hips against my thigh, and I deepened our kiss to drink in the moans that escaped her in breathless sighs.

“Eir! Come dance with me, lass!” called a voice from the crowd.

I tore away from Jovi as if her kiss had been laced with the most addictive of drugs. Guilt and nausea chased away the desire and the look on Skarde’s face didn’t help, either. I didn’t dare look at Fyrcat or Ogun. If they wore anything but neutral expressions, I’d punch them.

I mumbled a pathetic apology and took the stairs to our room two at a time. Jovi clung on, trailing me like a sickly streamer, collapsing onto the bed after we made it inside. I ducked into the bathroom and out of her sight. My chest felt tight as I locked the door behind me. The grief I’d seen in Skarde’s eyes continued to hit me like a sledgehammer.

Ogun had told us the story of Eir’s origins. Like Jovi, she had been born with magic in her veins and the strength of a Valkyrie.

But that wasn’t proof that they were one and the same! And yet…

I turned on the faucet and splashed water onto my face.

The taste of Jovi’s kiss held my senses hostage. I told myself that Jovi was mine, that Skarde had no claim on her, but that was before someone had genuinely mistaken her for Eir. And if Jovi truly were Eir… well, then… I knew desiring my brother’s mate was wrong, but Jovi had been mine long before Skarde came back into my life.

“Come out, Torsten,” Jovi called weakly. “We need to talk.”

“Four words every man loves to hear,” I said.

Her wispy chuckle was barely audible through the door. “I mean it. Come out and talk to me. We’ll figure this out.”

I stepped out of the bathroom and found her propped on a pile of pillows. Her expression was open, kind, and a little sad.

“I fucked up…” I started.

“You mean the kiss? Because I believe that was my doing.”

“I shouldn’t have kissed you at all. Skarde is probably right. People think you’re…”

“Eir?”

“Yes. Which means you’re his mate.”

Jovi’s lips pursed. “I’m not anyone’s mate, Torsten. I know you were raised in this magical world, but I wasn’t. I still consider myself human, and in a free human society, no one dictates your love life to you. You’re free to choose, even if you choose badly. I did, the first time around, when I married my ex. And then I found you. I chose you. And I stand by that choice.”

“But Skarde—”

“Is a big boy,” Jovi cut across me. “Who had a terrible thing happen to him. It wasn’t right, it wasn’t fair, but he can’t sweep in here and dictate that I’m his mate and that I should ride into the sunset with him. I have a life. I don’t care if it’s a fabrication, it’s still my life, and it’s my choice what I do with it. And I choose you.”

I breathed in deeply. “It’s not that simple.”

“If Skarde is half the man I think he is, he’ll break the heavy chains of tradition and choose something different. Because I can’t be Eir. Not anymore. And that’s assuming I was even her, to begin with.”

She stood up, swaying a little as she walked toward me. Her knees wobbled, and I had to scoop her from the air when she tripped.

“Help me shower,” she whispered, hands curling into my hair.

“It’s a bath.”

“Whatever. Get me clean and then take me to bed. That’s an order.”

My lips curled into a smile. “Yes, ma’am.”

Chapter Four

Jovi

My heart thundered as Torsten closed the door behind us, sealing us away from the drama below. For the first time in a long time, we were alone, and we weren’t being pursued by something that wanted to kill and/or eat us.

I felt his gaze on my back as I stripped off my borrowed clothes. A tub filled with steaming water sat in the corner of the room. I tested the temperature with my hand before I stepped in and beckoned him to follow. The heat felt sinfully good on my aching muscles. Relaxing against the muscled expanse of his chest after he settled behind me felt even better. His legs were splayed around me, so I could feel the thickness of him pressed against the small of my back, hard and ready. If I twisted in place, slinging my legs around his waist, he would be inside me.

Rags and soap had been provided by Rangorn’s girls, but Torsten beat me to them, bringing the cloth to a lather before scrubbing my back clean. The blood, ash, and sundry filth didn’t come away easily, so he had to put a little muscle behind it. The snow bath hadn’t done nearly enough. My skin was red and stinging by the time he was through cleaning what he could reach, but I didn’t mind. Better to be sore and clean than covered in ground-in dirt.

“Turn,” Torsten ordered, voice rough with barely suppressed desire. I could feel it in the air between us, a quivering tension. “I need to get your front.”

I could have argued that I could reach most places, so I didn’t need his help. Instead, I did as I was told, shifting in the tub so that I was practically sitting in his lap. The head of his erection brushed my hip, at the wrong angle to enter me, but that could be remedied. I saw the thought flash through his eyes, darkening them to a wolf’s amber for just a moment before he got control of himself and began to scrub, starting at my neck and moving downward with excruciating slowness.

My head rolled back a little when he ran the cloth lightly over my breasts. My nipples were already taut from his nearness and the way our bodies were arranged, but hardened to stiff, painful peaks when he closed his mouth around first one, then the other, pulling them gently between his teeth. My hips rocked into his and it was a struggle not to mount him then and there. I actually whined when he pulled back.

“Don’t stop.”

“Have to,” he said, voice so rough it almost counted as a growl. “You’re ill and we need to save our energy for rescuing Freya.”

If lives weren’t depending on her safe return, I would have said to hell with Freya. Torsten was finally free of her, and I didn’t want to risk her jealousy. It was better she was safely away. Unfortunately, if we didn’t drag her back to Midgard, we’d all be joining her in Helheim soon enough. Sometimes there just isn’t any justice in the world.

I leaned in to kiss the corner of his mouth and asked, “And when we’ve saved her ungrateful ass?”

Torsten turned so he could capture my lips, one of his hands curling possessively around my hips when he whispered, “We’ll pick up exactly where I left off.”

“Sounds good to me. Now hand me that rag. You’re not exactly Mr. Clean yourself.”

It took less time to get Torsten clean. Between our last snow bath and the fact that he’d sloughed most of the dirt off when his fur disappeared, he was a lot cleaner than I was. Even so, the water was brown by the time we stepped out and drained the tub.

The towels Torsten produced from one of the bathroom cabinets were the quality I would have expected from a luxury hotel. To my delighted surprise, the sheets were even better. This temporary luxury was a drastic change from my crummy little apartment in Marshall Heights with its leaky ceiling and matted carpet. The Den had blankets and pillows stuffed with goose feathers and soft pelts for extra warmth. I dropped the towel onto the floor and burrowed myself in the blankets.

“You’re going to sleep naked?” Torsten asked, eyeing the comforter like he was considering ripping it away.

“I prefer to, as you well know. There wasn’t a day I slept beside you that I wasn’t naked, for one reason or another.”

“It’s not going to help with my self-control,” he pointed out.

“Then sleep on the floor. I’m going to bed.”

I closed my eyes, expecting to struggle to drift off. Sleep came almost instantaneously, and was a welcome visitor after all I’d been through. My eyelids grew heavy, and my breathing slowed as I drifted away on alabaster clouds.

***

Bodies littered the ground, creating a macabre garden of death. Warriors, I realized. Warriors marked with Odin’s crest were scattered on a desolate battlefield. A beautiful blue-black raven landed on a helmet that was partially submerged in mud. The bird cawed at me before it flew off in the direction of the moon.

The scent of rain and fire surrounded me as I stepped carefully over the fallen Vikings. A tree stood tall in the midst of all the carnage, leafless and blackened by time. The raven perched itself on a twisted branch. As I watched, the beautiful bird transformed into a man… a one-eyed man with a long gray beard and striking blue eyes.

My heart rode up into my throat. I’d never seen him before, but there was a portion of me, deep in my bones, who knew who he was. I knew the presence of him, the name that went with it, though the face was alien.

“Do you know who I am?” he asked in a booming voice.

“Odin,” I whispered. “The All-Father.”

He bowed his head slightly in acknowledgment, keeping his eyes locked on my face. Their shape was familiar, even if the color was wrong. I’d seen them in the mirror all my life. He’d given me his cheekbones and the shape of his eyes. Because Ogun had been right—Odin wasn’t just the All-Father. He was my blood specifically. I could feel that, somewhere deep inside me. His lips twitched, though he didn’t quite smile.

“And do you know why I have brought you here?”

I looked around at the bodies at my feet. A battle ground wasn’t exactly the cheeriest place for a family reunion, so I doubted we were here for a family-friendly chat.

“Are you going to kill me?”

He tilted his head to one side, considering it.

“Perhaps. Perhaps not. It depends.”

“On what?”

“You.”

Well, that wasn’t cryptic and unhelpful at all. What was it with these mythological types and their dedication to monosyllables? Those were all I could pry out of Skarde in the beginning. Then he’d switched from grunts and one-word answers to metaphors that made no sense. Maybe magic was like television and rotted your brain slowly over time.

He waved a hand at our surroundings. “Do you know what this place is, Jovi?”

A prickle of power ran over my skin when he spoke my name. It resonated in the air long after the sound had stopped, like a struck bell. My name had power, if only when spoken by a literal god.

“It’s a battlefield.”

“A very special battlefield.”

“Why?”

“Your mate died here. He died on this field with the knowledge that his spirit would be carried into Valhalla by the Valkyries. But his love wasn’t waiting to take him to my hall. Do you know how many years he spent in discontent because he could not find you?”

I took a step back from Odin and almost toppled into the mud when the hem of the ridiculous green dress I’d been stuffed into caught on the edge of a fallen helm. One of Odin’s beefy hands shot out and steadied me. I had to force myself to meet his eyes, because all I wanted to do was run screaming in the other direction.

“Skarde isn’t my mate. I’m not Eir.”

“You are,” he said, piercing blue eyes boring into me. “I fathered one child with Freya, and that was Eir. You are Eir in flesh, if not in spirit. When you reunite with your soul, you’ll see. The sooner you embrace your identity, the happier you’ll be”.

I wrenched my arm from his grip, though it cost me to do it. His touch was rough, almost bruising. I wanted to shove my fingers into my ears and hum until he went away. This was Odin, and he could be telling me a lie. But I knew deep down he wasn’t.

“If you’re not going to kill me, then why am I here?” I asked.

“I wish to make you an offer,” he said, hand dropping to his side once more. “A way to save your friends and your mate. You only have to do me one favor in return.”

“You froze my town to death, so you can take your bargain and fuck right off. I don’t negotiate with terrorists.”

The dreamscape rumbled with what sounded like distant thunder. It took me a moment to realize that the sound was coming from Odin. He was laughing. At me.

“Listen to the proposal before you turn it down, impetuous girl.”

I crossed my arms over my chest, struggling with the sleeves of the impractical dress. Trust an old-school god to stuff me into one of these.

“Fine.”

Odin leaned against the tree, a small smirk curling his lips. “I can make you the fountainhead through which all magic flows.”

My brow furrowed. “Uh… what does that even mean?”

He laughed again, and the very earth seemed to quake beneath our feet. “You would take Freya’s place, child, becoming the source of life for all her descendants. Through you, all Völva would continue on. Do you understand what that means?”

It took me a moment, but when the meaning sank in, I wanted to say yes. Odin was offering to save the witches who were dying by making me what amounted to a goddess, constantly supplying magic to all of Freya’s descendants. We wouldn’t have to delve into Helheim to retrieve the bitch who’d enslaved Torsten and cost so many good people their lives. Which meant there had to be a catch. A big one.

“How would you do that?” I asked, stalling for time.

Odin held his hand palm up, and the wavering image of a golden apple appeared.

“My power will pour into you, and Idun’s apples will keep you forever young. You may even share them with your mate, Skarde. Immortality is a lonely place without a companion.”

“And what do you want in return?”

“Torsten Stormblood,” he said, voice as cruel and cold as a steel blade. “The traitor. Send him to Helheim to be with his mistress and bar the way for them to ever return, and I will restore the Völva.”

Anger burned inside me. “I love him.”

“Don’t be foolish.” Odin swatted my arms down. “Eir already has a mate. When you are restored, you will see that this is right. The blood of the Aesir—my blood—is inside you. You belong with us. So does he.

“But, Torsten…”

“Torsten was an amusement, but he is not yours.”

I shrank away from Odin. “Freya was right to defy you.”

The words left my lips before I could stop them, and yet I felt no regret. Someone had to spit defiance into the arrogant old man’s face, and Freya wasn’t here to do it. So, I did. Rage was bubbling in my gut. How dare he call Torsten an amusement? And where did he get off telling me who I was or where I belonged?

“Is that a no?” he asked.

I lifted my chin and glared at him. “It’s not only no, it’s a fuck no. My name is Jovi, not Eir and I choose my fate, not you.”

Odin struck before I had a chance to choke out the last word. He wrapped his hand around my throat and lifted me off my feet. I dangled just inches from his face.

“So be it.”

Lightning flashed across the sky. The bodies disappeared and the desolate field was replaced with lush grass. Odin tossed me aside, looming over me as if I was nothing more than an ant beneath his boot. A sword manifested itself in his hand. An unkindness of ravens landed on the tree, giving it the illusion of leaves as black as the bark itself.

I splashed onto the waterlogged grass. Rain poured from the sky. Droplets pelted me on the side of the head. He stared at me, eyes as cold and pitiless as the sky above. Then his sword flashed toward my face.

I squeezed my eyes shut and screamed.

Chapter Five

Skarde

“Don’t you have better things to do than stare at me, witch?” I growled.

Most of the women I’d encountered in my life would have looked down or flinched away from the harshness of my words. Fyrcat simply smiled, albeit wearily. The fact that she didn’t snap back with a sharply worded jab or pithy observation was testimony to how badly off she was.

“If you strip in front of me, I’m going to look. I might as well see something sexy before I die.”

There was a note of resignation in her voice. Jovi seemed to think that finding and saving Freya was an inevitability, not the difficult-to-nigh impossible task it was. She was an innocent in so many ways, ignorant of the harsh truths of our world. Fyrcat was an old soul, and my contemporary in cynicism. She’d scoff at the thought of failure if we actually succeeded, but until that point, she was willing to comport herself with some sense.

“You’re not going to die,” I said reflexively, dropping the flimsy shirt she’d offered me to the floor. “We’re going to find Freya. You’ll survive.”

Her face was uncharacteristically soft for a moment, and she stared up at me from beneath her lashes in that uncertain way women seemed to master. It was a blade that could pierce through any amount of emotional armor.

“You don’t really believe that. The Aesir have won, and it’s only a matter of time until they come to Midgard and stomp out the last of us.”

I shucked out of the trousers she’d offered as well, grimacing at them. I didn’t care for the material she called ‘denim’. It was only a little better than the shirt in its defensive capabilities. It left me standing in my undergarments, which she seemed to appreciate. Her gaze swept up and down my body, as though committing me to memory.

“They won a battle, but that doesn’t mean they’ve won the war. As long as you breathe, there’s hope that Freya can be restored.”

Fyrcat crossed her arms, unconvinced. It mounded her breasts against the sheets. She’d stripped down so that only the scrap of cloth she called a ‘bra’ was visible.

“Regardless,” she said eventually. “I’m going to look at you. The dying deserve something pleasant in their last days.”

I pulled back the covers on the singular bed and climbed in on my side. I didn’t like the idea of sharing with the witch, but it was apparent that neither of us could take the floor. She was weak and in need of rest, and I was still recovering from the aftereffects of mistletoe poisoning. A night on the hard ground wouldn’t help either of us. I jumped when she curled around my bare back. Her skin was clammy, betraying her condition more effectively than any conversation could have. I was tempted to bat her away but didn’t. I could recall how miserable infection was.

Fyrcat’s small hands settled over my waist, one cheek pressed to my back. She was small. So deceptively small for something so dangerous. Eir had been tall and built like a warrior, easily withstanding pitched battle and the long, hard ride to and from Valhalla. Fyrcat would have been swallowed by Eir’s shadow. Her perceived fragility evoked within me a strong and entirely absurd instinct to protect her.

I snorted. Protect a witch. I must have been going mad.

“Stop imitating barnyard animals and sleep,” Fyrcat groused.

“Stop your wandering hands and mayhap I can relax long enough to close my eyes.”

Fyrcat’s hands had been performing a steady trek downward, and her long, shapely fingers paused just above the waistband of the clothing she called ‘boxers’. I felt rather than saw her smile.

“Can’t blame a girl for being curious.”

I turned over so I could look down at her, trying to keep my scowl firmly in place. It was difficult when she continued her path downward, stroking the outline of my cock through the cloth.

“What do you think you’re going to get out of this, witch?” I demanded. “Does it amuse you to torment me?”

Fyrcat didn’t fire back immediately, which was surprising and a little disappointing. Loathe as I was to admit it, I’d come to depend on her wit and sharp tongue in these uncertain times. Both were constants I could cling to while the rest of the world went to Helheim around us. In some ways, my conversations with Fyrcat reminded me of my early conversations with Eir. We hadn’t been fated to fall in love at first sight. She’d mocked me too, wormed her way under my skin like a splinter and settled there. It was probably the only reason I hadn’t slashed Fyrcat’s throat the moment she’d mouthed off.

“I don’t know,” she answered honestly. “There’s just… something about you. I want to hate you, Skarde. I really, really do. I was prepared to loathe you the moment we clapped eyes on each other but I…”

Her face screwed up in consternation and she muttered a few curses under her breath before lifting her face to mine. Her eyes were shiny with frustrated tears.

“I can’t hate you. I want to, but I can’t.”

I felt the same way towards her, and that scared the piss out of me. My instincts to rip and tear had dwindled to something manageable within hours of meeting her. I wasn’t going to go on bended knee and write a heartfelt poem or perform feats of heroism in her name but there was something there. Something I hadn’t felt since Eir. Something I shouldn’t have been able to feel, with my fated mate gone.

I rested my chin on her hair and sighed. “You’re right. The dying deserve something pleasant in their last days. What would you have of me, witch?”

She ducked her chin so I wouldn’t see her tears. It was a futile gesture. I could still smell them.

Fyrcat showed me, rather than speaking the words aloud. She kissed my collarbone first, testing her teeth on my skin. I barely restrained the urge to roll her under me and take her as she explored my chest leisurely, licking and biting as she went. Her touch felt like fire, and it had little to do with the return of her fever. Her eyes rolled up to meet mine when she finally came to my waistband.

“Just sating my curiosity, wolf,” she said quietly. “This means nothing.”

“Get on with it then, witch,” I shot back. “You’re boring me.”

Which was a lie. I didn’t know if any male could be anything but keenly interested when there was a female hovering over his favorite appendage.

Her lips quirked in that familiar, infuriating smile. My cock twitched in response.

“Oh, well, in that case, I’ll just have to work harder, won’t I?”

Fyrcat shimmied the boxers down, letting my cock spring free, but before she could close her small, petal lips around it, her eyes rolled back into her head. Her body began to thrash, and I caught her before she could slip off the bed and smack her skull onto the hardwood floor. I pulled her onto her side and then bellowed the only name I could think of.

“Torsten!”

***

Torsten

Jovi wouldn’t wake up. She’d nodded off shortly after bathing, and I hadn’t thought much of it. Just holding her to my chest as she slept felt like heaven after so long apart.

She slept the same way she always had—like a log. I wasn’t sure why that surprised me, but it did. Maybe some part of me had expected her to be as changed by my absence as I’d been by hers. My bed felt colder and harder without her in it. I’d sprawled, trying to take up the empty space, and always woke aching and foul tempered. She was my angel, and her mere presence was enough to soothe whatever passed for my soul.

Her eyelids were tinged faintly purple, and the bags beneath them were pronounced. Something sickly sweet had replaced her usual comforting scent, like the edge of rot on spoiled fruit. She was dying by inches, and I had no idea how to stop it.

My heart rode up into my throat when she began to shake and then cry out, her voice gone thin and reedy with fear. I shook her shoulder, trying to jostle her from the nightmare. Nothing. I shook her harder but only succeeded in making her neck roll limply to one side. Her eyes were half-open, fixed on something I couldn’t see. I tried pinching her, slapping her cheek lightly, but still, no reaction.

“Torsten!”

My brother’s voice was startling in its volume. He was situated doors down from us and had to be shouting for his voice to carry through the thick walls and into the halls. His voice had an edge to it, and it took me several seconds to recognize it for what it was. It was something altogether foreign in his brusque basso tone.

Fear.

My brother was afraid, and it didn’t seem like a coincidence that fear was coming on the heels of whatever was happening to Jovi.

I scooped her up, careful not to jostle her too badly, and sprinted down the hall to Skarde’s room. When I burst in, I found him mostly naked, with Fyrcat sprawled on his lap, having what looked like a grand mal seizure.

“What did you do?” I demanded.

“Nothing,” he snarled back. “We were speaking and then her eyes rolled back into her head.”

His gaze flicked up, softening when he saw Jovi in my arms. I bit back a growl. I didn’t like the way he looked at her, even if it was reasonable in this circumstance.

“This could be a symptom of their sickness,” I reasoned. “Some kind of fever dream.”

“Doubtful,” he said, curling Fyrcat closer. “She was very much awake when whatever this was hit. One moment we were speaking and the next…” He glanced down helplessly. “This. I don’t know what to do to stop it.”

“You can’t,” I said, recalling a few memorable occasions with my partner. It seemed like a lifetime ago now. “Seizures will last however long they last. You did good rolling her onto her side like that.”

Skarde grunted in lieu of reply, which made me smile, just a little. I knew him well enough to know it was embarrassment that held his tongue, not a lack of anything meaningful to say. He was afraid for the witch and didn’t want to acknowledge it. It was bizarre, to say the least. Why was he reacting this way to Fyrcat of all people? If I’d picked a woman for my brother to fall for, the prickly, dangerous witch wouldn’t have been it.

I moved to sit beside him but stopped in my tracks when both Jovi and Fyrcat cried out in agony. That wasn’t normal. If this was just a seizure, they shouldn’t have been cognizant enough to react to each other’s presence, let alone have the same reaction simultaneously. I paused, considered it, then took another step forward. Another cry and their convulsions became more severe. I cursed.

“It’s a sending,” I said. “They’re experiencing the same thing at the same time, and proximity is making it worse. One of the Aesir invaded their dreams.”

Skarde’s brow furrowed. “That doesn’t make sense. They shouldn’t be reacting the same way, even under the same circumstances. They’re different people.”

His breath caught in his throat a moment later, and his gaze dropped back to Fyrcat, wide and a little hopeful. I didn’t understand that look. It was almost a mirror of the one he’d given Jovi a moment before. I wanted to be grateful to see it. If he felt for Fyrcat, he was less likely to pursue Jovi. I just couldn’t parse what could have prompted the change.

“You had a thought,” I said. “Mind sharing with the class?”

Skarde stared at me blankly. “What class?”

I blew out a breath. “What did you think of just now, Skarde? I know that expression. You came to some kind of conclusion. What was it? Do you know what’s happening?”

“Not exactly,” he said slowly. “But I believe I know why they’re reacting in a similar fashion.”

“Okay?”

“I believe…” He sighed as he looked from Jovi to me. “I believe Jovi isn’t Eir. Or at least, not all of her.”

The knot of tension that had curled between my shoulder blades since the moment he’d made his admission lessened. If Jovi wasn’t Eir, I didn’t have to fight him for her.

“What do you mean, ‘not all of her?’”

His lips pursed. “I often forget you are young and not well versed in our heritage. It makes you slow.”

I glared at him. “Are you going to mock my intelligence or actually get to the point?”

Skarde’s gaze returned to Fyrcat. Her convulsions were fading to minor tremors as the sending came to some kind of end. Jovi mirrored her almost exactly, curling more securely against me as whatever she was experiencing lessened.

“You were raised among Christians,” he said, spitting the word ‘Christian’ like a curse. “You believe as they do about the soul. That it is all one thing.”

“It’s not?” I asked.

“No, it’s not,” he said. “It is made up of four parts. Hamr, the physical appearance of a person. It can and does change. Those with power can manipulate it, in the case of shapeshifters. It can also cause the body to change color after death. Hugr, the self. One’s personality, for lack of a better term. It continues after death, usually by being passed into a newborn of the same bloodline. Fylgja the totem that mirrors the hugr. An animal spirit. Our fylgja expresses through the hamr and hugr. And finally, the Hamingia. It’s a portion of the spirit that passes on through the family as a whole. I didn’t think it was possible that Eir’s Hugr or Hamingia could pass on. She said she was an only child, and we didn’t have a child to pass on her bloodline.”

“Eir had a child you didn’t know about?” I asked, eyes going round.

He shook his head. “No. It wouldn’t matter how ardently we disagreed on certain things; she’d never keep a child from me. Jovi is a daughter of Freya and Odin, and thus her family. Most likely kept in reserve by Freya, just in case, and stolen away by one of the Aesir or perhaps just Loki.”

“A sister,” I breathed. “Jovi is Eir’s… sister?”

“Perhaps.”

“So, she has…”

“Eir’s Hamingia, at the very least. But she has to have another portion of Eir’s soul to react this way. It makes sense, given what I know of Fyrcat. Much more sense than Jovi inheriting her soul many centuries later. The stories say that Freya found and blessed Fyrcat’s family. And Fyrcat didn’t breathe for an hour after her birth.”

I blinked a little at that. “She was stillborn? And Freya… what? Shoved Eir’s soul into Fyrcat?”

“Or invited another soul into her body to allow Fyrcat to live. Freya may not have known it was Eir’s hugr at all. She just raised the babe to follow her commands.”

“Then?”

“I believe Jovi is Eir’s family, and a sister of a sort to Fyrcat. Close enough to muddle the destination of each part of her soul. Jovi has Eir’s Hamingia. Possibly even her Fylgja.”

“But not her Hugr.”

Not her personality, the thing that I’d truly consider the soul. And, if true, that meant one thing: Jovi wasn’t Skarde’s. Fyrcat was. Born into the body of a witch, loyal to his enemy and a woman who lived to antagonize him.

And the worst part? She had no fucking clue.

“Well, shit,” I breathed.

“Indeed,” Skarde muttered.

“What do we do?”

Skarde cupped Fyrcat’s cheek and sighed. Her eyelids fluttered. She was coming around.

“I have no idea. But we can’t mention a word of this until we’re certain.”

It sounded like a recipe for disaster to me, but this didn’t impact me the same way it would Fyrcat, Jovi, and Skarde. I could understand the desire to be sure. So, I nodded.

“For now.”

Chapter Six

Fyrcat

The last time my head had ached like this, I’d been a young thing, dancing in the wilds with a ring of other Völva, honoring the goddess.

I’d found a young man afterward and took him to my bed. I’d had pleasant aches and good memories to temper the hangover. No such luck this time around. I hadn’t even felt the berserker’s length inside me before Odin stuck his illusions where they weren’t wanted.

Jovi’s misery was a small comfort to me. She hadn’t indulged in a romp with Torsten before being struck by the All-Father’s sending. She was as pale and shaky as I was. Petty? Yes. But I wasn’t in a charitable mood. The smuggler was late, the dwarf was loud, and Skarde was being particularly distant this morning. Probably talking himself out of allowing me further exploration.

Damn him. Damn his handsome face, his low buzz of charisma. And damn me for being unable to take my eyes off him for long. I wished he had never entered my home. That he’d never sparked an unknown part of me with his kiss. I wanted to hate him. I wanted him to hate me. It was the way of things.

And yet, we couldn’t keep away from each other for long. Wrong. And exciting. And… gah, Gods help me, he was under my skin.

“You saw Odin too,” Jovi said. It was phrased like a statement, but her voice lifted a little, so it sounded like a question.

“Of course,” I said, fighting the urge to mirror her posture, hunched over the table, cradling my head in my hands. It wouldn’t help anything, and it would make me look vulnerable. There were too many shifters in the main hall to display weakness. So many mercenaries and amoral men who’d prey on that lapse. Besides, the magical rebound from Odin’s illusory attack would require time or a potion to fade entirely.

“What did he say to you?” she asked. She was trying to sound conversational, as though the answer didn’t really interest her. But there was an edge to her voice that ruined the ruse. She was a guileless little thing. It would have been endearing on almost anyone else.

“The same thing he said to you, I imagine,” I said dryly. “An offer of power. As if I’d trust an Aesir thief to deliver on his side of the bargain.”

And he’d buried me in lies, sealing my decision to spit defiance into his face. I was no heir to Eir’s power. I would have sensed something like that by now… wouldn’t I have? It was just a ploy, a lie meant to give me hope for a future with Skarde. Something that could never be, no matter how much a part of me might wish it.

“You said no?” Jovi asked, an unflattering amount of surprise in her voice.

“Of course I said no. You cannot trust the Aesir, especially the All-Father. Hucksters, all of them. My loyalty is to my goddess and to myself, and in that order.”

If I kept saying it, perhaps I’d eventually believe it. Skarde had risen rapidly in my priorities since we’d met, and I couldn’t fathom why. He was an enemy, an interminable irritant, a crass, insulting pillock who wouldn’t know humor if it bit him on his very nice ass. And yet, I felt something for him. Grudgingly, perhaps, but it was still there.

Stupid. So incredibly stupid. As if he’d ever feel similarly. He was indulging a dying woman’s wish, nothing more.

I turned my head a fraction and found him sitting at a nearby table, on alert for any danger. Torsten was relaxed in comparison, sipping a glass of mead unenthusiastically. I’d have been doing the same if I thought it would help the headache. It was never too early to drink when it felt like an elephant was trying to stomp your head flat.

Skarde glanced in our direction, and his eyes locked with mine for a moment. Something crackled between us, brief but undeniably there. And then he turned away, jaw flexing. He was probably castigating himself for checking in on me.

Bastard.

It took another fifteen minutes for a short, stocky man to approach their table. I sat up straighter, tracking his movement, fingers crooked and ready to cast the meager remnants of my power into his face if he made a threatening move toward the brothers.

Self-preservation, I thought fiercely. This is all self-preservation. You need their help. This has nothing to do with Skarde.

Yes, I’d repeat that too.

Power gathered around Jovi, a mirror to my own. It was amorphous, unconscious, and completely uncontrolled, but I appreciated it nonetheless. Annoying as I found her, she made a good ally in a fight.

The smuggler’s eyes swept over us, dark and unnervingly deep. He had the same ashy complexion and dark hair as others of his kind, though he looked oilier than most. His armor was dented and scratched, and a threadbare scarf around his neck failed to conceal the healed remnants of a jagged throat wound. Someone had tried to end his life at some point, and I couldn’t blame them for the attempt. His aura was acrid and clung like smoke.

He’d pulled his long hair into a tail behind his head and tucked the loose strands behind his pointed ears. Ogun definitely took after his dwarven half. He looked like an Adonis when compared to this man.

Valok’s eyes lingered unpleasantly on Jovi and me for a second, before he turned back to the brothers. His voice sounded scratchy when he spoke.

“Follow me,” Valok said as he walked into the back room of The Den. He didn’t look back, trusting that we’d follow.

Skarde and Torsten were on their feet moments later. We trailed behind, leaning on Ogun for support. I hated that I needed the help. Ogun seemed pleased to be sandwiched between us.

“If we link arms, it’ll be like that movie,” he said excitedly. “That one with the yellow road and the lollipops.”

I raised an eyebrow. “The Wizard of Oz?”

“Yeah, that one!”

“I call Dorothy,” Jovi said faintly. She sounded nauseous.

“I’ll be the Tinman,” I said after a moment of thought. “Since you seem to think me heartless. Skarde is the Cowardly Lion, and Torsten can be Toto. Ogun is the Scarecrow.”

Jovi shot me a reproving look over Ogun’s shoulder, but the insult seemed to fly over the dwarf’s head. He began humming the Scarecrow’s part happily. It made me laugh, in spite of myself. I couldn’t tell if the dwarf had a good sense of humor or was just ignorant, but the moment of levity was welcome.

Valok willed the door closed the moment we were alone. Then the elven smuggler dragged a miniature chest out of his pocket. It was dark purple with gilded hinges. Valok dropped it onto the floor and snapped his fingers. The chest grew larger and popped open its lid. Inside were several weapons and plated armor. But most importantly, there was a small, golden compass resting on top of the heap.

Skarde whistled at the contents of the chest. “That was fast.”

“I can deliver quickly if the price is right.” He leered at the necklace still looped around Jovi’s neck. “And speaking of price, I’ve named mine. Hand over the Brisingamen.”

“As soon as we have the compass in hand, I will,” Jovi countered. “Give it to me and I’ll give you what you want.”

The elf smirked and stooped to seize the compass. He tossed it into the air a few times before flicking it toward Jovi. She fumbled and couldn’t quite get her hands up in time to catch it. Skarde lunged, seizing it before it hit the floor.

It sprang to life the moment it touched his flesh, and the needle spun faster than I was able to track with my eyes. Runes appeared on the floors and walls of The Den. They revealed hidden passages and quick escape routes, turning red if there was a risk of being seen. For a smuggler like Valok, it was a priceless artifact. He was right to ask for the Brisingamen in its place. Nothing short of that would be worth the trade.

Skarde squatted beside the chest and pulled out a retractable spear. The adjustable length made it a decent match for Ogun. Next, he found a shield and short sword perfect for Jovi. She’d apparently shown an affinity for them when she charged recklessly into Muspelheim.

Further proof she was likely Eir, I thought sourly.

Torsten claimed a hammer that was larger than my head with a long handle made of Yggdrasil’s wood. The markings still glowed with the power of the World Tree. It made me ache for my wand. Damn Loki for taking it.

“This will do nicely,” Torsten said, testing its weight.

Skarde dug into the chest and produced a length of oak. My breath caught at the sight of it. It glowed with life and vitality. It couldn’t have been separated from Yggdrasil for more than a day. It wasn’t my wand, but with work and a fair amount of willpower, it would do. He smiled faintly when he offered it to me.

“The last time you looked so eager, you were handling a different kind of staff,” he thought at me.

“This one is more useful in the long run,” I thought back. “Though I admit, I’d still like to handle the other one.”

Something rippled along his thoughts. Anticipation. Happiness. Wary hope. I didn’t understand it and couldn’t press further to learn more. He’d erected a barrier in his mind, guarding the information, and I didn’t have the strength to breach it.

“When you are well, we’ll discuss it.”

Out loud he said, “And the armor?”

He rifled through some of the pieces. I was no expert, but they seemed to be of good quality.

“Enough for all of you,” the elf said. “Just be careful to use the rings.”

“Rings?” Torsten echoed.

“You really are as ignorant as they say.” Valok dug around in the chest and handed him an arm ring.

“I was raised by humans.”

“It shows.” Valok shoved the arm ring onto his wrist. The golden bracelet was thin and adorned with two round jewels with runes etched into them. The ring was much heavier than it looked.

Valok continued, “It will hold the armor when you don’t need it. Twist the rune on the left to eject the armor and the one on the right to retract it.”

Ah, now that was handy. I could have used something like that all those years ago.

I paused, a thrill of fear running over my skin as the foreign thought popped into my head. I’d never worn armor. I wasn’t the melee sort.

So why did that feel like a lie?

“Thank you,” Torsten said, inclining his head to Valok.

“Don’t thank me until we’ve recovered your bitch goddess.” Valok snorted. “I don’t know what it is or why it’s happening, but if you can keep the gods from destroying Midgard, that would be great. I like this place. Losing it would be bad for my gig.”

Skarde growled like the untamed beast that he was. It made my traitorous thighs clench with desire. Gods, what had gotten into me?

“Have you no shame? You are a disgrace to your kind, thief.”

“Our little business transaction has come to an end for the time being, boys,” Valok huffed as he walked back through the door. “You know where to find me when you’re ready to leave.”

I glowered at the smuggler’s back as he turned back the way he came. Torsten grabbed onto one side of the chest and Skarde grabbed the other.

“Did you have to insult the one person in Midgard who we can buy weapons from?” I asked irritably.

Skarde ignored me as we lugged the chest up to the bedroom we’d shared. The sight of the bed was enough to send fresh spikes of lust through me. I’d almost gone down on him, and he seemed set to return the favor. Why in Hel’s name had Odin chosen that moment to intrude?

“I think I need to lay down,” Jovi said after a moment. “Torsten, do you mind—”

Torsten didn’t even allow her to finish. He scooped her up and marched her out the door to their room. Ogun followed in their wake, offering me an apologetic smile.

“I think I’ll be of more use helping Jovi than sorting through the weapons.”

“Agreed,” I said, eager to have him gone.

Skarde’s gaze followed their retreating backs. “Do you think she’ll live?”

“Hard to say,” I replied. “She doesn’t have the defenses the rest of us do. She’ll have to learn fast if she wants to keep what magic she has left.”

“You’ll teach her?” he asked, raising an incredulous brow at me. “I know you don’t like her.”

I rolled my eyes. “She’s infuriatingly naïve, but she is one of my kin, however distantly. I need her, and more importantly, Freya needs her. She’s the link to Midgard the goddess can use to return. I’ll do what I must, no matter how distasteful I find it.”

We were silent for a time. It was companionable somehow. Something had changed while I languished in dreamland. If only I knew what.

“Where did Odin take you?” he asked at last. “Jovi won’t say.”

I shuddered, thinking back to it. I opened my mind, rather than voice the memory aloud. It wasn’t an experience that words could encapsulate.

I stood in an open field. Ravens called in the distance as a storm raged. There was no sign of Thor.

I struggled in Odin’s grasp. His fingers seemed to be made of iron, for all the good my thrashing did. They pressed into my windpipe, cutting off my air. Traitorous tears gathered at the corners of my eyes. This felt like a betrayal, though I couldn’t say why. We were enemies.

But if what he said was true, he was my blood. And yet, he was willing to kill me. Trust the Aesir to act so callously.

Far in the distance, a voice I recognized as Jovi’s released a scream so powerful that it sent a shockwave of magic hurtling toward Odin. His grip slackened, and I fell onto the ground, gasping for air. I landed at his feet, rolling to escape the kick he aimed at my stomach. My hands slipped on the muddy grass as I tried to crawl away. The rain turned to blood. Crimson drops of Odin’s rage fell from an obsidian sky. Still, I dug my fingers into the soil, refusing to give up.

I found Jovi forty feet away, still screaming, eyes gone white. Energy crackled between us, and for a moment, it felt like some kind of barrier slipped. We were one flesh. I saw through her eyes, and she through mine. I touched my forehead to hers and huddled by her side as the rain slicked our hair into bloody tangles.

I prayed to Freya, but there was no answer. Only blood, and rage, and the echoes of Jovi’s scream. Or was it mine?

I scrubbed at my face, trying to ease myself out of the nightmare. The desolation still made me ache. I’d never felt so abandoned, so confused. Only Skarde’s voice had been enough to guide me back to consciousness. I owed him for that.

Skarde was quiet, his face pensive. “You share a bond with Jovi,” he began cautiously. “Did you know?”

“No, but nothing surprises me anymore. My life ceased to make sense after you arrived. Fighting with berserkers, instead of against them. Saving your life. Kissing you. It’s all too strange for words.”

“But it feels right,” he said with utter certainty.

I glowered at him. “It shouldn’t.”

“But it does,” he insisted.

I threw up my hands. “Yes, it does. Do a victory jig if it makes you happy. You’ve reduced me to a pile of confused hormones, just like every other woman you’ve been with.”

“There was only Eir,” he said quietly. “There will only ever be Eir.”

And then he lunged for me. His mouth found mine, his hands tangled in my air, and he pulled me flush against his chest. My hands locked around his neck, and I all but climbed the tall berserker in my haste. His laugh vibrated against my mouth, a delicious sound that only spurred me on. I wasn’t sure what game he was starting, but I was willing to be a player.

“I will put you back together again,” he whispered, pulling my shirt over my head in one swift movement. “You’re mine. You will always be mine.”

I didn’t understand what he meant but I also didn’t care.

And then he rode me down onto the mattress, hand slipping past the waistband of my borrowed jeans. I arched into him when his hand delved between my legs.

“Say it,” he growled.

“Earn it,” I countered.

And then Skarde set about doing just that.

Chapter Seven

Torsten

“Jovi, talk to me,” I urged.

She shivered. “I’m just c-cold. And tired. God, the last time I felt like this I had mono. Dying sucks.”

“You’re not going to die.”

But secretly, I was afraid of what it meant. Odin had never shown himself to anyone other than his fallen Berserkers and the gods. It was clear to me that Jovi was different. Everywhere we turned, something new was revealed about her. She’d healed herself not long after we left Muspelheim, which had almost convinced me she was Eir. And now I knew it wasn’t far off. She could only be Eir’s sister, a lost heir to Odin and Freya, and most likely a keeper of part of Eir’s spirit.

Now she was stepping effortlessly into the realm of spirit. She shouldn’t have been able to do that without training. And each time Jovi spiritwalked into a dream or vision, it strengthened her connection to Yggdrasil. The World Tree was the origin of all life and magic. Its light shined through her. Never before had I felt something so profoundly light in a witch.

My kind hunted creatures like her, creatures that used taboo and forbidden magics, but I sensed no darkness in Jovi. She trailed a line of kisses along my neck and jaw, pulling my thoughts back to the here and now. The electric sensation pulsed beneath my skin, and I felt myself harden. Jovi moaned, grinding herself against me. Her lips slanted over mine and I was too weak to deny her kiss.

I realized with a start that I didn’t have to. She wasn’t Eir. Not in the way that counted, anyway. I could have her without hurting my brother.

My hands caressed her sides, and I realized she’d shed her clothes after Ogun had gone for ice. She was naked on my lap. Sweat dampened her hair. Soft breasts brushed my chest, and I growled.

“Please,” Jovi moaned. “Let me feel you.”

“You’re sick.”

“I’m strong enough for this,” she insisted.

Her hand slithered down the muscles of my abdomen. She pulled my shirt over my head and pushed her hands down the front of my sweatpants. The tips of her fingers inched closer to the throbbing length trapped between our bodies.

I grabbed her hand before she reached her destination.

“It’s not a good idea…” I said quietly. “We don’t need to add to our list of problems.”

My grip on her hip tightened as my fingers flexed instinctively.

“I need you, Torsten.”

Butterfly kisses covered my chest and then Jovi bit down on my neck. The sudden spark of pain caused my hand to slip, and I gasped when the heat of her palm wrapped around my member.

“You feel good, Stormblood,” she giggled. “I missed this.”

So did I. There wasn’t a day that I hadn’t thought of her, imagined her back in my arms. Now that she was here, I was having trouble keeping my hands off her. Still, I knew it was a bad idea.

“Jovi! We’re playing with fire.”

But I couldn’t stop myself. My hands roamed all over her, feeling the softness of her skin. I bucked my hips and listened to the sound of her desperate pleading.

“Make love to me.”

I stilled my path up her body, hands floating just inches away from her tempting curves. Jovi licked a stripe up my throat before she tried to kiss me again. I had no choice. I pushed her away. She needed comfort, but I just… couldn’t.

“My rut is coming soon, and this can’t happen,” I explained. “I don’t want to hurt you. It’s not normal sex, Jovi. In your condition, I could kill you.”

“But I…”

“No, Jovi.” I pressed my forehead against hers. “Please don’t ask me to do this. We can lay here, and I can hold you, but nothing more. Besides, Ogun will be back soon. And we don’t want to give him a show.”

The light came on in her mind. Jovi ran her fingers through her hair. She looked beautiful and… embarrassed?

“No, I don’t,” she sighed. “We’re a mess, aren’t we? I’m sorry, Torsten. I made you uncomfortable and I shouldn’t have pushed things.”

“None of this is your fault,” I replied. “You didn’t choose for any of this shit to happen. My choices are what brought us here.”

She slid back into my lap, and I hissed. Having her body close to me was torture, but she needed me. I laid back with her on my chest, using my body heat to keep her warm.

“If I could go back and change things, I wouldn’t,” she whispered. “When I came to Marshall Heights, I wasn’t planning on ending up in the middle of a war between ancient gods. But coming here freed you from Freya and it opened my eyes to a world of magic. There’s danger and there’s complications, but I’m ready to face it all with you.”

“And Skarde.”

Jovi lifted her head from my chest, and I brushed her hair from her face. “I know you might be confused with the way I’ve been acting—I’m confused, too. But whether I’m Eir or not, I want you to remember me the way I was when we met. I want you to remember the woman you fell in love with.” She took my hand in hers and pressed it against her chest. I felt the frantic rhythm of her heartbeat. “Jovi still loves you, Torsten.”

I wasn’t sure who was speaking now. My Jovi, or the remnants of Eir. Residual guilt twisted my insides. Was I still claiming Skarde’s mate, even in part? If so, that still seemed wrong.

“No more promises,” I said. “Neither of us will survive anymore disappointment.” My hand looked enormous in comparison to hers. She had no idea how many males would have killed to be with her, males who weren’t held back by guilt and fear. I considered myself lucky in a way, but the privilege of having been chosen by Jovi came with the sweetest torment.

“You don’t believe me?” she asked. The tears in her gorgeous blue eyes mocked me for being so weak. My hand dropped. Jovi sat up and moved to the edge of the bed. “You tried to warn me before the winter started. You knew things were going to be hard, and I didn’t listen.”

“I believe you, but I think it’s best that we talk when you’re well again. There’s so much you still don’t know.”

I’d made a promise to Skarde, and I wouldn’t break it. Yet. But when Freya was back, I’d spill the secret and let Jovi make up her own mind.

She deserved that much.

“Okay,” she said quietly.

A moment later, she let out a light snore. I smiled and stroked her hair. I missed her shuddering exhalations against my skin. I’d missed her. And now I had her back. That was everything.

Even if this was all I had for the rest of my life, it would be more than enough.

***

Jovi

A truck had sneaked into my room at The Den and run me over while I was asleep—or at least, that was how I felt when I woke later in the day. But, in reality, I’d traveled outside of my body and spiritwalked right onto an ancient battlefield where I was nearly squashed like a bug by Odin. The All Father had shown a desire to kill me that rivaled the draugr I’d battled the night before. Aching muscles in my neck reminded me of how helpless I’d felt at Odin’s mercy.

I pushed Torsten’s heavy arm off my chest and crept out from under the mountain of pelts in which he’d swaddled me. The large berserker was fast asleep and muttered something unintelligible as I made my way over to the mirrored vanity. A bruise in the shape of a hand darkened the skin at the base of my throat. I touched the mark gently and blue light spiraled out from the tips of my fingers. The light broke up the bruise and faded the dark blotches into a faint pink.

Fear and excitement came in unsettling waves. I’d healed myself without much thought at all. And aside from a slight twinge of discomfort at the back of my head, I felt fine. Magic flowed through my veins. It was an extension of my soul, further proof of what Skarde had feared all along. Magic was useful, but it was also dangerous. Witches had magic and, therefore, witches were dangerous. I was dangerous… or, at the very least, I had the potential to be dangerous.

“Jovi?”

I nearly jumped out of my skin as Torsten’s voice rang in the quiet of the bedroom. He lifted his head from the pillows and gave me a ruthlessly sexy grin that made my entire body tingle with awareness. Torsten patted the bed beside him.

“Come back to bed. You need to rest.”

His hand lifted in a silent request that I answered eagerly. There, in the shadows, we were just two people seeking comfort from one another. I slid into his arms without hesitation and pressed my nose to his neck, breathing in the woody scent of his skin.

“How did you sleep?” I asked softly.

Torsten rolled his hips, and the rigid length of his morning erection brushed my thigh. “How do you think?”

I brushed his chin with my thumb and pouted. “Poor baby. Want me to kiss it better?”

He closed his eyes and groaned before shoving a pillow between our bodies. “You’re evil,” Torsten grumbled, but there was a slight smile on his lips. He pressed a kiss to my forehead. “Skarde said something about eventually wanting to train you on how to fight. Once you’re feeling better, that is.”

“Oh. Umm… isn’t it a bad time for that?”

“We don’t know what’s going to happen next,” he replied with a shrug. “It’s best to get you trained with the basics before we leave. At least here at The Den, there are enough supernaturals to discourage another head-on attack.”

“You never did tell me what happened between Skarde and Fyrcat. I heard you muttering about it on the train between naps, but I never got the full story.”

I looked up at Torsten and saw that his expression had crumpled into a frown.

“Fyrcat helped him. I only have guesses as to why. Nothing concrete yet. I’ll tell you when I know more.”

“She wants something from him,” I said. It was easy to see why Torsten and Skarde hadn’t trusted Fyrcat when I first met her. There was something very off about her. It was unsettling how close she and Skarde had become in our absence. She must have cast a spell on the berserker to make him so amiable. Well, as amiable as the grumpy Viking could manage.

“She didn’t ask for anything in return. From what I can tell it’s very… complicated. Like I said, I can’t tell you anything more until we investigate.”

I leaned back to study his face, all the while realizing that he was keeping something from me. I opened my mouth to reply, but a knock on the door interrupted us. Torsten kissed my cheek as he hurried out of bed. He adjusted himself before opening the door. Skarde stood on the other side, hair mussed, and fresh bruises littering one side of his neck. Three guesses where he’d gotten those.

I hid beneath the covers, which was pointless. He could smell my desire and could guess what I’d been trying to instigate. Not that he had any room to judge when he was obviously boinking Fyrcat of all people. Still, the embarrassment that chased away my morning glow was more revealing than I was willing to acknowledge. If I started admitting that Skarde’s opinion mattered to me, then I would have had to admit that I wasn’t as immune to him as I’d thought.

“How are you feeling?” Skarde asked me.

“Better,” I answered with a nod. A night of sleep had done me a world of good. “Much better, actually.”

“Very good. Training begins in an hour,” the Viking said. “Rangorn has allowed us to use the lower shelter behind the cellar. It is not much, but we will have to make the best of it.”

I popped my head out from under the blankets as Torsten walked over to the window and drew back the curtain.

“Are you sure you’re feeling well enough?” he asked as he turned to look at me.

I nodded.

“Then Skarde is right. We need to train you sooner rather than later. Fyrcat too. She needs to learn to fight without her magic.”

“And the dwarf,” Skarde added, lip curling. “For what good it will do him. I’ve never seen anyone who’s less suited to battle.”

I sighed. “Both of you lay off him, alright? He’s helping us, and that’s what matters. I wouldn’t be here without his uncle. His heart is in the right place.”

“It will be on the tip of someone’s blade if he doesn’t learn how to defend himself,” Skarde muttered. “But I take your point. Come down whenever you can pry yourselves away from each other.”

He turned on one heel and stalked away.

“Geez,” I said, stretching. It eased some of my aches. “You’d think his mood would improve after getting laid.”

Torsten’s lips turned up in an amused smile. “You’d think. Come on. Let’s get dressed.”

“If you insist,” I said. “I think we’d have more fun if we stayed in bed though.”

“Evil,” he repeated, shaking his head.

I grinned at him unrepentantly.

Chapter Eight

Jovi

Ten minutes later, Torsten and I gathered with the others in the mead hall.

Servers handed out breakfast and covered the tables in silver platters piled high with food. I barely had time to finish my breakfast before Skarde motioned me off the bench. He led us down a set of stairs off the kitchen and into a dark cellar that was filled to the ceiling with barrels of drink.

Rangorn waited beside a rack of wine. The bear shifter greeted us with a smile. “Morning,” he said as he pushed the wine rack along the wall and revealed an iron door. It opened with a noisy groan.

Torsten and Skarde picked up the wooden chest with golden clasps. They hauled it into the damp, empty room that Rangorn had built in case of emergencies. There were two very small windows situated on opposite walls, just a few inches below the ceiling. They were large enough to let in some air, but still small enough to not allow for much light. Rangorn flipped a switch on the wall and blasted the room with painfully white industrial lighting. I blinked rapidly to ease the sting as the brothers set down the chest in the center of the room.

Ogun opened the chest and touched the pieces almost reverently. He’d been so busy tending to us the last time we’d seen it to admire them properly.

“These are from Alfheim!” He touched the tips of his fingers to the flat of a short sword. It looked like the purest silver I’d ever seen. The white, swirling designs flowed along the fuller, down to the cross-guard, and into the grip that had been forged to resemble Yggdrasil.

I grabbed the sword from Ogun’s hand and felt the balanced weight of the beautifully crafted weapon. The gemstone in the pummel cast rainbows around the room as it refracted the light. It felt strange… and yet there was also a familiarity I couldn’t explain.

Skarde grabbed me, snapping me out of the hypnotic beauty of the sword, and slid a shield onto my hand and forearm.

“Grip it tight. Don’t let the weight hang loosely or you’ll tire the muscles in your arms before the training begins.”

Torsten tossed a spear at Ogun. The dwarf fumbled as he tried to catch it. He picked it up off the ground and gazed up at Torsten in confusion.

“Uhh… why are you giving me this?”

“Because whether you like it or not, you’re going to have to carry a weapon and know how to use it. The three of us might not always be around to help you.” He shifted his gaze up to Fyrcat. “That goes for you too, witch.”

Fyrcat gave him a mock salute. She was covered in scratches and bruises of her own. I felt a small twinge of jealousy. At least someone was having orgasms around here. Pity it wasn’t me.

“Why can’t I just get a pet vargr and have it eat my enemies?” Ogun asked with a sassy little head swivel.

Torsten forced the young dwarf’s arms into the correct pose and nudged his legs until he was in a proper fighting stance. Skarde did the same to Fyrcat not far away. She seemed to appreciate the contact a lot more than Ogun did.

“Straighten your spine,” Torsten growled. “And keep your shoulders square, but not tense. Too much stiffness in your posture will hinder the fluidity of your movements. You’ll have to work with the spear’s length when it’s extended and move in a specific way to keep the weight balanced or else you won’t have any power behind your strikes.”

I looked back to Skarde who wore an expression I couldn’t decipher. Tension crackled between Frycat and the berserker.

“Perfect,” he rasped as Fyrcat shifted into the position indicated. Skarde reached down to adjust himself. The state of his arousal was evident by the bulge along the inside of his pant leg. I looked away, but not as quickly as I should have. Heat pooled between my thighs and a vibrant blush stained my cheeks. I’d chosen Torsten, and Skarde had chosen Fyrcat. So why did the sight of him like that still affect me?

I cleared my throat and took notice of my own body. To my surprise, I held the sword and shield as if I’d been born with them in my grasp.

***

The first seven hours or so were spent going over defensive maneuvers, proper sword etiquette, using the shield as a weapon, and learning how to parry incoming attacks. Skarde took me through the drills over and over until my arms burned from holding up my weapons. When he thought I’d grown accustomed to his fighting style, Skarde swapped places with Torsten.

Torsten fought with cold, calculated strategy while Skarde used brute force and strength to his advantage. Fyrcat and I learned quickly, which seemed wrong, somehow. I wasn’t exactly an aficionado, but I was pretty sure that we shouldn’t have been able to master this kind of thing in under a day. It just seemed to come naturally to both of us, as though we’d been fighting all our lives and had just fallen out of practice in the last year or so.

Torsten ducked as my sword slashed through the air. He brought his hammer up, but let it drop out of his hand at the last minute. When I raised my shield, Torsten kicked so hard that I was knocked off my feet. He was on me the second I hit the floor. He ripped my shield away, tossing it across the room. I set my sword down just before he rushed me. Torsten was huge. There was no way I was going to be able to overpower him, but I used his weight against him.

When Torsten’s knee touched the ground, I used a maneuver Skarde had taught me. I shoved my shoulder into his stomach and flipped him onto his back. He was stunned for a moment but recovered quickly. Then he grabbed for my arm as I grabbed for my sword. I was faster. The blade kissed his throat before his hand made contact. A slow smile spread across his lips.

“Good girl.” Torsten nudged the sword aside and casually bent over to pick up his hammer. “You won’t have your weapons all the time,” he said. “It’s important to know how to fight without them. But… it seems like you have some natural talent in that area. We’ll keep going once you’ve rested a bit.”

Ogun flopped onto the floor at my feet. His tiny body was covered in sweat. “They’re trying to kill me,” the dwarf complained. “The big one made me use the spear and the bigger one kept hitting me.”

“They’re trying to help us.” I lifted my shirt and wiped the sweat away from my face. “The creatures out there won’t take it easy on us.”

“I know, I know. Skarde wouldn’t shut his trap about being prepared for anything.”

The brothers watched us from the large iron door. Torsten pointed to Ogun and then to me as I tried to read his lips. They parted ways and Torsten walked up to me.

“Alright, Jovi,” he said. “Let’s work on your attack.”

Ogun was dragged along the floor by his leg. He flailed in an effort to shake off Skarde’s hold, but the Viking held on tight. I shook my head at their bickering and turned my attention to Torsten. He walked me through identifying fighting patterns in different supernatural species. Draugr and demons were some of the most difficult because they fought in swarms. Pack fighters like shifters, vargr, and berserker clans hunted in groups as well, but they were more tactical in their ways.

Torsten used his insane speed to make up for the lack of numbers. He came at me from all angles. I tried my best and failed. Every stumble or slip resulted in another bruise. My muscles burned, straining to keep up with the brutal pace that Torsten set. “Stop,” I pleaded. “I can’t do this anymore…”

He slammed into me from the left. “Demons aren’t going to stop because you asked them to. If Brisingr hadn’t shown up in Muspelheim, we’d be dead.”

“That’s enough for now,” Skarde said, shooting him a poisonous look. When I glanced sideways, I found Fyrcat’s energy flagging as well. She was bent double, sucking in great lungfuls of air. Ogun looked equally as pathetic, though he didn’t have an excuse.

“Food,” Ogun croaked.

“Agreed,” Fyrcat said with a nod. “Something starchy. I think I’m going to throw up.”

“Hear, hear.”

Torsten sighed. “Alright. Food. Then more drills.”

“Tyrant,” I panted.

“You’d better believe it,” he said, softening the words with a kiss on my cheek.

***

Torsten

Rangorn’s servers brought down trays of refreshments just as the sun started setting. I reached down to help Jovi stand up, but she waved my hand away and grabbed a bottle of water instead. The bottle was empty in the blink of an eye. She gulped down the water before crushing the plastic in her hand and tossing it into the trash. Then she rotated her shoulder, keeping me in her line of sight.

“Let’s just get this over with,” she said as she fell into a fighting stance for another round of training. Every fiber of my being wanted to stop, to let her rest, but we didn’t have time. Fyrcat and Jovi needed to be ready when we descended into Helheim.

I circled her.

My eyes tracked every minuscule twitch of her muscles as I tuned my hearing to the sound of her pulse. Jovi struck with speed and precision. Her fighting had improved with every hour we spent pushing our bodies to the limit and beyond.

“Keep your eyes open!” I shouted.

My hits landed without mercy. I wanted to stop, to hold her, and nurse the bruises that formed on her skin. I wanted to kiss away the tears that streamed down her cheeks. But she had a long way to go before she was ready to face the Aesir. Jovi flipped me onto my back. In the middle of her premature celebration dance, a thunderous rumble shattered the windows of the cellar.

Skarde launched the spear through the air and Ogun caught it before it hit the ground. I slid Jovi’s shield across the floor. She kicked it up into the air a few feet and shoved it onto her forearm.

“What’s happening?” she asked. Her eyes were wide with fear, the type I couldn’t ease with words of comfort because I knew the source of the sound.

Fyrcat pushed off the ground. She’d been resting with her head between her knees, trying to catch her breath. Her face was pale, her eyes distant as she focused on something beyond our perception.

“Draugr,” she said at last. “Odin knows what we intend to do. He’s sending them to stop us.”

“How many?” Jovi asked, orienting herself to the sound we’d heard. It took me a moment to get it, and then a cold sluice of fear slid down my spine. We were hearing footsteps. Hundreds of them. Maybe thousands.

“Too many. They’re flooding into the city,” Fyrcat replied.

“We have to help people!” Jovi ran through the door before I was able to respond.

She raced up the stairs and into the mead hall where Rangorn and the others were preparing for battle. I turned Jovi away from the crowd that had gathered near the windows as the noise from outside grew to a deafening roar. The walls shook with the fury of the undead. Rangorn and the shifters inside The Den threw open the door.

“Come! If we are to die, then let us join our kin in Valhalla,” the bear-shifter growled.

Skarde released a battle cry that was answered by the sanctuary’s patrons. Demons, shifters, dwarfs, and all manner of creatures that lived in Asylum joined his call. The dead swarmed. Draugr tore through houses and shops. Fire erupted in the distance. Theirs was a chaotic display of mindless violence that spread faster than the flames that crawled over the rooftops.

Fyrcat seized her staff from the ground and mumbled, “Fool,” before joining Skarde on the front lines.

Arms shot through the open windows like something out of a horror film. Skarde jumped into the horde of draugr, and Jovi followed. I covered Ogun and the rear entrance. The weight of my hammer crushed the draugr, flattening them to the ground in a pile of bones and rotted flesh. Ogun leaned over the bar and expelled the contents of his stomach. A draugr bit down on my shoulder, but I could barely feel the affront. Four more draugr leapt on top of me.

Valok jumped down from the top of the staircase. The elven smuggler skewered several draugr on his broadsword. “Looks like you could use some help,” he chuckled. “Where’s the witch and your pouty half-breed?”

“With my brother and Rangorn,” I answered as I shook off a pair of draugr.

“Quite the little fighter, isn’t she? And the spitting image of Eir, too.”

But she wasn’t Eir in the sense that counted. If I had to thank the Gods for anything, it was that. My brother had his mate and I had mine. Now we just had to get them out of here in one piece.

Valok’s blade made quick work of the draugr that approached from the rear. I covered him, using the hammer to make a path back towards the center of the mead hall.

Rangorn grabbed my arm. “There are too many for us to fight. The Den will have to be abandoned. Go through the kitchen doors and get as far away from here as you can.”

“What are you going to do?”

“I’ll hold them off as long as I can,” Rangorn replied. “Then I’ll blow this place to the heavens and take out as many of these undead as I can.”

“Thank you.” I weaved my way through the fight. Jovi spotted me and pulled Skarde and Fyrcat in my direction. Ogun was hot on my heels as well. The five of us fought our way through countless draugr.

Valok held open the kitchen doors. “Here! There’s a way out through the back!”

I led Jovi and the others into the kitchen. Valok pushed a large shelf in front of the door as I pried open the shipping gate. Draugr were drawn by the commotion, but Skarde twirled his axe and severed the heads of two draugr. Jovi held off the rest. She seemed to draw strength from Skarde in a way I’d failed to do. I’d instructed her, pushed her to be great, but Skarde had recognized the greatness she already possessed and fought beside her.

Instead of looking back on Jovi’s time in Muspelheim as a victory, I’d used it to fuel her training. Shame, guilt, and anger stole my courage. That familiar urge to run away from my problems reared its ugly head, and I had to tamper it down again. She appeared before me.

“Torsten!” Jovi said. “We have to jump into the river.”

“Are you insane?” Fyrcat asked, stealing the words from my mouth. “We’ll die of cold.”

“Do you have any better ideas?” Jovi shot back. “Because I don’t have enough juice left to blast them. I doubt you do either.”

Fyrcat glowered at her but said nothing. It was as good as an admission.

Skarde swept the stubborn witch up into his arms and jumped into the river without hesitation. Fyrcat’s startled cry faded as they dropped. Before I could reach for Jovi, an explosion rocked Midgard. The Den erupted in a ball of swirling fire.

Valok and I were hurled into the river and I hit the surface with so much force that it felt as if I’d smacked into a concrete wall. Water filled my lungs as I cried out in pain. The river swept me off in an unknown direction and I scrambled to grab onto rocks and tree roots, but my grip slipped every time I caught hold of something. My head broke through the surface, and I sucked in a mouthful of air before getting swept under by the current once again.

Chapter Nine

Jovi

Wrenching coughs burst from my lips as I washed up onto the riverbank.

Fyrcat looked like a drowned rat, and Ogun didn’t look much better. Only Skarde looked unruffled. One would have thought he jumped into freezing rivers all the time. For all I knew, he’d made a habit of it in his mortal life.

We had to have been miles away from Asylum. There were no signs of civilization anywhere. I looked around and all I saw were trees that nearly touched the sky. Not even the sounds of traffic could be heard through the dense forest.

“Where… where are we?” I sputtered.

“Away from the draugr. That’s all I know and all I care to know.” Skarde dragged his large body out of the river. Valok and Ogun had washed up a few feet away from where I’d reached land. My eyes searched the water for Torsten, but the river tapered off into a small brook. I pushed myself off the riverbank, hobbling along the edge of the water.

“Torsten! Torsten!” I screamed. My voice echoed back to me from the trees, as though mocking me.

“Someone shut her up before she gets us killed,” Fyrcat rasped. Apparently, I wasn’t the only one who’d swallowed river water.

Skarde covered my mouth with his hand. “He isn’t here,” he whispered. “Shouting will only bring unwanted attention to us.”

“What if he…”

“Stormblood will be fine,” he said. “We, however, will not be if we linger too long. Do you have the map Valok provided?”

“I got it!” Ogun jumped to his feet. He pulled the map out of one of his satchel pockets and wrung the water out. “It’s a little damp, but the writing is still readable.”

Skarde snatched the map out of Ogun’s hand. He scanned the page, eyes widening when they landed on something of interest. “There’s a dwarven settlement north of the border.”

“I d-don’t think we should go to the dwarfs,” Ogun argued. “My kin aren’t accustomed to surface dwellers knocking on their front door. Not to mention, they don’t e-exactly see me as part of the family.”

Heading farther north seemed like a better idea than sitting around. I did a quick mental inventory of our supplies. We were in desperate need of dry clothing, food, and shelter for the night. I overheard Skarde mutter something about his mercenary camp along the way, but I was a bit skeptical of trusting berserkers. They hadn’t exactly given Skarde a warm welcome last time.

“Will they have supplies?” I asked.

“Enough to get us into dwarf country.”

“I guess we’ll have to go,” Ogun replied.

Skarde looked at him and nodded. “We’ll die out here in these wet clothes. The frost may be gone, but exposure could still kill us.”

Valok shook his head. “I didn’t agree to fight draugrs. You can find your way to Helheim on your own.”

“Coward,” Fyrcat muttered, but there wasn’t much life to her voice. She looked ready to collapse.

“Perhaps, but I’ll be alive,” he said. “Which is more than I can say for the rest of you. Good luck. You’ll need it.”

“Thank you,” Skarde said, inclining his head respectfully. “Safe journey back.”

We parted ways as I followed Skarde’s large boot marks. The smell of draugr goop and fishy water was slowly overpowered by the scent of a campfire. Golden light flickered over the trees. I stepped lightly, inching my way over to a cluster of tents.

“After you died and Stormblood was taken by Frigg, we were kingless,” an unfamiliar voice shouted.

I glanced over to see a cluster of people waiting ahead, all of them wearing unfriendly expressions.

“The Christian army slaughtered us in droves,” the one in front continued. “Many of us lost our families, our homes… we even lost our gods. We were forced to relinquish the Aesir and the Vanir for the Christian God… those of us who refused went into hiding until the All-Father called us to arms.”

I clutched my sword tight, grateful I hadn’t lost it in the river. As grueling as the training had been, I might die with a little dignity when we faced off with these guys. I had no illusions I could win against any of them. At the very least, they weren’t draugrs.

“You’re nothing but killers for hire,” Ogun said in defiance. “You kill witches and anyone else Frigg and Odin tell you to kill.”

An eruption of angry voices drowned out Ogun’s protests. I stepped into the light of the campfire. The arguing stopped immediately and the first man who had spoken pointed at me and then Fyrcat.

“You were supposed to kill these two,” he said accusingly. “You defied Odin’s orders and now you come into our camp asking us to make good on old favors.”

“Easy, Basilios,” Skarde said. “We would not be here if we had any other choice.”

I looked at the group of mercenaries that stood with their weapons drawn. They seemed… human. Not shifters like the other warriors of Odin that had hunted us. No, they were Viking like Skarde, but not berserkers. Human but not entirely mortal, it seemed.

Basilios walked toward me. He stopped mid-stride when he saw my hand tighten around the grip of my sword.

“I should take your head and deliver it to the All-Father.”

“You’d be dead before you even lifted your axe,” I hissed. “If I didn’t kill you, my friends would. Either way, I don’t see you walking away from this fight.”

The other Vikings laughed. Basilios nodded with a glimmer of respect in his gaze. “Helping you would be a defiance of Odin’s orders,” he grumbled. “But I owe Skarde my life and I always repay my debts. Take what you need and then leave. Next time we meet, witch, I will not be so kind.”

“Thank you.”

“Do not thank me,” Basilios replied. “Just get out of my camp within the hour or else I may change my mind about killing you.”

***

Torsten

“Wake up, Stormblood.”

The smell of moss and timber filled my senses. I felt a flash of fear when I drew breath, expecting to swallow another mouthful of river water. Someone moved to my right, and I cracked open my eyelids.

Sunlight poked through the tops of the trees, casting narrow beams of illumination onto the ground beside me. Rangorn sank his teeth into a lump of mysterious meat that I hadn’t the heart nor the stomach to ask about. The bear shifter picked his teeth with a sharpened claw.

“You’ve been out for two days,” Rangorn said, and he seemed amused by that fact. “Had to carry your heavy ass all the way to the border. You could do with losing a few pounds. Acting as Freya’s love slave has turned some of your muscle to flab.”

“Border?”

“We’re in wolf pack territory… or, at least I think we are.” He handed me a pouch fashioned from rawhide. “Drink that. You’ll need your strength if you’re going after the others.”

The last thing I wanted in my mouth was water, especially water that still smelled like the animal the makeshift canteen had been made from. Still, I knew Rangorn was right. I untied the top of the pouch and drank as much as my stomach could hold. “Any sign of Jovi, Ogun, Fyrcat, or my brother?”

“We ended up on the east side of the river,” he muttered with a yawn. “I searched up and down this bank nearly a dozen times and the only tracks I’ve come across are my own, aside from a few draugr. Your friends must have popped up on the other side or been taken further in the direction of the ravine.”

“They could be long gone by now.” I handed Rangorn the water pouch. There was a bandage around my palm that hadn’t been there before I jumped in the river. “What’s this?”

Rangorn moved away from the tree he’d been leaning against. His lush mane of golden hair was held in place by a haphazard braid.

“You were nearly dead when I found you,” he explained. “You tried to grab onto a branch, but your hand slipped. The damn thing went right through your palm and dangled you halfway in the water like a fish on a hook. I got the branch out and tried to patch it up as best I could. Must have done a fine job seeing as you haven’t dropped dead from an infection.”

“I… don’t know how to repay you. Fuck, I wouldn’t even know where to start.”

“Start by teaching the gods that we creatures of Midgard will not lay down our arms like cowards. We’ll fight till the very last of us.”

I nodded, touched by the determination and sincerity in Rangorn’s voice.

“We’re going to see this thing through,” I said. “Not just for our own agendas, but for everyone who has ever been treated like playthings by the gods.”

My hands curled into fists. Rangorn handed me some clothing he’d found, no doubt left behind by campers, and I dressed myself despite the lingering pain in my body.

He mentioned a few clans of shifters in Colorado that felt the same about the gods while I pulled on my borrowed clothes. They smelled like an unfamiliar human male and were a little too tight for comfort. Still better than being stuck in wet clothes, though.

“Now that you are awake and on your feet, I’ll visit as many clans as I can on my travels and sway them to our cause,” the big bear stated. “Your dwarf friend will know how to find me when the time is right. Farewell, my friend.”

After saying our goodbyes and giving the bear a hearty handshake, I picked up my hammer and stalked deeper into the forest, following the natural flow of the land until I reached the river. Then I crossed over to the opposite side of the rushing stream and found a set of tracks near the northernmost point of the river. Jovi’s scent carried on the wind. It was faintly sweet and light whereas the other smells in the forest were earthy and deep. I followed my nose beyond the tracks, hunting her down like the wolf I was. And though I knew Skarde had done something to conceal his scent, I felt like I wasn’t the only berserker in the woods.

Eyes watched me from afar—slinking, creeping along the forest floor. I moved with haste. Jovi wasn’t far. I just needed to…

A sharp whistle echoed through the trees only seconds before an arrow shot into my shoulder. My heart now pounding and the wound stinging like all hell, I took cover behind a large fir tree as I reached around and broke the tail of the arrow off. The wound burned and the smell of wolfsbane reached my nose. Though the toxin wasn’t deadly to my kind, it inhibited a shifter’s abilities, slowing them down drastically.

Movement flashed through my peripheral vision, and figures stepped into my line of sight. I didn’t know them personally, but I recognized them from Skarde’s description. The she-wolf berserker, Gunda, laughed tauntingly from the treetops as the males in her pack circled me. She notched another arrow and aimed it at my head.

“Ah, if it isn’t the traitor, Torsten Stormblood.”

“Fuck you,” I snapped.

The pack’s leader, Sigrun and his second, Bjorn, emerged from the shadows. Bjorn remained in his wolf form while the others shifted. Gunda’s eyes flashed with hatred as she tracked me.

“I owe your brother’s bitch for sending my brother to meet the All-Father. Speaking of, where are your little hangers-on, Stormblood?”

“Gone where you can’t find them,” I snarled.

Sigrun didn’t bother with banter. The alpha berserker lunged, shoving me against a tree so hard that my teeth clacked together. His claws dug into me viciously, tearing open a wound on my shoulder.

“We’ll end you quickly and see to the others soon enough,” Sigrun growled. “Your brother won’t be so light on his feet this time. Mistletoe will have seen to that.”

“Good luck with that,” I said, managing to duck beneath his restraining arm. It cost me a chunk of my shoulder, but I didn’t care. I laid into Sigrun with a strength that seemed to shock the older wolf. “He’s back and better than ever. Even if you kill me, you won’t live to tell the tale.”

Bjorn jumped onto me, tearing me away from his alpha leader. I broke his hold and picked up my hammer from the ground. My first swing crashed into his knee, reducing it to only so much meat and bone. Gunda came at me with two twin daggers, slashing through the air so fast that I barely noticed when Sigrun clawed my back open. I snatched Gunda by the hair and launched her at Sigrun. Bjorn lifted his own heavy war hammer, blocking my next swing. The impact sent vibrations racing along the handle.

I kicked Bjorn away from me and half-shifted. The wolf took over, tearing my body apart before I rushed the Viking with the full rage of my beast, punching through Bjorn’s chest. The sound of bones cracking was sweet to my ears and as I gripped the berserker’s heart, I squeezed it in my clawed hand. Through the blood and gore, I felt the mark of Odin’s magic. It wasn’t a scar or symbol, but a stain on the soul that made a male feel like an empty vessel. Relief and fear flickered in Bjorn’s gaze as I ripped his heart out.

Gunda shrieked. Then she dropped to her knees beside Bjorn’s lifeless body. I let his heart fall from my hand and met Sigrun’s anger with a deeply seeded bloodlust. My teeth clamped down on the male’s neck. He flailed and thrashed, trying to free himself, but I pinned him to the ground.

Eventually he went still, angling his neck in a gesture of surrender. I released him and stepped away. The shift came easily, far easier than it had in the past.

I clutched my heaving chest and gasped, “Are we done here?”

Gunda threw down her blades. She looked to Sigrun who nodded. Tears shimmered in her eyes. “Hail Stormblood. Hail Alpha.”

Sigrun squeezed his hands into tight fists at his sides. When he spoke, the words came through his teeth.

“Hail Stormblood, Alpha,” he said before spitting a mouthful of blood onto the ground.

It took nearly an entire minute before I realized what had just happened. I was the new alpha of the Timber Wolf Pack.

Fuck.

Chapter Ten

Jovi

“What do you mean you’re leaving us?” I held on to Skarde’s sleeve.

He looked down at my hand and pried my fingers open. We were so close to our destination, so close to making it to safety, and he wanted to leave? “We aren’t ready,” I continued. “We’ll never survive the journey without you.”

“What happened to the courage I saw when you threatened Basilios?” he snorted.

“It’s gone,” I answered honestly.

“Even so, I have to find my brother. We can’t complete this mission without him.”

He was right. I knew he was right, and I wanted to see Torsten more than anything. But leaving us here seemed wrong too. So that only left one other option.

“We could come with you,” I whispered.

“Only if you want to burden him,” Fyrcat said, leaning against a tree for support. She looked as tired as I felt. “We’re slow and weakening with every passing day. We’re safest with the dwarves.”

Fyrcat was right too. It still felt like torture leaving Skarde behind. How could she stand doing it? She was his lover or whatever bizarre term they’d come up with to describe their fucked-up relationship.

Torsten was out there somewhere, and the world was growing more dangerous than ever, but we’d beaten the odds before. Perhaps we could find the courage to do it again.

I pulled Skarde into my arms and held him for a moment. His heartbeat was strong and steady against my cheek. “Be safe.”

“Do you fear for me, witch?” Skarde whispered teasingly.

“Of course I do.”

“It was not so long ago that you cowered behind my brother each time our eyes met.”

I swatted his arm playfully and stepped away. “Maybe I’ve come to care about you, Viking.”

Fyrcat made a sound in the back of her throat, which made him turn to look at her. He hesitated for a moment before kissing her on the temple.

“Don’t let the draugrs eat them,” he warned.

“Again, I’m not that petty,” she countered, but she was hiding a smile. “Get going, fool, before it gets dark.”

Skarde went. We watched him go. And when he walked away from the mountain, I was filled with a loss I hadn’t expected. Regardless, soon it was our turn to continue on. When Skarde was out of sight, we turned and trudged the other way, the distance between us and Skarde widening with every step.

Ogun clicked his tongue against his teeth as he walked along the path, muttering to himself out loud each time he looked down at the map in his hands.

***

We’d been walking for an hour when Fyrcat came up short and craned her neck to the east. I followed her gaze, peering down the steep hill we’d just crested. A horde of draugr was moving swiftly across the vast landscape below.

The gods had caused this, I was sure.

Whether I agreed with Freya’s cause or not, it was clear that the Aesir didn’t give a crap about Midgard. Torsten despised the gods, Ogun feared the gods, and Skarde… well, Skarde was torn between his obligation to his brother and his loyalty to the Aesir. I wasn’t exactly sure how I felt about that just yet.

“Ogun,” I said as I started walking again. “Have you ever met the gods?”

“I met Freya and Tyr.”

“Tyr?” I asked. “What sort of god is he?”

“He is part of the Aesir,” Ogun explained. “Tyr is very different from the other gods and yet… not so different at all. I know it doesn’t make much sense, but it’s true. Bloodshed fueled his power just like any other god, but he valued justice and honor above all else. Tyr was always the first to suggest a treaty, sometimes he even brokered peace between the Aesir and the Vanir.”

“Would he help us?” I asked hopefully.

“Doubtful,” Fyrcat snorted. I ignored her, waiting to hear what Ogun had to say.

Ogun stopped to think. He twirled the short braid on the end of his beard and tapped his foot on the mountain rock.

“I do not think so,” he replied finally. “Unless we can prove to Tyr that the outcome of our rebellion against the gods will be more prosperous than the war, I don’t believe he’d aid us in our mission.”

The wind picked up, carrying the scent of putrefaction to our noses. I pulled my collar up, trying to stifle the smell.

“How long until they reach us?” I asked Fyrcat.

“A while. They’re half-rotted, which means they’re slow. They won’t handle the incline as well as we can, which gives us an edge. If we hurry, we can beat them to our destination.”

“Alrighty then,” I muttered. “Let’s book it.” I slung my shield onto my back and tightened the strap before I sheathed my sword. The weapons were lighter than anything human-made, but the weight still wore me down as we traveled to the top of the mountain.

“Your kin in the dwarf settlement,” I began. “Are they as grumpy as your uncle?”

My slight jab finally perked Ogun up. He’d been a little moody since we’d left The Den.

“Oh, yeah! They’re true dwarves. My cousin, Alfo, became leader of the Midgard settlement last my uncle spoke of him. He was always a great big pain in the ass, if you ask me.”

“I wish I knew my family,” I replied. Before meeting Fyrcat, I never even thought about my past. There was never a moment where I questioned the natural order of my life… until I met Torsten.

“You never knew them?” Ogun asked.

I shook my head. “One day, I just woke up. Spawned like a videogame character with complete awareness of who I was. I knew my ex-husband, I knew Torsten, and that was all that mattered.”

“So, no parents or siblings?” Ogun questioned. Again, there was an edge to his voice, as if he knew something I didn’t. Torsten and Skarde had it as well. When we were safe, I’d pester him until he told me what they’d all conspired to hide from me.

“I’m not even sure I know my own birthday.” The truth of my words cut deeper than a knife. As far as I was concerned, I wasn’t anyone of great importance. I was just Jovi.

“If it makes you feel any better, having a family doesn’t make life easier,” Ogun said. “It’s better to build a family with the friends you’ve got than to wonder if you belong anywhere. So, from now on, the two of us are the only family we need.”

I glanced away from Ogun so he wouldn’t see the tears in my eyes. There was no shame in crying, but I didn’t want to slow down our progress any more than I already had. Ogun never mentioned the sniffles that bounced off the mountain and I was thankful. I half expected Fyrcat to do it for him, but she remained silent, brow furrowed, probably wondering the same things I was: where were Skarde and Torsten? Were they still living? Would we see them again?

By the time we reached the top of the mountain, my tears had dried and I’d put my focus on more important things—like surviving. I looked down at the valley below.

Ogun pointed to a barely visible crack in the earth. “That must be the entrance.”

We clung to the wall of stone, descending with careful steps. Even so, Ogun’s hand slipped and rocks slid down the mountain, flinging dirt into my face. I coughed and reached out to catch him before he fell. Ogun’s weight pulled me down, and mine pulled Fyrcat down in turn, both of us gasping as Ogun’s head hit the side of a rock. At the same time, I rolled down the side of the mountain, holding on to his tunic as tightly as I could. Fyrcat made a soft whimpering sound as she followed me down. I could hear her voice as she slowed our fall with magic, but it wasn’t going to be enough. We were tired, waterlogged, and frightened. It would have been a bad combo, if Freya’s death weren’t eroding our magic, little by little.

The strap of my shield suddenly snagged on the edge of the cliff. Only that thin scrap of leather kept us from plummeting to our deaths.

“Ogun,” I called out. “Ogun, wake up! Please wake up!”

Blood covered his face and from what I could tell, he was out cold. I reached out and yanked on his shirt and his eyes opened momentarily. He let his head loll downwards as his eyes focused and then he let out a scream.

“Pull me up! Pull me up!”

“You’re too heavy,” I replied as I glanced up the mountainside and realized there was no way we were going to make it up. Even as the thought crossed my mind, the strap groaned. “We have to fall.”

“Falling seems like a really bad idea.” Fyrcat panted.

“Not if you shield us somehow?”

“I don’t know how much magic I can summon,” she answered on an exhausted sigh. “We’ll still be bruised and battered.”

“Better bruises than broken necks.”

“True.”

My arm cramped as Ogun started to slip through my grasp. I had no choice. We were out of options. I kicked off the wall, pulling the strap free while changing the direction of our fall so we were now plummeting toward the tops of the trees. Ogun’s scream rang in my ears. Even Fyrcat let out a soft cry. Another scream joined theirs. Mine.

Fyrcat was right. Even with a spell to cushion our landing, it still hurt like hell. I hit the first tree and the force of the drop knocked the air out of my lungs. The branches slowed my descent, but each one I crashed through hurt worse than the last. At least none of them impaled me and I was more than sure that had everything to do with Fyrcat’s magic. The strap of my shield finally snapped. I hit the ground with a solid thump and rolled to the side before the shield could fall on top of me. Two more thumps nearby told me my allies had joined me on the ground.

“Ogu… Ogun?” I rasped. “Fy… cat…”

My hands trembled. Blood dribbled out of cuts and scrapes that peppered my knuckles. I whispered the healing incantation Ogun had taught me after we’d returned from Muspelheim, but I wasn’t strong enough to heal myself fully. “Ogun.”

“Over here,” Ogun said as he looked at me with a nod. My attention dropped from him to Fyrcat.

“Is she?”

“She’s alive, but she looks like she’s going to pass out.” A pause. “Yeah, she definitely passed out. That spell must have taken whatever energy she had left.”

I limped over to what looked like a lump of fur as Ogun flung himself onto his back with a groan. I realized Fyrcat was tangled up in his furs. They must have caught up to one another in the descent. He looked worse off than she did, which probably meant he’d protected her during their fall.

Ogun wheezed and held his ribs, a pained expression on his pale face. “I think I’m hurt,” he said quietly, lifting his shirt. A dark bruise discolored his side. And that was bad. Internal bleeding, maybe.

My energy was low, and my body hurt something fierce, but I had to try to heal him. Ogun held my free hand as I whispered the healing incantation over and over. And then, like a voice from the mist, a word came to me.

“Vøle!” I screamed so loud that the forest quaked around us. A sudden blue light surrounded Ogun, so blinding, I had to blink against it. As the light faded, I could focus on Ogun’s wound and I noticed the bruise had disappeared.

His hand squeezed mine.

We remained still until the blue light left Ogun and returned to my body. Ogun tested his strength by pushing himself into an upright position and though he struggled, he faced me with a big grin.

“It worked. You saved me,” he breathed raggedly. “I thought… I thought the gates of Niflheim were calling to me.”

“You saved Fyrcat. You didn’t have to do that.”

“Course I did,” he grunted. “She’s a friend and no one else does witty banter like she does. I’d miss her if she died. Not as much as you, but still.”

“Don’t ever scare me like that again and next time, focus on your own hide instead of someone else’s. You’re no good to us dead—just as no good dead as anyone else is.” I helped him stand up and then looked at how far we’d fallen. Though the gap between the base of the mountain and the tree line was only about four feet, the cliff we’d jumped from had been at least sixty. That four-foot gap was nothing but solid rock.

“Another narrow escape from death,” I breathed.

“Ugh… It might be a little early for celebrations,” Ogun replied with a strange tension in his voice.

I looked over my shoulder and froze. Draugr were surrounding us through the trees. They must have been drawn by all the noise.

I picked up my shield as Ogun heaved Fyrcat’s slender form over one shoulder. Then we ran as fast as our legs could carry us.

Chapter Eleven

Torsten

Alpha.

Never in my life had I desired to be an alpha and that hadn’t changed. Sigrun and Gunda shadowed me like a loyal pack should, and I wanted to hate it. They watched my every move and obeyed my orders without question.

Skarde had caught up with me on the third day of our journey, and even he had fallen into step with me. He could have fought me for the position but seemed to be content to be with others of his kind again. The whole thing was thrilling but also bizarre. That sort of power changed people. I was determined not to be one of them.

“You aren’t afraid of what Odin will do when he finds out your allegiance has changed?” I asked Sigrun.

The male had been strangely quiet since I took his place as leader of the pack. Not hostile, just quiet—thoughtful, even.

“We were wolves of Freya long before Odin twisted us into his killers,” Sigrun responded. “I underestimated you and your brother because of Odin and Frigg’s lies. Bjorn and Nyk’s deaths could have been avoided if we had known the truth.”

“When did you become a berserker?” It was a touchy matter for most of our kind, but I didn’t mean any offense to Sigrun. If we were now on the same side, then I needed to know more about him and the others.

“My mother was killed.”

“How?” I prodded.

“A witch sacrificed her to Hel. My sister took her own life soon after.” Sigrun placed his hand over his heart. “There was so much emptiness inside me. No amount of ale or women could mend me. I thought hope was lost until Odin spoke to me in a dream.”

“Did the emptiness go away then?”

He shook his head. “Meeting the others helped lessen the pain, but the berserker rage filled me with a different emptiness. I was never alone, but the anger kept me isolated and withdrawn into myself.”

My steps slowed. “I know how that feels,” I heard myself admit. “Without Jovi, I’m not sure what I would have become. Even in my darkest hours, it was the memory of her smile that kept me from going over the edge.”

“Odin used my grief and hatred as a weapon… like he used yours,” Skarde said in realization. “Like he used all of our kind.”

We picked up our pace, and I tried not to notice Gunda’s reaction to me. She smelled of lust and perhaps loathing as she glanced my way. Her pheromones were cloyingly sweet, not at all like the delicate fragrance of Jovi. Regardless, her pheromones were instinctual—she was reacting to my rut. I needed to get Jovi back to full health before I entered the violent fugue state. I didn’t want to bed anyone but her.

“You have history with my brother,” I said, as I met each of their gazes. “Will it get in the way of our quest?”

“We will follow you wherever you see fit,” Sigrun answered. “But the history I have with your brother fills me with a rage that can never be quelled. Skarde Fatekissed has blood on his hands that not even the waters of Alfheim can cleanse.”

“Did you know him from your life before Valhalla?”

Sigrun ran his fingers through his hair, tugging at the strands slightly. “He was the one who killed me.”

My arm shot out, blocking Sigrun from taking another step. “What did you say?”

“We met in battle.”

“And he bested you?”

“Never,” chuckled the former Alpha. “That is a privilege only you can boast. No, Skarde kept me from getting revenge on the witch that took my family from me. He buried his axe in my chest when I went to deal the killing blow and then took the witch’s head off with a swipe of his claws.”

“You did?” I asked, giving my brother a look.

“I don’t recall, but it could be true,” he said with a shrug. “If I was in a rage, then I would have done anything to end a witch.”

“And now you bed one,” Gunda said, venom in her tone. “I smell her on you.”

Skarde bristled. I stepped between them before their conversation erupted into violence.

As to the situation between Skarde, Sigrun and the witch, witches, like most berserkers, worked as mercenaries. They sold their skills to the highest bidder, often turning the tides of war at the drop of a dime. It was no surprise that my brother had dealt a low-blow in his hunt for glory. No doubt he’d also gained even more of Odin’s favor for such a spineless act.

“My sincerest apologies to you both,” I said as I dropped my arm. “My brother has made many mistakes. Part of me thinks he wants to change.”

Skarde grunted. It wasn’t a ‘no’, but it wasn’t an agreement either.

“And what do the rest of you think?” Sigrun asked.

“That Skarde will always be the ruthless killer I remember,” I answered honestly. My brother and I had begun to patch up our unusual relationship, but I still had my doubts. Sigrun’s anger was justified. Even so, their animosity was between the two of them and I wanted no part of it. However, my curiosity continued to grow as we pushed on. Gunda was more elusive than Sigrun. She held her secrets and grief close to her chest.

“And you?” Sigrun asked me. “What is your story?”

I groaned, not enjoying talking about myself or my past but as Sigrun had asked, it was only right that I respond.

“There were nineteen in my pack originally,” I started. “My father was deep into his madness by the time I was born and killed the others.”

“Why did he allow you and Skarde to live?” asked Gunda.

“We were the ones he deemed useful. The seer had predicted that Skarde would bring Father nothing but glory, which is how he received the name Fatekissed. She predicted that I was the one to kill my father and deliver him from the curse of immortality. If not for the seer’s prophecies, Father would have killed me too.”

“How heartless…” Gunda reached out and touched my arm. “You have lost so much.”

I stepped away from the she-wolf. “Beware that my heart only knows and belongs to one.”

“The witch.” Gunda curled her lip with distaste and stalked off.

Skarde and Sigrun remained at my side. Eventually, we found the remnants of a rockslide and numerous footprints in the dirt. Jovi. My heart skipped a beat.

“What did you find?” I asked Gunda as she returned.

“Tracks leading into dwarf country,” the she-wolf grumbled. “Which means your lovers escaped death on the mountainside. They must be close, but…”

“But what?”

“There are signs of draugr.” The tone of her voice was off, and I got the feeling that she was hiding something.

“Speak, Gunda,” Sigrun barked.

She glared at the former alpha but then nodded. “Vargr have followed the tracks as well. I believe at least four of them hunt the witch.”

***

Jovi

I leaned against Ogun as we hobbled into the cave. Fyrcat was still down, but her breath had evened out. It had been touch and go there for a while and I’d been afraid she’d die on us. Luckily, though, that hadn’t happened.

Fearsome howls reverberated off the walls. Draugr and vargr were closing in on us and I had no idea what we should do. The door to the dwarven settlement was locked by strange runes like the ones I’d seen in Muspelheim. Ogun placed Fyrcat gingerly on the stone floor before he pushed me against the wall and banged on the door with all his might.

“Alfo, I know you’re in there, you big ugly brute!” he shouted. “Let us in before we’re eaten!”

The echo of a vargr’s growl stole through the cave. They’d found us.

I pulled myself up and handed Ogun his spear.

“Fight with me,” I said. It was a lot to ask Ogun after all he’d done for us. He was deathly afraid of fighting and yet he took the spear and stood his ground beside me. We were scared. The vargr and draugr most likely smelled the fear on us, but we were together in this despite it all.

I charged the first vargr, bashing it in the face with my shield. The vargr knocked over several of the undead warriors at the mouth of the cave. We kept our backs to the walls to avoid getting ambushed. Ogun extended his spear, using it the way Skarde and Torsten had taught him. I kicked a draugr that attempted to sink its teeth into my arm and stabbed another. Two vargr sneaked up on me from the side. Ogun stabbed one in the eye. The beast released a startled yelp while the other pounced on me.

Sharp claws dragged me to the floor, and I lost my hold on my sword and shoved against the vargr instead.

“Brott!” the spell burst from my lips before I could think and sent the vargr flying into the cave wall. A wave of dizziness washed over me and I realized I’d end up on the floor with Fyrcat if I wasn’t careful. Taking a deep breath, I prepared myself for what was still coming.

Ogun kicked the sword to me, and I grabbed it a split second before a draugr latched onto my leg. I drove the blade into the top of the draugr’s head and kicked it away. At the same time, and seemingly appearing as if from nowhere, a dwarven scout took down a handful of hobbling draugr. He yelled something in a language I was unfamiliar with but the large stone door behind us started to open. More dwarfs joined the fight but, even with greater numbers, our stamina was running low. Sweat poured down my face and exhaustion clung to my bones.

“Jovi,” Ogun groaned. “I don’t know how much longer I can keep this up.” His spear was jammed between the jaws of a vargr, keeping the monstrous wolf from biting his head off. Ogun was failing just as I was. And Fyrcat was still out cold.

Someone tore open a vargr that had killed two dwarf scouts. I spun around with my sword and nearly stabbed him, stopping short by only half an inch when I recognized the same berserker that had attacked Torsten and Skarde back in Marshall Heights. He was now fighting off the draugr with an ease I envied—looking like he had the energy of a hundred men. A woman and another man entered the cave. Arrows dropped draugr one by one, but I couldn’t see where they had come from. My mind was on the fight.

Ogun wrestled himself free from the vargr. I jumped onto its back, burying my sword into its spine. Blood sprayed out of the matted fur, coating the damp, gray walls in a splash of crimson. Hands circled my waist, and I started in surprise and disbelief.

“Jovi.”

“Torsten?” I turned around and looked up into his shockingly blue eyes.

The moment lasted barely more than a few heartbeats, but it felt like a lifetime had passed before he rushed over to help Ogun.

Torsten faced off with the biggest vargr. He shifted into his beast, towering over everything in the cave like a god among ants. The vargr, however, didn’t care about Torsten’s size. The creature attacked him with reckless abandon.

“Over here, witch!” The woman who had come into the cave beside Torsten snarled at me. Her golden eyes flickered, revealing her true wolf nature.

I blasted the draugr that had surrounded the female shifter with my magic. There was no gratitude, no thanks at all when she made it to my side.

“You are not what you seem,” she said accusingly.

“I don’t know what that means.”

“It means I’ve never seen a witch use that kind of power.”

“And?” I blocked another incoming attack from a draugr, finding this a strange time to have a conversation with a stranger who obviously didn’t want to be here, fighting alongside me.

“Witches need trinkets, potions, books, and the like,” she continued. “They use sacrifices to fuel their gift and call upon the gods.” She flicked a contemptuous look at the fallen Fyrcat. “Even that one.” She looked back at me. “Yet, you did no such thing. Witches do not will magic into existence.”

“Well, apparently I do.” I ducked when the draugr grabbed onto my shield and swiped at me. “Freya herself has called me a witch.”

“Then, that is not all what you are.”

“No,” I muttered, confirming her suspicions. “I’m a Valkyrie, too.”

Torsten was seized by the vargr, and I reacted instantly, instinct taking over. Without fully understanding how I did it, I threw out the same shockwave of magic that had awakened me from my vision with Odin. The vargr retreated as the Draugr scampered off into the forest, leaving behind piles of flesh and bone. Carnage. So much carnage. The blast of my magic had made me weak enough to drop but Torsten was there to catch me.

“I’m never leaving you again,” he whispered into my ear. Then he brushed my forehead with his lips.

Meanwhile, the doors to the dwarven settlement opened again and a dwarf with long, flowing sapphire robes stepped into the cave. He bore a striking resemblance to Brisingr, and I assumed he was Ogun’s cousin, Alfo. He didn’t look pleased to find us so close to his borders.

“Welcome to Varndenfell,” Alfo sneered as he looked at Ogun. “Why have you brought this trouble to my doorstep?”

Chapter Twelve

Skarde

The dwarf wasn’t handsome exactly, but his rough-hewn features had a certain sense of character.

He bore himself with a sense of haughty superiority that immediately set my teeth on edge. He stood in the entrance, barring our way, clearly enjoying being an obdurate pain in the ass. If our continued survival didn’t depend on his dubious hospitality, I’d have knocked him into the stone hard enough to rattle his teeth. As it was, I barely caged a snarl behind my teeth. My silence would have to be courtesy enough.

Ogun craned his neck, aiming a frightened look at us, and then at the approaching draugrs and vargr. We’d handled the ones that were nearly on top of us, but that still left an army of them on our tail. If we didn’t enter the dwarven settlement soon, we were dead. Odin would continue to throw corpses at us until our defensive line crumbled, and we were left at the mercy of the vagr. We had only one lifeline, and he was staring at Ogun as though the latter were a particularly irksome bug.

“If you don’t let us in, we’re going to die,” Ogun replied. He managed not to squeak the words, which raised him in my estimation. He’d gone from pest to a mildly useful dolt. 

“And why is that my problem?” Alfo asked, glaring down his nose at us.

Ogun rocked back a step. He actually looked hurt. He took a moment to compose himself and then said, “We’re family. Uncle has always supported you. Doesn’t that mean anything to you?”

Alfo raised a brow. “Yes, Brisingr lends us his aid, but you don’t. You’re a bumbling layabout with a foolish obsession for mortals. Having you here is a liability. So, I ask again. Why should I let you in?”

“Because in case you haven’t noticed, we’re going to die out here!” I called out.

Alfo leveled his gaze from Ogun to me. He snickered and then looked at Ogun again. “Your problems aren’t my concern. Odin will pass us by once you are dead.”

Even as he said the words, Alfo didn’t seem pleased by the admission. There was an undercurrent of animosity beneath the words. If Odin hadn’t called the hunt, there was a chance Alfo would be more amenable to helping us.

Jovi stepped forward, putting her body between Alfo and Ogun. She looked fragile in comparison to the stocky dwarf, though I knew she was anything but. Her magic would hold him off just long enough for one of us to come at him from the side. If the commotion was loud enough, it might wake Fyrcat, who would throw her lot in with us as well. But killing the leader of the settlement wouldn’t endear us to its inhabitants. 

Jovi held her hands up in a defensive gesture but didn’t draw on her magic. “You should let us in because we have a plan to stop Odin. I saw dwarfs at the Den. They had to be your people. Odin’s soldiers killed them in cold blood. On top of that, any of your people who were caught in the Winters probably froze to death before they could make it back.”

“Freya,” Alfo started but Jovi shook her head.

“Frigg started the Winter, not Freya. The Winter was supposed to trap her in Marshall Heights so she could be hunted down, and it worked. Now your people are gone, and for what? To be sacrificed like pawns in a chess game between petty gods? You dishonor their memories if you roll over for the Aesir. Help us, and we can make sure they pay for this.”

I stared at her profile, an odd sense of pride kindling in my chest. It didn’t matter that she wasn’t fully Eir. There was a spark in her that had carried on through Eir’s death, her Haminga shining through. Eir had always been more tactful than me, and she’d clearly passed the trait on to her sibling. I preferred to let my fists, claws, and teeth do the talking when I faced an enemy. Or in this case, a stubborn dwarf. Violence wouldn’t do us any good in this situation, but diplomacy might get the job done. Jovi’s speech had been rousing. It would have won me over, and I was a more cynical man than most.

Alfo eyed her narrowly and said nothing. The silence stretched for a minute that felt infinitely longer. The stomping of many draugr’s feet and the accompanying snarls of the vagr were growing closer. If he did nothing, they’d be on us in five minutes or less. Sigrun and Gunda had their weapons at the ready, prepared to take on the first wave. It wouldn’t be enough, but it might give Jovi, Ogun, and Fyrcat enough time to run.

“Your word,” Alfo said finally. “Your word that you make everyone responsible pay. I lost good men and women to the Winter. I’d rather their deaths not go unpunished.”

“You have my word,” Jovi said solemnly. “I lost people too. Good friends. People I consider family.” She paused a moment and took in a deep breath. “Then do we have a deal?”

Alfo glanced between us, eyes scanning each of our bloodied and battered faces before he finally nodded. He stepped aside and made a courtly little gesture.

“Welcome to my hall, warriors.”

***

Varndenfell was simply huge. The main hall was vast and stretched as far as the eye could see. The ceiling soared, and recessed lights shone every few feet, showering the tables below with golden light. It had to be manufactured, or the light would have had the bleak, wintery cast of the sky outside. The light shone off the lacquered mahogany tables and glinted off jeweled goblets and glittering golden plates. Veins of more precious metals ran through the walls, also catching the light and drawing the eye. Dwarven heads turned to regard us with suspicion, but no one made a violent move toward us.

There was still more splendor around us, the dwarven hall only second to Odin’s. Valhalla was a warrior’s paradise, but if one had to choose another destination, Varndenfell was an excellent option.

Jovi spun in a circle, taking it all in through wide eyes. She hadn’t inherited the explicit memories of her sister, so locations like this were new and had to be incredible to her virgin eyes. She breathed in shallow bursts, completely overwhelmed by the displays of wealth around us. I hadn’t spent much time in her dwelling in Midgard, but the place hadn’t been a bastion of fine living. This was probably the most money she’d ever seen in one place, and she hadn’t even laid eyes on more than a portion of it. 

“Hoooooly Shiiit,” she murmured drawing out the words for effect. “This place is... it’s like that tale from One Thousand and One nights. It’s so...” 

Words seemed to fail her. Fyrcat made a sound of derision behind her, but it was lacking any real feeling. She was leaning on Ogun for support, eyes ringed with dark circles. Whatever she’d done to save Jovi, it had taken a lot out of her. She could siphon some of my energy to recover, but I’d rather have privacy before I gave her everything I could. A tryst on one of the tables appealed to my beast but was bad manners when in someone else’s territory. The wolf only stirred fitfully at her proximity, most of the desire to gut her gone with the realization that she held at least part of Eir’s soul. She was my mate, even if she didn’t know it yet. 

And Torsten’s assertion weighed on me as well. Had I allowed Odin to collar me with my own grief and fury? Had I allowed him to train me like a loyal dog, ready and willing to do his bidding? I didn’t like the thought, but in light of all we’d learned, it seemed disgustingly probable. Was my visceral resentment of the witches a byproduct of Odin’s lies? 

Was there a chance that I’d taken the lives of innocents in my quest for vengeance? Some of the witches had been undoubtedly evil and had deserved the end they got, but others... no. Without rage blinding me, I could see that not every one of them had deserved death. That truth made me feel ill, and the scents of spiced mead and ale turned my stomach, instead of making my mouth water.

“You look like shit, cousin,” Alfo said offhandedly.

It drew a few chuckles from the nearest dwarves at Ogun’s expense. He took it with stoicism, apparently used to such treatment. His irritating smile had slipped the moment we stepped inside, wariness taking its place. It seemed like the half-dwarf could be serious if the situation called for it. His expression told me that he was used to this kind of treatment, and their laughter died away when he didn’t take the bait.

“Jumping into a river, scaling a cliff, and fighting the undead will do that to a person,” Ogun said mildly. “If it offends you, you could always let us bathe.”

Alfo’s lips twisted petulantly, clearly disappointed that Ogun hadn’t reacted to his obvious bait. His sigh flapped his lips, and then he nodded to one of the dwarven women nearby. She’d been in the act of refilling a man’s goblet but looked up when her leader acknowledged her. 

“Hilda, see to it that rooms are prepared, and baths are drawn for our guests. I want them clean before they sit at my table. The stench of the dead is repulsive.”

Hilda bobbed her head in agreement and then scurried off without a word, her dark braids trailing out behind her. I watched her go rather than stare down the arrogant dwarf. If he continued to taunt us, I’d be liable to knock a few of his teeth loose.

Alfo gave us all a pointed look before waving us off. “Go. Later we can discuss what’s to be done about the Aesir.”

I caught Fyrcat whispering something to Jovi as we trailed after Hilda. She looked thoughtful rather than offended or frightened. Her lips quirked into a very tiny smile as we exited the hall. For the first time, they seemed to be getting along, and I could see something similar in their bearing and aspect.

They were acting like sisters, though neither of them knew it. When we were alone, I’d ask Fyrcat what she’d said to Jovi, using persuasion if necessary. Very pleasant persuasion. I allowed myself a wolf’s smile as we entered a darkened corridor.

Fyrcat was mine.

And I’d make sure she knew it.

***

Torsten

“Why is it always a bath?” Jovi asked idly, tugging her shirt off over her head. 

She’d kicked off the jeans and removed the retractable armor almost the moment the door closed behind us. I understood her eagerness to be free of it, even if it made me anxious to see her unequipped.

I’d grown used to wearing armor over the years, though it had been a while since I’d donned anything to fight an adversary. She stretched, going up on tiptoe as she sighed. It displayed every luscious curve of her body, and my cock strained against the seam of my pants, despite my dogged efforts not to notice. I’d meant what I said in The Den. It wasn’t the time or place for this. 

Jovi craned her neck and offered me a wicked smile when she saw the state of my pants. Her expression just made my cock stiffen even further. If we bathed separately, I’d have to take care of the problem before it reached the point of pain. The question was, could I do it quietly enough to escape her notice?

“What do you mean?” I asked a beat too late.

My thoughts were tripping over themselves, moving in lustful circles now that the danger was pounding at the gate instead of hot on our heels. Even Odin or Thor would have had a hard time breaching Varndenfell to capture us. The dwarves were expert craftsmen and almost as magical as the Aesir themselves. They’d hold off a draugr army long enough for us to slip into Helheim unnoticed. We’d open a path into the underworld after a meal and a night of rest. With any luck, Jovi and Fyrcat could recover some of their strength. They’d be relying on me and my pack to do most of the fighting so that they could track Freya.

My pack.

Gods, that was such a strange thought. I was the alpha of a pack, in charge of my brother and two elite warriors who’d originally been sent to kill us. Now they’d been freed of their hatred and appeared somewhat sane. Even Skarde’s beast had calmed enough to bed Fyrcat. I’d never have seen that one coming in a million years. I’d sooner believe he’d sleep with Ogun than bed the wicked witch, but the revelation about her soul had put things in a new and hopeful light. He had the parts of Eir that mattered, and I had Jovi. It was a better outcome than I could have hoped for.

And speaking of Jovi... She was regarding me, brow quirked, hands on the latches of one of her newly acquired bras, wiggling enticingly as she struggled with the clasps. I averted my eyes with a soft sound. The panties would come off next, leaving her completely bare to my gaze. I wasn’t sure if I could control myself if she stood naked before me, back arched, eyes filled with lust, and her desire perfuming the air between us.

No, I definitely couldn’t handle something like that. I’d have to make this quick and hop out of the water even faster so she could have a little privacy. The water was warm, heated by a geothermal spring welling up from deep in the earth. The ‘bath’ in our room looked a lot closer to a small swimming pool than a tub.

Jovi let out a chuckle, amused by my slip and the look I’d been giving her. “If you haven’t noticed, every time we get close to jumping each other’s bones, there’s always a bath or shower involved. I don’t know why, but it’s a little funny. Or maybe I’m just tired.” 

I pushed off the stone ledge and half-stood. “I’ll get out so you can take a bath. You’ve been going all day on top of everything else, so you’ve earned the right to be left in peace.” 

Jovi sighed, and I saw her slide her panties off in my periphery. I was almost painfully aroused now. If I stood, she’d see. If she saw, she’d want to do something about it. And at this point, I wasn’t sure I could stop her.

“Don’t rush on my account,” she said, stepping into the shallow end. One of the dwarven architects had designed a wide set of stairs that tapered off when the water got deeper. She sighed when she reached the last step, sinking into the water to her ribs. Only her breasts, shoulders, and head remained above the water. When she leaned back to wet her hair, it made her breasts bob.

I couldn’t contain a groan, tracking the droplets of water as they ran down her neck, collected in her collarbones, and then streamed down over each breast. Her eyes were closed, but a smile graced her lips. She was enjoying this, the little vixen. She was trying to tempt me, and it was working. If she kept this up, I’d take her and damn the consequences. 

“Jovi...”

“Don’t,” she said, cracking one eye open. “You fought just as hard as I did. Stay in the water. The heat will help you relax, and soothe your sore muscles.” She smiled. “I plan to stay in here until I turn into a prune.”

“I can’t stay,” I growled. “I told you we can’t have sex.”

“Why?” she asked, lathering up her hair. Whatever Hilda had given her to wash herself smelled fantastic. Somehow earthy, and still as sharp and woody as pine. It smelled like a forest, like home. My beast nearly howled with the desire to take her. “Because Freya said not to? Nothing dangerous is going to happen, Torsten, I promise.”

“You don’t know that,” I argued.

“I do, actually,” Jovi said, wading toward me. “I know Freya was motivated to lie to me. Other than the obvious, of course. She might love her long-lost family but she still wants you. But there was more to it than that, and I didn’t understand until Fyrcat explained it to me.” 

I scowled. “You really trust the word of that woman?”

Jovi tugged her lip between her teeth. “To an extent. Skarde trusts her, which has to count for something. You know how he is. He wouldn’t be... erm... fraternizing with her if he thought she was about to stick a knife in all our backs.” 

I wasn’t so sure about that. Fyrcat was a witch of the highest caliber, only narrowly beaten by Jovi in terms of raw power. She’d managed to survive Freya’s death, which spoke to how stubborn and vital she was. I couldn’t rule out the possibility she’d bespelled my brother and was making him believe a lie about Eir. Still, I wanted it to be true, and it made a certain amount of sense. 

“So,” I began, deciding to humor Jovi. “Why would Freya warn you against sleeping with me other than simple jealousy?”

“Power,” Jovi said simply.

I raised an eyebrow at her. “She has a lot of that already, Jovi.”

“Not her power,” she said impatiently, sliding onto the bench beside me. Her proximity was driving my beast mad. “Mine.”

“What do you mean?”

Jovi shifted in the water, slinging one leg over mine, settling on my lap. The tip of my cock slid along her folds, nudging them apart the barest fraction. An appreciative sound rumbled deep in my throat. Gods, I’d missed this. I’d missed the scent of her, the surety of her presence, the softness of her touch. It wasn’t even the sex I missed, though that had always been incredible. It was just Jovi. All of her, and now she was here with me, straddling me, inviting me to slip inside her after all these years. It took every ounce of control I had not to thrust into her then and there.

Jovi’s hands wound into my hair, and she pressed her cheek to mine. It appealed to both sides of my nature. There was simple human affection in the gesture, but that sort of behavior was common in wolves too. It was a trust thing. Jovi trusted me to treat her gently. She trusted me to a degree that was almost frightening. More trust than I’d ever given myself. But with her touching me, I didn’t feel like a freak or a monster. I was a man, and she was a woman, and we loved each other.

“Fyrcat says that most witches have to draw power from something outside of themselves. Potions and spell books and prayers usually. Powerful witches can draw in the life force of other people. Sometimes that means human sacrifice but most often it means...” She rolled her hips a little, slipping the tip of my cock inside her. She shuddered, eyes fluttering closed, mouth parting in ecstasy. “This. Contact. Heat. Desire. I want this, and it’s the best way you can help me recover. I need your energy before we face God knows what in Helheim.”

I let out a short bark of laughter. “Are you seriously saying that having sex will help you back to health?”

Her smile was slow and sultry. “That’s exactly what I’m saying. Make love to me, Torsten. Give me your strength. Here, on the bed, wherever. I just need you inside me.”

Jovi eased herself onto me, enveloping me in her slick, velvet center. Somehow, impossibly, she felt warmer than the water around us. My hands flew to her hips as she took me in to the hilt. A strangled moan escaped me, and she echoed it, head falling back, exposing the long line of her throat. I tested my teeth against it, suckling a little until blood burst under her skin. I wanted to leave my mark so that every male in the vicinity knew she was mine.

Her hips rolled in a steady rhythm, rocking against mine in a slow, undulating motion. Small whimpers built in her throat, spurring me on, coaxing me to thrust deeper, clutch her harder. Her hands were still in my hair and she pulled it almost to the point of pain. The electric feeling of her nails biting into my skin made me moan. God, but the sex was even hotter now than it had been years ago. The honeymoon phase was supposed to be the hottest sex you ever had in a relationship, but this was better. In a way, it was a honeymoon of sorts. We were different people than we’d been the last time we met. Mature and magical, and filled with purpose.

One of my hands slid beneath her ass, lifting her so I could shift the angle, dragging my cock along the inside of her at the precise angle she liked. It earned me another round of whimpers and even a short cry as pleasure rolled over her in waves. When I slid my other hand between her legs, circling the bud just above her core lightly, just enough to provide sensation, but not enough to give her any amount of friction.

Her cries reached a frantic pitch as her hips moved in a helpless rhythm, chasing an elusive climax. I kept her on the edge for a while, driving in and out of her until I felt her walls flutter. Then I thrust myself into her with a final groan, pressing my fingers on that little nub with all the pressure she’d wanted. She actually screamed, the sound echoing back to us from the cavern walls.

When Jovi came down from the high, she rested her head in the hollow of my throat. She was sheened with sweat and smelled of me, which made my beast rumble its approval. Her breath feathered over my throat, uneven but tinged with small sounds of appreciation. Her heart beat against mine, solid and more steady than it had been in days.

She was right. The tinge of sickness in her aura had diminished, though it wasn’t gone completely. She had enough power to siphon what she needed, as long as I was willing to give it.

“Feel better?” I asked, amusement coloring my tone.

She hummed thoughtfully. “Some, but I think I could do with more. When can I take another dose of Torsten?”

I grinned at her. “Soon. For now, kiss me.”

So she did just that.

Chapter Thirteen

Fyrcat

I relaxed against Skarde’s broad chest, pleasantly sore.

The big beastly man didn’t have much in the way of restraint, having spent centuries in frustrated celibacy. I didn’t particularly care about the cuts and bruises that came along with his fierce embrace. It had been a while for me too. The flesh was willing, but my spirit hadn’t been truly engaged when I’d been with other men. It was pleasant enough, but sex with Skarde just felt right. We fit like two puzzle pieces. 

Which was absurd, when I stopped to think about it. I was a witch, and he was a berserker. Even with Odin’s control over his mind gone, he’d still been made for a purpose. Some part of him, no matter how small, would always want to kill me. He could spend that urge on my body, rutting me until I screamed his name or collapsed from fatigue. I could take the pain. I’d suffered enough of it in my life. It was the uncertainty that was killing me. For centuries I’d known my purpose, had known what was expected of me, and had carried out orders. Now I was adrift, my purpose gone, my life thrown into chaos. And Skarde was somehow my lifeline.

I braided my damp hair as the silence stretched. I could taste his contentment on the air, and it made me uneasy. What had changed in the last day and a half to alter his attitude this drastically? There had been attraction from the start, yes, but not affection. Until he’d kissed me, took me to his bed, and treated me tenderly in the aftermath, I’d been sure that it was impossible for a berserker to feel any gentle emotion at all.

“Are we going to talk about it?” I asked finally. 

Skarde shifted, tension coiling in his body at my words. “Talk about what?” 

I gave him a look over one shoulder. “Whatever this is.”

“Speak plainly, woman.”

“You turned on a dime after the vision of Odin and I want to know why,” I said in response, nearly barking the words. “Did he appear to you as well? Did he tell you the same lies he told me?”

Skarde’s face smoothed into an unreadable mask. The tension ratcheted up, stiffening his shoulders, but he didn’t let it show anywhere else. I’d have to take him to Vegas if we survived the coming catastrophe because he had an excellent poker face.

“No, Odin didn’t appear to me. I’m certain he will never willingly come to my side again. I have betrayed the Aesir by allying myself with his enemies. It’s not something the All-Father can overlook. What has he told you, Sæta?”

Sæta. Sweetheart.

Gods, he’d pivoted so quickly it made my head spin. What had gotten into him?

“The lies about Eir,” I said quietly.

He went very still. His lips only moved the barest fraction when he spoke. “Go on.”

I glared at him in mute frustration. Typical Skarde, always making things difficult. It was one of the things about the berserker that I found both irritating and endearing. I couldn’t deny the truth though. My world felt like it had opened up since our first meeting. For the first time, my mind and body were in agreement about a man. I wanted him against all reason and logic. The more time we spent together, the more connection I felt, which was ridiculous. We’d known each other for less than a week. And yet, it felt like forever. 

“He said I’m an heir to her power, which is ridiculous. I was a contemporary of Eir’s, so there’s no way her soul was reborn into me. It’s a bald-faced lie meant to drive a wedge between us. We both know Jovi—” 

“Torsten and I are certain she has Eir’s haminga, but not her hugr.” 

My mind instantly rebelled. There was no way. This had to be a trick. Some kind of sick practical joke. There was no way I could be Eir in body or soul.

Skarde continued, lips quirking a little at my obstinate silence. “You’ve noticed the change since we met, even if you want to deny it. Would you have wanted to bed your sworn enemy without this bond? Would you have risked life and limb for me if some part of you didn’t care? Would you bristle any time Jovi looks at me if you didn’t feel some claim to me?” 

My mind spun as I tried to process the revelation. It felt like the truth, though I wanted to protest. I knew I’d been promised to Freya after she breathed life into me. My hugr had been pulled from Niflheim and made manifest, which meant I’d been magical from the day of my rebirth. She’d groped blindly into a realm that was not hers and snatched a soul from the ether. The chances it would be Eir’s was astronomical. And yet... that made a certain amount of sense. My power, second only to Jovi’s. The complete contempt and rage Odin held me in. 

Skarde’s lips ghosted over my throat. My back arched at the ticklish sensation, and a groan built in my throat when he palmed one of my breasts. I tried to shake my head, clear away the desire, but his touch made it hard to think. 

“Even if that’s true, I don’t remember any of it,” I panted. “I will never be the Eir you remember. A new house was built on top of the old.” 

“Yes,” he agreed, scraping his teeth lightly over my skin, chuckling when I whimpered. “And I’d like to become familiar with it, if the new owner will allow me.” 

He twisted my nipple hard with one hand and turned my face toward his with the other, swallowing the cry. His mouth was warm and somehow familiar. If this was true... it meant I could keep him. That had possibilities. 

“You’re still a fool, you know,” I murmured against his mouth. “I’ll never stop saying it. And if you think I won’t kick your ass in the future, you have another think coming.” 

His lips twitched. “I look forward to it, witch.” 

***

Freya

I’d taken to call the eagle ‘Eir’, for lack of a better alternative. It was the only thing left of the original woman. Life was always more complex than people wanted to admit. No one could completely control the contents of their soul. The hamr—appearance—was the easiest to control. You could paint it with makeup, glamor yourself to appear younger or more beautiful, or halt the forward progression of time with one of Idun’s apples. Her orchard was the only thing that kept the Aesir at the height of their strength. Without the apples, they’d age, grow weary, and their power would ebb.

The hugr? Well, that almost never changed. Everyone from the lowliest mortal to the highest of gods had an enduring part of their soul that could never be replicated. Odin would always be headstrong and proud, Thor would always be brutish and impulsive, Frigg would always be a spiteful bitch, and Loki would always be slippery. Yes, time and circumstance could alter portions of it, but that first spark, the base nature? It endured until death. 

The conjunction of family, personality, appearance, and animal halves made up a unique person. Eir, as she was, could never be fully remade without tearing the soul from Fyrcat’s body, shoving it into Jovi’s, and stitching this spirit onto her somehow. Making do with her flygja wasn’t how I’d have chosen to do things, but it was better than nothing at all. She’d saved me several times already, letting out a brassy cry any time a monster or vengeful shade drew near. I’d still exist if I died in Hel, but escape would become next to impossible.

I let out a fierce war cry, putting my shoulders and hips into a blow that smote the head from a hulking black bear. There had been a truly impressive number of them prowling through this portion of Helheim which convinced me I was on the right track. This section of Helheim was overrun with Odin, Frigg, Thor, Sif, and Thea’s creatures. I tangled with bears and rams with wickedly curling horns on the ground while Eir performed miraculous feats of aerial agility as she fought huge ravens, owls, and swans in the sky. Feathers coated the ground around me like a layer of multi-colored snow and formed hillocks over the oversized bodies of the gods’ fallen guardians.

It couldn’t be a coincidence that every totem of the gods had assembled in one place. That thought bolstered me, helped me limp forward, stepping over the bodies of the beasts I’d killed. Every part of me was screaming for rest, food, and shelter, but I didn’t slow. I kept my gaze on the luminous green shape of Eir high up in the mists, ears primed for the next brassy cry.

It never came.

The enormous, feathered shape of Eir swooped down through the mist, and then banked sharply right. I followed as fast as my wounded leg would allow, wading through a particularly dense fog bank until she bobbed into sight. And, as we drew closer, more lights burned through the mist. It had the diffuse and flickering quality of candlelight. Something up ahead smelled incredible. Roasting pork and spices, instead of the stagnant water, fetid meat, and coppery blood I’d been stewing in for days. A slice of light appeared, and children’s laughter drifted to me on the wind.

I was running forward without ever having made the conscious decision to do so. My leg was on fire, blood sluicing over my skin, but I couldn’t bring myself to care. I knew those voices, even all these centuries later. I cleared the fog, pelting toward what looked to be a longhouse, and pounded on the front door. A sob caught in my throat when someone appeared in the gap.

Baldr was exactly as beautiful as I remembered him. The green woven shirt was stretched tight over his chest, every sculpted muscle on display. His hair was golden in the low light, and his cobalt eyes shone with barely suppressed mirth as he took in the state of me.

“Baldr,” I gasped, reaching up to touch his face. “Is it really you? Are the children—”

“They’re fine,” he said, wrapping his calloused hands around my wrists, tugging them gently away. I’d left bloody smears on his cheeks and in his beard. “But you don’t appear to be. Come in, my love. We’ve been expecting you.”

Chapter Fourteen

Torsten

“Typical,” I hissed, staggering back a step.

A small, goblin-like creature beat against the crossed shape of my swords, tumbling back the way he’d come when I gave him a shove. I swept one of the blades out and managed a lucky shot, parting his ugly head from his shoulders. “We take one step into Helheim, and something is ready to attack us.”

“‘Tis the way, oh mighty alpha,” Gunda said mockingly, kicking a goat-like creature away with a solid thrust of her boot before swooping in to take its head off at the shoulders. “If you don’t want to do battle, perhaps you should don an apron and cook something for the real warriors?”

I smiled in spite of myself. If I had to choose how my life could have gone, I would have chosen a cabin in the woods with Jovi and a quiet life. But I wasn’t an ordinary man, and my berserker nature meant I’d never be totally content with peace. Part of me loved the chase, the fight, the blood, and the taunts of battle. Gunda’s tongue was as sharp as her blade, something I appreciated in an ally. I hated that I’d been forced to kill her former pack members to earn the privilege of fighting alongside her, but it was what it was.

I kicked the head of a feline shape toward her and waggled my eyebrows as I decided to throw my own taunt her way. “You’re the woman, aren’t you? Go ahead and cook what I killed for you.”

Before she could respond, the air just over my head rippled, magic prickling like needles over my scalp and down the back of my neck. My wolf let out a startled howl, and I barely stopped myself from echoing the sound. Gunda failed entirely, letting out an odd yipping sound one normally associates with small dogs. If we’d been elsewhere, I’d have teased her about it. As it was, I barely avoided being struck in the head by something large and feathered.

When I peered more closely at the shape, I realized it was a raven. That is, if ravens grew to the size of pterodactyls. I wasn’t sure if I wanted to know what epoch Hel had pulled these monsters from.

Jovi stood with her palm out, breathing hard. She and Fyrcat had gotten significantly stronger when they’d cleared the portal, most likely due to Freya’s proximity. Their life was tied to hers and being on the same branch of the world tree as the goddess had made all the difference. They both looked like themselves. That is to say, determined on Jovi’s end and darkly amused on Fyrcat’s. Their palor was better, and the charge of their magic had returned to normal.

After the raven flopped to the ground, Gunda turned a stern glare on me. “‘Get in the kitchen’ jokes, seriously? Is this really the time? What’s next? Make me a sandwich?”

“Not a fan of roasted crow, but if you feel so inclined...”

Jovi came close enough to smack me on the bicep. “Pig.”

I flashed my teeth at her in a wolfish grin. “You still love me.”

She rolled her eyes. “For some reason.”

I wanted to spin her around and kiss her full on the mouth. She looked so damn beautiful in her armor, shield strapped to her back, a sword clutched in one hand. She cast with the other, using magic to blast foes out of her way or out of the sky when they dove toward us. It wasn’t a perfect system, but it was all we had. Using her shield would cripple her casting ability, which was the only reason giant crows, owls, and swans hadn’t plucked out all our eyes.

Fyrcat, meanwhile, was focusing all her power on guiding us forward, using a divining rod to point us in the right direction. She was astride Skarde’s back, keeping his sword belted at her waist just in case. Sigrun flanked them both, keeping the largest of the bears from overrunning the rest of us. Ogun had remained behind with his cousin, afraid he’d slow us down as we journeyed through Helheim. And knowing what I did now, it had been the best choice he could have made. I didn’t want Jovi trying to sacrifice herself for him.

I shuddered to think what would have happened if Ogun, Skarde, Jovi, and Fyrcat had gone in without the help of the pack. We’d have died, more than likely, and there was no telling what Hel would do to the souls that had presumed to break into her realm. For all I knew, she’d turn us over to Odin and Frigg to be tormented for all eternity.

We hacked our way through still more oversized carnivores. I put myself in the line of fire more often than not, trying to keep Jovi safe. It was a stupid, caveman impulse to protect her. She didn’t really need my protection. She’d proven that over and over again since we’d reunited. Now, she could handle herself against anything. Skarde would probably have put that down to Eir’s hamingja, the part of herself that was reborn into the family line, but I knew better. This was all Jovi. She was strong. She’d been born that way, and that strength was merely finding new ways to express itself.

“Duck!” she shouted.

I didn’t question her. I lunged, seizing Gunda by the shoulder and dragging her down to the ground with me. And just in time too. The air around us turned blisteringly hot, frying the great-horned owl that had been silently descending from the clouds to take our heads in its hubcap-sized talons. It let out a shriek and spasmed in the air for several seconds before dropping to the ground, flattening a goat that had been charging us.

The goat twisted and let out piteous bleats, but couldn’t escape the weight of the bird. Gunda slit its throat before the heat could cook its insides, which was a more merciful death than it would have offered her if the roles were reversed.

Gunda gave Jovi a curt nod of thanks but couldn’t seem to cough up the actual words. Even knowing they’d been tricked by Odin; it would take a while for the members of the pack to warm up to the idea of fraternizing with witches. It was part of our psyche that had been twisted in on itself to justify our rage. But having the link broken wasn’t an automatic cure. There was a lot of deprogramming to be done if we survived.

“Up ahead!” Fyrcat called over her shoulder. “Through the fog. It’s a barrier to keep monsters and souls out, but since we’re alive and mostly magical we should be able to pass through. Link hands and hurry!”

Link hands? I thought skeptically. What is this, a middle school game?

Jovi reached for my hand without hesitation, taking Fyrcat at her word. If we’d been in any other situation, I probably would have accused the witch of lying so she could laugh at us, but in this circumstance, I’d have to take her at her word. Her world and her goddess were at stake. I sheathed my sword and took her hand, offering the other to Gunda. Gunda’s mouth screwed into a sour line, but she took my hand, anyway. I had the insane urge to hum “Follow the Yellow Brick Road” as we rushed forward, linked together like monkeys in a barrel.

The monsters behind us let out ear-splitting caterwauls but didn’t reach us in time to drag us out of the fog bank. The mist was dense, almost smothering me with magic. My beastly half panicked, sensing the hated stuff all around us. In another circumstance, being in a net of power this potent equated to a death sentence. No witch would let a berserker go free. The energy even tasted similar to Freya’s power, with a slight variation. Someone else had thrown up this barricade, and they’d done it a long time ago from the sense of age that accompanied the skin-prickling rush of magic. The mist seemed to stretch forever, but eventually we emerged on the other side and came face to face with...

“Is that a longhouse?” Gunda asked, echoing my befuddled thoughts.

It was a longhouse. Someone had constructed a charming little home out of what little resources were to be had in Helheim and then plopped it in the middle of the mists. Or maybe it was more accurate to say that the unknown architect had built the place and then carved out a circle they could replenish with magic from time to time. The mists weren’t the actual magic, just the constant press of Helheim’s natural climate against the defenses. Light spilled from the windows, accompanied by children’s laughter and a familiar voice.

It was her voice. I’d know Freya’s voice anywhere. She’d been my captor for years, my lover for almost as long. I’d loved and hated her. Mostly the latter, because I’d always known that I was a distraction, a consolation prize because she couldn’t have the man she truly loved. That bitter truth had festered deep down, and if I hadn’t found Jovi, it would have killed me. Without the support of my brother, I’d have descended into madness long before that. And yet her happiness still stung me.

For a moment we all just stood there, staring at the improbable longhouse, listening to the frivolous games of children, and Freya’s pealing laughter as she watched them play. The next voice was strong and resonant, just like the man who’d once bore it. 

“I guess she found Baldr,” I said, and my voice sounded hollow. “Who wants to go in and tell her she has to come back?”

There was a chorus of soft, nervous laughter at that, and a few chuffs of amusement from the still furry. We all sounded and looked a bit hysterical, and for good reason. We’d be lucky if Freya didn’t reduce us to dust for the mere suggestion that she leave her family.

In the end, it was Jovi who summoned enough courage to saunter forward, climb the steps, and rap sharply on the front door.

The noise within paused for a moment before resuming at a more cautious pace. If I strained, I could make out footfalls heading toward the door, too heavy to belong to the children, and not nimble enough to be Freya’s. As much as I hated it, I knew damn near everything about Freya’s body. The way she walked, the way her lips curled when she was amused, how slender and vulnerable she could look when she was tired. I knew she could move with airy grace when uninjured. She was one of the only people to ever get the drop on me.

The door opened and a man appeared in the gap, confirming my suspicions. He was… well, there was a reason they’d once called him Baldr the Beautiful on top of the original appellation, Baldr the Brave.

He was taller and broader than me, which was no mean feat. The few men I’d met in that category had broken world records. The ghostly sheen of his skin was mother-of-pearl and contrasted with the burnished gold hair that was swept into a tail at the base of his neck. His blue eyes were soft and a little amused as he stared down at Jovi. He didn’t give off a sense of menace, despite his immense bulk. I still felt the beastly urge to pull Jovi away from him, anyway.

“My, my,” Baldr said. “Seven visitors in such a short amount of time.”

Seven? There were only six in our party, which meant Freya had only beaten us here by a very slim margin. Jovi seemed to realize as much too because she couldn’t quite keep a frown off her face. If we’d been just a little faster, we could have caught her before she’d found her family. Pulling her from Helheim would still have been cruel, but perhaps it would have been easier if she’d gone on not knowing.

There was no way we were going to drag Freya back now. Not without resurrecting her husband and children, something she’d been trying to accomplish for centuries. There was no way we’d manage to discover something she hadn’t in time to save Jovi and the other witches. All we could do now was die down here with her.

“We need to see Freya,” Jovi said. “Mr…. ah… Baldr.”

Baldr examined her face critically before reaching out to touch Jovi’s cheek. Even the small point of contact made me see red, and Skarde had to restrain me before I lunged for him, intent on taking his hands off with my teeth. Baldr didn’t even flinch.

“I see your mother in you.”

Jovi raised her chin a fraction. “She’s not my mother. Not in any sense that matters, anyway. Now, let me through to talk to her, or we’re going to have a problem.”

I tensed, ready to leap between them if he reacted poorly to her tone. Baldr just threw his head back and laughed.

“Yes, you are definitely her daughter. Come inside, Jovi. You and your allies are welcome in my home. My wife has been expecting you.”

***

Jovi

The interior of Baldr’s home made Torsten’s cabin look ultramodern. Despite Torsten’s cabin’s rustic interior, there were still nods to present-day sensibilities and plenty of amenities.

In contrast, this place looked like it had been pulled straight out of a history book. The longhouse was just one large room crowded with tables, tools, and pelts of every size, shape, and color. Straw beds were arranged along one wall, within sightline of the large fire pit in the middle of the room. The smell of smoke and cured meats clung to the walls. Which begged the question of exactly why this place was here and if any of this was even real. Baldr was dead, after all. Why would a ghostly man need a house for his ghostly children?

The question didn’t seem to bother Freya. When my roving eyes landed on her, I almost did a double take. She was sitting in one corner placidly spinning wool into yarn, two small, tow-headed children crouched at her feet. She smiled indulgently down at whatever game they were playing before she glanced up and spotted us.

It was almost painful to watch her contented expression melt away, only to be replaced by the pinched, bitter look she’d worn since the moment we met. I’d known she was beautiful then but couldn’t imagine why anyone couldn’t see through to the rot underneath. With the burden of grief lifted off her shoulders, I could see who and what she’d been before Odin and Loki had interfered. Without her anger, she was striking.

Freya set her task aside as we strode over to where she sat. Sigrun and Skarde, still in wolf form, were immediately besieged by giggling children. They took it well enough, leading the pair off with a series of playful nips and growls. She watched them go through impassive eyes, and her voice came out flat when she spoke.

“So, you still live. That’s impressive. I assumed my line was doomed the moment I was sent here.”

“Most of us were,” I said, and couldn’t keep a searing note of anger from my voice. “Sandy died almost instantly. You remember her, right? The woman you gave instructions to so you could get me to Marshall Heights?”

“I recall.”

“I know this entire witch business has been your way of sticking it to the Aesir, but I thought you’d give at least one fuck about the rest of us after you finally got yours.”

Her expression was remote. “What do you want me to say, Jovi? It’s over. I’m in Helheim, and I’m staying here.”

“Oh, no, you’re not,” I said hotly. “Your loyal followers are dying up there. You’re going to come with us and fix it before we go kick Odin’s ass together.”

Freya’s fingers tightened on the arms of her chair until the knuckles whitened. Her eyes were cold when she said, “No.”

“No?” Fyrcat echoed. “What do you mean, no?”

Freya half-turned from Fyrcat, unwilling to meet her gaze. She didn’t give a rat’s ass about me, but she did have some compunctions about hurting Fyrcat. They’d been paling around long before I was born… er, created… or what have you. The goddess didn’t seem to care about much, but she had at least a little regard for Fyrcat. Her eyes swept the longhouse instead and her voice dropped to a mere whisper.

“I’ve found my family, and I refuse to leave them again.”

Chapter Fifteen

Jovi

Gunda sank down onto the ledge of the nearby fire pit with a bitter chuckle. “Ah, the vaunted Freya. If I’d known all it took to stop you was to send you to Helheim, I’d have done it sooner.”

Freya’s eyes glittered with anger when she turned them on Gunda, but she said nothing. Gunda stirred the embers at the bottom of the pit thoughtfully before continuing.

“I’ve always thought the gods were fickle, but I never imagined them to be craven.”

“I am no coward,” Freya hissed. “It’s not a lack of desire for Aesir blood. It’s that I simply cannot have both my family and my vengeance. Now that I’m here, I see the truth. Due to Aesir meddling, it’s impossible for them to leave, but I can choose to stay. I value my family more than anything else. It’s as simple as that.”

“You value some of your family, you mean,” Fyrcat murmured. Her eyes were shiny with grief, but no tears fell. “The rest of us are an acceptable loss.”

“Fyrcat—”

“No,” Fyrcat cut across her. “No wheedling, no platitudes, no excuses, goddess. My parents gave me to you in exchange for saving my life, but even that was a lie, wasn’t it? You had no idea what you were creating when you pulled my soul into this realm, did you? All you wanted was a loyal soldier, and I gave you that. I gave you so many years. Years that I suffered through, Skarde suffered through, that we all suffered through for your pointless war. And now you give up?”

“You don’t understand.”

Fyrcat’s eyes burned with a fierce, almost feral light before she spit on the ground at Freya’s feet. “A curse on you,” she hissed. “A curse on you and everyone else who used us as pawns in your game.”

I felt a grudging sense of… respect for Fyrcat in that moment. I knew from experience how difficult it was to realize that someone who claimed to love you was a horrible person. My first relationship had been like that. I’d been used and manipulated, and he’d made me feel like it was somehow my fault. If I hadn’t met Torsten… well, there was no telling where I’d be now. That Fyrcat could spit on her mother figure was… well, it was impressive. I’d have to buy her a drink if we made it out of this alive.

I came to stand shoulder to shoulder with Fyrcat in a show of solidarity. I still didn’t like her, but she was my ally. More than that, she was Skarde’s mate, by some strange twist of fate. She didn’t look at me, but her spine straightened, as if my presence had bolstered her confidence just a little.

“You know, we could have just taken Odin’s offer,” I said, giving Freya my frostiest glare. “Same result and our fellow witches would still live to see another day.”

Freya’s brow puckered. “What offer?”

Fyrcat’s jaw flexed, as though she was contemplating staying silent for spite. In the end though, she answered, seeming unable to deny Freya what she viewed as vital information.

“Odin sent a dream to Jovi, but I was somehow drawn into the dream, as well. It was the first clue of what you’d done to us both. Odin made us an offer—to keep you locked away in Helheim, and in return, he’d pour power into our lines, making one or both of us the source of life for your people.”

“Goddesses, essentially,” I said coolly. “And if I’d known that coming down here was going to be a huge waste of time, I’d have taken him up on it. But that ship has sailed. You’re down here, and the rest of us will join you days or weeks from now. Congrats, you’re the worst mother ever.”

I planted my feet, bracing for screams, curses, or a hail of blows across my upturned face. Freya’s mind had the structural integrity of an underbaked cookie on the best of the days, too consumed with the need to have her vengeance. But that didn’t happen. Now that she’d found her little slice of happiness, she seemed to have calmed down, settling into a sort of docile domesticity that just seemed... wrong. Her eyes brightened at my words, and she clapped her hands.

“Oh, that’s excellent!”

“The name calling?” I asked, lips twitching. “Because I can do that all day long.”

Freya’s brow creased in irritation, but the light didn’t completely fade from her expression. “No, not that. Odin’s offer. The pestilent man was onto something.”

I raised an eyebrow, confused. “He was?”

“Yes, he was. I can’t return, but you can. In fact, you must. Helheim doesn’t take kindly to mortal visitors. I must die in order to make my stay permanent. And to that end, we can help each other.”

I thought about echoing her statement with a ‘we can?’ just to be obnoxious but held my tongue. Freya was cooperating, after a fashion. This was no time to make her persnickety. If Baldr gave us the boot, we’d be stuck outside in the ether, facing a never-ending parade of monsters. It might take a day or two, but eventually we’d be buried under a pile of them if we didn’t have a place to fall back to.

Freya stood, smoothing her skirts. They’d turned into a sort of macabre tie-dye, mottled in places by different colored ichor. Her expression was tired but resolute. She nodded at each of us, clearly coming to a decision. Then she seized a knife from one of the long tables and sashayed over to Torsten. I tried to backpedal, to put my body between hers and his, but I needn’t have bothered. She stopped shy of him, offering him the blade, hilt first.

Torsten just stared at it for a moment, then frowned at her. “What’s this?”

“The best apology I can give you,” she answered, trailing her fingers gently over one side of his face. “Your Jovi is quite right. My people need their goddess, or perhaps goddesses. They exist because I willed it so, and to abandon them this way is cruel. Your mate and Skarde’s are worthy vessels for my power. I will pour it into them.”

Torsten eyed the blade but didn’t move to take it. “And what does that have to do with me?”

“Everything,” she whispered. “I hurt you, and this is my penance. When I am mortal again, I need you to do me one last kindness, my dear Stormblood.”

“What kindness?”

“I need you to end my life.”

***

Torsten

I’d seen a lot in my long life.

Depressing things. Sanity-rending things. Things too beautiful to be adequately expressed by words. Magic tended to be all three.

I’d sent Sigrun and Gunda outside to guard the perimeter, much to their displeasure. It was a pointless job, given the magic Baldr had already laid into the ground. I was essentially asking them to take a long hike while the important stuff happened inside the longhouse. I’d catch flack for it later.

Ask me if I gave a damn.

Fyrcat and Jovi were sitting together on the edge of the fire pit, hips touching. They’d been bound at the wrist by some kind of ivy, and anointed with a clear, scented liquid. Neither of them looked comfortable with the position, but they didn’t dare move as Freya walked a circle around them, chanting in the old tongue, invoking herself. Baldr and Freya’s daughters followed along behind her, chanting as well. Gods required ritual or faith to manifest fully, and while doing it this way felt a little masturbatory, I could understand why she’d decided to go this route. It wasn’t as though any of us were eager to sing her praises.

Skarde paced restlessly beside me, unable to stay stationary with his foe this close. It didn’t matter that we were free of Odin, there were some lessons that didn’t wash out quickly. Freya wasn’t our enemy any longer, but that didn’t make her a friend either. She’d chained me into decades-long servitude, abandoned her faithful followers when they needed her most, and had been prepared to let them die so she could live forever in a misty purgatory with her long-lost love.

And now she wanted me to kill her.

She’d handed me the knife, and all but ordered me to do it, as haughty and presumptuous as ever. In life or death, Freya would always be Freya. Self-centered and thoughtless. She thought she was extending some sort of long-awaited catharsis. All she’d managed to do was tear open the wound that Jovi’s brave sacrifice had stitched closed. For just a glorious moment, I’d been free of her. I’d been my own man, my own wolf, and in total control of myself. I had my mate, my pack, and a cause. I could move on, knowing I’d left the unhappy goddess in my past. But if I killed Freya, there’d be a part of me that would always hurt. She hadn’t been just Fyrcat’s goddess. She’d been my goddess too, as blasphemous as it sounded to the ears of any other berserker. I’d been her knight errant, and there was a time when I’d been desperately in love with her. So, what did a man do when he discovered that the woman he’d gone to war for had been playing him for a fool?

Losing faith in her hurt. Destroying the physical embodiment of it would mangle something inside me. The fond feelings had been gone for a while now, but I wasn’t sure I could just... kill her.

“You shall be the new Vanir,” Freya intoned.

She paused before Jovi and Fyrcat, eyes wide and unfocused. She was wreathed in light and power, an aura that shifted patterns with every thought and breath. It was so dizzying that I couldn’t bear to look for long. Every hair on my body stood at attention, and I’d dug furrows into the underside of one of Baldr’s finely carved tables to keep myself still. My beast and human halves had only just now come to an understanding, and both agreed on one thing. We needed to get the fuck away from Freya. A goddess at her full power wasn’t something a single berserker could handle on their own.

“New Vanir?” I echoed.

“The Vanir were Freya’s family,” Skarde said, pitching his voice low so only I could hear him, in an effort not to disturb the ritual. He needn’t have bothered. I didn’t think a stampede of elephants could have drawn Freya’s focus now. “They warred with the Aesir for many years until—”

“I know what they were,” I snapped. “I was raised by mortals, but that doesn’t make me an idiot. I want to know what she means by ‘New Vanir.’”

Skarde rolled a shoulder. “I think that should be obvious, little brother.”

I scowled at the back of his head as he paced away. Skarde was lucky we were on good terms these days. A condescending remark like that would have earned him a fist to the face only a year ago. I’d have done it now, just to blow off a little steam if it wouldn’t have resulted in a fight. This ritual was too important to interrupt with a brotherly scuffle.

“Well, consider me dense.”

“Always,” Skarde said with a wolfish grin, sidestepping the slap on the bicep I aimed in his direction.

“Just give it to me in plain English, Skarde. What’s she playing at?”

Freya was chanting in her mother tongue, something that predated even my intrinsic understanding of Old Norse. It was just too far removed from my lifetime to even guess at, and she only spoke like this sparingly. Her declaration had been the only intelligible thing for the last thirty minutes. Skarde leaned forward, face pinched with wary concentration.

“She’s doing what she said she would. Jovi and Fyrcat are taking on the aspects of Freya’s magic, and the magic she absorbed from her slain brother. That portion will go to Jovi. Sunshine, virility, prosperity, and fair weather. She’ll make a good counter to Thor. Fyrcat receives most of Freya’s abilities, as she’s best suited due to her many years of training. War, death, love, sex, beauty, fertility, gold, and seiðr. She will take on Odin. As will I.”

I gave him a sidelong look. “You? After everything we’ve been through, you want to be the one to face him?”

“He dishonored Eir,” Skarde muttered darkly. “She was a Valkyrie, bound for Valhalla, and he sent her here instead. And that action delivered her into the hands of Freya who unknowingly mangled her. I owe them both a taste of steel, but Freya has already appointed her executioner. Do me a favor and slit her throat.”

I didn’t say anything in reply. He was right. Freya and Odin had both caused us untold agony over the years, and now the time had come for their comeuppance. So why did this feel so... hollow?

Why did the knife in my hand seem to weigh about a thousand pounds?

The chanting rose, the power so potent that it made the backs of my teeth buzz. I turned on one heel and banged out the front door before it could reach a crescendo. The air outside was thin and cold, like the summit of a mountain. It was enough to ground me. If I closed my eyes, crouched in the front yard, and pinched earth between my fingers, I could pretend that I was at home on the average weekend, rather than preparing to end the life of a goddess and go to war with a few more.

That was where Freya found me. Crouched in her front yard, wishing for the simplicity of life before the Winters. My moody brother and his witch paramour would be a thing of my imagination. The gods would continue squabbling, as they always had, but no one I knew would have died. And most importantly, I’d rekindle what I had with Jovi, settling into a new, comfortable stage of life. We could live off the grid, just the two of us. And in a few years, there could be a baby. A little boy with her eyes and my nose, who regarded her exactly as I did. Like the sun rose and set on her, because it damn well should. My life was darker when she wasn’t in it.

So, of course, Freya had to ruin something for me one last time. Her touch was a gentle but unmistakable weight on my shoulder. When I glanced up to meet her eyes, I found her watching me, face soft. She looked fragile without her magic. Her skin was paler, her hair a little less lustrous, but it was the uncertainty that drove the idea home. I’d never seen her like this. So... so open and fearful. Even when she fought the Aesir, she’d never looked like this.

Then again, she’d never been staring her executioner in the face before this night.

“Stormblood...” she began.

I straightened and held up a hand. “Torsten. If this is the end, you can call me by my real name.”

Her lips twitched, but she didn’t quite smile. “Torsten, then. I want to thank you.”

I raised a brow. “Thank me for killing you?”

“For having faith that I could make a difference. Without Jovi...” She shook her head. “Without her, I don’t think any of this would be possible. She saw the way forward, even if the rest of us couldn’t. I never gave her the credit she deserved. She brought us all together, and now I place her in your care. Make sure she lives, Torsten. I have a plan. I think if she follows it, you should be able to beat them.”

“We can’t convince you to come with us?” I asked. I couldn’t help it. I knew what came after this painfully awkward confession.

Freya smiled sadly. “No. I am where I belong.” She paused and then breathed in deeply. “Good travels, my wolf.”

She closed her eyes then, shoulders curling forward as she braced for the thrust of the blade beneath her ribs. It would have been easy and satisfying in its own way, but I couldn’t force my arm to move. In the end, I let the blade tumble from my fingers and took her delicate face in my hands. She dared a peek at my face and let out a feathery little sigh when I kissed her temple.

“Goodbye, Freya.”

Then I twisted her face up at an unnatural angle, breaking her neck.

She was dead before she hit the ground.

Chapter Sixteen

Skarde

“Look out!” Fyrcat cried.

I ducked before the second word had fully left her mouth.

Since beginning the battle, we’d fallen into an easy pattern, covering each other’s flanks and reacting to threats as though we had one large, unwieldy body instead of two distinct forms. The binding Fyrcat had placed on me, once a burden, had now saved my life more times than I could count. I felt the tug of her will somewhere around my phantom muzzle and spun or dove in whatever direction it indicated without question. In this case, I narrowly avoided having my head cleaved off.

I moved out of range before coming back to my feet, eyeing my opponent. He was tall and broad-shouldered, though not as handsome as some of the other Aesir. He looked more haggard than usual, though no new lines had formed on his face. If he’d been human, I’d have expected a few spider-webbing grays to shoot through the darkness of his hair. His shield had been specially modified to account for his stump, something which he’d joked about incessantly when I’d been among Odin’s chosen.

Now the hall was empty, its tables and chairs shattered, its many Valkyries and Gods drawn away to deal with the threat we posed. The air smelled of piss, stale spirits, and blood, a mélange I’d never expected to experience again. My fight was supposed to be over, my reward assured. And yet, here I was, fighting against my former friends.

The gods were fickle indeed.

Tyr regarded me with something very like sorrow. I’d never known him to be maudlin, but he was a good man. It was the reason he’d lost his hand. He’d sacrificed many centuries ago, putting his hand into the jaws of the great wolf Fenrir to convince him that the Aesir meant no harm. But, of course, they had meant Fenrir harm, just as they’d always meant the rest of us harm. The gods had never been the bastions of nobility we’d always assumed they’d be, but Tyr had enough of a heart to at least feel guilty about the deception.

“I’m sorry about this, friend,” he said quietly. “I never wanted to face you as a foe.”

His voice still carried over the shouts of the other gods and the ringing power that issued forth from Jovi and Fyrcat. They were keeping the worst of Frigg’s magic off Torsten and I so we could carve our way to the ultimate goal. Odin. We had a message for the conniving old man, and we weren’t leaving until he’d heard us.

“Agreed,” I said, hefting my own blade. I had a slight advantage over Tyr, given the drawbacks his stump presented. “And you still don’t have to. Go. Find a place to settle in Midgard and live an honorable life. We’ll leave you in peace.”

Tyr shook his head. “You know I can’t do that.”

He lunged, our blades met and clashed with a terrible sound. The heat of Frigg’s magic wafted down from above, sending the beastly half of my mind running for cover. Fire felled everything, from the smallest field mouse to the mightiest of gods. It was a cleansing force, and a favorite during battles such as these. We danced apart a moment later, breathing hard, still circling. Thunder rolled ominously in the distance. Torsten had found his old enemy and returned to the site of their last battle. Jovi and Torsten had made their stand at the Bifrost.

“You are a god of justice,” I insisted. “You knew the truth about Freya, about Eir, and yet you allowed Odin to continue his ill-fated quest to destroy them both. Why?”

Something flickered far back in Tyr’s eyes. Guilt maybe. He bowed his head a fraction before muttering, “They’re family. You understand that, don’t you?”

I did. I’d gone to ridiculous lengths for my brother and his woman of late. If not for the suicidally determined pair, I wouldn’t have uncovered the truth, and gone pining after Eir for another thousand years, ignoring the miracle that had been hiding just under my nose. It didn’t mean that I could excuse what Tyr had allowed to happen.

“I’m sorry,” I said, echoing his sentiment.

I lunged for him.

Tyr lifted his shield to counter my blade, but it didn’t come. Instead, a pair of inches-long claws tore into the finely crafted barrier, tearing it in two as if it were made of soft tissue. One of his eyes appeared in the gap, wide with surprise and terror. If he’d had two hands, perhaps he could have stopped me. As it was, he couldn’t pull his stump from the ruined shield, or angle his blade correctly to strike at me. He had a stunned second to watch my face shift, my teeth elongate, and hear an ululating howl escape my throat before I tore his larynx loose.

***

Torsten

Sharp rainbow shards rained down onto our heads, plinking off like little hailstones. Every impact was accompanied by a tiny detonation, magic scarring and warping the panels of armor until they stuck in place, unwilling to retract into the bands on our wrists.

At the moment, I didn’t mind. If we made it back home, it was going to be a pain in the ass to get off. Jovi would probably have a few pithy one-liners to throw at me while I taught my Bronze-Age brother how to use the tools in my workshop in an effort to pry it off. Skarde would probably bitch about the price and not being able to salvage it.

Worse, Ogun would be absolutely useless in the repairs. Where’s a competent dwarf when you needed one?

Every part of me was sore, beaten like sheet metal by the oncoming god of thunder, or otherwise scarred by the effort it took not to travel by the Bifrost. Even with my advanced healing factor, there was a chance these wounds would never heal. If that was the price for being free of tyranny, I’d take it and be grateful. Besides, it would leave me with a matched set. Jovi would probably smack me for mapping her new scars with a sharpie, creating a little road map or constellation, but it would be worth it to hear the echoes of her exasperated laughter in my home again.

Jovi leaped down from above, light coalescing in her hands as she caught Thor’s lightning. It formed a small, whirling nimbus between her palms, danced along her skin in blue-white arcs, and made her hair stand on end, a blonde halo. She bared her teeth in a snarl of fury, raising her hands high before deflecting the strike toward the advancing All-Father. For just a moment, I could see why Skarde had been convinced she was his lost Valkyrie. Slap a pair of wings on her, and she was the picture of a warrior goddess, here to stomp all over some Aesir ass.

And now, technically, she was a goddess, one of the heirs to Freya’s legacy. The stubborn goddess had made the same fatal mistake as Odin in the end, deciding she had to be the one to see the war to its conclusion, instead of passing power onto those better able to use it. And now that she had, the plan was coming to fruition. The bodies of the Aesir and their meager protectors littered the ground beside what had remained of the Bifrost. Now it was nothing but ruin and blood.

Thor followed his thunder with a truly earth-shaking blow of his hammer. If I’d been human, the impact of the blow would have shattered every bone in my arm. As it was, numb tingles rioted along my skin, and I had to fall back to give myself time to recover. My shield was bent into a u-shape, and I ducked out from beneath it before Thor could drive another swing into my ruined shield.

Thor advanced, larger than life. He’d drawn himself up to his full height, dwarfing me by at least a foot and a half. There’s an adage that a good big man beats a good small man every time, and there’s truth to it. If we’d been fighting fair, Thor would have kicked my berserker ass and spotted me on the broken teeth of the Bifrost in a fit of irony. But we weren’t fighting fair. Jovi and I still had a trick up our sleeves and were just waiting for the right time to play it.

There was madness dancing in the depths of Thor’s blue-green eyes. It was hard to tell from behind the mass of ginger hair that made up his beard, but I thought he was smiling. After all, he had me at the edge of Asgard, shield broken, my sword lost to an endless abyss. One good kick, and he’d send me screaming into eternity.

“Any last words, Stormblood?” he rumbled, heaving his hammer into position.

I grinned, revealing a sharp, wolfish smile. “Yeah. Do you smell smoke?”

***

Ogun

“Oh gods, oh gods, oh gods...” I breathed. “I can’t believe we’re doing this...”

More than that, I couldn’t believe that Jovi had trusted me to handle the most sensitive part of the mission. If this failed, everything else had been a very drawn out and elaborate suicide attempt. They were counting on me to be able to handle this hardest part. That meant they were certifiable. No one had ever counted on me for anything, even Uncle B. I wasn’t good with a sword, couldn’t work a forge, couldn’t manage to do anything but annoy people. I was a menace, and yet somehow I’d ended up the lynchpin of this whole endeavor.

Merciful Gods.

“Stop whining,” Gunda snapped, securing a golden-haired goddess with a pair of dwarven-made chains. “Get to it already. If the others are killed because of your cowardice, I’ll carve out your liver and eat it in front of you before you die.”

Gunda was at least two feet taller than me and had borrowed her shoulders from an NFL linebacker. She also had the sense of humor of a particularly dim-witted slug. If she said she’d do it, I believed her.

I swallowed hard and tried to still my shaking hands. Jovi trusted me, so by the gods, I’d do my part. She’d saved my life countless times in the last two weeks, and she’d never asked me for anything in return. She’d never once called me annoying. She listed to me. She liked me. In the nine worlds, I’d never met anyone else like her, and I never would again.

Which is why you need to get yourself together, Ogun, I chided myself. It’s not that hard. Insanely stupid, yes, but not hard.

I let out a shaking breath and sloshed the trunk with the red plastic container we’d taken from Torsten’s cabin on our way back up the world tree. They’d marched me out of Alfo’s hall the second they returned, a plan already formed, and Jovi said I was central to it.

My friend was absolutely insane. And I was going along with her idea, which made me nuts too.

I’d never encountered gasoline before going to Midgard. There’d never been a need for it in Muspelheim, where burning was a matter of course. I only knew what the noxious stuff was because of the many television shows I’d watched in isolation. It smelled and tasted a lot worse than I’d expected. And of course, Jovi’s brutish boyfriend had teased me for sampling a little of the liquid. I’d just been curious to see if it tasted like the durian fruit, in that it was exceptionally smelly but sweet-tasting. Nope. It was just bad all around, with only one real use. To power fires and explosions.

Like the one we were about to set.

Idun leaned out of the circle of Gunda’s arms, straining against the chains that bound her. She was a little thing, slender and almost as petite as I was. She had a sweet, heart-shaped face, and wide hazel eyes. She watched Sigrun and I splash the smelly gasoline onto the trees with quiet horror.

“You can’t do this!” she half-shouted. “This orchard is thousands of years old! If you burn it, you doom the Aesir!”

“That’s the idea,” I said, and couldn’t stop my voice from shaking.

What? I never claimed to be a hero like Torsten or Skarde. I’m a failure of a dwarf who somehow lucked into a friend. And that friend was counting on me, so I’d do this for her, even if the prospect made me sick.

I slipped one last apple into the bulging knapsack I’d strapped to my back and drew out the box of matches Torsten had stuffed into my coat pocket. Then, with a swift prayer, I struck one to life against the side, held it aloft, and then tossed it underhand at the nearest tree.

Idun’s life-giving, magic-sustaining apple orchard went up in flames.

***

Jovi

Odin backhanded me.

Actually, that didn’t adequately describe exactly what the experience was like. It was more like being struck upside the head by a steel beam.

I was only vaguely aware of falling, sliding down a slope toward the abyss far below. Torsten caught me before I could roll to my death, gathering me against his chest in a protective gesture, putting my body between the oncoming All-Father and the God of Thunder. Bile scalded the back of my throat, and my vision spun, but I somehow managed to cling to consciousness by the tips of my fingers. Somewhere, far off, Fyrcat was still fighting, still dampening the worst of what the other gods were trying to do to us. If we made it out the other side of this, I needed to sign up for lessons. We may not have liked each other on a personal level, but I had to admit she was a damn good witch.

I struggled to my feet, determined to face Odin head-on. If our Hail Mary didn’t work, we were as good as dead, and I wasn’t going to go out on my knees. Torsten stood as well, hands braced on my waist to keep me upright. The edges of the All-Father’s terrifying countenance were blurry, but there was no mistaking the fury in his pale eyes.

“What have you done, you witch?” he hissed, power crackling from the tips of his fingers. I batted the strike away, but it cost me. My knees buckled, and only Torsten’s hands kept me from falling.

“Evened the playing field, father,” I choked out. “I’d conserve my magic if I were you. There won’t be an unlimited supply of it for long.”

“Explain!”

“This little battle was never about trying to kill you and yours. It was a distraction. None of you thought to protect Idun, did you? You assumed she was safe, far back in Asgard, away from all of us.”

Odin’s face paled as the reality of what we’d done sank in. “The orchards.”

“Burning,” I confirmed with a clipped nod. “And they’ll be completely gone if you don’t hurry from here and save everything you can. Even if you manage to save a few of the trees, you’re still not going to be at your peak strength, are you?”

Thunder rumbled ominously above us. I could see the calculation on their faces. They could still kill us, but at what cost? Would we be able to hold them off, weaken their magic to the point of near-uselessness before we died? What shape would that leave them in? They had enemies that would jump at the chance to finish them while they were weak. Which had been the point of Freya’s plan, of course. Even if we died and the last of the Vanir legacy went with us, the Aesir wouldn’t survive either. Without their magic and long lives, they were vulnerable to the giants and the dwarves. After all the wars they’d instigated, that was a death sentence. And if their enemies didn’t get them, the ravages of time would.

I saw the moment they came to a decision. Odin let out one last, frustrated howl and then turned on his heel, sprinting in the direction of the smoke. Thunder growled above us, a punctuation to the sound, and then Thor was gone as well, quickly disappearing into the pall of smoke drifting through Asgard. I didn’t relax until Torsten began laughing.

***

In the end, we ended up sprawled inches away from the ruined bits of the Bifrost, giggling like fools. Torsten managed to signal Ogun with one of his walkie-talkies, telling his team to bug out before Odin dropped in.

“We did it,” I wheezed. “We actually did it.”

He crushed me to his chest. “We did. It’s over.”

“For now,” I said. “They’ll salvage some of their power.”

“Yes,” he agreed. “But so did we. This time, they’re not the only ones with power. This time, the New Vanir will be ready and have enough magic to anticipate their tricks.”

I turned in his arms and gave him a scorching kiss. “Be my consort,” I whispered. “I don’t want to face eternity without you.”

“Anything for my goddess,” he replied.

Epilogue

Jovi

Years later…

Torsten’s arms snaked around my waist, one of his calloused palms coming to settle over the gentle swell of my stomach.

It was barely noticeable if you were looking at me head-on, but it wasn’t going to stay that way for very much longer. After what I’d seen Fyrcat go through with Skarde’s huge twins, I wasn’t looking forward to the latter half of the pregnancy. The boys had come as something of a surprise for the millennia-old witch. Centuries of cavorting, and no children, and yet one roll in the hay with a grumpy wolf had done the trick.

Freya had expressed the importance of carrying on the line so that her power wouldn’t live and die with us. Still, it had taken Torsten the better part of two years to convince me to take a chance on kids. The assassination attempts had been an almost daily occurrence in the beginning and had only just begun to slow down. I didn’t want to risk casting while our daughter was still in the womb. There was no telling what exposure to magical violence would do to her.

“Hello there, my goddess,” Torsten said, planting a ticklish kiss in the hollow beneath my ear. I shivered, nearly dropping the trowel I’d been holding. “How are you this evening?”

“In dire need of a shower,” I said, setting the trowel aside before stripping off my gloves. “I’ve been working on the garden all day.”

“You could let Skarde and Fyrcat handle it, you know,” he said, half-turning me to face him.

Something in the set of my shoulders relaxed when I got a good look at him. I hated it when he had to leave to get supplies from Marshall Heights. It was usually an all-day affair, and some pregnancy-afflicted part of my brain was certain he’d be killed while he was out. As if it was that easy nowadays. I’d spelled his clothes, truck, and our home within an inch of their lives in an effort to give us a heads-up when attacks were on the way.

A child’s shriek split the evening air, and we both craned our necks in time to see Erik streak past, Ragnor in hot pursuit. He nimbly sidestepped a dart from his brother’s Nerf gun before responding in time. Skarde watched on in a sort of paternal approval. Gods knew that if we allowed it, he’d probably give them real weapons to play with. The man had odd ideas about how to train his little warriors.

“I think they have their hands full,” I answered on a laugh as I turned to face my husband. “And honestly, it’s not that big a deal. The hard part was the tilling, and you already did that. I’m just shoveling dirt around, planting Fyrcat’s herbs in an effort to hide our little orchard.”

If it could even be called that. Our ‘orchard’ was only three rows across and three trees deep, nine total. They were little saplings now, and still six years away from bearing Idun’s golden apples. Sigrun and Ogun had only been able to uproot so many before burning the rest. We were lucky they’d survived at all. Now we were in roughly the same position as the Aesir. Cultivating our way to immortality, one apple at a time, though we had advantages they lacked.

We hadn’t been holding off the ravages of time with every bite. They were wasting away, rationing what they’d held back for emergencies such as this one. Fyrcat, Skarde, Torsten, and I could weather the seasons without dwindling. We were only going to gain in strength, while they had to conserve their energy. We also didn’t have to spread the apples among dozens of people. All in all, I felt pretty good about our odds if they came for us now.

In another thousand years... well, that was a different story. With luck and good planning, we’d remain a steady opposing force against the Aesir’s tyranny. They were hemorrhaging berserker loyalty by the year. Soon we’d have an army to match theirs as well.

Torsten watched the boys play with a half-smile, hand curling possessively over my stomach. Our daughter kicked petulantly at the offending hand.

“Think she’s going to be able to keep up with those two terrors?” he asked.

I smirked. “With the namesake Eir? She won’t just keep up. She’ll show them who’s boss.”

Torsten turned my head gently and kissed me full on my mouth. The resulting flutter in my stomach had nothing to do with Eir’s infant aerobics routine.

“She’s your daughter,” he answered. “I don’t see how she can do anything less. Now, why don’t I help you wash the dirt off?”

Torsten roared with laughter at the eager sound that escaped me. He swept me into his arms and carried me up the hill toward the cabin, ignoring good-natured jeers from his brother as we crossed the threshold. Then he pried my boots off, letting them drop to the entryway floor. They bounced off the mat and skittered into a corner, lost to sight, trailing dirt the whole way.

I couldn’t bring myself to care.

I was exactly where I’d always wanted to be—in Torsten’s arms, carrying his baby, taking on the world together. Every other problem was secondary.

We’d face the worst and kick its ass.

Just like we always had.

The End

This concludes the Wolves of Valhalla trilogy. We hope you enjoyed it!

~~~~~

Turn the page to begin The Pack Trilogy!

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WEREWOLF MOON

A Pack Trilogy Book 1

by

Chanel Smith

Werewolf Moon

Published by Chanel Smith

Copyright © 2015 by Chanel Smith

All rights reserved.

Ebook Edition, License Notes

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

Werewolf Moon

Frumuseţea este superbă, cu inteligenta divina.

Beauty is superb, Intelligence divine.

—A Romani saying

Part One

In 1189, Eleanor of Aquitaine was quite the beauty with her unusual, nearly-waist-length blaze red hair. Her younger sister Petronilla, known as Petra to those who loved her, rivaled her in beauty, but far overcame her mentally. It was Petra who insisted that Eleanor marry the far-too-young Duke Henry. Eleanor balked at the thought: at thirty, she wasn’t eager to take on a nineteen year old fool of a husband and her enthusiasm was markedly lacking as she walked down the long aisle in her superb wedding dress.

Petra smiled at the sight, as did so many others at the ceremony, but for Petra the smile had nothing to do with the wedding and everything to do with the Duke’s future and by extension Eleanor’s security. Eleanor’s temperament was far too modern for the times but her sense of entitlement seemed to permit every indulgence without consequence. Any affable gentleman that caught Eleanor’s eye posed as a new distraction; she did everything in her power to bed him. Her conduct was that of a libertine, chasing every beauty without conscience. Many disapproved of this, but no one could truly condemn a Queen and Henry was slated to become the next King of France.

After the ceremony, Petra accompanied her beloved sister to the French court where there gathered all of the wealthiest houses of Paris. The French court had a wild reputation of indulgence: parties, beautiful people and decadent foods. The court proved to live up to its reputation, it dazzled Petra. The Ladies-in-waiting and the Noblemen of the Court were more than she could have imagined. Moreover, the very-married Count Raoul I of Vermandois requested her dance at the party in Eleanor’s honor. From that first night, that first dance, Petronilla was lost to him.

Raoul was charming, and gave all of his attentions to the Queen’s elegant younger sister. He was French and naturally, had allure down to a fine art. Petra fell fast for the smooth Frenchman with his dark curly hair which fell about his shoulders in ringlets. Even his beard consisted of those compelling dark ringlets. And his eyes—oh, those eyes. Petra shivered at the thought of his intense gaze that seemed to look past her beauty straight into her soul as no man had ever dared.

She had to be with Raoul, permanently and as soon as possible. As Petra had always appeared to be the ‘good’ sister, the quiet, obedient one; nobody expected what followed.

Raoul repudiated his wife and promptly requested the hand of an ecstatic Petra. She had no choice but to accept. They were hastily married and just as hastily excommunicated by the Pope.

Eleanor gathered every powerful ally she knew to get her beloved sister back into the good grace of the church. Pope Innocent II promised to lift the excommunication, but recanted at the last moment in 1143. The pope’s action infuriated those who had assisted in the Queen’s petition to the Pope, including Louis VII, famed for burning Vitry-le-François to the ground.

But fortunately Petra and Raoul did not have to wait long, Pope Innocent II died soon thereafter and his successor Pope Celestine lifted their excommunication. It was 1144 and finally Petra could live the life she so deserved with the man of her dreams.

She could hold her head high as they entered the ballroom, Petra proudly propped on Raoul’s outstretched arm. Life simply couldn’t be any better. Short of an act of God, nothing could distract her from this bliss: Petra relaxed; enough even to learn to really dance, something Raoul had begged her to do for so long.

It wasn’t an Act of God that disrupted Petra’s perfect life. Quite the opposite of godly in fact; her nemesis came in the form of a short, repulsive Countess with a face that one expected to bark, but she was an heiress with more coinage than the Vatican’s coffers.

Countess Arabella DeLanghi was a new addition to court. She had lived deep in the country with her much older husband, who had succumbed to pneumonia only a year prior. The longest year of her life, as Arabella had told her preferred lady’s maid. As soon as was appropriate she came out of mourning and deserted her vast country estate castle to experience the incomparable splendor of the royal castle.

She instantly gained the attention of the Noblemen and was the topic of much talk with the Queen’s ladies. It certainly wasn’t because of her looks. Her vicious wit and her seemingly bottomless purses made up for what she lacked in beauty. For Arabella the only good joke was at the expense of another, her wealth and recent freedom had given her opportunity to have the Court’s favor—and a part of her abused her recent position to make up for all the thinly-veiled jokes made at her own expense over the years. Petra enjoyed a good sense of humor, but never mockingly.

Arabella didn’t factor into Petra’s world right way. There was something about her face which, if one added a droopy neck and ears could pass for that of a bulldog. But soon enough the two women had more in common than either would have believed possible. Both were hopelessly attracted to his black ringlets and soulful eyes.

Raoul was quite in love with his beautiful and dutiful wife, but Raoul was nothing if not pragmatic. Petra was but the sister of a Queen and as such, and as a woman, had little opportunity to increase their estate. The Bulldog, as Raoul privately named Arabella, was on the other hand extremely wealthy; she owned half of the lands in France. To Raoul who had been born with title that could only take him as far as Court, a castle in need of repair, and a father who continually gambled away his lacking inheritance; the Bulldog had an instant appeal that Petra could never hope to match.

They met, and the attraction was instant and mutual: her to his ringlets and charm, him to her estate. That he was already married never entered Arabella’s mind; another commonality between the ladies of Raoul. Some ten years later she’d have regrets on her conduct. But not now, now, Raoul clouded her better judgment.

The couple were scrupulously careful for more than a year, meeting in out-of-the-way dens that no-one would ever suspect. Certainly Petra had no idea that the eyes she fell in love with were the same eyes that now looked upon another.

After thirteen months the couple’s meetings grew far less clandestine. Raoul realized he had nothing to lose and everything to gain. And Petra began to hear whispers of her husband’s duplicity. She found them difficult to believe. The ladies of the Queen’s court were jealous of her happiness and she knew many Noblemen that would stop at nothing to lure her away from Raoul’s arms. How could it be otherwise, a woman of so little grace could curdle a bottle of milk?

But presently even Petra could no longer lie to herself. The adulterous couple became more public in their trysts. This felt worse than the excommunication for Petra; this was brand new for a woman of such beauty and rank. She had to face the talk of the Court alone. She, whom comforted others in losing their husbands to younger, wealthier women. She never thought it could happen to her. The agony was startlingly unbelievable, and Petra had no idea how to assuage it.

In 1152 she finally allowed him to annul their marriage on the basis that he was still married to his first wife who had recently died leaving him free to marry Arabella. She immediately fled Court with her beautiful head hung low in shame and disappointment. And this is where known history diverges from reality. Petra moved to her sister’s country estate and faded from society. Towards the end of the year she made the decision to travel back to her motherland. On her voyage back to England she contracted a fever and died before port was ever reached.

This is the story the history books tell. But the Captain’s log tells another story. His account does not show that Petra was aboard the ship when it docked on English soil; post mortem or otherwise.

And she wasn’t. The ship had made a brief stop in one of the Channel Islands at the behest of the Queen, and when it left for England, it did so without Petra.

Petra disembarked from the small dinghy that ferried her to shore to feel solid rock under her feet. She felt instant relief as she took in the sights before her. The island had a mysterious beauty and here no one but her knew her past. This freedom was just what was needed after the gossip of court, and the awful mortification of being lost; a husband who’d torn her heart from her chest and left her for dead.

That she’d been blind to his nature simply astounded Petra, she had always prided herself on her wit and intelligence. Never in her life had she made such a drastic miscalculation and it ate at her like a mouse at a chunk of cheese.

The Captain, who generously took her ashore, accompanied her to an intimate and beautiful inn that was nestled into the South facing cliff of the island. This is where he left her. So, alone she requested the innkeeper reserve her room ad infinitum.

That night she couldn’t sleep and went for a long walk along the cliffs. It was a bright night; the moon was full. Petra stopped after a mile and paused captivated by the moon’s reflection on the sea; shining out as if creating a moonlit path to the edge of the world.

What possible good was her life now? She’d dreamed of a humble life. Summers in the country so Raoul could enjoy the hunt, winters at court with her sister and the newly crowned King. She would be mother soon enough and birth his male heir. After a year or two, a girl to bring life and beauty to their home. She’d even written of her dream life in her journal. It made the black days of their excommunication tolerable. She had a chance to live part of that life she dreamed of, once they’d been permitted to return to Court and into the grace of the church she was in raptures! But then there was Arabella and her pocketbook to contend with.

And now there was nothing but blank pages and no way to fill them. She’d not have another husband that much was sure. Her life was ruined she saw that clearly now as if the moon’s reflection set a path, clarifying her thoughts. It was just her, the moon and the sea; the waves pounding against the beach far below.

If she chose to stay in France, her life at most would consist of sitting back and watching the lives of those she loved flourish. Her beautiful sister: Queen, wife and mother. Raoul her charming ex-lover, his new wife, the children they would raise on their beautiful estate. Even her lady’s maid could look forward to more than she. Such a thought was beyond awful; intolerable. Petra had always been a power behind her older sister, her constant advisor; the name that propelled those around her into good favor at Court. But she’d always known her own life was as important and Raoul destroyed that hope and her reputation. The needs of her sister were not enough to hold her in France.

As Petra stared consumed by despair, out over the English Channel she heard a distant howl. It startled her for a moment but she cared not if wolf or beast came for her. Her dark thoughts continued, what did it matter now.

Her thoughts were bleak and Petra saw but one recourse. It would be quick and easy: no one she knew would find out soon, and if they did she would not be present for any of the consequences. She had been excommunicated once already and her soul was, despite the Pope’s decision, more than likely doomed to a fiery afterlife for her sins of this life. She made up her mind; she took the few steps that lay between her and the edge of the cliff. Brightly lit, the cliff fell to the sea at such an angle that no living creature could walk or climb down. She lifted her head proudly, closed her eyes, and took one large final step forward.

Instead of air rushing past as she plummeted, something large hit Petra with the force of a running horse. She was knocked twenty feet to the right and landed head-first against an oak tree.

As her head spun and rang from the force of the blow, Petra wondered what on earth had happened. Something had hit her from a dead run, that was for sure. But what?

As her head slowly cleared she became aware of something panting heavily nearby. Opening her eyes was difficult, the world swam at each attempt but finally she succeeded and found herself looking into exquisite gold eyes.

Her own eyes widened with shock when she realized what stared at her with those eyes; quite the largest wolf she’d ever seen. There was no doubt what had knocked her back to safety. She felt a medley of emotions; strangely curiosity was one of them.

Petra’s thoughts made her nauseous, how could this reality be possible. Wolves didn’t have the intelligence to observe a woman’s despair; to save a human’s life. Did they?

“Not your normal wolf, no,” a voice that was not her own spoke to her clearly in her mind. She had no time to question what she heard; the mammoth golden-eyed beast lunged at her as rapidly as a snake sunk its sharp teeth into her arm.

That was enough for Petra to give up. No more questions, no more despair, no more hope. She welcomed the darkness that engulfed her.

When Petra woke she found herself alone in unfamiliar surroundings, to comforts that were not offered to her at the Inn the Captain left her at the previous night. The over-sized bed embraced her with the help of the cotton sheets and feather-down pillows. From where she lay she could see the fisherman’s bay. The open window was positioned in such a way that when she looked through it from the bed it felt like she was still outside standing on the cliff’s edge, the sea stretched out in front of her; it seemed the sea was the only constant in her new reality: its rhythmic pounding; the salty-sea air you could taste and smell; the strong northern winds.

Slowly the events of the previous night came back to her. She had attempted to end her life! But something had knocked her from her path and her feet to rescue her. She was sure that something was a wolf; with golden eyes deeper and more inviting than even those of her Raoul. She remembered the wolf biting into her forearm, but what struck her most what that before the wolf bit her it spoke to her, with a voice from within her head that was not her own.

“Nothing made sense,” she thought. Her eyes searched the room for a chamber pot. She left the safety of the bed and rose to her feet to retrieve it and relieved herself.

Breakfast arrived shortly thereafter; delivered by a young girl who smiled widely but said nothing. She took several covered plates off a tray, one by one and set them on a table beneath the window. These acts of gracious hospitality made Petra feel a little less anxious in these unknown surroundings—

An unmistakable metallic aroma rose up from beneath the cloche, but she could not pair the scent with a meal she was familiar with. For a moment she squinched her eyes tightly shut, afraid of what she’d see. She opened them at the same time as she lifted the cover from the first plate; she was a lot of things, but coward wasn’t one of them.

“Goodness! Was that a… it couldn’t be,” she thought as she caught a glimpse of her breakfast.

It was a large meat steak: bloody and raw. Her eyes darted around immediately in search of a knife and fork. This seeming reflex shocked her more than the sum of all the events she had recently experienced. Her body was reacting with a base craving to the sight and smell of the fresh bloody steak. Her stomach felt as though it had climbed up into her throat and was threatening to leap out of her mouth to grab the meat, and return.

As if in a dream she watched herself reach out and pick up the bloody steak, without utensils, and delivered it to the body that—She didn’t have the chance to finish that thought as abruptly the plate was empty but for a small pool of fresh blood.

She gagged, but then realized how wonderful she felt, as if she’d slept for a solid week, eaten a large meal and was now in a state of rest.

“Yes, there was nothing comparable to feeling like this,” Petra thought. Like nothing would ever feel so wonderful again.

There she was wrong, she’d learn that when the moon rose that very night. But that wouldn’t happen for hours: first she must meet her hosts, a pair of women who’d lived together for many years, they told Petra as she emerged from her room.

Charissa was the eldest, and the one who had been shocked to find a woman leaping from the cliff but at one hundred yards from their cottage, was her mate Erigny who spoke with a laugh.

According to the tiny blonde Erigny, Petra was no longer fully woman. Once a month she’d turn into a wolf and stay in that form for several days. She wasn’t limited to change at the rising of the full moon, Erigny assured her; at any other time she could change at will. She was also informed that as a Werewolf, there was no longer a time limit on Petra’s life. Unless she allowed herself to be killed, she could live as long as she desired.

It didn’t sound bad to Petra, who didn’t quite believe the tale. Eternal life? Enough funds gathered throughout the years so that the women could live as they liked or not? Highly unlikely, but worth a shot. Petra had never backed away from anything in her life and she wasn’t about to start now. As such when the two ladies asked her to disrobe, she obediently obliged, stripping naked and following them to join the rest of the wolf pack who went outside to meet the moon as she rose. Having no idea what to expect, Petra sat on her rump and watched as the others lay prone and curled onto their sides.

Then the moon came into view at the edge of the horizon, and Petra felt a strange pull, a yearning for something she didn’t comprehend. Suddenly she fell onto her side with a heavy thump. A chorus of short barks nearby sounded suspiciously like laughter. She attempted to sit back up again, but again rolled sideways as her long tail was directly beneath her.

“Wait just a moment. Her what was where?”

Petra froze where she was and took stock as she stretched.

“Four legs: check.

“Extremely sensitive ears: check.

“A long nose which picked up every scent for miles? Check.

“The knowledge that life had permanently changed; was now eternal and could be enjoyed with a freedom that no woman of this time has ever had? Check.”

It took her several tries, but Petra succeeded in standing on all four feet without pitching forward or sideways. Once she was up, she began to walk until another wolf shot past her like a star in the night. Her heart leaped. That certainly looked like fun! With one enormous bound, she landed next to the other wolf and then promptly broke into a smooth run herself. Tantalizing scents arose and faded as the three wolves shot through dense forest, swerving around trees and leaping logs with abandon. Once Petra skidded to a stop in a clearing, drawn by the enormous round moon just above the trees. She threw her head back and howled instinctively at length.

Almost at once there was a response: the hair on Petra’s back rose with bliss. She wasn’t alone, and never would be again. She howled for a final time that night and set off running once again, wild and free.

Born in Wallachia, one of the principalities that would become Romania, Michael Raya Pătraşcu lived with his mother and father and two other entire families in a tiny three-room house deep in the forest. His father made a meager wage collecting nuts and selling them: by eighteen, Michael was determined to leave the forest and make something of himself. He’d heard talk about Castle Bathory, some eighty kilometers from his home. Apparently a beautiful young Countess was married to the Count of Bathory who was more than twice her age. She had a reputation for enjoying the company of young warriors. Just what Michael aspired to be, coincidently.

Perhaps the Count would train Michael to be in his personal army. He was big enough; a rare six feet and four inches tall and his dad had trained him in arms as best he could with his limited knowledge and experience. Yes, Castle Bathory held the key to Michael’s future. On his eighteenth birthday, Michael kissed his mom and set off on the long trek.

Having lived in the woods all of his short life, Michael was unprepared for some the sights en route to the castle. He passed through several villages where he saw people so unbelievably poor that they resembled walking skeletons. How could such things be, when on the other side of the same street men in uniforms carried women in outrageously rich clothing along at a trot? And if the small group ever passed the paupers, mostly there was no reaction whatsoever from the wealthy parties. Occasionally someone would throw part of what they were eating at one of the skeletons, but that was the only interaction Michael noticed.

Even the dogs looked more healthy than those poor souls.

As Michael hastily left a village behind for the open road, he was forming opinions that would be with him all of his life—a life that would prove to be a lot longer than he or his family could ever have imagined.

Finally Michael arrived at Castle Bathory, but felt too filthy to present himself. He needed a bath at the very least. Having passed a stream, he turned around and went back.

Somewhat cleaner but still in the same worn clothing he’d had for years, Michael passed through the castle gate and was immediately challenged.

“Name!”

“Occupation!”

“Reason for visiting Bathory!”

Evidently his answers weren’t pleasing, as the gate-keeper held his palm out in the universal ‘stop’ movement: “Denied! Next.”

Michael dropped his head and moved back to watch how others got through. It was easy enough, he learned: offer enough money and you were in.

People dressed worse than he was offered coins and were passed through, to Michael’s distress. How was he ever supposed to make his own way if he couldn’t get his foot in the door?

In despair, he shook his head and dropped it into his large hands.

“You, there. What’s your name?” A female voice spoke.

Michael pulled his head upright and there she was: the most beautiful creature he’d ever seen. Ever even imagined. She had long, pale hair freshly brushed. A long dress with familiar symbols painted down one side. At one time he’d had to memorize those symbols but it had been years ago. He doubted if he could—

“Read me the first three of these, Michael,” the woman demanded in her light, wealthy sounding voice.

Michael gulped in absolute panic. Obediently he stared at the top of the line of symbols, and the first one suddenly made sense: it looked like a pair of ears glued together. Hearing. That’s what it meant. The second one, though—try as he might, all Michael saw there were, well, nothing he’d tell a lady about. Not that he was right! He had no recollection of Dad ever teaching him about a symbol that meant THAT. The third one was once again obvious. A fist held in the air: off to war.

Great. He had one and three but the second one eluded him. Before he could lose his courage, he blurted that out to the woman. To his surprise, she demanded to know what he thought that second symbol meant.

“Nothing I’d ever tell a, uh, lady,” the young man stammered.

The blonde woman slowly grinned. “Whoever said I was a lady? Go on, give it a guess.”

Michael felt an incredible heat rising in his cheeks as he stared at that second symbol in sheer desperation.

“Not a penis,” he mumbled as he tried to focus harder. “Not a damn penis. NOT a pen—”

“That’s precisely what it is,” the light voice broke into his thoughts. “It’s the symbol for starting a family.”

“Makes sense,” Michael mumbled. “Should have guessed that.”

“You’re not the best reader, but maybe you’re strong and fast? Make a good warrior?” the woman said with a smile.

Michael brightened. “Yes Doamnă. That’s just why I came. I can hit anything at 200 stânjen with a bow and arrow, and at half that with a spear. Oh and I can climb a tree faster than anybody I know.”

It was the woman’s turn to choke back a laugh.

“Know what? I believe I’d like a demo of that last talent.” She looked around and pointed at a wide white oak tree. “Can you climb that one?”

Michael’s eyes followed her gaze. White oaks had luxurious, thick leaves covering branches that looked deceptively wide and strong. From past experience, Michael knew that many branches started out thick, then swiftly narrowed to a width that wouldn’t support a fat raccoon. Yet, this was a challenge.

“Yes, doamnă!”

“Right, then. One, two, three. GO!”

Michael took off at a dead run. As he reached the oak, his superior height allowed him to make a massive leap upward where he just caught a branch no other man could have reached without climbing to it. From that branch, he climbed rapidly upward and reached the top in seconds to open delight and clapping from the woman below. Instantly he headed back down, aware that the faster he went, the less pressure he’d apply to these thin branches.

“You’ll do, Michael. You’ll do!”

And that is how Michael found himself being regularly beaten black and blue by a squadron of lads a year ahead of him in training. However, that meant nothing to Michael considering what else he was learning: the finer points of that second symbol, to his own disbelief.

The lady turned out to be the Countess Bathory herself! After Michael had trained for two weeks, she met him as he walked to a nearby lake for a bath.

“Bet that water is cold this time of year,” she remarked.

“Yes, doamnă Bathory,” he responded nervously.

“Don’t call me that! My name is Liz,” she told him. “Come on. I know where there’s a much warmer place to bathe.”

She’d led him to a remote castle entry point, then down so many halls that he’d been instantly lost. He was so busy studying his surroundings that it didn’t matter.

The statues alone were so different from anything he’d imagined in such a castle. Naked people, mostly. Why have statues of something you see all the time? Rich people were a mystery, he concluded.

He came to a room with an enormous tub of water being heated by a series of small fires, each tended by a child. His mouth dropped. Who in the world was rich enough to live like this! All of that work: the wood brought in, fires started, water hauled—just so rich people could scrub their arses. He learned quickly enough that there were other uses for heated water. Elizabet asked him to step up on the platform and look into the tub as there was, “Something interesting he should see.”

Dutifully he’d climbed the ladder and arrived next to her. Looking down into the mist coming off the heated water, he said, “I can’t see a thing.”

Next thing he knew, she gave him a massive shove and he landed butt first into truly hot water. She roared with laughter.

“See well enough now?” she asked as she’d dropped her robe and stepped in after him, stark naked.

For the first time in his life, Michael was truly speechless—a state he was to become familiar with during his time in Bathory Castle.

They romped for hours. He learned what a mouth on his cock felt like (sheer heaven,) and what a twat tasted like (not bad, but nothing like heaven.) He enjoyed his first lengthy kiss and thought he’d die from the pleasure of it, and finally she allowed him to penetrate her.

Then he knew he’d die from the pleasure of it.

He learned through his own growing exhaustion that Countess Elizabet Bathory was just getting started. Michael went from being a virgin to experiencing three rapid orgasms within a few short hours; Michael didn’t know whether he was coming or going.

Once he saw what Elizabet kept in a nearby box, he thought he might be going— anywhere, as long as it was away from what lay inside.

“Michael, I feel like playing with a toy,” she began.

“I can barely keep my eyes open,” he mumbled. In all honesty he held his eyes tightly close through both exhaustion and fear; in hopes he could avoid what was coming next. He wasn’t at all sure he could live through another orgasm. His heart pounded nearly out of his chest while the Countess clawed hell out of his back. This sex business—there was more to it than met the eye, at least with royalty. He hoped that maybe normal people fucked like horses and cows: a straight-up bang and done.

“Oh this will wake you up, I promise,” she said and he heard a hint of laughter behind it.

In time he’d learn to dread that not-quite-a-laugh.

“Reach over and hand me that box, will you?” she asked, pointing at a burnished wood box on a bench near his left hand.

He did as requested, and the weight of the thing actually did wake him a bit out of sheer curiosity. However, then she reached in and withdrew a familiar yet bizarre item and his curiosity vanished as if it had never existed. The sight of the object itself filled him instead with an undefined dread. It was brown and gnarled; about the size of a fennel root, but not that well proportioned. He had no idea what kind of a plant it was, or what it could be used for. He only knew that it so closely resembled a well known poisonous root: mandrake. But why would Elizabet have mandrake root in her rooms?

She held it out to him, and now he saw that the plant in her delicate white hand, though it resembled the poison, wasn’t mandrake at all. It was shriveled and had several thin, stringy tendrils hanging from it.

“What is it, Liz?”

She’d obviously seen the question on his face, “Wondering what such a thing is used for, are you?”

“Yes doa- uh, Liz,” he managed to respond. Once again he heard that little non-laugh and he was beginning to comprehend that he didn’t want to hear it.

“Come to me and lay in my lap,” she commanded.

He did as requested, looking up at her with bewildered blue eyes. Again she did that non-laugh, “Open your mouth, you idiot.”

Again he followed her instruction; he felt he had little other choice. Immediately he felt more naked than he ever had before and worse was to come.

She took a small paring knife from the table beside her, and for the life of him couldn’t figure out what on earth she was doing that required a knife. Maybe it was a rich person’s ritual?

In the next second he felt something cold and hard poking at his lips, he opened his mouth, and then...

“CHRISTOS!” he shrieked as he bit down on the piece of bitter herb in his mouth. He’d never tasted anything like that nor even known it existed.

“Shut up you fool,” she hissed like an adder from the woods.

“Oh dear God. What is it? It tastes horrible,” he cried frantically and spat onto the ground until the awful taste was gone.

“It’s a Chinese potion called ginseng. It’s to invigorate you and awaken the senses,” Elizabet chided. She paused, taking in his ridiculous reaction. Then her expression changed rapidly. “Get the hell out. You might have awakened the Count, you fool. Get your clothes and go.”

When he didn’t move with shock, she shrieked, “NOW! Go!”

Michael was out of that water and gone like a shot. He was still running when he hit the woods, still stark naked with his clothes over his shoulders.

“Not your night tonight,” a voice came out of the darkness. “Poor bastard. Let me help you.”

It was one of the guys he’d been training with, and for the first time they weren’t laughing at him.

Fredo, the kid who’d spoken, helped Michael to lay on his side on his pallet. No one was snoring or farting, a sign that all the guys were awake. Michael was horrified that they probably all knew exactly what he’d undergone.

“Yeah, a few of us have been there,” Fredo said as if he’d heard Michael’s thoughts. “Looks like you’re the lucky favorite for a while,” he paused. “Rest of us will do what we can to help.”

Michael forced himself to remain at the castle for years, so he might complete his training. By then, he was running the regiment, a development that didn’t amaze anyone. He was still seeing the Countess on a regular basis. He’d managed to establish boundaries such as anything involving the ingesting of mind or body altering substances was out of bounds; much to the Countess’s disappointment.

To make up for it, he’d invented several games which were brand new to the jaded Countess.

“Elizabet, can you get two servants up here? I have an idea for a really fun game,” he began.

Puzzled, she rang for two women as he’d asked. He refused to say anything until they arrived, although he did also request a pair of sharp needles. He couldn’t help but notice Elizabet’s pupils widen at hearing needles. Yes, this would work: it would take her attention off herbs and drugs. It had to. And he’d make sure the girls were well-compensated.

The two kitchen girls appeared, along with the two needles; the game was ready.

Michael explained, “Now this is easy. Each of us pokes a needle into the girl we think can withstand pain for the longest time. Last girl standing is the winner!”

Elizabet’s face lit up like an early sunrise.

“Michael, you’re a genius. I get to pick first. Ladies first,” she winked at him seductively, she was turned on by his control of her, of understanding her, manipulating her, “…and I pick...” she stared at both girls. Michael could see wheels turning in her mind. Finally she spoke again, “I pick the brown-haired girl. Brunettes have thicker skin than blondes, you know,” she giggled a little with that non-laugh Michael had come to fear and hate.

Michael gave both girls a look of pure lament when the countess’s face was turned away, but there was nothing he could do but go along.

“On the count of three,” Elizabet commanded, excitement causing her voice to shake, “One, two, three!”

There was complete silence for a moment, then a muffled groan and a crash that seemed to happen at the exact same moment.

“You fool!” the Countess raged at the girl she’d been poking.

“You got your shitty peasant blood all over my arm. Why, I should—” her voice suddenly cut off, and Michael saw that she was staring at her own arm with intense fascination.

“My god, look at the skin where that young bitch bled on it. Look, Michael—it’s a miracle.”

“You,” she said to the terrified young girl, “How old are you?”

“Sixteen, doamnă,” the girl stuttered.

“You a virgin, per chance?” Elizabet said.

“Y-y-yes, of course,” the girl responded, “Im not yet married.”

“That’s the answer to aging!” Elizabet screamed, bits of saliva flying from her lips, eyes gleaming.

“Look at my arm closely! Wherever her blood hit my skin has become pure, beautiful, youthful!” She grinned widely, “Michael, I’m going to be young forever. You mark my words.”

Indeed Michael never forgot that moment, as it was the spark that inspired a chain of atrocities that would become synonymous with the name ‘Elizabet Bathory’ until the end of time.

He witnessed the Countess’ descent into madness. At first she’d use only drops of blood, but soon her blood thirst began to rise. After several years, she was bleeding girls to death, one per day. Michael’s training was almost complete five years later, and by then Elizabet demanded two girls every few hours... Michael’s training finally ended; he had reached his mental breaking point at the same moment. With nary a glance over his shoulder, the young warrior left Castle Bathory forever.

Michael heard rumor of a major conflict in Transylvania and headed in that direction. He crossed Walachia and Moldavia to reach the state. There were sights along the way left him shaken to his core. He had lived like a veritable king while these people had been dying, slowly from of extreme poverty. This was another lesson that would stay with him forever.

The Turks seemed unstoppable in their numbers when Michael caught his first sight of their army spread across the valley. The only way to stop them was to unite: Walachia, Moldavia and Transylvania must become one. It was a feat that had never been conceived, much less realized—yet ‘Michael Raya the Brave’ would accomplish it.

The unification lasted six brief months, a single Romanian Prince ruled over all Romania for the first time. Unfortunately, one short month after Michael’s unbelievable triumph, Basta had him executed. The name ‘Michael the Brave’, however, would resound throughout history as the ‘Hero of Romania’.

The stories of both Michael the Brave and Elizabet Bathory are well known. What was never known was that Michael Pătraşcu was not then executed by Basta, as legend would have us believe. Instead, must like Petra’s story he made the choice to disappear from the world he knew. He bribed his executioner, asking him to take him deep into the forest so he might return to life he born to. He’d had enough of castles. He changed his name, became Raya, his middle name; shaved his head and discarded his armor. The change was complete. No one would know he was once everything to do with ‘Michael the Brave’.

As Raya he hunted and fished with friends he knew from his happy youth. He was content with his new life of the old. But then came unwelcome news; Elizabet Bathory had been arrested and was destined for death. As disgusted as he’d been by her, she was his first love and he couldn’t sit in the woods whilst she was executed.

He back to the cache, deep in a cave to recover the weapons he left behind him to start his new life. And so began the long trip back to Bathory where Elizabet had been locked in the tower of her own castle.

The years had not been kind to her, in spite of her bloodthirsty skin regimen. But his heart still skipped at the sight of her wide set brown eyes and pale blond hair. He stayed with her a while to do what he could to brighten her immediate mood. They were served a paltry meal of boiled meat and bread that night. Afterward, Raya wanted to take Elizabet for a walk but learned she couldn’t leave her prison.

“Sorry, I shouldn’t have suggested it,” he said as the meal was cleared away.

“How were you to know?” Elizabet asked, and something in those deceptively soft brown eyes sparkled for a moment.

In those eyes Raya saw the woman who had infatuated him years earlier; it was as if the years simply melted away. He stood, walked to her side where she sat at a small table, grabbed her shoulders gently and pulled her to her feet to face him. Abruptly a wave of uncertainty flashed through Raya. What if she no longer wanted—Before the thought was complete, the tiny woman stood on tiptoes as she always had and brushed her lips against his own tentatively, as if afraid he’d pull away in disgust. It was all the invitation Raya needed. Her lips still pert and lush and her eyes clear from want, humbled. He swept her small frame into his arms and kicked the dividing curtain aside with one boot. The bedroom was poor: a tattered blanket on the floor served as her mattress. He did not care. He kissed her deeply and felt her nipples harden to life under his seeking hands.

A mattress was naught but frippery to a soldier at any rate, Raya thought as he threw himself onto his back and brought Elizabet to his wide chest. She moaned softly, and Raya lost himself in her familiar scent. Normally he’d have ripped her clothes off, but he was acutely aware that these robes might be her entire wardrobe. He unhooked them and carefully laid them aside, then was finally able to feast his eyes on that body that belonged to him and his dreams.

She was carrying a few more years, but her breasts were still large and heavy. Her bush still sprung up under his hand like a hedge in the spring. And her lips still tasted like honey from bees who’d feasted on anise. He kissed his way down to her core. Elizabet passionately thrashed in his arms with a desperation that was entirely new. Christos, how long had it been for her?

With a conscious effort Raya slowed himself down. This had to be special for Elizabet it would be the last time she’d ever fuck and he was damned if he’d rush it. He removed his mouth from that inviting slit and began brushing light butterfly kisses down her plump inner thigh; something he remembered had driven her nearly to madness in their youth. She moaned softly, her eyes flashing nervously around the small chamber. He noted her reluctance to really let go, he realized she was afraid they’d be caught.

He’d see about that. He worked his way back up to her snatch but casually skipped over it to her lower belly. There, he sank a questing tongue into her belly button with small thrusts. Elizabet didn’t make a sound, but thrust her lower torso high in the air against his hand. He pushed up and captured the peak of one large breast between his teeth, then bit down lightly before flicking it with his own tongue. Her mouth opened wide in a soundless scream and unwillingly he saw where several teeth had been yanked from her jaw. Only holes remained; those bastards!

With his right hand he captured her other nipple and rolled it back and forth until it was as hard as her left one. With that, his hand shot downward until his fingers tapped lightly across her damp lips. At every touch, Elizabet let escape from her, the tiniest moan possible.

Raya kissed his way up her neck, her chin, over large lips until he tasted the dampness of tears. Shite. No matter what this woman had done in her life, she was still a human being and should be treated as such. He would do what he could to remind her of who she’d been. He undid the laces on his britches until his large cock sprang free. Grabbing the shaft he rubbed the head over her still-flat belly up and towards those breasts he remembered so well.

Using both hands, he squeezed her breasts together and shoved his cock between them. Christos the bliss! Nobody had breasts like this woman. Nobody. It was as if they had lives of their own. He wondered if she could still...

“You certainly haven’t lost that particular talent,” he muttered as he felt each breast twitch against his straining cock, “How could I have forgotten a sensation like this one?”

He pulled his cock from between her breasts before they could shorten what he intended to be a lovely long act. But before he could do anything else, Elizabet reared up and caught the tip of his cock’s head between her lips. He froze. She gave his shaft a series of long wet licks from the base to the tip, then circled the head with her tongue before sinking it down her throat with one deep suck. It was Raya’s turn to stifle a yell and he had no idea how he managed it as Elizabet began regular, deep sucks punctuated by a nibble or a lick here and there.

He flipped her onto her back, slid his cock out of her mouth, and kissed his way down to her drenched core. Yes! Her juices were as sweet and plentiful as ever. He could fill a small cup and drink it in two gulps, he thought as he forced his tongue into her tight orifice.

Her head jerked upward and cracked into his chin with such force that both of them saw stars. Raya shook his own head rapidly to return the sense to it. He couldn’t stop a roar of laughter. Beneath him Elizabet had begun to grin. Now he was getting somewhere! Before she could do anything else, he grabbed his shaft and aimed himself directly into that well-remembered orifice, watching her face closely as he slowly entered, then pushed himself all the way inside of her, deep to his straining balls.

Her eyes lost focus as she began grinding blindly against him. Raya planted one hand on each of her ass-cheeks and yanked her down onto his cock time after time. Her fluids squirted all over his cock and thighs, soaking the thin blanket as her moans grow louder. He opened his eyes and looked down just in time to see her eyes roll up in her head just as they always had, just as before—

His balls sprung together tightly, and energy raced down his body to his cock just as he felt her cunt spasm around him, gripping his shaft like a grasping hand. He exploded, unable to stop himself, pumped hard into her as she bucked against him and wrapped her legs around his hips.

For several moments neither could move, straining against each other with all their might. Then the spasms began to relax and with that, Raya slumped gently on top of Elizabet with her legs still clamped around him.

“Love you, I always have.” The words barely reached his ears, and to his shock he felt his eyes well up.

She who’d always feared aging so greatly, feared being alone because of growing old and ugly—that woman now trapped in this dingy room. She ended up living the life she feared; she created a life that was more alone than even she could have imagined. For a moment, his heart welled with pity before images of her sadistic cruelty flooded his mind. Young girls hanging from hooks from her ceiling; their pleading eyes fixed on his even as their life’s blood had been fully drained from dangling wrists into her special bath below; the piles of desiccated bodies that lay in waiting behind the castle to be burned, not even the compassion to give them honor in their death with a Christian burial.

Convulsively he shuddered, unable to restrain himself.

“And it didn’t even work,” she murmured as if she’d read his mind. Her old cocky voice was back and there wasn’t so much as a scintilla of regret in it.

Raya rolled to his side to sleep. He’d stay with her one more night, but was certain he couldn’t bear any more than that.

Two days later, there was excitement in the air when Elizabet’s old servant hobbled in and whispered in her ear. Her eyes lit up, and Raya knew. He didn’t know how, but he did.

The servant had managed to procure a young girl for his mistress.

Well, this was as good a time as any to leave.

“Going out for a bit,” was all Raya said as he strode to the door, opened it, and walked through.

He stopped dead in his tracks, eyes riveted on the three women who stood casually leaning over the railing. One looked younger than fifteen, just the age. Raya shivered and the girl turned to face him. She had the coldest golden eyes he’d ever seen. She used them to rake him with evident disgust, from his face to his shoes and back again. Finally she stared deeply into his eyes and frowned as if she hadn’t found what she’d sought.

“You’re never going to...” Raya was unable to complete his statement; distracted by her frame. His eyes ran over that slim form, tiny breasts and a tinier waist. She didn’t even come up to his belly button and shortly she’d be hung from that old familiar hook—the fuck she would! He reacted as rapidly as the fighter in his prime that he was. One moment he was staring at the girl, the next she was over his shoulder as he pounded down the tower steps.

As he reached the bottom and raced for the courtyard door, he noticed that both of the other women were right on his ass.

“Don’t try to stop me,” he yelled back in warning, “I don’t want to hurt a woman: don’t make me do it.”

Then with several leaps he was at the door and through it even as voices rose in panic from the tower. At a dead run he headed for the dense woods, and not until he was at least a mile inside and had crossed a river did he stop to catch his breath. It was then that he noticed the other two women, impossibly, were still with him. And neither of them had so much as broken a sweat.

***

Sitting around a small fire after a successful hunt that night, Raya addressed the women, “You were there to kill her, weren’t you?” It wasn’t a question as it was the only reasonable answer.

“And you were there to fuck her,” the younger woman said with no inflection in her voice whatsoever.

“Back off. She and I were close many years ago, just prior to her obsession with the youth of her skin,” Raya stated.

“Yet you stayed,” one of the other women said.

“For a short while,” he admitted. “Then I left and haven’t been back till now.”

The three women looked at each other and it was plain to Raya that something passed between them. The younger one nodded decisively and turned back to Raya.

“Why did you come back now?”

“Because they’re going to kill her. She was my first love, no matter what else she was, and now they’re going to kill her.”

To his horror he heard his own voice crack. Christos, they’d run from him now. Couldn’t blame them, he’d run from himself, he thought as he hung his head.

There was the slightest disturbance in the air and his head shot up, his warrior instincts taking over. But what he found was nothing he’d ever expected or encountered.

Where the younger woman had been, a large, grey-spotted wolf sat on slender haunches, dark eyes pinning his. The other two women were still totally relaxed, watching him with an air of curiosity.

Raya’s jaw dropped. Could these be... when he was very young, his mother had taunted him about such creatures, “Do that again and the wolf-men will get you!” How many times had he heard that threat?

Mom had said their teeth were almost as long as his little arm. Now he stared at the wolf’s mouth, silently wondering. Suddenly she yipped, leaped to her feet and walked toward him. Raya didn’t dare to breathe much less move, and his eyes never left hers. But suddenly she blurred as she scrambled into motion so rapidly he couldn’t see what she was doing. Then teeth sank deeply into his arm, she let a short howl and vanished into the night. Speechless once again for the second time in as many days, Raya looked at the two remaining women who looked back calmly as if nothing had happened.

At last he said, “Would someone care to tell me what the fuck is happening here?”

Part Two

Chapter One

Learning

“Moonrise in an hour,” Petra proclaimed, “All will be clear then.”

Michael waited with ever-increasing nerves as the night grew steadily darker, until a small ray of light appeared in the horizon. The girls promptly lay on the ground and rolled onto their sides, to Raya’s mystification.

Everything seemed to happen at once. The moon, enormous, rose majestically over the horizon just as Raya, who’d been standing, fell to the ground. He made an attempt to stand and toppled sideways, all four legs out-stretched. At that realization, he froze. He was no longer human that was clear. But how on earth would he learn to move in this body? Eat? Would he ever become human again? Questions arose at the speed of light, but all he could do was growl out his frustration.

Abruptly there was a cold, wet nose where no nose should ever be! Outraged, Raya rose to all fours in a liquid movement that took no thought at all. A wolf-grin on the exquisite grey wolf that reeked of Petra assured him who that snout had belonged to. Somehow Petra exuded a different scent tonight, something he’d never smelled before and it was absolutely compelling. He had to have that wolf, and now or there’d be dire consequences.

He howled his discomfort at the moon, and then Petra took off like a shot with only the slightest peek over her furry grey shoulder. Instantly Raya followed, and discovered himself moving at a speed he’d never dreamed possible. The joy—the incredible freedom of flying through the woods on four feet instead of two—Raya nearly stopped to howl again, but Petra’s new scent was all around him and grew stronger by the second.

It was imperative he caught her, and that he get it done right this second.

No sooner had that thought crossed his mind than she took a sharp right around a large tree, Raya leapt to his left, guided by instinct alone. He literally bowled her over just beyond the tree. As she made a deliberately pathetic attempt to stand, Raya sauntered stiff-legged to her side. She turned, reached out her lovely long snout, her eyes liquid as she stared into his. Raya’s heart flipped in his chest at that look: he touched her snout with his then gave her shoulder a fast but hard nip. She squealed, and with that he was on her and deep inside her in one movement.

Both wolves howled at the same moment, their intertwined bodies and voices rising to the heavens. Elsewhere, ecstatic wolves joined in. The act of love was all too brief: several fast entries and he was done. But the act itself was only part of wolf lovemaking. Raya would learn that the hours of foreplay before, the cuddling, running and playing would continue after. Wolves had it made, Raya thought as he followed Petra deeper into the dense woods at a solid trot. She came to a halt and body-blocked him from moving further.

“This is almost as much fun as what we just did,” Raya heard clearly in his head. “Dinner is about two leagues away. I’ll go to the right and come up behind her while you carry on toward her. Wind is at your back so you’ll have the advantage.” Petra was gone before Raya could ask her exactly what it was they were hunting. With a wolfen shrug, he trotted straight through the trees until a different scent wafted up his long snout. He slowed and inhaled deeply, until he tasted that scent in the back of his throat. It was familiar, if he wasn’t wrong: as a human he’d hunted and eaten venison countless times. Surely Petra was after a deer. Ten minutes later he learned he was right. In a clearing just ahead, a doe pawed through leaves which formed a dense ground cover.

Just beyond the doe, a pair of golden eyes blinked at him from the middle of a pile of brush. The scent was heavy now, intoxicating. God he was hungry! He went to his large furry belly and crawled forward, careful to make no noise at all. He must have succeeded as he came within ten feet of the deer before she flung her head in the air, spooked. Ten feet was as nothing now, Raya learned, as with one massive leap his teeth landed directly in the doe’s neck. He instinctively leaned into the bite and sank his fangs into her jugular. Blood spurted, and Raya reveled in the scent. He allowed it to wash over his face, squirt directly into his mouth before he thought of Petra.

The silvery-grey wolf was sitting on her haunches a few feet away, a wolfen grin pulling at her beautifully black-lined lips. Raya leaned over once again and ripped the doe’s throat out: to hell with niceties! Then Petra trotted forward, the very picture of grace and style compared to other wolves and Raya was sure. To him, she was something more—not that he understood exactly what, as yet.

If he’d been forced to describe his new feelings about Petra, he would have only been able to say that she felt like home. Not any home he’d ever had, either: she was the kind of home that meant wherever she was in the world, he would be at home. To say the sensation was odd was an understatement. Raya thought as he ripped open the doe’s still-warm belly and buried his nose in her intestines; Bliss.

Out of the corner of his eye he saw Petra flat on her belly crawling up to the kill, ears partway back in pleading.

“Petra requests permission from her Alpha to feed,” Raya heard to his total disbelief.

“Are you cra–” he stopped himself there.

There was much about this wolves’ world that he did not know. He did know better than to insult who he figured was his only mate, if his new and growing wolven senses were correct.

“Raya grants that wish and any other from his female alpha, Petra.”

Terrified that he’d overstepped, he physically backed away from the doe until he heard that voice once again.

“Last one to the heart has to eat the asshole.”

A grey flash shot by him, he took one leap and the game was on.

About ninety minutes later, Petra led him to a small stream.

“Was she that thirsty,” he wondered?

Then he watched her curl up next to it and he caught on. A thin line of light near the ground through the trees heralded the coming sunlight: his first night as a wolf was coming to a close. There was no sensation of any kind as he shifted back to human. He looked at Petra, stifled laughter and wondered if he looked anywhere near as filthy and caked with mud and gore as she did. He walked, on two legs, upright to the water’s edge and learned from his watery reflection the he in fact looked far worse.

They both cracked up, then Raya sobered. He had a question he was burning to ask, but it was somewhat delicate and he had no idea about werewolf sensibilities. The last thing he wanted was to hurt the magnificent Petra in any way.

“Um, Petra. I have a—that is, something happened that is—”

She laughed, a rollicking gay sound, “Why Raya, I believe you’re actually embarrassed! After all these years, you’d have come out with a doozy to make this old girl blush so go on, spit it out. What’s up?”

Still Raya paused, and to his shame he felt his face burning.

“When we, ah, had our little episode last night and we howled at the end of it seems to me we weren’t the only ones howling. At least a couple of others chirped up just like they were cheering us on! What gives with that?”

When Petra fell silent, he was genuinely afraid he’d either embarrassed her or asked something that shouldn’t be discussed in that culture. Shit, he didn’t really need to know.

“Never mind, Petra, it’s all good.”

She heaved a dramatic sigh and grinned.

“Listen, bucko, like I said you’d have to go a long way—and you haven’t even started down the path. Truth is, I don’t know how much to tell you as all this is so new to you. Hell with it here goes.

“I’ve been with Charissa and Erigny for almost 300 years now: they’ve trained me every way but upside down in pack culture. Enough so that I know our small pack is basically hanging in the wind with only three women and no Alpha. Isn’t like any male who is a wolf can run a pack or even want to—pretty thankless job, but the perks are really good,” she gave him an exaggerated wink and his cock literally jerked in his britches, just at the memory of last night.

“When you and I got together last night, it was partially because the three of us had sensed the wolf in you and the alpha in the wolf...” she stopped speaking momentarily, then slowly continued, “And not just the Alpha, Raya. The Trans-Alpha, or Transcendent Alpha: the leader of all currently-alive werewolves. Other than the Uber-Alpha who doesn’t exist in physical form, the Trans-Alpha has the final word over all wolves in all packs.”

“Jesus Christ on a rail,” Raya exclaimed.

“How could that even be when I’ve only been wolf for a matter of hours?”

“Doesn’t matter,” she insisted.

“It’s in your blood and it evinced the instant you shifted: all wolves felt it, not just our puny pack,” it was her turn to hesitate.

“Naturally all joined in the celebration: the mating of a Trans and his Alpha is a major reason to celebrate. Now, your turn. It’s your call—what will you name our new pack?”

Raya began pacing, an unconscious habit left over from his warrior days. Now his mind was chewing on that necessary name problem. The pack name had to be elegant and meaningful, not just a quick name. And suddenly it popped into his mind. He stopped pacing and faced his Alpha female, a large grin on his face.

“Petra, you’re now Alpha female of Pack Lupeinescu!”

Petra’s face lit up, “Raya, that’s absolutely perfect. Wait till Charissa and Erigny hear that. ‘Son of the Wolf’ in ancient Romanian—it’s perfect.”

Petra’s words were prophetic. The older blue-eyed Charissa in particular literally danced around camp with sheer delight.

“We knew you’d be here one day, and we knew on that day we’d finally have a name. We didn’t know it would be so elegant or meaningful. Raya, this is a fine start for your life as the Trans-Alpha.”

At his look of uncertainty, she hastened to reassure him, “This isn’t a test you’ll be taking tomorrow. You have a couple of years to learn our customs and create the Lupeinescu Codec.”

Raya looked mystified, “The Lupeinescu what?”

“Customs, rules & regulations to be followed by all packs.”

“You know, Lupeinescu is a great name for a pack. For a legal book? A bit too long and complicated, I’d think. It should roll right off the tongue, really, like the ‘Lupein Codec.’ That work for you guys?” At their concerted happy nods, he continued.

“Right, then. Create a book of rules and regulations for an entire species I didn’t even know existed until last night—Shit, I’ll whip that out in ten minutes,” Raya said with a grin of pure bravado.

He had one part of the story only with Pack Lupeinescu ‘s history: it would be a matter of tracking down all other available packs and discussing their customs.”

“Dead easy,” Petra chirped. “Have it done in a week-end!”

“Give or take five years,” Raya muttered.

The bitches in his pack didn’t respond to that one: they only gave each other knowing looks. Raya’s guess had been spookily close to what the pack considered. A better guess: eight to ten years might cover it. Five years would simply cover the travel between pack territories, the negotiations, meetings, sometimes with the rare packs who had no intention of meeting others, much less recognizing the absolute power of a Trans-Alpha discussion would be extended. Such packs as the latter were mercifully rare, as their own culture differed radically from that of the preponderance of global packs.

Over the next couple of years, Petra taught Raya all she knew about the Were lifestyle even as Charissa, Erigny, Raya and herself moved slowly through Romania and on into Russia. Raya made copious notes upon meeting other packs, and the Lupein Codec began to come to life, taking the shape of a large, flat book with gorgeous calligraphy painstakingly scripted by Erigny. Raised in a monastery until she was eight, Erigny was then considered a woman and forced to leave the only home she’d ever known. A monk had volunteered to escort her to a nunnery in a town high in the mountains, but the pair had never arrived. History has them being attacked and killed for the paltry sum of money the monks had provided Erigny so that she wouldn’t arrive at her new home penniless, but once again the truth was somewhat different.

They’d been attacked, but a small group of travelers had only taken Erigny: the aged monk had been left to return home. Erigny had been ‘bought’ by a pack who recognized a certain scent about her. They raised her with love and honor: on her eighteenth birthday she’d received a special gift, a bite by her own ‘father’.

Now as the pack was en route to locating other packs, they learned to announce their arrival via music: specifically the ancient whistle, which Raya’s father had carved for him and then taught him to play, accompanying him on home-made bagpipes.

But music wasn’t the only trick in Raya’s ever-expanding talent list. He himself was impressed with all of their abilities to change form, but he learned from Erigny that certain Weres developed other talents upon gaining wolf-hood. Erigny knew of Weres who could literally vanish and appear miles away: this particular trick took a lot of stamina as the wolf sometimes travelled miles to make the stunt yet more impressing.

Then there were the Weres who could sing with such unearthly beauty that audiences were transfixed, sometimes literally under the power of the singer.

There was only one other talent that Erigny had seen in her long lifetime, and that one wasn’t nearly so pleasant as the others. She was highly reluctant to discuss it at all until Raya convinced her that his ignorance would serve no one well.

According to Erigny whose normally-reddish face turned a pale yellow during the telling, certain wolves had the power to kill using only their minds. No matter how Raya coaxed, she’d explain no further. Raya was consoled by the fact that not all Weres acquired any gift whatsoever, so the chances of his having that last, dreadful power were minute indeed. As the fire was burning low, the small pack retired for the night and the subject of wolfen mind control wasn’t raised again for many years.

When Raya asked if four was the normal number of wolves in a pack, the three women shared a glance.

“Not exactly,” Petra said at last, “A normal pack has eight members.”

Raya pondered on that one for a while then gave up. Some understanding would come with time, he was sure. Meanwhile, he was determined to learn how to make money. Lots of it.

As they traveled from city to city, one thing struck Raya to his soul: the number of dirt-poor people who lived lives on the edge of death. Never knowing when their next meal was coming or if it would, these people had no hopes for a better life. At most they could pray that one of their beautiful children would be selected for slavery, and bought for what was truly a pittance. Otherwise they had no hopes of rising out of their current spot due to their religion, their politics or any other reason concocted by the wealthy who wished to hang on to their resources.

Raya soon realized that he too needed to understand business; how to do it anywhere, no matter the conditions. He longed to help those hopeless souls and their even more hopeless children, and there was only one real way to do it—

Giving them money wasn’t it. Putting them in a position where they could make money themselves, now—that was a different proposition. First, though, Raya had to learn that feat on his own.

It would take some thought.

Finally he decided that there was only one way to learn, by doing. And wolves were blessed with many gifts that enabled incredibly rapid learning, such as their enhanced hearing and sight. If he could work for as many businesses as possible, starting on the ground floor, he’d learn what each business was really about and how to progress in it. He would also learn which businesses would prosper in certain regions.

He held a small pack meeting and informed the females of his decision; he was off to get his first job in the morning. Horrified faces watched as he stood and went to bed.

***

Thereafter, each city the pack passed, Raya took a small job in a different business. A food stall here, a blacksmith there. Builders in another city. Vendors. Even money lenders. And everywhere he was, Raya heard the conversations that occurred at higher levels. Some were perfectly disgusting, while others opened his eyes to issues he’d never considered, nor imagined.

Finally as they entered Germany, Petra snapped.

“The Trans-Alpha leader once again returns home covered in shit! Enough is enough. I have enough money for a thousand of these damn businesses you’ve apprenticed in. It’s time you started one yourself, Raya. You’ll never learn to run them if you don’t open one of your own. Just working and listening won’t work.”

Standing in the doorway of the small house they were renting and indeed covered with horse crap from cleaning the stalls at a livery stable, Raya conceded that she had a point.

The next day the small pack began its very first enterprise: ‘Lupein Fine Horse Traders’. This enterprise allowed for plenty of travel, and Raya even opened branches in other cities. It was a success.

After a year and countless hooves marks smashed into various places on Raya’s body (horses and wolves do not and never will get along) Raya decided it was time to turn these businesses over to those most in need, those who could make them flourish after enough training. He located areas where poverty was rife, and posted lowly positions such as stablemen. Those men who were truly desperate would jump at such a job and Raya would then have a list of candidates. Petra had laughed when he’d mentioned the stable-cleaning job as the test job.

“Well, you have that right! Anyone willing to clean up horse shit will indeed do anything for their family,” she’d admitted.

He and the pack split up and went to several villages and cities, located the impoverished sections, and posted their appeals for help. At first responses were thin: the poor had been tricked before and were now cautious. As they landed legitimate jobs and spread the news, lists began to fill more rapidly.

The pack made their way across Europe slowly, creating businesses here, buying them there. Always on the lookout for those who needed help and those who took advantage of others. Raya was accumulating a list of fun things to do when encountering these individuals. His best idea came to him after an official pack dinner.

He’d suggested they keep score. Points would go to pack members who had taken down the most corrupt businessmen. Bonus points would be awarded for creativity and the deployment of sustainable aid for the needy in their wake. He also intended on providing unique rewards to those with the most points. Intrigued, the entire pack had agreed. This would be the first month where Raya would give rewards and he’d been racking his brain for days for something appropriate.

The pack reached the outskirts of Paris, where Raya rented a small farmhouse and a good-sized barn for the numerous horses they’d brought with them. Raya and Petra had learned the horse trading business well. They carried several breeds; each section of Europe had different tastes in horseflesh ranging from the heavy but stable breeds to the muscular but hardy donkeys. Pack Lupeinescu prided itself on carrying at least eight breeds of horses and donkeys.

As Petra walked into the city through a poverty-stricken area she noticed a large, elegant church right standing tall in the midst of the poorest section of town. Out of sheer curiosity, she hiked to it and walked into another world.

Candles burned in large racks near the door and there were a small number of pews set out in lines from the door to the upraised altar down front. The unfortunate could be seen in the shadows of the main hall, sitting or lying on the chilly stone floor eating what was obviously refuse. Petra was horrified; hundreds of souls were here, tucked into corners, curled up under pews, some of the braver persons used the pews as beds.

Even with the rack of sputtering candles, it was darker than the inside of a horse’s arsehole, as Raya would say. How was she to post a list and, moreover, how were the people to see well enough to respond to it? This would take some thought.

She made her way back into the welcome sunlight and instantly had the answer, chiding herself for taking this long to figure it out. Promptly she pulled a thin piece of bark out of her backpack, one of several where Raya had written job listings in several languages. Using a bit of sticky mud mixed with water, she fixed one to the church wall just near the entry where the occupants couldn’t help but see it.

She headed back to the small barn they’d rented and wait to see who appear for a job, if anyone did.

***

After no takers in nearly five days, Petra was ready to call it quits. This town was simply too large to have heard job news from the smaller villages they’d visit in the other cities across Europe.

Resigned to a have a wasted week she began to pack up the meager supplies she’d brought. The wolf in her smelled the arrival of the first applicants, a familiar yet strange scent and she whirled in a crouch toward the barn door.

As fast as she moved, Raya moved faster, she hadn’t even seen him arrive! He simply appeared between her and the painfully-thin Japanese man at the barn door. Actually he’d leaped in front of her, lashing one accurate foot out to knock her sideways into a stall—well out of reach of the stranger.

She stood and began to shake off the straw.

“You devil. Don’t you think I can take care of myself?” she was so indignant that it took several seconds to realize Raya wasn’t responding, hadn’t even looked in her direction. There was a low, vicious growl emanating from deep in his throat and from the look of him, Petra observed that Raya was acting on instinct.

“What the hell was going on? Who was this thin Japanese man propped in the doorway from sheer weakness, and why was Raya responding to him as if he poses a threat?”

As if he heard her thoughts and agreed, the Japanese man eyed her briefly and bowed his head in a show of respect. A brief suspicion went through her mind but no, surely not.

Not in this place, and assuredly not in that jam-packed poor house of a church. It wasn’t possible. Just as she’d decided that, the man spoke for the first time.

“Raya, Trans-Alpha. Petra, Alpha to the Trans. I would ask mercy for myself and my mate. My son was snatched from her arms two days ago.”

To Petra’s horror, those slanted black eyes began filling with tears. She shot Raya a panicked look, for a moment their eyes locked, and they had one of those unspoken discussions common to long-term couples. Raya nodded briefly and turned to the Japanese man.

“What is your name and what happened? Come, sit down.”

The man stumbled toward the seats around the dining table and fell into one, panting heavily.

 He caught his breath and spoke slowly, “I am Itchiko and I am Samurai.”

For a moment, the man’s head lifted proudly exposing his stick-thin neck, but without the nourishment for pride his body failed him and he slumped forward onto his elbows.

“I am of Pack Bushido. We were five wolves including my mate Chizuko and my—my son, Akiyo,” Itchiko paused and forced his spine straight, his eyes stared straight ahead. Petra caught the shimmer of tears in those dark eyes and was suddenly filled with dread over the coming story.

“Our pack, we bother nobody. We fabricate and sell swords the old way. Never had trouble, never... until Antoine shifted in the wrong place. He is young, Antoine, only lived since last century and just eighteen then. No sense,” Itchiko shook his head once, sharply.

“Toine admitted he’d shifted in a bad place, just in front of a bar, but said he was sure no one saw him and he was so frightened he came right back home.”

Raya winced; Itchiko caught his eye and nodded. “I insisted that the pack leave immediately, but the one female did not want to go. We have been here nearly forty years and for Vanessa this is home,” Itchiko said with a hint of bitterness in his tone.

Petra felt a bolt of electricity shoot up her spine, triggered by a feeling of impending doom. She didn’t like where this story was going and neither did Raya, by his narrowed eyes and lowered brows.

“You can likely guess what happened then,” Itchiko said, voice heavy. “Our place was surrounded by guys in white uniforms of some kind. They threw something in the window. Smoke spewed in all directions and we tried to exit, we couldn’t even see five palms in front of our faces. In the fray, Akiyo vanished. My mate Chizuko thought I had him: I thought he was with her. Now he’s gone because of my negligence,” Itchiko said, voice tight with tears.

“Rather because some young asshole disobeyed rules and shifted in public, in front of a damn bar no less,” Petra said, her voice dripping acid. “Kid should be punished, Seriously punished.”

Itchiko seemed to become smaller as his shoulders slumped, his head fell forward onto his chest and even his legs buckled. “We are Samurai, Pack Bushido. Antoine had been in training for ninety years, and he—he punished himself,” he said. “Toin, he committed seppuku before I could stop him. In one day we went from a strong pack of five, down to three, and my son is gone.”

Pack Lupeinescu froze, nobody daring to look at anybody else. Petra was thinking that with Charissa and Erigny, she and Raya made four members. Itchiko and the lovely Chizuko would only be two more—if they didn’t find his son.

Itchiko needed a pack and Pack Lupeinescu needed a Samurai warrior. No better protection to be had, Petra knew. Now to talk Raya into it.

“Right. We need to get the hell out of here also,” Raya said decisively. “If someone followed your pack already, who’s to say they didn’t do it again and follow you here?”

If Itchiko’s head could hang any lower, it would have. “I am aware, but I took all precautions and I had to protect my mate, my Chizuko. You must understand,” he said to Raya.

“I understand you brought danger to every single member of my pack, in an attempt to gain safety for one of yours.” Raya’s voice remained even, not a hint of rage. Yet he was pacing in short, quick steps: a sure sign of rising rage.

Petra recognized it and raised a fast brow at Charissa and Erigny, who eyed each other and then the table as if they’d never seen one before. Pack Lupeinescu knew what was coming even if the Japanese wolf didn’t.

Raya came to a halt in front of Itchiko’s table. Chizuko had probably picked up on the amount of sheer stress pouring off the Trans Alpha as he leaned over and deliberately put his face not seven inches from the Japanese were, who simply returned the Alpha’s stare without any other movement.

“In your desperation you brought danger to my table. To my mate: to my pack, Lupeinescu pack. In the old days, you’d not survive such a transgression.” Raya maintained his aggressive stance for two more beats, staring the Japanese were directly in the eyes, then stood and relaxed. “These aren’t the old days. Instead, these are days when Pack Lupeinescu requires a Samurai. You and your mate require a pack.” He smiled at the Japanese were, and it was his normal, calm smile. “Would you both care to join us?”

Chapter Two

Move This!

Itchiko started to return Raya’s smile, but it froze on his face. In the space of a heartbeat, the Were went from a relaxed Japanese human to a fully alert warrior. “We go. Now.”

Raya didn’t move, only cocked one brow.

The Japanese warrior expelled a short blast of air. “You wanted a Samurai: you now have one. Do as I say or pay the consequences, which can be quite dear.” He whipped around, addressing his mate over his shoulder as he went, “Chizuko. With me.”

The tiny Japanese woman instantly rose and followed her mate from the room. Pack Lupeinescu waited a half beat.

“You heard the man,” Raya said abruptly. “Let’s get out of here.” Suddenly the kitchen was in violent motion as pack members rose, looked for their possessions and made for the back door where Chizuko’s small back was vanishing directly into the corn field. “Pack Lupeinescu, follow Chizuko and do as Itchiko instructs. From this day he is Beta.” So saying, he turned and took the nearby stairs, two by two.

Petra stared at her pack as they half ran out the door, and then at the empty steps. Finally she sighed and raced up the stairs exactly as her mate had, to find him standing on a chair fiddling around deeply in the closet.

“What you looking for?” Petra wondered.

“Weapon,” he responded briefly.

She jumped. “Could you be a little less explicit?”

“Something I’ve kept around just in case,” Raya said as he dug through layers of winter clothing in the top of the closet. “Ah ha! Here we go.” He carefully hefted a long white box from the top of the closet to the bed, then stood for a moment staring down at it. He shook his head, opened it, and said “Voila.”

Petra stared down at—what was that? One end had a bag full of some black powdery substance. There were three objects next to the bag: to Petra’s eyes, they looked like metal tubes. Finally there was a coiled rope, of a material unfamiliar to Petra. Puzzled, she shrugged. “What do we do with this?”

“You do nothing. Me, I set up a little surprise around the house in case we do have visitors tonight. Not much liking the sound of these people.”

“Me either,” Petra said, heart-felt. “What can I do to help?”

“Thought you’d never ask,” Raya said with a grin. Soon he had her running back and forth from the kitchen while he mixed various substances together in each of the tubes. It wasn’t a fast operation. Petra figured it took almost two hours before the objects were deemed ready, although ready for what she had no idea.

“That’s it. Now I want you to go meet the rest of the pack behind that market on the Seine where we left the boat. I’ll be there within thirty minutes, and then we’re out of here.” He reached over and gave her a hard kiss, then turned and suddenly stopped. “You might hear quite a loud bang. Ignore it.” With that, he was gone.

Petra trotted down the stairs and out the door without ever looking back.

Chapter Three

Things That Go Boom

Raya walked around the back of the farmhouse, his mind calculating where best to put the small weapons he’d created. When he realized how far the sun had sunken, he knew he was out of time. He walked quickly but carefully to the front door of the old farm house and laid one of the objects under the mat in front of the door.

Now that he had each location fixed in his mind, it was just a matter of setting them up and making sure they weren’t visible. The second one went at the base of the stairs, under a lumpy old rug hand-crocheted by a drunk as Petra had said. He grinned and gave it a pat before trotting to the top of the stairs for the best spot of all.

Earlier, he’d taken some of Petra’s clothes including underwear out of her bag. She’d been curious, and when he’d explained her mouth had dropped. She hadn’t believed such a ruse would ever work, but Raya knew it would. The nature of the wolf would ensure that it did. Out the window, the sun was squatting on the horizon: he was out of time.

He left Petra’s old silk skirt hanging over the top step with a little surprise tucked under it. Then he dropped her shirt, an old bra and finally knickers in a line leading straight to the master bedroom. No time to admire his artistry now, so he ran lightly down the stairs and out the back door into the woods.

Once he’d made a large circle, he wound up a hundred feet from the old house’s entryway. In front of him was the end of the odd-looking rope, which led directly to the first surprise at the base of the stairs. Once again his tree-climbing skills were paying off although this time he had a brand new pair of opera glasses in his pocket. This was a sight he didn’t intend to miss, so he could describe it to Itchiko. Cold comfort considering the loss of his son, but the Japanese would be sure to feel a modicum of relief anyway.

The sound of hooves clopping along the lane alerted Raya that he was about to have company. He shinnied down the tree, lit a small fire and dropped the end of the rope in it. It caught, and began fizzling in a direct line toward the house. Satisfied, he climbed up and settled comfortably into a fork in the branches, pulled out the opera glasses and was ready. To his delight, the fizzling rope was barely visible as the sun hadn’t yet set. By the time it was dark, the part of the rope that was alight would no longer be outside the house. All he could now was pray to a higher power that the visitors would be by then inside the house.

Two carriages pulled up in front of the farm house. The horses were blowing hard: they must have been pressed to move fast all the way from Paris, Raya thought as four men wearing white uniforms descended from each carriage, each man carrying a gas lantern against the oncoming darkness and something long in their other hands.

They looked around, then rapidly disappeared inside the farmhouse. Raya eyed the rope, which stopped fizzling within seconds. Instantly he began to count, his eyes roaming over the front windows where figures moved back and forth.

Then he heard a small noise, an inconsequential noise, but one that drove a sudden fear deep into his heart.

It was the sound of a child singing an old French country song, and then the slight crack of the carriage door opening.

No! God no, Raya yelled silently. Go back, kid. There are monsters in there.

But it wasn’t a kid, and it couldn’t hear him.

It was a very small wolf that leaped down the carriage steps to Raya’s utter horror. This couldn’t be happening, it couldn’t be.

But the wolf ran to the front door, opened it with his nose, and trotted inside.

Raya belatedly realized he’d forgotten to count, and then it was too late. One massive explosion blew the door straight out into the yard, followed by a second and then the final explosions almost simultaneously. Fire poured out of the door and blew out most of the windows, burning a bright orange.

Even with his advanced hearing, Raya heard no other sounds from the farmhouse. Nothing. To make sure, he waited ten minutes and then tried to enter but a wall of flame pushed him back.

Desolate and sick to his stomach, Raya turned and walked down the road to meet the rest of his pack and, of course, Itchiko.

Chapter Four

My Life for Yours

The dilapidated old ship was tied up right where he’d left it, Raya saw. He stepped off the road and walked through the bushes to the river’s edge, where the old ship gently rocked back and forth.

One small leap and he was on the deck. Odd, but there were no voices talking. No laughter. The boat was completely silent, Raya realized. And that couldn’t be a good thing.

He headed down the ladder to the dining room/galley combination and there they all were, his mate and the other two pack bitches, and ... yes. Itchiko’s wife and Itchiko himself, back rigid in a chair, staring fixedly at a photograph.

Raya didn’t have to see it to realize who was in the picture. He also was suddenly aware that Itchiko knew his son was gone.

Despair washed over the Alpha, and he did a thing he’d never done nor imagined himself doing. He shifted on the spot, ripping apart his clothing but paying no attention to anything but Itchiko’s ravaged face.

Raya dropped onto his belly, let his head sink between his forelegs, and began to crawl slowly forward. Finally his nose touched Itchiko’s rigid leg, and for a moment Raya just froze, incapable of thought or action.

Then he heard a discreet small cough: Petra, God bless her. The noise freed him and he shifted back to human where he remained on his knees at Itchiko’s side.

He looked up and into the other man’s eyes before he spoke. “My life for yours.”

There were small gasps from all around the table, but neither man paid any attention to anything but each other.

“You don’t have to do this,” Itchiko said quietly, dark eyes steady on those of Raya.

“My life for yours,” Raya repeated clearly, his gaze never wavering.

Itchiko sucked in a short breath. “My heart for yours,” he said before taking a sharp knife off the galley table and making a small gash in one arm. He offered the knife by the handle to Raya, who opened a wound in his own arm.

“Thee are bound by the blood of Pack Lupeinescu and the Trans Alpha, now and until the end of time,” Petra’s voice came from behind Raya. She bound the two bleeding arms together with a large white dinner napkin which immediately stained a deep red.

“And so it is done,” both men chorused together. “Brother of my heart.”

Raya slowly stood, embraced the thin Japanese who hung on to him with desperation for several moments.

“They’ll pay,” Raya assured his new brother.

Itchiko nodded, still unable to speak, still with his arms wrapped tightly around his Alpha.

Raya gently unwrapped his arms and sat him down at the table once more, then sat right next to him. “Itchiko. Who are those bastards and why the white outfits?”

“Worst of the worst,” the Japanese said slowly. “They have broken every Were law in existence and several which aren’t. They hire out as thieves, mercenaries, assassins. Whoever has the money to pay gets their services, no matter who the client is. They don’t exactly discriminate.”

“Why- why take your son?” Raya asked in a near whisper.

“A baby to raise as their own, obedient to their every wish,” Itchiko responded, voice drenched in agony. “I have to say this but then I wish to never speak of it again. What happened tonight was a right thing, a good thing. My son would never have wanted—” he was unable to finish and dropped his black head into his hands.

“Of course he’d not have wanted anything like that!” Petra exclaimed. “He was just a pup, simple and pure.”

“And now he’ll never grow into his heritage as a full-grown wolf,” Chizuko added. She was unable to stop her tears and was making no effort to do so. Petra stood and fetched one of her own old shirts.

“Here, blow.”

Chizuko obeyed blindly and Petra sat back down next to her, then took the woman into her arms and rocked her back and forth as the anguished screams began.

Chapter Five

Who Are They?

After most of the pack was asleep, Raya eased out of bed and away from Petra, who had one leg tossed over his as always. He’d had to slide out from under her like a damn thief, he thought with a brief grin.

As he hit the deck he shifted, and with one massive leap was on shore flying toward town. No more than five minutes into the trip he noticed pounding steps behind his, mirroring his. For an instant he paused and almost lost his rhythm, but then a soothing touch ran across his mind like a gentle hand.

Itchiko.

Raya picked up speed until he hit his rhythm once more, but his mind was elsewhere. He’d intended on doing a bit of serious snooping in Paris, but those plans must change now. He had a brother who needed him, who needed him badly.

It was a brand-new sensation for Raya, who’d been an only child all those years. To have a real brother now was a pleasure beyond compare. With that pleasure came a duty. But what could he possibly do to—

And then he knew. What else did werewolves live for? The answer was quite simple, really, Raya thought as he skidded to a near halt and executed a perfect u turn, heading back the way they’d come at full speed.

Itchiko asked nothing, content just to be in Raya’s company and follow along.

No, that wasn’t right. This was a night of firsts, Raya thought as for once he deliberately slowed his pace so that Itchiko could catch up, could run next to him, shoulder to shoulder.

As if they’d somehow infused each other with energy, both wolves accelerated until they were almost at a dead run: neither was even breathing hard as the miles flew by under pounding paws.

Finally lights appeared in the distance as the wolves approached the massive Chateau de Versailles. But it wasn’t the castle that interested Raya, oh no. He had something far more interesting planned for his brother, something guaranteed to wipe his mind clean of any distress whatsoever for a few precious hours.

That what he had in mind was against the law and would put both wolves in danger didn’t slow Raya down for a second. On the contrary, it was the exact spice needed for a perfect night out with the Weres.

The two wolves, moving as one, shot past the brightly-lit castle and turned beyond it into the famous gardens which stretched for 800 hectares (3.08 square miles.) About a mile in, both wolves began sniffing madly. Oh the scents that wafted toward them on warm evening breezes!

Raya picked up several lions, he was sure. But there was something else, something absolutely foreign. How intriguing! But he had to force himself to remember that this wasn’t his treat, this outing. This was for his brother, in honor of the fact that he now was his brother.

Sporting a silly wolfen grin, Raya slowed his pace until Itchiko ever so slightly took lead. Content, Raya merely paced the jet black wolf as he raised his long snout into the air, sniffed time after time and then turned decisively north. What had Itchiko scented, Raya wondered?

He didn’t have long to think about it, as he found himself pounding up a partially paved road slightly behind Itchiko. The road wound through elaborately-shaped hedges and gardens bursting with all manner of exotic fruit, but then it ended in front of a tall iron gate. Beyond the gate, a path stretched into the distance, flanked on both sides by enclosures which sheltered the most exotic of creatures.

Jackpot! Raya was exultant. No wolf on earth could resist scents as foreign and therefore alluring as these.

In fact, Raya rather looked forward to a completely-illegal hunt in which both wolves could well be shot for their temerity. First, though, the animals had to be chosen and then, hardest yet, let run free into all that inviting open space that awaited.

What would Itchiko choose for their first official “chasse du frère” (Brother Hunt)? Raya fervently hoped that whatever it was, it wouldn’t be easily brought down.

Itchiko obviously had the same concerns as the creature he finally selected after racing back and forth between enclosures was something Raya had never seen, much less hunted. It looked somewhat like a cross between a giant bird and a llama, as absurd as that may sound. Once the two wolves had bypassed the gate into the menagerie itself, this creature was in the third enclosure on the left.

When Raya finally was close enough to really look at the thing, he discovered it was, in fact, a large bird. An “emu” according to the plaque in front of the enclosure. Whatever it was, it had one of the most inviting scents he’d ever come into contact with. Evidently it had the same effect on Itchiko, who currently was sitting on his haunches, staring and drooling. If Raya could have burst out laughing in his wolf form, he would have.

But he had work to do. Had to figure out how to get that gigantic furry bird out of its enclosure, all the way to the end of the menagerie and out into the open gardens where it could run, fly, do whatever it could to avoid being dinner for two hungry and very curious wolves.

Raya might have been laughing before, but it was Itchiko’s turn when Raya kept exiting that enclosure as rapidly as possible but not fast enough to avoid multiple bites from that sharp beak—multiple bleeding bites, thank you very much. The last time, Raya had barely escaped with his nuts intact and had landed outside the enclosure just in time to see Itchiko literally fall onto his side and lay there, chest heaving as he fought for breath through gales of howls, wolfen laughter. The bastard, Raya thought with a grin whilst trying to press on one injured nut with a paw to stop the bleeding. He must have looked yet more absurd as Itchiko had to turn his back and look away.

Finally Raya did the only thing he could: leaped into the cage, grabbed the nasty creature by its long, tough throat and hauled it back over the wall, down the road, and over that gate. The upshot was one extremely pissed off emu, until the creature figured out it was free. It then promptly took off at a speed Raya would not have believed possible had he not seen it.

And then another thing Raya could never have foreseen happened, and it happened so fast he couldn’t even yelp a warning.

As fast as that emu was, it couldn’t hope to equal the speed of a Were. Itchiko took three bounding leaps, and with the fourth the game was over as he jumped up under that hairy chin and ripped that long throat out. The creature was dead before it hit the ground, as were Raya’s plans for a long, satisfying hunt.

He promptly shifted, looked at Itchiko and drew in a deep breath to give the Were a cursing he’d never forget. But then the absurdity of the situation hit him, and he simply doubled over in howls of laughter. Itchiko shifted and stood staring down at the Alpha, covered with blood and already-healing bites, rolling on the ground in convulsive laughter.

“A fine Trans Alpha you are, right this second,” Itchiko said in his dry tone. “Oh, if I only had one of those new camera things.”

Mid roars of laughter, Raya looked up. “And you did so much better, brother? You just took down a bird using the same technique for a lion!” And off he went in gales of laughter, but this time he wasn’t alone.

The straight-laced Itchiko who rarely cracked a grin was doubled over next to him, tears of hilarity pouring down his cheeks.

For Raya, the outing had turned out to be a complete success.

The next morning, the pack held an official meeting to discuss their immediate future.

“Itchiko. This other pack, how many do they number?” Raya wondered.

“It varies. Somewhere between twenty and thirty on any given day.”

Raya’s eyes widened. “They break even the law governing pack numbers? And how is it that their numbers vary so greatly?”

“Their Weres seem to die fairly often,” Itchiko responded. “Requiring frequent replacements, preferably with young to train.”

Raya went silent. Then, “Alright. It’s obvious that we’re badly outnumbered. If we stay in Europe, it’s possible they find us and eradicate us. I believe it’s time Pack Lupeinescu make a move: a rather large one. The New World is wide-open, plenty of space for a new compound where we can live in protected peace. What say the pack?”

They went around the table, from Were to Were. One after another said “Aye” and the proposition was accepted.

Pack Lupeinescu was on its way to America.

Chapter Six

Oh, Say Can You See?

Adică sîntem atît O casă creşte rapid, un magnific o durează pentru totdeauna.

A shoddy house rises fast, a magnificent one lasts forever.

—A Romani saying

The packed ship pulled into the bustling port of New Orleans. People of every color worked side by side as Raya’s pack disembarked from the ship that had been their home for so many months.

Raya himself told Itchiko to stay with the pack: he’d return in a moment. In a louder voice he declared that he had a surprise for everyone, and then he strode off through the throngs of people around the busy shipping area.

Shortly he returned with two large black men who shouldered most of the pack’s possessions and led the way through the crowds to a nearby street where several carriages awaited.

Petra followed along, gold eyes missing nothing as she climbed into the leading carriage with the other two women of the original pack. Itchiko and his bitch, along with most of the pack’s possessions pulled up the rear.

The carriages struck off slowly through crowded streets containing so many weird things that the wolves weren’t sure the city was human.

Finally they escaped the city proper. The road narrowed, but the carriages made excellent time. Just as the sun was an hour from setting, the lead carriage took a right onto what looked like nothing more than a deer track. A few more minutes and they pulled up in front of a small, very rough cabin.

Raya jumped out of the leading carriage and presented the cabin as if it were the finest of castles.

“Meet the beginnings of L’heureuse lune, The Auspicious Moon, the new home of Pack Lupeinescu,” he said with a certain amount of ceremony not lost on any wolf present.

As was her due, Petra descended first and walked to his side. “Alpha female is honored to join our Trans-Alpha.” So saying, she knelt by Raya’s side and pushed her head under his hand. Raya lifted her straight up by a light tug on her hair. “Trans-Alpha welcomes Alpha Female.”

Itchiko followed suit. “Beta Itchiko would join his brother.”

Raya pulled him to his feet. “Pack Lupeinescu accepts,” he said in his normal voice. Then he added in a stage whisper, “and if you kneel to me again you’ll be minus one gonad.”

The rest of the pack coughed, attempting to cover snorts of laughter. Then one by one they followed suit: one head after another pushing into Raya’s large hand.

Petra sighed and walked to the cabin, opened the door and peered in. “I’d say Pack Lupeinescu has some ass busting in our near future.”

“I’d say they don’t,” Raya promptly countered. He gave a short whistle. “Come on out, boys.”

From behind a nearby thick stand of trees, a crowd of men walked out. Amazed, Petra figured there had to be nearly thirty of them! How on earth had Raya arranged all this from that ship as they crossed the Atlantic?

Raya caught her eye and winked. She grinned back. However he’d done it, these men meant that Pack Lupeinescu would have a new abode much faster than she’d thought possible. Something tickled her memory. Now what was it? Oh yes. That cabin’s interior. In the brief peek she’d taken, she’d seen something fascinating.

She turned and made for the small building, hoping she’d seen what she thought she had. As she opened the door, there it was: a large square table that nearly filled the entire cabin from one wall to the other.

What sat on that table was the prize, she thought as she walked in and looked down. Was that what she thought it was? Having not ever seen a true architectural rendering of a house, she was unsure.

“It has everything you wanted and then some,” Raya said from the doorway.

“You going to translate all this for me?”

“Sure. It’s easier than you think.”

Somehow Petra doubted that, but she’d keep an open mind.

Chapter Seven

A Manger

Nu dau bani, dar mijloacele pentru a-l face.

Give not money, but the means to make it.

—A Romani saying

The pack intended on taking their time to really explore New Orleans while their manse was being built. Their very first night in the beautiful town, they decided to splurge on the supremely elegant but expensive Hotel De Ville. Raya, Petra and the two bitches sat at a large round table in the expansive dining room waiting for Itchiko and his wife. The waiter had come twice with menus, and Raya was getting steadily more nervous about Itchiko’s continued absence. The Japanese were never late.

Raya couldn’t even say “almost never late”: the other was, literally, never late so this came as a most unwelcome shock. Another ten minutes crept by, and Raya had had enough. He stood.

“I’ll be back shortly,” he announced as he turned on one heel and strode away.

Petra watched him go. “Worried about Itchiko,” she said briefly.

“Rightfully so,” Charissa said and the rest of the pack froze. Charissa almost never spoke up and if she did, there was a problem. Charissa was an exquisitely colored wolf from her red-tinged dark coat to her pale blue eyes. Some said those eyes were the mark of a psy-Were, as psychic werewolves were known. Her partner, Erigny, was her perfect complement with a grey coat and eyes a peculiar golden-green. They were a formidable couple, and Petra meant to take advantage of Charissa’s abilities right at that moment.

“Charissa, where is Itchiko?” Petra asked straight out. Sometimes the smaller wolf would instantly respond.

“Walking up behind you,” Charissa responded and everyone laughed, until Itchiko drew close enough where his worried face could be seen.

“What’s up?” Petra asked, voice sharp with worry.

“You need to come with me,” Itchiko told the Alpha Female. As the others in the pack automatically rose, Itchiko said “Only the Alpha, for now.” The pack resettled in their seats, but there wasn’t one wolf who didn’t have a tight stomach.

Petra followed Itchiko as the black wolf walked toward the back of the restaurant. Where on earth was he leading her this time?

Outside the restaurant, Itchiko took Petra up several flights of steps then down a long hall, and finally slowed to a halt in front of an impressively large door. She turned her head to ask what was happening and the answer hit her in the face like a wooden bat.

The heavy, tell-tale scent of a Werewolf in absolute terror was seeping out from cracks below and around that door. Petra frowned. What could cause such terror, and what was that intermingled scent? She inhaled through her nose and concentrated, but nothing came to mind. As she opened her mouth to ask Itchiko, the door swung open.

“Watch out,” Itchiko said. “Been through this once today already. I’ll go first, you wait for a moment.” The room was dark, the heavy curtains pulled shut as Itchiko slid sideways in through the door.

Petra squinted, but even with her werewolf-enhanced vision could make out nothing but the shapes of two beds, a chair, a long bureau and a chair.

Then she felt the air move. Itchiko grunted and cursed, there were assorted noises as bodies took blows and responded. Infuriated at not being able to help, Petra finally bolted into the room just as the bright lights flipped on.

Itchiko was standing, bent over at the waist, over a small man curled up on the floor. To Petra’s horror, the man was in constant flux: he shifted back and forth, back and forth. “I don’t know what to do any more,” came a voice from behind her in the doorway. Petra whirled and squatted, ready for battle.

“Stand down,” Itchiko said calmly. “This is Jean-Paul’s lover. Jean-Paul is the one who is shifting.” He inhaled deeply, and Petra saw that for once the Japanese were was badly troubled. The wrinkles on his forehead were a dead give-away.

“What happened to him?” Petra asked.

A well-built male moved carefully past her to kneel next to Jean-Paul and put his hand on the other male’s cheek. “The government, they set trap and they caught my Jean-Paul. He was there for almost a week before I am able to pull him out, and during those days he was given I do not know what kind of drugs.” Deep golden eyes rose to Petra’s, the plea evident. “Please, help us. I don’t know what to do any more.”

To Petra’s horror, tears slowly rolled down the large man’s face. Weres don’t cry as a rule, and male Weres? Never. This situation was unprecedented in so many ways. “I need my mate,” she stated flatly. “He’s Alpha of our pack: he’ll know what to do. Always does. Let me go find him, alright? Itchiko, can you stay with these two?”

Itchiko nodded, reluctance visible by his lowered brows. “Whatever is going on, I don’t want you left unprotected.”

“I’ll be fine. It’s Jean-Paul who needs help as fast as possible.” With that, she turned and strode out towards the stairs and Raya.

Raya followed his mate back up the stairs, lost in thought. What she’d told him made little sense. Why would the American government want a Werewolf, and what kind of drugs had they filled him with? None of this made sense and he needed answers fast.

Once in the room, he targeted the man kneeling next to the constantly-shifting Were. “You. Your name is?”

“I am Andre, I’ve been with Jean-Paul for almost two hundred—“ he paused as his lover shifted to wolf-form, let a mournful howl that was abruptly cut off by a shift back to human form. “Dieu nous garde. Faut que...” he saw incomprehension on the other faces and dropped into English. “You must help us. Please.”

“Where was Jean-Paul held?” Raya asked.

“A facility on the other side of the lake,” Itchiko responded for the distraught Were. “I can take you there.”

“That’s where we start, then. Whatever has to happen, this guy needs to stop shifting ASAP.” Raya stopped speaking, but every Were in the room heard his unspoken words: shifting took a certain amount of energy. Constant shifting meant a constant drain with no chance of replenishing supplies. No one knew what would happen if a Were was completely drained of his energy: as far as Raya knew, it had never happened.

That he or his pack were aware of, he amended silently.

Time to visit a government facility now.

***

Two hours later, the entire pack was assembled in Raya’s spacious suite. There was obvious tension in the air as Raya began to speak. “As you know, the facility or warehouse was empty. Utterly empty down to the packed-dirt floor.” Raya began pacing across the deep carpet. “Not sure where to go from here, but we need to find out exactly who held Jean-Paul, why, and used what drugs. Obviously we need this information yesterday. Does anyone have any ideas?”

Petra heaved a sigh. “There’s always Uncle John.” Raya’s elegant nose actually wrinkled at the suggestion.

“That has to be the worst—” Raya stopped at the warning plain in Petra’s eyes. Damnation, his alpha mate was right—as usual.

Uncle John was a man in his sixties that Raya had met whilst applying for visas for the pack. John had accepted the Were’s applications, then flipped through them while Raya looked on.

“Certainly come from a lot of different places,” John had remarked.

“We’re a worldly bunch,” Raya agreed.

John had come to the end of the small stack of papers, flipped it over and begun to read again from the beginning. Raya had been exasperated, but knew enough not to show it.

After all, the American was dealing with papers from Wallachia, Germany, the UK and two other unpronounceable countries in Eastern Europe: such a group would draw the attention of any government employee. At last John slapped the papers down and looked into Raya’s eyes.

“What y’all really up to in New Orleans?” Heavy set, John’s eyes appeared tiny behind folds of fat.

“I’m building a beautiful compound for us here: it’s perfect! The weather is divine, the city is large enough to be cosmopolitan but not so large the crime rate is high, and the surrounding area is exquisite. We intend to put down roots here for ourselves and the Lupein Corporation.”

Those small eyes sharpened. “Lupein Corporation? And what do you have to do with that particular enterprise?”

“I created it,” Raya said.

There was silence, then John said “If I’m to believe that, why come to America when you are doing so very well in the European market?”

“The New World is going to be the most important business location in years to come. Lupein Corp will have a jump-start on the rest.”

John rubbed his heavily-stubbled chin, evidence that a morning shave hadn’t lasted until nearly 7 at night. “Your board of directors,” he said at last. “Who is comptroller?”

“Have to look that up,” Raya said. “Whoever’s doing it now is a good question. We all hate that job, so we rotate through it.”

“I like a man with an eye to the future,” John said slowly. A business card appeared and was pushed under the glass divider separating him from Raya. “Me, I’ve had my own business for well on fifteen years now. Small accounting firm with some dang big clients. Whole reason I took this job…” he pulled himself up short and looked at Raya, one thick grey brow raised.

“You wanted to be in a position to serve as go-between for major government contacts, and one day go out on your own,” Raya finished for him, eyes staring at nothing. “How handy would that be for an accounting firm run by a guy with even a menial government job?”

John grinned. “I do believe you see my point.”

“I do indeed.”

The two men had left the court house and wound up at a small bar on the other side of town, where they’d talked until the bar closed.

The upshot: “Uncle” John had a seat on Lupein Corp’s board, and Raya owned a small percentage of John’s company. Neither man had a reason to regret the move and John was in a perfect position to make some quiet enquiries.

He agreed when Raya asked, and didn’t even push for details. John knew nothing about Raya or the pack’s personal lives, and Raya intended to maintain that.

It took several days for John to find out anything whatsoever about Jean-Paul’s run-in with the government, and John’s face didn’t give Raya a warm feeling when he faced Raya with his news. His tiny eyes were more sunken than usual, and there were heavy bags and black circles indicating lack of sleep. Moreover, John’s usually expansive mouth which appeared to always be on the verge of a grin, was tightened down to a slit.

“Listen here, I don’t know what the fuck y’all done got into, and I don’t want to know,” John began as he hoisted his bulk into a chair in the suite. “Weird shit is going on, that much I do know. My contact in the army didn’t know much either, but what little he did know scared him to death. Seems that certain critters were spotted deep in the swamps, and the army captured one or two. My guy didn’t know specifics: this is all super hush-hush but my guy was on the detail that escorted these critters back to base.”

“What exactly were these creatures?” Raya asked.

“Damned if I know, and my guy said they looked as human as you or me until something right strange happened.” The large round face lost a lot of color, and the dark stubble stood out yet more clearly against the now-pasty color of John’s face. “Guy said that he’d heard some weird shit coming from that wing: swears it was howlin. You know, what wolves do from time to time.”

“Howling?” Raya injected just enough disbelief into the one word.

“You heard me. After that, the whatever-they-weres were transferred to a secure medical facility somewhere up north and that’s all we know.”

Thoughts raced through Raya’s mind. “Where up north?”

“Somewhere on the outskirts of Seattle,” John responded. The two men looked at each other for a moment. “You might think me a stupid old fat man, Raya, and you’d be right on two out of three.”

Raya had to smile.

“There’s something different about you and your entire board of directors, and don’t you think for a New York minute I don’t know that.” Raya stiffened, and menace poured off him in palpable waves.

John stood and held both chubby arms straight in the air. “None of that, now. I don’t know shit and don’t want to: I just wanted you to know that y’all ain’t put nuthin over on me. That’s it.” He paused, then added “well, that and I flat love your Petra! One fine woman who’s smarter than a damn whip.” Once again menace flowed through the air and this time John flat out laughed. “Don’t you worry none: she ain’t my type.” he leaned over and whispered, “I prefer one added appendage and two less than what she’s got.”

It was Raya’s turn to stifle laughter.

When they parted some hours later, they had part of a plan and something else new: a level of trust that had not existed prior to this night. Raya wasn’t sure how that had happened, wasn’t going to blindly accept it either—but was going to play along and see what happened.

He didn’t have long to wait.

Two days later, there was a knock on the suite’s main door. Through the peephole Raya recognized the uniforms: the US Army, clearly. With lots of hardware as well.

That door wasn’t opened until Raya was satisfied about the intent behind those uniforms, via a plain manila envelope marked “Top Secret” in bright red. One man handed it to him and held up a hand as Raya started to ask something. Held up a hand and shook his head.

Raya shut the door in their faces and opened the envelope. Several photos fell out along with a written report. He scanned the latter and immediately returned to the door, ushered in the soldiers.

“What can I do to help, gentlemen?” he asked as they seated themselves on a long couch.

“You’ve applied for citizenship, we see,” the older uniform said. “Uncle Sam would like to help you and your wife with that matter, which can sometimes be somewhat sticky. In return, we need a little information on people you likely knew back home...”

The discussion extended deep into the night. The US Army at topmost levels were interested in a group of bad guys in Europe. From the included photos and several descriptions, Raya discovered that the US were after none other than that dangerous pack his own had run across before coming to the USA.

Now that was interesting: their interests definitely coincided there. The danger lay in what “talents” certain in the American government were sure the European group had, specifically the ability to vanish. And the ability to change into a wolf: something that had been recently discovered via a capture made only months ago. The two soldiers looked at Raya as if waiting for roars of laughter.

“I’m not entirely sure I believe in those ‘talents’ you’re describing, but we’ve run into that group on a business level as I’m sure you know.” The soldiers nodded. “We are highly interested in them as well: I’m sure we can work together, as you originally suggested.”

Both uniforms snapped to attention in their seats, then relaxed. “Just a few details...”

In the end, Pack Lupeinescu was working indirectly for the United States government, something that horrified Itchiko down to his very bones.

“Don’t you see,” Raya explained for the umpteenth time, “this will do us nothing but good. We have eyes inside the government now: we’ll know what they know about our species as soon as they learn it, and be in a position to guide their knowledge without them knowing who or what we are. Better yet, keep the pack close and those who would harm it even closer,” he intoned, quoting from the Lupein Codec, which was still under construction.

Itchiko reluctantly gave in, but made plans of his own to ensure Pack Lupeinescu’s ultimate protection. Plans he shared with no one, including his brother.

Even Itchiko was finally convinced of John’s loyalty to the pack when the obese man showed up at the camp Raya had put together where Heureuse was being built. At 3AM, John managed to sneak past booby traps that had taken Itchiko days to arrange to place.

Itchiko in fact awoke to a very large, very hairy face with breath rank enough to knock a buzzard off a shit wagon blowing in his face. “I got what you need. Don’t know what the fuck’s in it: don’t want to, either.”

Itchiko came instantly awake and to his feet before John’s familiar scent gave him away.

“Give your sick buddy this, right in the ass,” John instructed as he pulled a gigantic hypodermic needle filled with a cloudy yellow substance from his pocket. Then just as suddenly, John vanished back the way he’d come.

Itchiko looked at the bizarre contraption for quite a while. It had a big round steel thing on one end, evidently one pushed on that to inject what was in the tube into the person. He had his doubts if this procedure would even work, but Jean-Paul was visibly declining by the day.

All the shifting was draining him to death, as Itchiko had feared. If this weird thing worked—well, they’d have to see. He walked out of his own crude tent, shifted, and ran to the hotel in town where Jean-Paul and his mate were staying.

He knocked softly on their door, hoping not to alarm them. Andre answered the door so quickly that it was obvious he’d not been asleep. One look at Jean-Paul and Itchiko knew why.

Even in the few days since he’d seen the ailing were last, he’d lost weight. A lot of weight. Andre looked at Itchiko and shrugged helplessly.

“I brought something that might help,” Itchiko said. “No guarantees. The guy I got this from has no idea what it is either, but if he says it’ll work, we need to give it a shot.” He winced. “I could have used better wording there,” he admitted as he pulled the contraption from his pocket.

Andre stared at it. “What on earth?”

“No clue. Give me a moment, it sure can’t hurt at this point.” Itchiko slid the covers off Jean-Paul, rolled the Were onto his side, and rapidly injected the fluid into the Were’s bony ass.

He and Andre waited nearly an hour, but nothing happened. No shifting, though, either. Maybe there was hope after all, Itchiko thought as he took his leave.

When Jean-Paul still hadn’t shifted in three days, his mate Andre and all of the pack were relieved. John had pulled off a miracle, and earned the pack’s respect. Not their trust: that would maybe come with time.

Chapter Eight

Die to Live Another Day

Throughout the next century, Pack Lupeinescu worked with those government contacts and provided them with invaluable information on the ever-growing criminal European pack, based on “knowledge from Lupein contacts inserted into that group.” As both pack and military humans aged, the pack casually introduced sons and daughters who’d graduated from impressive colleges, were working in Lupein Corp already and were ready to enter the agreement with the government. As the pack’s personal government contacts retired, they were introduced to the next generation of Army personnel who were involved with the ‘European Terrorist Group’ program.

At the same time, Petra had worked non-stop on becoming a social success in New Orleans. She’d succeeded beyond her own wildest of dreams, and was now known from tea rooms in Manhattan to kitchens of the newest American craze, movie stars.

It was Petra who introduced the concept of the ‘Lupein silent auction’ in which bids were written on a list at the front of the room by anonymous bidders such as trusted servants. This was the perfect situation when the objects for sale could be embarrassing to bidders such as ancient Japanese netsuke, miniature sculptures invented to hold bags for traditional Japanese robes that had no pockets. Japanese artists had created beautifully carved sex scenes, worth a fortune to collectors but of course not something most Japanese would even admit to possessing. At one of Petra’s auctions, not only were bids placed anonymously, but the increments were set prior to the auction: every half hour the active bidders would come and view the current bids, then change their own or withdraw.

These silent auctions as well as the impressive growth rate of Raya’s Lupein Corporation all moved toward one goal: funding the pack’s newest non-profit, a charity called “A Table” (French for “Dinnertime! Come eat!”). Raya had spent eons thinking of ways to ensure that people, especially children, would all have sufficient food no matter where they lived. And if he could do so by skinning those who had far more money than scruples, all the better. ‘A Table’ was a good start in that direction as chapters had sprung up in more than seventeen countries, more every year.

The pack itself had created or bought countless businesses, both individual and held concurrently by the pack itself. By the beginning of the 20th century, Raya had become involved in searching for businesses either failing or run by ‘wrong types’ as he called them. His own Lupein Corp would acquire such enterprises and the fun would begin.

Raya far preferred to turn new enterprises over to new management, chosen from a pool of carefully-chosen people who’d been down on their luck, yet had powerful drive to succeed all the same. He had world-wide eyes looking for such prospects. Yes, a couple of businesses created and run in such a fashion had failed- but the lion’s share had not only succeeded spectacularly, but succeeded in giving back to ‘A Table’ in the process. Raya was happier than he’d ever believed possible when a call came in that would change not only his life, but the lives of the pack themselves.

Chapter Nine

Rats

Cine inventeaza o noua lumanare arsuri 100 acum sau ceasuri satul arde mai târziu.

He who invents a new candle burns 100 now or watches the village burn later.

—A Romani saying

The call came from one of Raya’s army contacts and regarded what Raya now called the RRP (Real Rat Pack,) the renegade criminal pack in Europe who had developed into talented thieves, assassins, mercenaries—all for anyone with sufficient funds. They’d become infamous during WWII when they’d operated for whichever side had paid them best at the moment. Several times they’d even swapped sides as soon as one operation was ended. Ever since, their successes had been labeled “extraordinary” by both the press and a fascinated group of Hollywood actors.

The pack was shunned by Weres everywhere for many reasons, including their sheer numbers. eight was the ‘magic’ number for a wolf pack, nine at most. The RRP, however, added indiscriminately to their pack, even reaching three digits—beyond one hundred Weres—on occasion. It was enough to turn Raya’s stomach.

The current situation involved a pack of four wolves who’d barely escaped from Europe and the RRP with their lives. It wasn’t clear how this small pack had tangled with the RRP in the first place, and that gave Raya an uneasy feeling.

He did know that the small pack had booked passage on a tramp steamer bound for Ripero, New Jersey. The name of the city alone sparked a fleeting memory as Raya had heard somewhere that Ripero , ‘shelter’ in Italian, was a model city built by the Cavello Corporation, well known for their motto ‘where garbage becomes treasure.’ Everyone knew that the Cavello Corporation was a shiny front for a bunch of none-too-shiny characters better known as the Italian mafia, namely the Gambini family.

Cavello Corporation consisted of squeaky-clean business types who’d graduated from Harvard Business School and the like. In truth, one old Italian who lived by his own code was single-handedly responsible for every major move or decision at Cavello: a certain Don Gambini.

The don was determined to prove that several revolutionary new chemicals created by Cavello’s top chemists would treat any landfill and create a clean, safe location where a city could then be built. So many landfills existed across America, but that land was considered ‘lost’ and ‘unusable.’ Anyone who proved able to recover those millions of lost acres would be heralded as a hero, and make a fortune in the process. The Don, who preferred to live in the shadows, cared nothing for the ‘hero’ designation but was more than interested in the fortune to be made. Although far from poor, another one of the Don’s cherished mottos was ‘there’s never enough.’

The first city to actually be built atop a landfill, and an enormous landfill at that, was Ripero.

Cavello’s scientists had invented a chemical which reduced most non-recyclable garbage into a water-permeable substance almost as hard as cement. Cavello named this substance GarTres. Ripero itself was oblivious to what lay beneath it, a sizeable hill of pure GarTres covered by fifteen feet of the best dirt money could buy.

The story had appeared in one tabloid or another and of course Petra had spotted it as her weakness was reading those rags. She delighted in the absurd and surprising Raya with the latest. Ripero’s tale had hit on all cylinders: built on trash by trash! Who could resist, she’d told Raya several weeks before as she provided details with wicked glee.

Raya’s phone rang again, interrupting his thoughts. Now the terrified European pack were down a wolf, as there’d been a confrontation between the Weres and some sort of security force in the streets of Ripero. One of the werewolves had been shot and killed. When the others attempted to flee the area, this mysterious security group had blocked every possible egress, forcing the Weres to find a place to hide within the city itself.

Raya hung up, called Petra in her studio and asked her to gather the pack for a trip to New Jersey in the morning.

Chapter Ten

Ripero: Treasure City

One man’s trash is another’s treasure.

—Unknown

If the Cavello Corp, and the Italian brains behind those puppets, had had any idea of the repercussions behind that one Were’s death, the entire situation would have been handled far differently.

Cavello Corp remained in blissful ignorance, though, and events rolled on to an inevitable conclusion.

As Cavello concentrated its considerable forces on finding the remaining three hapless Weres, a small group of Cavello scientists were uneasy for an entirely different reason. In their large, pristine lab several stories below ground level, Dr. Ricky Helton was squinting at his computer screen and rubbing his bald pate. His assistant, Jennie, walked in with fresh coffee.

“Dr. H, drink this. You need a break,” Jennie said.

“Break, shmake,” Helton replied. “That Ripero, I tell you it’s going to—”

“Enough already,” the exasperated woman said. “You’ve had those feelings for what, six years now? And look at Ripero! Less illnesses on an average than any other US city. Less crime. Less—”

“Yes yes, I know the stats too,” Helton said. “I feel like we overlooked something when we tested that plastic compound, if you can call those hasty experiments really ‘testing’ at all. It’s going to come back and bite us in the ass, mark my words.”

Out of his line of sight, Jennie rolled black eyes behind thick glasses and left the room to make her way back to the main lab.

There was one obvious flaw in the GarTres process, and Helton was well aware of it. There were two steps in treating a landfill before it would be livable. The first step involved dumping a soup of chemicals that burned any plastic to ash while ignoring all other materials. The ‘soup’ slid its way through the entire landfill in a matter of hours, thanks to one particular chemical created specifically to ‘slide’ rapidly but thoroughly through any mixture.

Once the landfill was free of plastics completely, two brand-new chemicals were carefully combined and added to the landfill, along with the ever-useful ‘slider’ chemical. These chemicals were almost magical but were used with the full knowledge that they would never to come into contact with any form of Polyethylene Terephthalate or Dacron, a specific type of plastic used in synthetic fibers such as water bottles. As all plastics had been removed in Step one, there should never be a situation where the GarTres chemicals would ever be in contact with Dacron plastic, as the GarTres was buried beneath fifteen feet of normal dirt.

Moreover, what would really happen if Dacron did came into contact with the chemicals in GarTres? At most, a small heat reaction would ensue, the scientists had assured Cavello Corp. No reason to worry as no plastics were anywhere in that landfill: Step one had assured that.

In a hurry to bring the product to market, Cavello Corp hadn’t bothered to test the exact results of what would happen should Dacron came into contact with those GarTres chemicals, figuring in-depth tests could be run when there was more time.

But when the three wolves were forced to rapidly bury their friend, they’d dug the normal twenty feet deep as necessitated by the Lupein Codec, even several hundred years ago, Raya had understood that werewolf bodies needed to stay buried. When the Weres had placed their friend in his grave, at the last moment one had sadly thrown the last thing he’d given his friend: a little water bottle with a cartoon on it, a private joke.

The three Weres had finished shoveling all the dirt back over their friend, said a prayer and left.

The GarTres didn’t come into immediate contact with the Dacron water bottle because as the distraught Weres shoveled dirt over their friend, they began shoveling ever-larger shovelfuls of dirt to hasten the dreadful process. One such hit the water bottle squarely on top, knocking it between their friend’s right arm and his torso. Another even larger load of dirt knocked the Were’s arm sideways, directly over the water bottle as if to protect it.

Over the course of several days, the dirt settled. As GarTres was heavier than plain dirt, it worked its way busily downward until it could go no farther. The Were’s body served as a block, but the GarTres still had traces of that “slider” chemical and tended to move a little more than dirt normally would. Therefore, when a small chunk of GarTres came to rest on the Were’s arm, it slid down until it encountered a small empty space. It then dropped and landed with a small splat directly on the grinning teeth of the cartoon that decorated the water bottle.

If one had watched sufficient horror movies and had been anxiously awaiting the unknown and untested reaction between GarTres and Dacron, the cartoon would suddenly be lacking teeth as first effect of the dreaded contact would be instant destruction. The reality was far more boring: the reaction produced a minor amount of a certain chain of DNA. Nothing may have ever happened had not Miss Henry’s prize Great Dane been digging hard and fast after an intriguing scent. The dog never did locate anything, but something found it: an infinitesimally small chain of that DNA, just minutely different from that of the dog. In fact, that one section represented nothing exciting whatsoever, simply a fifty million year regression of canine DNA. In plainer language, the DNA that dog (or any other living creature) would have had fifty million years ago. There was no immediate effect when that DNA slipped into the Dane’s body and made itself right at home, but DNA is friendly: it enjoys moving around, visiting others.

Three months later when the burial had been entirely forgotten by anyone except the small pack of grieving Weres, an exceedingly odd series of incidents happened. Any puppies (registered show puppies and their less fortunate siblings) born out of a bitch who’d crossed paths even at a distance from that Great Dane, showed the same unique but deadly effects: they were born with a perfect set of gills. The minute they exited the womb, they gasped frantically and died in minutes. The only difference between the show pups and mutts was that the former had humans in attendance, humans who completely panicked when their beautiful animals slid out of the womb and died in such a dreadful manner, with ugly gills flapping madly on their tiny necks.

Instantly, Ripero moved from the very model of a modern perfect living experience to a veritable nightmare for dog lovers, in particular those who bred them willingly or otherwise. The Cavello Corporation PR Team was presented with a problem different anything they’d ever faced: this was a catastrophe beyond comprehension. The real power behind the Cavello Corporation, of course, was pragmatic. There really was only one viable solution. Rid the city of canines, of course, and any humans who overly protested that act. In fact, why not delouse the perfect city by exterminating any humans who had canines at all?

If a corporation worker turned pale, it was because they themselves had a dog. No other reason.

Chapter Eleven

A Rough Landing

Raya and the pack had been in the air heading to New Jersey for only ten minutes when he heard something he’d never heard before yet instantly recognized: the sound of the Uber Werewolf’s voice.

“Turn plane around: go home. Do it now,” the deep voice growled in his ear. There were no possible questions: only acquiescence. Raya turned to Petra and commanded, “Have a heart attack. Do it now.”

Petra had only heard that tone of voice from her mate on few occasions, but was fully aware of its meaning. She took immediate action by excusing herself, climbing over Raya and emerging into the aisle. Once there, she took two steps and began gasping for air before dropping to her knees. Then she clasped a hand to her chest and let one tiny shriek before toppling face-forward.

“Her heart!” Raya shouted. “The doctor did warn us. God, it’s her heart! Someone help us please!”

The flight returned to New Orleans twenty minutes later. As the pair wearily re-entered their manse, every phone was ringing at once. Raya took one call and thought he too would have a heart attack at the very idea of what he and Petra had just avoided, as he could only imagine all too well his own pups adorned with a set of gills.

Then reality hit, fury burned, and the world changed over like the ticking of a slow clock. This could possibly wipe out his entire race.

Who the hell was responsible for this outrage, this act of murder? What had they done, how to fix it, and how to most rapidly disseminate the news? For sure, this was news that certain people would want squelched, even though the more who learned of it, the better the chances that some doctor could invent a fix. Doctors ignorant of the problem would invent nothing.

He didn’t need to worry about other wolves learning of the catastrophe. The Uber Wolf had seen to that.

One thing was sure: something dark was headed their way, heralded by the resurfacing of his ancient warrior skills and the hair on his neck rising. Shit. Time to brush up on those long-unused skills: time the entire pack did. For a brief moment when he thought of the word ‘pack’ the entire world became red-tinged and his heart sank.

They would lose at least one pack member shortly. No. Christos, no.

Of course Raya wasn’t omniscient, either, or he would have been cognizant of the one other scene that posed an equal amount of danger to his pack: in a small hotel in Paris, the RRP leaders were packing their bags for a long trip.

An overseas trip.

Chapter Twelve

Kill All the Canines?

Lupul impotriva lupul este de a fi barbat ocolit.

Wolf against wolf is to be shunned.

—a Romani saying

Raya had sufficient knowledge now to put the pack on full alert. First, he sent Itchiko to acquire new weapons to the black Were’s absolute delight. Itchiko wasn’t quite as happy to learn he had to see to the entire pack’s training, though.

His government contact gave him a brief call the next morning to warn him that certain members of the RRP had landed at JFK and promptly vanished: none had taken a connecting flight. At least the hairs on his neck still worked perfectly well as a warning system, he thought with a small grin.

Instinct told him the other pack would be headed to New Jersey, though why they’d risk it was unknown. And what of the three pack members who still needed to be rescued from that nightmare of a city?

All of these separate elements fit together somehow, he was sure of that. Perhaps a talk with Petra would clear up the puzzle. His Alpha female had a mind like a steel trap. She could put things together better than anyone he’d ever known. Yes, he’d just run it—

The phone rang mid-thought. He answered it and heard such a soft whisper that he had to nearly yell “Speak up! Can’t hear.”

There was a brief silence, then a scrambling noise and the sound of a door clicking closed. “Is this better?” a very low male voice enquired.

“I can at least understand you now,” he said. “Who is this, anyway?”

The other inhaled on a half-sob. “Thierry Thibodeaux says that Michael the Brave needs to off-ass and get to New Jersey.”

Raya emitted a short laugh in surprise. “He did, did he? How about that. Right. Where the hell are you guys?”

“Fiero & Sons Mortuary,” the voice nearly whispered.

“What the hell? You guys sleeping in caskets?” It was a bad joke, he thought, but maybe the frightened Were would get a grin out of it.

“Exactly so.”

Or not. Shit! How were they to rescue three Weres hiding in a damn mortuary? “It’s going to be a day or two,” he warned the other Were. “We have to make plans and it’s dangerous as hell for our kind there, now.”

“We overheard a meeting,” the voice said, even lower than it had been. “We felt you should know what’s being discussed for this city.”

The explanation lasted nearly ten minutes, and Raya calmly let the Were speak uninterrupted, although he felt like howling with rage. Indeed, he found he was growling in the back of his throat. Worse, the office door burst open and suddenly he was surrounded by his entire pack.

“Sorry, guys. Temper got away from me,” he said, and then went on to repeat what he’d just heard. Cavello Corp had first decided to neuter all the canines within one hundred miles of the city. There’d been a roar of rage at the idea: several of the board members bred high quality dogs and sold puppies.

And how to fix street dogs? There was no way. Not to mention that the disease vector was unknown. No one knew how it passed from dog to dog.

The voice interrupted his thoughts. “They agreed with you that fixing the dogs was a poor idea, so they’ve decided to kill every dog in the area. Including wolves, I’m sorry to say.”

Raya was livid. Kill all the canines, would they? How short-sighted could they be in their mad efforts to put a lid on news like this?

Especially when there was no way to prevent news of this magnitude from leaking. Hmmmm... he’d make damn sure of that himself, or rather Petra would. She was just walking out of his office, talking to Itchiko.

“Petra? Could you hang back for a bit?” Raya requested.

“Sure. See you in a bit, Itchiko.” She sauntered back and perched on the edge of his desk, facing him. Tossing a look back over her shoulder, she spread her legs right in his face. Her skirt hiked up above her knees, and suddenly her furry thatch was winking at him. The scent alone... Good Christos, she was on the verge of coming into heat.

He inhaled deeply and growled, whatever he was going to say lost in the grasp of pure lust that followed. Then he shook his head: now wasn’t the time.

“Need your buddy who writes for the Herald,” he requested. “We have quite the story to get out there.”

“Better be really good,” Petra said. “He got promoted: not doing just food reviews these days.”

“It’s better than good,” Raya said and then explained.

Petra whistled. “Oh yeah, that will work, but what do we do about those poor Weres in New Jersey?”

“Rent a bunch of caskets. Say we’re practicing for a group funeral...”

“...or having some kinky party,” she added. Both Weres grinned and something loosened inside Raya.

Petra deliberately leaned over his face and picked up his desk phone, spreading as much of her scent as possible. She dialed, went silent, then began speaking.

Partway through her conversation, he had to grin. When she hung up he was full-out laughing.

“Love of God, woman! ‘MerDogs’ for fuck’s sake?”

“Half mermaid, half dog,” Petra said, voice shaking with laughter. “I knew he’d bite at that!”

Raya sobered. “He needs to get this out quickly, before those Italian bastards figure out how to shut it all down. I tell you, every scientist world-wide needs to be working on this. You do realize our race could go extinct next generation?”

She sighed and hung her head. “I realize I don’t even dare bring pups into the world at all, now, and I was just about ready to give it a try.”

Shocked, Raya reached up and brushed her beautiful face lightly with one finger. “It will get settled. Minute it does, you are taking a big vacation. I’ll go for a week or two, hopefully you’ll be in heat.” He forced a grin and waggled his brows at her. “You’ll be popping out pups like a Pez dispenser.”

They both laughed as Petra stood, kissed him deeply and left.

One positive thought, Raya knew, was that the Italians had a hell of a lot of money to lose over this situation. Definitely gave them a major reason to do all they could to resolve the issue which they themselves had caused. It didn’t occur to him that with that much money at stake and the morals of mobsters, their solution might not be so pleasant. Oh wait! They were mobsters.

Chapter Thirteen

Plastic…not fantastic!

Protejaţi-vă cu mintea ta.

Protect yourself with your mind.

—a Romani saying

The headline and first few lines of the New Orleans Advocate’s front page were short and sweet:

Ripero, New Jersey:

Instant Death City-wide for Pups Born With Gills

When plastic meets certain chemicals, the smallest reaction imaginable takes place—a minute segment of DNA is changed. Scientists say that this segment controls oxygen input, and acts as a powerful reverse evolutionary agent. Puppies born with this strand of DNA have gills, no lungs. The CDC could not be reached for comments.

Raya slammed the paper onto his desk with a mixed feeling of disgust and sheer dread. Should this DNA actually trigger the same reaction in a Were’s body, that would be the end of the Weres.

That scientists had known of a possible reaction between the chemicals produced in GarTres and the plastic commonly used in water bottles struck Raya as the height of irresponsibility. Why hadn’t far more thorough tests been done? Christos, when the CDC did some testing, werewolves should make themselves scarce. Very scarce indeed...

Perhaps the entire pack should move into the Fiero & Sons Mortuary, Raya thought bitterly. He was spoiled, they all were after living in Heureuse for more than two hundred years in an elegant manse that had taken nearly three years to design and build, from the design itself, six months of running battles between Petra and the architect, to the natural pool out back with its implanted Jacuzzi that seemed to melt into the swamp beyond. Somehow, a narrow, dark casket wouldn’t have the same effect.

Raya simply shook his head. A series of such small actions had led to what could well be the worst catastrophe ever suffered by his race. He exhaled heavily and picked up the phone. A pack member’s daughter worked at the CDC, and assuredly the best scientists on earth were there. If anyone had heard of progress, this woman would be the first.

Except they were as baffled as everyone else, he shortly learned.

With the RRP at an unknown location in the States, he needed to ramp up security for each pack member as well. A call to Itchiko ensured that two of his best would be on each member, along with an eight man human detail.

There was no evidence that the European pack had any intention of visiting New Orleans: no evidence if one didn’t count the hairs on Raya’s neck rising every time that pack entered his thoughts.

That was sufficient evidence for him and the entire pack.

Chapter Fourteen

War Comes to Heureuse

Bring a war to a home, and that war will burn your city.

—Unknown

Two nights later, Raya’s neck hairs proved correct. He was awakened at 3:20 AM by the crash of breaking glass, then rancid smoke filling the bedroom. Barely awake, he picked up a sleeping Petra and raced for the back of the house to attempt an escape.

Petra’s deep sleep alerted him to what was in that smoke: some kind of sleeping gas. His stronger constitution was working for him, for now. He pushed the alarm button before running to the back of Heureuse, where movement in the woods proved that the manse was surrounded.

Fine... he’d made provisions for that possibility more than two centuries ago, to the disgust of the pack who’d worked non-stop digging tunnels with the help of various trusted humans. He grinned. This would be an ‘I told you so’ that no one would forget.

He bumped into several sleepy pack members stumbling down the steps to the cellar, all demanding to know what was happening.

“For right now, get to the tunnels and go to the swamp shack. Once all of us are there, we’ll take the Jeeps and then I’ll explain. For now, move it and fast before they figure out what we’re up to.” He paused, then added reluctantly, “It’s that damn European pack. It’s not humans we’re facing, so the danger is ten-fold. Now move out.”

The other Weres came instantly awake and took off at a dead run for the well-hidden door behind the washing machines in the cellar.

Only six pack members arrived at the shack in the swamp. Charissa and Erigny were missing, to Raya’s shock and misery. The very two Weres who’d brought him into the Were world and they’d been taken, no doubt about it.

What would happen to them?

Chapter Fifteen

The Swap

As both Jeeps bumped over the rough track leading to a small swamp trail, Raya’s phone rang. A muffled voice informed him that the RRP indeed had his two bitches, and would accept only one thing to retrieve them: him, himself. It was to be a swap or he could retrieve Charissa and Erigny’s corpses.

He was given a location (a tiny Creole restaurant deep in the swamp, at 3:00 AM the next night) and told that if he didn’t arrive alone, he’d find only two bodies.

Raya agreed and hung up. Surely Itchiko would have an idea: his own mind was overwhelmed by grief. He remembered the red glow he’d seen not long before, always a warning that he was going to lose a pack member.

One of those two wouldn’t make it out alive.

Raya’s pack had a distinct advantage, due to one of Itchiko’s weirder ideas. Each member had shifted, been taken to a vet and chipped like the family dog. Tracking the two missing members would be cake.

Finding them alive would be another story.

Once they’d arrived at the safe house set up so long before, Itchiko opened his laptop and located the two missing Weres. There was a small group of shacks and warehouses at the edge of Lake Pontchartrain where the swamp began: Charissa and Erigny were there. As his pack and the electronic sniffer drew closer, the kidnapped members’ location would narrow and become more specific.

Raya didn’t like the numbers. From what he’d heard, 12 RRP members at least were in town. His own pack now numbered half that. How on earth could they effect an rescue under such conditions?

It was Itchiko, of course, who came up with the solution at 6:00PM: none too soon for Raya’s liking. The Rats were holding his wolves at an ancient warehouse, surrounded on all sides by flat swamp. Impossible to sneak up on, especially with the understanding that all werewolves loathed water. True as it was, the Rats could never guess the agony Itchiko had put Raya and every member of his pack through: learning to swim first, snorkel, and deep sea dive at the end.

Such talents would come in handy today along with a small group of highly-trusted humans, all of whom together made up for one wolf as Itchiko figured it. Raya didn’t care. Sometimes numbers didn’t matter: strategy did.

He hoped this was one of those times.

Chapter Sixteen

Preparing for Attack

Pack Lupeinescu wasn’t without their own smoke bombs. Nothing so simple as knock-out drugs, of course: Itchiko was far too refined for such. No, the black wolf had worked paw in paw with a distant pack who had a chemist member. Itchiko had a few surprises for RRP, one of which he’d had specially made just on the off chance that wolf would ever go against wolf: an unheard-of event until now, but even such events should be prepared for. Today was proof that however unlikely an event seemed, one should be protected should it occur.

Raya had even protested when Itchiko had told him of the product some seven years ago. Itchiko had said then that “not all wolves run on the same paws,” and Raya had been forced to give in however reluctantly.

Now of course he blessed Itchiko, who gave a snarky grin and advised him to check his weapons.

Shortly they were less than two hundred yards from the Rat-held warehouse: six utterly miserable wolves in human form wearing diving gear. Well, five as Itchiko was nowhere in sight. He’d be coming up on the warehouse from behind, with Raya’s humans to make a distraction.

VROOM!

And there it was, right on target. Three Wave Runners shot by the warehouse, turned, came straight back. They were making a third run when a fourth seemed to leap out of the warehouse and give chase... but just as that last Wave Runner appeared, Raya heard what he’d been waiting for. A distant explosion.

Now, if only that product worked as Itchiko had insisted it would. Developed specifically for wolf constitutions, the drug was a combination of powerful sexual hormones and pheromones. A werewolf is a highly sexual creature. When females were in heat, males were blind to the thoughts of anything else. Females in heat were even worse than the males.

Itchiko’s drug had been devastatingly simple: it simply set female wolves in premature heat. In human form, a wolf would instantly shift. Females would enter directly into strong estrus and every male wolf within hundreds of yards would respond.

One more reason for the diving gear was that the Weres would have oxygen face masks they now wore and would continue wearing for the duration of the attack, although the drug itself would dissipate in an hour. The effects would last five-seven days, though, the usual length of wolf heat: any wolf near a group of wolves with females in heat couldn’t help but join in the festivities.

Distant howls went up from the warehouse and Raya turned, nodded at his pack.

It was time.

Chapter Seventeen

And They All Fall Down

Raya’s attack wasn’t as simple as he’d thought, as of course human elements were involved and unaffected by the drug. The pack made short work of them, although one member took a shot to the leg and had to instantly shift to heal.

The greatest problem was truly unexpected although it shouldn’t have been. Charissa and Erigny, the members they’d come to rescue, refused to go. Not only refused, but were both deeply involved in a typical werewolf orgy.

Call it by any other name—Itchiko should have foreseen this too, Raya cursed as he gently tried to coax the two bitches, both in full estrus, to shift human and leave. Even as he spoke, he know his entreaty fell on deaf ears, or deaf crotches in reality. Neither bitch even looked up as one was mounted from behind by an enormous male, while Charissa’s blue eyes gleamed as she shifted human and took another male’s cock deeply into her throat as Raya spoke. Useless—any attempt at all would be useless.

Reluctantly Raya approved of the hypodermic needle that Itchiko held up, both brows raised. The shot contained a powerful depressant in a dose that would knock an elephant out. Hopefully it was powerful enough to put a werewolf bitch in full heat to sleep as only unconscious wolves would leave the scene Raya now surveyed—wolves fucking everywhere, shifting to human and back again but never losing deep contact. Raya’s own instincts and deepest urges were to join that scene immediately, yet he knew logically that he had to interrupt it. Second only to joining the frenzy, Raya wished to destroy the wolves who held and threatened his two valuable bitches. Again, the Lupein Codec forbade it.

Not that the codec had deterred the other pack in the slightest.

With reluctance, he finally gave Itchiko the nod. Two darts were shot, and the first hit home in Charisa’s shoulder. Erigny, however, had been in the process of deep-throating another male, who had just finished in her mouth. Just as the tranquilizer dart was inches from her shoulder, Erigny had shifted and leaped in front of an eager male. The dart sailed harmlessly over her head. All had not been lost: Itchiko simply reloaded and waited until he had another clear shot.

Just those few crucial moments had caused what followed, Raya knew. They’d given the other pack long enough to wonder why no calls were being answered, and send a couple of wolves to investigate.

The two new wolves had opened the door on what must have seemed a bizarre scene, with one of the captured Pack bitches being taken from behind whilst the other was passed out on the floor. The two new Weres weren’t stupid: they’d called for backup and raced into the thick of the orgy, intent on recapturing the pack bitch who was being royally nailed at the moment. As both of the new wolves pulled guns, Erigny had noted that from the depths of her sex-crazed consciousness.

Had she been aware of the inevitable reaction when she’d yelled in the old language, “Rise at once, Charissa love! This is a setup!” in an attempt to save her pack sister and, more importantly to Charissa, a beloved lover who had been with her for nearly four hundred and fifty years.

They’d never know, Raya thought bitterly. One of the new wolves had instantly whirled and shot in one smooth movement: Erigny’s life had been extinguished just that fast.

Raya doubled over in anguish as that Pack thread had abruptly been sundered, and where that sense of Erigny had lived in him for so long there was now a resounding deafness emanating from a black void which her bright presence had filled.

Raya wasn’t alone in that knowledge...

Pack Lupeinescu was warned in the same way, the Uber Wolf having ensured it. The pack was aware of both the danger and the horrific loss of one of their own. A howl went up, a howl of despair, the Death Howl. It took massive efforts on the parts of both Raya and Itchiko not to join the pack and give voice to their anguish, but such would mean their own demise.

No. No one needed to know of their presence.

There was nothing to do now but race in and extricate Charissa, but two new wolves were involved and the situation had become complicated.

More Weres were en route, of that Raya was certain. He and Itchiko had to do whatever it was right the hell now or give up on Charissa as well.

At that thought, fury raced up the Alpha’s spine and his head finally cleared enough for him to formulate a rapid, extremely dangerous plan. He communicated it to Itchika via a number of hand-gestures, and got a doubtful head shake in return.

There was no time to explain: roaring engines were approaching. He raced over to the few pack members who’d accompanied them, gave them a couple of objects from his back pack and whispered orders. Three Weres went racing off, and then it was a matter of waiting. Waiting when the approaching vehicles grew closer by the second, and the window of their escape grew smaller.

It seemed ages but had only been minutes when the first explosion came, followed by a human’s voice bellowing “Terrorist attack! They’re hitting our houses! Get your families the hell out now!”

It was as if a branch had been poked into a beehive. People from every house anywhere near that warehouse poured outside, screaming and shrieking in fear. Like country people everywhere, they were armed to the teeth and soon gun shots began to ring out as well.

The entire situation disintegrated to sheer chaos in an instant. The approaching vehicles were stopped at gunpoint and screened by frantic citizens, all of whom had guns.

The two new wolves were in a quandary: keep an eye on the captives or help those who had just arrived and were now taking gunfire? Werewolf culture kicked in, and the two raced to protect their packmates.

Raya and Itchiko waited a few moments, then ran inside the house and picked up the unconscious Charissa and Erigny’s poor corpse.

They were out and gone in an instant, but the scene was burned into their minds forever.

The mission hadn’t been a success, but neither could it be called a failure: not when one pack member had been successfully saved. A partial success, but the loss did what nothing else could have. Within a matter of hours after Pack Lupeinescu returned, for the first time ever war was declared. War which meant wolf against wolf: pack against pack.

Pack Lupeinescu went into military mode as they’d trained so often to do, and that major change in their lives was the only thing that kept them from grieving as a pack should—with constant howls for a period of three days.

Grief could wait, there was a war to win.

Chapter Eighteen

Corporation Decides on Drastic Step

Raya was lucky in that he’d infiltrated a human into the Cavello Corporation almost immediately after the initial news had seeped out. It hadn’t been difficult at all. Cavello was housed in a six story building just outside Newark, and had its own restaurant in the basement. A quick dose of Ipecac and their vaunted head chef had puked everywhere.

Itchiko’s computer wizardry had hooked into the agency Cavello used for chefs and other such professionals. When the call came, Itchiko himself had recommended the highly-vaunted French chef Francois LeBlanc, who had just flown in from Paris where he’d been head chef for that well known hotel, the Georges V. Luckily the Cavello responsible for hiring had bought Raya’s hastily conjured up story and had leaped as foreseen, and the human had been in place ever since.

Francois had placed listening devices throughout the building, the officer’s cars and homes. A team of humans had been tasked to sort through every day’s recordings and had set up an instant alert on the upshot of today’s senior Cavello meeting.

Seems the Gambini family wasn’t happy with the glaring spotlight on their model city, even if no one had yet discovered that the GarTres chemicals mixing with the plastics in a simple water bottle had caused the calamity. They would: it was only a matter of time.

Cavello had been advised that action must be taken immediately or the Gambinis would see to it that the entire board would be replaced, and the original board members wouldn’t be alive enough to care. Or alive at all.

Hence the senior-level meeting. Such solutions as eradicating all the canines within two hundred miles of the city and/or wiping out the entire city’s population, canine and human alike—were discussed and discarded. Either measure would bring far more scrutiny down upon the city and ultimately Cavello itself.

Then one of the youngest members of the Cavello board made a suggestion that at first gave even the hardest members pause: let an Act of God destroy the ‘goddamn town’. Who could blame an Act of God? A tornado, an earthquake. Such things weren’t out of reach anymore, the young man said. He’d seen isolated reports come out of China, Japan and various European countries. Weather control was no longer a fantasy, but it did come at a price. One hell of a high price.

Chapter Nineteen

Winds of Destruction

The meeting had ended on an up note for Cavello when the head of the board, a European woman, had made a brief phone call to her home town in Germany. The grin on her face after the call made her news that much more terrifying to Raya and Itchiko as they listened in growing disbelief and mounting dread.

The woman gleefully announced that Germany herself had made a massive break-through concerning weather control. The discovery stemmed from research during World War II, she said, during which Hitler had demanded his scientists formulate a way to cause storms to hit just prior to a bombing run on London. The storm would hide the incoming German bombers from any watching eyes until it was too late.

Once the old WWII papers had finally been made available to the public, it was a reporter who’d been the first to spot the old papers and realize what he’d found: the resulting story had exploded internationally, titled “Weather on Demand? Push Button Hurricanes!” The story had described the original research made by Hitler’s finest scientists, then projected possible outcomes of the research exactly as the scientists at the time had done. Both hurricanes and tornadoes would be possible after a bit more research and testing, the scientists had proclaimed at the end of the report. The reporter took it one step further he coined the phrase, ‘T.O.D.’ and that was what had completely swept the media.

German scientists had taken that original rough research and, by dint of recent discoveries in nano-technology, pushed the original plans forward in the very direction suggested by those long-ago scientists: the generation of tornados and other events such as hurricanes.

Now the research was as complete as possible whilst the testing facilities were still under construction. No one was aware of that, though: just that one could now create a tornado on demand as scientists had discovered not only how to seed clouds and induce storms, but were able to produce specific types of storms including hurricanes and tornados. Unfortunately the lead scientist had died weeks earlier, during a test of his own procedure when an enormous tree uprooted and smashed the shelter where he and other scientists were observing and noting the weather conditions.

Now the Germans could seed both clouds and the earth below them, causing the development of a tornado which would touch down on the seeded ground. They could even ‘dial in’ the desired strength as measured by the Fujita-Pearson Tornado Scale. F2? F3? A dreaded F5 ‘killer tornado’? The Cavello board decreed unanimously to use the F5 tornado, as by definition it lifts houses off foundations, automobile-sized objects fly one hundred meters plus through the air, and even trees are debarked.

A modified plane would quietly launch and ... “hang on to your ass with one hand and solid concrete with the other,” a Cavello board member advised. “Concrete is the only thing that mostly will survive an F5, and sometimes not even.”

Hearing that, Raya went white and even Itchiko lost color. What could they possibly do to combat a tornado that would destroy a city of millions?

Then Itchiko slowly grinned. “Got it. Remember? ‘Itchiko, why buy THIS?’ ‘Itchiko, all this money no one will ever use...’ ‘Not another of your damn toys, Itchiko!’” he quoted Raya as he led him to the weapons wing. Finally he unlocked a door and ushered the pack leader in. With a flourish he pointed at a nearby table. “Might not be so high tech anymore, but it will solve this problem.”

Raya stared in shock at four old Israeli surface to air missiles. They were mobile weapons meant to be held on the shoulder and fired at planes... and they always worked. Especially with Itchiko’s nearly-manic insistence on caring for all of the pack weapons, keeping each in working order. Now his painstaking care would pay off, Raya hoped. Or an entire city would literally be blown off the map.

Chapter Twenty

One Werewolf, How Many Humans?

Three days later all was in place. Raya insisted on being with Itchiko: both Weres would handle a missile and shoot at the same time. Now they were just behind a rise roughly a mile from the private Cavello airport, watching as an odd-looking jet taxied down the runway.

“Still not happy,” Raya muttered.

“Arm your weapon,” Itchiko snapped. In full military command mode, he no longer recognized Raya’s authority as Alpha and wouldn’t until the situation was resolved.

Raya was fully aware of this “weakness” in Itchiko: any other Alpha would have shunned the other wolf on learning of this.

Raya had spent most of his life in one army or another. He well knew the laser focus needed to command an army. No commander would take an order ‘from above’ during an actual operation, and Itchiko was no different. Many times over the centuries Raya had willingly taken second place to the brilliant Japanese wolf. He’d yet to regret that most unusual decision.

There was one major issue with this current operation: he had to at least mention it.

“Itchiko. There are Weres aboard that plane, at least two of them. I don’t know. Were against Were..” his voice trailed off as the aged book of rules appeared in his mind.

Itchiko stated flatly, “Two of ours against what, three million plus humans? Arm your SAM, Raya, and do it now.”

Raya’s entire body quivered in disgust, yet he flicked the arming toggle on his SAM and shouldered the weapon.

A distant whine came to his ears as the plane taxied faster and faster down the runway. Soon it was airborne. Itchiko would give the signal when to shoot.

That signal seemed to take forever, Raya thought as he tracked the plane with his SAM. The plane rose straight into the sky and headed north toward the city.

Just as the plane left land to cross the enormous Lake Pontchartrain, Itchiko snapped, “Hit it!”

Raya pulled the trigger and staggered backward from the force of the recoil as the weapon fired. He set the launcher down and covered his eyes, trying to track the missile’s flight. As they were looking almost directly into the sun, neither Were could make out the missile.

They certainly couldn’t mistake the enormous explosion that occurred seconds later, though. Raya felt nausea rise in his belly at the thought of the wolves on board, but knew Itchiko was right. Too many other lives would have been lost. The ancient ways were often right, but there were times when adjustments had to be made.

And these particular wolves—if wolves had to be killed, the head of Cavello wasn’t a bad place to start. It had been on his command that the plane had taken to the air with its death-dealing cloud seeding device.

The pilot, though... Raya’s stomach rolled. That Were had not perhaps known of the plane’s payload, therefore his death was collateral. For a Were to die a collateral death? All Raya could do was shake his head.

Later he’d learn that far more than two Weres were aboard that plane as the entire upper echelon of Cavello’s board had insisted on going, as if it were an adventure outing to see the results of the seeding. To Raya, that was yet more sick-making than a collateral death. Those Weres deserved what they got and far, far more.

Cavello would need new board members, that was a certainty.

And the corporation would have a hard time finding worse members than those Raya had just disposed of: that also was a certainty.

He picked up his SAM, wrapped the old blanket around it again, and strode off down the hill behind Itchiko.

That was one exercise he hoped never to repeat.

Chapter Twenty-one

They Started It, We Will End It

Living like the dead can lead to living like the living.

—Unknown

Later that day, Petra, Charissa and Chizuko arrived at the Fiero & Sons Mortuary in Ripero. Dressed in deepest mourning black, the three women entered to discuss the upcoming funeral of Petra’s beloved sister. The three women were genuinely distraught, in tears and asked so many questions that the entire mortuary staff had to leap to attention to take care of these obviously-wealthy patrons.

Meanwhile, Itchiko surreptitiously picked the lock of the mortuary’s back door. He, Raya, a recovered Jean-Paul and Andre entered the place to find themselves in a large room where coffins were in various stages of construction.

Couldn’t be here, Raya knew as he looked for other doors. One directly across from where they’d entered had to lead to the main facility. No good. An older door to the right looked promising.

And well it should, Raya discovered as the pack members filed into a smaller storage room where the plain wood coffin liners were stacked. When Raya flicked on the light, only a naked bulb hanging down from the center of the room came to life. The pile of coffins were mostly dark.

What to do now? He looked at Itchiko and raised his shoulders. The Japanese Were returned his gaze with a deliberate wink as he pulled a familiar small object from his pocket.

Raya’s brows lowered in confusion. Itchiko was a superstitious old soldier, like so many were. He’d carried this one object through three centuries of warfare, he’d told Raya before. Evidently it had worked as Itchiko was still around to tell the tale.

It certainly looked innocuous enough to Raya: a short wooden tube with six holes, obviously hand-carved. But Itchiko swore by the thing, and his operations never failed.

Now the warrior wolf rotated the tube for a moment, smiling down at it. Then he brought it to his lips and blew lightly into one end.

A high, thin whistle sounded, then the melody to an ancient Moldavian folk song. After only one verse, the whistle disappeared back into Itchiko’s pocket.

It worked, Raya noted with astonishment as first one coffin lid swung open and then another. Three bedraggled heads peeked out, caught sight of Raya. All three Weres then exited their coffins and shifted until two large wolves and a smaller female faced Raya and Itchiko. All of the wolves bowed their heads and went to their bellies.

“Pack Iwabari begs mercy and succor of pack Lupeinescu,” the wolves simultaneously sent to Raya.

“Pack Lupeinescu is grateful for your request and grants it,” Raya said out loud. “Now, let’s get out of here before my Alpha bitch drives the entire staff mad.”

Heureuse was still locked down in war mode as Petra and the rescued Weres arrived. The new Weres were exhaustively searched before being permitted to enter the compound, and Petra found herself having to explain the meaning behind that and the military appearance of her beloved mansion.

She was puzzled when the leader of the small pack, Iwabari, demanded to see whoever was in charge of the military operation. She sent for Itchiko all the same.

A tall, thin Japanese with odd tattoos on his face, Iwabari had quite the reaction when Itchiko walked in: he shifted at once, fell to his belly and bowed his head. “Iwabari acknowledges the presence of a Samurai warrior 10th degree.”

Itchiko’s turn to be astounded: hardly anyone outside the tightly-closed ranks of the Samurai warriors themselves knew of the Samurai ranking system. How was this Were so knowledgeable of Samurai ways? And how was it possible he knew such things about Itchiko himself? Itchiko immediately posed that question, every muscle ready to leap, every heightened sense ready to use hidden weapons to repulse that Were.

The answer and brief conversation that followed surprised Itchiko to the extent that he dropped the last two weapons he’d just retrieved from hiding spots on his body as he approached the Were, staring into the man’s face. “What did Yutaka do every Friday evening?” Itchiko demanded. Yutaka has been Itchiko’s last master before he’d left Japan, and Iwabari claimed that he’d been Samurai under Yutaka after Itchiko’s departure. What were the odds? Slim to none, but it wouldn’t be difficult for Itchiko to discover the truth.

The Were stifled a grin. “Played Piquet with a group of old friends.”

“Do you recognize the name Fujiko?” Itchiko whipped out instantly.

“Yutaka’s first wife, and a terrible bitch she was, too.”

“What did she do to Yutaka that he could never forgive?”

“Cut the nuts off his favorite French hunting dog and tied them onto a pig’s head he’d taken in France and had mounted in the living room. They looked like shriveled black earrings.” He shuddered, as did every male within hearing distance.

Itchiko relaxed. “I don’t know how such a thing could be, but I bid you welcome and offer you and Pack Iwabari the hospitality of Pack Lupeinescu,” he said, to Raya’s total shock now. He gave the Alpha a brief look, a briefer head shake so that Raya wouldn’t speak. It was of the utmost importance for them both to hear what Iwabari had to say.

It seemed they hadn’t just had a Were inside the enemy’s compound: they’d had a Samurai Were, one whose rank was even higher than Itchiko’s own. That made all the difference in the world, for Samurais at that level had powers that even Weres did not possess: physical powers that were never spoken of as well as finely-honed powers of observation, and the ability to put together seemingly-unrelated facts and draw a sound conclusion.

Chapter Twenty-two

Power of the Samurai

Pain shared is relief squared.

—Unknown

“Please introduce the other members of Pack Iwabari,” Itchiko asked courteously.

“Excuse my lateness in doing so,” Iwabari replied. “To my right is Tatsuo. He is as fierce and brave as the dragon for whom he is named.”

Tatsuo, a short man with shaggy dark hair and a nose that had obviously been broken as it hooked sharply to the left, nodded at Raya with a shy smile.

“My very round Alpha Choukichi is the Pack Iwabari luck, as her name proclaims.” He paused for a moment. “You do know that many Samurai change their own first names?”

Raya shook his head, surprised.

“They do so as a result of being honored by the shogun, changing religion—many adopted Buddhism or Christianity. And a Samurai always had one name he never knew.”

Fascinated, Raya asked, “How could that be?”

“The Samurai Death Name,” Iwabari announced with a smile. “It was given to him or her after death, and often was a spiritual name. More about Samurais than you wanted to know, no doubt.”

“Not at all,” Raya answered honestly. “Samurai have been known so long for honor, loyalty and superior warriors. How could I not be fascinated?”

“Can’t you see this poor woman is pregnant and needs to lie down?” Petra interrupted, taking Choukichi by the arm. “I’ll take her to the East Wing. No one’s staying there right now, so Pack Iwabari is welcome to it, if they agree?” she asked, looking directly at Iwabari himself.

“We are overjoyed with Pack Lupeinescu’s hospitality,” Iwabari said. “Chou, will you allow Petra to take care of you whilst we talk?”

“Of course, Bari. Come along to bed soon—it’s been a long day.” She sighed heavily. “A very, very long day.”

Petra led the tiny Alpha out of the room.

There was a not-uncomfortable silence for a time. Raya was overwhelmed by all that had happened in such a short time, and somewhat confused as well. How was it that they had offered their home to a completely-unknown pack, Samurai or not? His faith in Itchiko was absolute, but he knew there was more to this than the Japanese Were had mentioned. And he wouldn’t learn any more at this moment, either, as the new pack Alpha was at this moment sitting in one of Raya’s favorite chairs, smoking a favorite cigar. If this didn’t turn out well, Itchiko had a lot to answer for.

“Now that my Alpha bitch is out of hearing distance, there are matters we should discuss,” Iwabari said. “Her pregnancy makes her sensitive to certain matters.”

“Such as an upcoming war where we’re outnumbered four to one,” Itchiko pointed out mildly.

“I don’t get this,” Raya stated with no little anger. “Why would this pack of criminals come after Pack Lupeinescu at all? We’re not in their way: we never have been. As far as I know, our members have nothing to do with theirs, yet they attack us and declare war?” He shook his head, bewildered.

Itchiko and Iwabari exchanged a long look. Finally, Itchiko spoke. “Cavello Corporation is run by Italians. You are aware of that.”

“Yes, you told me that,” Raya said.

“Very powerful Italians whose main belief is in utter secrecy, total privacy—for obvious reasons. If it ever gets out who Cavello really is, their stock would drop like a stone...probably ruin them,” Itchiko said, watching Raya from eyes slitted with concentration.

“Makes sense,” Raya had to admit. “They sure wouldn’t want anyone snooping around, especially the paparazzi.”

“Exactly,” Itchiko agreed. “Now imagine that they made a major mistake in one of their largest industries, also something they made a major gamble on and invested far more funds than prudent—in the hopes of an enormous payoff. Now imagine that someone outed them to a newspaper: details of the fuck-up and all. Nothing is hidden anymore, so all they can do is damage control. Desperately clean up as best they can before they lose literally everything. Now think they might be a little pissed with whoever blew this particular whistle?”

“Of course they would, but they’ll never find out. First off, no one knows I know anyone in the media world. My guy has known me for years, but we’ve never even been seen together. And when we communicate, we do so with maximum security. Nobody could possibly be aware of our connection. And as far as any other notion goes, my guy would sooner chew his arm off than open his mouth because he knows it will come straight back to us and he’s rather fond of us,” Raya said with a smile. He pictured Pete kicked back in that enormous leather chair of his, sucking on a fat cigar. It really was time Pete paid the pack a visit. How long had it—

“Raya,” Itchiko said softly. “Something you need to see.” He slid a newspaper page across the table. “Read it, then we talk.”

There was no need to read as the lead photo said it all, Raya realized with a mixture of terrible grief, burning fury, and overwhelming guilt. The photo showed Pete’s office in the back of the Herald’s offices, and his tiny apartment above those offices. Raya had spent hours, days and weeks in enjoyable debate about everything from politics to racism. The entire building was now a burnt-out shell, smoke still rising from spots.

“Jesus H Christ,” Raya said. “It’s like I fed him right to those assholes.” He paused, thought. “When?”

“Three days ago,” Itchiko responded. “You truly had enough on your plate. If I’d have shown you this...”

“I’d have gone mad and blown the entire thing.”

“Then again, maybe not. But why disturb you when you needed a laser focus?” Itchiko asked.

“God, all these good people who worked for the Herald... including the crazy old lady that supposedly cleaned, but only did the same spot over and over again. Those Herald people weren’t your basic reporters, tell you that much. They kept that old lady until she died—just quietly hired a real custodian who wound up allowing Irina to sleep at his place. I can’t take this in, I really can’t.” He stood and began to pace.

“People like those Italians are exactly what their main business is: trash,” Itchiko said flatly.

Raya didn’t respond as he never heard the thought. His own were far away, as he began making plans at light speed.

Itchiko, whose eyes were still glued to his pack leader, finally relaxed for the first time in days. A brief cough brought his attention to his fellow Samurai, who had a very slight smile on his burnt lips.

Itchiko stared into Iwabari’s eyes until he was certain he had the Samurai’s full attention. Then he deliberately glanced at Raya and back again with a lifted brow. Iwabari maintained his smile and gave one sharp single nod.

That easily, a pact was made between two of the finest warriors, Samurai who’d been practicing and perfecting their very special art of war for centuries. Add that experience to the innate talent and power of werewolves, and suddenly the almost hopeless odds of several against hundreds become less hopeless. In fact, for once, those odds actually swung away from the Italians—something that had rarely if ever happened.

Then again, neither had a partnership like that which had just been forged in blood, pain, and brotherhood.

Raya was well aware that this war had only just begun, and that the opposition had much going for them including sheer numbers, tenacity, and the ability to hurt and maim with a complete lack of regret.

The Italians were formidable foes, beyond a doubt. And the next time they came for Pack Lupeinescu, they’d be better informed as to what they were up against: they never made the same mistakes twice.

How they would come was a mystery, but their arrival was inevitable, Raya saw that now. And they threatened everything that meant anything to him: his pack members, his home, his very way of life. If they succeeded on even a basic level, Pack Lupeinescu would be forced to live off the grid and move often just to remain alive. The members who survived that next attack, that was.

Raya was up and pacing without realizing he was doing so. The two Samurai sat and watched with their habitual patience, neither making a sound, both trusting that their Trans Alpha would come up with an appropriate response to what was really a military question.

Which was far more positive than Raya himself was, at the moment. Visions of that burned-out office, that odd plane as it rose into the air—death itself on wings, and the three frightened faces popping out of coffins. All played over and over in his minds-eye video.

One thing was certain, that those Italians were experts in death and destruction. Weres were experts in life and the living of it to the best of their abilities. Yes, Weres could bring war with ferocity, but what chance against a group this large, this loyal, and this lacking in any mores at all?

His eyes fell on the two Samurai seated at his table. Samurais were warriors beyond estimation, that much Raya knew just from his dealings with Itchiko. He now was almost certain that Itchiko had deliberately withheld certain things from the pack, perhaps methods sacred to the Samurai or those that would shock a pack of wolves.

He had to know if that was true, so he stopped in front of the table and looked at the two Weres. “Itchiko, truth now. Have you been holding out on us? Seems to me that Samurai warriors have ways and means of dealing with enemies that Pack Lupeinescu has never dreamed of or seen. That true?”

The Samurai slowly grinned, and it wasn’t a happy grin. It was full of sheer menace, and changed Itchiko’s face to something quite alien to Raya. “There might be a thing or two that never came up,” he admitted.

“Never needed to come up,” Iwabari clarified. “But now things have changed. We’re happy to share with you the fullness of customs we’ve learned and practiced for years, if your stomach is up to it.”

The slight challenge wasn’t lost on the Trans-Alpha. The grin he returned was no less frightening that that he responded to. “I’d say we’re about even in the stomach-turning department. There is much you don’t know about me, either.”

His grin dropped as a certain memory surfaced, something he hadn’t thought of in years and had hoped to have expunged from his mind permanently. The small movement wasn’t lost on either Samurai.

“Raya, if it’s anything that can aid us in this upcoming war, we need to know now,” Itchiko gently pressed.

“I-I don’t know if I can—that is, I’m not sure I can speak of it even now,” a shaken Raya admitted. He could barely stand to think of that day, one day out of so many centuries. But a day that would forever blacken Raya’s image of himself. He’d gone against everything he’d ever believed, and for what? A woman. But worse had come, on that one day when he’d felt a hatred beyond anything he’d imagined possible. He’d loathed that individual with an almost-physical passion: and every time the man laid his large hands on that woman in anger, Raya’s rage had risen. He’d been Were for only seventy years then, and was still unsure of right and wrong, still didn’t understand Were powers.

Until the day that bastard had knocked his female unconscious with one lazy fist, and Raya had literally seen red. He’d been seated halfway down the table, the bastard in his usual place at the far end. When the rage had hit, it had literally overtaken him: seeing red was the final stage. And when that had worn off, he’d seen something that had burned into his brain forever. The bastard slumped over onto his spilled beer, blood seeping from one ear, dead. Raya knew one thing: he’d done it. How he’d done it was a mystery, but killed a man he had done.

That’s when he’d recalled the fourth power of the Were, the one no Were will discuss. And that’s the day he’d realized that that fourth power was his.

Now, it took all of Itchiko’s Samurai abilities not to show the shock on his face. He’d never seen this side of his brother. “Whatever it is, it’s always best shared where others may aid in bearing your burden.”

Raya’s entire body shook like a wolf exiting a stream. “I can’t speak of it yet, I simply can’t. However, I can provide a small demo.” He turned on his heel and made for the stairs. Just before he took the first step, he looked over his shoulder at his two dearest friends. “Read the paper tomorrow.” On that brief note, he climbed the stairs and headed for the warmth of Petra’s arms.

Itchiko and Iwabari were left staring at each other, dumbfounded.

“Read the damn paper?” Iwabari spoke first.

“That’s what the Trans commanded,” Itchiko said slowly. “And he never commands anything without sufficient reason.”

The next morning, both Weres met on their way to the front door to get the paper. Neither had slept, waiting for this moment. Curious as hell, but also in the hopes that there would be something, anything that would make a difference in that shortly-upcoming war.

Once the paper was opened to the front page and set on the table, both Weres looked down and began reading. Within seconds they’d seen what they were both sure Raya had intended them to.

“About that last power werewolves have,” Iwabari began. “You ever known anyone who—?”

“No.” Itchiko said, his voice completely flat. “In all these centuries, I’ve never even known of a wolf who had that power.”

Both Weres went silent, reading the rest of that morning’s leading story. Don Gambini’s eldest son, his pride and joy who had been groomed to step into his famous father’s shoes and take over the family business, had suddenly dropped dead around 6:30AM during his morning jog. A robust man in his early thirties, he’d had no known medical conditions and doctors were at a loss to explain his demise. More information would hopefully be forthcoming after the autopsy was complete, the article said. In the meantime, the Don himself was in deepest mourning. A picture of a lovely mansion with black bows on the door and every window accompanied the piece.

“Just dropped dead during his morning jog,” Itchiko mused.

“Healthy as a horse by all appearances,” Iwabari added as footsteps trotted down the stairs.

Raya entered the kitchen and it was evident by the circles under his eyes that he hadn’t slept, either.

“How long you been up?” Itchiko casually asked.

Crossing to the coffee pot, Raya stopped dead in his tracks for a moment, then continued walking as if nothing had happened. “I took a brief nap from two to five,” he admitted as he reached the pot and poured himself a mug. “You two want coffee?”

“You must be exhausted,” Itchiko teased him. “We drink tea as you well know.”

“Must have slipped my mind,” Raya muttered.

“Along with telling your brother about any special werewolf power you may happen to have,” Itchiko said softly.

Raya’s hand, pouring the coffee, went still. The coffee filled the mug and overflowed to the counter.

“I think your mug is full,” Iwabari said with no inflection in his voice.

To both seated Were’s shock, Raya spun and threw his mug against the far brick wall with such force that it literally exploded on contact. Shards of glass and hot coffee shot throughout the kitchen, but neither Were so much as ducked.

“Feel better now?” Itchiko ventured.

“Fuck no,” Raya responded, bitterness in his voice and visible on his tightly-strung body, where every muscle stood out.

“Gifts are given for a reason,” Itchiko finally said.

“Gift? Gift?? You dare to sit there and call this abomination a GIFT?” every hair on Raya’s body stood straight on end, so strong was his sense of self-loathing.

“That’s quite enough,” Iwabari’s usually-soft voice rang out sharply through the kitchen. Both of the other Weres jumped and stared in surprise, even Itchiko. “You’ll not fry yourself with guilt over a gift—yes, a gift you were given for a very specific reason. You’ll come to terms with it and damn fast too. We need that gift if we are to survive, you hearing me, Trans-Alpha?” His tone of voice was that of a commander facing his army of thousands. It brooked no dissent. “In fact, I’d have to say you’ve been slacking on your training because you sure as hell haven’t ever trained using this particular power, have you?”

At Raya’s mute head-shake, Iwabari barreled on. “So that’s first on your list. Practice. God knows you have plenty of targets—those assholes are more numerous than ants. So this is what needs to be done, make no mistake: we need to know how far this power reaches, or if there is even a limit on distance. We need to know if you can hit a certain part of the body, causing death by stopping the heart, causing a clot to go to the brain, any number of things.” He stopped for a moment. “Mainly we need to know that you have the balls to use this incredible power as it was meant to be used: for the protection of your pack, your entire race perhaps. So. You in?”

Raya stared at that implacable Japanese face. People said they all looked alike... that was bullshit. This man bore no relation to Itchiko whatsoever. There was zero emotion behind Iwabari’s face, Raya could sense it. He spoke of killing and death as if it were an outing to the goddamn zoo. It made Raya nervous, very nervous. Why should he—

“We need an answer and soon, too,” Itchiko cut into his thoughts. “If you’re ready, we need to begin your training now. Not soon, right now. This war isn’t going to wait while you get your shit together and decide how you’re going to fight, Raya. It’s going to arrive when you least expect it and how you least expect it. That man just lost his son. He might be grieving, but he’s well aware of Weres and their powers: likely he even knows about that gift of yours. He could put two and two together, figure out exactly who just killed his favorite son, the one he’s trained since birth to run that family. Just what kind of response do you think a goddamn Italian will make to that kind of situation?” His voice whipped through the air like a knife, but Raya didn’t notice.

He was staring at the ceiling, where Petra was still peacefully asleep.

The Italian’s response was obvious, if he guessed who had done the deed or even had the vaguest thought in that direction. He’d send the entire Family’s numerous resources directly after what Raya himself held most dear, and that knowledge was quite public.

His beloved alpha mate who was blissfully asleep, unaware of the possibility that she was Enemy Number one on an Italian mob family’s hit list.

A thousand thoughts ran through Raya’s mind at once. Petra, standing outside the Countess’s tower room with disgust on her face. Running through the woods at his side, nipping him with joy from time to time. Making love in so many different places but each time finding the other half of his soul.

Her loss was not to be contemplated.

He turned and faced the two Japanese, and there was something in his face that even Itchiko had never seen: a cold, implacable fury bordering on hatred.

Raya’s eyes lasered in on those of Itchiko, a man who’d become more than a brother. Almost like a mixture of father and brother. Someone the Trans-Alpha trusted above everyone barring his mate, Petra. “Right. I’ll need a list of names and faces to practice with, and we need to do this far from Heureuse. I want Heureuse empty in three hours, no more. Pack Lupeinescu is to go underground at once under Emergency Procedure one, as outlined in the Codec. Itchiko Toshio, as of this very moment I proclaim you Alpha Prime of Pack Lupeinescu.”

The other man’s face blanched, and he opened his mouth to protest.

“Itchiko Toshio, do you accept that your life is nothing against that of the pack?” Raya’s voice continued, brooking no interruption.

Itchiko knew when he was beaten. “With all my heart.”

“Do you accept the mantle of leadership however heavy it may weigh?”

“With all my heart.”

In an instant Raya shifted and dropped to his belly at Itchiko’s feet. “I offer my services as Pack Protector to the Alpha of Pack Lupeinescu and I pray they be accepted,” he sent to Itchiko’s mind as he placed his large head on the new Alpha’s bare foot.

For the briefest of moments Itchiko was silent. Then he responded automatically, “As Alpha of Pack Lupeinescu, I accept your service, your sword and your claws. Now rise, Raya, Pack Protector.”

Raya stood, looked around slowly for a moment as if memorizing everything. He then turned toward the door, opened it and vanished.

The new Alpha of Pack Lupeinescu looked at Iwabari. “That didn’t go very well,” he finally said.

“On the contrary, it couldn’t have gone better. Come on, we have a lot of people to move: a pack to save, a war to wage. Time to off-ass, Alpha of Pack Lupeinescu.”

For a split second Itchiko looked around as if to see who Iwabari was addressing: he was still shocked to his very soul. But then he took in a long, deep breath and pulled centuries of Samurai training around him like a blanket. He stood, every inch the Alpha he’d been before and now was again, and shifted in preparation for the first move he’d make as Alpha. Seconds later, a long, rising howl ripped through the night in Heureuse, waking every Were instantly.

Even as the howl trailed off to silence, footsteps began pounding in all directions as the pack made immediate preparations to leave. No one so much as questioned the new Alpha. Only one Were hesitated to move, to leave her bed. Petra was completely lost and confused.

For the first time since they’d officially mated, she no longer was connected to Raya by the Alpha thread. Therefore she had no idea where he was—but then she recalled Itchiko’s howl. In a matter of moments, she was dressed with her backpack on. She ran out onto their expansive third floor deck, stepped onto the railing and leaped for a branch not far away. Caught it, and was shifting just before she hit the ground.

Nose in air, she took off at incredible speeds. Now and then she was distantly surprised that he was still on foot, but she had to focus with all her might to keep on his rapidly-disintegrating trail.

Within half an hour she realized he was heading directly for downtown New Orleans, running horizontally next to the road. What on earth was so important there? His scent was steadily more difficult to follow as it floated directly into the busiest part of the city, the famous French quarter.

Thankfully, he’d entered the famous Louis XV hotel. Seconds later she wondered why she’d ever thought to be thankful over such a thing, as the hotel was large, absolutely packed with wealthy clients each of whom wore at least one entire bottle of French perfume. All told, the lobby smelled like a very expensive bordello.

Concentrate, Petra. Scent is lower to ground. Already woefully underdressed, she made a further fool of herself by going to her hands and knees as if searching for something. Success was instant: he’d moved down a corridor that dog-legged right. Regaining her feet, Petra saw the discreet sign at the opening of the corridor: “”Gambini family reunion in Scarlett Room.”

Of course Raya’d not be in that room, but where in hell would he be? She stopped and really paid attention to her surroundings. The hotel was lovely, a perfect example of antebellum south architecture. The “Scarlett Room” was square, with a raised table along the back. The walls rose two stories to a small balcony just under the fantastic ceiling, which rose to a rounded ball through which light would flood during the day. Recessed lighting now pinpointed painted details such as horse-drawn carriages, a lady in white gloves descending—what was she doing, playing the tourist now? Christos she’d lost her mind.

One detail stood out, though. That small balcony. She instinctively knew Raya would be there, if he wasn’t already. How was she to find the door with steps leading to that balcony? She looked around and doors were everywhere. Of course they lined both sides of the corridor, but there were eight more in the Scarlett Room alone. Who knew how many other doors there were in other rooms? It would be a huge waste of time opening each, time Petra instinctively knew she didn’t have.

Then along came salvation in the form of a maid in a grey uniform. Petra invented a smooth story about being a photographer for that rich Italian: her camera and gear was in a bag in the car. First she had to locate the steps to that damn balcony, as the client had demanded his pictures be taken from there. Petra shook her head in disgust.

“Anything to make my job harder. Does he give a damn I have to haul that crap up all those steps? Hell no he doesn’t. Like to see his aged ass haul a glass of water up there.”

“Know what you mean,” the maid commiserated. “You wouldn’t believe what them folks just ordered, so help me. And the hotel’s motto is “Never say no!””

“What did they want?” Petra was interested in spite of herself.

The older woman grinned, showing gaps where teeth had been. “Oh, nothing much. Just a fucking parade down the center of the hotel in the old guy’s honor. Like Mardi Gras, you know,” she said, deliberately pronouncing the ‘s’ in ‘Gras’.

Both women cracked up with laughter. When they’d sobered, the maid slipped Petra a keycard. “Be careful, woman. I got me a bad feeling—there’s bad juju in there.”

Petra located the door and flew up the steps, feeling guilty she’d wasted time yet knowing it had gained her the key she’d needed. And she’d been right, as Raya was directly in front of the low, ornamental white railing.

The table was as described, and in the center was a thin old man who was talking, “...the loss of my son. My son! Everything I’ve built, everything this family stands for—all of it was done so that my son Angelo could step in and run this family as if I were still here.” He covered his mouth with a bony hand, yet a half-sob still escaped. The woman at his left put her hand over his other one where it lay on the table. The Don, for that was undoubtedly who they were watching, shook the woman’s hand off like it was a turd someone had dropped on his own hand as he continued speaking passionately. “And now? I have a handful of nothing to leave the Family to, to trust our Family in the hands of. Yes there’s Joey, does anyone here want to see Joey running any part of this family?”

There was muffled laughter throughout the large room, but Petra had stopped concentrating on the insane rant and was focused on Raya’s body language. The more the old Don said, the tighter Raya’s body became until finally every muscle stood out like those of a body builder, but this was from sheer nerves and stress.

“The harm done this day—we’ll learn who was responsible, we always do. Our eyes and ears are everywhere. And when we know, that someone will pay. Or someones. It had to be more than one person: it took a city to destroy my son.” he paused. “No. It took an entire fucking STATE! And that’s who’s going to pay, you mark my words. It will be as if New Jersey had never been on the map. It will be gone, whssst—gone I tell you! Every man, woman, child, even their fucking cats: all of it turned to dust like my Angelo.” A clear sob. “My Angelo, my child.”

And now Raya suddenly leaned over the railing. Petra tensed, fearing for one mad moment that he meant to jump.

“My child that I put through school, through college so he could get what none of us did; a degree. And when I think of him walking across the stage with that stupid hat and shaking the hand…” the Don’s voice quavered to a stop. He looked around as if puzzled, and Petra noticed something red on his face. What on earth?

Then the red became a spurt of liquid directly into the Don’s Fettuccini Alfredo dish, brilliant red against the traditional cream sauce. And the screams began as the Don pitched face-forward into his pasta.

Raya whipped around and was face to face with Petra. For a moment neither said a word, and then she reached out to touch his face.

“Raya? Why did you run from me back at the house? Anyone else, anyone. But me? Raya, you left me.”

 She knew she sounded like a small child and couldn’t help it. She wanted nothing more but to be in his arms, even after what she’d just witnessed. There was no doubt in her mind what had happened to that evil old fuck, and she was so proud of her man...but he didn’t seem to care what she thought anymore. Although she didn’t understand how it had happened so fast, Raya didn’t seem to care about her any more. Her, specifically. The pain slashed through her like a white-hot knife, and she moaned for a nano second before getting herself under control. Then she took a look at Raya, really looked at him.

He was whiter than a ghost and shaking from head to foot, and Petra didn’t think he’d heard one word she’d said.

“You don’t understand,” he said, voice full of misery. “Everything I’ve put in our pack codec—the official Were codec meant to serve as law for all Weres. I went against that today when I ensured that man, bastard that he was, stopped breathing. Yes, Petra, that was my doing. So was the Don just then. That’s my gift, don’t you see? Others go invisible or fly. Not Raya! Raya doesn’t better lives, he takes them.”

Blinded by tears, he reached out and tried to push Petra to the side.

“Let me go, Petra. I’m not worth it.”

“You’re right about that, you fuck. But you ain’t going nowhere, unless it’s straight to hell,” a heavy voice spat out as an Italian guy in his twenties stepped around the corner where he’d obviously been listening.

Petra didn’t hear a word: her eyes were pinned on the gun in his outstretched hand, pointed directly at Raya’s head. Her heart plummeted with the worst fear she’d ever known, but her body went absolutely still: the stillness of a warrior about to strike.

“And I’m just the guy gonna send you there,” the man said as he triumphantly pulled the trigger.

Faster than Raya could believe possible, Petra leaped forward and up, directly in front of his face as the sound of the shot exploded in the tiny space. She landed on her feet, and for a heartbeat Raya thought it was somehow alright as she smiled at him.

“I love you, my Alpha,” she said just before she crumpled at his feet, the tiny hole between her eyes not even bleeding.

“PETRA!” Raya shrieked at the top of his lungs as the Italian stood facing him, mouth hanging partially open.

Then Raya shifted, raced down those winding stairs and was gone.

The End

To be continued in:

Werewolf Nights

Return to the Table of Contents

WEREWOLF NIGHTS

A Pack Trilogy Book 2

by

Chanel Smith

Werewolf Nights

Published by Chanel Smith

Copyright © 2015 by Chanel Smith

All rights reserved.

Ebook Edition, License Notes

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

Werewolf Nights

Chapter One

Shot and Forgot

“Petra? You don’t remember anything at all?” Melina asked as she piloted her ancient Taurus across the lake.

“Is that my name?” Petra asked, wondering. It didn’t sound familiar in the least.

“Far as I know, honey. You and…” Melina stopped short.

“Me and what?”

“Nothing, dear. Dunno what I was thinking. Let’s take you home and get something warm into you. You’ll feel better and it will all come back, you’ll see.” She rummaged through her large purse with one hand. “Dang, where’s that phone? Need to call the doctor to come see you. You do have a hole in a mighty strange spot.”

“A hole? Where?”

Melina sighed.

“Honey, right between those gorgeous green eyes of yours.”

***

Deep in Eastern Europe, Raya was sitting at a cafe, drinking coffee and ignoring two croissants that sat next to it as he watched the small TV above his head.

“… family was decimated last night, when the Don and his first-born son both died at the Waldorf Astoria Hotel in New York. At this moment, doctors at Mount Sinai have no official explanation as to the cause of death.” The camera panned out to show a pretty, dark-haired woman standing in front of the famous hospital as she reported.

“Stay with News 7. We’ll bring you the latest updates as soon as they break.” A commercial flashed onto the screen and the bartender turned down the sound.

“Something had to kill them. Two guys don’t just die for no reason, do they?” he addressed Raya in Romanian.

“No idea,” Raya responded in his home language.

“We’ll know soon enough. Can’t wait for the autopsies,” the bartender said with a grin.

“Me neither,” Raya said dryly. No autopsy would ever show the truth: both the Don and his heartless son had died from a certain strong werewolf power, something that hadn’t been seen in centuries.

Unlike the bullet that had killed his mate, he thought in misery. Those were all too common. He reached out over the Alpha channel for the hundredth time and tried to sense Petra, only to meet a dark hole of nothingness where her vibrant soul had emanated for centuries.

She was dead, he’d have to face it. Never again would they be connected telepathically… or physically.

Had Raya not been in such dire shape, he might have realized that he himself had passed on the Alpha duties, and all that went with it, to Itchiko, before he had set off for that ill-fated Italian dinner last night.

Raya wasn’t Alpha anymore, and most assuredly had no mental access to the telepathic frequencies of the Alpha channel.

What he did have was a pressing question; one he had no way of answering himself. One that meant everything to him, now. This question held the answer to the rest of Raya’s hopefully short life. All he wanted was to be with Petra, to the exclusion of all else.

Almost anything else, he corrected himself. It was he who had written the first rule of the now-famous and venerable Werewolf Codex, by which all of werewolf society was ruled. No werewolf shall take his own life and impenitently destroy the gift of shapeshifting and eternal life that no other creature on earth was known to enjoy. If it happened, that werewolf’s entire pack would suffer the consequences of being left behind by a suicide.

What if one happened to be the Alpha wolf of all the known werewolf packs or, as it was called, the Trans-Alpha? Would those consequences fall on all wolves, or just his own pack? Not that he’d allow such a thing to ever befall his own pack.

He needed the answer to this quite badly. Life held nothing for him, now. Only the hope of being with Petra held any joy for him at all, but not if his pack or, worse, all werewolves had to pay a price. Another werewolf rule stated that to mate once was to mate for life. Surely him wanting to join his mate was a condition that would invalidate the other rule?

Centuries ago, he’d met a powerful man, a leader of a mystical group who had such answers. He’d saved that man’s life, and had been told that one day he’d have a question that required their services. Come back, and he’d have his answer.

He was banking on that and hoping that those people still existed in that same remote location where he’d met them some 420 years ago, in the depths of the Carpathian Mountains. A three-week trek on foot through dense, thorny thickets that no horse could pass through, and then days of searching for that opening in the cliffs which likely was grown over by now. A miserable trip with an unknown ending, but it was all he had.

He threw a few bills on the table and stood. The sooner he started, the sooner he’d have his answer.

***

Petra was starting to get a headache as Melina pulled up in front of a small wooden house at the end of a long, deeply-rutted dirt road. The bouncing had done her head no good. But now the door of the house flew open and two kids came running out.

“Mom! You’re home!”

They flung themselves on Melina, who laughed and grabbed them both.

“You devils! Meet Petra, she’s going to stay with us for a while. Allie, could you go call the doctor for me? Tell him we’ve got a lady with lead in her head.”

The girl looked solemnly at Petra.

“Lead in her head? Weird, but I’ll tell him.”

She turned on her heels and back into the house she went. They were so cute. Petra wondered if she had any children, or even… she looked down at her left hand. There was a beautiful ring on her ring finger: it was deep red with a star in it, surrounded by clear stones. She somehow knew it was a star ruby. But had she been married to whoever gave it to her?

Melina had her stretch out on the old couch in the living room while they waited for Doc… whoever that was. Petra was content just to lay and watch Melina bustle around her small house, shouting at everyone with joy and love. The kids yelled right back, and Petra had to grin.

A banging on the door announced Doc’s arrival. He was an older man with a stooped back. He limped in and hugged Melina tightly.

“Another stray? Now what did I...”

“Shhhh!” Melina hissed. “She’s right in the living room, poor little thing. You just wait and see, she’s the sweetest thing. But Doc, she ain’t got all her brains. She’s forgot just about everything. You gotta help her, please.”

“Mel, there’s not much you can do for her memory if it’s really a true case of amnesia. Either her memories will return or they won’t. Most do within a month or two, and there are things you can do to try and prompt her to remember, but let me examine her first.”

Melina introduced him, then stood back as he went over Petra with care.

“Hmmm. I do believe you took a large caliber shot to the head, young lady. Thought the kid was gaming me over the phone! Got a headache, do you?”

Petra nodded. By now, it hurt so badly she was seeing double.

“Bad, is it?”

A tear oozed out of her eye.

“Give me a second, here.” He opened a battered black bag, ripped a syringe out of its sterile paper and plastic wrapper and filled it with liquid from a vial. “Here we go.” He took her arm and gave her a shot so rapidly she didn’t even have time to yelp.

Oh that felt better! She grinned at him.

“Better, eh? Good. You need an x-ray badly, to see where that bullet is. Shall I call 911 for you?”

“No!” Petra said, surprising herself. Why was she so against going to the hospital? Even the thought of it filled her with dread.

“You do something against the law to get that bullet? I won’t have you getting Mel and the kids into anything bad, you hear?” He scowled down at her.

“No!” Petra said again, then realized she didn’t know. “At least I don’t think so.”

“But you don’t know, do you?” the doctor asked, his white brows coming together. “I don’t like this situation worth a damn, Melina. I’ve told you time and again...”

“Now don’t you start!” Mel flashed back at him. “I found this poor thing wandering around in the Grand Hotel, where she was staying. You know as well as I do how many thugs hang out there.”

He nodded grimly.

“Staying at the Grand certainly isn’t a character reference,” the man mumbled, as he put his bag back together. “Convince her, Melina. Get her to the hospital today for an x-ray, no matter what. We need to know where that bullet is! In the meantime, keep her as still as you can. Any sudden movement could dislodge it and kill her faster than she can blink.”

Melina promised to try, and the doctor strolled back out.

“You sure you don’t want to go to the hospital?” she asked Petra.

“God, no!” Somehow the very thought horrified her. Why, she had no clue.

Melina threw her short, pudgy arms into the air. “Can’t say I didn’t try! OK. You hungry? Let’s try food.”

Petra wrinkled her nose. For some reason, food was far from her thoughts, although she had no idea when she’d last eaten and her stomach did feel empty. Empty and something else she couldn’t identify, some odd, excited feeling that seemed to be lodged directly in her gut. It was enough to propel her off the couch and across the room to the window.

The night was calm and still. A full moon was rising just at the horizon of the bayou – the sight gave Petra another heady dose of that same weird feeling. She wanted to run, jump, play. What on earth?

“Back on that couch, girl. I reckon getting up too soon might shock your system. The doc said keep still,” Melina said as she trotted back in from the kitchen.

Petra stood and stared at that moon for another moment all the same. Something about it – well, it wasn’t coming to her. Might as well lay back down and rest.

***

That same moon glittered through the trees as Raya tore through the woods. He was still miserable, but who could resist the pull of a full moon? Certainly not him! He had another forty minutes, if he had to guess. Then he’d really be able to run.

The scent of the forest with the pine trees, the crumbling leaves under foot, even a hint of rotting meat – all of it– reminded him that he was home in Romania. He never got here as much as he liked, and he missed it so badly. Nowhere else felt like the Carpathian mountains. Not the Alps, not the Himalayas. Nowhere.

A distant howl stopped him dead still. Where had that come from? One of the very last times he’d been in these woods alone, before he had come to meet Petra, he’d heard just such a howl, but it had been the precursor to another sound: a man’s scream, which had been suddenly cut short.

It had been enough to cause Raya to bolt in the direction of that shout. Someone was in trouble; that much he had been sure of. At the time, he’d only hoped that he could be of help. The mountains were notorious for bandits leaping on hapless strangers. He had run around the edge of a small stand of trees and onto the main path just in time to see three men beating the hell out of a fourth, who appeared to be much older than they were.

“You there! Leave off,” Raya shouted as he’d increased his speed.

 “Fuck off!” the first man had yelled back, and Raya realized that they were probably bandits after all and were attacking an old man.

He’d pulled a sturdy lower branch right off a nearby tree as he ran past it. If the bandits had noticed when he had ripped it effortlessly from the tree trunk, they would have been running away immediately. But they had been more interested in a wallet at that moment.

When he’d reached them, Raya swung his heavy branch widely and caught two of them directly in the face; the men went flying backward. The third stopped shaking the old man and whirled around to face the threat.

Raya had raised his branch and advanced, ready to do serious damage to someone who would hurt an elder. The man read all the intentions in his tightly-clenched mouth and flared nostrils, and had taken off at a dead run into the forest. His two companions had quickly followed him.

“You alright?” Raya remembered asking the man, who was even older than he’d originally thought.

“I think so,” the man had replied. “You arrived in the nick of time! They were just about to take the only thing I have left, and it means – well, it means the world to me.” The latter words were spoken with a distinct shakiness in the voice.

“It’s alright now,” Raya said. “Come, let’s start a fire. I brought tea.”

“That would be marvelous,” the man said. “And if you could see your way clear to bandaging my arm and gut, that too would be a wonder.”
Raya had been upset at his initial oversight of the man’s condition, but he had also realized that both of them had still been responding to a lot of adrenaline at the time.

“I should have asked if you were wounded!” Raya exclaimed, horrified. “Let me see to them.”

He’d wanted to take the man to a nearby village that had a healer, but the man had refused. Raya took a good hour to stitch the wounds together himself. He had been able to do it from experience gained during all his years as a soldier, but there had been no particular style to the suturing. Raya had been worried that the belly wound was so deep it would get infected without a healer’s touch, but the old man was adamant. Raya would do what he could and his own tribe would heal him, if Raya could get him there.

“Why wouldn’t I be able to get you there?” Raya asked, puzzled.

The old man grinned.

“It’s not exactly next door. You might not make it either. Few do, for that matter.”

They’d been making their way through heavy bushes with merciless thorns for more than a week when Raya had finally begun to comprehend what the man had meant. The way was a misery.

And it had only grown worse. A flat bushy area gave way to a steep climb, the bushes even more dense. There was no path and Raya had no idea how the old guy knew where he was going.

After three weeks, the air had begun to smell different to his sensitive wolven nose: very dry, lacking in any other scent. Odd, Raya thought until they finally broke through and saw what faced them; an arid desert-like expanse of sand that stretched to the horizon.

Christos, this trip would never end, he thought.

But they traveled for only two days when the scenery suddenly changed and he had found that there was a major drop off ahead. It hadn’t been visible at all before. The plateau had looked like the desert stretched unbroken for miles across it.

What a great way to hide, Raya had thought. But it’s not as though the old man’s tribe had done it on purpose, though. Right?

At the cliff’s edge, Raya saw steps leading down to a narrow chasm. More arid nothingness, to his disappointment. As they got halfway down, he noticed a couple of trees. That had been something different. At the bottom, he got the shock of a lifetime as the old man walked to a tree, and pulled down on a branch. It swung smoothly aside, revealing a carved wooden handle attached to a vine. He gave it a tug, a distant bong sounded. Another tug, another bong. And finally a third. He winked at Raya and walked around the tree. Then he sat and whistled.

Confused, Raya sat next to him and waited, unsure what was going on. But a few minutes later, a large trapdoor swung smoothly up. Carved wooden stairs descended, lit by lanterns. At the time, Raya couldn’t believe his eyes as he’d trotted down the steps after the old man. At the bottom, a low-lit corridor stretched as far as the eye could see.

It took almost an hour and a half to reach the end, where there was a simple door.

Beyond the door, a pretty meadow with birds chirping, greenery everywhere, a ridge of trees in the distance and a small village stretched out before them.

Two young men appeared from beyond a stand of trees, took one look at the older man and let out yells as they raced to him. The three chattered in an incomprehensible language as they turned and walked back toward the tiny village that was comprised of twelve small, square dwellings. None of it, as he remembered it, had been anything that Raya had expected. What else could have been said about the matter?

The three men had led him into the center hut, very simple but very clean with a hard-packed dirt floor, a small table, and two logs for seats. The younger man turned and gave the table a sharp pull. Somehow Raya wasn’t surprised when it swung up as the trap door had, but this time there were no stairs.

A long room below them extended far beyond the hut’s walls; a ladder led the way down.

The three men were standing in the midst of a lovely room with several couches, thick rugs, a fireplace. At the far left of the room, heavy black curtains hung.

“Raya, we’re being rude,” one of the younger men said in perfect English. “You’ve met Schmuel? I’m Matthias, and this is Luke.”

He shook hands with the man, speechless.

“Come this way,” Luke said, and led him toward the curtains. More curious than anything, Raya followed.

It was quite the surprise when Luke pushed the curtains open and revealed an altar with fresh flowers on it and different crystals everywhere, including two large balls.

“Who the hell are you people?” Raya burst out.

They all smiled.

“You probably haven’t heard of us before. We call ourselves the Illuminated Ones,” Luke said with pride. “We illuminate all of life’s questions. As you saved Schmuel’s life, we owe you. One day you’ll need something answered. Even though your kind outlives our own by centuries, we’ll be here for you. Someone will.”

Christos, how much did they know of his kind? And how did they find out? If there were humans who knew of the wolven’s existence, Raya knew that he had to get back and warn the local packs. But, after the hellish trek back and once he had finally gotten out of the mountains, he never told a soul; hadn’t even thought of it in too many years.

Yet there he was, entering the forest again and he was ready to break through rock if need be to find the Illuminated and get his answer.

Chapter Two

Melina was growing more worried by the second. Petra was pacing back and forth, visibly disturbed. Something wasn’t right. Melina could feel it and it was getting increasingly worse by the second, too.

“I can’t stand it,” Petra almost shouted as she burst through the door into the night air. It was a relief, but only for seconds. Immediately, she began pacing around trees, to the tops of hills.

“You look like a dog lookin’ for a spot to lay down,” Melina remarked, right behind Petra at every step.

As though she’d been waiting for Melina to say those words, Petra suddenly headed to a low rise. At the top she sat, then rolled onto her side facing away from Melina.

“Petra? Don’t you want to come back and lay down on the...” Melina’s words stopped. She’d lived more than forty years and never had she seen or even heard of anything like this, outside of a movie, of course.

Right in front of her eyes, Petra’s form shimmered as if it were rolled in light. Once the nauseating visual stopped, Petra was gone. In her place lay a long silver wolf, who slowly gained her feet and walked toward Melina.

Melina backed away slowly and the wolf stopped; it only stared at her. Melina began to walk, the wolf advanced. Stopped. So did the wolf. Then the animal stood still and lowered its head almost to the ground. It closed its eyes and bared its teeth. Melina’s hand went to cover her mouth as she watched for any signs that the wolf was going to attack. That was when she saw it. The hole. Just like the bullet wound Petra had, was right there in the center of the wolf’s face, but it seemed to be steaming now in the cold night air. The animal gritted its teeth harder and snarled with the effort of it.

Suddenly a metallic object appeared at the opening of the wound. It eased its way through the flesh and fell unceremoniously to the ground before the flesh sealed itself and the skin and fur covered the hole and the wound was no longer visible.

“This ain’t happenin’. This ain’t happenin’,” Melina told herself as she stopped and abruptly sat, the energy finally having left her legs completely. Thunder sounded in the distance and lighting arced across the sky as drops of icy cold rain began to fall.

The wolf stood shivering, ears pricked. Thunder sounded a bit more loudly, and the wolf dropped her head. A massive crack of thunder accompanied by several bolts of lightning rent the sky in two and the wolf whined deeply in her throat, dropped to her belly before advancing toward Melina. Once she reached the woman, she climbed partway into her lap, laid her long silver head on the woman’s thigh and exhaled at length.

They remained like that for quite some time, thunder booming from time to time and the wolf quivering after each instance.

“No, Doc, I didn’t bring home nothin’ weird. Just your basic werewolf who’s afraid of storms,” Melina mused to herself.

***

After two weeks of solid trudging through thick growth, Raya knew he was far more out of shape than he’d thought. Either that or he didn’t give a shit enough to eat, as he’d dropped some twenty pounds and was now rail-thin.

It was true that food held no allure, he thought, as he shoved his way through a thorn bush. Rivulets of red ran from his arms, his face, wherever naked skin showed, yet he felt no pain. No physical pain, that is.

His entire being was centered around the mental agony of his unbelievable loss. It shouldn’t have happened, yet the hollow space where the Alpha link had been was proof positive.

He’d lay down right there and just give up if he wasn’t worried about the price his pack, and maybe all wolves, might have to pay. The ideas streaming through his mind were so dreadful that he got up and began walking again.

So distracted was Raya by those thoughts that he became oblivious to his surroundings and suddenly found himself in a frightful situation that he could have otherwise easily avoided.

He’d heedlessly walked within five feet of a bear’s den, and she was presently at home with her young cub. She growled loudly in response to Raya’s unwanted presence; ears pinned, body crouched and ready to leap by the time Raya became aware of her existence. He reached back in one smooth movement and pulled his rifle from his backpack. He cocked the gun loudly even as the bear leaped.

The weapon was aimed right at those furious eyes; no way he could have missed, but it was like slow motion. As she drew closer, he just uncocked the weapon and dropped it. He could have sworn that the expression in her eyes changed to confusion. She twisted in mid air and Raya felt the wind go by even as she flew so close to him that he could smell her fur. She landed right behind him, shook herself, then strolled around back to her cub and sat, ignoring him as if he didn’t exist.

Raya stood for a moment, staring at the two creatures. Then he turned and once more began pushing his way through the bushes.

That tribe had best still be there, he told himself wearily as he came up on the ruins of a rock shelter he knew well; he’d built it himself centuries before.

He located what had been the fireplace, then the second tile from the left. Under it was what he needed; a perfectly-carved spear head and an object he’d completely forgotten about until that moment. A token the strange villagers had given him, just in case he did need to find them again and would need to prove his identity to the later generation of Illuminated. A beautifully-carved bear, standing on its hind legs.

Just in case, he thought.

Surprisingly, several days later, he found himself no longer caring if he found the tribe. It had been days since he’d found fresh water and his system was beginning to completely shut down. Every pore in his body cried out for water, but there was none to be had.

His only option was to push ahead and that’s exactly what he did until the third day without so much as a whiff of moisture. A small glow of gladness lit his soul as he allowed himself to collapse unconscious into the bushes. He had his answer, just not how he’d expected it to come to him.

And certainly not any more than he’d expected what happened next. He hadn’t expected the loud, irritated growl just before he was bodily lifted off the forest floor. Neither did he expect to be dragged through bushes, thorns, and everything on the forest floor before suddenly feeling icy water as he was dragged into a mountain creek.

He opened his eyes when the cold water hit his face and looked up to see a large bear vanishing into the bushes.

In disbelief, he closed his eyes again and rolled his head to the side and drank. And drank. He got up and ran over to a nearby bush to retch painfully before returning to the water to drink more.

For an entire day he lay where he was, soaking up the water into his dry pores.

Chapter Three

The next morning, Melina pelted Petra with questions. How old was she? Did any other such creatures exist? How many creatures like her existed?

Petra only responded with shrugs, and finally the questions stopped.

“Don’t know shit, do ya?” Melina asked.

Petra shook her head.

“Fine state of affairs.” Melina hefted her bulk to her feet and headed for the bathroom.

Within moments, Petra heard the shower running. She leaned back on the couch and closed her eyes, still exhausted whether it was physically or mentally.

“Can I ask you a big favor?” a small voice said.

Petra opened her eyes to see Riana, Melina’s eight year old daughter, standing next to the couch and staring at her through red-rimmed black eyes. The girl was a beautiful brown caramel shade herself, far more so than Melina, who was more café au lait colored. Father must have been black too then, Petra thought. God, what a beautiful kid.

She jerked, as that kid was waiting for a response.

“Ask away, but I can’t really say if I’ll be able to answer a thing.”

“You can answer this,” the small voice said with confidence.

“Go ahead then.”

There was a moment of silence, and Petra could feel the tension building as the child tried to get enough courage to ask her question. Finally, when Petra couldn’t tolerate it for another second, the girl exploded.

“Will you bite my mommy?” she all but yelled.

Petra’s eyes shot wide open. She hadn’t known what to expect, but this?

“Why on earth do you want me to bite your mother?” Suddenly the question went from strange to ludicrous and she found herself choking back laughter.

“You know why. So she’ll turn into what you are.”

Petra froze. Riana sighed.

“Yeah, I followed y’all last night. I saw. It’s cool, I won’t ever tell a soul. But please bite my mom!”

It was out before Petra could stop it. “You want to be tucked in by ears and a tail from now on, is that it? Or you want her to sit up and beg?”

“I want her to live so one day she can teach me how to drive,” the small voice said. “And to help me pick out a dress for the prom. You know, Mom stuff.”

Petra closed her eyes. Oh, no. No. But the child continued.

“She’s got the BIG C. That’s what she calls it. Breast cancer. She’s good now, but there’s a whole other year before she’s clear of it. Five years, you know, and she’s on four.”

“Shit!” Petra said.

“You got to put a quarter in the jar.”

“I’ll put in ten fucking bucks. I’m going to need it in the next five minutes, at the rate I’m going!” To her surprise, Riana erupted in laughter. Unwillingly, Petra saw the humor, and began to grin. The child laughed harder, breath coming in little squeaks and then Petra was lost, peals of laughter poured out of her tiny body.

When Melina opened the bathroom door seconds later, the two of them were rolling on the floor, clutching their stomachs and howling with helpless laughter.

“Have y’all done lost your minds?”

***

Finally, a weary Raya reached the bottom of the cliff and was filled with relief. Now the tree, the stairs, the corridor. He was so close.

He stopped walking and clapped a palm to his forehead.

The tree.

It was gone.

No one was there and it looked like no one ever had been. Just a bleak area below the cliffs with rocks scattered everywhere. He could no more find his way back to the village than he could fly! Christos, it was hopeless. All this way for nothing.

His head dropped with misery, and then he had one last desperate idea. It would never work but like his mom had said all those centuries earlier, “Can’t never accomplished a thing.”

“Schmuel!” He yelled at full voice; once, twice, a third time. “SCHMUEL! It is RAYA and I need you!” He ended with a protracted howl and fell silent.

He was just about to mount the cliff side when he heard a loud click, and two young men’s heads popped up out of the ground.

“Raya. What took you so long?” the shorter one asked, then tried to hide a large grin.

“Don’t listen to my brother, Aman. I’m Nesto, by the way. We’ve been waiting forever, generations of us. Our great-great-grandfather told this story of his own great-great-grandfather, and so on going back for generations. Where’s the token?”

Raya pulled the bear from his pocket.

“This?”

The guys grinned.

“Oh, yes.”

Raya followed them down the stairs to the corridor, then to the door at the end. The meadow on the other side didn’t seem to have changed in centuries, at first sight. The small village was still there, and if Raya wasn’t wrong, each house was exactly the same as it had been: small, square, simple wattle-and-daub abodes, some two-story, but most with just one. No telephone poles, satellite dishes, no evidence of technology whatsoever.

But as they drew closer, small details began to jump out at him. First, Raya realized that just before descending the cliff, he’d seen something glint high in the sky. A plane, he thought. But now he saw it again, in just about the same location.

“That wouldn’t be some kind of stationary satellite, would it?” he asked.

The younger guy winked.

“What on earth is a satellite?”

They were just passing a house, and Raya heard an unmistakable noise.

“A big round thing in the sky that sends Frogger to your kids.”

The brothers laughed.

“Busted over Frogger!”

It was then that they had to show him all the improvements they’d made, and Raya was beyond impressed. This was the most high-tech community he’d ever seen. The houses were all smart, in fact, the entire village was smart. Smarter than the most modern ‘green house’ concept design he had ever encountered.

Aman told him most of the improvements were due to Nesto, who’d gone to MIT and graduated summa cum laude. Raya was speechless. How was that possible?

“Nesto’s mom, Ludmilla, wanted to be sure her kids had everything the outside world did, so she got us connected with satellite services. They were bad, though, as you can imagine. But it got us educated, and that’s what counted. Turned out, Nesto is sort of a genius. Anything to do with electronics, that’s his thing. He invented a few things over the years. Patented them. Sold them into production to a few large corporations and suddenly we had more money than we could ever use. He created that too,” Aman said, pointing up.

Raya shook his head.

“That is truly fabulous.”

“You haven’t seen the best yet,” Nesto said in his soft voice. He hadn’t spoken until now, Raya realized. “Come this way.”

“Can’t wait for him to see this! It’s pretty rare that we get to show off,” Aman admitted.

“Yeah. As in never,” Nesto said.

They reached a small house, one of twelve that constituted the village. Inside, there was hardly enough space for one person to live. The brothers told him that families of six had lived there in past times. Now the village was about three times bigger than it had been, too.

“So how many people live here now?” Raya had to ask.

“Couple hundred, give or take,” Nesto responded as they passed by a table in the center of the room and opened a door leading to a small bedroom. So small that only a child could have fit in the tiny bed, but Nesto walked right to it and sat, pulling his legs up under him, facing the wall behind the headrest. “Raya, sit behind me just like me.”

Feeling more than a bit ridiculous, Raya pulled his large body onto the bed and attempted to imitate Nesto’s cross-legged position. His large, heavily-muscled thighs weren’t having it, so he wound up wrapping his arms around his knees. Aman barely fit on the rest of the small surface.

With all three men in position, Nesto said, “We’re dying to play a prank on you, but we sense all is not well. In such a case, we offer you a choice. Would you like to have a bit of fun and move rather rapidly, or are you the type that prefers slow and deliberate?”

That one took no thought!

“Let ‘er rip!” Raya said with a grin, and damn near immediately regretted it as the bed dropped right through the floor as if shot out a cannon.

“What the… fuuuuuuuuck!”

***

As she walked through a slick of mud and greenery, Petra thought she was getting to know the bayou pretty well. Daily walks through it kept her calm, made her feel as if she had some small control over her world.

And it was so beautiful! She could only hope that at some point she had been able to see that low country before she had lost her memory. The wildlife alone was so wonderful! No sooner had that thought passed through her mind, than Petra heard a peculiar shriek. A bird of some kind, she figured, but she’d never heard one that made such a noise. It almost sounded human in its desperation.

I must be imagining things, she thought as she picked her way from one piece of solid earth to the next. But then she heard it again, closer this time. And it wasn’t a bird at all, unless it was an escapee pet parrot in anguish; because she distinctly heard the words, “Help. Please. I know you’re there somewhere, please help. I can’t hang on much longer. Help. Please.”

He fell silent and she suddenly felt as if hundreds of eyes were on her, watching from every direction. She backed up, and then backed up again until she came up against a tree. She stood for several moments in silence, straining to hear.

“Don’t… stop. Nearly here.”

He sounded so weak.

Then why was she so scared? And something smelled weird too. Not bad, just – different. She couldn’t recall ever having smelled anything like it.

“You’re close now. Due north,” the voice said, distinctly weaker.

Petra swiveled. North was no different than any other direction, except there was a tiny island at a good distance. Several trees hunched together on it. And was that something dark at the bottom?

She trotted into the knee-deep water until she reached a small piece of land. From it, she was able to hop to several more and then finally the island. That odd scent grew more powerful the closer she came to the island, until it was overwhelming.

And under the trees was a crumpled form, barely alive from the looks of him. How did he get here, of all places? He wasn’t exactly dressed for a stroll in the bayou as he was wearing a filthy toga. That was truly odd, but she had no time for questions. She needed to get the man out of the swamp and back to Melina’s place, where the doctor could see him.

He appeared to be unconscious as she leaned over and attempted to pick him up, all but certain she couldn’t do it and wondering how she’d get him out of the swamp otherwise. To her surprise, he weighed nearly nothing. She gently hung him over her shoulder and turned back toward the house.

***

The bed landed in darkness.

Before Raya could say a word, the odd mode of transportation took off once again – this time, horizontally through a tunnel. Raya hated to think of how fast they must be moving as they approached a distant circle of light. He didn’t even bother to think about how they were even being propelled through the space. Just as they were about to get to the light, up they shot, like the world’s fastest and oddest elevator. Within moments, the bed eased to a stop.

Of all places, they were in a wine cellar.

“We’re only lacking a large rabbit in a top hat and some mushrooms,” Raya muttered as he followed the two guys up a flight of stairs into a brightly-lit kitchen.

“Those can be arranged,” Aman said from behind him.

Raya wasn’t listening; all of his concentration was focused on an incredible sight. He was looking through the kitchen windows at something miraculous. In the distance, he could see snow falling heavily. It banked up against an invisible surface and dark, gray, menacing clouds overhead spoke of a large storm.

He saw the snow, the clouds, could almost see the frigid air swirling around the distant mountain tops.

But.

He was sweating, as were the others. He stepped through the kitchen door. Outside, it looked like a bright summer day with flowers, fruit trees in full bloom and people wearing shorts.

Looking up, he could see some kind of surface separating reality from whatever this was. He couldn’t see the enormous bright lights he knew had to be up there, or the blowers providing hot air. It was an enigma, and he was speechless.

“I invented that too,” Aman said. “If you happen to be flying over us, all you see is a deserted mountain top. We shot it from every angle. I’m really proud of the sun!” He pointed. “That took some doing. It crosses the sky just like the real thing: it should, it’s right where the real one is.”

“Christos, this is unbelievable. I assume no one knows you people are here?”

“Only the village below,” Nesto said.

“What do you do if climbers actually head up here?”

“There really isn’t a reason for anyone to climb here. We’re not the highest mountain, not even close. Nothing amazing about our mountain at all; it doesn’t even have a name.”

“I’d imagine the length of the journey to get here would be off-putting, too,” Raya said.

Both guys laughed. “Yeah, you mean the commercial flight to Prsriuka, then a small plane through the pass and a quick landing about three miles south?”

Raya’s mouth dropped. “I went through all of that for nothing?”

“I wouldn’t say nothing,” Nesto said with a wink. “We’ll get to that. First, look at this.” He led them to an expansive living room, walked to a desk and picked up a large map. “What do you think mountain climbers would do with this?”

Raya examined it. There were a cluster of mountain tops, with several others nearby. At the edge of the cluster, the mountaintop had just enough space for perhaps six people to stand. The other peaks were exactly that. “Well, it’s not great, but you and a couple of friends could peak at the same time.”

The guys looked at each other and grinned. “They sure could! But they wouldn’t be anywhere near us. This mountain is the one you’re currently standing on,” Nesto said, pointing to a sharp, jagged peak slightly south of the central peak.

Not even a bird could stand there, Raya knew. Not with the incredible winds at this altitude. “Your people whacked the entire top of this mountain off.”

“Yes, we did. And it wasn’t done overnight, either.”

Petra would absolutely flip when she – his heart sunk. She’d never know. That was the entire reason he was here. “It’s truly a feat, but it’s time for me to ask you a question.”

“The Illuminati never respond to hypotheticals,” Nesto said immediately.

“Hypotheticals?” Raya frowned. What was hypothetical about this question? Not a thing. He voiced that.

“Do you really want that to be your question? Most people never have access to one answer. No one ever has had two,” Nesto warned him.

Raya thought.

“No, definitely not. This will take some thought.”

Chapter Four

“Honest to God, Petra,” Melina said. “An old man half-dead in a toga on my living room couch? You think this is a hospital or a shelter? What were you thinking?”

“He was way out in the bayou,” Petra responded. “Couldn’t leave him out there like this to be eaten by alligators, could I?”

Melina sighed.

“Suppose not. Well, Doc’s just going to have to...”

“No doctor,” came a whisper from the couch. “Swear it or I must leave.”

The two women eyed each other, and then Melina shrugged.

“OK. It’s no skin off our asses, but we can’t just wait on you night and day, either. We do have our own lives.”

“Two days,” the man said. “Then I’ll go. And no waiting on me – my needs aren’t what you think.”

“Needs? What do you mean?” Melina asked with a frown.

“I don’t eat as you do, for one thing.” His voice weakened.

“You a vegetarian?”

He simply gave his head a small shake.

“What are you, then?”

“Vam…”

“Can’t hear you. A bit louder?”

“Vampire,” he managed to get out before losing consciousness once more.

“Yeah, why not? Got a werewolf right here after all,” Melina said with a grin. “That’s just clear as shit! Maybe he’ll tell us the truth when he comes to.”

That night Petra had the first of what proved to be an endless series of dreadful nightmares. In this first, she was walking through a large city that she’d never been to before. The streets were deserted, until she came to a major intersection.

It looked as though the street had been full of traffic that had just stopped. Cars were standing in lines that stretched to the horizon, going one way. Not one vehicle was on the other side.

The scene changed, and there were young girls dancing in a circle.

Maypole, Petra thought as she listened to the chant.

Dying, dying, blood needs blood.

“Dying, dying, blood needs blood. Help us! Save us, from the flood. Dying, dying, blood needs blood. Help us! Save us, from the flood. Dying...”

The dancing girls faded as night fell. Occasional fires lit up a square where seesaws and swings marked a playground. Now, though, it was anything but playful. Dead wolves lay sprawled, awful seeping sores visible on their bellies. Human corpses nearby had the same affliction, except the sores were on their thin arms and necks.

The sight was so awful that Petra sat bolt upright, awake, jumping up with a thin scream.

Melina came stumbling in.

“What? What?”

“Bad dream,” Petra mumbled. “It was a real doozy.”

“Go back to sleep,” Melina commanded her as she turned and left.

Easier said than done. All those wolves, all those people… and the eerie rhyme, ‘Blood needs blood.’ An obvious warning, but what did it mean? Any of it?

Dawn was breaking before Petra fell asleep again, this time drifting into a peaceful lack of dreams.

***

Raya was preparing for the journey back; even though it was a lot shorter than he’d thought, he wasn’t dressed for the weather at all.

“We’d be happy to outfit you for your trip, but in return we require one small favor,” Aman said.

“Depends on the favor,” Raya said warily. He didn’t want to agree to something without any notion of what was involved.

“We just need you to take something back with you,” Aman assured him.

Raya agreed, and the brothers brought him warm clothing, a backpack, dried foods, and even boots to descend the mountain. He changed into the warmer clothing and wondered what the tribe needed him to take away.

He didn’t have long to wonder. Nesto walked in leading a very young girl by the hand.

“Oh no! No way. I’ll get out of these clothes right now,” Raya said.

Lead an 8-year-old girl down such a dangerous path? Not a chance.

“She isn’t what she appears,” Aman said.

“And how’s that?”

“She was, ah, born last week.”

All three of the men fell silent, eying the child who looked right back at them calmly from enormous brown eyes surrounded by masses of long, curly black hair that fell to her waist.

“I can show you the best way down the mountain,” she said, in her high child’s voice.

Those eyes were anything but childlike, Raya thought. They stared at him directly into his own eyes, filled with wisdom and a glint of humor. What in hell?

What did it matter? At least it, she, might keep his mind distracted from other, awful thoughts. Yes. He’d agree.

***

Several days later, they’d descended the mountain and were walking through a dense forest. Obviously, the thicker bushes grew on that side of the mountain as well, Raya thought as yet again, his entire arm became trapped and the cloth ripped from his jacket. “Christos, will we ever get out of here?”

“Raya, I’m not feeling so great,” Cilla said. She looked to have aged at least a year in the past few days, Raya thought.

“Why don’t we stop for the night, then? I’ll make a quick fire and warm you up.” He was as good as his word, and even managed to throw together a crude A-frame shelter from downed branches.

But Cilla grew worse overnight. She refused to eat or drink, and just lay shivering with cold no matter what Raya did.

Maybe she’d eat real meat, he thought. The dried stuff from the tribe might be nutritious, but it tasted awful. A quick hunt, that was the best thing. He informed Cilla that he’d be back before nightfall, and took off.

For hours he walked, examining the ground for tracks – any tracks whatsoever. A rabbit. A deer. This forest had to be full of them! He even had a shotgun that Aman had loaned him for just such a cause. He was to leave it with a tribe member who lived in a village they’d cross on the other side of the forest.

But what good would the weapon do with no targets? Finally, he had to turn and head back to camp, lest he be hunting for it in the dark.

Cilla was noticeably worse after the five hours he’d been gone. She was moaning continually, thrashing about on the rude bed of branches. Hell, she was really sick, Raya could see that. She needed a doctor badly, and night was falling.

Nothing he could do now, but first thing in the morning he’d be heading off.

But she woke him much later with loud groans. He could tell she was literally burning up with fever, and he had only one thought. He’d passed this spot on his useless hunt.

He dressed by firelight, picked up the thin body and set off through the night. After half an hour they arrived at the spot: a small creek roaring down from the mountain.

He stripped Cilla and put her entire body in the icy water, standing in it himself to hold her head up. His feet rapidly froze until he couldn’t feel them, but he didn’t notice. Instead, he watched with incredulity as steam rose from Cilla’s pale body.

Finally, her temperature seemed to lower, so he dressed her and carried her back to the crude shelter. After all that expended effort and so little food, he fell asleep rapidly and heavily.

More heavily than he ever had, he realized, as he woke to a thin stream of sunlight coming from between the trees. His neck hurt like hell and there was blood all over his upper torso.

He reached up and gently felt his wounded neck. Blood was still oozing, and he could feel that it had been ripped into. Christo. Cilla! He sat up, his neck pounding with pain, and looked at her bed.

Empty.

He groaned. The tribe would be furious at her loss, even though he’d had no way of stopping it.

The forest began swirling around him, so he quickly lay back down on his own branches. He couldn’t leave right now at any rate; maybe Cilla would return.

Nearly six hours later she did, and she looked indescribably bad.

She’d gained at least 10 years as well, as she was nearly 5’7” with full breasts. And covered with mud, filth and blood.

She was crying as she entered camp.

“Cilla? Is that you?” Raya didn’t know this young woman at first.

“It’s me, I guess. What is happening to me?” She went from crying silently to full-out bawling, and Raya struggled to get up and go to her. The dizziness came back with a vengeance and he was forced to lay back down.

“I didn’t do that, did I?” Cilla asked in a near whisper, staring at his neck with huge, horrified, dark eyes.

“I don’t know,” Raya had to answer.

She sucked in a deep breath preparatory to a scream, then exhaled and relaxed. “I don’t know a thing about it if I did. Thing is to help you now. Tell me what to do.”

He directed her on cleansing and wrapping the wound with strips of an extra shirt that Nesto had given him, but he really needed nourishment. How she’d provide that he’d never–

An absurd sound cut through his thoughts like a knife: an enormous, rumbling passing of wind.

Cilla’s eyes went wide as she whipped around and looked into the forest.

“What did that!”

Suddenly Raya knew.

“Don’t worry, Cilla, and don’t move. I mean it. Not a hair,” was all he could get out before the large form lumbered into the clearing.

Cilla choked back a scream as the bear dumped a large salmon out of her mouth before heading back into the forest.

“Dinner is served,” Raya said with a grin.

“What kind of creature was that?” Cilla asked, still wide-eyed. “It’s neat that it feeds people.”

“More accurately, if you put the word ‘on’ after ‘feed,’ you have the real animal,” Raya said.

“Oh. That’s weird. Well, I have some good news of my own!”

“And what might that be?”

“I learned to do something fun by mistake. Tell me about where you’re taking me.”

Puzzled, Raya told her about Heureuse: what it looked like, what the weather was like this time of year. He was still talking when an enormous crack sounded. For a moment, he thought they’d been hit by lightning until he was able to open his eyes… and then he had a serious shock.

He, Cilla, and even his backpack and the trout… all were sitting in the driveway in front of Heureuse Manor.

Chapter Five

Joseph was still on the couch, unconscious. Melina and Petra had checked on him all day; he hadn’t even moved from the spot Petra had put him. Petra thought he was disintegrating right in front of their eyes.

How long had it been since he’d eaten, she wondered? He’d had nothing since she’d brought him to Melina’s place late the afternoon before, and it was 4 p.m. at that moment. She’d heard that if you starved long enough, your system began to digest even your own muscles… still, Joseph looked like he was dropping at least ten pounds a day. How that could be, she couldn’t understand.

“… blood,” Joseph muttered.

Petra leaned over.

“What? I couldn’t hear you. Do you need anything?”

Together, Melina and Petra had managed to give Joseph a bath that morning, and Melina had even found an old robe that had belonged to her father. It nearly swallowed Joseph, the dark red material, making his pale white skin all the more dramatic. He had rough, gray hair, long and hanging in clumps, even now that it was clean.

During that bath when he’d been naked on the couch, Petra had noticed that his entire body was wrinkled. It was one of the oddest things she’d ever seen. It reminded her vaguely of a friend she’d had when she was in college. The girl had weighed nearly 500 pounds, and had been determined to get her life back.

She’d had a gastric bypass operation, where her stomach had been stapled into one smaller part and one larger. The food she ate went into the smaller so she felt full after eating a lot less. It had worked and she’d dropped an unbelievable one hundred pounds so rapidly that her belly, legs, and arms were left wrinkled with loose skin. In a year, she was down to 170 and skin just hung off her. She’d had plastic surgery to remove it, and she’d been a new girl.

The way that she’d been so wrinkled, though – looking at Joseph definitely reminded Petra of that. He was still out cold, but he was also very restless. His head flipped back and forth on the pillow, eyes moving rapidly behind closed lids.

“Blood needs blood,” he said clearly and went right back out again. His muscles began jerking, and Petra ran a gentle hand down his arm.

“Joseph. It’s OK. You’re dreaming.”

He relaxed, rolled onto his side.

Petra looked at his sleeping form and grimaced. Evidently she wasn’t the only one having nightmares. She’d had yet another, the same as the first with the children chanting and singing, the dead wolves and people with the god-awful, suppurating sores.

Well, it was only a dream. People and wolves didn’t catch the same diseases, especially not one that resembled the later stages of Ebola. She shivered at the thought, then shook herself.

She was being idiotic. It was impossible.

“… coming for you now...” Joseph muttered in his sleep, and his whole body was shivering in fear. He thrashed around, moved onto his back, eyes still closed. “For you, Petra. Coming.”

In horror, she looked down at him. Thought about Melina and the kids. Joseph was right; instinctively she could feel it. Something was coming for her! She couldn’t be here when it arrived, or Melina and Riana could be hurt. There was no way that she was going to let anything bad happen to such good people. No, there was only one recourse open to her.

She stood, looked around one last time, and headed for the door. She had nothing but the clothes on her back, but it didn’t matter. Nothing did except getting as far away and as fast as possible.

She took off at a run behind the house directly into the bayou. Whatever it was would never find her there, she’d make damn sure of that!

***

“That’s impossible,” Raya said when he was finally capable of speech. “Not only did you whisk us home, you even brought the damn salmon! How? How did you do this? Who are you, Cilla? What are you?”

She frowned.

“I’m just me. Just Cilla. Can’t anyone else travel like this?”

“No! Hell no. Everyone else either walks, goes by a land vehicle, a boat, or flies. Nobody just instantly appears somewhere. How did you do it? How did you learn?”

“I’d hoped you wouldn’t ask,” she admitted. “It was sort of a mistake. I was walking back to camp and I saw this gorgeous bird – really big with bright colors and a huge beak. Never saw one before. I kept going, and suddenly there he was again, ahead of me on a branch! He’d done it himself. Poofed and appeared right in front of me. I figured if he could, I probably should know how. I tried, it worked – but then the first bird flew up and landed next to the other one!”

Raya sucked in a large breath preparatory to bursting into laughter. Instead, he froze just as Heureuse’s door opened and people came rushing out.

“Raya! Raya! Welcome home!”

“Where have you been?”

“Who is this one with you?”

“Why does she smell so strange?”

“Where did she come from?”

The questions rained down on him like a hailstorm and it was all he could do to raise his hands in silent protest, suggesting that everyone back down and allow him to properly greet Itchiko before he answer their inquisitions.

The samurai stepped forward through the crowd that the pack members had formed and grasped Raya’s arm firmly.

“Welcome home, brother!” he said, pulling Raya in for a huge bear hug.

At that moment both men paused. They gave each other a querying look and raised their faces simultaneously to the wind, sniffing… almost tasting the air that encircled them.

“Stop! Stop! Can’t you smell that?” Itchiko bellowed to the pack.

They all halted where they were and sniffed the air as well. One by one their eyebrows rose. Itchiko broke into an enormous grin.

“I just knew that she’d make it! She’s alive, Raya. And she’s close by too.”

“She is alive. Christos, Petra lives!” Raya whispered with tears flowing unheeded down his cheeks. Quickly, he handed off his charge. “Itchiko, this is Cilla. She’s special. See to her until I get back.”

Within seconds, he’d transformed into his wolf form and darted into the forest, heading directly toward that so familiar scent.

She was alive!

***

She was alive, surely, but completely miserable and terrified as she flat out ran in wolven form into the depths of the bayou. She didn’t know where she was going. Her only intent was that it be far away, that was all.

She settled into a steady run, her powerful haunches propelling her deeply into the humid swampland. For hours, her pace never changed, but then she smelled something inviting and had to stop.

All of the energy that she expended making her way through the underbrush at such high speed, was draining her slowly and steadily. She needed to replenish the lost calories. The fat rabbit she caught was a help; she could hardly keep a straight thought as she fed.

Absolutely delicious, and–

What was that?

Suddenly, Petra felt as though she wasn’t alone, but it was worse than that. There was a menacing darkness around her that hadn’t been there even a second before.

An evil presence–

In the distance, an enraged howl jerked Petra into motion and she let instinct take over. She fled with a speed that only a werewolf could be capable of, and only very frightened ones at that. Petra’s speed was extraordinary as normally nothing could frighten a werewolf.

It didn’t matter. Whatever it was stayed on her tail at the exact same distance, no matter how fast she went. She risked a glance over her shoulder and wished she hadn’t; what she saw there was impossible.

A cloud of dark mist was floating right behind her.

That terrified her even more, if such a thing was even conceivable. Petra felt a whine building in her throat; a sound she hadn’t made since she was a pup. And as if it sensed that whine, she felt a dark glee emanate from whatever it was behind her.

With that eerie incentive, Petra managed to increase her speed even more until the trees of the woods were only a blur: she dodged them on sheer instinct. There was hardly a way to even see them until she was right on top of one. But even at her blinding rate of speed, something was moving faster than she was, she discovered. A hell of a lot faster, too. That was when she realized she wasn’t any longer running alone. Another wolf had unbelievably caught up to her and ran at her shoulder, ears flat back with rage, eyes gleaming with fury. Petra knew instantly that her new companion’s wrath wasn’t directed at her, and she felt a slight relief at having some back up in the situation that faced her. Again she peeked over her shoulder only to see that whatever it was had grown! The cloud was distinctly larger, and remarkably thicker; more like a blob now. This time she noticed the dead fish, dead birds and other deceased forest animals whose carcasses were being left lifeless in the thing’s trail.

Whatever-It-Was wasn’t pleased at the lessening of her fear, and it sped up as well. No longer was it at a precise distance behind Petra. Now it was virtually on her heels, and she couldn’t see anything at all in her peripheral vision, but that mist and a faint outline of the other wolf that was nearly flying next to her.

That dark was there, malevolent and evil. It was dark; something wicked and that something, even though it didn’t seem to have a solid physical form, was grinning at the two fleeing wolves.

Petra’s fear was ramped up one more time and she made an attempt to move even faster, lowering herself nearly to her belly, ears flat, tail flagging behind her in a straight line. But then she was hit hard. The blow came from the left and at that speed, she went sailing off to the right, scrambling with all four legs in the air until she slammed into a huge cypress tree.

The other wolf! He’d done this.

Her own fury overshadowed both her fear and her pain, and she leaped to her feet to speed back the way she’d come. There he was, the enormous male wolf, standing spread-legged, facing nothing but mist, the long hair on his back standing straight upright with his own rage and fury.

Ears pinned against his head, the wolf was growling continuously; a deep, menacing sound that would have normally scared the life out of anything he faced.

Except that this wasn’t alive, Petra abruptly thought.

Even though it made no sense at all, it was the truth. She knew that, and knew she had to move rapidly or that other brave wolf – who was actually facing down a horror like this – would lose his life.

She had to get his attention, distract him long enough for him to understand what she now knew to be the truth. But distracting an alpha male, which she suddenly understood that this wolf was, wouldn’t be easy. She had to do it right now or the consequences of her inaction would be unthinkable. So, she did the last thing either of them would have ever expected. She ran directly in front of him and shoved her rear end right into his nose and squirted with all her might. Petra was mortified; she’d never felt less attractive in her life. A thin stream emerged all the same and hit the wolf directly in his incredibly sensitive nostrils.

The growling instantly turned to a yelp of surprise.

Petra emphasized her point by smacking his long snout with her tail, then taking several painfully slow steps off toward the east. The closest way out of the woods.

She cocked her head over her shoulder, looked the male right in the eyes and gave a short, commanding bark of her own. Her memory may have been gone, but the instincts of an alpha’s mate were deeply ingrained in her. She took off at a leisurely run, those same instincts holding her back from the unreasoning flight of before.

She felt a sharp nip on her butt, and to her complete relief, the male was once more at her shoulder, running easily towards the east.

The Whatever-It-Was was gone. In the wake of their confrontation, it had dissipated almost as rapidly as it had seemed to form initially. Gone, as though it had never existed, but Petra wasn’t about to take any chances and maintained her steady pace until she and the male emerged from the underbrush, some fifty feet from a busy interstate.

There was an overpass just to their left, and across the interstate, she could see a small shopping center, the parking lot nearly full. She and the male moved as one, dodging oncoming traffic as they crossed all six lanes.

Once they were on the other side, they slowed to a trot and circled the stores until they were near a large Dumpster in the rear. Behind it, they found a storage shed of some kind. The male transformed back into his human form, broke the lock on the door and motioned to Petra to join him.

She trotted in without a second thought, and the male shut the door behind her.

“Petra. For the love of God, Petra – tell me you’re alright. Tell me where you’ve been!” the human said in a deep, husky voice.

He was glorious in his nudity: wide shouldered, heavily muscled shoulders tapering to washboard abs and a small waist. Powerful legs spread in a commanding stance, deep blue eyes staring into her own green ones with a plea so intense she would have had tears if she’d been human.

She didn’t have a clue as to his identity, and knew somehow that he’d be terribly hurt if he learned that. And that moment wasn’t the time for him to be distracted from whatever had chased them.

She’d remain in wolf form, she thought. She had no other ideas whatsoever.

The shack was full of boxes: she spied a few within leaping distance. With an easy jump, she landed on top of them and laid on her side, panting heavily, not affording the male so much as a glance.

“Petra? What the hell?” he said, then fell silent.

How to get through to him with no human voice?

She sat up, looked him directly in the eyes, then leaned over and puked on the floor. Again she stared into his eyes, then sat on her rump and waited.

“You’re sick, aren’t you,” he said slowly. “But what could be wrong with… Christos. You don’t know who I am, do you?”

Petra transformed and whispered her reply.

“No, I don’t.”

“I am Raya, Alpha of Pack Lupein and Trans-Alpha of all wolves,” he said. “And you, Petra… you are my mate!”

She’s alive!

“Sorry, but I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Petra said. “For now, I don’t think it matters who I am. We have a bigger problem.”

Raya opened his mouth as if to protest, then closed it and turned toward the door, facing away from her.

“You’re right. That thing out there. That was clearly the worst threat I’ve had to face in seven hundred years. What in hell could it have been?”

“I don’t know, but I suddenly had the impression it was alive. I know how that sounds, but it’s true.”

“That doesn’t make any sense. One thing, though. Whatever it was, it’s going to come back and we need to know how to defeat it when it does.”

“It hasn’t done anything yet,” Petra said.

“It will. Oh, it will,” Raya said.

“How do you fight and defeat something when you don’t know what the hell it is or what it’s capable of doing?” Petra wondered.

“Now, there is a good question,” Raya said with a half grin. “Nobody can say it isn’t. I need to take a trip back to Eastern Europe in a hurry. Let’s get you home to Heureuse.” At the confused look on her face, he explained, “We’ve lived there for more than 120 years. It’s been your favorite of all our homes.”

She’d give anything to remember any home, Petra thought in misery. This was hell for her not knowing anything about who she was. Whom she loved, had loved. Nothing at all. It was like she’d never existed prior to two days ago at that hotel. What had happened there? One way to find out. “We have to stop by my home first. I have a question too.”

Chapter Six

Melina was out front weeding her flowers. Saying that she was surprised at the sight of a naked couple strolling up her driveway was an understatement, Petra thought, as she choked back laughter.

But Melina was Melina.

“Little on the hot side for y’all today? There’s a thing called air conditioning, you know.”

“We’re getting plenty of air right as we are,” Raya deadpanned. Then grinned and introduced himself.

“Dang. Petra’s mate, eh? And she still doesn’t remember? That must really suck,” Melina said with sympathy.

“It’s not great,” Petra admitted. “Not a thing I can do about it though. We really do need to fix another set of problems now. I’ll just run in and –” The door opened behind Melina, and Reina stepped out.

She looked at Petra and Raya, quickly turned her head.

“Get back in the house!” Melina snapped at her.

“In a second. First, Petra… my favor?”

Her small face was miserable. Her eyes welling up with tears. Shit. What could she do?

Petra transformed, trotted to Melina, and looked up at her for a long moment. The woman looked back down, puzzlement written all over her round, brown face.

In one lightning fast movement, Petra reached out and bit her on the leg. Then sat down and transformed again, panting from the effort.

“What in the hell did you just do!” Melina sputtered with rage. “You bit my leg! Bitch!”

“I don’t believe she did that myself,” Raya said, his face motionless. “Petra, that goes against every rule in the Codec. What were you thinking?”

“You mean other than… what Codec? And like I’d give a shit if I did remember? This is life or death, and this is a fine woman. Be damned if she’ll croak if I can help it!” Petra shot out.

“What’s done is done, but don’t do it again. I won’t be able to protect you if the pack learns of your actions,” Raya said.

“I don’t need protecting,” Petra said, mouth thinned to a slit. “I can take care of myself.”

“Yeah. Remember that when eight wolves are ripping your goddamn arms off,” Raya muttered.

Petra turned pale, but still tried to hide it.

“Good God, what drama!”

“Excuse me,” Melina said with her own barely suppressed anger. “Would someone tell me what the fuck just happened?”

“Allow me,” Raya said before Petra could utter a word. “Next full moon, you’re going to have a problem. A big, hairy problem with long fangs.”

Now Melina went pale beneath her dark skin. She turned and looked at her daughter.

“How could you? This was your favor, wasn’t it?”

The child’s lower lip trembled and she bit it to stop the involuntary movement which would only trigger the tears in her eyes to spill over and roll down her cheeks. “Yes, Mama. I – I want you to be around for a long time is all. Don’t be mad at Petra. I asked her to.”

Melina’s face softened, then her brows lowered.

“Honey, I didn’t want you to know.”

“I knew, Mama. I’ve known all along.”

Melina grabbed her into a tight hug, then eyed Petra over the child’s head.

“I’m really going to turn furry?”

“You better believe it.”

“On the full moon, then?”

“Actually, that’s not right. You can change any time. Full moon makes it a lot easier, you expend less effort,” Petra explained.

Melina’s face grew bright.

“You mean, like right...” Instantly there was a slightly overweight tawny wolf standing, then falling in front of Petra. She and Raya both doubled over laughing. Reina watched with huge eyes. The wolf managed to get to her feet and stood for a few moments. Then she trotted a step or two before bolting like a streak into the woods. She returned, transformed and stood, naked herself, with an enormous grin.

“Oh my goodness, I never!” The grin faded. “Do I go crazy and attack folks?”

“You tell us. Did you?” Petra said.

“I reckon not.” Her brows lowered again briefly as she reached a hand to her full breasts. Then she went pale again. “God. Petra, God! I have two tits again.” Tears filled her eyes.

“I’m so glad for you,” Petra said, trying not to cry herself. She hadn’t known Melina was missing a breast. Looking on the ground now, though, she spotted the prosthesis. “I never even knew.”

“I feel different,” Melina said. “Can’t really describe it, but I feel sort of new. Alert, healthy, energetic!”

Suddenly Raya stopped mid-laugh and cocked his head to the side.

“Shhhhh!” he said to the two women, raising an index finger to silence Melina’s question to Petra of what was happening.

He sniffed the air and then shifted his head to the other side. Turning slowly, he walked over to the bushes which marked the forest’s edge, listened briefly for a moment, and then raced back. “Quickly! Melina, your television?”

“Right inside.”

Melina led the way up to the porch to the door. As they walked in, Raya bringing up the rear, he stopped short just as he stepped into the living room. He stood, sniffing the air, then said “there’s a strange odor in here. Familiar, but strange.” He walked the rest of the way in.

“You saying my house stinks?” Melina responded with a grin.

“No, not at all. Is that your dad on the couch, there?” Raya asked in a whisper.

“That’s Joseph; we don’t know who the heck he is! Petra rescued him from the bayou yesterday.”

Raya’s face cleared as he was overcome with the recollection of where he knew the scent from.

“Damn me for a fool. Cilla! He smells exactly like Cilla does. Melina, do you mind having another guest? I happen to have brought a girl back from Europe who is – well, she must be some kind of relative of Joseph’s, as they smell exactly alike.”

“Sure, bring her. Maybe she can help him. He’s weak, sick and refuses a doctor,” Melina said as she clicked on the television. A commercial was airing, so she and Petra made a dash for the stairs. They returned clothed and with a clean shirt and some cargo shorts for Raya. As the small group sat down in front of the television, Raya made a quick call to Heureuse for someone to bring Cilla over. As he hung up, the news came back on.

***

“And now we’re going back to our story about the girl who discovered a serial killer. Local police would never have known there was a serial killer stalking their town if it hadn’t been for a college student who was working on an English creative writing assignment. Carol Saunders is with us now live in Central Park. Carol, what first caught your eye with these deaths?”

A young, pretty blonde interviewer stood in the park next to a heavy girl wearing an ankle-length dress.

“We were asked to find out about a bunch of deaths and attempt to create a story that could somehow tie them all together and we could just make that part up, you know. Anyway, I set up a Google alert for all the deaths that occurred over a week, and when the emails started to come in, I realized that five men died in two states in a matter of days. I was going to fictionalize their deaths, you know, make them all have died in the same way but then I didn’t have to. Every one of them was strangled and found with a thick chain around their necks wrapped around a tree. They were sitting at the base of these trees, each in a different city. It got me to thinking, where would they be if I mapped them out? So I used their addresses from the news, and this is what I found.”

A map appeared on screen with five stars. The girl’s voice said, “Once I saw these locations, it occurred to me that if I did this,” a ruler appeared on the map, laid on the stars. It was evident that the locations were in a straight line from New York to Pennsylvania. The camera pulled away, and the picture was clear: the ruler stretched directly to New Orleans. “I called the guy the Dog Collar killer and predicted he’d hit again in West Virginia, and not even an hour ago I got an alert that another guy had been found, chain and all, in Huntington. Our outlines were due about an hour ago and my professor said I should take it to the police. I did, and they kind of laughed at me. So I called News 5 and here I am!”

“You’ve done a great job and you deserve an Eyewitness Award. There’s a five thousand dollar reward coming your way, young lady! Now in other news…”

Raya muted the TV. “Dog Collar killer, eh. Not too far off from wolf killer, is it now?”

“Not at all,” Petra said slowly. “You know, I just wonder if...”

There was a knock on the door. Melina stood, and went to admit Cilla. The girl walked in, smiling shyly, until she got a look at the couch and its inhabitant. She froze, then approached the sleeping Joseph.

“What’s his name?” She asked Melina.

“Joseph.”

“Thanks. Hey Joseph, you OK? They said you’re some kind of relative of mine,” Cilla said to the motionless form.

He groaned.

“Don’t have any relatives. Who are…” He opened his eyes and looked at Cilla. Instantly he struggled to sit up, moaning from the effort of the sudden movement. “Thank the gods. Can I feed from you?” he asked, reaching out for her.

Cilla’s eyes widened and she immediately backed away from him.

“What are you talking about? Feed from me?”

Joseph’s energy ran out and he slumped back onto the couch. “I didn’t mean to scare you. You don’t know what you are… what we are, do you?”

“Uh, no.”

“We are the second oldest two-legged species after man,” he said with pride. “We’re called Specius Vampirata. The humans call us ‘vampires.’

Melina let out a shriek of fear as Raya leaped in front of Petra: all of which happened as Cilla stood transfixed next to the couch in complete confusion.

“What’s a vampire?” she asked.

“We feed on blood and we don’t die, for the short version. I have no more energy,” Joseph said apologetically.

“Damn bloodsuckers,” Raya spat. “I thought your kind was long gone.”

“We harm no one,” Joseph said. “We only feed on each other. I’d have thought your kind would know that.”

“That’s not always true! I had a friend killed by a vampire,” Raya said with fury.

“Must have been at birth, then. The only time we can feed on humans.”

“Excuse me,” Cilla said. “How much blood do you need?”

“About half a cup,” Joseph said, and it was apparent he’d said all he was able to. He fell all the way onto his back and closed his eyes.

Cilla sighed. “All right. What do I do?”

“No,” Joseph whispered. “Not like this. Not unwillingly. It’s special between us, the act of feeding. It should never be done with an unwilling participant.”

“You don’t look too good, though,” she said.

“I’m not, but that doesn’t matter,” he said.

“Yes, it does. Come on, tell me. I don’t mind. I can’t stand the thought of not helping someone who’s as sick as you.” She went and sat on the edge of the couch. “Here I am. Go ahead.”

He wheezed a laugh. “Never have I had such a welcoming offer! If you’re certain, then please hold your wrist to my lips. I’m afraid I can’t move, myself.”

Cilla obligingly held out her wrist to the old man’s dried-up lips. He lifted his head slightly, opened his mouth and bit. She squeaked, but then fell silent, her eyes widening.

For several moments, the room was completely silent as the old man fed. Cilla noticed first. “Holy shit, look at him!”

Petra stood and moved around the girl to get a better look.

“This is impossible,” she whispered, in shock.

The old man wasn’t old anymore – not by a long shot.

Chapter Seven

Melina’s living room was a scene of absolute bedlam. Raya was shouting in disbelief, Petra was nearly on top of Joseph, poking and prodding his muscled chest. Cilla was crying with delight, while Joseph himself just stood in the midst of it all and grinned.

Raya’s phone rang. Instinctively, he patted down his pockets, but of course, he didn’t find it. He looked down in dismay at the borrowed clothes that he wore and wondered where the ringing was coming from. Suddenly, Cilla snapped out of her bewilderment and dug into her pocket, producing the instrument and handing it to him apologetically.

He pressed the green button, put the instrument to his ear and listened. He grunted and hung up.

“Shit. A friend of mine in the customs department at La Guardia Airport says that a bunch of known Rats flew in three days ago. Four of their lead guys arrived Friday. USCIS lost track of them; no one knows where any of them are at the moment.”

“What are Rats?” Petra wondered.

“A bad pack out of Europe,” Raya informed her. “Not a normal pack, either. It ranges from twenty members to over a hundred.” At her puzzled glance, he added, “Normal packs have eight members.”

“What do you mean by ‘bad’?” Melina wondered.

“Mercenaries. They sell their services to kill and rob, for starters.”

“You think they’re coming after your pack?” Melina asked.

“Actually, I have no doubt about that.”

“But why? If they’re so large, and your pack has the required 8 members… I don’t get it.”

Raya cleared his throat.

“Well, that’s true about Pack Lupein, my pack. But there’s another consideration. I am the Trans-Alpha: I rule over all of wolfdom. All packs.”

“Didn’t know I was in the presence of royalty,” Melina cracked.

“Which explains why you haven’t kissed my ass at least twice today out of the recommended five,” Raya deadpanned.

“I use Botox to hide lip lines. Sorry, no puckering up,” Melina threw right back.

“That’s it. You’re out. In for half an hour and already out – you may have set a record there.”

“When am I going to remember any of this?” Petra said in a small voice.

She was getting more miserable by the second. These were facts she should know. To make things even worse, this was her mate beside her, evidently. She could tell by his actions, no matter how restrained, that they’d been close. Very close.

When Raya walked by her, his arm would jerk as if he wanted to reach out, but stopped himself. And she often caught those burning eyes watching her with a deep longing. She did feel something, a strange kind of pull. But that was it.

“I don’t know,” Raya interrupted her thoughts. “I need to do some research on memory loss. Never heard of it happening to one of our kind, but perhaps even Itchiko could be of some help.” He paused for a moment. “But there’s absolutely no time for that now. We need to alert all the packs from New York to New Orleans, have them consider evacuating the coast until things cool down and we know what the Rats are after. There’s just such a plan in place, and a location that’s been set up for nearly a century. But we have to get the word out. Let’s get back to Heureuse.”

“Anything I can do to help?” Melina offered.

“No, but as a newborn, you need to be with us. This isn’t the best time for that either.” He glared at Petra.

“I don’t want my babies in danger,” Melina agreed. “I’ll wait here for word. Someone needs to keep an eye on them two anyway,” she motioned at the two vampires.

“We’ll be along shortly,” Joseph spoke up. “We have some catching up to do.”

“Please do come as soon as possible,” Raya told Joseph. “You must have ended up here for a reason. If nothing else, you will be remarkably useful if anything bad does come to pass. Everyone else, load up. We’re off.”

Chapter Eight

Back at Heureuse Manor, Raya told his second in command, Itchiko, to implement the Red Alert plan for all packs along the New York to Louisiana corridor. They were to evacuate to Inconnu within three days, at most.

“What’s Inconnu?” Petra asked.

“Come this way,” Raya said and led her to his office at the back of the large mansion that served as home base for the pack. He walked to his desk, opened a drawer and she heard a click. An entire bookcase swung open several inches.

Behind it was a large, cold room packed with computers, monitors and various other electronics. On the wall was a large Google map which overlaid a normal map of the world.

He touched it and zoomed in on the USA, then the Florida area.

“See the Bahamas? The islands are only about seventy miles from Miami. Back in the early twentieth century, we bought a deserted island that’s a couple of hours by boat from the Bahamas. There’s a tiny village there; they fish for a living. We brought electricity to the island, but they’re not aware of what else we brought. Three rings of security that start a mile out, satellite technology, you name it. Accessible only by boat. Oh, and another nearby island we use for storage.”

He moved his hand on the large screen, and another, smaller island zoomed into view. This one had no trees, no greenery. Truly an arid wasteland. One tap, and the screen filled with nine camera views. Included was an underwater view of three submarines, large enough to carry six people each. Another room held weapons: so many that Petra was in disbelief.

One large room held a jet!

“Where is that plane?” Petra had to ask.

“Underground,” Raya said. “Push a button and the doors open, up it goes.”

“Incredible. You are ready for a war.”

“You’d better believe it. Our texts and emails are out now, telling the packs to get to Harry’s. Harry’s is a place outside Miami, where everyone meets to fly to the Bahamas and then pick up boats to head for Inconnu.”

***

“Boss, the members of our New Orleans packs are going to have major trouble leaving the city,” a girl with glasses said from behind a long, computer-laden table.

Raya frowned.

“I’m not going to like this, am I?”

 “Probably not. There’s been an outbreak of some new flu – it’s dropping people in droves. So far it’s only in New Orleans, so the CDC took urgent precautions and put the entire city under quarantine. No one in: no one out.”

“You have got to be kidding. Can they even do that?” Raya asked.

“They already did it,” the girl answered calmly and turned back to her machines.

“Well, that’s just peachy, and just when the damn Rats hit US soil! Itchiko, we need information about those Rats. They have to be behind the killings we heard about on the news. We need to know how many they are, who is in charge and what their goals are.”

The thin Japanese warrior frowned.

“As I recall, as of about a decade ago, Petra still had a friend in the Rats. The name was Elinor something.” He looked at Petra with hope.

She shook her head helplessly.

“Name doesn’t ring a bell.”

“We need her back, goddammit,” Raya snarled with frustration. “We’re at war and too much is happening. We need you to get your memory back and functioning well. Any ideas?”

“There is one possibility,” Itchiko said. “I was waiting for a good time to discuss this. When you guys showed up this morning, I did some fast research on memory loss. It turns out there’s a guy who has made some large steps forward, but his work is unconventional.”

“Can you get him here?” Raya snapped.

“I took the liberty of doing just that, and our one stroke of luck is that he landed forty minutes ago in New Orleans. Just before it was shut down.”

Raya whipped around and faced Itchiko, his entire heart in his eyes. The other man didn’t say a word; none were needed. He simply executed a slight bow.

“What’s unconventional about him?” Raya asked.

Itchiko grinned so slightly that Petra would have never seen it if she hadn’t been watching him closely.

“He uses both unconventional medicines and procedures. He claims brain cells are unlike any other. They don’t reject it if you put strange ones in. That’s not exactly what he does, but close. He injects a patient’s hippocampus with a mixture of stem cells from a fetus’s hippocampus and a grown person’s. The adult is usually a member of Mensa. Doctor Kyger insists that the patient’s IQ rises by a minimum of ten points, as well as getting their memories back.”

Raya frowned.

“I don’t like the sound of that, not even a little bit. The fetal cells are one thing, but cells from some guy with a high IQ? Can we leave that part out?”

“Hell, no,” Petra said with determination. “If there’s a chance my IQ goes up, I want it.”

“This likely hasn’t even been tested,” Raya said, his voice tight. “You’d be taking big chances, and on your damn brain. This isn’t shooting something in your arm. This is your brain, Petra.”

“And a good thing it is, or the procedure wouldn’t work at all!” The retort came as a surprise to them both. Across the room, a small man came toward them. He was only 5”5” and weighed less than Petra did if she had to guess. His dark eyes were smiling behind thick glasses.

“Dr. Kyger, at your service.”

“Hi Doctor, I’m Petra… the one with the lost memory. Do you really think that you can help me?” Petra asked, worried. If this didn’t work, she was screwed and it would hurt the pack in the long run if she couldn’t understand the dynamics.

“I truly believe that I can, my dear. It is true that the procedure works eighty-five percent of the time and rises statistically to ninety-five percent in female patients,” the man said.

“Right. Let’s do it then,” Petra said, drawing in a deep breath. “You need my blood, right?”

“When Mr. Itchiko contacted me yesterday, I took the liberty of checking several hospitals in your area. Found a blood sample, which they overnighted to me. I took it to the lab first thing this morning and built you a little cocktail.”

“God,” Petra gasped. “You mean you’re ready to do this to me right NOW?”

He grinned, showing a set of charming white teeth. ”Yes, if you’re ready, we are.”

“Us?” Raya asked.

Kyger pointed out the door. “Traveling clinic. It’s right out front. It isn’t our own, but it functions well enough.” He walked to the door, opened it. “After you.”

Petra walked out, closely followed by Raya. She exclaimed at the sheer size of the vehicle. It was about as big as two large RVs.

“It has to be this big,” Kyger explained as he opened the back door and ushered them into what looked like a typical examining room, table and all, “if all the work that needs to be done and all the people needed to do that work are to be accommodated. This was kindly donated by the government to the Louisiana Department of Health and Human Services, courtesy of Hurricane Katrina,” Kyger said. “Petra and Raya, meet Jane. She’s been my assistant for years. She was CDC at one point.”

A small, gray-haired woman looked up from her equally small desk.

“Hi, there y’all,” she said in a delightful Georgia drawl. “Doc, we’re ready to go. The cells were done about the time the door shut behind you.”

“I love it when a plan comes together,” Kyger said, rubbing his hands together like a mad scientist. He walked to a small fridge and withdrew a syringe. “Petra, relax on the table, will you? This requires an IV and takes about half an hour.”

Petra hoisted herself onto the table and stretched out, her heart beginning to pound. What would she remember? A bunch of bad stuff she’d not want to recall, maybe. The small, gray woman inserted an IV line into the back of her hand. She lifted her head and looked at Raya, fear in her eyes. “What if afterward, I’m not me anymore?”

“Then we would have lost nothing, Petra. You’re not you right now anyway,” he reminded her.

“I don’t know,” she said.

It was all just too weird to process; injecting something into her that would change her brain. A sudden thought hit. This doctor, Kyger. Did he know he wasn’t treating a human? She tried to catch Raya’s eyes, but he was staring at the gray-haired woman’s monitor and mumbling.

 “Relax, Petra. Your heart is racing! This will be over in 30 minutes and hopefully at the end of it, you’ll have your memory back,” Kyger said as he emptied the syringe into her IV.

For a few seconds nothing much happened, though Petra frantically scanned her own brain and her memories constantly for changes. Then she had the strangest of feelings. It was as if someone were politely knocking on her brain’s inner door!

In the next microsecond, there was another presence in her brain. There was no other way to put it. She was no longer alone in her own head. What the HELL? She closed her eyes tightly and the dark insides of her closed eyelids became like an eternal movie theatre screen.

With a whoosh of pictures of them, videos of them on vacation and at special events, people they’d talked to, laughter they’d shared, movies they’d watched, places they’d lived; it all came flashing before her eyes – ALL of it was back, and in every memory, or at least the majority of them, she had never been alone. The visions came back to her as a we, a they, a couple’s memories. And then suddenly, she realized why she wasn’t alone and who was there. At the very instant she understood, she let out an incredulous, ecstatic shriek of joy…

“RAYA!”

Chapter Nine

One second Raya was leaning over a computer screen, calculating miles on a map. The next, a presence burst into his brain; a familiar, warm, ecstatic presence calling his name.

Christos, was it true? Could it be? It was certain, she was back in his consciousness; the link was solid. But the woman herself?

He turned slowly, afraid to look at Petra. What if he did and she still regarded him with that polite, blank stare? He didn’t think he could handle it. Not with everything else that was happening.

But then he was facing her, his eyes locked on hers. And there was nothing blank about those eyes. Nothing! On the contrary, they were alive with utter delight and – could it be?

Just then, she screamed his name at the top of her lungs and came up off the hospital table like a woman possessed.

He was barely cognizant of anything else, moving on pure instinct, he took two enormous leaps and finally, he took her in his arms. Oh finally, Petra was home. Really home.

In his arms where she belonged, hanging on for dear life, squeezing the breath out of him as she screamed his name repeatedly and ran both hands over his face as if she had to memorize the very feel of it.

For the briefest of moments they paused, Petra with both hands cupping his face, Raya with one hand on her shoulder and the other snaking around her waist.

Then she flung both arms around his neck and leaped as she always had. He’d been delightedly ready, and one large hand caught her tight butt in midair. The other shot around her back and slammed her slender torso flat against his own. She tightened her legs until her thighs were clamped around his slim waist, and then she slowly, gently laid her head on that so-familiar muscular chest. She felt and heard his heart beating heavily, she knew it was for her, and finally Petra let go all that she’d been restraining out of fear and confusion.

She bawled out her misery, her confusion and her ecstasy all at once, tears running heedlessly down Raya’s shirt in a seemingly endless flood. The more she cried, the more she needed to and it hit in wave after wave. She was shaking from head to foot with the sheer power of the emotions wracking her slender body.

Raya, who’d never seen Petra shed so much as a tear in the centuries they’d known each other, was moved beyond all reason to tears himself; as incredible as that was. He bent his head over the smaller one plastered to his chest and allowed himself to relax for the first time since that shot had been fired at her weeks ago.

Her wails gradually tapered off to whimpers, then moans.

And when he heard that first moan, all the relaxation left his large body as though it had never existed. He went from a weeping mess of emotion to a completely aroused Alpha wolf in less than a second. He forced himself not to move in case she wasn’t ready for the intensity of intimacy. But then a small sound reverberated through his chest, evidently coming from Petra. And he knew that sound all too well. He raggedly told her to stop the growling, or he’d not be responsible.

It was as if she’d been waiting for him to say that. For a moment, the growls intensified until her body was reverberating with them, but then in one smooth movement she raised her head off his chest and attacked his mouth in a searing, salty, growling kiss.

Everyone in the small room jumped as an incredibly deep growl echoed across the space. All bowed their heads in respect as the Alpha prepared to claim his mate and there was a concerted rush toward the door.

Instants later, as Raya kicked a desk laden with computers across the room where it hit the wall making all its contents shudder. The lovers changed, and the complicated dance began.

Both wolves circled each other, Raya’s nose under Petra’s tail. She yipped and coyly sped up. There was a noise as something brushed against the door at the top of the steps: Raya whirled, faced the steps, and emitted a loud, ferocious growl. Satisfied that no one would enter, he turned back to his mate who was now on her back, all four dainty paws in the air.

He stalked around her once, then a second time, his head held high and ears pricked forward. Then he gave her a sharp nip on the throat and she regained her feet, having proved her submission. He trotted around her until he faced her, then he extended both front paws and lowered his head: an Alpha’s way of showing honor and respect to his mate.

She barked once, and he regained his feet. For one moment they stared into each other’s eyes, then she whirled away from him even as he leaped toward her. The two movements were so perfectly timed that he landed directly on top of her and plunged deeply inside her, then stopped.

He remained locked inside her for a short time, Petra growling deep in her throat, her head hung, eyes closed in bliss. Then he pulled out and they both changed.

She flipped around into his arms and he lowered them both to the floor. Then he began kissing her everywhere, soft butterfly kisses alternating with sharp nips. Petra’s growls grew in intensity and desperation as she arched her back.

He kissed his way to her core, took her in his mouth and sucked. Circling her clitoris repeatedly and rapidly with his tongue until she thought she’d go mad. She wasn’t growling anymore, oh no. Full-throated screams echoed off the walls as she thrashed her head from side to side, long hair spreading out around her head in wavy tendrils like a halo.

Finally, she grabbed his thick hair and yanked him upward: once again, he slammed into her, but this time there was no pausing. He pulled out and thrust into her deeply again. She screamed, threw herself upward and locked her legs around his waist, her arms around his neck. One more slow, deep drive and they both lost control.

He grabbed her ass and lifted it into the air, then hauled her down onto his cock repeatedly. The sensation was exquisite, and Petra began screaming in time with his pumping. Faster, faster until suddenly he dug his nails into her ass and impaled her deeply.

She felt him explode inside her, and that did it for her. She followed him over the edge, barely realizing that both were howling in tandem.

He finally collapsed on her, and they lay listening to the pack’s howls from above.

Triumphant, relieved howls.

Their Alpha was back.

Chapter Ten

Lying on the cold, hardwood floor amidst pieces of broken plastic and glass, the Alpha felt better than he had in years. Maybe he’d been too complacent, he thought now. But having almost lost her, he’d never be complacent again.

He’d never been that terrified before. That hopeless. That ready to die, just to join her.

“Elinor,” she suddenly said from her usual spot just below his chin.

“Elinor who?” he asked lazily, scratching her back with his nails so lightly that he was barely touching her. It was her favorite thing, next to sex.

“The rat, remember? I helped her out in Paris when we were doing some charity work. She was in a packed church while I nailed the offer to the wall. Got her a job in one of our bars.”

“How the hell did she wind up with the Rats, then?”

“They were on one of their first recruitment binges, and she caught someone’s eye. She’s really pretty… has this pale blond hair, pale blue eyes with black rings around her pupils.” She went silent for a moment. “I always felt it was my fault for putting her in that bar. They’d never have found her, otherwise. The homeless know how to stay off the radar.”

“Well, she’s lived all this time and beyond. Has to be worth something?”

“Not the way she’s been living,” Petra said gloomily.

“We need so much information. How many there are here, who’s leading them. And who the next victim is. I’d normally never place you in danger, but so many lives are at stake. Can you speak to her? Find her?”

“Yep. We’ve stayed in touch all these years, although we only write a couple times a year. I always have to watch what I say and I never write from home.”

“Can you get her to meet you somewhere?” Raya wondered. What a help that would be.

“Depends on where she is. If she’s still in Europe, probably not. Bastards don’t give her enough money to live, much less fly here.”

“Do what you can. I need to look into how the evacuation is going.” He gave her a long, lingering kiss, then reluctantly stood and trotted up the stairs to his own office.

Out of fourteen packs, twelve had already been to Harry’s and were en route to Inconnu. One was making their way to Harry’s still, and one had refused to budge.

Their neighbors in Mississippi, no less. Raya sighed. Now why would an Alpha refuse to seek refuge with his pack? Especially on Inconnu, known to be one of the most beautiful spots on earth. Impregnable safety barriers, and the fact that very few ever got to see it (again for safety reasons). And now packs had a once-in-a-lifetime chance of viewing, even staying, on the island and this Alpha refused?

It was almost enough to make a wolf suspicious.

***

Petra shot off a quick email to Elinor. It was safer than calling or texting her. She simply asked where the girl was.

To her surprise, there was an almost instant response.

“I’m right here in the good old U.S. of Assholes,” Elinor wrote. “What’s up?”

“Raya! I got her. She’s right here in the States. What do you want me to ask her?” Petra asked from her large desk in their office.

“I need to know how many Rats are in the States now and why! What’s this war about after all these years? Just ask her that.”

Petra typed the email up as fast as she could and hit SEND. This time there was no immediate response, to her frustration. She went on and responded to dozens of her own emails; pack business she’d ignored for far too long. But then the phone rang. The caller ID simply read, ‘Unknown Source’. Curious, Petra took the call.

“It’s my ass if I get caught, we have to do this fast,” Elinor said. “I don’t know how many Rats are here. No idea. Something has changed on my end, Petra. I have Shelley to look after now. My ten year old daughter. It’s not me I’m worried about so much as her. I’ve seen what they do to traitors.” Her voice was shaking.

“We won’t let anything happen to either one of you,” Petra assured her. “We’ll get you both out, first. Now what can you do to help with this insanity?”

“Pssst,” Raya hissed at her. “I don’t know this Elinor and sure don’t trust her. Don’t go making promises!”

“I can’t blame him,” Elinor said to Petra’s horror. Evidently, she’d heard what Raya had said. Petra was mortified. “If you swear you’ll take care of Shelley, I have information right now.”

“We’ll take care of your child no matter what,” Raya said. “Don’t worry.”

The phone went silent for a moment.

“Mickey’s got plans for another Alpha,” she finally said.

Petra’s eyes went wide.

“Who and when?” Raya snapped out.

“Some Chinese-named guy in Kentucky. Chin or something and I’m sorry, but it’s tomorrow night.”

Raya leaped for his desk. “Christos. Chen!”

“Thanks, El. Chen and Raya have been close for centuries. You may have just saved one of Raya’s best friends.”

She hung up the line just as Raya started putting out calls. The first was a conference call with Chen and Itchiko.

“We need to visit you tonight, Chen. Seems you’re next on the Rat hit-list.” There was a brief explosion of anger from the other Alpha. “Enough! I know damn well you won’t evacuate and leave your damn booze, so we’re coming. Itchiko, round up ten of our best, book them to move out of here tonight and arrangements for a hotel in Lexington.”

“Right,” Itchiko said and hung up.

“How’d you know about our bourbon?” Chen asked. “Nobody knows we make it here. I’m Chinese for crying out loud. Who’s going to buy expensive Kentucky bourbon made by a Chinese werewolf?”

“Oh, come off it, Chen. The brand has been solid for more than a century,” Raya pointed out. “As for how I found out, give me a break. You haven’t made any efforts whatsoever to hide that business from me and you know it. For two centuries you needed help financing your pack, and all of a sudden I start receiving regular checks paying off the debt. No explanation of anything, they just appeared in the mail. Then back in the 30’s you had that outrageous housewarming party, remember? And we got a look at your new digs. Petra even nicknamed it Tara! How am I not supposed to know you have a successful new business?”

“I wondered if you picked up anything when I finally paid off our debt,” Chen said, a grin in his voice. “You never said a word, though.”

“Figured you wanted it on the down low for a reason. Did get curious enough to fly out to Kentucky long before you got Tara, when you were living in that subdivision house. It was simple. Followed you to work one day, and I could smell that place miles before we arrived. The minute I saw that name I knew. Owlinmoon Fine Bourbon? Oh, that’s sneaky, all right. Owl… in… moon? Even the logo was tricky with the night bird in front of the full moon, with the shadow of the howling wolf on the mountain peak in the background. You tricky Chinese.”

Chen sobered.

“I never meant to hide it from you. Not you. But you never said anything, so I didn’t think you knew. I should have known better, eh?”

“Do you keep any at Tara?” Raya wondered.

“You’d best believe it. I have hundreds of cases of our finest years stored in a couple of cellars. Got a case I’ve been saving for you, too.”

“The Rats will be happy as hell to clean you out. Bet those cases would bring a small fortune at auction.”

“Not small by any reach of the imagination. There are barrels in Tara’s depths that are a hundred years old; from our very first draft. Many from prohibition, several held back in my personal stock from every year that we worked to build that house,” Chen admitted. “You think the Rats know?”

“No idea, but we’re not taking any chances. Especially now that I know I’ve got a personal interest in one of those priceless kegs!”

“I need to go pack,” Petra mumbled as she shut her computer down.

“The hell you do. You have to stay here. Think about it. The Rats hit New York, Pennsylvania, and now Tennessee. See that line on the map in your mind’s eye. What’s that mean to you?” Raya asked.

Petra pouted, then suddenly saw what he meant. The Rats barreled through West Virginia and were crossing over to hit Kentucky! After Kentucky was Tennessee, and then only Mississippi stood between the Rats and Louisiana. They were coming a lot faster than expected.

They’d be in New Orleans soon, far too soon.

“Shit,” Petra said, mouth in a straight line.

“Precisely,” Raya agreed. “Do whatever you need to, but get the Pack the hell out of here. We both know they’ll refuse to go, so use your imagination but get it done. I have a bad feeling about all of this, like there’s something we’re missing. Something huge.”

“Raya, I was about to say the same thing to you. I can feel something headed our way, and it isn’t pretty.” She shuddered.

He came around her desk, pulled her to her feet and kissed her with rising passion. Then he pulled himself away and headed for the door. She whimpered in protest.

“If I keep that up, I’ll never get out of here,” he shot over his shoulder, a mischievous smile spreading over his lips.

***

Later that afternoon, Petra stood at the end of a table in the Heureuse Manor conference room, addressing the pack. She told them about the Rats and their accelerated timetable, and that they had to evacuate for their own safety.

She was laughed out of the room, much to her chagrin.

“What did you expect?” Andre said quietly when the others had left. “This has been our den for almost two centuries. You expect the top pack to simply walk away from our most cherished home, even as our Alpha and our samurai rush to the rescue of another pack that refuses to jump ship as well?”

She sighed.

“I suppose not.” Petra thought for a couple of moments and then an evil grin spread across her face. “You know Itchiko went with Raya to Chen’s place. That leaves us without a Protector in our time of need!”

Before Andre could say a word, Petra opened a locked drawer in her desk and withdrew a beautiful old sword. She moved to where Andre was sprawled in one of their comfortable leather chairs. “Andre, kneel before your Alpha’s mate.” It wasn’t a question, and the werewolf had no choice in the matter whatsoever. It showed on his resigned face as he moved to do his Alpha’s mate’s bidding.

Once he was on his knees with his head bent, Petra said, “Andre. In the absence of our Alpha, I stand in and declare that you are now Lupeinescu Pack Protector and shall remain as such until Itchiko is able to take up those duties again.” She took the point of the sword and placed it under his chin, forcing his head up until she could see his eyes. “Do you agree to the sacred burden of ensuring Pack Lupeinescu’s safety to the best of your abilities and will you give up your life to protect this pack if need be?”

Andre’s eyes widened. Whatever he’d expected, this wasn’t it. This was an honor beyond all honors; he was aware of that. To Petra’s shock, the man’s eyes filled with tears as he responded, “Yes. With all my heart, I’ll protect the pack up to and including my own death and I’ll do so with pride.”

Petra held up the other object she’d taken from the drawer: an ornate gold bottle. She motioned for Andre to open his mouth. He did so, and she sprinkled several drops from the bottle onto his tongue. “Blood to blood. You now have the blood of the pack in your own veins. Any threat to Pack Lupeinescu shall be a threat to you.”

She gently tugged Andre to his feet, then took the sword and sliced both of their forearms: blood dripped steadily to the hardwood floor before she took his arm and pressed it against her own, the blood from both wounds mingling freely. Instantly a small light illuminated in her head. The same light was seen in Raya’s and Itchiko’s minds. Andre was now an official pack protector. It wasn’t something that could ever be taken away, even when Itchiko returned to duty.

“That’s that,” she said and turned to put the sword and bottle away.

“I can’t believe that just happened,” Andre said quietly. “A whole part of my mind opened up. I never knew of this! You, Raya and Itchiko; you’re in my head. The whole pack is, as well, but they’re all grouped into one light.”

“Oh hell! Speaking of the entire pack, I should warn you…”

The office door burst open, and the other six pack members rushed in amongst shrieks of joy. They threw themselves on Andre, hugging and even kissing him. His eyes grew enormous.

“… that they’ll want to celebrate,” she finished with her own grin.

Chapter Twelve

Early Friday morning, Itchiko took the lead on checking out Tara’s defenses and warning system. On horseback, he, Chen and Raya rode around the perimeter of the seven hundred acre property. It only took a few hours, as each took a separate section and shot video.

Seated in Tara’s formal dining room, Itchiko went over the findings.

“Well, you do have some security measures. You made sure to protect the main drive and the other small road points of entry, which is good. Ninety-five percent of your perimeter is wide open and that ain’t no good, as you’d say.”

“What can we do in such a short time?” Raya wondered. “Those Rats could be here now for all we know. Going by past attacks, though, they hit after midnight.”

“Still isn’t nearly enough time,” Itchiko said as he punched buttons on his tablet. Finally, he had an entire outline of the property on-screen. “Look. If we place motion detectors at these spots, the entire perimeter will be secure. Then we can place surprises around the second ring, at these locations.” He pointed at twenty-four small red X’s which comprised a circle that lay a hundred feet in from the outer one. “Finally, we secure Tara itself and the cellars specifically. Any thoughts?”

“Inner circle ‘surprises’ have to go,” Chen said. “You’ll blow up deer and other creatures.”

“It’s either them or your pack?” Itchiko asked.

“Neither can be harmed.”

The Alpha stood his ground, and Raya had to hide a smile. Not many people stood up to Itchiko; none, really. Himself included. The man was a samurai and had been such for centuries. To be in his presence was to sense an incredibly powerful warrior with laser sharp focus.

Indeed, Itchiko frowned and took a step forward. At a glance from Raya, though, he subsided. “All right. Plan B it is then. No casualties, but they might wish they were dead.” He went on and explained as the other two listened with growing amazement.

“Christos, who would ever think of such a thing?” Raya asked when Itchiko was finished. “And where do we find the, uh, supplies?”

Itchiko banged away on his tablet for several moments. “Ah! Got it. You familiar with Rednut Street?” he asked Chen, who nodded. “There we go, then. We send a couple of men with a truck, that’s all.”

“And five more trucks to pick up fifty or sixty casual day laborers,” Raya said. “There’s no way to get this done otherwise.”

“Let’s do it,” Itchiko said as he stood.

***

Petra’s phone rang just as the squad of trucks pulled out of Tara. She answered to hear a whispering, nervous Elinor.

“Good news! First, Mickey’s putting off the attack on that Kentucky Alpha. Instead of Saturday, now they’re going Tuesday. Even better, I told a few very close members here that I was going to leave and join your pack. All five want to do the same, and one of them is about to be tagged to step up to the third ring!”

“Hold on, I have to let Raya know that,” Petra said. She made a quick call to him, and then got back to Elinor. “Okay, now. What’s the third ring?” Petra asked.

“Mickey’s weird setup. First ring is him and maybe four of the people he’s known forever and trusts the most. Second ring is related by blood to the first, although not only relatives are selected. The third ring are people who have done outstanding service for the Rats. Only people in these rings lead a decent life. The rest of us are penniless,” she whispered.

“Tell me about this person about to enter the third ring, then. What did he do for the Rats?”

“His name is Art, and he’s a doctor. A big-time doctor. He’s invented something that makes Mickey really happy, and that’s never a good thing.”

“Wait a minute,” Petra said. “Who the hell is this Mickey, anyway?”

“Alpha of Alphas,” Elinor said. “He’s never seen by anyone, but I hear he’s tall and thin. But he’s on a major power trip, that much we all know. He considers himself the Alpha of all werewolves.”

“Uh, where the hell does this young pup get off? Doesn’t he know that position is already taken?” Petra asked.

“Raya is only a pretender, he says,” Elinor explained. “Nobody made him Alpha of Alphas, or so Mickey claims.”

“Where the hell was this Mickey when Raya brought all the wolves together 700 years ago? Oh! That’s right. He wouldn’t even have been born for another four hundred and fifty years,” Petra said in disgust.

“I know. You’re preaching to the choir here.” She abruptly laughed. “Almost forgot one more of Mickey’s amazing facts you’re just going to love. There’s a word that can never be spoken in Mickey’s presence. Once, you’re beaten. Twice? You’re dead.”

Petra’s eyebrows rose.

“It’s not what I think it is?”

“Yup. ‘Raya.’ He hears that name, he goes ballistic, or so I’ve heard.”

“No wonder he’s going after Heureuse like he is. I need to speak to these people, especially this Art,” Petra decided. “I’m going to pay you guys a visit. Now, how can I do that and still stay off the grid?”

***

“… now we have a few days,” Raya concluded as he finished passing the news to the other two men.

“You trust this Elinor?” Itchiko asked.

“That’s the thing, isn’t it? No, I don’t. I don’t even know her. I think it best that you and I stick to the plan of execution, be ready and then if need be hang around here until Tuesday, see what we see. If nothing else, we can investigate that case of bourbon that has my name on it!”

Chen grinned. “Oh, there are a couple of things of interest here. You won’t be bored.”

***

Beyond a doubt this was off the grid, Petra thought as she pulled up to a tiny hotel in Camden, New Jersey. It had seen better days, but now the sign was missing the “m” so it read ‘Camden otel.’ Well, good thing she wasn’t here for a vacation.

She’d unpacked and was stretched out and about to nap when there was a light knock on the door. She opened it, and Elinor flew into her arms. She was still a petite woman with dark blond hair frizzing in every direction, but now she had a child with her and she had the same hair! They looked adorable together. Petra could hardly stop staring at Elinor and Shelley, her daughter.

“See, Mom? I’m right. I’m not gonna cut it,” Shelley said and stuck her small chin out.

“I don’t care if you grow a beard as long as you’re OK,” Elinor said and hugged her tightly.

The women couldn’t say much with the child there, but Petra knew that Elinor’s intent had been to introduce her, make sure she knew what the girl looked like in case things went badly wrong. It touched Petra’s heart deeply to see the love between the two.

***

For several days, Petra met the ‘Friendlies,’ as she named the small group of Rat defectors. She was glad of the extra time as she had official pack friends run the Friendlies’ names to find out all they could about each one.

She’d been unable to meet Art, as he was extremely busy and very well protected by the Rats. He had two bodyguards who constantly shadowed him, Elinor told Petra.

“We have to get him away from them somehow,” Petra said, pacing across the small, none-too-clean hotel room that Elinor had found.

“The only time he’s really alone is when he shits or sleeps,” Elinor said with a shake of her head.

Suddenly Petra stopped pacing and grinned. “That makes it easy, then!”

Elinor’s mouth dropped. “How do you figure?”

“You did say he eats out most nights, and at the same place. I’ll just go hang out in the men’s room!”

Elinor laughed. “There are so many ways that could go wrong, but I’d pay good money to see Art’s face when he opens a stall door and there you are!”

“If he just takes a leak at a urinal, we’re screwed,” Petra said.

“That ain’t gonna happen,” Elinor said with a wink. “You’re not the only wily one around here. Art drinks enough hot chocolate to power Wonka’s chocolate factory. A small dose of X-lax, and he won’t be peeing anywhere.”

“You have definite possibilities,” Petra praised her.

***

“Seen my tie?” Raya asked Itchiko as they were dressing to go to one of the spots Chen had raved about.

“No, you think I’m your – shit. Turn up the TV,” Itchiko said, sitting on the end of one of the beds to watch.

Minutes later, both men were seated and Raya’s head was in his hands. He was, for once, speechless. The news report had shown packed hospitals in New Orleans, with patients on gurneys down the hall. The “flu” was making tens of thousands very ill, he’d heard.

And not just in New Orleans. There were outbreaks in major U.S. cities including New York and L.A.

With the television muted once more, both men sat in silence.

“You’re going to think I’m crazy…”

“This may sound insane…”

They’d both spoken at the same time.

Itchiko motioned for Raya to go on.

“Well, we’re thinking along the same lines, that’s for sure. It’s far too much of a coincidence that this flu, or whatever it is, breaks out in New Orleans at the same time that the Rats touch down on American soil,” Raya said.

“I couldn’t agree more. I don’t know what they’ve done, but I have a feeling deep in my stomach that they’re responsible for this illness,” Itchiko said, his golden skin gone a faint green.

“Why, though? Why in hell would they do such a thing?”

“I don’t know, and that’s bad. If we can figure out the why, we could maybe figure out the what and a cure.”

Raya nodded, picked up his phone and dialed Petra.

It rang, and kept ringing until it hit her voicemail. He left a terse message for her to call him immediately. Wasn’t like her to not take his call for any reason.

***

Petra’s phone was on mute. She saw it flash, saw that it was Raya. Couldn’t respond, of course.

Not when she was crouched on the toilet in the men’s room of an upscale restaurant, waiting for a recently laxatived werewolf to have to take a dump. A sudden burst of hilarity washed over her, and she had to stifle the laughter that threatened to explode.

Then the door to the men’s room opened, and she lost the urge to laugh. Showtime.

Footsteps clicked across the tile floor to the adjoining stall. She heard that door open, then “Out of order? Tonight of all nights!” Then the steps came closer to her stall and the door was yanked open.

The older man’s mouth dropped at the sight of Petra, as she put a finger to her lips and drew him the rest of the way in by pulling his tie.

“I don’t know who you are,” he whispered, “but get the hell out of here. I need to go and right now.”

“So go. Nothing I haven’t seen before and I have nowhere else to go,” Petra said as the doctor was all but ripping his pants off, moaning in pain. “This is an emergency or I’d not be here.” She stepped aside as he dove for the toilet, sat, let out an explosive fart that nearly rattled the walls, and then had noisy, reeking diarrhea.

Petra struggled to keep a straight face, but all she could think about was what she’d say to him. “Fancy meeting you like this?” or “You do take me to the most interesting places!”

That last one did it, and she bent over roaring in silent laughter. She was afraid to look at the doctor, for fear he’d be completely enraged. He had the right.

He emitted a chain of farts, and she kept her head ducked as the laughter built to almost unbearable heights. Finally, she dared to look up. The man’s own face was bright red with suppressed mirth of his own! He even had tears rolling down his face as his shoulders shook with silent howls of laughter.

Their eyes met, and they might have regained a semblance of control, but for the good doctor’s stomach. One more explosive chain of farts and diarrhea hit, and both hastily looked away from the other.

The bathroom door swung open. “Doc. You all right?” came a deep voice.

“Yes, yes. Case of the shits, I’ll be right out,” he called.

“You ain’t kidding. Smells like something died in here,” the man said and smacked the door closed.

Silence reigned. Petra kept her eyes on the floor.

“Petra Lupeinescu, if memory serves?” the doctor inquired.

“Yes, and I’m so sorry to meet you like this,” she said, keeping her eyes politely averted.

“”One does wonder what caused you to blow in like this tonight,” he said.

All Petra heard was “Blow in like this” and she turned flaming red with renewed efforts to strangle back a howl of laughter. A single small squeak escaped her.

“Now what is –” he stopped, evidently realizing what he’d said. Petra heard just the slightest gasp as he tried valiantly to stifle his own laughter; that small noise nearly was both their undoing.

An enormous whoop of laughter escaped her, she instantly turned it into a coughing fit. Several more frantic gasps came from the doctor. Finally, all was still; both of them and the doctor’s intestines. Petra passed him the satellite phone she’d brought for him, explaining that it was completely anonymous. He could contact her whenever he pleased.

She started to say something else, but clamped her mouth shut.

“What? What did you want to say?” the man asked.

She sighed.

“I don’t have the right to ask, but what did you invent for these assholes?”

The question had a remarkable effect. The man turned ghostly pale and he tottered on the toilet, his body waving from side to side as though he was going to faint. Petra leaned forward and grabbed his shoulders firmly.

“None of that! They’ll find out for sure.” He drew in a deep breath. “It wasn’t supposed to be… that is, I invented something totally different than… oh hell.”

“Just tell me, Doc. It’s OK.”

“It isn’t OK at all, and it never will be.” His face suddenly looked ancient, every wrinkle standing out, large dark bags under his eyes. “I’m a molecular biologist.” At her blank stare he added, “I study and work on DNA.

“I was working for the CDC. This Ebola outbreak, I’m sure you’re familiar with it.”

She nodded, feeling vaguely sick and not knowing why.

“I made a significant finding, that people are pre-disposed to Ebola in their very DNA. I was in the process of narrowing down the exact genes that are affected, that is the genes which can be tagged as showing a predisposition to Ebola, and I took a break. Went out to dinner.”

“Oh no,” Petra breathed.

“You’d think I’d have learned, wouldn’t you? But no. And yes, I was at this very restaurant. But they waited until I left, you see. I got in my car – I don’t drive – and I didn’t notice until we were on the freeway that the driver wasn’t my usual one and we were going north instead of south.”

“Long story short, I was married twenty-six years ago. We have two children. Mike’s twelve and Sandy is eighteen now… my ex lives here with her new husband, two new kids. They said if I didn’t do what they wanted they’d see to it that Mike and Sandy both got Ebola. Petra, I couldn’t… I can’t…” tears ran unchecked down his face.

“Art, I’m so sorry. How awful.” Then it hit home, and she was horrified beyond belief. “Please don’t tell me that you invented an easy way to spread Ebola around.”

“Lord no, but I saw the news today like you probably did and it’s clear why you’d think that, but no. What I invented – what they forced me to create – was a targeted DNA missile. It went after one person, Petra. One.”

“What news?”

“An outbreak in New Orleans. Thousands sick, the hospitals over-run.” He shuddered.

“But why would you think you caused it, Art?” This wasn’t making any sense. If he’d created a disease or something that attacked a person or creature with one specific DNA helix, how could multiple people be ill?

“Because Mickey forced us to test it. We let it loose into the wild. On a bayou just outside of New Orleans, Petra.”

His face was now a study in misery and he couldn’t meet her eyes. Suddenly she was back in the bayou running from Whatever-It-was, the terror that was behind her when Raya had joined her. She remembered the many dead things it had left in its wake.

Whatever-It-Was now had a name, at least.

A DNA missile.

Chapter Thirteen

Petra had really chosen a dump, Raya thought as he approached her hotel at nearly 2AM. Joseph had given him one of his unique ‘lifts’ to New Jersey, and the pair had rented a car.

“Raya, I don’t know about this place,” Joseph said now. “What’s Miss Petra doing here?”

“Don’t know, Joseph but we’re gonna find out. Watch the door, will you?” Raya asked as he fiddled with the lock on Room 101, Petra’s door. Luckily it wasn’t a card entry, just a plain old locked doorknob. The day he couldn’t break into that was a sad day indeed.

Sure enough, in minutes, he was walking into the dark room while Joseph kept his eyes on the other side of the door.

The room was pitch dark with heavy curtains covering the windows. Twin beds sported ratty, spotted bedspreads. On the walls were paintings on velvet, including the famous dogs playing poker.

Petra’s bag was open on the far bed, clothing spilling out. Nothing had been hung up. Near the sink, her makeup bag sat, just the mascara wand out. It looked to Raya like she’d grabbed something to wear, started to do her makeup and gotten a call that had her dashing out the door.

Once again, he dialed her phone, not expecting an answer.

“Hey, you! Up late, aren’t you?” her voice said.

“Christos, I’ve been calling you for hours and you didn’t respond. Woman, you’d best have one hell of a good explanation.”

“I’ve been crouched on top of a toilet in the Four Season’s men’s room for the last three hours. How does that grab you?” Her voice was shaking with suppressed laughter.

“You… what? Where? You alone in there I hope?”

“Hell, no. I wasn’t alone. And it was truly lovely. The guy farted more than any human I’ve ever known. In fact, I thought only wolves farted that much.”

That was enough. Raya exploded.

“What the hell? You were in a stall with a man using the bathroom! There’d better be a GODDAMN good explanation, Petra! I’ve had just about enough of this...”

The hotel door rattled as someone put a key in the lock. Raya closed his phone and quickly stepped behind the door just as it swung open. He had a small club in one hand, something he always wore on his belt for occasions just like this. He raised it high above his head and leaped forward as Petra sauntered in, still talking to him on the phone.

Never one to miss a golden opportunity for sheer devilry, he pounced and put one hand over her mouth to keep her from yelling and the other over her eyes. In a deep, false Southern accent he said, “Why there’s a purty lady right in ole Nick’s bedroom. Reckon I got me some wolf pussy tonight!”

Petra dropped to the ground so fast he lost his hold, and then she spun, shot a foot directly to his balls. She’d have connected if he wasn’t in midair leaping for the bed, laughing hysterically as he went.

“Is this my wolf pussy?” he managed to choke out before falling onto the bed and rolling with mirth.

Petra stood, approached the bed with eyebrows lowered. She stood for a moment, staring directly at Raya’s face.

“Excuse me, but do I know you?”

Raya’s entire body went limp.

“Oh God, no, not again. Petra. Petra, it’s me. Raya, your mate.”

“Good! Payback’s a bitch, ain’t it?” She flew to the other bed as he let out a growl and pounced.

***

It was nearly sunrise before Raya lay with Petra stretched across his chest.

“Itchiko and I might have discovered something pretty awful tonight,” Raya began. “You know that flu in New Orleans?”

Petra sighed. “The one caused by a doctor that the Rats blackmailed into creating it?” At his shocked look, she nodded. “The guy invented a DNA missile, essentially. You put a disease in it, enter the DNA of your target and let it go. But it went wrong. It makes everybody but the target sick, the doctor thinks.”

“How does he know that? Who was the target, to begin with?”

“Me.”

He froze, every muscle locked solid with horror and fury.

“I’ll fucking tear him apart.”

“You won’t. He’s likely the only hope for a cure.”

“Does he have a cure, then?”

“No, but he hopes...”

“Forget that. I’ll head to the Tribe immediately to find out what will cure everybody, once Chen is alright,” Raya announced.

“That’s probably the best idea,” Petra agreed.

He gave her a hard, rough kiss before jumping to his feet.

“Right. A quick shower and I’m back to Chen’s place.”

***

The next night, just as midnight approached, Raya, Itchiko and Chen were in Tara’s war room – really just a large office that had been converted into the brain of the new security system that Itchiko had installed. The room had no windows. All along the left side and the back were monitors stacked three high, which showed most of the property live. If a motion detector tripped, the enormous back monitor would show the area the detector covered. Under that picture were four others showing the surrounding areas.

They’d been sitting and talking since 9 p.m. Chen was so revved up with nerves that his hands were visibly shaking around the cards he was holding. For the past hour, the men had been playing Blackjack.

“Oh, ho!” Itchiko yelled. “Beat that.”

He flipped the jack of hearts up onto his already-showing ace of spades. The other two men moaned.

“Payback,” Raya muttered loudly. “You just…”

A siren sounded. All three men dropped their cards and leaped in different directions; Itchiko for his automatic rifle, Raya for his phone on the table, and Chen for the tablet that had been loaded with security apps. Another siren went off, then three more in swift succession.

“Shit!” Chen exclaimed. “How many are there and where are they?”

Nothing showed on the monitors as yet. Itchiko had explained that the motion detectors would pick up movement more than two hundred feet out, so it wouldn’t show on any of the monitors until whatever it was came within sight of a camera.

One minute passed, then another. The tension in the office built until the air was thick with it. Raya believed he could almost see the waves of nerves and apprehension climbing up the white walls, reaching ever higher.

“There,” Itchiko said quietly.

There was silence while all three men studied the back wall. The largest picture was the area covered by the first motion detector that had been tripped. Off to the south of Chen’s property, the detector had been installed on a tree that stood at the edge of the virgin forest that stretched for miles behind it. Something deep in the forest had tripped it.

The camera installed just under it overlooked smooth lawn dotted with ancient old trees, most of which were lit now.

All of the monitors seemed to be showing the same thing, as the property was so large. But then there was movement.

Something streaked under the first camera, headed toward Chen’s house across the intervening acres. Then something else raced past the camera on the left, and then, simultaneously,

“Shit!” From Raya.

“Goddamn it!” From Chen.

“How interesting,” were the words that came from Itchiko.

Raya couldn’t believe his eyes as hundreds of wolves shot past the cameras. He didn’t know what he’d expected, but nowhere near what he was now seeing. He leaped for the door.

“Stop!” Itchiko’s voice rang out with the command. Both of the other men halted, puzzled.

“There’s no time to explain, just do what I say. Each of us will set off several of the honey bombs as these wolves pass. We want to nail a group here, a group there. Understand?”

“Yes,” they both said and took their seats at two computers.

“I’m taking the middle. Chen: the east, toward the cellars. Do not do them in a row. Stagger them. Raya, you have the west. Two buttons each.”

As he spoke, Itchiko hit enter for the first device. It was silent; although the cameras were audio-equipped, nothing was heard for a second or two. The results were instantly visible, though.

A group of wolves was no longer running in tandem. Instead, they were leaping in the air, rolling on the ground, agony on their faces. Dots whizzed by the closest camera, looking almost like sleet. But this sleet was targeting wolves, and it caused the audio to kick in when the wolves started howling, barking, and yelping.

Itchiko’s idea had been simplicity itself. He’d set up pressure pads with an automatic release attached wirelessly to each one. If a certain weight or greater hit a pad, it would trigger a command to the corresponding cover some six feet away, toward the house. The cover would slide open, and there’d be nothing then protecting the African bee hive from whatever had hit the pressure pad behind it. The same command detonated a bomb, but this bomb didn’t have nails or any other dangerous cargo. Just a couple of gallons of honey.

That was all.

It was over as quickly as it started, with wolves fleeing back toward the cameras in ragged, leaping movements. In moments, the property was calm.

“I’d never have believed that if I hadn’t seen it,” Raya said.

“You or me, either one,” Chen added. “I can’t thank you enough, Itchiko. Both of you, really.”

Itchiko grinned one of his very rare wide, toothy grins.

“It was truly my pleasure.”

“How did you ever get that idea?” Chen wondered.

“Saw a thing on Discovery Channel about these aggressive African bees. If one stings, it marks the predator for the rest. They all attack that same target! Killed some poor farmer in Texas, and it gave me an idea for a weapon without bullets or metal.”

“I didn’t know bees even stung at night,” Raya said.

“Indeed they do, though more slowly than daytime,” Itchiko said. “I think a better question would be to ask why wolves were sent in such numbers against Tara.”

“And in the same breath, what does that means for Heureuse,” Raya said, the hair on the back of his neck rising.

***

The good doctor’s email had terrified Petra. She had been hoping for a deeper explanation of the ‘missile’ but what she got was earth shattering. Art’s original DNA ‘disease’ was supposed to have targeted ONE set of DNA. It was supposed to hit that person, and then… boom.

Instead, it became sentient. Everything sentient needs to live. To live, the disease thrived off the deaths of its victims. The more deaths, the healthier, the larger the thing grew until it broke in half, reproducing. A sort of Borg mentality, but smart.

Chapter Fourteen

The next afternoon, Petra slept in for the first time in ages. She’d spoken to Raya before she fell asleep, and his news had been good. Itchiko and his plans had been simply amazing, period. Her own news had horrified Raya of course. Horrified him and puzzled him. He’d asked twice how it worked. If the doctor had only targeted one DNA sequence, why then had so many become sick? Petra was unable to answer, so he was determined to look into it.

Enough lying in bed and thinking, she said to herself. Elinor will be here near 2:00.

It was their last time together, as Petra was due to return to Louisiana later that day. Elinor had promised to try and get some information about Mickey, primarily where he was staying. She’d told Petra the previous day that she had one good idea on how to find the Alpha, and she’d tell her all the next afternoon.

So Petra was excited as she hopped into the shower. Maybe she’d even get a glimpse of this jackass before she went home. Alpha’s Alpha indeed.

She must have been more tired than she thought because she put her head down for a minute and woke up again, still in her towel, to find that it was nearly 2:30. And still no sign of Elinor yet. Well, only twenty minutes late. She’d get up, do her hair and makeup. By then Elinor would be here for sure.

She wasn’t.

Petra stood at the mirror applying mascara, and she had a bad feeling about Elinor. Once finished, she grabbed her phone and called the woman.

Straight to voicemail.

Crap.

When 3:10 rolled around, she couldn’t seem to console herself any longer. She and Elinor had set up an emailing schedule, just in case. Elinor sent her an email every two hours. If Petra didn’t get that email within 10 minutes, she was to go get Shelley immediately and take the child with her back to New Orleans.

Something really had gone wrong. She gave Art a call, to find him just as confused and concerned. He said he’d get in touch with Shelley’s daycare center and call Petra back.

He was as good as his word, and the news was better than she’d expected: Shelley was in the classroom with her group. Groups would be dismissed in the next twenty minutes, though, and Petra had to be there.

She ignored her rented car and called a cab. Otherwise, she’d probably end up driving around, getting lost in unfamiliar New Jersey and be late. If no one was there to pick her up, the child would just be scared. Couldn’t have that.

She arrived at Fairlaster Care Center for Children two minutes after it had let out. There was an incredibly long line of cars waiting for children. As the cab crept closer and closer to the front of the school, Petra spotted Shelley anxiously scanning every car. Her heart sank. What on earth would she say? What could she say?

Finally the cab was several car lengths away from where a crowd of children waited, Shelley was right up front. Petra stuck her head out and yelled, “Hey Shelley! Over here!”

The child’s small face sagged in relief as she picked up her book bag and raced to the cab. Petra held the door open for her.

“Where’s Mom?” Shelley asked as she slid onto the seat.

“She asked me to pick you up,” Petra said. “We’ll wait back at the hotel for her.”

But what if Elinor didn’t show up? What in hell was Petra going to do then? She couldn’t simply trot back to New Orleans with the child in tow – not if Elinor was in some sort of trouble.

But she’d promised to do exactly that.

She was torn. But an hour later her phone rang, and to Petra’s relief the caller ID indicated it was Elinor. Petra answered the call immediately.

“El! You scared us to death. I got Shelley from school, she’s right here.”

“Get her out,” Elinor whispered so softly, Petra wasn’t sure what she’d heard.

“Do what?”

“Get her the hell out of New Jersey! Take her home. Don’t ever listen to anything I have to say again if I call you.”

Suddenly there was a scuffle, the phone sounded as if it had been dropped.

“Get her the hell out!” Elinor screamed. “Go, Petra!”

It sounded as if someone covered the speaker of the phone; it went silent for a moment. Then Petra heard a low, whispery voice say, “Petra Lupeinescu, is it not?”

“This is Petra. What have you done with Elinor?” she demanded.

There was a soft chuckle.

“Now that’s an interesting question. You’d do better to ask how others are, starting with your beloved Alpha maybe. Tell me. Has he got a runny nose, hmmmmm?”

“What the hell you talking about?”

“Oh, you know. A bad cough, upset stomach, bleeding sores here and there and of course a runny nose. Brings new meaning to ‘totally buggered,’ does it not?” His laugh was distinctly mocking before he added, “Listen, bitch. Stay away from my Rats. All of my Rats, or I’ll have to present you with another personalized gift. Now fuck off, there’s a good werewolf.”

Click.

“I’d be glad to, and thanks for calling,” Petra said into the dead phone before she finally put it down.

 “That was Mom at first, wasn’t it?” Shelley said, tears pouring down her face.

“Yes. And now we know she’s OK.”

“No, we don’t. Someone did something to her and yanked the phone away and spoke to you. Who? And what’d they do with Mom?”

Petra sighed inwardly. Not a stupid kid, this.

“I assume that was the infamous Mickey. He didn’t say what he wanted, but I know what your Mom wants, and that’s for us to be as far from him as we can get.”

“Not when Mom’s in trouble here.”

Shelley’s eyes were huge, dripping with tears. She kept running her hands over her frizzy bush of hair, smoothing it down. It gave Petra an idea on how to take the child’s mind off this current horror. “We won’t leave just yet. I have people working on Elinor’s whereabouts. In the meantime, though, I really need something done to my hair. What about you? Shall we both go get our hair done? Cut, dye, whatever else?”

For an instant the fear dropped from Shelley’s face, and she was all eagerness. One hand reached up and grabbed at her bushy hair, yanking at it.

“Be so cool to get rid of this. I get teased all the time. But I don’t want to be having fun while Mom might be in trouble somewhere, you know?

“She’d want nothing more than for you to enjoy yourself while waiting for her to come back. You have to know that’s true,” Petra said, praying the kid would buy it.

“That’s true, that’s just how she thinks. I have to take a quick shower, though; that OK?”

“Go,” Petra said.

Chapter Fifteen

Raya was on the phone with Dr. Dennis ‘Doc’ Wagner. Doc had been a friend of the pack for nearly twenty-four years. Short by pack standards, but long by human ones. Very long.

The Pack had run across Doc during an episode that had happened when a new Pack member had arrived in the States. The matter had arrived on the CDC’s doorstep, and a certain Dr. Wagner had been in charge of the case. Dr. Wagner was new to the CDC and at the time, the case had been considered ridiculous, so naturally, it had been assigned to the lowest man on the totem pole.

Doc himself had been aware of that, yet still treated the Pack with courtesy and kindness right up to the moment he’d learned that the matter hadn’t been created by an active imagination or a nut; werewolves did exist, and he was sitting in a room full of them.

He’d shown remarkable courage then, and the Pack had admitted him into the very small number of humans who knew of their existence. Since then, they saw each other sporadically depending on the needs of each. This time, Raya had called Doc and insisted on talking to him as soon as possible claiming that he had information about the new ‘flu.’ Doc, sounding harried, had said he had no time whatsoever, considering the magnitude of the outbreak in New Orleans and the complete chaos that the city quarantine had caused.

“We’re wrapped up putting out fires here, Raya. I can’t deal with speculations right now,” he had replied matter-of-factly. He’d added that he would be happy to discuss it fully when the entire matter of an outbreak was resolved.

Raya had lost his patience for once and yelled into the telephone. “This matter might not be resolved until every human is already dead, you hear me? And I have information about the cure! Now, when can you see me?”

“Excuse me if I don’t leap up with excitement, but I don’t see how that’s possible. With respect to our long friendship, though, I’ll give you twenty minutes to throw me what you’ve got at around 3 p.m.”

“That’s in half an hour,” Raya said, anger in his voice. The CDC was centered in Atlanta, for God’s sake.

“I’m aware of that,” Doc said. “See you in twenty then?”

The old bastard knew he was already on his way to the city, Raya realized with a grin. He’d been had.

***

Raya began by describing what little he already knew of the disease, a bit about the DNA targeting, and as much as he could divulge about the Rats who’d begun the whole catastrophe.

“Is there a way to target someone via their DNA?” he inquired.

“Yes. Who are these people, these Rats?” Doc asked casually, the whiteness of his knuckles as he clutched a pen in his hand gave away his nervousness. “Is this religious bullshit or what?”

“The Rats are terrorists… mercenaries, if you will, from Europe. They’ve been in existence for a couple of centuries now. They really were just a couple of communal packs to begin with, but when they learned about money and what it could do for an individual or an organization, that’s what they did, they organized. Listen; is the CDC anywhere near a cure?”

Doc sat for a moment, his bushy white eyebrows lowered, bright blue eyes staring at Raya as though he were sizing up the Alpha wolf. Finally, he gave a tiny shrug and got to his feet. He walked to a clean whiteboard opposite Raya and began writing.

“Here’s the disease,” he said and drew a blotch. “So far, we’ve hit it with many different types of antibiotics, like this.” He drew circles all around the blotch, named a few. “Problem is, this disease is resistant to penicillin, and a lot of these others too.” He drew x’s through half of the circles. “Additionally, the thing seems to thrive on a few, such as Keflex and Zithromax.” He stood for a moment, then his whole body seemed to sag as he walked back to his desk. “It began as a two-week illness, your basic flu. First eight days coughing, runny nose, aching. Then strange sores and death. But then it changed. Five days of normal symptoms, then the sores. As of today? Three days normal. You follow? It’s mutating, gaining strength. Soon people will catch it and die within hours.”

Raya was glued to his seat in horror.

“Didn’t see this on the news.”

“Not surprised. They’re not talking about the fact that outbreaks are country-wide now either. New York, LA, Miami. Just heard of cases in Europe and Tokyo, too.”

Raya frowned.

“Wait. What did you mean about ‘strange sores’?”

Doc’s mouth thinned.

“You might not believe this, but these sores don’t gradually appear and they’re not sores at all. More like knife wounds, slices. They appear suddenly like the patient has been sliced by an invisible knife.”

“I don’t even know what to say,” Raya admitted.

“You and your group are… unusual,” Doc said. “This illness is damn unusual also. We need your help, I believe, to figure out a cure.”

“I’ll do anything I can,” Raya said. “Anything I can.”

***

Joseph had him back at Heureuse at 5 p.m. He was just about to see if he could get him to Romania when there was a knock at the door. To his amazement, the two Illuminati, Aman and Nesto, stood there, looking very serious.

“I was just about to visit you,” Raya said as he ushered the pair in.

“We’re saving you the trip. Considering what you’re dealing with, it’s the least we could do.”

“I suppose you know what I’m going to ask?”

“Has to be how to stop this smart disease.” At his nod, Aman said, “Joseph saves. Blood needs blood.”

“What? Could you be any more obtuse?”

“Joseph! BLOOD needs blood!” he said, looking Raya directly in the eyes.

“‘Joseph saves, blood needs blood.’ Joseph’s blood, has to be,” Raya muttered. He looked up as both Illuminati nodded with respect, turned and departed. He had to have it right for them to have left like that, he thought.

How could Joseph’s blood be of use, though?

Chapter Sixteen

At Heureuse, Petra got Shelley settled in her room and went downstairs to talk to Cilla. She’d found the young vampire to be extremely intelligent, always having bright new ideas. And Petra needed ideas; how to get Shelley’s mom back, for starters.

Cilla had other things on her mind. What if Heureuse was the next target after Kentucky? And what if that attack came at a moment when Petra was alone there, as was happening so often at the moment? Petra wasn’t worried.

“We have the caves beneath, and that incredible security system Itchiko set up. If anything moves on the ground we’ll know about it!”

They were sitting at the round table in the kitchen where everyone usually hung out. Petra had her back to the enormous windows and was facing the fridge and stove. Opposite her, Cilla had a clear view through the windows over Petra’s shoulders and suddenly she shot up in her chair, back absolutely rigid with shock. Beyond speech, she frantically pointed over Petra’s shoulders.

Petra turned to see the very last thing she or Raya could have ever expected: a flock of hang-gliders coming in for a landing.

“Hit the cellar, Cilla!” Petra shouted, and she was up and running.

At the second flight of stairs, someone had dropped a sock from a laundry basket. Petra tripped and tumbled down the stairs all the way to the bottom, where she instantly knew something was wrong with her leg. She couldn’t place enough weight on it to even stand up.

“Cilla! Get Shelley out of here and bring help,” Petra yelled. The young vampire had used up most of her strength transporting the three of them from New Jersey back home.

Cilla nodded and vanished just as the back door smashed open, and footsteps came trotting across the kitchen to the open cellar door. Sitting at the bottom of the steps with her injured leg straight out in front of her, Petra looked up to see a man in a dark hat and a black suit standing at the top of the stairs. Behind him was a small army all dressed in camouflage gear.

“Petra. I haven’t had the pleasure,” the man said in an almost-purring whisper.

“Mickey, I presume?” she asked, rubbing her leg.

He laughed.

“That will do, for now. You’re injured. Allow us to help you.”

He motioned over his shoulder, and the others trotted down the stairs, picked her up gently and carried back up. At the top of the stairs, Mickey pointed at the door. Petra’s ‘rescuers’ carried her out the door without even stopping. Several vans were waiting with the engines running. Her carriers sat her in the lead van, with Mickey himself driving. The other vehicles were there to carry the contingent who’d flown in, she was sure.

She was also sure that the entire exercise from hang-gliders to driving out the gate had taken less than ten minutes. Well-planned: the police took exactly thirteen minutes to respond. She looked back and wondered if she’d ever see Heureuse again.

***

The vans drove around a wide lake to a beautiful waterfront villa, surrounded by wild greenery. Nothing manicured about this property, Petra thought as she walked into an imposing, two-story foyer with a glass roof.

“Why don’t you change for dinner?” Mickey asked, the epitome of the generous host.

Petra threw him an evil eye, but said nothing and followed her captors up a circular staircase. The room she entered was strange, to say the least. It was almost an exact replica of her room at Heureuse, right down to the mock elephant-foot side tables she’d found in Africa.

The bed cover, the curtains and pillows were different, though. At Heureuse, her color scheme was deep blues and chocolate brown with a pop of red here and there. Mickey had different tastes as this room was done in deep regal reds and gold.

The closet was another shock, and quite a disconcerting one as well. It was full of gorgeous clothing, all of it in her size. She dressed for dinner, mind whirling. He certainly intended to keep her for a while, judging by the appearances of things alone.

Unless she could somehow change his mind.

***

She was led to the end of a gorgeous dining table, laden with all kinds of food. Mickey, with his hat cocked slightly on his head, sat at the other end, twirling his mustache.

“Not so bad, is it?” he asked with a complacent grin.

“Sit and eat while thousands die, and you say it’s not bad?” Petra shot back angrily.

“Shit happens. It won’t last much longer anyway, I predict,” he said with a laugh.

Petra was surprised that his voice was so high and light. She’d had him figured as a real man’s man, not like this at all. He’d certainly been nothing but gracious. Under a different set of circumstances, they’d probably have been friends.

“Can I ask you something personal?” he asked, after a brief silence.

“I might not answer, but you can ask.”

“Have you ever been into the same sex?”

Petra’s jaw dropped, and she was unable to say a word.

“Is it that awful a thought?” Mickey asked, studying her face.

“No, I just didn’t expect that line of questioning from someone who seems to otherwise be playing the perfect gentleman – and I did try it a couple times. Not really my thing, but I have nothing against it.”

“You didn’t try it the right way, obviously.”

“What are you trying to say? You into watching?”

Her voice was full of disgust. He roared with laughter.

“Not in the least. Might be that there’s something you don’t know, though you think you know everything.”

Petra frowned, confused.

“Watch and learn,” he demanded.

She rolled her eyes.

“Look at me, dammit.”

His tone was sharper than it had been yet, so she obediently locked her eyes on his face.

He deliberately peeled off his mustache, his eyes never leaving hers. He reached up, took the hat and sailed it across the room, exposing short black hair parted on the side.

Then he took his napkin, dunked it into his water goblet, and patted his entire face with it, to her confusion. Whatever next?

He turned away from her, but she still saw him reach under his chin and pull upward. Then a skin-colored mask went flying across the room. He turned back, and he looked odd. His face was pale white, whether from a product worn under the mask or his own color… she had no idea.

He waited a moment, eying her as if waiting for a response, but Petra was lost.

Lost, that is, until he whipped the short black wig off and a familiar bush of frizz exploded out from under it.

“God, it can’t be,” Petra whispered. “Elinor?”

“No other. Fooled you, didn’t I?” she said with her usual large grin, but this time Petra noticed a darkness behind it.

“So. Mickey was really Minnie all along, eh?”

Elinor laughed.

“I really am into you, you know. Have been for years. They all think I want to take down your Alpha because of some ridiculous power trip thing. Nope. I just want his mate.”

She watched Petra closely.

“I don’t see how you could be – you don’t even know me that well.”

“You’d be surprised at what I do and don’t know,” she said. “Raya and that Bathory bitch, for starters. How could you be into a male who was into that?”

“Two sides to every story. I’d have thought you of all people would get that,” Petra said. She had to be careful: Elinor was obviously not sane. That she’d kept up a secret this long – she had to be more than a little crazy by now, evidenced by the disease she’d let loose. “What do you want from me?”

“Something you probably can’t give. I realize that now. I made a mistake where you were concerned and I want to atone. I am what I am, mark my words! I’m not going to change, but I can give you a gift. A gift that could save you from losing your life, the lives of your loved ones, hell any lives at all if you can figure out how to use it!” She laughed. “You didn’t think it would be that easy?”

“How did you start all this? I know about Art and the DNA missile but he doesn’t get how it went bad. What happened?”

Elinor rang a small bell, then called out, “Send in my gift, please.”

Petra had no idea what to expect. A pudgy guy in his thirties wearing a cowboy hat strolled out, walked to Elinor, and stood beside her chair.

“Antoine! Meet Petra. Petra, this is a vampire. A real one. Didn’t know they existed, did you? He’s the only one of his kind, how about that?”

“What does he have to do with that DNA business?” Petra wondered.

“Art had a lot more to do with it than he told you. He invented the process where a certain DNA strand can be targeted, but he couldn’t figure out the delivery method. He said he had to have a way to send it through the air quickly in order to cover a lot of space. He had no idea until one night he had this really powerful dream.

“He dreamt of a thick mist that hovered above a group, and just one person slapped their neck like they had a mosquito bite. The mist traveled around the globe, landed in Paris. Then it entered a certain graveyard outside Paris, and right into a specific grave! Of course we went, and in the dead of night we dug up a coffin covered in chains, with crosses all over it. On the top was a plaque that had three pictures engraved: A dead nun hanging over a casket, blood dripping from her hand onto it. Then a man partway out of the casket, his arms wrapped around a person whose head was back, screaming. Finally that person crumpled up dead next to that casket. The guy standing with his arms open, mist coming from him. It seemed clear enough to us.”

“Did you do all that? Nun too?” Petra wondered, trying to act nonchalant but utterly horrified. A dead nun!

“Yeah, we did it all. Antoine here is the result. He’ll tell you the rest.”

“She always get it wrong,” the man said with a strong French accent. He started to tell his story in broken sentences and phrases, but otherwise good English. “The nun, not needed. Any human would do. Those who put me into my grave, they put the nun in the hieroglyphs to frighten others from releasing me. Back where she lives, I met Art. He worked day and night on I don’t know what, really. But one day he finishes and is excited and she is too. These humans, they gave to me my life. I owe them. So when the doctor says he has something that might work if they could test on somebody, I took myself. What could it do, kill me?” He grinned so widely at his little joke that Petra had to join him.

“But it did do one thing. A fog came out of me! A black mist. And the fog, it left. When I ask the Doctor Art what is such a thing, he said he put sleeping bacteria things in my blood with a piece of DNA. When it meets the same of this DNA the bacteria things they awake you see. I don’t know what is DNA or bacteria, but awake I understand.”

“I barely get it and I was born in this century,” Petra assured him. He seemed like an otherwise decent guy… just a matter of bad company, she guessed. “But bacteria are little tiny things with no brains,” she tried to explain. “That fog of yours sure acted smart when it chased me!”

“Doctor Art, he say the DNA can make you smart. If your mom smart, you too because DNA.” For the first time, the man looked troubled. “I’m not smart for sure, do not think I think that, but the, mist it came back to me. The Doctor Art thinks the mist believes I’m its father.”

Petra was beginning to understand, however vaguely. “So when this bacteria and some kind of DNA entered you, it sort of clicked with another DNA and created a whole bunch of smart bacteria in that mist.”

“Sentient disease, the Doctor Art says. It came back first time, showed me picture of swamp with dead fish and birds. Same picture many times like asking. I didn’t do a thing so it left. Came back later showed picture of swamp, then of New Orleans – then of a big mist, then two small ones. Strange. Doctor Art thinks it learned that the more it kills the stronger it gets, then it makes another of itself and it came to show off.”

“God,” Petra said. “That gives me the shivers. A smart disease that grows from killing? Great. Just great.”

“Ergo, I give Antoine to you, smart bugs and all,” Elinor said. “Never say I didn’t give you anything.” She gave a small, wry grin. “Antoine, get her home and this time try not to kill the fucking world while you’re at it.”

Elinor stood and left the table, never looking back.

Chapter Seventeen

In a blink, they were stepping at a quick pace across her manicured Louisiana lawn. Back at Heureuse, Petra introduced Antoine to Cilla and Joseph. Then she called a pack meeting, with all three vampires in attendance.

When the Pack was assembled, she said, “I’ve learned about this disease. How it started, what it is. Not how to stop it! But maybe if we all know this strange story, we can come up with answers.” And she told the story as she knew it, hiding only Elinor’s identity. That she might be able to use, one day, if it became necessary.

When she was finished with the convoluted tale, there was dead silence for a while as everyone mulled over what she’d said.

“The Illuminati told me something about blood; blood to blood. They mentioned Joseph, too,” Raya said. “What could that even mean?”

A wound spontaneously opened on Joseph’s arm, and blood oozed out for several moments while the group stared in fascination. As quickly as it had opened, the wound closed.

Raya stared at where the wound had been, a puzzled look on his face.

“What does that mean?”

“You asked for a cure, it looks like my blood is the answer,” Joseph said.

“Assuming you’re right and your blood is the cure, we need to test this out,” Petra said. “How on earth do we do that?”

“Half the damn city is sick,” Itchiko volunteered. “The mayor asked everyone who has the illness in their house to put a red bow on their door, so as not to infect the mail man and so on. We find a sick family and test there.”

“That’s a great idea,” Raya said. “We’ll take a vial of Joseph’s blood with us.”

“No! You need me in person,” Joseph protested. “What if a vial isn’t enough?”

“Then it isn’t sure as hell enough to save a city or the nation, either. No, we’ll test with the vial. If one shot doesn’t work, we’re back at square one, unfortunately,” the Alpha said in a tone that tolerated no dissention. “We leave in ten.”

The local police force was

patrolling the streets, stopping every vehicle on the roadways, so the small group decided to walk toward the city. Surely they’d find a good place to test en route.

They found one three miles down the main road from Heureuse’s driveway. Raya knew who lived there: a man, his wife, his mom and their three children. Sure enough, there was a large red bow on the door.

He knocked, and a voice yelled, “Go away. We have sick people in here!”

“This is Raya from Heureuse! We’re neighbors and we might have a cure; we need to test it if you’re willing!” Raya yelled back.

There was silence, then a chain rattling and the door opened.

The man Raya remembered stood there coughing heavily in a ratty bathrobe.

“I really hope y’all do have a cure. Ain’t nobody else got shit, according to the TV.”

“Who is the sickest?” Petra asked. “Maybe we should start there. And do you mind if we make a video of it?” She held up her phone.

The man sighed and hung his head.

“No, that’s fine. And that would be Mom. She’s in her 80s. I’m Tim, by the way, Tim Henderson.”

Petra introduced herself as they walked in and to the back of the house, which had a musty, sick smell. There were definite drawbacks to being a werewolf, she thought. Her heightened sense of smell was not doing her any favors at that moment.

Tim knocked lightly on a door. There was no response, so he shrugged and opened it.

A figure lay on her side facing away from the door, her breathing loud as she literally fought for every breath. As Petra rounded the bed, she caught sight of the old woman’s arms and face, and her own heart sank.

The arms looked like she’d been in a knife fight. Many long slices, some still oozing blood, lay on both arms and across her cheeks. Petra took video of it all.

Petra eyed Raya with a raised brow. Raya patted his pocket and raised his own brow. She nodded, and he withdrew the hypodermic needle filled with Joseph’s blood. For this first test, they’d give a small to average dose of 15 milliliters. Couldn’t hurt, and if it really helped, they’d use a smaller dose next.

“Mom? Can you hear me? These folks are here to help,” Tim said softly.

One faded blue eye partially opened and looked up at him. She shook her head so slightly that Petra almost missed it.

“Don’t be like that,” Tim admonished her. “Give them a chance! It’s the folks from Heureuse. You always said that you wanted to go and see that beautiful place, right? Now you can once you’re well, right?” He said to Petra, eyes pleading.

“Of course she’ll come over. We’ll all have a dinner party there when she’s well.”

Her eyes closed, and Petra could swear there was a small smile on the old woman’s face. “Goddammit, this has to work,” she whispered fiercely to Raya.

He merely nodded and slipped the needle into the old arm.

They stood and waited anxiously, but nothing happened. Five minutes passed. Ten. Twenty.

“How long will it take?” Tim asked.

“Honestly, we have no idea,” Petra had to admit.

“What’s supposed to happen?”

She blushed.

“To tell you the truth…”

“Tim? Timothy?” came a quavery old voice from the bed.

Petra whipped around and looked down. Both of the woman’s faded eyes were open, and they truly looked brighter. And the wounds! They were closing almost in front of her eyes. A huge rush of relief went through Petra, and she almost wept as once again she shot more video.

“Mom! How do you feel?” her son asked as he sat on the edge of the bed.

“A lot better, son. You wouldn’t believe. I thought I was done for,” she said and began to cry.

“None of that, now! You’re going to be fine,” Tim said, his own voice shaking. “We’ll be back. We’re going to see about Lisa and the kids.”

“Going to try a different method,” Raya said as they shut the door behind them.

“Same drug, though, right?” Tim asked anxiously.

“Oh, yes,” Petra assured him.

They walked into a dark room with twin beds. A young girl heard them enter, tried to say something and had a coughing fit. Deep, snotty, racking coughs. Petra was sure the sound would be clear on the video.

“Don’t try to talk, Missy,” Tim said. “These folks have something that’s going to make you feel much better.”

“A – a shot?” She managed to ask fearfully between hacks.

“Nope!” Petra said over Tim, who was about to respond in the affirmative. He looked at her, puzzled. She grinned and held up her pointer finger in the universal ‘Wait a moment’ sign.

She rooted around in her purse and found a saucer she’d brought just for this purpose. Then she took the vial of blood and carefully shook three little droplets onto the saucer, before placing it on the bedside table. The droplets of blood moved animatedly on the saucer and joined together to form a single drop which diffused into a mist right before their eyes and dissipated into the air.

“Will that small an amount even work?” Tim whispered.

“We really hope so,” Raya said. “We don’t have nearly enough to help, otherwise.”

“At least we know it should take about 15 minutes,” Tim said.

“What will take 15 minutes, Daddy?” A small boy popped out of the far bed, tousled blond hair sticking up in every direction. He walked rapidly toward the adults near the door.

“Uh, until the medicine hits?” Tim said, amazement in his voice. “Where are you going?”

“The fridge. I’m starving!” and he vanished out the door.

Tim abruptly sat on the floor right where he’d been standing. “He hasn’t eaten in days. This is – good Lord, it’s the answer to a prayer. Lisa! We have to go to her!”

“Or not,” a thin woman said from behind Petra. “I agree with Tim Junior, though. I’m off to the fridge.”

Tim stood.

“That’s Lisa. And just so you know, our bedroom is on the second floor!” He eyed the saucer. “Sure looked like blood, but even if it is I don’t care. This is a miracle. I don’t know how to thank you.”

“Not necessary,” Raya said. “Seeing you and your family feeling better is all the thanks we need.”

***

Raya tried to reach Doc at the CDC when they arrived back at Heureuse, but he didn’t answer his phone. They’d have to wait for the morning. Flipping on the news, they were horrified. People were dying all over the country: even the world.

Then the phone rang, and they learned of another death, completely unexpected.

“She was found in her bed, someone beat her to death, Petra. Beat the hell out of her.” Art was sobbing into the phone. “I know what she was to some people, but Petra, I loved Elinor. She was my girl. And she sure loved you.” Finally he hung up, leaving Petra stunned and unsure exactly what she felt.

Her friend was gone, for sure, but who had her friend really been? Now she’d never know. God, and Shelley. What would she tell the girl? But by the next morning, one more fact was evident. Everyone within ten miles of Heureuse was on their way to being fully recovered.

Joyfully, Raya finally got through to Doc and blurted out his news.

There was silence, and then finally the doctor spoke.

“Listen, Raya. There’s nothing I can do with that. Christ, I wish I could. But blood? From a vampire? I’ll be laughed out of the CDC.”

“Don’t say where it came from! It heals; isn’t that enough?” Petra was incredulous.

“No. Not for the CDC it isn’t. They’ll want to test it and so on,” Doc said glumly.

“There’s an entire neighborhood here that’s been cured,” Raya yelled. “What the hell else do they need!”

“My hands are tied,” Doc said in misery as he hung up.

“I don’t believe this shit!” Petra yelled. “People are dying.”

“Fuck Wagner, he’s not my only contact,” Raya said as he began making calls.

An hour later he gave up: the answer was universal. No to a cure that involved vampire blood, because it sure wouldn’t test as human! And vampires don’t exist anymore than werewolves do.

Finally Raya knew what he had to do. He told Joseph to take a walk with him.

As they ambled down Heureuse’s driveway, he told the old vampire his plan, ending with what he needed Joseph to do.

Raya himself had phone calls to make; lots of phone calls.

Chapter Eighteen

By 8 p.m., everything was ready. Raya made one more phone call. It was to the large public hospital in New Orleans. He simply told them to look out the window at 9:00 sharp, and then he hung up.

Joseph was frantic.

“Don’t do it! It’s not worth it, no matter what. Your family! The pack. All the packs! Don’t do this, Raya.”

“I have to. Too many are dying and this is the cure. They all have the video: this will work. Speaking of, is the screen set up in the courtyard?”

Joseph sighed. “It has all been done just the way you wanted it, but Raya. Be reasonable. There has to be another way!”

“Not one that will work this damn fast. Not any way that won’t mean weeks or months of testing, all those people dying. No, this is the best, the quickest solution.”

The courtyard was dark and empty like it always was at night. Only the smokers went there during the day. Now, though, there was a bit of action as Joseph hauled equipment in by himself, set it up in the dark. At five minutes before nine, he called Raya.

“It’s all ready, but I still wish you wouldn’t do this, I really do.”

“Go far away and take Petra with you,” Raya responded. “If I get away after this, I’ll meet you.”

Joseph said nothing, just hit a button.

A spotlight came on, illuminating a small stage. Behind the stage hung a large screen. Joseph trotted over to a gate, opened it. He told the group waiting there to be completely silent. They walked in, looking around, eying the empty stage and the screen.

Once they were settled, Joseph did the last thing on his list. He flipped the switch on a projector, then quietly left via the gate.

The crowd murmured a bit as the video started with a close up of blood filling a vial. Then a shot of the old woman, and a close up on her dreadful wounds. A syringe drawing blood out of the vial, and finally a voice.

“This is the blood of a vampire. Yes, they do exist, but not like the nasty creatures in movies. They’re just like you and I. Well, not like me – I’m a werewolf.”

Gasps and laughter from the crowd as the camera showed the syringe emptying into the old woman’s arm. Then the children coughing. Back to the old woman, a close up on the healing wounds, and the voice again. “Use the blood on the stage to cure – don’t let them test for months. Too many are dying.”

The crowd was talking, laughing, preparing to leave.

It hadn’t worked: Raya had known it wouldn’t.

He stepped up to the microphone, a mask on his face.

“Before you go, I have one last thing to show you. This, though, this will be live.” He stepped away from the mike, turned his back to the crowd and began to strip. He heard them murmuring, but no one was leaving.

He pushed a button, and the lights went out to gasps from the crowd. One more button, and a single spotlight came on, directed at the center of the small stage.

For a split second Raya hesitated. What was he doing to his people? Would this work?

With determination, he stepped forward, directly into the light.

It had to.

He sat, then rolled onto his side.

The crowd giggled with nerves, went silent.

Then someone gasped loudly.

***

Across town, the DontDropIn was full as it always was on Thursday nights. There was a crowd at least three people deep around the curved bar that night, all of them focused on the large screen TV behind it. All of them dead silent.

On TV, a man was lying down, naked, his back to the camera. Suddenly he seemed to shimmer under the bright light. The bar group murmured. The shimmering became pronounced: the man was still visible, but just his outline.

And suddenly his outline changed, became a lot longer. The shimmering stopped, something moved. A tail – it wagged.

A full-grown wolf came regally to his feet, looked into the camera and howled briefly. It took a few steps: several small vials were sitting on the stage. The wolf took a paw and gently knocked one vial onto its side. He howled directly into the camera once more, turned, took a run at the wall, cleared it and was gone.

The bar remained silent for a second, then completely erupted. On screen, sirens were heard approaching, and then the screen went black.

Chapter Nineteen

Around the corner from the hospital, Raya changed and took his cell phone from the bag that had been around his neck. He dialed the hospital and this time was put through to the director.

“You happen to be watching the courtyard?”

“What the hell are you? Where are you? We need to…” The man’s voice was high and excited.

“Get that blood and use it against this disease,” Raya broke in. “Forget who I am; there’s no way that can matter as much right now. I wanted to get your attention.”

“Oh, you succeeded. In fact, the President would like a word.”

“He’s not going to get one. Listen, we’ve been around as long as you have, let’s just put it like that. Nothing is going to change now that you know about us. You do have a cure, though. Concentrate on that.” He hung up, kept walking. Shortly after, Petra joined him and he wasn’t surprised.

“Shit. I really liked Heureuse,” she said.

“Time to move,” Raya told her. “Nothing to be done about that.”

Her phone rang, she answered and put it on speaker.

“Hi, this is Ilse Braun, Elinor sister. You know, the woman you just killed, you bitch? The Rats are mine now, and let me tell you, we aren’t happy. We loved her and there are a lot of us who knew exactly who she was, but now more will never know, thanks to you. They do know one thing; what happened to her, and exactly who YOU are. You, and your precious Raya. There’s nothing you can do, Petra, but keep an eye over your shoulder because one day soon, you’ll see me there.”

There was a short pause and Petra looked at Raya in astonishment.

“Right behind you, holding something you’ll never believe possible. But it exists. I exist and the Rats sure as hell exist. And all of us are coming after you and everything that you love. So, goodbye for now, until we meet, bitch. Until we meet.”

The End

To be continued in:

Werewolf Forever

Return to the Table of Contents

WEREWOLF FOREVER

A Pack Trilogy Book 3

by

Chanel Smith

Werewolf Forever

Published by Chanel Smith

Copyright © 2015 by Chanel Smith

All rights reserved.

Ebook Edition, License Notes

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

Werewolf Forever

Prologue

Finea bună, tote bune.

All’s well that ends well

—A Romanian saying

“My face was covered,” Raya repeated for what felt like the twentieth time.

“Your voice wasn’t,” Itchiko responded yet again.

“Give it up, guys,” Petra said in exhaustion. It wasn’t bad enough that they had to leave Heureuse, the beautiful mansion they’d inhabited for more than 120 years. Now they’d be on the run from anyone who’d ever known them, in particular those who knew Raya’s distinctive deep voice.

For Itchiko had it right. Raya’s voice had rung out loudly and proudly when he’d changed from human to wolf live on national television. Most of their friends would never give him up, but “most” wasn’t “all.” Therefore, a new home was in order – one far from where they were now.

If Petra knew her man, he’d move them somewhere where no one would ever expect them to live. And anyone who knew the Lupeinescu Pack would be well aware they’d never ordinarily live anywhere that wasn’t warm year round. Not that wolves cared, but in her human form Petra, despised the cold.

***

Yes, Petra would guess where he had in mind, Raya was thinking as Itchiko shook his head and walked away. And she’d be right. It had to be somewhere unexpected, and he’d located the perfect spot with the help of a few friends. The views were breathtaking, hunting was fabulous, and most importantly, it was highly defensible as the old castle perched atop the single hill on a remote, private island. They’d look down on heavily forested slopes, the sea, and one of the world’s largest glaciers.

The latter landmark would send Petra into orbit, Raya had no doubt. But when she saw the interior of the ancient castle, surely she’d change her mind. And if antiques from the time she was a teen didn’t do it, the surprise Raya had cooked up most assuredly would. He could barely believe it himself, considering who had created it for the pack. Petra would be far more astonished as she’d never experienced such a thing. Then again, neither had most people.

Chapter One

“You bastard!” Petra shrieked, furious. “How dare you take such a step without so much as consulting me? Who in the hell wants to live in Iceland except real wolves, and they’re not stuck with sensitive, naked skin most of the time!”

“Not Iceland, Hvalsey!” He saw her prodigious chest expand with an enormous indrawn breath, and spoke rapidly to stop the coming explosion. “It has its own castle, Petra, on the one and only hill. The view is beyond belief, and more than that… well, I can’t say now. But there’s something about Hvalsey that will shock you speechless.”

“Only way it’ll do that is if it moved itself just off the Bahamas,” she grumbled, but her curiosity was piqued. Raya didn’t exaggerate. If he claimed that something was amazing, best be prepared for anything from a flying saucer to a winning lottery ticket. Yep, now she was curious.

He stifled a grin. “You won’t believe this, I guarantee. I certainly didn’t, first time I ran across it several hundred years ago.”

“Thought you said you’d never heard of the place?” Now she was frowning.

Shit! He’d nearly blown it. “And I never have, not this particular place. I visited somewhere with the same, ah, amenities.”

“If you think a heated indoor pool with a damn tanning bed is going to—”

He lost the battle and simply howled with laughter. The thought of a heated pool versus what he knew existed on the deceptively-small island of Hvalsey – the thought tickled him until he was bent over, gasping for air. “Gods. Don’t say any more. I’m in pain, woman.”

“You think you’re in pain now? If I get to this island of yours and I freeze my ass off, you might as well learn to sing soprano.” She glared at him.

“While I’m at it, that won’t be your only new home. You’re a lucky woman! You have two new extraordinary places.” At her huge eyes, he had to grin. “We have to have an official place for the pack, you know that. We just won’t be there often.”

“And where might this be?” Petra inquired.

His grin spread. “That would be telling. There’s another surprise in store for you there – in fact, several rather large surprises.”

A snort came from the doorway where Itchiko was striding in.

“You know too, you devil! Better tell me,” Petra said. “I’ll worm it out of you anyway.”

“You won’t,” the slim Japanese man said with a tiny smile. “When has anyone ever gotten me to talk?”

She sighed. Samurai weren’t exactly chatterboxes.

“You’ll find out in two days, at any rate,” Itchiko said. A small cough drew his attention to his Alpha. “Shit, I’m sorry. You haven’t told her yet, have you?”

“Was just going to when you snorted your way in,” Raya said. He rubbed the top of Petra’s head. “You, you’re going to really love your new neighbors. I’ll say that much.”

“I’d love a hovel at this point. Really sick of hotels, even the dang Waldorf,” she said with a sigh.

“Won’t be long now. A couple of weeks in our, ah, official home and then you’ll see the real thing.”

“I can hardly wait.”

Two weeks later, the small pack descended from a plane in Tennessee. Even though the flight had only been a couple of hours, Petra was utterly exhausted. As they approached several Lexus GXs, she yawned hugely. Raya noticed.

“Didn’t you sleep well last night?”

“Like a rock,” she responded, stifling another yawn.

“Shouldn’t be this tired then. Hope you’re not ill,” he said, frowning.

“Not in the least,” she said around another massive yawn that covered a sneaky smile. He wasn’t the only one with surprises. Several surprises at that.

“Only be an hour or so now anyway,” Raya said.

She groaned. “That far from the airport?”

“Worth it. You just wait.”

He wouldn’t say more on the subject no matter how she badgered him. He, Itchiko and Shelley kept up a fast conversation about Hohenwald, the city where their new place was located. Shelley said something about a famous old trail that went through it, Itchiko raved about waterfalls – both of them obviously avoiding discussion about something else. She wondered what it could be just as she fell asleep against the window.

“Petra! Petra, open your eyes. You have to see your new neighbors,” she heard. It was a struggle, but she hauled her heavy eyelids open to look out the window. Instantly her eyes were wide open.

“Those aren’t… they can’t be—” She was speechless. They were idling in front of a massive meadow dotted with trees and a fringe of forest in the distance, but it wasn’t the countryside that had her attention.

Rather, it was the seven elephants grazing and calling to two babies.

“Told you!” Raya was triumphant.

“Oh my,” she breathed. “How on earth did you ever find such a spot? I don’t care if the place next door is a damn shack! I’ll be over here every day, of that you can be sure. Oh Raya, I do love you!” She leaned over against her seat belt and kissed him all over his face. To her, elephants always had been magical creatures.

He took the Lexus out of park. “Oh, you’ll manage quite well in the shack, I believe.”

Moments later they pulled onto a rough dirt road, and Petra began to wonder if she’d been right about that shack. They came around a bend and she realized that once again, Raya had pulled off the impossible.

A rather large log house! It shouldn’t be called a cabin, not with two stories built like an “L.” She laughed. “You are always full of surprises. It sure isn’t Heureuse, though.” Heureuse was the lovely mansion they’d built outside New Orleans, their dream home they’d been forced to vacate when Raya showed the world his real being.

***

That night, the Alphas and Shelley had an intimate dinner on the Alphas’ balcony while the rest of the pack dined below. Petra had noticed Shelley’s increasing misery, and had thought she’d be more comfortable and talkative with just the two of them. “Alright, pup, what’s going on? You’ve been pretty miserable all day, though you did a pretty good job of hiding it,” Petra said, then took a bite of a large, juicy burger.

“This really isn’t Heureuse and it’s all my dang fault we’re here,” she started, her eyes welling with tears. “If it wasn’t for my real family, we’d never have had to leave,” 12 year old Shelley said, her pretty face miserable.

“This is your real family,” Petra scolded her. “And however your birth family was involved, it had nothing to do with you.”

“I studied that in history class,” the girl said, her voice shaking. “We saw a movie about it. Those poor, skinny people locked in those awful places! They looked like zombies.” She shuddered. “I loved my mom so much, Petra. I never knew what she really thought about that stuff, she wouldn’t ever talk about it, you know? And she tried to kill herself twice. Ilse talked a whole lot, but we didn’t see her much.” She paused and nearly whispered. “I want to change my name when I’m old enough. It feels like I’m related to that monster.”

“Well, you’re not and even if you were, monsters have children all the time. When was the last time you heard of ‘Sarah Bundy, daughter of infamous serial killer Ted Bundy, was arrested today for killing 16 men...’”

The girl laughed. “I guess you’re right. I sure hope nobody else ever finds out before I can change my name.”

“We’re adopting you, hon,” Raya said. “You have our last name now, and soon enough, it will be permanent.”

The girl was silent for a moment. Then in a small voice, she said, “Shelley Hitler sounds like shit, anyway.”

Chapter Two

Petra choked back a roar of laughter. “Language, Shelley.”

“Sorry.”

“Speaking of language and names,” Raya said, taking a sip of wine. “Your turn to name this house.”

“Wow. Tough one.”

Raya said, “Elephant Cabin? Cabine d’elephant?”

“How about Heffalump House?”

“Sounds like a kiddie name out of a Dr. Seuss book,” he said with one brow raised.

She kept her silence as she deliberately chewed a fry and swallowed, looking him in the eyes with a small, smug smile.

He frowned down at her briefly, then the right brow shot upward to join the left one. “You – you can’t possibly mean—”

“Yeah. I can.” She grinned hugely and patted her flat belly. “Can’t even tell, can you?”

“Christos!” He leaped to his feet, picked her up, swung her around then suddenly sat her in her chair, very gently indeed.

“I won’t break! I’m just over two months. Oh, and speaking of two… you’re going to be Daddy twice over. We’re having twins!”

“I’ve never heard of a were having twins,” he responded. “You sure it’s safe?”

“No reason why not. I’m just glad this will only last four months and not the human nine!”

He laughed. “I’ll bet.”

“You haven’t caught me barfing in the mornings, so no, you can’t believe it. And now that I finally can tell you, you’ll have to head to the store. These cravings are killing me! A big glass of milk and about six Ore – OH!” Her mouth dropped and she clutched her belly.

In an instant, he was kneeling by her side. “Petra? What is it? Is something wrong with the pups?”

She didn’t answer for a moment, only stared into the distance with a wondering smile. “Quick. Give me your hand.” She reached out and yanked it onto her stomach and pressed just as one of the wee monsters let loose with a foot. “Feel that?”

“Christos.” For once he was speechless, and to Petra’s utter amazement, he had tears in his eyes.

“It’s alright, sweet. They’re just restless, like their dad always is.”

“I know, this isn’t the first time I’ve felt wee ones.” He gulped. “It is the first time they’ve been mine.” He yanked his hand away, turned his back on her.

He was going to make the best Alpha father ever, Petra thought in satisfaction. Her stomach rumbled, she reached down and took another bite of the burger, finishing it off. “Raya. I do believe I could go for another. Mind getting it?”

His eyes widened, then he grinned. “Here. Finish mine. Now I feel we’ve swapped bodies! I’m forever finishing your meals.”

“From now on, we’ll just feed me twice as much.” She cocked her head, considering. “Well, maybe three times.”

***

Shelley was sound asleep when a small noise awakened her. The moon shone through her window just brightly enough that she could tell nothing was moving or out of place. She listened for several more minutes, but the sound didn’t reoccur. Maybe it had been a dream, she thought on the edge of falling back to sleep. But then she caught a whiff of something odd, somewhat like a hospital. Must have been one odd dream.

But the scent grew stronger, and suddenly a damp cloth was clamped over her nose. She tried to scream, but couldn’t as the room was whirling around her and the moon went out.

***

The next morning, Petra stood at the stove making pancakes. “Shelley isn’t up yet? That’s odd. She’s normally up before we are. Will you call her? She won’t want to miss these pancakes.”

“You aren’t kidding,” Raya said with a grin. “You don’t make them nearly often enough.” He stood and headed for the stairs. At the bottom he yelled, “Shelley! You up?”

No response.

He called out again, again she didn’t respond. Finally, he trotted up and banged on her door. “Shelley! Get up quick! It’s a miracle! Petra’s making her pancakes!”

He waited, and when there was still no response, he began to have a bad feeling. She’d have heard him even if she was in the bathroom.

He opened her door slowly, peeked in. Her bed had been slept in, but her window was wide open.

Shelley was nowhere in sight.

He lifted his head, sniffed. There was the faintest scent of something unfortunately familiar: chloroform. Shit. He sniffed again, followed Shelley’s scent to her balcony. Peering over, he saw two deep round indents in the soft soil.

They’d used a ladder, those bastards. How was he ever going to tell—

“Those bastards!” He whipped around, startled. Petra stood next to Shelley’s bed, both arms wrapped around her belly, tears pouring down her cheeks.

“We’ll get her back,” Raya said. “She’s pack now.”

Petra walked around the bed and straight into his arms. Surprised for the second time, he hugged her as she simply bawled. She wasn’t a crier, his Petra, but she couldn’t help it. What did Ilse have in mind for the girl? She’d never shown much interest before.

Petra was, frankly, scared for once in her life because this situation was out of her control. Ilse had Shelley, could do what she liked.

“Easy now. We really are going to get her back.”

She fought the tears, logic indicating he was right. “Probably my damn hormones,” she said. But she had an uneasy sense that it was far more than that.

Chapter Three

Sodden with sleep, Shelley vaguely heard a knock, then her aunt’s voice.

“Good morning, Niece! Did you sleep well?” Ilse asked.

Shelley’s gut was churning, her head pounding, and she had no clue why her aunt was in her bedroom. “Aunt Ilse? What you doing here?”

The short, heavy woman laughed loudly. “I live here, silly. How you feeling?”

“Like I’m gonna puke,” Shelley said miserably. There was more she wanted to ask, but she couldn’t concentrate on anything but her roiling stomach.

“That will pass, I promise. I brought you something to drink that will help, too. Here you go.” She walked to the bed and held out a small silver tray with a glass filled with a yellowish liquid.

Shelley’s stomach lurched at the sight. “I can’t.”

“You can and you will. Stop being such a kitty. Drink this right now.”

The tone of the woman’s voice was unfamiliar, harsh and demanding. Shelley didn’t dare protest again or correct ‘kitty’ to ‘pussy’ as she ordinarily would have. She reached up, grabbed the glass and took a small sip. Grimaced. It was disgusting.

“More than that! Won’t do you any good otherwise. At least four big swallows,” Ilse demanded, hands on hips.

Shelley held her breath and gulped at the foul stuff. To her utter amazement, her stomach calmed almost immediately. She looked at Ilse. “I can’t believe that worked!”

The woman grinned, her one silver tooth gleaming in the sun. It almost reminded Shelley of other times, except that voice. That was new, and not in a good way.

“You have very much to learn, Chickadee. I knew Eva was teaching you nothing at all, but there was nothing I could do. Now I make up for it! Wish to learn your mama’s past?”

“First, I want to know how I even got here. I went to sleep in my own bed, but here I am. How?”

Ilse’s eyes went round. “You don’t remember? How could that be possible? You are too young for the memory loss. Me, that’s another story. So how is it you forget?”

Shelley frowned, struggling to remember anything at all. She’d brushed her teeth, brushed her long, blonde hair 100 times as Mama had insisted, then bed and nothing more until her aunt had knocked. “I don’t remember a thing after getting ready for bed and sleeping.”

Ilse laughed loudly. “I knocked on your door, you were really sleeping hard – barely woke to let me in. I asked if you like to spend a week or two with your family and you said yes! Walked right out of the house and got into my car. We discussed your mom a bit, don’t you recall?”

Shelley shook her head. “Not in the least.”

“Well, I did promise to tell you about your past… your mom’s life. You were eager.”

“You know I sort of would like to hear about that stuff. Mama never talked about her past. Heck, Aunt Ilse she never talked about some stuff at all.” She stuttered to a halt, tears threatening.

“And you don’t know what to think on her, that is the thing?” Ilse’s voice had softened appreciably with no more harsh words or false, overly-loud laughter.

“Yes, exactly. It was OK when I was a kid, but a couple years ago I started to learn – things. My sixth grade history teacher taught us about World War II, and who Hitler really was. I knew Mom was married to the guy for an hour, then they supposedly both killed themselves. It was Mama’s look-alike – she did tell me that much and she cried too. I feel sorry for that lady who died just cause she looked like Mama too.”

“Great Gott! The daughter of Eva Braun and all you feel about ze end of ze war is pity for ze idiot who died in her place?” Ilse laughed, but Shelley sensed nothing was really funny to her as her accent deepened with her level of stress. Shelley was at a loss – couldn’t understand where this passion was coming from. Heck, this happened many years ago and the war had long been over. What was the big deal?

“No, we saw other weird stuff like jillions of soldiers marching funny, Hitler screaming at them, everybody flipped him a weird bird except their hands were flat and no wonder cause we saw a bunch of super skinny people behind a gate, and he killed Brian’s great-grandfather,” she got out in one big rush.

Ilse burst into a genuine laugh. “Nobody did a bird to Hitler, of this I assure you! Who was this Brian?”

“A guy in my class. He wrote a paper about it. His great- great-grandma came to the USA and she had this number tattoo and all, to prove she’d been in some camp. Aunt, I went to camps three years in a row and nobody ever did numbers on you like that. That’s one of the things Mama wouldn’t talk about, so will you tell me?”

“For Jews, some black people, some Indians and other non-peoples, they got numbers in the camps instead of names, you see. Only real people have names.”

“Oh,” Shelley said, as if she got it. She sort of did. On TV, you saw people in jail holding up numbers and getting their pictures taken. Except she had a sinking feeling that wasn’t all of it… her aunt’s uneasy face with eyes suddenly not meeting hers was proof enough.

“Hitler is one of the most misunderstood peoples in all of history, this I will say!” She paused. “Did you know he so loved his German Shepherd he took her everywhere with him?”

Shelley’s eyes widened. “You’re kidding.”

“No. Listen, I bring you breakfast and then I have something for you to see. I’ll be back.”

She left, and Shelley fell back onto her bed, still feeling sort of woozy. But her mind was working in so many directions she nearly confused herself. So many things to think about!

First, her being here at all. How could she not remember Ilse in her bedroom, then walking downstairs and the car ride?

Car ride to where, now she thought about it. She scooted up in bed until she was propped on the wall, and really looked at her surroundings for the first time.

The room was small, freshly painted a pale pink. To her right was a little table with a mirror, hair brush and other things. There was a chair opposite, a small standing bookshelf with a few books, and nothing else. Not even a window.

The ceiling was all beams, not the pretty kind, just normal planks or boards. It was really hot, and the smell of the fresh paint was overpowering.

There was kind of a low hum, as if a lot of people were nearby. She should explore a bit before Ilse’s return. Getting out of bed wasn’t fun; her gut lurched so badly she almost lay back down again. Would Petra have given up so easily?

Determined, she strode to the door and turned the knob. Locked! Dang it, Ilse had sealed her in like a prison cell!

***

About an hour later, Ilse pushed her breakfast tray out of the way and gently placed a very old photo album on the bed. “Be very careful with this, as these pictures are old and cannot ever be replaced.”

“Why am I locked in?” She looked her aunt right in the eyes.

Again the overly-loud bark of laughter. “Is others must be locked out. I have not decided yet where to live, so this is the place we work. Strangers are in and out of the lower levels, and I must haf you safe!”

That did make sense. So, interested and a bit scared if she were honest, Shelley ran a finger over a heavy black funky cross on the front.

“That is swastika,” Ilse said with pride. “It’s been used for thousands of years! Stands for well being and good luck. Hitler chose it to represent his Nazi party.”

Shelley said nothing, just tentatively opened the first page and was rewarded with a photo of a small, ratty-looking house with two young girls in front of it. She recognized the tall one as her mama! Neither was smiling, but Ilse now was.

“Your mama and me in front of the old farmhouse where we were born. Mein Gott, but I hated that place. Your mama vas already the beauty and me ze troll. She vould marry well, go far away and I’d be stick there forever.”

“Stuck,” Shelley murmured. Ilse used to enjoy corrections.

Now she ignored it and rolled right on. “Your mama was 11 and I was 14,” Ilse said with love in her voice, tears in her eyes.

Shelley noticed that her German accent was now so thick that she might have arrived yesterday in the States. Staring at Ilse in the photo, she noted that the non-smiling and already heavy woman had her arm around the tall, skinny Eva. Mama had a faint smile as she stared into the distance. “I miss her so much, Aunt.”

“Me too.” Ilse removed a piece of folded, yellowing old paper from a pocket, then carefully unfolded an ancient magazine page, in English to Shelley’s surprise.

“Mine best friend Katya gave to me this magazine for mine birthday, but I knew trouble if I had it. There are beautiful rich people on such ships, in such grand houses! I never knew such existed. Could not read the English, but the pictures—” She sighed, eyes closed. “They were a wonder. How they live, Shelley! Kings and queens live no better than those USA peoples in this magazine. I decide then I’d go to USA where everyone lived like that, no matter what I had to do.” She blew out a breath. “Of course I learned that not everybody lived like that.”

“Those are pictures of movie stars, Ilse,” Shelley said, but Ilse gave no sign of having heard. Instead, she turned the page and pointed to a large photo.

“Those rich girls not at all as pretty as my Eva, and I then knew our way out! Me, I do not look so good, but my head works great. I found a photographer who took pictures of important people, and to him I sent that.” She indicated a large headshot of Eva, her face slightly to the left, chin down, eyes looking enormous as they gazed into the camera. Her makeup seemed a little much to Shelley, but she had to admit it made Mama look more beautiful, more elegant with her long hair swept up in a bun and her aristocratic long nose.

“Your mama, she almost messed that up because when Mr. Hoffman called her to come in, she took one look at his cameras and wanted to play with them!”

Shelley grinned. “I can sure see her doing that. She loved to take pictures of everything.”

“I told her the important thing was to make connections with important people. Being a photographer’s assistant would not get her there: a beautiful model would! In the end, she believed me. Thank Gott, as you vill see in the next picture.” She turned the page. “Shelley, look at this!”

The photo was of a younger Hitler posing with Eva, her usual enigmatic smile in place. “That is when they were at Hoffman’s studio,” Ilse said. “One of the only photos of them together. But were you taught why he kept her the big secret?”

Shelley shook her head, enthralled as any kid would be.

“He vas certain all women attracted to him, so much that if he became engaged, he’d lose half his voters because of misery and jealousy!”

Gross, Shelley thought, but knew better than to voice it.

“Is funny how they met. At first, your mama did work as cameraman’s assistant – she insisted. And one night, Hoffman was to shoot Hitler giving a big speech. He and Eva flew to Berlin, had a quick lunch, and went to the venue. But then Mr. Hoffman got sick – the diarrhea. Eva had to be principal photographer. Hitler was on stage shouting as always, Eve was below him shooting upward, but was so tall, she was above all the other photographers. And how could Hitler miss that face? He asked to see the final photos. Hoffman called him when they were done. Hitler asked if Eva could accompany him on his next tour.

“I went with them as it vould not haf been proper else. But Hitler, he was a sneaky one. He said he wanted photos of a new dog he wanted to breed to his, and that male dog was mean. No one else must be in room or get bitten. He and Eva were alone in there for nearly two hours!” Her eyes beamed with pride.

Shelley thought about her shy mom who had so loved butterflies that in the spring, she and Shelley would walk miles into the countryside to find a certain meadow where so many daffodils grew that it appeared to be a moving carpet of brightly-colored wings. And somehow they’d all take to the air at once: Eva would stand, eyes shining, a genuine large smile on her face until the last butterfly was out of sight. “Wasn’t that the most amazing sight, Shelley? Pure beauty, and spreading it wherever they went.”

That memory gave way to a shot of living skeletons standing in front of a fence, sunken eyes staring hopelessly out.

Shelley’s hands started to tremble, but then her arms followed suit. Her legs, her torso until her entire body was shaking and she was gasping for air.

Ilse ran from the room, shouting, “Help! We need doctor!”

Chapter Four

At nearly 3:00 AM, Petra was still awake, Shelley on her mind. Was there anything they could have done to stop this? Common sense said no, they’d just moved in and Itchiko hadn’t even had time to set up the proper security.

She sighed, comfortable with Raya’s heavily-muscled right arm wrapped around her belly, his right leg entwined over hers while her butt was snugly jammed into his hard belly. Suddenly restless, she felt the need to be out in the fresh air.

Then she heard an odd noise, a low, loud groan with a rising tone. For a moment she was bewildered, then she realized it had to be one of the nearby elephants. She had to go see them as they were so close. It was still midsummer, so she threw on a silk wrap and let herself out the door.

The late July night was pleasantly cool, thanks to the heavy woods around the cabin. Crickets chirped in waves, something Petra had never noticed before. And then the bullfrogs chimed in. She had an entire orchestra around the remote cabin. Then an elephant bellowed.

There was a heavy mist lying over the dirt driveway and the land to the left, where the elephants would be. Another low call and she was on her way through the woods.

When a tall wooden fence loomed out of the mist, she knew she’d arrived and her heart thumped with excitement. Finally, to see an elephant in person! In the wild, no less. She was up and over the fence in seconds, only to see more formless mist stretching in front of her.

They were close, she knew as she could smell their unique scent. Moving slowly forward through the trees, the scent grew stronger with every step. After a few minutes of walking, up ahead the trees vanished. Must be a clearing, she thought. And soon she’d see what she so longed for.

The thought drew chills down her spine because so much time, so many centuries had passed since something so odd had occurred that she’d never been sure if she’d been dreaming or awake. In the clearing, a bench had been installed around an enormous tree. Exhaustion overtook her once more, so she sank down and let memories of ages past roll over her like an old book’s animation via turning pages.

She’d never been in the presence of an actual elephant, but she’d certainly had a more-than-odd occurrence including the beasts. For about a decade after becoming A Were, she and the two sisters had travelled the world. In Africa, they’d run next to the Nile for seventy miles, stopping in villages and interesting landscape along the way.

Clarissa had spotted the series of caves first, set into limestone cliffs. Enchanted, the three Weres had leisurely explored the system, travelling deep into the earth. One day, Petra entered a chamber thick with dust. The walls were covered with pictures of animals, nearly as bright as when they’d been drawn thousands of years ago.

She was drawn to one particular enormous creature with immense horns, long hair, surrounded by hunters with spears. The beast was facing Petra, and she could swear the small eyes followed her every movement. She told the others she’d spend the night in that cave, and see them in the morning.

After having made a small fire in the center of the cave where there was a blackened dip that she felt sure had been used for that same purpose, she created several torches and went over the wall paintings inch by inch.

The creature’s eyes continued to follow her, and she could swear she saw its sides move in and out as it breathed. But nothing else happened until she lay down next to the fire and rolled herself into several blankets.

Just when she was about to drop into sleep, she heard a very deep, aged female voice say, “We shall look after you. One day you will protect us too.” Petra leaped up and searched several caves nearby, but all were empty.

“What are you?” she whispered, back in her original cave.

“We were known as mastodon,

back when you were Cro-Magnon.

Now we’re known as ‘elephant’,

but now as then white ones are scant.

Whites are blessed, yet by royals cursed–

kings must own, so all coerced.

White will seek you where you go–

we will trust none else to know.

Sleep and dream, ye born of beast–

dream of time such practice cease.”

The voice went silent, and Petra felt as though somehow she’d been blessed to hear from such an ancient, magnificent creature, although just before she fell asleep for real, she wondered about white elephants. Did such really exist? And how could a cave painting protect her?

She’d been asleep for several hours when the sound of dripping water awakened her. How could that be? There’d been none in this cave. The fire was burning low, so she threw a couple of logs on it. Then she lit a torch and approached the mastodon on the wall.

Goddess, where those tears falling directly from the creature’s eyes to an ever-growing puddle on the cave floor? No doubt, the drops hitting that water had awakened her. Just then the ground under her feet rumbled loudly.

Earthquake!

She rolled up her belongings, ran to the neighboring caves where the others hadn’t even awakened. Within twenty minutes, the Weres exited the cave system just as a massive quake hit. Rocks and dirt plummeted down the sides of the mountain and closed down many of the visible caves. Petra shuddered to think if they’d been inside, and then it came to her. “We shall look after you.” Well, they certainly had.

A sudden deep sound reverberated through the mist, jerking Petra from the past and her thoughts. But now the mist seemed a bit lighter and her heart leaped as she realized that no more than thirty feet away, she could just make out several huge, rounded forms. She gasped. There they were. She stood and walked toward the beasts.

A slight wind rose, pushing at her back as if to insist she get closer. She took one more step, and all hell broke loose.

An aged elephant took several rapid steps out of the mist directly toward Petra, roaring a challenge as she came. Other elephants picked up the threat and also roared. Soon it was a veritable cacophony of bellowing elephants.

Petra didn’t know what to do. Bolt backwards to the fence? Stand her ground? Gods, would the enormous beasts actually attack her? Why wouldn’t they? In Africa, wolves were not their friends. That slight wind had done this, she realized. Blown her scent right into their midst.

The old elephant was only ten feet away now, ears flapping, trunk raised, bellowing loudly. Petra could just make out the others standing in a tight circle some distance back. The matriarch would protect them, Petra knew. As female Alpha, she thoroughly understood, but had no idea how to let them know she was no threat.

Running footsteps approaching from behind alerted her that she was out of time. She had to straighten out this situation in a hurry, before it turned into a nightmare they’d all regret. Only one notion came into her mind, and as the old matriarch tossed her huge head, bellowed and stepped forward, Petra fell to one knee, dropped her head, and released a long, commanding howl just as a large black wolf raced out of the woods followed by a slightly smaller gray one.

The howl had an immediate effect. Both wolves dropped to their bellies and crawled to where Petra stood. The black one laid a loving head across her foot.

“Love you,” she whispered as she reached down to give Raya a good ear scratch. He whined low in his throat and wagged his gorgeous, fluffy tail. A small yip reminded her that Itchiko was on her left: she gave him a fast stroke as well, still on her knee with her head bent.

When she dared look up through her curtain of hair, the matriarch had stopped and had a most un-elephant like confusion evident on her large face. She dropped her trunk, swung it back and forth, then slowly began to approach once more.

This time she came in utter silence, her entire large body, making an obvious attempt to look non-threatening. Her ears hung, relaxed, and Petra could swear the elephant’s knees were slightly bent to make her look smaller!

Then she was directly in front of Petra and the two wolves. Small, wise elephant eyes looked deeply into Petra’s, and she could have sworn the creature was searching her soul. Then she slowly raised that long trunk, extended it until it nearly touched Petra’s face. Not daring to move much, Petra dug her right hand into her fanny pack to extract the one thing she thought might work. It took some doing to open the pack of airplane peanuts with just one hand, but she managed.

She emptied a bunch into her hand, then slowly held it up towards that questing trunk.

WHUFF! It took all her nerves not to jump when her hand was suddenly empty, and the trunk was in its owner’s mouth. The matriarch made another noise, a different one. This was a pleasure moan.

Whatever it was, the tightly-knit circular knot of elephants not far behind the matriarch began to loosen, the herd of elephants back to browsing, leaving their formation. And as they did, Petra saw what it was they’d so fiercely protected. It wasn’t their young, as she’d thought.

It was a smaller elephant, but this one was different. Instead of being the customary dark gray, this fellow was pale gray, almost white. That told Petra all she needed to know. This was a white elephant, the real thing. Even now, white elephants were hunted world-wide for presentation to the current Burmese ruler. No one else was permitted to have them. No wonder the other elephants were protecting this rarity!

“Mariah! Where are you? You alright?” A woman’s voice floated to Petra.

Oh no, must be the woman who ran the place. If all that bellowing hadn’t awakened her, nothing would… and this wasn’t at all how Petra would choose to meet her new neighbors. Especially with two wolves at her side. She made a motion and they slunk back into the woods, but she herself had nowhere to go. She sighed.

And then the old matriarch did a remarkable thing: she stepped close enough to touch Petra, then turned until the woman was hidden behind her ample hip and back leg.

“There you are! Checking the fence?” Petra could hear the woman close by now, but not see her.

The matriarch, Mariah, rumbled a greeting deep in her throat and the woman laughed. “Don’t know why you girls woke me up, but you’re sure fine now. Whitey looks alright as well. Good girl! You keep an eye on Whitey. Bad people want her.”

With that, footsteps receded until Petra sensed she was once more alone with the old elephant. Hurriedly, she handed over the paltry few peanuts she had left, and was about to leave when Mariah presented her with her last surprise for the night.

The huge beast lowered herself to one knee and ducked her head right at Petra, precisely as Petra had done. A low whistle from the woods told her she wasn’t the only one witnessing this miracle.

Moving on sheer instinct, Petra rose to her feet and made ‘get up’ motions with both arms. Sure enough, the elephant rose, and for a moment they simply looked at each other. Something warm and familiar passed between the two females, then the matriarch turned and ambled away.

Petra stood watching until the large gray ass vanished into the night. As she entered the woods, a naked Raya fell into step with her. “Most unbelievable thing I ever witnessed from an elephant.”

“I’ve never been near one; it’s all new to me,” Petra confessed.

“You made quite the impression,” he said. “As you have a habit of doing. Damned if I know how!”

Chapter Five

Back in their room, the Alphas prepared for bed once more. “That does it,” Petra said. “I’m starving again.”

“So help me, you had dinner and ate enough for three. Itchiko went out and got you ice cream and Oreos, you had several apples and a banana about an hour ago – where are you putting it all?”

Petra was just about to make a wisecrack, but instead she suddenly farted loudly. Mortified, she blushed a bright scarlet – not something her mate saw often. “Excuse me, Raya.”

He grinned. “You think I don’t know that females fart too?”

“I don’t. Ever.”

“Not loudly, anyway – but I distinctly remember having to leave the room on several occasions.”

“RAYA!”

“Alright, alright. Come on, let’s go raid the fridge lest you let another one rip. Christos, what crawled up in you and died?” He bolted out of the covers and was through the door before she could reply.

“I’m pregnant,” she responded to the empty room. “Get used to it because I have a bad feeling it’s only going to get worse.” She hopped out of bed and slipped into her robe.

“Great,” came his voice from the hall. “That’s what I have to look forward to for the next months? I’ll invest in gas masks for the entire pack. Might permanently burn out our olfactory senses, and what good is a wolf with no nose?”

She walked out. “I didn’t know you’d hear that. And listen. What good is an Alpha with no balls?”

“You should know, you’ve had mine in your pocket for years.”

As they started down the stairs, Petra suddenly yelped and once again grabbed her belly.

“They kicking you again?”

“Not this time. Just a sudden, sharp pain; probably nothing,”  Petra said.

“You haven’t even  seen a doctor yet. I don’t like that.”

“Since when do we really need doctors? Besides, the pain is gone already,” she said in barely-disguised relief.

“Since we can, Petra. I’m booking you to Paris tomorrow while it’s still safe for you to fly. Let Doc give you a once-over and we’ll both be happy. I can’t go with you, but I’ll send some people. And just think of the baby shopping you could do!”

“Dirty pool,” she muttered, but had to smile. He knew what would work. She’d happily go now!

Raya wasn’t smiling. “This probably isn’t the best time for a pregnancy. An insane pack after us led by a powerful Nazi with several twisted doctors on board, and us with no mole in place. Instead, we have a couple of Samurais, two goddamn vampires, a scrawny medic and Hitler’s great-granddaughter, kidnapped beneath our noses! They want her back for good, that much I know.”

“Not going to keep her. She’s pack,” Petra said flatly. “And add to our pack list an Alpha female with no powers whatsoever.”

“We’ve had this discussion. All Weres have powers. Yours have yet to evince.”

“Yeah? Great. I’m what, 400-and-some-odd years old? What’s it going to take? I’d say I’ll be old and gray, but that won’t even happen.”

He looked away and she knew he was hiding a smile.

She had to grin herself. “Well, at least life’s never boring.”

Raya sighed. “Me, I could use a little boring. Especially with two pups involved – our pups, no less.”

“We’ll be fine,” Petra said with far more confidence than she felt. “They’ll be fine, too. You’ll see.”

***

“Been a long time, Petra and Raya,” Doc said as they walked into his examination room two days later, both with bad jet-lag.

“Should have been longer,” Petra grumbled. “I can’t believe I just flew to Europe because of a gas pain.”

Doc grinned. “We don’t know that for sure, and you’re carrying twin pups when most Weres have serious trouble carrying only one. You need to be twice as careful as any other pregnant Were.”

“You tell her, Doc. She sure isn’t listening to me,” Raya said, a smile twitching at the corners of his mouth.

“Just did. Right, Petra, assume the position.”

Shortly the uncomfortable exam was over and Petra sighed with relief. As she’d thought, all was well – but dang Raya for getting her scared!

To celebrate, Raya took her to an excellent restaurant just off the Champs Elysees. The road gleamed with lights as their limo drove slowly along. Petra leaned her head against Raya’s powerful shoulder, and her stomach growled loudly.

He laughed. “You really are hungry, aren’t you?”

“Almost all the time these days,” she responded with a sigh. It was true. It seemed that the minute she finished one meal, she was thinking about either the next or a snack. “I’m going to be the size of a blimp.”

“Your lard ass won’t even be able to catch an old, gray-haired blind rabbit with a bad leg.”

“Caught you, didn’t I?” she said as they walked into Les Lapins Rouges.

“You did,” he conceded.

Moments later she was groaning over the menu. “What would they think if I just ordered the whole damn thing?”

“Just remember, the French don’t do doggie bags.”

***

Later that evening they’d had plans to check out a hot new club, but Petra suddenly grew very ill. She and Raya were both convinced it was food poisoning as they shot back across town to Doc’s place. He examined her thoroughly and had to admit it was a mystery.

“It’s not food poisoning, not a virus. Honestly, Petra, once again, I can’t find a thing wrong with you,” Doc said.

“That’s a good thing though, right, Doc?” Raya asked.

“It is.”

They thanked him for meeting them so late and returned to the hotel.

“So much for going out,” Petra said. “I’m exhausted.”

“Me too.”

Petra stripped in seconds and prepared to slip into bed. She reached down to pull the sheet back, and that’s when she noticed it: a small, square envelope right on her pillow. What on earth? Maybe Raya had done something sweet, she thought as she slid in and snuggled next to him before opening the thing.

Right away, she knew Raya had never seen it. There was a large black swastika, and under it was a printed color photo of Raya.

“This picture could be on CNN with ‘Raya Lupeinescu: Werewolf!’ under it! I own you now, bitch. You’ll do what I want, when I want, or the whole world will know your man howls at the moon. Talk to you soon in person, believe that.”

What could that even mean? She’d been so violently ill earlier that all she could think about now was sleep. Perhaps Raya would know. She poked him and slid it under his nose.

“Son of a bitch! I need Itchiko right this moment.” His voice was rough with anger and frustration as he grabbed his phone and sent a text. “If I ever get hold of this bitch—”

“Not if I get her first, but what did that mean?” Petra’s eyelids were sagging as if weighted down by rocks.

“My best guess is that they’re after you. Seeing you in person.”

Her eyelids shot open. “No! No… Raya, I’m pregnant now. If I get hurt…” A low, vicious growl sounded deep in her throat. It didn’t come close to the one pouring out of Raya, though.

With a tremendous effort he quieted himself, hoping to have the same effect on his Alpha mate. She didn’t need this kind of stress right now. There was a quiet knock on their door and he rose to go admit Itchiko.

“What is it?” the slender Japanese asked.

Raya took a deep breath and exhaled slowly before explaining, yet his voice still shook with ever-increasing rage at this overt threat to his mate. They dared!

“Tomorrow I take Petra on a small trip,” Itchiko announced. “Nobody will know where we are.”

“And Shelley?” Petra asked.

“You will find her or she’ll come to you,” Itchiko said. “But right now there’s a direct threat to the pack Alpha. That takes precedence over all else. Petra, be up and packed by 6:00 AM.” He spun on his heel and left.

Only then did Petra realize that he hadn’t even informed Raya of their intended whereabouts.

He seemed to read her mind, as he so often did. “I don’t want to know unless something goes wrong. He’ll keep you safe and that’s all that matters.”

Sleep suddenly overcame Petra, and her last thought was that they’d be really safe, just the two of them. What on earth could happen?

Chapter Six

Petra barely awoke long enough the next morning to climb into a car she didn’t recognize. She nearly fell into the front seat and instantly was asleep again.

When she woke hours later, she immediately knew they were far from Paris. An exotic scent, a mixture of heavy dust and unfamiliar spices, filled the car. She yawned and peered out the window to see an unending expanse of desert stretching ahead of the vehicle. Still so tired she couldn’t think, Petra wondered if she’d slept so long they’d driven to Africa. “Where are we?” she asked past another enormous yawn.

“Spain,” Itchiko responded.

“C’mon, give. What part?”

“My lips are sealed.”

Incredibly, she fell asleep again and didn’t awaken until they arrived at a red-gabled house with the scent of the sea heavy in her nose.

There were bright red and yellow flowers in a thick hedge around the long, one-story house and Petra was enchanted. The door opened and two children flew out, followed by a small group of adults. Her nose told her what they were, and she relaxed. This must be Itchiko’s Spanish pack he spoke highly of so often. Yes, they’d be safe here.

As the Alpha female, Annamaria, introduced herself and the others, Petra eyed the house. The walls were nearly two feet thick and it felt cool inside, though she smelled no air conditioning. Just the sea. Goddess, this was heaven.

Her room couldn’t have been better if it had been constructed specifically for her. There was a large queen bed covered with a pale blue silk comforter, a wide cherry wardrobe for her clothing, fresh flowers on every surface and, best yet, a balcony hanging right over the sea. The door was open as thin curtains blew gently in the salt-scented breeze.

“Raya may kill me for this,” Itchiko said from the door.

She had to laugh. “He sure will, especially if that damn Iceland is in any way how I’m picturing it!”

“The views there are magnificent,” Itchiko said.

“Depends on how much you like views of a goddamn iceberg!”

On Saturday afternoon, Annamaria poked her head in. “You like to go to town for a bit? Itchiko’s charger died. He needs another one.”

“No thanks,” Petra said. “I am into a great thriller.”

’We’ll be back around four, see you then!” And she was gone. Moments later, Petra heard the heavy main door close.

She found the novel in her purse, stretched out on the bed and began to read.

For almost an hour the house was quiet. Nothing moved.

Then something peculiar. Petra raised her head and sniffed. “Something smells weird in here,” she said to the empty room. She lifted her head and sniffed deeply. Something about that smell was familiar… what was it?

The room began to slowly revolve around her, and a faint warning bell sounded deep inside. Wait, wait – she did know this scent. She’d smelled it several times when she’d been in the hospital – goddess. Help! Help!

But she wasn’t yelling, wasn’t even speaking. And in another moment, she wasn’t awake.

***

Around 4:15, Annamaria and Itchiko approached her front door. Annamaria made to enter first, but Itchiko slipped in front of her and said, “Wait. Something’s wrong.”

Annamaria froze, lifted her head and sniffed. “Damn. You’re right. What’s that medicinal stench?”

“I’m afraid it’s chloroform,” Itchiko said grimly. “Let’s get inside, then you change. Right?”

“Understood.” The Alpha Were replied, all business now.

Itchiko opened the door soundlessly and stepped in, Annamaria on his heels. He heard her clothing move as she slipped out of it. After a few moments, a warm presence pressed against his leg. His eyes continually scanning the house in all directions, he headed for the stairs.

As he reached the landing, Annamaria slipped past him to Petra’s door and poked her long nose under it. After a long moment, she looked up and shook her head, eyes sad.

“Not there, is she?” Itchiko said. It wasn’t a question. She didn’t bother to answer, only moved back so he could open the door.

The curtains and the balcony door were wide open, Itchiko noticed as Annamaria shot past him to the balcony, leaped over the railing to the beach, and began tracking Petra. Itchiko noticed the instant her tail went up: she had the scent. But then her tail drooped as she turned and headed directly toward the ocean. At the waterline, she stopped and stared out to sea. Itchiko caught up to her.

“Well, that’s not good. Nothing else we can do. I’m going to call Raya.”

Annamaria whined in her throat and went to her belly.

“My feelings exactly, but it has to be done.”

Annamaria yipped and cocked her head toward the house.

“Go on and change. I’ll be in shortly.” He needed to make a call before contacting Raya, one best made in private. It hadn’t escaped him that the only people who knew Petra and his whereabouts were the Spanish pack, led by Annamaria’s Alpha mate. And amazingly, their own Alpha had been taken almost the instant she was first alone. No way around it. Annamaria had participated in the snatch and was likely working with the RP.

He shook his head. More than two centuries, he’d known Pack Estradita. Annamaria’s mate, Tonio Estradita, had saved Itchiko’s life once. He owed the Were a debt, and that was the sole reason he hadn’t ripped into the female Alpha at once, demanded to know what she knew.

That, and the almost sure knowledge that she knew nothing. He’d find out, at any rate, he thought as he called one of Pack Lupeinescu’s sources, a detective with Interpol.

***

Contacting Raya was as bad as they’d thought. Having changed back, Annamaria sat on the couch next to Itchiko while he grimaced and held the phone well away from his ear. He thought perhaps the people strolling on the beach would have no trouble hearing Raya either, not that he could blame his Alpha. On the contrary, he felt much the same.

“… I’ll rent a jet and be there by morning,” Raya was saying. “Wherever the hell ‘here’ is. Where are you?”

“Spain, and hold on. I do have some news: she’s far from Spain by now. Spoke to a guy here, seems that one town over some guy flew his dead sister, in a coffin, to Paris. Guy had no sisters! I’ll bet anything that was Petra.” Raya agreed. Fortuitous indeed. Itchiko went on to say he was returning to Paris immediately, and to his relief, Raya agreed to meet him there before taking any steps on his own.

They hung up. Itchiko was standing at the large back window, staring out at the sea. Annamaria was seated behind him. For a while, he didn’t move, lost in his thoughts. It was almost incomprehensible that Annamaria had done what she obviously had, and Itchiko’s mind couldn’t fathom why she and her pack had gone along with the RP. They’d had to know he’d figure it out. The more he thought about it, the more puzzled and angry he grew. He kept his face turned away toward the sea until the silence and the growing tension were nearly unbearable.

Then he swung around and faced her, keeping his own face unreadable. She knew, though; how could she not? She blushed to the roots of her hair and turned away from him. If she’d announced her guilt over a loudspeaker, it couldn’t be any more blatant. He saw resignation and something else on her dark, slender face.

“Alright, Annamaria,” Itchiko finally began. “I need –”

“Itchiko,” she broke in. She said nothing else, just held her left hand up and pointed at her wedding band. Then she moved both hands around the room, palms up, and finally shrugged, fighting back tears.

Itchiko understood immediately. The ring, her wedding band, stood for her mate. His guess would be that the Alpha had been taken or threatened. Either way, Annamaria had done what she thought she had to, to protect her Alpha. To be sure, he picked up a wedding photo, pointed at her husband, then shrugged. To his surprise, she shook her head.

“When you guys arrived, did you notice anything different?” She asked.

He thought back to what he’d seen. The children, several pack members. But wait. Not everybody. No, not all of them. His stomach shrunk. How long had it been since he’d seen this pack? Ten years at least.

“Where is she?” he asked now, dreading the response.

Annamaria’s eyes filled, though they remained directly on his. “We buried her seven months ago.”

Itchiko’s eyes closed briefly as he took that in. Never to see Estrella again, hear that laugh. A small corner of his heart shattered, the corner she’d occupied since they’d dated long before he’d married Chizuko.

As he opened his mouth to ask another question, Annamaria reached out, tapped him, pointed to her ear and the wall. He gave a nod of understanding and rephrased his original thought. “Really sorry to hear that. Just about the worst possible loss.”

She shook her head, confusing Itchiko. “Sun is about to set. Want to walk down to the shore and catch it? Maybe have a drink?”

“Sure,” he said, following her as she headed for the front door. Once outside, she wasted no time.

“They used her death as a warning, Itchiko. At her funeral, I was given a note that my Alpha would be next if we didn’t do the RP –  Pack Bishara – a favor when asked.”

“Patient bastards,” Itchiko said. He could have said more, but what good would it do? A threat to a pack’s Alpha was about the most serious situation there was.

Did it override allowing harm to come a friendly pack’s Alpha, one who’d done nothing but support your pack?

“They’ve done the same with every pack I know, all across Europe and into China,” she said, breaking into his thoughts.

Itchiko’s mind flashed to Petra’s phone call from Paris, the envelope with the threat. They’d definitely tried it on with Pack Lupeinescu as well.

 “Why do they want to control all the Weres?” he wondered out loud. “Raya does a good job. It isn’t like his Trans Alpha status makes him wealthy.”

“He has a lot of power. He asks and it’s done, no questions.”

“Only because he rarely asks, and then for good reason. Can’t be that…” He was lost in thought for a few moments. “Well, we know why Hitler wanted that power.”

“New world order, that crap,” Annamaria said.

“What if Ilse wants the same thing? Except Aryans aren’t the superior race.”

Her face paled. “Gods. Weres would be.”

“Have we gone completely crazy?” Itchiko had to ask Annamaria. “We’re certainly heading in a direction of total madness, to even suggest someone is literally trying to rule the world. How would that be possible?”

“They’d need another Hitler, someone that charismatic, that mesmerizing. I believe if Ilse or Eva had ranked, one of them could have served. Now they require someone charismatic, Type A with a driven personality.”

“You could be right, Anna. You’ve always had that political  brain, something I lack.” He paused, then said with sincerity, “ I sure have missed you.”

“And look what I do to you when finally we see each other again,” she said, self-loathing thick in her voice.

“Not your fault,” he hurried to reassure his old friend. “You’ve more than made up for it, too.”

“I haven’t done a damn thing but sniff sand,” she said miserably. “But I want to be involved in the hunt for your Alpha bitch. I have to be.”

***

Petra awoke to a blinding headache and the smell of dirt surrounding her, the first indication that she wasn’t at the hotel or home. She groaned in pain, seeing little flashes of light in the stygian darkness with every heartbeat. It had been centuries since she’d had migraines, and back then they’d only been called bad headaches. She remembered what the court physicians had taught her to do, the breathing exercises to lower her heart rate and lessen the pounding that seemed to be a major cause of pain. Taking in her first deep breath, she began the exercise for the first time in 400 years…

And it helped. The worst of the pain subsided, leaving her able to think. First, she needed to establish where she was, and if Shelley was here somewhere as well. She was lying on fresh dirt, by the not-unpleasant smell and feel of it. But no matter how far she stretched, she felt no walls in any direction. It was a secret relief, as she’d been afraid her worst nightmare had become real and she’d been buried alive.

“Shelley,” she called in a loud whisper. No response. She tried several more times, but had the feeling she was completely alone.

The fourth time she called for Shelley, she yelled as loudly as possible. Almost immediately a harsh whisper came from her left. “Shut up already! Get us all in trouble. She ain’t here, whoever she is.”

“Who are you?” Petra whispered back.

“Doesn’t matter. Just keep your mouth shut, do what you’re told.” The voice became bitter. “Easy enough.”

“What are they doing up there? Smells like a hospital,” she whispered.

There was a pause. “You don’t want to know and pray you don’t learn, whoever you are. Now shut the hell UP.”

Try as she might, there were no more responses.

Laying in the dark for unknown hours or days was a special torture in itself. Various noises filtered down, meant to further confuse prisoners.

Screams, objects hitting so hard the walls would shake, sporadic gun shots. Close her eyes for 10 minutes in complete exhaustion and something would jerk her awake, terrified. Even with the self-control of a mature Were, she was getting steadily more jumpy and nervous as adrenaline pumped into her system with no physical outlet.

Her hole was too small for her to stand, and she couldn’t have taken one full step in any direction if it hadn’t been.

After an unknown amount of time that felt like several days, there was a loud scraping noise and light flooded the hole, blinding her instantly.

“Petra! How wonderful to see you again. Not so wonderful to smell you, of course.” Ilse’s voice was bright and cheerful, with an undertone of gleeful malice that made Petra’s gut sink. She had a feeling that very shortly she’d be wishing she were bored again.

She was starving, but the thirst was the most awful. With no idea how long she’d been in this place, she couldn’t figure out when she’d last had liquid. Three days without and the body starts to shut down; that much she knew and dreaded.

As if she’d read her mind, Ilse said, “Want to come up and have a drink like civilized people? We’ll have a little chat, too. Suit you?”

“Absolutely,” Petra replied. A ladder was extended. With a small leap, she made the first rung and then was horrified at her utter weakness as she tried to scale the next few.

“Tsk, tsk, tsk. Must stay in shape during your pregnancy. Our births are difficult enough! We must give our pups every possible opportunity to be born healthy.” For once, the Were sounded very serious. It almost gave Petra the tiniest ray of hope, but even that would be shattered in the next few moments.

A loud scream came from somewhere above, and she shuddered. The other Were caught the small movement. “Listening to our other guests? Don’t you worry for a small second! We’d never hurt a pregnant Were in such a way. Do you have any idea how delightfully expensive those pups of yours will be? My goodness. I’ll make a fortune off each one. Behave, and I’ll see you get a taste.” She grinned. “We have several months before we can even begin to advertise, though.”

Because most pups weren’t born alive, she didn’t add. She didn’t have to. Each Were mother was well aware of the dreadful birth statistics; each knew her case would be different.

“We have some rather unconventional doctors on staff,” the Were continued. “You’re bound to find their treatment plans… interesting, to say the least. Oh, I’m being rude. Care for a drink?” She passed Petra an unopened water bottle.

Without a second thought, she ripped it open and drank half the bottle in two enormous swallows. Ilse laughed hard as she reached over with a bucket just as the liquid came spewing back up again: salt water.

Lesson learned, Petra thought. Won’t happen again. Now she struggled to keep her face absolutely neutral, although the thirst had gone from pretty dang bad to a need beyond compare. Ilse would never know, though. Not if Petra could help it.

“My, my, my. Aren’t we strong and stoic. Quite admirable, Petra. One wonders how you’ll react to some of the treatments due to come your way.”

Petra’s eyes rolled before she could stop them. Her reward was the rest of the salt water thrown directly into her eyes. They burned as if they were on fire. She clamped them shut just before she felt a high-heeled shoe connect with her leg and send her flying down into the hole. She just managed to catch herself on the edge and climb down the rest of the way.

“Oops! Little out of control there. Sleep well, Alpha. Your doctor appointments begin tomorrow.” The seal slid closed, and once more Petra was in the dark. What’s worse, she was positively overjoyed about it.

If only she hadn’t been the only werewolf to be born powerless, she thought for the millionth time. Any power at all would be a tremendous help to get her out of here: flying, vanishing, morphing… anything. But she had nothing.

Many centuries ago, Clarissa had worked with her for several years. “You must let that wall down,  Petra. Nothing can get in, but nothing can get out either, do you see? You must allow yourself to be vulnerable from time to time!”

Petra had set her jaw. “That’s not something I ever intend to do. Surely there’s a way to induce powers into evincing?”

“That’s it,” the older Were had said with regret. “You must open yourself, drop those walls. Also, it’ll help you in any future relationship, too.”

“I’m not leaving myself open and vulnerable for anybody or anything! I’ve gone that route and the price is way too stiff.”

Now she wasn’t sure she could even open herself if she wanted to, after more than 800 years of keeping her thoughts and emotions clamped closed. But if ever she was going to make an effort, it would be now.

She concentrated on clearing her mind as Clarissa had instructed her. The intermittent screams and thumps made that impossible, so she tried another angle, deep breathing. She succeeded in putting herself to sleep.

Never going to work, she thought in despair. Never.

Chapter Seven

That four of the premiere – and perhaps only – werewolf doctors were within mere feet of Shelley’s bed didn’t comfort Ilse at all, for not one of them had come up with any diagnosis except the catchall, “It must have been a panic attack.”

“How could that be,” Ilse all but spat. “She vas shaking so hard I heard her knees knocking together! And then she fainted.”

“Has she been under great stress, such as the loss of a parent?” the lead doctor asked.

“Yes, two years ago, she lost her mom,” Ilse said.

“She’s but a pup. Twelve years old. Hormones just starting to kick in – has she had her period yet?” the doctor asked.

“No, she hasn’t. But what does that have to do with—”

“Hormones can build up in their bodies if something like a great shock delays menstrual onset,” the doctor explained. “Any emotion is magnified, so panic attacks are not uncommon. As she isn’t fully human and medicine hasn’t thoroughly studied the werewolf physiology or brain yet, we don’t know what constitutes a Were panic attack. Perhaps this shaking is common to the Bishara Pack. Has this happened to her before?”

“Not that I know of. Shelley, Chickadee, can you speak? Has this ever happened before?”

“I don’t think so,” came the tiny voice. “I’ve gotten pretty upset, but never like this.”

“One-off thing then,” the doctor said. “Loss of a parent, hormones… it built to this one episode.”

“As long as you don’t consider it terribly harmful,” Ilse said.

“I think not.” His voice rang with confidence and for the first time in hours, Ilse felt herself relax.

“If it happens again, give her half of a Klonopin. That will set her right.”

“If it doesn’t work, I’m not going to be happy,” Ilse warned him.

He understood and instantly paled. “Dr. Ilse, I assure you this method is valid.”

“Good. Out! All of you, out,” she commanded. The four men left at speed.

She turned to Shelley’s bed. The girl was so slender she barely made a bump under the covers. Only her pale blonde head lay on a pillow, blue-veined eyes closed.

“Shelley, Chickadee, how do you feel?” Ilse asked, an unfamiliar anxiety rising in her chest.

“Better,” came her small voice. “Sorry, Aunt Ilse. I don’t know what happened.”

Ilse sighed. “I was going to take you up and show you something beautiful, but I think for today you do the bed rest. Would you like to see more of your mama’s past?”

“Yes,” Shelley said. “I am learning so much about her.”

Ilse leaned over to retrieve the photo album. “Here is a picture of the Berghof, the mansion Hitler owned in the Bavarian Alps, far from everything. So luxurious, we had never seen anything like it. I don’t want to upset you, but he kept your mama far away from his… doings. She enjoyed his position, hers as hostess of his enormous parties. She didn’t know much about what he really did, Chickadee.”

Shelley gulped. “I don’t know, Aunt. Don’t see how she couldn’t have known.”

“Some people know what they want to,” Ilse said, an unfamiliar sorrow in her voice. She wasn’t referring to Eva’s willful ignorance of Hitler’s activities, as she was sure that Shelley thought she was.

On the contrary, she was thinking about how brilliant, innovative and far ahead of his own time Hitler had been. And how utterly misunderstood by the rest of the world, who had never seen his genius. Ilse well remembered his confusion and heartache when the one person he cared about most tried to kill herself – twice.

Yet he saw perfection in Eva, the beauty who worshipped him, when her sister saw him for what he really was. She and Hitler had talked all night so many times. The only time they’d disagreed was when Ilse tried to talk him into having a child. The world needed his blood. If only they’d had longer, Ilse would have… Not worth thinking about.

***

“Oh-em-gee! Is that you, Aunt?” Finally, Shelley felt better and was actually smiling.

“Vat is ‘Oh-em-gee’?” Ilse asked, confused.

Shelley stifled a giggle. “It means ‘Oh My God,’ Aunt. Everybody types ‘Oh-em-gee’ so people just say that now! So do tell, who is that hunk kissing you in the woods?” It was hard to imagine her aunt being sexy. No, wait. It was impossible!

Ilse looked at the picture and her eyes narrowed in what looked like pure fury, but her face went back to its normal expression so rapidly that Shelley wasn’t sure what she’d seen.

“I didn’t know that was there. Not me who put! Eva! She must have kept all these years. Just a man I saw once or twice.”

“I might be young, Aunt, but you’re sure doing a lot more than ‘seeing’ in that picture!” Shelley snorted.

“That’s enough,” Ilse said in that unfamiliar, harsh voice.

Shelley lost her smile and slumped. “Aunt, when can I go home? I miss Petra.”

“Is not your home! This is your home! With your Mama gone, you are now to be mine!” Ilse’s face was red, eyes glowing with some emotion Shelley didn’t understand. She did understand one thing: this wasn’t the Ilse she’d known when Mama was alive. Something had changed her… and now she was scary.

Really scary, and Shelley was stuck here.

Chapter Eight

Petra doggedly repeated her breathing exercises, focused on opening herself, flatly refusing to give up until she got that damn power. It was quite likely that a power of some sort would be her – and possibly Shelley’s – only escape from this place. She tried to remember more of what Clarissa had drummed into her. Powers came with guides, as she recalled. Spirit guides would train Weres in the use of their new power.

Maybe she should try contacting this guide first. What had Clarissa said about allowing a guide in? “View a tightly-closed lotus bud in your mind’s eye. Now, a stream of white light hits the top of the bud directly, and one single petal unfurls. Before it’s all the way open, several more have begun the process – see this flower, Petra. Concentrate all of your will on it. When you succeed in opening it, you’ll have also opened that wall of yours and your guide can then get to you.”

Petra lay back on the dirt floor and brought a perfectly-shaped lotus blossom into her mind’s eye. Creamy white, the petals were tightly furled. She brought a stream of white light into the scene and watched it hit the tops of the closed petals, then run down the sides. Nothing happened.

She widened the swath of white light pouring down, and now it covered the entire top of the closed blossom in pure, white warmth. Breathing deeply and evenly, she watched as the light poured down the sides of the bud until it reached the dark green base. She began to feel uneasy. Something was different. It was sort of a naked, unprotected feeling. Was this what it felt like to let her wall down?

And just like that, she felt a distinct click – she was no longer alone in her own mind.

The feeling was alarming, disconcerting. It was all she could do to not slam that bud close again, but she persevered, then asked in her head, “Hey. Anyone here?”

Of course she didn’t expect an answer. A low male voice responded, “Of course. I’ve been here all along.”

The shock was so intense that she jumped as if it had been from a Taser. “If you’re my guide, what power do I have, then? Or none at all? I can take it, believe me.”

A soft laugh. “None at all, indeed. An Alpha with a mind like yours? It’s remarkable you’ve avoided your own power for so very long. After all, you are a very, very rare Morpheus Wolf.”

“Ah, my power involves a lot of sleeping? Dreaming maybe?” She was bewildered. Maybe she could dream the future? That would be more useless than tits on a bull, and just her luck.

She had the distinct impression that the new being who resided in her mind was grinning widely. “No, although if sleeping was a power, you’d be king. No, ‘morph’ the verb, as in ‘change into’ or ‘become.’ Do you see?”

She gasped. “You can’t mean… I’ve never heard of a Were who can actually shape-shift, if that’s what you’re referring to.”

“It’s been a millennium since there’s been a Morpheus Were. You are the first in all that time. Might I suggest you make use of it and extricate yourself from this mess?”

“There’s no door, I checked. Can’t reach the ceiling if one is up there,” she said.

“Haven’t really searched your total environment, have you then?”

“Yes! I just told—” No. The floor. She knelt, began crawling in careful strips wall to wall. As her knees passed over a new section, the sound was different. Sort of hollow. She stopped, felt the entire area carefully with both hands until she encountered what felt a very narrow crack. Running her hand along it, she discovered it ran roughly 2 square meters. Plenty large to crawl through, except there was no way to open it.

Nothing except that crack, and although she’d always been thin, she wasn’t–

But she could be, she marveled. If she could figure out this morphing business, she could turn into an ant! How hard could it be? Filled with confidence, she pictured an ant and concentrated on it. Nothing happened. She tried again, and again. Finally, she asked her guide for help, still in disbelief that another being was inhabiting her head.

“You must be the ant, not see the ant,” came the very irritating answer. Great. A philosophical guide! No such luck as “Cough three times and say abracadabra backwards twice.”

She scolded herself and determined to try being an ant. Closing her eyes, she imagined herself in front of Heureuse as an ant. How enormous their front step would be: like a several-hundred story wall. And her legs, all six of them, moving her long body over the ground. Belly scraping the dirt, almost. A cigarette butt would look like a car, probably. Suddenly the hole filled with light: Ilse was back. The ladder extended, Petra climbed it. Might as well get this over with.

This time, Ilse took her out of the office cube and down a long hall with many cubes on each side. Far above was a tin warehouse roof. Most of the cubes they passed looked like exam rooms, or even operating rooms. Petra grew more nervous with every step.

They reached a back wall with a small door. Ilse produced a keycard, ran it over the lit square and the door clicked open. The stench that hit Petra in the face was – well, no describing the awfulness. Death. Intestines, old blood, and fear. So much fear, the air was thick with it and Petra was certain the walls were permanently drenched in it. Dimly-lit stairs led down, and the deeper they went, the richer, the more dreadful that stench. Screams were regular, here – not just sporadic. Other noises assaulted her as well, including wailing, sobbing, vomiting, cursing in different languages and more screams.

Petra’s heart was racing as she was led into a stark white room with tiles on walls and floors, and worst of all, a small drain in the center of the floor.  Several thick chains hung from a false ceiling.

A gray-bearded, bent over doctor entered. Ilse greeted him with delight, but didn’t bother introducing him to Petra. He had an old brown leather bag, from which he began pulling out assorted implements and putting them on a none-too-clean tray atop a table. Petra simply stood and watched, eyes widening only which she recognized a whip with a very long thin strip of leather.

He pressed a button and two young, muscular guys dressed in white with assorted blotches of blood on their jackets walked in and simply stood, waiting.

“Miz Ilse, do you require information or is this a softening session?” the elderly doctor asked her.

“Klaus, I believe we’ll require several softening sessions with this candidate.” He nodded, scribbled on his paper. “That said, she’s a splendid specimen! Were for nearly a thousand years.”

The doctor said something rapidly to the two younger guys in a language Petra didn’t understand. One guy asked a question.

“Armpits, I believe. Subject is pregnant,” the doctor responded.

Before Petra could think about moving, the two husky young guys had her firmly by the shoulders and carried her to the center of the room. They expertly wrapped her into a sort of leather shirt with large buckles and belts hanging here and there. One tugged on the chains and clipped each to a buckle under her armpit, and suddenly she was hoisted about 6 feet in the air: her feet were level with the younger guys’ heads.

Suddenly something whistled through the air right next to her ear and then a sharp crack! made her jump, and there was the old doctor expertly wielding the whip.

“We begin,” he said, and instantly there was another crack, followed by a sudden pain in the sole of her right foot so incredibly bad that it felt like a knife had been sunk in to its hilt. That crack sounded nine more times. Five per foot, or that’s what Petra later guessed, as she’d lost consciousness after the fifth one.

Chapter Nine

Crack! Ilse’s hand flashed out and hit Shelley hard on the cheek. The girl froze, eyes opened so wide she looked like a frog. How dare she!

After all Ilse had done for her, was doing. Didn’t matter that the girl had no idea… she’d learn soon enough. Until then, she was feeding the child, had had to hire a chef! Buy a television, get the old warehouse wired for cable. The list went on and on. It had taken weeks of preparation, and this was her thanks? She had to restrain herself from smacking the girl again.

Thanks to Eva and her soft ways, the girl had never been even smacked. Ilse remembered their mother. Mein Gott, if she’d said things to their mother, she’d be lacking her entire head. Yet this child can’t take a slight smack? How had Eva ever punished her? Or was she spoiled beyond belief? That idea made Ilse’s stomach shrink. Dealing with a spoiled brat hadn’t been the plan at all.

It would take quite a while to teach her how to behave properly. Fine, she’d start now.

“I do not know how Eva raised you as I only saw you every now and then, but you exist in a real Were pack now. I’m Alpha. In case you don’t know what that means, whatever I say goes. Got that?”

Shelley nodded, speechless and pale, eyes brimming.

Ilse was more disgusted. Gott, she was soft, this child of her own blood. How could this be? Eva’s blood, of course. Eva, who’d been spoiled her entire life because she happened to be born with long blonde hair and enormous blue eyes, like the perfect Aryan princess.

Even Hitler had spoiled her. That house in Arizona he’d bought near the end of the war, when it was obvious they were losing… and the trip they’d taken to the States to see it, and do a fast tour, just the three of them, Hitler in an absurd costume.

She smiled at that memory, but then the rest of the trip rose in her mind like rank bubbles in a swamp and her smile sunk as fast as one of those bubbled popped.

They’d spent a week in that beautiful, long house in the desert with its foot-thick walls and the odd cactus everywhere. Hitler and Eva had been like young teens, eating dinner, then disappearing into their room early. Leaving Ilse alone with the bodyguards, 25 miles from the nearest town.

She’d taken long walks in the desert every night, and actually enjoyed it, but was glad when Hitler announced they were headed to New Orleans to visit a friend.

New Orleans was simply beautiful. She’d adored the French Quarter with its wonderful food, Bourbon Street with that jazz music. But the third night was a full moon, which coincided with her heat: a very rare state for a Were.

And a possibly dangerous one.

Hitler was by then aware of what the two women were, but he didn’t understand such things. He was obedient to Eva’s every wish, though, so he arranged a boat and took both women far out into the swamp. Ilse had jumped off into some inviting jungle, and said she’d meet them at that place in the morning.

She changed before he even started the boat, and let a long, mournful, totally sexy howl. “Goddamn! Never heard anything like that before. Do you do the same thing?” Hitler asked Eva.

“Sometimes,” Ilse heard her answer coyly. Then Eva had howled, her own happy and horny owl. The engine had been turned back off then, but Ilse never knew what happened as she had darted into the jungle, tail up in an inviting flag.

If there was a Were within 10 miles, she’d be in luck. The chances were slim to none, though, and the best Ilse could hope for would be a nice, fat buck.

No sooner had she thought of the creature then she smelled it! A faint trace, but a deer all the same. Elated, she lowered her head to the marsh and followed the trail as best she could. She’d never hunted through water before.

Finally, she drew close, crawling on her belly in water that lapped at that belly. It felt disgusting, but the buck wasn’t twenty feet away!

Ilse took a deep breath and prepare to leap out, but to her utter shock something blew right past her. In front of her eyes, a coal-black wolf tore out that buck’s neck and began chomping away.

For a split second, she was absolutely furious. He’d taken her – wait a moment! A male Were! Her tail shot straight up in the air, and she pranced out from behind the cypress roots. How he’d missed her howl she’d never know, but he’d never miss this.

The wind was in her face so she knew she could pull off the surprise she had in mind. This black wolf would never be the same.

She eased around the back of the downed buck until the other wolf’s nose was within leaping distance, buried as it was in the buck’s belly.

She took the leap, landed neatly right in front of that nose and gave him a good squirt right in it. Letting loose a triumphant, horny, I’m-an-Alpha-come-fuck-me howl, Ilse tore out of the clearing like her tail was on fire.

She wasn’t alone.

A thoroughly male, thoroughly Alpha howl sounded from right behind her.

Ilse’s ears snapped up in surprise. An Alpha male in the middle of nowhere? This was more luck than any bitch should ever have! She put on a burst of speed, but it was too late. A large weight landed on her back, and fangs embedded in her neck with an accompanying demanding growl.

She obeyed, but she did it her way. She came to a dead halt and the Alpha nearly went flying off. Inside, she was giggling, but then he clasped her tightly, rammed himself deeply inside her, and both wolves erupted into howls.

Sex! Finally! And oh what sex it was – they changed, he rolled her onto her belly and slid inside her so deeply she moaned with the pleasure of it.

It had been far too long; the male sensed it, how could he not? It drove him yet madder with lust, as she was so very tight. They changed once more, he sank his teeth into her shoulder and both wolves howled the triumphant Alpha mating call as he poured himself into her and she convulsed around him. Other howls sounded in the distance, but Ilse could care less.

They changed again, and Ilse found herself laying atop one gorgeous, dark-haired male who was grinning at her. “Been a while, lady Alpha?”

“Has indeed. But not anymore!” She was so relaxed, she could have spent a week in that damp, marshy grass but he was already coming to his feet.

“It’s been a joy, but I have to get home. See you again one of these days,” he said with a wink. Then he changed, took off into the woods and she was alone with a fresh deer carcass! Life wasn’t all bad.

And it got better. Her heat lasted another week and every night she ran into the swamp, played chase with that huge black wolf, and got gloriously caught. She was so curious. Who was he? In the manner of all Weres, it didn’t matter who he was. This was female Alpha heat sex. Any male within distance was obliged to see to her needs. Any such male was all too delighted to comply, whether they had a mate or no. Mates understood, being female Alphas themselves. It would happen to them too, if it hadn’t already.

All told, Ilse was miserable eating at a lovely restaurant on their last night in New Orleans. Early tomorrow they’d fly home.

Eva gently prodded her to ask why she was unhappy, and she mumbled she’d had enough of travel and wanted to get home.

“Or was it this?” Eva presented her sister with a slightly-fuzzy photo of that male in profile as they kissed deeply. Furious at first, Ilse impulsively hugged her sister tightly. “Thank you, Eva. Even if I never see him again, but I’ll have this.”

“You’re not seeing him again?” Eva asked, concern in her voice.

“Well, I did invite him to Germany…” She grinned.

Eva brightened. “Of course he’ll come visit! Oh finally, a good Alpha Were for you. Would you consider moving to New Orleans?”

Ilse thought about it. Lovely city, probably a large pack. All she’d ever wanted. She closed her eyes in pure bliss, leaned her head back in her chair.

“Oh shit,” Eva whispered, tension in her voice.

The language was so unexpected that Ilse’s eyes snapped open as she sat straight up – and found herself eye to eye with Michael, who was grinning at her. Michael and the spectacularly beautiful, dark-haired Alpha female he had his arm wrapped tightly around. The Were was smiling faintly at Ilse, who felt that the female was mocking her. Her muscles tightened just as she felt a sharp kick from Eva’s high-heeled boot. She subsided; they weren’t in their own pack.

The couple passed her table without a word as was customary. The sex had been just that to the male. Sometimes it worked out differently, but not this time.

“I’m sorry, Aunt Ilse,” a small voice broke into her thoughts.

Ilse sighed. “Is me who is sorry. I turned anger on you wrongly. You must obey, but you are new; how should you know?” She slapped the album closed and stalked out of the room, her mind back in the present.

Or only back two years, when she’d seen that black wolf and his alpha for the first time, and learned their names.

Raya and Petra from Pack Lupeinescu.

Chapter Ten

Petra hurt in places she hadn’t known existed. The German doctor, a Were whose twisted medical theories had found a home with Hitler, was absolutely inspired when it came to causing pain without harm to a pregnant woman. Her feet had been the sole conventional torture the man had employed.

In a variation of Chinese water torture, he’d had Petra lay prone while water dripped first onto one open eye, then the other – salt water, of course. He enjoyed finding different uses for salt water.

One of his favorites was “Tic Tac D’oh!” He’d made crosshatched, very shallow wounds with a razor, onto which he’d pour salt water or alcohol.

For Petra, the worst was the truly nasty drug he’d invented that caused intense nausea for hours. No vomiting, but she sure wished she could.

With this in mind, she worked non-stop to learn how to morph. A couple of times she thought she’d been close, but in the end, her efforts all failed. She came to believe that her guide was wishing he’d never had her as an assignment! He answered every question, but many times his responses were less than helpful.

Finally, she thought to ask, “How do I learn to morph?”

He responded that she must put herself inside the desired creature by concentrating on every physical facet. She could have sworn that’s what she’d been doing, but she was determined to try again. This time, she’d close her eyes and try to see and feel as the critter would.

As an ant, a cigarette butt would appear to be the size of a bus. She imagined looking up at it, then walking to it on her eight legs. That caught her imagination. How did one work eight legs? Did the two front move at the same time? She wiggled them experimentally and froze.

She had eight legs… all attached to her belly! The dirt now appeared to be boulders… Petra had, finally, morphed. The joy! She scrambled over the boulders, delighted by her sheer speed until she realized she had no idea where that crack was, and it could be a good distance away. This morphing took some thought. Next time she’d be sure to morph closer to where she needed to be.

The dirt was now a rocky landscape, but those legs propelled her briskly over even large ones. This ant thing is fun, she thought. Wait until Raya heard. And then she stumbled over the edge of a gaping crevasse, jumping back at the last moment. Hell of a note to take a serious fall and die.

She made it through, though, and found herself clinging with her claws to an enormous pole. The light was better on this side of the door. Looking around, she saw train tracks below as she’d figured. But then the pole, the sides of a ladder, began to vibrate faster and faster until it felt like a massive earthquake, and a hot wind smacked her so hard it nearly blew her off that pole. Man, this could be dangerous. She needed to get the hell off this ladder and onto terra firma.

Stopping for every train, she seemed to crawl down for hours but finally she was by the side of the tracks. About to morph to her own form, she realized she’d be stark naked – not the best idea in the French underground, well known for a colony of sometimes vicious bums. No, she’d go for a dog. Something known to be nasty: nobody would attempt to touch her then.

It was different from the ant, she soon discovered. She concentrated on everything from the Doberman’s dark eyes to her cocked ears: she even barked, then had a thought that normally would have come from Raya. If she did bark as an ant, would that make her barking mad? She laughed, and wondered what the other ants thought about that as all of her legs were shaking with mirth.

Enough. Raya would be worried sick. Morph into the dog and let’s go… again, easier said than done. She called on her guide again. This time he was hesitant.

“Petronilla, you’re lacking something when you put your power to use.” Then the voice went silent.

“Guide? You still there? While you’re at it, can I address you as anything but ‘you’ or ‘guide’?”

“I am always here, and you can call me Max. Regarding your power, you can’t just use it as if you were plugging in a toaster. Power must rise: you must call it up. You were concentrated for so long before that you called it unknowingly. My fault. I should have mentioned this before.”

“How do I call my power?”

“Try visualizing an empty bowl. The more you concentrate, the more the water level rises. At the start, there’s just a puddle. You call your power by visualizing the white light streaming into your third eye, both of your hands. You’ll fill with power as the bowl does with water. When you have sufficient power, that is the time to morph.”

She sighed. “Everyone else uses theirs on the spot without all this hocus-pocus.”

“As will you once you learn the knack.”

The enormous steel rail nearby began to tremble, the earth with it. A train was coming. Might as well call her power now. When the train was past, she’d try morphing.

She pictured a waterfall of pure while light streaming into her head, her hands. Kept that image in her mind and concentrated on it. Within moments, her skin began to tingle (if ants had skin). She resolutely grabbed the white light image and forced herself to focus.

A truly odd feeling came over her. It felt as though she were tingling from a massive amount of energy in the air, as if lightning had struck nearby. Maintaining her focus, she slowly stepped backward until her ant-butt was touching the wall. Morph into a Doberman and get flattened by a train? Not today.

But now her entire body was vibrating from the light. She brought the Doberman into her mind, then slipped his sleek skin over her own. Long, dark legs. Liquid eyes. Unclipped ears that went easily back, and that cocked forward to hear noises like the approaching footsteps. She was suddenly Doberman, and completely exhausted from the huge effort. She sat, then slipped onto her side and lay panting until approaching footsteps alerted her that she wasn’t alone down here.

With a large effort, she stood and trotted past the oncoming men, head hung low. Goddess, she was starving – she needed to eat or she’d never get out of here. There were large rats everywhere, so feeding shouldn’t be difficult.

Three rats later, she still was hungry but was able to make her way out. So she thought until she found she’d been travelling in a large circle. Concentrating and using her nose, she managed to find a Metro station and trot up the steps, but she had no idea where that warehouse was.

As she approached the hotel, she allowed herself to reach out to Raya over the Alpha connection for the first time since she’d been caught. She hadn’t wanted him to sense what she’d gone through. Now she felt a rush of joy coming from him, then confusion. The link was definitely her, but he felt a difference. She couldn’t wait for him to see the dog and realize who it was!

It took some doing. First she had to sneak in through the kitchen, then avoid anyone wearing the hotel’s red uniform. Catch the elevator, leap and hit 4 with her nose – but she arrived, panting heavily, outside her door at last. With one paw she scratched on the door and heard Raya say, “What was that?”

“Don’t know,” Itchiko responded. “I’ll go see.”

He opened the door and looked toward the elevator. He missed her until she brushed past him and trotted in, heading for Raya with ears perked.

“Hey, fellow. What you doing here? Look like you could use a few good meals, and I’d like to have a word with your owner. You have cuts everywhere.” He scratched her ears, and she leaned into his hand.

Then she hopped onto the bed, sat right in his lap with her dog-butt in his crotch, looked him right in the eyes and give him a doggie grin.

“Well, make yourself right at – Christos, this isn’t possible!” He grabbed the large dog, stood, spun in circles hugging her tightly and kissing her head.

Itchiko’s eyes were wide. “Morpheus.”

“Looks like! Petra, I’ve never been so frightened. Change and talk to me.”

She tried to oblige, but her energy was in the red zone and it simply wasn’t possible. She eyed Itchiko, praying he understood.

“Raya, whatever has happened to her, it hasn’t been good. She doesn’t have the energy to morph. I’d suggest a couple of major meals, a good night’s sleep. You can talk in the morning.”

“Should we call a doctor? A vet?” Raya’s voice was tight with worry.

“No. I think she’s mainly run-down. Once you see her in human form, you can make that decision. OK, I’ll leave you two alone. Call me in the morning.” He left.

Raya picked up the phone and placed a massive room service order, including four big steaks. Petra was literally drooling as he hung up.

“Bath before dinner, maybe?” he asked her.

She cocked her head, doubtful she had the energy to even get in and out of the tub.

“No harm intended, but girl, you reek!” He ran the water, then picked her up and carefully stepped into the tub with her. “I know you’re weak. I’ll take care of you, but I can’t wait to hear what happened.” His face went white, his eyes glared. “I literally can’t wait.”

The food arrived and Petra nearly inhaled two steaks. Feeling a rush of energy, she quickly changed. “What a relief! I have too much to say to be limited to barking.”

Raya reached over, grabbed her chin and gave her a long, passionate kiss. “Didn’t much feel like doing that to a Doberman, either.”

Petra snorted, then lost all humor as she recalled the most vital news he needed to know. “She wants the pups.”

Raya’s eyes went to slits, his growl echoed around the room. Pounding footsteps sounded. He opened the door and soothed the pack. “Did she say why?”

“No, she didn’t. I think she might be involved in white slavery, the sex trade, that would make sense.”

“She’s going to die. Sooner the better,” Raya said in a soft monotone.

“I agree. You’ll have to stand in line,” Petra said with fury. “After what they did to me, I’m taking the entire pack down. Imagine knowing so many different ways to hurt and cause pain to a pregnant woman, knowing the exact line to quit before she miscarries! Who studies that?”

“Hitler, Mengele…” Raya responded. “Evidently, Ilse is carrying on their work, on top of everything else she’s doing with that pack.”

Petra went silent for a moment in pure horror. “Maybe that’s what is behind the RP,” she almost whispered. “Ilse’s carrying on the evil shit! Would sure explain a lot.”

Now Raya looked utterly horrified. “And Shelley is with her.”

The two Alphas could only stare at each other. Shelley was in real danger, more than they’d ever thought.

Chapter Eleven

“Aunt Ilse, can I call Petra?” Shelley asked the next morning. “I don’t have my cell.”

“I just heard from them earlier,” Ilse said with a large smile. “They were leaving on vacation, said to tell you they be back in a week and speak to you then.”

“Hope they have fun,” Shelley said. More fun than she was having, for sure. Gee, take off on vacation and leave me stuck here? Thanks, Petra.

But something else was on her mind, something she’d been wondering about ever since Aunt Ilse started talking about Dolphe and Mama. How did Dolphe stand Mama? If he hated people for their race or skin color, what about being half beast? Geez, that would send him into orbit. Or would it? She had to ask. “Aunt Ilse, I have a question that’s been bothering me. Dolphe hated just about everybody but Germans. How did he deal with werewolves? Or did he not know?”

“Eva and I thought the same thing. We were scared to tell, very much. I told Eva to never open the mouth. But one night in Berghof, it was Eva’s birthday and Dolphe threw her a long, elaborate dinner. For once he drank too much, far too much.” She chuckled. “Eva and I were kind of crazy as it was the full moon and we wanted out, HAD to get out. It wasn’t possible, not with Dolphe drunk and demanding.”

“As Eva had less control, the change came on her first. She ran into the bathroom and locked the door to avoid him. After twenty minutes – during which he finished off yet another bottle of wine – he was singing and bellowing for her to join him. I was holding off mine own change, but just barely when Dolphe stumbled to his feet yelling, ‘come out come out wherever you are!’ He whipped the door open and there was a wolf sitting quietly on the rug, head hung!

“For a moment, we were terrified as his face grew dark, his eyes rounded and mad. But then I opened the bathroom window and said hurriedly, ‘Eva. Show Dolphe how some Weres can travel absolutely unseen.’

“She changed back, walked to Dolphe naked and looked up at him. Beyond furious, he started to hit her, but she moved too quickly as she turned and ran for the balcony on the other side of the living room. Being so drunk, Dolphe staggered badly and I had to half carry him there, but it was worth it. Eva hopped to the top of the rail, and Dolphe yelled ‘No! Don’t jump, I’m not mad, just drunk!’

“Eve laughed, rose straight up in the air and took off. She flew out, down the mountain and circled back up. Dolphe’s mouth was open!”

“I bet,” Shelley said with a grin. “Good for Mama. What did he do then?”

“As you might imagine, he passed out. His guards carried him to bed. But he charged in and woke us at 6 AM, wanted to know what else we could do. I explained a wolf’s strength, powers, and immortality. When he heard that last part, he suddenly looked happy. For once he ignored Eva as he walked to me and kissed me on each cheek before walking out the door whistling! We could only stare at each other. A whistling Dolphe could well be a dangerous one.”

“He vanished with Eva the next day, stayed gone until well after dinner time. She was laughing and exhilarated when they returned, but agreed to go up to bed when Dolphe told her he needed to speak business with me in private.

“He began by saying I understood more than Eva about what he was trying to do. Much as he loved Eva, she didn’t have the mind for solving problems on such a scale. Once he asked her, ‘What do you think about my plans for Germany and the steps I’ve had to take to achieve them?’ She excused herself and ran to me. I told her that the main idea was a better world for the next generation: a world where  IQs rise yearly instead of falling. Where the sick and retarded didn’t make any more like themselves, and showed her that her precious United States had implemented sterilization to solve part of these problems!” Her voice rose as she spoke.

“Eva, she went back to Dolphe and repeated my words. I had to follow, to watch his reaction and it was good. He yelled, ‘Yes, yes, very good for normal civilization, but we want more for Germany! We want a master race of people created to rule by right of birth! People with pure blood will have the highest intelligence. No more of one race controlling global banking, greedy bastards! And other races existing to fill prisons, fill the streets with beggars, grow drugs to poison children!’”

Ilse smirked. “I told him his final solution will bring Germany back to her former greatness, but suddenly he… he was not happy. He said to me, ‘How did you hear of such a thing? Who have you told?’ Chickadee, that Dolphe his eyes were bugging out. Never had he been such with us. Eva nearly fainted with the scare, but I laughed! I told to him, ‘There are still real Germans, Dolphe! Smart Germans who see problem and solution. I visited those camps – well, mostly the villages near them. In every one I found a bar where real Germans knew and tried to do their part by giving up friends, neighbors, even their own family members who had bad blood! They took these people directly to the gates of the camps. Have you not heard!’” She smiled at Shelley, who was turning a faint shade of green.

“Dolphe told me, ‘My Nazis took full credit. A bit over-eager. But you. You, dearest Ilse. You are really the sister of my mind.’” She sighed. “Sister of my mind, Shelley. Adolphe Hitler said that to me. It was an honor I will never forget if I live another fifty lifetimes. Listen, I’ll be away for a few days. Business trip.”

“Can I come?”

“Not this time, but soon, Shelley. You’ll love it there, believe me.”

Chapter Twelve

Two days later, Ilse was burning with frustrated rage.

“I’m on your side, Ilse,” the elderly human said with a great deal of patience.

She sighed heavily. “I know that, Laurence, I really do. Excuse my outbursts – I’m just really nervous that we won’t get the bubble working in time.”

“It’s coming along a lot faster than I ever imagined,” Laurence said. “I figured it would be months if not years before we succeeded at training nanos to do anything more than take in nutrients, expel them, and replicate. Now look! They’ve learned how to cross any barrier to get what they want.” His pale blue eyes shone with excitement.

“What good does that do?” Ilse was gloomy. This could take forever. “They get there, and again they eat, shit and die.”

Laurence smiled, a very small, very satisfied smile. “Always so impatient. You haven’t visited the lab in weeks! As if Paris holds a candle to our work here. Want to come see something interesting?”

Ilse’s heart skipped a beat. “Yes indeed. Lead on!”

Later that night, she ordered dinner sent to her suite so she could dine alone with Shelley. She’d come to her favorite story of the past, and couldn’t wait to share it with her niece.

“Shelley,” Ilse began after they were nearly finished with dinner. “I have one more tale to share. This was near end.” She was very pale, focused on the past. She completely missed Shelley’s small, utterly disgusted face when she continued. “One night I had to go to him, Chickadee. I put three of Eva’s panic pills in her wine.” At Shelley’s face, Ilse hurriedly added, “Yes I forgot Eva too had the panic. But this night she went to sleep like baby, and me, I ran down to Dolphe’s suite.”

“He asked me, ‘What is on your mind, sister of my mind?’ I begged him, Chickadee. I begged. ‘You must let me bite you. The world requires a Hitler to ensure that the percentage of morons and/or retarded in each successive generation isn’t higher.’ I even kneeled by his chair and got close to that face, looked into those brilliant eyes to make sure he understood what I meant. ‘You must let me bite you, Mein Furher.’” Ilse sighed, tears came to her eyes. “That is when he said his time was past, that he would not want to live in the new Germany that was coming. He did agree with some of my words.”

Tears now poured down the ugly face. “He said to me that the next couple of weeks would be crucial for Germany, for the world – he asked me for one favor. Of course I agreed, and he said ‘Good. Then I will depend on you to see to it that the best part of me leaves Germany when the time comes.’” I did not then understand, but of course I told him I would do it. And then Dolphe laughed! He knew I did not understand, he said I would and for me to trust myself. Then he said he’d marry Eva before it was over. I did not know to be happy or cry.”

“What was it, Aunt?” Shelley asked, seeing Ilse falter.

“It was the most important thing I was ever to do. He told me one day I would receive a most important gift from him; it would change the world. He said he’d give anything to see it, but his story was over. Mine was just at the start.

“It was the last time I would ever talk with mine mentor, with the father I’d never really had and now never would. Shelley, time was shorter than I ever imagined. We went back to Germany two days later. Less than a week after that, the Americans entered the city. The suicide pact was carried out per Hitler’s wishes, and I had never stopped thinking about the favor he’d requested – to get the best part of him out of Germany. Up until that last night before the suicide, I thought he meant Eva. Then I had quite a dream, and when I woke up I knew exactly what he meant. And I did it.” She caught the look on Shelley’s face. “You’ll learn soon enough, Chickadee.”

***

“You know the RP’s numbers are seriously higher than ours,” Raya told Petra as he paced the kitchen in the clear morning light. “They took Shelley with ease and even got you. We need to get you and those pups somewhere that crazy bitch will never know, and I have just the spot.”

“What about Shelley? I don’t want to leave without her,” Petra said.

“We’ll get Shelley. Not a problem. My main problem is my mate and her pups. Nothing on this earth will prevent me from protecting them. Nothing and nobody.”

She sighed. “I’m not going to like this, am I?”

“You just never know. Might be the greatest place you’ve ever been,” he said with a wink.

***

Less than a week later, Petra would have loved to tell Raya just what she thought of him and this ‘greatest place’ business, but unfortunately her teeth were chattering so hard that speech was out of the question. They were on a large ship – part ferry and part cruise boat – somewhere off the coast of Iceland, headed for a private island. Should be private, Petra knew, as Raya had bought it. Lock, stock, and many barrels full of Iceland red wine.

He’d said the initial view was incredible, so Petra stood at the front of the boat suffering icy winds whipping past her nose, freezing it and her ears. The day was clear, with fluffy white clouds high in a bright blue sky. The waves were kicking up, and Petra was watching the large white wake behind the ferry when she noticed a dark blob in the distance.

“There it is!” Raya was excited.

“Hope the heat’s on,” Petra stuttered. What was that next to the dark land? Something twice as tall and a pale blue, like an enormous gemstone.

Or an iceberg! Oh, Raya was one dead Were. So cold she had an iceberg as a neighbor?

But then they were approaching the island. A large hill rose on the right side, with an enormous castle atop it. Petra tried to keep her cool to no avail.

“Raya! Is that a castle? A real one?”

“Told you there were compensations – and that’s not even the best.”

But as they drew near, she noticed that the island was virtually surrounded by cliffs. There were several tiny beaches, but no way to scale those cliffs!

“Uh, Raya, is there an elevator somewhere?”

Then a sleek sailboat and a smaller raft pulled up. She looked at him, brows lowered. “That mean what I think it does?”

“It’s easy. Climb down the ladder into the raft, over to your new sailboat.”

“My new sailboat?”

“And it isn’t…”

“Even the best part,” she chorused with him, laughing. They made the exchange and were sailing around the island, Petra getting more nervous as there was nowhere to dock the boat and no way up those cliffs. Not in her condition. “Have you forgotten? I can’t possibly climb those…”

“Sit back, hang on to your ass and relax!” The sailboat executed a sharp turn and headed directly for the cliff wall.

Petra closed her eyes and waited for the crash – but suddenly they were in the dark, with no more waves or wind.

Then the boat emerged into a beautiful protected harbor.

“How the hell?” Petra asked.

“Hologram, baby. Someone more paranoid than me had this installed.”

“Didn’t know anybody was,” she tweaked him.

“You might be surprised,” he said.

***

Inside the castle, there were exquisite antiques – things Petra recognized from over the years, even a few pieces she’d grown up with. The grounds were enormous and well-tended. This was home like nothing had ever been. She was in tears: cold and all, she could raise her children as she had been.

She was so exhausted Raya put her in a small elevator to the fifth floor, most of which was an enormous master suite that he’d had redone. The end of it, though, was a charming nursery.

The next day Raya asked her if she’d like to learn the secret of many lifetimes. She could never tell a soul, though, Itchiko & Shelley included. He himself had had to assure someone that only she would see this. She agreed, now more curious than ever.

The castle was built in a hollow square. Looking down from the fifth story window, a dead winter garden was visible with fruit trees, carved hedges, and naked mounds where flowers would grow. Raya took her down, opened the door to usher her outside.

“Are you crazy? It’s below zero, not counting the wind, and I don’t even have my coat. Let me run back—”

“Nobody’s around. What say we go nude?”

She stared at him as if he’d lost his mind, as he calmly shucked his shirt, his jeans, and then his underwear. Gloriously nude, he eyed her and waited.

A dare, was it now! Pregnant or no, she’d beat him. She took in a deep breath, grabbed the door handle and yanked it open, waiting for a blast of Arctic air.

Instead, a warm tropical breeze slipped by her cheek! Palm trees stood around a natural pool with an enormous waterfall. At the top was a hot tub.

Petra was bewildered, even after Raya explained about the Illuminated and how he’d saved their leader centuries ago. They paid him back many times over, and he had no idea why they gifted Petra with something as incredible as this.

Only one fourth of the ancient castle was livable: the rest was a crumbling ruin with three-quarters of an acre in the middle, most of which had been overgrown into heavy forest. Of course Raya had wanted a good part of that land left as it was. They could use it on full moons to race from it through the open parts of the castle.

She started walking toward the woods and was surprised to hear a loud roar. Oddly, although she couldn’t even tell what sort of beast made that noise, it sounded gleeful. Raya’s response was simply mind-boggling! He bolted into the woods, calling, “Bear! Is it possible?”

Another roar sounded, and Petra grew alarmed. What on earth was happening?

Half a mile in she saw a remarkable sight, one that would stay her no matter how long she lived. There was an absolutely enormous black bear with her long arms wrapped around Raya’s body: all Petra could see were two hairy legs with feet dangling. By now, the bear was crooning in ecstasy. Raya was reaching and scratching everything in sight.

“You’re her great, great, something daughter, aren’t you? Who’d have ever guessed! Welcome to Iceland anyway.”

She grunted at them and lumbered off, slowed and looked over her shoulder. When Raya looked back, she grumbled, moved, stopped.

“I think we should follow her,” Raya said.

“Looks that way.”

Sure enough, when they moved towards her, the bear took to all fours and began nearly running, grunting happily as she went.

They’d been moving for about half an hour when Petra said, “You hear that?”

“Sure do.”

The creek didn’t seem very deep, but almost immediately the bear come up triumphantly with a trout.

“I can’t believe someone created all this,” Petra said.

“They probably didn’t make the creek,” Raya said with a grin.

“True, but it feels beyond weird to look through the edge of that bubble into a dark, cloudy sky spitting snow.”

“Beats being out in it!” Raya said with a laugh.

“Now if only we had Shelley, this would be paradise,” Petra said wistfully.

“Soon. You’ll see.”

Chapter Thirteen

Sitting on her small bed, staring blindly at a wall, she couldn’t believe she was missing Ilse even. The woman had announced she had to visit New York urgently and left.

Shelley had watched enough TV to last the rest of her life. Ilse had given her a DVD player with speakers, though, so she spent a lot of time dancing. Not a bad idea for right now – as depressed as she was, dancing and music always lifted Shelley’s spirits.

She turned on the small machine and posed in front of an even-smaller mirror, waiting for the music to begin. When it did, Shelley found herself dancing wildly around the room; not her usual contained self.

But this felt great! She flung her head back, took a huge leap forward – and slammed directly into the opposing wall. God it hurt. No one would even know if she did hurt herself as she was so very alone.

Once again, she was on the bed, staring at the wall, but now something was different.

There was the slightest outline of a door on that wall! Ilse must have painted over it, Shelley thought with excitement as she jumped up and raced to the outline.

Push though she would, the door wouldn’t budge. Shelley lashed out and gave it a solid punch, accomplishing nothing but painful knuckles. Crud! Had to be a way in. Not with her weak arms and shoulders, though. She couldn’t break out of a paper bag.

Her thighs and legs were really strong, though. And that thought gave her an idea.

She laid on the floor with her feet flat against that dang door. Then she pulled her knees to her chest, inhaled deeply and let fly with both feet. BAM! The door flew open, as did the door to her room.

A young guy rushed in. “Shelley, are you OK?”

With curly black hair in perfect ringlets and deep blue eyes, this guy was sure cute. But that didn’t do her any good. “Yeah,” Shelley said, head hung. Busted.

He noticed the door. “Your aunt is going to be pissed, let me tell you. I have to call her, you know.”

Shelley thought rapidly. “No you don’t! You might get in trouble for me having done it, especially if you were responsible for seeing that it stayed closed.” From the stricken look on his face, she was right. “I’m going to tell her the truth: I did it while dancing, but I’ll say I did it in the middle of the night when no one was around. OK?”

“That would be fantastic. Your  aunt, she has a bad temper.”

Shelley rolled her eyes. “You’re telling me. Hey, what’s your name?”

“Daniel. I’ve been outside your door since you first got here and was hoping to finally meet you.” He grimaced. “Just not like this.” He made an effort to close and lock the door. It was hopeless.

“I’ll make sure she knows I was alone,” Shelley told him. “Why should both of us get the wrath of the monster?”

Daniel started to smile, but it faded. “I don’t want you in trouble either.”

“I’m family. What can she do?”

Finally he left Shelley alone with a newly-opened door.

It wasn’t open wide, though: just a crack through which Shelley could finally see sunlight! She fought with the thing until it opened enough to let her slender body ease in sideways. Then she simply stood and looked around at that was definitely an office.

Along the far wall, thick gray books sat officiously on three entire bookshelves. Below them was a desk with, thank goodness – a computer! She shrieked with joy. And on the wall to her right was a window. Racing to it, she saw she was at the top of a three or four story building. Most of Paris lay below, but she could pick out no landmarks.

What could those thick, official-looking books be? Each had a date on the spine and covered four months. Shelley selected the most recent one out and opened it to a random page.

A human child would have cringed, but Shelley merely frowned. Photos such as those in the book weren’t horrible to Weres, who were accustomed to hunting and ripping apart their prey.

Which wasn’t the same thing as seeing two people on beds, both with the tops of their heads removed, brains displayed. A doctor stood behind the guy nearest the camera, holding a long instrument buried in the brain. A monitor showed a thin wire deep inside the brain. The caption under the photo, in Ilse’s cramped writing, read “Removing a portion of the neuro-lupustilatum in the amygdala for insertion into Human Patient 143A.”

For a second she was so horrified she literally couldn’t move, much less look away or even close the evil thing. That it was pure evil was evident, even as little as Shelley knew about medical practices.

But it wasn’t the horror of a brain laid bare that did Shelley in: it was the sudden god-awful understanding when she realized she knew that patient! It was a Were who’d been with the Pack for years, someone her mom had liked. After Eva’s death, the guy had suddenly disappeared. Ilse said he’d left to join another pack.

And that had happened often over the years. Shelley had figured that Pack Bishara was so much larger than other packs that it was normal to lose Weres to smaller packs. Now she had a different feeling,  a sick one in the depths of her belly.

She’d bet all those Weres had wound up in that same miserable room, being operated on for who knew what.

One thing was for damn sure. She had to get out of here and right now, too. Luckily the computer was a newer model and had both a web-cam and Skype! She logged into her own account and called Petra. No answer. Just her luck, and it was about to get worse.

There was a commotion, doors slamming as Ilse thundered “Forgot my ticket, goddammit! Be right back – it’s on my desk.

Steps pounded down the hall just as Shelley yelled, “Get me the hell out of here!” logged out, and fled back to her room in one fast motion.

Moments later, the office door banged open. “What the fuck! Have you been in here, you sneak?”

“No, Aunt. I was dancing and I fell against the wall last night. It scared me to death when that door popped open!” Shelley let her eyes go wide, but suddenly her head snapped backward with the force of the blow. Ilse had hit her hard right in the face. Shelley screamed at the top of her lungs, terrified. She’d never in her life been hit.

Ilse yelled, “Daniel! Get in here.”

He walked in, took a fast look at Shelley. “Yes, Ms. Ilse?”

“Can you see to it that that door is solidly locked?” Ilse asked.

“Yes.”

“Keep an eye on this little shit, too. I am going to miss my damn flight!” And she was gone.

Daniel stared at Shelley, his face pale. “She hurt you?”

“No, it felt good,” Shelley snarked with tears flowing. She reached up and gingerly touched her cheek where the blow had landed. “You see anything here?”

His voice was tight. “Yeah. The bottom of a hand-print, and you’re going to have one hell of a shiner.”

It had been bad enough before, with just these four walls and a small TV. Add occasional blows, and – Shelley couldn’t think any further. She walked slowly to the bed and sat, dropping her head into her hands. She hated crying in front of people, but there was no holding this back. She bawled for what felt like ages.

In the middle of it, she felt a gentle hand on her shoulder. “What can I do? You’re just a baby, for Chrissakes.”

“Get me to my people,” she said between sobs. “Ilse took me from them. I never wanted to be here!” The sobs came harder and faster.

Daniel sighed. “I know and I’m sorry. I carried you in.”

“It – it’s OK. What choice did you have?” Her voice was small and miserable.

“Might not have had any then, but I do now,” he said, sounding determined.

When he walked out nearly an hour later, they had the start of a plan.

Chapter Fourteen

Later that afternoon, Petra hit her computer to get her email. To her surprise and delight, there was a video message in Skype from Shelley. Once she played it, the delight went out the window. She called to Raya, who was in what he’d designated his office.

“Now we know she doesn’t want to be there,” Petra said. “I knew that all along.”

“Just being cautious,” Raya said.

“Now how do we find her? All we know is somewhere in Paris, if we even know that,” Petra said, miserable. She missed the girl badly.

“I think I just had one of your ah-ha moments,” Raya said with a chuckle.

“What?”

“Shelley and that damn Facebook. No way she’s not on it with friends. We need to hit her laptop, hit Facebook, contact those friends.”

“Now that’s a real ah-ha moment!” Petra walked to where he stood propped on an elbow in the bedroom doorway, wrapped her arms around his neck and kissed him slowly.

“You do that again, I’ll have those moments every half hour.”

She laughed. “I’m going to go check her Facebook.”

***

In the end, it wasn’t Facebook that provided the opening they needed. Petra received an email from “Daniel492.” He said he worked for Shelley’s aunt, and that Shelley needed to see her family. Had to be today or tomorrow, as her aunt was returning late tomorrow. Could they meet at a café?

Raya was instantly suspicious and thought it reeked of a setup. “Petra, they still want you.”

“So we’re careful.”

“We, nothing. I’ll go with Itchiko and a few of the guys. You, oh pregnant mate, will wait.”

Not much she could say to that, so she didn’t try. When they left for Paris that night, she was miserable.

***

Raya brought the two pack vampires, Joseph and Cilla, to Paris. There was nobody he’d trust more to watch the café, keep an eye on Shelley. The vampires could, of course, move around sight unseen. No one would be better for surveillance.

He hoped Shelley would meet him at the café, then come with him back to Iceland. He knew that wouldn’t happen; wasn’t at all sure how he knew, but he knew it as well as if he’d read the script for that day.

He just wasn’t certain what would actually happen in that café, and in the end, it was nothing he’d expected.

***

Daniel visited Shelley’s room late, when no one was awake to see him leave his post in the hall. Rapidly he told her that she’d be seeing her friends at a nearby café tomorrow afternoon and to be ready to go after lunch. And to not do anything stupid: Ilse might literally kill him if she did. She lit up – it was all she could do to not shriek in excitement.

“Finally, I get to see Raya and Petra! Daniel, you don’t know how much this means. Since Mama died, they’re the only real family I have.”

“I get that,” Daniel said. “Be ready around one tomorrow. We’re on a strict schedule to ensure everything goes well.”

Arriving at the café the next day, Shelley sat at a table with Daniel and ordered an espresso.

“When will they get here?” She asked, face pink with excitement.

“In about ten minutes. Here’s what we’re doing. You’ll go to the bathroom. Raya will meet you there. Don’t stay long, we’ll get caught. If all goes well, we can do this every now and then. OK?”

“Yes! I can’t wait to see him! Daniel, he’s the best. He really is.”

That ten minutes felt like ten years to Shelley. She drank her espresso, which made her even more jittery. Daniel told her several stories about his little sister: his family was from the south of France. It sounded gorgeous, she told him.

He checked his watch. “Alright, Shelley. Go ahead.”

It was all Shelley could do to act as though this was just a normal trip to the bathroom when she was ready to jump out of her skin with excitement, but she felt she’d pulled it off when she opened the lady’s room door and there, finally, was Raya!

Shelley instantly lost control at the sight of him and leaped into his arms with an ecstatic shriek. Raya caught her, but tensed. This might go badly now. Sure enough, footsteps pounded toward the bathroom. He had a plan B as always. Shelley still in his arms, he turned, walked to the window and rapped hard on it twice.

Joseph’s head popped up. Raya opened the window with one hand, lowered Shelley into the vampire’s arms, drop kicked his clothing into a stall, then changed to his wolf form and followed her out.

She and Joseph were still there, to his horror. He yipped and motioned with his head, but Shelley held a hand up.

“If I actually vanish, they’ll move from that warehouse! They’re more dangerous than you think, Raya. Let me go back into the café, just say I thought I saw Mama walk past the bathroom so I jumped out to talk to her.”

Raya considered rapidly, came to the unhappy conclusion she was right. He stood and watched as she moved down the alley, then walked back into the café just as a carload of RP members showed up.

They leaped out of the car and spread in every direction.

Raya leaped the low wall at the back of the alley. An elderly woman was just passing the alley as she made her way down the street, so Raya padded along close to her as if he belonged to her. The RP would certainly be looking for wolves in this neighborhood, but never expect one with an elderly woman.

The old woman was excruciatingly slow though, tapping her cane and limping along. Frustrated but unable to do anything else, Raya crept along close to her. After three blocks, the Metro stop appeared. Gladly he turned to race down the steps, but heard the old woman say under her breath, “J’espere que ca marche maitenant pour toi. Hope things work out now for you! Eet has been real honor, Monsieur Wolf.”

Shocked, Raya nearly fell down those steps. First, though, he darted back and licked the tiny old hand grasping the cane, nudged her purse with his nose, then opened his mouth.

“You want what? Oh! Ze card weeth my address, non?” he nodded. She found a card, slipped it into his mouth and scratched his head. Then she gasped. “Excuse! I forgot.” He gave her a wolf grin before turning and flying down the deserted stairs.

Back at the hotel, he called Petra. She asked if at least they’d tracked Shelley back to where she was staying.

“No. Joseph chased them down into a Metro stop, but got to the platform and no Shelley. He was puzzled until he saw the train pull in on the other side: Shelley, her friend and some other guy hopped up from the tracks just as it pulled in.”

“That blows. I did get an email from Shelley a bit ago, saying all worked out well.”

“That’s something, at least,” Raya said. “Wait. Something odd happened,” and he told her about the elderly woman.

“How rare is that? How did she know what you are?”

“Don’t know, but I have her card. I’ll find out.”

The hotel door opened, Joseph came in. “Hold on Petra, Joseph just arrived.”

“Do we know how long it took Shelley to get back?” Joseph asked.

“According to Petra, about 10 minutes.”

“She could only have gone one stop on the Metro, then. All we have to do is show pictures to people around there. Someone will have seen them.”

Raya agreed, told Petra and had her text him some of the photos of Shelley she’d taken. He had serious doubts that this would work. So many people around Metro stops in Paris, and Joseph thought one would have noticed an ordinary kid? 

To Raya’s amazement, someone had seen Shelley. Now they knew where the warehouse was. Moreover, Joseph had seen two guys with Shelley. The younger one treated her like a sister. It had to be Daniel. If they got in touch with Daniel, maybe he’d help them get Shelley out of there for good.

***

Daniel was delighted that they had gotten away with it. Even Steve, the older Were who had charged after them, had been thoroughly impressed with Daniel’s idea at the Metro when they’d lost the tall pale guy following them. Steve would make a positive report to Ilse, which was good for Daniel’s hide.

But all was not well. Four days had passed since Shelley had seen her friends at that café, and she hadn’t been herself since. Daniel was now checking on her every couple of hours. She never moved from her spot on the bed. Didn’t watch TV, didn’t turn on her music and dance.

She just sat and stared at the wall. Wouldn’t even eat when her tray was delivered. She was so like his little sister! He couldn’t stand seeing her this miserable, but there wasn’t a thing he could do.

Until he received an email from Raya, with a plea in it.

Daniel called the number in the email, and the two men came up with a plan that included Daniel being knocked cold. No other way to ensure he looked innocent when she vanished tomorrow. And tomorrow it had to be.

It worked. Raya, Joseph and Cilla entered the back of the warehouse, thanks to Daniel. Up the back stairs to the hall where Ilse’s office was, into the office where Shelley was waiting, then back out the same way after Raya socked Daniel a good one. He hit the floor like a bag of flour.

Ilse returned and was in a white hot fury. Everyone tried to stay out of her way as she shouted order after order. Stephen was to get the recording from the camera at the end of the hall while she herself woke Daniel up.

Daniel proved to be much harder to wake than Ilse had thought. By the time Stephen returned with the recording, he still wasn’t awake. Ilse watched the footage, and sighed. How had that bastard learned about the warehouse? Yet there he was, striding down the hall and into her office as if he owned the place. The footage ended there, but that was sufficient. It was obvious what had happened.

Raya had gone through the office door into Shelley’s room, they’d somehow called Daniel in, and it was probably all too easy for the large Alpha to get the jump on the young, thin human.

At that moment his eyelids fluttered, and he saw Ilse above him. “Mz. Ilse, I’m so sorry. Don’t know what happened. Lord almighty, did anyone hurt Shelley? I’ll kill myself!”

He looked deadly serious, and Ilse was touched at his concern. “No, no need for that. Raya is dangerous and you’re lucky he didn’t kill you himself. They came for Shelley, they got her. Hurt you in the process.” Her voice hardened. “Obviously your training is lacking. Stephen, you are to see to that.”

The man nodded. Daniel groaned and finally stood on shaky legs. “When do we begin?”

Ilse held up a hand. “Wait. I have an idea. Is not right Shelley left like that. I believe I have a way for her to regret it. You she likes, yes?” She addressed Daniel.

Puzzled, he nodded.

“Good. Very good.” Rapidly she outlined her plan to both men. Stephen grinned while Daniel looked horrified. “Go quickly, Stephen. I want to send this within the hour.”

Shortly the stocky, older Were returned with a bag full of the items Ilse had requested. The was a small pillow from the couch in her suite, several bottles of catsup, and a fresh cauliflower. Ilse ripped open the tiny pillow, filled it, then placed it against the wall.

“You are certain you can do this photo stuff?” she asked Daniel, and got a miserable nod in response. “Then we begin.”

Stephen pulled out the last item he’d fetched, a shotgun. In one move, he turned and blasted the pillow. A satisfying spray of “blood” exploded outwards, accompanied by white “brains.” Then both blood and brains seeped out of the pillow to the floor.

Ilse shut off her cell’s video, sent the footage to Daniel. “All right. Make it good – her being gone is really your fault! I won’t forget, but this will help me regard you in a better light. If it’s done properly.”

Daniel sighed inwardly, but went to Ilse’s office and used her computer to edit the footage. It was simple enough to replace the pillow with his own head. The results were so realistic that he was sickened, and he could only imagine Shelley’s reaction.

Nothing he could do as Ilse had the entire network locked down in her paranoia.

He called Ilse to come check it. She actually laughed with delight. “Gott, you have hidden talents, Daniel! This is superb. I’m sending it now, this moment.”

She fired off a quick email to Shelley, with that video attached. “This is your fault! You chose to leave how you did. You may not be here to pay the price, but your friend was. Shame as he was a good human, but the lesson is worth his loss.” She hit “send” with a smile. Almost done.

“As for you, you I don’t trust fully. I have a feeling in mein gut that you were somehow involved; you are lucky there is no proof. But if I ever learn you have contacted Shelley, next time there will be no pillow. Understand?”

He nodded. He’d not contact the girl. He’d been lucky so far. No reason to push it as Shelley was now safe.

That’s all that mattered.

***

Back at the hotel, Shelley was so relieved. Back with Raya, and they’d fly to Iceland tomorrow to be with Petra! Raya had even brought her laptop, so she was on Facebook catching up with her friends when her email dinged.

Raya was making reservations for the flight to Iceland when Shelley began screaming. No matter what he did, it made no difference. He finally thought to check what she’d been doing, saw the email. Furious and worried as hell, he immediately dialed Petra. Only she could deal with things like this.

Except that for once Petra didn’t answer her phone. He called back several times, only got her voice mail. Exasperated and desperate to get her, he decided to call Itchiko and have him go directly to Petra’s room. Even get her out of the bath if need be.

But to Raya’s growing bewilderment, he struck out again. Itchiko didn’t answer his phone either, and now Raya’s inner alarms were sounding. Something wasn’t right in Iceland.

As Shelley’s shrieks continued, Raya called the airlines and cancelled the flight he’d booked for the next day.

Instead, he placed another call and rented a jet to leave for Iceland in two hours. After telling Joseph to grab Cilla and come help with Shelley, he packed what little he’d brought and kept on trying to get through Shelley’s shrieks to no avail. Nor could he reach Petra or Itchiko.

Joseph and Cilla banged loudly on the door, to be heard over Shelley’s shrieks. When Raya opened it, all he could do was shrug. Cilla rolled her eyes at him and ran straight to Shelley, and pulled her into her arms.

“It’s going to be OK, whatever it is. You hear me, Shelley?” Cilla said.

“It’s never going to be ok! She killed him, Cilla! That bitch Ilse killed Daniel and all he ever did was help me!” She inhaled to shriek again.

“That’s enough.” Cilla’s voice cut through the air like a knife. Shocked, Shelley went silent. “Carrying on like this won’t bring him back or do any kind of good whatsoever. Listen to your Auntie Vampire, Shelley. We don’t believe in turning the other cheek. Instead, we believe in an eye for an eye. Then an arm for that same eye. A leg, a head, hell the whole body and maybe their families as well.” She said all this in a light, conversational manner that gave Raya the creeps, frankly, but seemed to be working for Shelley.

“What you most want will please all of us, Shelley. Revenge! You’ll have your revenge and a lot more, you just wait and see. Now get off your arse and let’s get to the airport before that crazy bitch finds us and shoots us all.” Finally, Shelley went quiet, and began to move toward the door.

One problem sort of solved, Raya thought. But two other enormous ones weren’t. Neither Petra nor Itchiko were answering their phones still. Now it had been four days.

What the hell?

Chapter Fifteen

Petra and Itchiko were on a large boat just pulling into the dock. She’d caught an enormous tuna, while Itchiko was empty-handed. As they drove the cart with the huge fish back to the castle, she teased him unmercifully over it.

In the living room, Itchiko went to start a fire without being asked. Petra turned on the enormous movie screen size TV that Raya so adored, but something white was stuck to the middle of it.

It was a printed color photo of Raya. Beneath his grin, it said:

“Got my girl, does he? Surely you won’t be cruel enough to drag her behind as you run from those who want to test him or kill him, because this  picture could be on CNN with “Wolf-man” under it! I own you now, bitch. You’ll do what I want, when I want, or the whole world will know your man howls at the moon. Talk to you soon, believe that.” Not signed – but  Petra knew who it was. She was just sick. Itchiko began to pace.

What could she do, Petra thought frantically. Can’t let her do that. “Let me think.”

Itchiko continued pacing, then stopped, shaking his head, and went deathly pale. What on earth? He started to talk, couldn’t, started pacing again furiously. She watched, wondering what he was thinking about. Finally, he approached Petra where she was sitting on the couch, and to her utter amazement, silent tears were pouring down his cheeks.

Petra felt dread rise, unlike any she’d ever known.

***

Raya was frantic. He’d been calling both Petra and Itchiko for almost two hours now with no response. He dialed again and just as he was about to explode, his own phone rang between calls. It was Petra.

“Something bad has happened here,” she said with voice shaking. He heard the chocked-back sobs she was trying to hide. “Get here now.”

“Where is Itchiko?” he asked, but she’d hung up. He called back and got voice mail. Enough. It was time to get to the airport; he’d know soon enough. Now he was glad he’d rented the jet and that Francois, Cilla, and even Shelley were with him. Instinctively he knew he’d need backup of some sort when they reached the castle.

The jet landed, they picked up the vehicles and drove like maniacs to the port. Fog had settled in, making the boat ride ethereal and strange. As they progressed toward their island, glaciers rose out of the mist like giant creatures made of blue-green glass. If Raya hadn’t been so terrified for Petra, he’d have enjoyed the incredible scenery.

As it was, he just urged the captain to ever-greater speed, safety be damned. The vampires were very quiet, unlike the loquacious Cilla who was always talking and laughing. They knew what he knew, which was little, but sounded dreadful. As far as Raya could remember, Petra had never in 900 years demanded that he come somewhere immediately. Never.

His mind ran over and over the possibilities. Perhaps she’d lost the pups? Wouldn’t she have told him? Cilla and Shelley both felt that she would have told him that, so he crossed it off the list. For now.

What if she’d learned that one or both pups were retarded? Or had a dread sickness? Surely Doc would have seen that on their last visit. Maybe Ilse had managed to find the island and was holding them hostage.

They were less than half an hour from the island when Raya felt it. The Alpha link fluttered; he had no other way to describe the sensation. “Captain, I’m going to need to insist. My wife is pregnant and she’s in serious trouble. Go faster. Much, much faster.”

And then the boat rose up out of the water and flew, turning almost on its side to avoid icebergs. To the man’s credit, 10 minutes later they shot ‘through’ the cliff wall and docked in the harbor, Raya having jumped off the boat as soon as they were within distance. He was running up the hill far ahead of the others.

The castle door was locked tight, which really meant nothing. Raya impatiently fumbled with the locks, then burst into the castle proper, yelling for Petra. He heard no response whatsoever.

He took the stairs two by two, not even wanting to wait for the elevator. On the second floor, he paused. Where would she be? In the family living room and other rooms on the second floor or their private fifth floor suite? Going on instinct, he continued racing up the stairs to the fifth floor.

Finally, he blew through the door on the fifth floor landing, and an odd scent greeted him. The hairs on the back of his neck stood up, and he found himself changing through no effort of his own. Already that was more than odd; it never happened. But it did allow him to race down the stone hallway at full speed, never noticing the low, vicious growl emanating from deep in his chest.

Approaching their personal suite he noticed the scent grew much stronger there. Should he wait for Francois? Wasn’t much the old vampire hadn’t faced – and faced down – in his time. But the thought of a terrified Petra waiting all this time galvanized Raya into blasting through the door.

Their living room was – wrong. No other word for it. The air was saturated with a mixture of terrible sadness and despair. Christos, it made no sense. He needed answers and he needed them right the fuck now. Where was she?

“PETRA!” He bellowed in full Alpha mode. She had no choice but to respond, and she did, but it wasn’t what he expected.

A tiny little “Raya?” full of hope, but that same despair. It came from their bedroom. He charged down the hall, blasted into their bedroom to see – nothing. He stood in the doorway and panted. She was here, he could feel her.

“Petra?” He called softly this time.

“Raya, oh Raya! Please…” It came from the other side of the bed. He leaped over the bed to see a sight he’d never expected to see: his mate, curled head-first as far under the bed as she could get, arms clasped around herself, rocking back and forth. “Francois! Now!” he Alpha-bellowed again, and the vampire simply morphed to the doorway.

“Alpha,” he heard. “I am here.”

He never turned around, just leaned over and plucked a ragged Petra out from under the bed. “Joseph. You know more about medical matters than I ever will. Come check her out?”

The vampire took several cautious steps into the room, then stopped as Raya settled on the bed with Petra curled into his arms. Francois sniffed the air, frowned and shook his head like a dog throwing off water. Sniffed again.

And did something that scared Raya almost more than the sight of Petra under the bed had.

The tall, scrawny vampire lowered himself slowly, painfully until he was on one knee. “My life for yours, Alpha.” And he vanished.

“Has the entire world lost its mind?” he said softly to no one in particular.

Petra said something in response, he thought, so he leaned over to hear. And heard a small, helpless moan repeated over and over again.

“Petra.” The moan continued.

“Petra, you need to speak to me.” Still the moan, but now it was ragged as if she were trying to speak, but couldn’t.

“I’m sorry, Petra,” he whispered. Then in a normal tone he said, “Petra. As your Alpha I command you to speak and explain what has happened under my roof.”

The moaning slowed, then stopped. “Don’t know how to say…” she said.

“Just tell me,” he said.

“It was Itch–Itch—” she stuttered into silence.

“Where is Itchiko?” he asked.

She moaned. “Don’t know.”

“Was he here when... whatever it was happened?”

In his arms, her entire body stiffened and she began to suck air in so rapidly she was hyperventilating.

“Slowly, Petra. Breathe deeply and slowly and tell me where Itchiko was.”

She flinched, then said, “Raping me.”

Chapter Sixteen

Raya’s body went rock-hard and he heard his blood, his heart pounding, in his ears. Forcing himself to relax, he asked “How could that even be?”

Petra mumbled, “It was some kind of ritual.”

Raya truly believed he felt fury rising from his feet. “Itchiko cannot have done this. It’s not possible.”

“He never stopped chanting in Japanese except when he said something about tooth and tooth,” she said, tears in a non-stop flood down her face and therefore, all over Raya’s silk shirt. He had a death grip on the small body, pressing it as close to him as humanly possible.

“A tooth for a tooth,” Raya said. He didn’t need her nod to know that was it. The fury was rising, rising, yet he had to know it all. “Did he hurt you badly?”

She gulped, sobbed softly. “He – he was rough, Raya. Deep. Apologized but said had to be that way to work.” She gagged.

The fury peaked. He changed so fast that his clothes ripped off, and he was standing over Petra, his front paws wrapped around her even as he inhaled deeply and threw his head back.

“No, Raya!” Petra said in alarm, but it was already too late.

He had already begun a howl of such fury and rage that it was known as the Alpha War Howl. It was unbelievably loud: Weres within a hundred miles could hear it. The howl began in fury, and it continued in rising rage. Every Were felt that rage, and if in public had to fight themselves from responding with a similar howl. No need to know why. The Trans-Alpha had declared war. It was all that mattered. Once the howl finally ended, Raya raced alone from the house deep into the woods, growling ferociously at anyone who dared follow. When he felt he was totally alone, he changed back to human.

Sat under a tree, let the tears well in his own eyes and then simply bawled his confusion and misery. His mate. His brother! His brother and his best friend. How? It was impossible, intolerable. He sobbed out his agony, and suddenly a small ball of fur hit him squarely in the chest. She changed, wrapped herself around him and they both cried out their sorrow together.

Weres everywhere had sensed that howl and knew he had done it, and they all had one reaction. They raced for cars, planes, boats – within 24 hours, most major global packs had sent representatives to on Iceland. They quickly filled every hotel, even though many stayed with pack friends in the area.

 By the time almost everyone had arrived, Raya had gotten a crucial bit of news.

Itchiko had been seen entering the RP warehouse in Paris. Through his madness, Raya had one moment of clarity.

That ritual Itchiko had performed on his mate. Might Samurai have some esoteric powers regarding pregnant women? It was worth a call to Iwabari.

***

Iwabari promptly responded that there was one such ritual, but it hadn’t been used almost since the beginnings of the Samurai culture, because it was dangerous to the Samurai, the woman, and the child.

Raya insisted on knowing, so Iwabari confessed that if a Samurai makes love to a pregnant woman, they can imbue that baby with their own Samurai spirit instead of real father’s.

“So essentially that Samurai becomes the baby’s real father?” Raya asked in horror.

“Yes, why on earth would you ask such a thing now?” Iwabari responded in complete confusion but Raya hung up in disbelief.

Suddenly for Raya, all made sense in that he’d been indirectly responsible for the death of Itchiko’s son. Still, it was unbelievable. This was Raya’s blood brother, a direct family member with hooks in his mind.

No sooner did he realize that than Itchiko’s bright cord in Raya’s mind – the place for the pack protector – went dark and empty. The blackness signified one thing, that Itchiko was no longer in Pack Lupeinescu. All of this was true, then. ALL of it.

It was Raya who had dubbed Pack Bishara with the name by which they’d been known for years: the Rat Pack, or the RP. Now, livid with rage, he decided it was time for a name change. Pack Lupeinescu would see that Pack RP  became Pack RIP – minus the ‘P’. May they roast in Hell.

Chapter Seventeen

At that moment, Laurence was sweltering in the island heat for a very good reason. He wiped the sweat off his dome with a white cloth.

“Hot as hell, nein?” Ilse said. “Here’s hoping your damn Boomerang Rain works. Now, you said you were close to a breakthrough. So?” She stared at him, frowning, her small eyes distrustful.

“We must be sanitized, much as you loathe it. Go. I’ll meet you in Lab B.”

A quick flash of excitement showed in her eyes before she spun on a heel and left.

Laurence grinned. She’d never expect this much of an advance. How would she react? He thought about that as he entered the small sanitizing chamber next to his office. As the cold mist sprayed his aged bones right through the thin robe he wore, he cursed the process. It was vital, but he didn’t have to enjoy it.

Shivering and damp, he entered his small room next to Lab B. He kept a sterilized wardrobe there, despising the green robes everyone else wore. A nice turtleneck sweater and khakis, much more the thing.

Dressed, hair brushed – what little there was of it – and a spritz of aftershave, he plucked his white lab coat off the hook and donned it. As the only one able to wear white, he did so even though it covered the blue turtleneck. As he walked into Lab B, he saw that Ilse was just entering from the public sanitization chambers on the far side.

She looked around. “I see nothing different. What am I looking for?”

“Come back here,” Laurence said. He pointed to the long window that gave way to a “private” room where people never knew they were being watched. Of course, this time no people were involved, but she couldn’t know that.

“My favorite part! Who are you working on today?”

“Not a who, Ilse. A what.” He waved a hand. “Look closely at the room. What do you see?”

“The table, two chairs, same as always,” she said, impatience in her voice.

“Look harder.” There was humor in his.

She sighed, moved closer to the observation window, and stared. “Oh! I see him. Over next to the far wall. That a robot?”

“Most certainly. That is the Build-a-bot, available on Amazon for fifty American dollars.”

“That cheap, it can’t do much,” Ilse said.

“True. In fact, all it can really do is go from Point A to Point D, via Points B and C. All of which are programmable, so it can actually serve your guests a drink,” he said, grinning inside, waiting for it.

“Who gives a fuck about a serving robot! God, Lawrence, sometimes I—”

“Just watch.” He interrupted her with a smile that showed his ill-fitting dentures.

He produced a small remote control, pressed a button. The robot came to life, little lights in its eyes blinking as it rolled to the table, went to the left around a leg, came back to the right, then forward until it met the other leg. It executed the same sequence, then continued straight. In another couple of moments, it would hit the wall.

Ilse sighed heavily. “Fascinating.”

“For once, I agree. Observe,” Laurence said, his voice actually shaking with excitement.

Ilse picked up on that and grew quiet, her eyes focused on the robot.

Laurence ran his hand over a panel next to the long window. It swung open, revealing three buttons. He pressed the blue one.

The robot was still making its way slowly to the far end of the room as mist shot down out of several sprinkler heads. It lasted no more than 10 seconds, then shut off.

The robot marched forward still, but then took a very slow step, another, and came to a halt. Eyes flashing, it executed a quick turn and set off the way it had come. When it reached the table leg, it moved to the right then back to the left. Once it cleared the other leg, Laurence powered it off and turned to Ilse, flushed bright red with triumph.

“And how about that, dear girl!”

She was staring at the robot, her mouth sagging open in amazement. “Tell me what happens if there are millions of destinations, all of which can be acquired via reaction instead of a hard-coded list. Tell me what does this robot do in such a case!”

Laurence grinned at her, feeling the most relaxed he’d ever been in her presence. Wordlessly, he pointed out a large floor-to-ceiling window that gave onto the island’s eastern most point. The water was a pale blue beneath the cliffs, and deepened to a dark, crystalline blue roughly fifteen miles out. Suddenly Laurence cursed in German, fumbling in a large pocket. He thrust a powerful pair of binoculars into Ilse’s hands.

She peered through them, adjusted her vision. Now the dark blue line was clear, a distant whine sounded and almost immediately became much louder just as she spotted something tiny but growing as it skimmed the dark blue water in the distance.

Gott, this was the ultimate test, the robot be damned. Adjusting her sights, she recognized what she’d known the small object was: a cruise missile, heading low over the ocean directly for her island.

Laurence elbowed her gently and pointed up, his grin growing larger. She craned up to see a very fine rain, almost a heavy mist, falling onto the clear ceiling. Without one cloud anywhere in sight. She whipped around, raised the binoculars to her eyes once more, watched and knew the wait wouldn’t be long.

It wasn’t. Abruptly the missile changed its path and shot almost vertically straight up before levelling out, still flying the same plan. But then Ilse saw something so incredible that goose bumps grew all over her hardened old body. The missile slowed and appeared to almost halt before it neatly flipped 180 degrees and executed a dive; the first of many instructions it had retained. If Jesus himself had crashed through the roof, did a neat back flip and landed in front of her, Ilse couldn’t be more astonished and delighted. Finally, the thrice-damned liquid being sprayed from planes out of sight was working properly. Finally, and none too soon.

“Larry, you are ze fucking genius,” she yelled in sheer exuberance, eyes gleaming.

Immensely pleased that she’d called him Larry, he executed a small bow. “My pleasure. At your service.”

***

It would take four days to coordinate an attack on the Parisian RP warehouse as weapons had to be procured for all visiting pack members: France was hard on gun sales. In fact, there were none. But Raya had a cache of weapons with a pack outside  Paris, as he did with packs everywhere. He’d need most of those weapons, and had to rely on others to do the shipping. He had so much to do that he reckoned four clones of himself might be sufficient. His ex-neighbor Chen, whom he’d worked with in the past, would oversee the actual arming of each Were once the entire stockpile had arrived. Then Joseph would place each Were at strategic points around the warehouse. Sticky job, as the district operated night and day. Many Weres were to take wolf form for that reason.

Joseph was a meticulous planner, but the vampire was still on duty watching the warehouse. As he required no sleep, they would slip nothing by him.

As the designated hour for the attack approached, Raya gave Joseph one last call to ensure everyone was in place.

There was no answer, though he called steadily for half an hour. He had to continue with the last minute preparations, which included disabling the external cameras, hacking the security system and putting it on loop playback.

At 2 AM, all was ready. Still no Joseph, but Raya gave the signal for the attack anyway. As he’d commanded all cells to be on vibrate, he placed two fast calls in succession to the group and within seconds, everyone was in motion.

Suddenly the quiet was shattered by men breaking doors, shattering windows, shouting. There were also unexpected explosions: the bastards had set booby traps. Several of his people were killed, many others wounded. Within half an hour, it was over.

To Raya’s utter disgust, the place had been gutted, emptied, and scoured clean. How had the RP known? Why had Joseph not said a thing? Surely there’d been a lot of movement. Where was Joseph? Maybe he thought it more important to follow the RP as they left. That’s what Raya would hope.

Could it be that Itchiko was not the only mole? No. Raya refused to distrust his allies: RP would be hoping he’d do just that. Be wise, though; yes, he’d be wise.

Meanwhile, all able allies scoured every inch of the warehouse and the garbage outside—and examine the 30-plus other Dumpsters in the neighborhood. They had a long night ahead.

The warehouse had been cleaned: the powerful astringent stench of Clorox hung in the air. There were five rooms in back, then 10 more on the second floor plus the enormous empty expanse on first floor. It took his group until well after sunup to search it all. They came up completely blank. He ordered them to go right back again, to their anger. But this time he went too.

***

While the other Weres combed through each room, Raya stood inside and slowly turned. Where might the RP Weres have forgotten and left something? It seemed hopeless as there was no furniture left, the place was spanking clean, and they’d even emptied Dumpsters throughout the complex.

Something tickled his mind at that thought, and suddenly he had it. Only a possibility – but he had to find out. He made a call, learned that the building dated from 1950s. Holy shit, the possibility percentage rose a bunch of points! Now to really search. He called his group together, explained exactly what they looking for. They  scattered, enthusiasm renewed.

What had been the break room with a small kitchen attached was the obvious place to begin the search. Weres throughout the warehouse tapped on all the walls where garbage chutes might have existed, as the fastidious French had believed in not stinking rooms up with garbage. Instead, they’d had garbage chutes built directly into the walls. A door swung open, one dumped in potato peelings and smacked the door closed as the refuse plunged to somewhere in the basement.

What if that chute didn’t go perfectly straight, but varied a bit? Garbage might be stuck at any such spots. It wouldn’t be easy to reach, but well worth the trouble if they found—“Got one!” a Were called down from second floor.

That room was a bathroom, so Raya doubted anything good would be found there, but they’d—“Found one!” sounded again, interrupting his thoughts.

More rooms had chutes than he’d thought, but Chen hit gold. His room had a half-kitchen, but had been used as an office, as evidenced by all the modern plugs clustered on the walls. Perfect! Chen showed him a hollow spot, still damp from fresh paint. Raya took his knife, cut right through the drywall as he’d hoped. A black chute gaped down. His flashlight didn’t show much. He needed to see inside, it was too damn deep. What to do?

He looked again, hoping for inspiration. It sort of reminded him of the pipes under the sink when Petra had dropped her ring – that was it. One of those plumber things with a camera on the end. He put the word out, and within an hour, a plumber showed up.

The plumber reported that the chutes were all straight, but he had found something minor in the chute in the office kitchen wall. Raya was excited when the man brought him a stinking chunk of crumpled paper. Straightened out, there were two pieces: one seemed to be part of a strange list, the other a receipt from a nearby Bass Pro Shop.

The Bass Pro receipt didn’t mean much, at first. One hundred saltwater fishing rods, three large tackle boxes, 80 ball caps with different fishing motifs, and a load of various fishing lures. As Raya adored fishing, he immediately saw something odd: the saltwater fishing rods were accompanied by small lures meant for streams.

The other list consisted of: Silktail, Ogea Monarch, Slaty Monarch, Fiji Whistler, and Azure-crested Flycatcher. Looked like types of bird, Raya thought. A fast search with his iPhone proved him right. One type was particularly interesting – the mostly yellow “Fiji Whistler” was found in only one location on the planet.

He researched Fiji and found all the birds on the list were native there. It couldn’t be a coincidence, but he’d contact Aussie and Fiji packs and see what they could learn.

It only took one call. A Fiji pack happened to have an avid birdwatcher who confirmed that those particular birds were all found in Fiji, and that the Fiji Whistler was only found there and nowhere else. Together with purchased items which looked to Raya like they were meant to make people appear to be fishing, it all pointed directly to the RP location on Fiji. He’d asked the local packs to look around on all the many islands and see if anything appeared different or odd.

For now, he went and looked at a spot of interest on the warehouse’s second floor, where temporary walls had divided the space into rooms large enough for a single bed. There was still a faint medicinal smell in the area. He had several Weres pull up floor boards where there were stains. These would be overnighted to a friendly lab back in the States.

***

Raya called a few Weres and told them the search was complete. He wanted to speak to everyone in the large, open part of the second floor. In minutes there was a mob of people muttering amongst themselves.

“You responded well to your Trans-Alpha’s call; it will not be forgotten. Not many times in our history has the Trans-Alpha put out such a call. Your packs will be honored.

“For now, I call an all-pack hunt at 2:30 AM. You’ll be given the location. Following the hunt, I’d like to say a few words. That’s it.” He walked through the gathered group, which parted silently for him.

Several hours later, wolves arrived deep in Hvalsey’s thick untouched woods. The large coal-black wolf stood and watched them come, eyes glowing. His own wolves had long been dispatched to herd any prey animals in the general direction the hunt would be taking. This area was isolated and remote. He doubted anyone ever hunted here, as it was frigidly cold for humans.

A smaller gray wolf raced out of the woods, sides heaving with effort, tongue hanging out. At the sight, the black wolf went to his haunches, inhaled as deeply as possible, and sang out a hunting howl so loudly, it echoed off nearby mountains. Every wolf joined in, and newspapers the next morning reported that villages some fifty miles away had heard the concerted howls of many wolves where none had been for generations.

As the howl died off, there suddenly were no wolves in the clearing Raya had chosen. Raya himself was gone, as well. Of course he’d led the way.

The large pack had instantly scattered, wolves either breaking off alone or hunting in groups of two or three. Chen, a smaller reddish wolf, ran easily at Raya’s right side. The Alpha of a pack of Australian wolves, someone Raya had never met, but had immediately formed a bond with, ran at his left. The three were isolated from the rest as Raya had ignored the inviting scents of several caribou, preferring to hunt for a different animal he knew to be in the area. A quite rare animal, though. If they didn’t pick up a scent soon, he’d settle for a caribou.

He was certain many of his brethren had never brought down a caribou, also known as a reindeer. Both females and males had dangerous antlers, the creatures were larger and heavier than white-tailed deer, and they had dense fur – making it far more difficult to simply rip their throats out. These animals were faster, too. Altogether, it made for a hell of a hunt, especially if the wolves happened to come across the creature Raya was hell-bent on bringing down.

The three ran up to a river with large pieces of floating ice. But just as they approached it, all three picked up a strange scent. Three heads shot up in the air, sniffing, inhaling, tasting. Then, as one, they dropped to the ground and raced right to the edge of the river.

They stopped and eyed each other. It was obvious this strange prey had crossed the river. Raya didn’t want to force the other two to cross that dangerous waterway as Weres have an inborn loathing of water. But Chen made the decision on his own.

He trotted back roughly twenty feet, thundered forward at a dead run and hopped with great agility from one ice patch to the next. In seconds he was on the opposite side, tongue hanging out in a wolf grin.

Raya eyed the Australian wolf. A creature from much warmer climes, he might not want anything to do with frozen— Before Raya could finish the thought, he found himself watching as the Aussie wolf took a great leap from a standstill, landed on one patch, eyed the next, sprung, and so made his way much more cautiously across the river.

Raya was right behind, gratefully following him from ice patch to ice patch.

Once on the other side, all three howled in triumph and set off at a business-like run. As the scent grew thicker, the freezing wind picked up. One minute it was a tailwind, the next a crosswind. There was no telling if the creature caught their approach or not.

Chen was slightly ahead of the other two and suddenly put on the brakes. Raya and the Aussie followed suit. The strange scent surrounded them, now, and just ahead was a hill with a dark hole in it.

A cave, and that mysteriously enticing scent led directly into the opening.

Not optimum for a hunt, but Raya was damned if he’d come this far to go back empty-pawed. He stepped forward and entered the cave, nearly on his belly in caution. The other two were with him, and all three were completely silent even as they crept through a pond of water so cold Raya felt his balls climb all the way up into his belly.

On the far side of the pond, he could just see an immense form lumbering ahead. It was an enormous polar bear, a creature not known for its happy nature on the best of days.

A lone wolf would never have put forth the effort. Even two wolves would have hesitated. Three? Three Alphas? There was no question, only a plan to execute.

The three Alphas had never hunted together. One of them was entirely foreign to the other two, yet they worked as an experienced hunting team who’d been together since birth. Such is the nature of wolves, and always has been.

Surprisingly, the Australian wolf took the lead and presented the plan. He eyed Raya, then cocked his head to the right. The cave opened up in that direction and his plan for Raya was clear. Go far to the right, around the bear, and then approach from the front.

For Chen, he simply went to his belly and moved forward. Chen moved with him, stride for stride, even as Raya bolted silently to the right until he came up against a wall. He followed it until the scent of bear was much dimmer. The creature would now be behind him. He struck off back across the cave, and met another wall to his surprise.

The cave narrowed considerably at that point, making the hunt several times more dangerous. And him with no way to contact the other two. He had only one option, and he took it. He charged directly toward the bear with no warning, knowing that the faster the three attacked, the wider space they’d have. If they’d picked up on his signals.

Chen later said he’d scared the shit out of him and Peter, the Aussie Alpha, as they’d been creeping along behind the bear waiting for Peter’s signal. Peter was waiting until he caught sight of Raya, who should have poked a careful head up.

Instead, suddenly the damn bear roared in fury and sprung to its hind legs, appearing to be in battle with nothing at all. Both wolves leaped backward, until Chen spied one of Raya’s gold eyes in the mass of black. Then he howled a challenge and raced forward, Peter confused, but at his side.

Of course, neither had seen the jet-black Raya attack, not in the equal darkness of the cave.

Raya and Chen, thinking as one, hindered the bear enough so Peter could work at tearing that hairy throat out. Raya bit and chewed on one massive, hairy leg whilst Chen did the same on one of the bear’s arms. It couldn’t walk, and one arm was hindered from fighting. Within moments Peter’s triumphant howl echoed through the cave as the huge beast dropped slowly to the floor, bleeding out from the throat.

They fed until they couldn’t eat another bite, and then Raya purposely chewed off one gigantic paw to carry back. The other two managed to carry a haunch, between them, so the others could all have a taste of a creature none had likely ever seen.

A fitting end to a Trans-Alpha hunt, which was nearly as rare as the polar bear. Indeed, as the three wolves arrived back at the starting point, Raya wasn’t surprised to find they were the last to do so.

The others took one sniff and surrounded them with yips of curiosity. Chen and Peter thankfully dropped the heavy load they’d carried for such a distance, and all 3 wolves backed away from it. The message was clear.

Each wolf took a couple of bites, then made way for the next group. When they were done, they changed. Happy, full, filthy and in warm clothes, they expressed amazement at that polar bear. Peter detailed the hunt, then fell silent. Raya was ready to begin his speech, and every Were stood still as a carving, eyes glued on him.

“What I say tonight, I do not say as Trans-Alpha but as Alpha of Clan Lupeinescu. There has been a grievous insult to my mate. She was taken without her consent.”

Instantly a roaring growl arose from the group, several of whom changed on the spot. Chen was among that number. For once in his long, long life, Raya was overcome with emotion. He’d felt so alone. Now he realized he had solid support from his real brothers and sisters, his real people. He struggled to hide his emotion.

It would never do for the Trans-Alpha to show weakness of any sort.

While he’d been trying to get himself under control, a rapid conversation had occurred amongst everyone in the crowd. Chen had instantly changed back, led the conversation. Now he stepped forward.

“We back you one hundred percent as one pack. Trans-Alpha or no. You have but to ask.” His words were greeted with a roar of approval.

Raya was forced to turn his back, head hung. The roar grew louder until it echoed off the mountains in the distance: “Raya! Raya! Raya!”

He dashed the tears away with one hand and spun around, his face somber and furious at once, all signs of emotion gone. The crowd fell silent with an air of sheer anticipation.

“Pack Lupeinescu formally declares war on Pack Bishara. May their wolves be ground to dust and forgotten by any offspring we do not annihilate. To the last wolf, Pack Lupeinescu will battle to right not only the great wrong done the female Alpha of our pack, but the far greater wrongs they’ve already perpetuated on humanity, and moreover the as-yet unknown wrong they’re currently planning.” He hesitated.

Not a wolf moved nor made a noise.

Finally, he sighed and continued. “I say ‘as-yet unknown’ because we don’t know exactly what they’re planning. We do know how they’re setting it up. We have knowledge that they are experimenting directly on Were brains and human brains at the same time: we’ve seen photos of the operation.”

Several deep growls began, but others quieted them.

Raya continued. “They have moved somewhere in the islands of Fiji, which is where Pack Lupeinescu will head immediately. We will receive information on the exact island or discover it on arrival. Either way, we will reduce all of Pack Bishara to fucking cinders!”

Once again, he had to battle his emotions. Wolves from some 80 world-wide packs faced him. Many of those wolves were entirely unknown to him or his pack, yet as he stopped speaking, the several hundred gathered Weres changed to human and dropped as one to a knee.

Out of each throat came the same message, “Our lives for yours, Trans-Alpha.”

Then he shared his general plans for the demise of RP. There was a discussion, various Weres adding vital information and ideas. The meeting broke up near daybreak.

Chapter Eighteen

On August 23, Raya landed in Inconnu and prepared his nuclear sub for its first mission. He well remembered the day in 2012 that the Uber Wolf had spoken to him, a rare-enough occurrence. But the message had been insane, Raya had thought at the time.

It seemed someone had burned a nuclear submarine, the USS Miami, badly enough that it needed millions in repairs. Those repairs were nearly finished at the Portsmouth Naval Shipyard. The Uber Wolf’s message had been short: Steal sub USS Miami from Portsmouth Naval Shipyard. One never said no: the Uber Wolf had excellent reasons for its very, very rare commands.

With a brief pang that ended in fury, Raya recalled how Itchiko had burst out in rare laughter when Raya had asked, “Think you could hotwire a nuclear sub?”

The project had been ridiculously simple, considering the size and ramifications. The pack had waited until the small hours when the least people were on site, then simply used several sleeping gas dispensers to knock out anyone in the sub and all those outside. It turned out to be cake to steal, especially since Raya had utilized a pack member from Ohio who was a retired sub pilot.

Far worse was the second and final demand from the Uber Wolf: 40 standard Tomahawk cruise missiles, ‘standard’ meaning ‘non-nuclear,’ Raya had discovered. It had been Itchiko who suggested they steal them, because on the black market, they were at least 1.5 million dollars – each. Raya had gasped.

Thanks to the knowledge of several Russian packs, they’d been able to raid a poorly-guarded Russian weapon stockpile for exactly what they’d needed.

Why in hell would the pack ever need an armed nuclear sub? It made no sense at all to Raya, but he’d dutifully pulled it off and stored the thing at Inconnu. Even made provisions for its upkeep.

And now he understood fully why the Uber Wolf had made such a seemingly-bizarre command in 2012. That was very likely the only time a nuclear sub would be anywhere near a place where it could be stolen!

Of course they’d renamed the sub, which now wore the proud moniker of the LUP Grand Couilles; Cully for short.

Petra hadn’t at all been happy that he was taking Cully to war without her. In fact, she’d refused to be left behind no matter what arguments Raya used, and in the end he’d been forced to give in. When he boarded Cully, she was at his side. Behind them, Iwabari had a long, large bag. Nobody noticed as he carried it aboard and unobtrusively stuck it in an unused crewman’s cabin.

Raya and Petra had been aboard Cully for a week, and were only just adjusting to the lack of space, the weird smells and noises, and other joys of a submarine. Joseph and Chen were aboard as well, but Cilla had been tasked to watch over Shelley in Iceland, to her rage. Several other Alphas including Steve were also aboard along with 8 human submariners, who had been heavily bribed and knew the truth about the “Group” they were attacking. At least part of the truth, including the near destruction of all canines and the murder of thousands in New Orleans via the DNA missile. Most had offered their services for free, but Raya had insisted on payment in case any didn’t return home. Their families would deserve it.

Raya learned that life aboard a sub was boring as hell if one wasn’t actively involved with the thing, which none of the Weres were. They did have card decks and several enormous three and four day poker games were in progress. The Alphas also gathered for storytelling, something popular with Weres since prior to having a written language. For Petra, it all sounded like fishing tales about the “big one that got away,” but fascinating all the same.

Raya got a long message from the Fiji pack on September 3rd. The news there had reported a large number of dead fish around a particular small island 30 miles from Viti Levu. The pack had investigated and discovered heavy security surrounding that island, posing as bogus fisherman. The pack had noticed the same disparity in rods and lures that Raya had on the list: it was the final solid information that indicated this was indeed where the RP were located.

The Fijian pack also sent photos of a large, flat building in the midst of a walled compound. The rest of the island was pure rock. No wonder they’d chosen it as a base, Petra commented. Who else would want to live there?

Knowing that location enabled Raya to make final attack plans. He knew exactly how many Weres would be meeting them outside Fijian waters, more than would be needed considering the Tomahawk cruise missiles that Cully sported. There’d been no denying the other Weres, of course. Considering the information about the RP’s current intentions involving human and Were brains, the Weres had the right to be involved.

With only one more week at sea, Raya decided to inspect Cully’s large weapons cache: three chambers full of carefully-stored rifles, shotguns, SAMs, machine guns, and anything else Itchiko had seen fit to add. They’d need 90 M16s, so Raya checked those first. The chamber had floor-to-ceiling locked glass cases, each full of weapons. The M16s were in racks, 15 per rack. Except that the top rack only had 14 weapons.

Raya stared in disbelief. When had Itchiko last checked the things? Several months back. No one else could possibly have entered due to the incredible security on each door, including retinal checks, fingerprints, facial recognition and voice recognition. All of which had to be passed in order to open a single door.

No, nobody had taken the gun. Raya stepped closer and examined the empty slot. Each rifle’s butt sat on a small shelf, and there was a steel clamp that encircled the barrel to hold it in place. All looked normal, but – wait.

This steel clamp was twice as thick as the others. What the hell? Raya knew nothing about storing weapons, and was relieved to see that the clamps were attached to a steel plate held to the board by four screws. Once he had the clamp in his hands, he took it to his and Petra’s master stateroom and explained to Petra what had happened.

She had always been able to see things better than he did. Maybe it was a female trait, he thought. But now was no different. He’d seen nothing at all odd about that clamp. Petra looked at it for five minutes, turning it this way and that.

“What’s this?” she asked, pointing to something he couldn’t see.

“What’s what?” he asked, frowning.

“This ridge right here.”

“Oh, that’s where it was soldered to the plate – wait a moment.” He took it in his own large hands and examined it. The ridge was only on one side. How in hell had he not noticed that!

He pushed the flat end of a screwdriver into the ridge, but it was too wide.

“Here,” Petra said, handing him a thin metal nail file that came to a wicked point.

Once the point was in the ridge, he pressed, prodded, and suddenly the top of the clamp popped open. There was a tiny chamber, just wide enough for the thin piece of copper it held. He looked at Petra, then pulled it out.

The top of the strip was folded over two identical keys. Underneath the keys, a nine-digit number had been embossed.

Only Itchiko could have done this, but why? And what the hell was this number?

He informed all the Weres, who were utterly delighted to have a task at long last. They divided the sub between them, and each would scour their section for the number. As with anything military, everything on the sub had at least one number. Raya was afraid this particular number would never be found in time.

Petra’s area was the control room. She was forbidden to lean over, though, one demand she was happy to comply with. “I haven’t seen my feet in ages, anyway.”

Nothing was located that day, or the next. On September 6th, right after lunch, Petra let loose a female squeal of delight. Alarmed, Raya rushed to her side, knocking the crap out of his knee on some piece of hardware that he usually avoided.

“Are you in labor?” he asked as he reached her, rubbing his sore knee.

“Goddess no!” She laughed. “I found the damn number.”

Chapter Nineteen

The number was engraved on two panels just outside the control room, one on each side of the door. Once again Raya used a screwdriver to remove the panels, and was presented with a sight nobody had expected.

There was a shiny brass plaque with a single keyhole on each side of the door.

Nothing else.

“Chen? Do the honors?” Raya held out a key.

“I’d be honored.” The Chinese Were took a key, and on the count of 3, turned it at the same time Raya did.

Nothing happened.

Raya frowned. “What you think we did wrong?”

“Give me that key, will you?” Petra asked Chen, who handed it over. “Right. Let’s try again.”

Once again Raya counted to three, they both turned their keys, and Iwabari yelled from the Control Room, “What did you do?”

Petra and Raya eyed each other for a moment, then he ushered her back into the small room. On one of the many monitors, a portion of the outside of the sub was visible: there was now a square, dark hole.

“Christos, it’s another missile launch thing,” Raya said. “We already have plenty. Why another?”

“Maybe we need to finish turning those keys,” Petra suggested.

They did just that, and there was a click. The plaque on Raya’s side swung open to show a red button with what looked like a small red fan painted on it. Raya knew better, as he was familiar with the international radiation symbol. “Holy shit. Does this mean what I think it does?”

Iwabari came and looked. Face solemn, he said, “Yes. That would be a nuclear missile.” Then he frowned. “But what’s this?” There was a tiny tab to the right of the button. Both Petra and Raya had been so aghast over the button, they hadn’t seen it. Now Iwabari gave it a tug, and out came another long, thin strip of brass.

Engraved on this one in Itchiko’s distinctive writing was:

 “Thought you might be able to use this one day.”

When the hell had he done this? Raya was flabbergasted, but it didn’t last long.

“Yeah, we can use it all right. May it go right up your asshole.” He looked at Petra and the fury rose again.

But something was different. Her beautiful eyes slid away from his, and she’d gone pale. Raya was instantly confused. Itchiko’s death was a bad thing? The Alpha female who’d been so frightened she shook for hours, so furious that packs for miles had felt her wrath. And suddenly all is forgiven?

Her eyes returned to his and stayed there, clear as always. “Raya. It’s time we had a talk.”

***

More confused than ever, Raya followed her to their quarters. As they walked, he began to have a dreadful feeling that there was a basic truth he didn’t know – something he should have guessed. The feeling grew with every step towards their chamber. He flicked a glance at his mate’s face. She was pure Alpha female, and her expression gave nothing away.

That would have been true if he’d not caught the faintest tremble in her lower lip, although she stopped it instantly.

Inside their room, he sat her on their wide bunk, plunked down across from her. She took a deep breath and started to speak, but Raya held a hand up to stop her.

“Whatever it is, I love you. Always have, always will. I don’t want you upset right now, no matter the cause. Will you promise to remain calm, or to tell me this after the birth?”

“Be too late then,” she said miserably. “Needs to be now.”

And just like that, Raya got it. Not all of it, of course, but the basics were perfectly clear: there’d been no rape. His first reaction was searing anger at the betrayal, but almost immediately that was replaced by sheer relief. He still had a brother. His wife, now… well, she had to have had a reason.

A very goddamn good reason.

***

Petra’s eyes hadn’t left his face since they’d sat on the bed and as always, to her, his face was as easily readable as a child’s reading primer. She was fully aware that he had intuited Itchiko had never touched her as she’d seen the exact moment when he’d come to that realization. There’d been a flash of pure relief followed by absolute rage, disappointment and hurt in rapid succession.

He broke into her thoughts with a question. A short one. “Why?”

“I gave my word willingly as Alpha not to tell anyone,” she responded, equally briefly.

He looked deeply into her eyes and she stared back, eyes clear as always. With a sigh, Raya said, “From the beginning.”

“Itchiko and I spent hours talking. One afternoon we learned you had Shelley, we saw the picture she’d sent. Itchiko excused himself, said he had to think. That evening he came to me and said we needed a mole inside the RP right now. They have some electronic genius who came up with that DNA missile – ‘wet’ electronics which work with biology. In this case, live DNA. These are people who believe Hitler was right, and they are somehow manipulating live brains. Clearly, RP would choose who lives or dies.”

Raya nodded reluctantly. He’d also come to that conclusion after seeing Shelley’s photo. Now he motioned for his mate to continue.

“RP must be destroyed by someone superb with electronics, someone they’d fully trust too. Only one pack member fits that bill, but you would never allow your own blood brother to enter RP as a mole for any reason whatsoever. RP would never accept your brother out of our entire pack into their ranks either. You could, though, repudiate Itchiko as a brother. You’d never do it unless Itchiko did something so horrible that your hand was forced. As a bonus, RP would then buy it too. Ergo, Itchiko came up with that rape story, and got sick just discussing it.” She paused. “You have to know why I went along.”

“The one part I am not getting at all,” Raya admitted. “I know you had to have had a really good reason, but it escapes me.”

“She wants our pups, Raya. My pups. As a Were mother, there is literally nothing I wouldn’t do to protect them – short of killing you. Honestly in all this, I hadn’t thought of it from that perspective either, so the minute he said that, of course I was in.”

Raya reached out, grabbed her gently and pulled her, enormous belly and all, into his lap. Stroking her long, soft hair, he said, “You deserve a fucking Oscar.”

“Didn’t know if I could pull it off, as I can’t act for shit. Itchiko found a drug that makes you shake badly. Had to take it every half hour.” She buried her face in his shoulder and sighed with the exquisite relief that came with getting rid of this dreadful secret. “So you would essentially give up the whole Pack, and possibly more for Itchiko’s one life. Itchiko could only think of one sure way to turn you, but he had to get me on board. And not only for the pups, though they were key. I knew the entire pack and perhaps humanity were at risk. That’s it.”

He kissed the top of her head. “Now we have to figure out how the hell to get my brother away from that hell hole so we can create a real hell hole and send them all straight there.”

Iwabari grinned. “I might have an idea about that.”

Chapter Twenty

Petra, Raya, Chen and Steve were all crammed outside the control room. The air was alive with the scent of excited Were.

“Right… about… now!” Raya shouted. “Exactly 500 miles out.”

“The nearest islands were evacuated for sure?” Petra asked.

Steve responded. “I placed an anonymous call to a TV news channel, saying there has been a bad chemical spill less than 20 miles from them. Those islands are only a couple miles away from each other; people left like rats leaving a sinking boat!”

“Right, then,” Petra said, afraid her reluctance was showing.

“You do know we’re doing the right thing, yes?” Raya inquired, a big smile on his face.

“Yes, but I can’t take delight in all those deaths,” Petra said softly. “No matter what they’ve done.”

“Then you won’t mind when it’s the tiny heads of your pups that are wide open in the next picture,” Chen said.

To everyone’s shock, Petra’s right hand shot out and slammed the red button down. The large sub shuddered, then “Bird 1 away!” sounded over the loudspeaker.

The three male Alphas eyed one another, then all took a cautious step backward. Petra had to laugh. “It’s the hormones,” she explained for what had to be the millionth time. “I don’t have much control these days.”

“Good!” Raya said, eyes gleaming. “Well done, Petra.”

***

It was nearly 6 PM when the island’s alarm sounded. Ilse raced to the guard room to find Laurence and Itchiko grinning like sharks.

“That’s it,” Laurence said with satisfaction. “Incoming! One Tomahawk missile, due in twenty minutes.”

“When does the rain fall?” Ilse wondered.

“In about two minutes.”

“I need to hurry, then. I have an idea for a small message to send to dear Raya.” She pulled out her cell, set it to video and began to record the ultimate selfie.

“Raya! Recognize my face now, Sweet Cheeks? Been a long time, but I’ll never forget your face.” Her already-small eyes narrowed to ugly slits with a hint of pure wickedness. “Funny, but now my face will be the last one you ever see! Forget your mate – I sure have. Don’t need those pups after all, fancy that. Well, it’s been real!” She went silent for a moment, then laughed hard. “Real nice, that is, especially if you like mushrooms. Bye now.” With a flourish of her pointer finger, Ilse hit “Send.”

Itchiko was every bit as delighted as Ilse; in that, he too would have his vengeance soon enough. They watched the time click slowly down to the minutes and seconds when the missile would take out its target. That each had a different target in mind would have surprised only one of them.

Ilse’s smile turned to a grimace of pain. No two ways about it, she had to hit the bathroom. Before she went, she asked if Itchiko could delay the hit until she returned, at least ten more minutes. The time until impact was displayed on the monitor in bright red letters. Itchiko agreed, typed for a moment and the time on the monitor jumped from 15 to 25 minutes. Ilse ran out, appeased.

***

On board the Cully, Raya received Ilse’s message. At the sight of that bulldog-jowled face, his memory was jolted and he fully recalled that Parisian afternoon when he’d crossed the path of a lone Alpha female in heat. He’d done his duty for a full week, and banished the act from his mind until now.

He shook his head in complete disbelief. It sounded impossible, but every instinct screamed that most wrongs with the RP dated from that very afternoon. He told Petra, who also remembered him coming home with that impossible-to-hide stench. She couldn’t believe it either.

“I always knew you were irresistible, but this is ridiculous!” she said in an effort to lighten the moment. “Why didn’t she just strap on a boner and take your arse?”

Even as she spoke, the sub’s alarm sounded and a female voice announced that a Tomahawk missile was incoming, impact in 25 minutes.

Raya said, “I think that’s what she is doing right now.” He and Iwabari moved rapidly to the control room.

Petra remained in their quarters, stricken by a sudden painful cramp. One moment all was normal and the next, she seemed to be in full labor, nearly three weeks early. In human terms, the births would have been two and a half months premature. The chances of pups surviving that young were between nil and none. Tears ran down her cheeks.

In the control room, Iwabari knew immediately it was their own missile. Raya didn’t care whose missile it was. He was frantic to get Petra and everyone else the hell off the sub. But even shooting them to the surface in the emergency bell would do no good. The nuke would take out everything and everyone for miles in all directions. It was truly hopeless, he realized. The war with the RP was over.

***

In their cabin, Petra struggled to stop her labor, but then felt a rush of dampness. Horrified that her water had broken, she looked down to see an ever-widening pool of blood on the floor. “Raya?” she called out, unsure if he could hear her or not.

“Raya? Help!”

Chapter Twenty-One

With Ilse still in the bathroom, Itchiko considered reversing the missile but realized the further it went, the longer a return it would have, hopefully affording him time to make his escape. Maybe Raya would attempt a rescue, though nothing was less certain.

It depended on what Petra had told him, and then on how he’d taken that news. Very possibly the Alpha hadn’t taken it well at all, no matter how Petra had tried to explain.

Itchiko had done what he thought best to protect first his Pack and then other Weres and humanity. He’d do it again, regardless of the consequences. A trained Samurai could do no less.

With Ilse still not back, Itchiko eyed the two cameras in opposite corners of the guard control room. It was time.

He rapidly typed several commands, hit enter. On the large monitor, the missile slowly reversed itself and was pointed once more at the island. One more fast command, the monitor burped and suddenly the missile appeared to be heading out to sea once more.

“My life for yours,” he whispered, and on a whim typed that into the missile control panel as well. Before he could hit enter, a harsh voice said, “What the fuck do you think you’re doing?”

***

Raya saw the missile’s latest maneuver and realized Itchiko had somehow changed the weapon’s direction. His brother was effectively committing suicide. Ilse would have to be a fool not to realize who had reset that missile’s path, and she was a lot of things – but not a fool. Itchiko was a dead man, missile or no.

He sat back in his chair and closed his eyes, praying for just two minutes of peace. Every muscle in his body was knotted with tension. Normally, Petra got rid of those knots, but she wasn’t well.

He stood. Best go check on her.

Walking behind him, Iwabari quietly demanded, “Take this thing up.”

Raya turned and looked at the hefty Japanese with his gray hair. “You realize radar from everywhere will pick us up if I do?”

“Take her up.”

Raya had a feeling he knew why the other wanted to get to the surface, but he had no idea what the man could do. Nevertheless, he sounded the horn and the sub began a rapid ascent.

Iwabari raced out of the control room, yelling over his shoulder, “The instant we break the surface, pop the hatch, Raya. When I’m gone, you dive, no matter what.” He was gone before Raya could even respond.

Moments later, Raya felt the sub surface, pushed the button to flip the hatch open. There were no cameras there, so he simply counted to 10, closed the hatch and dove.

He wished Iwabari luck, whatever he was doing, then once again tried to relax and close his eyes. Exhausted beyond belief, he felt himself sliding into sleep when abruptly he was sitting erect in his chair, eyes wide open, alarm coursing like acid through his veins. Christos, what the hell?

Head high, he sniffed repeatedly for danger. Nothing. Scanned the monitors. Nothing again. But something was different – perhaps his state of exhaustion was such that he wasn’t noticing something that would normally be obvious.

And then there was an inaudible click, as if a light had been turned off. He was out of his chair and moving faster than he ever had as he realized what had been extinguished: Petra’s light, her mate link deep inside him.

It was gone as if it, or she, had never existed.

“PETRA!”

***

When the old USS Miami surfaced, alerts sounded on many ships and several subs in the area. Almost everyone ignored it. American subs were often in the vicinity.

On one sub, though, the alert had sent shock waves throughout the sub and shortly all the way to Washington, DC. America’s latest and greatest nuclear sub happened to be less than 800 miles from Cully’s position, and when that alert sounded, the naval officer who kept an ever-vigilant eye on ships in the vicinity nearly had a stroke.

He immediately summoned his superior, filled with dread at the man’s probable response when he heard the news.

And sure enough when the high-ranking officer heard that the USS Miami had just surfaced off the coast of Fiji, he told the radar officer to quit drinking on the job. The younger man persisted, though, so his superior stomped down to ream him a new anal orifice.

Instead, he found himself gaping at a satellite image taken 10 minutes before. There was no question that the sub in question had begun life as the Miami, but that was no longer who she was.

The LUP GrandCouilles? What the hell? How had the French stolen an American nuclear sub? One fully loaded for bear, at that?

DC was duly notified, and shocks travelled rapidly up the chain of command until they couldn’t travel any farther.

The US President looked at the navy colonel standing in front of him, and had a brief question.

“How?”

The colonel shrugged helplessly. “We’re going back over satellite imagery and cameras from the shipyard, but it will take some time. We do have a translation for the sub’s French name, though.” Sixty years old, and a grizzled vet of four wars; still the man wouldn’t look the President in the eyes.

“Let’s have it, then.”

“Sir, it means ‘Big Balls.’” The colonel’s shoulders faintly hunched, ready for a blast.

Instead there was a roar of laughter. “Never was a ship more truly named. Anyone who steals an American nuclear sub has a pair, all right.” He sobered. “Find out who and do it fast. I want all our resources in the region on this.”

The colonel nodded, and left.

***

As Raya ran the length of the sub, Chen was on his heels yelling, “What? What?”

“Petra’s mate link just went out!”

“I’ll go get Victor,” Chen said as he whirled and ran.

Raya reached their quarters and burst in the door to the most dreadful sight he’d ever seen: Petra on the bed in an ever-growing pool of her own blood.

“Christos! Petra! Petra, love, can you hear me?”

“Thank goddess you’re here,” she whispered. “I don’t want to lose them.”

“I don’t want to lose you,” he responded, his voice ragged.

The door opened behind him and Victor trotted in. The Russian Were was a family doctor in his own country. Raya had always teased him that his bedside manner was bad enough to kill a patient, but now he was pathetically glad to see the surly doctor.

“Out of my way,” Victor said curtly.

Raya’s blood pressure instantly rose, but he moved. As long as the guy helped Petra, it didn’t matter how big an asshole he was.

“How long you bleed?” Victor asked Petra.

“Less than an hour,” she said.

“I need to take a look.” He eyed Raya with one brow lifted.

“Go ahead,” Raya said, not delighted.

Soon Victor had his head where no man’s head should ever be, Raya thought. “See anything?” was all he asked, though.

“Hmmmm,” Victor said. “The problem is nerves. The more stress, the more the heart pumps. Female Weres have delicate veins: they rupture easily, which is one reason the Were successful birth rate is so low. As you still have two weeks, I’ll suggest you Change for a couple of hours, to stop the bleeding and keep your stress manageable.”

“I can do that,” Petra said, and did. The silver wolf, much larger with child than her human counterpart, exhaled gustily and curled onto her side, giving Raya a large wolf grin as she went.

“Victor, she feels much better. I owe you,” Raya said.

“Is no problem. Call me if anything else happens,” he said as he walked out the door.

“Victor!” Raya called out sharply, stopping the other Were in his tracks. “I’d appreciate it if you’d stay here for a bit. She gets anxious when she’s alone.” He had a feeling that wouldn’t go over with the tall Russian Were.

At the door, Victor turned and faced him. “It would be an honor,” he said quietly, a different man.

Both of Raya’s brows shot skyward in surprise.

“You’re not known for having new Weres in your private quarters,” the Russian said. “Very much I’d enjoy getting to know your mate. Petra, a game of yes/no?”

The silver wolf bobbed her head. Yes/no was a good way to learn about someone; Victor would ask her questions about her preferences, for example. They usually played to 20. Each yes was a point. If he got more yeses and nos, he won.

Relieved, Raya went back to the control room. Now if all went well in the air over that island…

Chapter Twenty-Two

Itchiko frowned up at Ilse. “What do you mean? I checked the missile’s course. This is the first time this technology has actually been used. We need to check and recheck.”

Ilse relaxed. “Sorry I jumped like that. Something is wrong with mein gut, perhaps the satisfaction after waiting so very long for this day.”

“We fully deserve this moment, Ilse. I don’t blame you in the least.” Itchiko meant those words, though not in the sense Ilse understood. It would be worth his own demise to take this insane bitch and her equally twisted medical staff the hell out.

Of course, if he had a choice he’d rather not die… but there was no way out. He sighed and ran his eyes over all the monitors in the system. One caught his eye. Instantly he knew he had to bugger that camera, but how? How?

Suddenly the screen pixilated, and once more the cliff at the north end of the island was scanned with the usual results. Who? Who had done such a thing!

***

At the far end of the compound, Daniel slapped his laptop shut and raced out of his quarters. He didn’t know what was happening either, but it had to mean bad news for Ilse. And he was all for that. He’d missed Shelley every day since she’d been gone, had no way to contact her.

He’d come up with a plan to get away from this German bitch for good, and it would just take time. If what he’d seen above that cliff meant what he thought it did, he might see the last of Ilse any time now.

He had no idea that he already had.

***

If Itchiko hadn’t looked at that precise moment, he’d not have seen what had to be a miracle of some kind, although he had no idea what it meant. A bright red hang glider had swooped up from below the cliff’s edge before the screen had gone back to showing a blank cliff. It made no – a sudden thought hit, and he grabbed his own belly and groaned.

“Ilse, I’m sorry. Must have caught what you have.” A Samurai has total control over his body at all times, so he promptly farted as he jumped out of his chair and moved rapidly toward the door.

“Mein Gott,” Ilse spat in disgust. “Do not return unless you’re positive that won’t happen again.”

“Rest assured,” Itchiko said as he shot out the door. In the corridor, he looked both ways. Not a soul was in sight. There was a camera at the end, though, swiveling back and forth.

He’d been prepared for this moment, although he’d never thought it would actually arrive. Bent over, moaning and staggering toward the bathroom door, he slipped a hand into his pocket, found his cell, tapped three times. The lights flickered and the corridor went dark: all electricity to the facility had been cut.

There wasn’t much time before Ilse’s men would locate the problem, and even less time before a certain large present for Ilse would satiate her love for mushrooms. He bolted into a storage closet, shut the door behind him.

There were mops, toilet paper, buckets cluttering the floor. Office supplies lined shelves along the rear wall. Boxes of paper and other items were on the bottom two shelves: one good yank and both shelves moved easily away from the wall as all the boxes were empty.

A ragged hole in the wall was exposed, and Itchiko dove in, flipped around and pulled the two shelves back into place before scrambling along the earthen tunnel on all fours. His watch glowed with bad news – eight minutes to impact. He had to move faster.

***

On board Cully, Chen was monitoring the radar and also noted the scene on the island’s cliff. He alerted Raya, who prepared to shoot the glider out of the sky. Ilse figured perhaps she’d escape, did she?

“Chen, can you get to that island footage you linked to?” Raya asked.

“Sure,” Chen said.

“Let’s look at the last few minutes, then. Check out that hang glider.”

Chen swiveled to reach another computer, typed in a command, then clicked the mouse several times. “Here it is, starting ten minutes ago.”

The two of them watched as a camera slowly panned across thick grass growing to the edge of a rocky cliff. At the far right, there was the beginning of a fence. Then the camera panned back the other way. It reversed and began a second pass, and there it was. A bright red hang glider swooped up from somewhere below the cliff.

“Freeze it there!” Raya demanded.

The video paused, just as the hang glider banked for a turn. They had a clear view of the top of a wing. Someone had placed a crude drawing there, but the meaning was crystal clear even if the Samurai sword looked to have been drawn by a three year old.

“Iwabari!” Chen and Raya spoke at once.

Raya asked him to zoom in. Then, they could see the extra bag hanging next to Iwabari’s. “He converted the thing into a two-man glider.” His voice was rough with emotion. “My brother. He’s trying to rescue my brother.”

“Get this underwater casket as close in as possible,” Chen advised.

“You best believe I’ll do just that,” Raya vowed.

***

On the island, Itchiko’s knees were nearly raw as he crawled at high speed toward what appeared to be the tunnel’s exit. Sweaty and filthy, he emerged behind the hill and ran flat-out across a narrow strip of land to a rise, and scrambled upward just as something large flew over his head. He ducked in fright, but heard Iwabari yell, “No time land. Grab on!” as he banked to make another pass over Itchiko.

Itchiko didn’t need another invitation. As the black plastic bag containing Iwabari’s torso swooped down in range, he leaped up and wrapped his arms around the narrowest part. Iwabari immediately turned and shot straight down toward the sea, hidden from the island’s radar.

***

Still moving full speed ahead toward the island, Raya checked his watch when he caught sight of the hang glider soaring directly toward him. Christos. Two minutes to detonation. He was taking the sub and everyone on her dangerously close to destruction. He performed an emergency surface.

Thump! He opened the hatch, heard, “Got them,” and yelled, “All reverse!”

The sub reversed and went into an emergency dive, still too close to the island to get very deep. And just before it dove, Raya heard distant sirens. They’d been noticed by island radar. He told the pilot to zig zag just as a huge explosion seemed to kick Cully in the ass and sent the sub flying through the water. He muttered, “Too damn close,” just as the two Samurai entered.

The sub was rocking like hell, lights flashing on and off, but it kept going. Those in the control room felt pure relief until distant screams echoed down the corridor.

Chapter Twenty-Three

Raya was up and moving before anyone else, yet Itchiko was already at Petra’s side when Raya entered.

Victor was crouched at the end of the bed between Petra’s legs when Itchiko knocked him aside, yelled at Raya to take his shirt off and began chanting rapidly in Japanese. Sweat began pouring down Itchiko’s face as Iwabari demanded that Raya hand over his shirt again.

Puzzled but desperate, Raya finally did so. Iwabari ripped shirt out of his hands. “Wipe your armpits and the sweat from your body on this. Hurry, Alpha.”

Again Raya complied, as Itchiko’s chanting became louder.

Petra screamed again, and again. Iwabari shot behind Itchiko, placed his hands on the other Japanese’s shoulders and bowed his head.

Petra shrieked once more, Itchiko shouted something in Japanese, Iwabari thrust the shirt into his hand. He took the shirt, jammed it over Petra’s nose just as she screamed again.

Itchiko exhorted her to inhale. “Inhale, Petra. Inhale and bring on your heat.”

“Goddess, I can’t! I’m going to give birth—”

“Shut up and do what I say. Breathe in, concentrate. See yourself making passionate love in the forest – a little help, Raya?”

Raya leaned over and kissed her passionately. Slowly, the bleeding stopped, as did the labor.

The sub moved silently northward, and Petra wondered if what they’d done had been right. Her mind kept going in circles, and finally she settled for a conclusion:

 there’d been no single “right response” to the dreadful acts being performed on that island.

Any response had to obliterate the individuals responsible for those acts, destroying the documentation which might enable others to take up where this group of monsters had stopped, and the poor souls who’d been maimed for life. Any such response to stop the horrors could be deemed ‘right.’

Including the one Raya had used.

Those responsible for the cruelty and any documentation were now but glowing ashes floating atop waves in the Atlantic.

A fitting end.

Six weeks later, Petra delivered two perfect little pups: a male and a female.

Epilogue

Eight Years Later

The forest near Hohenwald

Two young wolves were darting through the woods, pretending to hunt each other. The darker female shot underneath a low log, proud of herself. When she emerged, her brother was nowhere in sight.

She sat on her haunches and shook her long nose, then looked up to see what she knew she would. He was flying around the tops of the trees. When he saw her look up, he howled in triumph and darted down toward the earth.

He landed and padded toward his sister, whose head was hung in apparent dejection. His long tongue flicked out and licked her face in commiseration. She whined, then picked her head up.

Her brother moved several feet away and began dancing as best a wolf could. The sight was absurd, as he’d intended. She yipped and did a small wolf grin just as something crashed loudly through the bushy undergrowth behind her brother.

She leaped to her feet as a hunter dressed in orange burst into the clearing. “I’ll be goddamned. It’s a wolf, Jackson! Imagine this stuffed on my wall.” He held his rifle to his shoulder, sighted in on her brother.

The female knew there was no time to run and leap: the man’s finger was literally on the trigger right now. Every hair on her back stood straight up as she focused on the man and growled deeply in her throat. One moment the hunter was about to pull the trigger: the next, he was dead before he hit the ground, bleeding from every orifice.

The other hunter caught her eye. She stared back, growled, and took several steps forward. The man shrieked, and vanished into the woods.

Abruptly the female fell to her haunches, her long nose hanging in dismay as her brother approached with a worried whine. They touched noses. Her brother lifted his head to the sky and howled: a long howl of pure triumph.

After several moments, his sister’s head rose, eyes clear, and her howl raised along with his.

Northern Russia

Six thousand miles away, a small plane flew over the barren steppes of north Russia, right to the base of the mountains. It landed, and two men dressed in suits stepped out. They walked to what appeared to be the bushy side of the mountain. It slid open and they entered to the sound of German chanting. The men walked down a carved stone hall and into an enormous chamber.

A large group of people in full military gear stood facing the front. Each had a hat with a prominent swastika on the front. The chanting grew louder and louder. Each face was rapt, staring straight ahead in utter adoration.

Finally, they stopped chanting and yelled as one, “Heil Dolphe!”

At the front of the room, a thin 8 year old boy stood ramrod straight and accepted the accolade as his due.

The End.

And this concludes The Pack Trilogy, We hope you enjoyed it.

~~~~~

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Hell on Earth

Chasing Demons #1

by J.R. Rain

and H.P. Mallory

(read on for a sample)

Chapter One

The running man skidded to a halt at the intersection and did a quick sweep–left or right?–then picked right and kept on running.

The fact that he even stopped to think about which way to run meant he was still thinking clearly through the panic. If he’d been operating on instinct, as most people did when they were being pursued, he would’ve just kept running. That might have been to his disadvantage–thinking could slow you down. It might also mean he wasn’t worried about being caught and thought he was a match for the man pursuing him.

That man being me.

I bounced off the wall as I took the right-hand turn (I’m not really built for maneuverability) and kept after him. He was quick and I could hear my heart pounding in my ears, but I wasn’t going to slow down. Not after I’d been tracking the SOB for days. He was mine.

His name was Edward Atkinson, and he’d killed thirteen women over a period of two years in ways I didn’t want to think about. Not only that, but Atkinson had died once already. His death just hadn’t taken.

Technically, he wasn’t actually ‘alive’ now, his body was just good at faking it. Once you’re on earth, your body sort of reverts to factory settings, so Atkinson appeared just like any other living human being. At least, to those who didn’t know better. To me, Atkinson had a blue aura around his body that marked him as a soul escaped from its proper place. Most people couldn’t see that aura, but I wasn’t one hundred percent human either. Although that percentage does seem to have shifted over the years.

The traffic screeched to a halt as Atkinson ran out into the road to an accompaniment of blaring car horns and native New Yorkers yelling a series of colorful suggestions as to what Atkinson could do with himself.

I pursued the killer across the road, and someone hurled a disposable coffee cup in my direction, but I paid no attention. All my focus was on Atkinson, now dashing into the next alley, still managing to keep ahead of me. He ran like his life was on the line; which, in a way, it was.

I followed him, vaulting the trash cans he shoved into my path (which is traditional in a chase through New York alleyways). One of his victims had been an undercover cop. She’d been well-trained, armed, and there had been people stationed nearby to help her if she needed it. None of that had helped, and the case was something of a scandal at the time for the NYPD. They’d underestimated Atkinson just like everyone else had. He looked normal. He acted normal. He’d been brought in for questioning twice, but had fooled everyone, able to lie convincingly, and he was quite at home with his own guilt because he had no guilt.

Entering another alley (this part of New York seemed to be nothing but alleyways), Atkinson ricocheted from door to door, trying to find one that had been left open or, failing that… finding a fire exit that rattled uncertainly on its hinges. My target backed up and charged, shoulder barging through and disappearing into the darkness beyond. I was at the doorway seconds later, following Atkinson in.

I should have been more cautious.

Caught up in the heat of the chase, I just kept going, not bothering to check whether it was safe. Rookie mistake, and not the sort of thing I usually did, but Atkinson was a wily customer. In the last week, I’d lost him twice already and I didn’t plan to lose him a third time.

That driving need was making me careless.

As I went through the door, I heard the breath of air as the bottle swung downwards and the glass shattered against my head. There was a blaze of pain across my cheek and the right side of my head, the impact bringing me to my knees. And there was lots of blood.

Now it was Atkinson’s turn to make a mistake.

If he’d kept running, then I probably wouldn’t have been able to catch him; he had a head start and I was dopey from the blow to the head. But Atkinson was more than a killer and less than a man.

Some people become killers through greed or a bad upbringing, then there are those like Edward Atkinson who are born that way. There’s something rotten and twisted inside them, and it would take something miraculous to get them off the path to Hell. Usually, those miracles never came.

Atkinson turned to face me and smiled as he realized there was a wounded and vulnerable person standing in front of him. I was more than sure every fiber of his being told him to take advantage of that fact, to finish the job and enjoy it. He fingered the broken bottle with a grin of relish, no doubt contemplating all the hideous things those jagged shards could do to a person.

The blow from the bottle would have knocked most people unconscious, but I have… let’s call it a ‘special set of skills’. Or maybe a very hard head. Either way, I was dazed, but not unconscious. I looked up at the grinning face of the psychopath I’d been tracking for too long now. He raised the bottle and I had just enough sense to duck back, so the sharp edges cut rather than mangled my face as he slashed again. The blood ran into my eyes, blurring my vision, I tasted it in my mouth and the sharp pain burnt a ferocious path along my nerves.

The hell with this.

Before the bottle could strike again, I launched myself up and slammed him back into the concrete wall behind him, knocking the wind out of him. Even though he was fighting to catch his breath, he continued to struggle frantically. It was probably at that point that he realized his mistake; he’d treated me as he would any other attacker.

You can’t turn off pain (not even I can do that), you can’t even turn it down, but you can get used to it. Which isn’t to say you don’t still feel it or that it doesn’t still hurt (it definitely does!), but if you’re used to getting hurt, then it doesn’t have to slow you down, you can push through it and just keep going. I’d had a lot of practice getting hurt.

It also helped to know I would heal.

I always healed.

Grabbing the hand in which Atkinson held that bottle, I smacked it repeatedly against the wall until the bottle dropped and shattered on the ground below. Now disarmed, he stopped struggling.

“Alright, alright! I’ll come quietly.”

I didn’t let go of him, but I stopped hitting him–it was always easier when they cooperated.

But Edward Atkinson wasn’t the type to cooperate. As I backed off a step, he stamped on my foot, and threw an elbow into my chin.

He was grinning again. He was enjoying this. Clearly.

Truth be told, escaping Hell isn’t as hard as it ought to be. No one ever really thinks about it, but Hell is run by Demons, and while Demons enjoy torturing the souls of humanity’s most wicked, they don’t have a great work ethic beyond that, on account that they’re Demons. Demons are happy enough to torture souls, but when it comes to the boring stuff like security, they’re less… eager. The walls that border the vast (some say endless) plains of Hell are poorly guarded, and the guards that are posted there don’t really care, but it’s not as if they can be fired; they’re Demons.

In many ways, it’s actually surprising more people don’t escape Hell; it’s easy to get out and it’s a famously unpleasant place (a reputation it really lives up to). In reality, Hell mostly polices itself. The vast majority of the Damned know they deserve to be there and are almost grateful to be absolved of the guilt that ate away at them in life. They want to be punished, because they feel they deserve it and they know their punishment is finite. They don’t enjoy it, of course, but once they’ve suffered enough to expunge their evil deeds, they’re able to leave, so they figure it’s probably best to just get their punishment out of the way. Simple human guilt guards the walls of Hell far better than its actual Demon guards.

Those who do escape aren’t just the ones who realize how long and unendurable their punishment will be, but also those sociopathic enough not to accept the fact that they deserve it. There are people who, no matter what terrible things they’ve done, just can’t accept that they’ve done anything wrong. They don’t understand the division between right and wrong, just and unjust.

To put it another way; only the worst people escape from Hell, and Edward Atkinson was one of those.

He ducked as I punched, grimacing as my fist smacked into the wall. Throwing his arms around my waist, Atkinson tackled me, shoving me back to the ground, pinning me and raining blows on me with a berserk fury. By this point, he probably knew he was going back. This was just Atkinson being Atkinson. I grabbed him by the wrists and twisted him over, spitting out blood as I went.

Atkinson reared up at me again, writhing like a snake. He wasn’t bulky, there wasn’t a whole lot to him in the way of muscle mass, but he was wiry and had no sense of self-preservation. He thrashed from side to side and lashed out, almost as if he was having a fit.

“This’ll go a lot easier if you stop that,” I suggested as he hissed and twisted beneath me like an inflamed wet cat.

In reply, Atkinson spat in my face and jabbed me in the kidney with his knee.

I was getting a little tired of this scumbag. “Have it your way.”

With Atkinson pinned down, I could deliver a proper punch with some feeling behind it. Atkinson’s head bounced off the floor, knocking him unconscious.

I settled back on my haunches to take stock for a moment and to catch my breath. I’d gotten him. He looked small and helpless now, with a glossy bruise already beginning to show around his left eye. He looked like a victim. But, he wasn’t. Oh, how he wasn’t.

The life of Edward Atkinson had ended in a fiery crash following a lengthy police chase. In the trunk of his car, the police had later found the remains of his final victim. She’d been dead when he dumped her into the trunk, which might have been a blessing given how the car chase had ended, but her death at Atkinson’s hand had been a sickening one. He deserved Hell. And I hoped all his victims had gotten entrance into Heaven.

Heaven…

Pulling the phone from my pocket, I hit a sequence of symbols not available on most phones.

“Claudia.”

The voice that answered was clipped but soft, as was the woman to whom it belonged. Claudia was my only contact with Heaven, a place I’d left some four hundred years ago under a cloud.

“Got him. Atkinson.”

“Your voice sounds odd,” she said. Her voice always sounded like bells ringing.

“Might be missing some teeth,” I admitted.

“Put up a fight, did he?”

“They always do.”

“Good job, Graham. I’ve got your position if you want to step back.”

I stepped back from the prone form of Edward Atkinson. Beneath him, the ground started to glow red, and a low rumbling sound made the walls tremble. Atkinson’s eyelids flickered and they opened a crack.

“Wuh…” he mumbled.

I said nothing, but I saw the look of terror cross his face as the ground split beneath him and he was swallowed up into the chasm, falling back to where he belonged. The ground joined again seamlessly, the rumbling stopped and the red glow faded.

Alone again.

I might have felt satisfied in a job well done, in seeing the man who’d cut me up and battered my face heading towards his deserved retribution; a man who’d caused so much pain and suffering in life. But I never really felt satisfaction as much as a blank numbness. It was just a job. It could be a difficult one at times, but it was mine.

***

Back in the bathroom of the sparsely furnished apartment which I currently called home, I tugged the light switch on and examined my face in the mirror. Atkinson had done a job on it. I didn’t even remember losing teeth, but they were definitely missing. Purple bruises had started to flower over my features, one eyelid was swollen, as were my lips. The worst of all, and what had guaranteed me a seat to myself on the bus ride home, were the marks of the bottle. The jagged glass had sliced my flesh open, and blood streaked my face.

I was a sorry sight, and I spent the next half hour cleaning and bandaging till the man in the mirror looked more like a mummy. Then I went to bed, sliding tired limbs between cool sheets, knowing the pillowcase probably wouldn’t be washable.

By morning, my body would be healed. The bruises would be gone, the cuts sealed (they probably wouldn’t even leave a scar), and new teeth would have pushed their way into the broken sockets.

That’s how it works for an Angel.

Even one condemned to live on earth.

Chapter Two

The light is almost unbearable, not just in its brightness, but in its beauty.

It would be hard to put into words what made light beautiful except to say it’s just… pure. And yet that beauty, and that purity, pales beside the beauty and purity of the woman whom the light irradiates, making her seem still more luminous than she already is. Her name is Liadhain, but I call her Lelia, and she loves me, which seems to me a miracle that surpasses all others in the realm of Heaven.

Of course, love is pretty common in Heaven–obligatory in fact, and easy. Love is everywhere and for everyone, it’s second nature and we never think about it. It simply is. But what I feel for Lelia–what we feel for each other–goes beyond that love to another place, a place that’s celebrated in Heaven as nowhere else.

Heaven loves love.

“You won’t ever leave me, will you, Grahamian?” she asks me in those chiming, bell-like tones.

“Why would I ever do anything like that?” I reply, staring into her eyes as we lie together in bed, holding one another close.

She smiles, which makes her even more radiantly beautiful, and she holds my head against her chest. I close my eyes and the world makes more wonderful sense than it ever can without her.

“Did you ever visit Ireland?” she asks, as I lie there, lulled by the gentle sound of her breathing.

“I never did,” I admit, only half-listening.

“I suppose I shall never see it again.”

And even though I’m only half-listening, I hear the tone of her voice, because it’s a tone that’s so unusual in Heaven. It would be too much to call it ‘sadness’, because how could sadness exist here? But I can’t think of another word. Perhaps ‘regret’.

“You wish you could go back there?” I ask.

“No,” she laughs and shakes her head. “That is; not to live. Of course not. But… Well, I suppose I would dearly love to see it again. To stand on the ground and feel the grass between my toes.”

“Sounds uncomfortable.”

“I suppose it would be,” she smiles. “You know your mother’s cooking?”

“Are we still talking about Ireland?”

“Bear with me,” she says with a tinkling laugh. “Technically, your mother’s cooking isn’t as good as what you’d get in a fancy restaurant or at a noble house. But nothing can ever replace your mother’s cooking. I suppose Ireland is like that to me. I know it’s not perfect, but it’s Ireland. I suppose most people must feel like that to some degree about their home. Here is better–of course it is–but you still miss it.”

I listen to her words, redolent with that tone of regret, and I wonder if there’s anything I can do about it. I would do anything to make her happy.

***

The screaming of a car horn outside woke me from the same dream I’ve had almost every night. I slept with my head resting on my arms, which meant every morning I was greeted with the sight of the tattoo on my forearm. The tattoo is a recreation of a quote from Christopher Marlowe’s Doctor Faustus, and it read ‘All places shall be Hell that is not Heaven’.

Like I needed reminding.

It was odd that a human had written those words because it was a concept which most humans couldn’t be made to understand. Hell was a real place, but it was also a state of mind. Hell was different things to different people. To someone who had lived in Heaven, then everywhere else, anywhere else, was Hell.

You might consider earth a pretty decent place to live if it was all you’d ever known, but to one who’d known the bliss of Heaven, the line between earth and the eternal fires was a pretty thin one. Even those who, like Lelia, had lived a life on earth before finding their place in the eternal, swiftly forgot that life and found it brutish and ugly by comparison. That was why her longing for her old home had seemed so strange to me, and why I’d so wanted to help. It was rare for any in Heaven to long for earth because earth now seemed like something you’d escaped… and were happy to.

I sometimes wondered how Marlowe had been able to sum Hell up so well. Perhaps he’d been banished, as I had, from Heaven? Or perhaps he’d been divinely inspired to let mortals know that living well really was worth the effort? Or maybe he’d just gotten lucky and simply written words that were exactly on the mark? Who knows?

Not that I wasn’t glad to have avoided those eternal fires. They’d been an option. But my crime, serious though it had been, hadn’t been judged serious enough for me to be Damned. I’d been offered a way out in the shape of my current ‘job’. Heaven needed people like me, and if they could disguise that need as a kind of community service, then why not?

So, yes, I was in Hell, just not all the way in.

Sometimes, I wondered; if I’d turned down the job offer and gone to Hell, would I be out by now? You only stayed until your sins had been purged from you. But once you’d been in Hell, it stayed with you. It branded you. You were forgiven–Heaven was big on forgiveness–but the stain remained. Somehow this was better. Plus, I was doing good. That had to count for something, didn’t it? Maybe that was enough to make up for my life in this earthly Hell? I hoped so.

And yet…

It wasn’t something I liked to think about, but I was increasingly aware I was starting to feel–for want of a better term–at home. Not that I liked being on earth, but I was becoming accustomed to it, all the same. I no longer hated it the way I had when I first arrived. I’d become numb to it.

That, in itself, was a frightening realization. I didn’t want to end up liking it here. Eventually, I would have served my time, my sins would be expunged, and I’d return to Heaven.

What would Lelia think of me then?

That wasn’t something I would have to worry about for a very long time.

‘Did you ever visit Ireland?’

One little question that had led to so much. Weirdly, I still hadn’t visited. I couldn’t quite bring myself to.

Getting up from my little bed, listening to the angry sounds of New York in the morning coming through my window, I walked to the bathroom and looked in the mirror while removing my bloodstained bandages. Beneath, a few faint white scars remained, but other than those, the damage Atkinson had inflicted on me had healed overnight. Baring my teeth, I saw them all back in place. Flexing my fingers, I tried out my knuckles, which had been bruised and bloodied a matter of hours ago.

Now all good.

I looked in the mirror again. Not bad. The man who looked back at me was, more or less, the same as I’d looked in Heaven with less perfect features. They were the features of a man in his mid-thirties with dark hair (a dusting of silver at the temples), brown eyes, a strong jaw and cheekbones that showed no hint of how many times they’d been broken. There was the shadow of a few days’ stubble across my lower face. The body was similarly strong and I worked hard to keep it that way; broad with muscles that were formed more from activity than gym work. There were scars–those from injuries so serious, they left their mark even on me, but objectively speaking, it remained a good looking body. It wasn’t perfect, but it had character.

Over the years of my banishment I’d changed, but only to suit the changing of the times–I’d gotten taller, my features had subtly molded as evolutionary fashions changed–but I hadn’t aged. I didn’t age physically, only mentally.

Stepping into the shower, I felt the hot water scour my body. Even the water felt rough compared to that in heaven. How many centuries would it take before I forgot what things were like in Heaven? How many centuries would it take before I could stop making comparisons?

***

“I ordered you waffles and coffee.”

Claudia was waiting for me when I arrived at a nondescript diner down the block from the apartment. It was called Gabriel’s and I often wondered if the name was a coincidence or Heaven’s idea of a joke.

“Thanks.”

I took a seat opposite Claudia. She was a sharp faced woman in her early thirties with copper-colored hair piled in ringlets on her head, pale skin with a light dusting of freckles, and brilliantly green eyes. She wore a dark blue, tailored suit, as if this was a business meeting (which, in a way, it was). A pale blouse showed beneath the suit jacket, which was see-through enough to show her dark bra. You could also glimpse past a button hole where the swell of her breasts stretched the material. Her skirt had ridden up when she crossed her legs to reveal the white skin of her thighs. Though she radiated a no-nonsense air, she was a very attractive woman, with just a suggestion that beneath that prim façade, was a tigress waiting to get out.

Except, of course, she was none of those things.

When I was first sent to earth, Claudia had been Claude (women could not so easily meet with men back then), a black-haired, foppish noble with slightly buck teeth. In Heaven, she was female and probably looked not dissimilar to the woman I was currently opposite, but less obviously so. Everyone was beautiful in Heaven, but it was a different kind of beauty.

If I squinted slightly and concentrated, then I could see Claudia as she looked in Heaven–my angel eyes at work. But, even in this form, I could see the halo of light around her that marked her as an Angel. I wondered if she could see the same around me, or had the halo faded too?

“Good job yesterday,” Claudia said, as a man brought over my breakfast, not even looking at me because he was too busy trying to peep down Claudia’s top.

“Where’s Santoro?” I asked, ignoring the praise.

Claudia was usually accompanied by an assistant. I was never quite sure why she needed one or what it was that Santoro did–maybe he was just a status symbol–but he was always there.

“He got promoted,” said Claudia, wistfully. “Deserved it of course.”

Was that a dig at me? She knew the circumstances that had led to my banishment.

“Oh.”

She nodded. “I will miss him, all the same. He’d been my assistant for a thousand years or so. I haven’t had a chance to find a suitable replacement.”

“Some deserving soul,” I muttered.

Claudia cocked her head. “Of course. That’s how it works.” She sipped her latte. “As I said; good job yesterday. Atkinson was a bad one in every way.” She took another sip. “Are you busy at the moment? With work, I mean?”

I frowned. It was unlike Claudia to ask questions about my ‘day job’. Outside of tracking escaped souls, my time was my own, which was all very well, but Heaven didn’t pay me for my work, so my free time needed to be spent working and earning an income. Human bodies need upkeep even if you were an Angel–I still had to eat and rest and stay warm and all the other things I’d taken for granted as an Angel, but now costs money, which I have to earn. So I needed a job, and a job that was flexible enough for me to be able to chase escaped souls when I needed to.

“Pretty quiet,” I replied. “Pets aren’t escaping like they used to.”

Private Eye, was what it said on the door of the little office I rented. But, in reality, ninety percent of my work was missing pets. I would’ve liked to take on more ambitious cases, but there were rules regarding how an Angel behaves on earth if he doesn’t want his stay extended even longer or, worse, if he doesn’t want to find himself in Hell.

Number one among those rules was; don’t interfere. I could live my life (such as it was), but I couldn’t get involved too deeply in human affairs and I certainly couldn’t use my Heavenly abilities. If I was shot while investigating a high profile murder case, my miraculous recovery would draw attention and questions would be asked. So, missing pets it was, with the occasional ‘I think my wife/husband is cheating on me’ just for variety. It wasn’t steady work, but if you’re hiring a Private Eye to look for your pet, then you clearly have money to burn, so I felt comfortable charging silly amounts that allowed me to make a living. I didn’t live expensively anyway.

“Good,” said Claudia. “This one won’t wait.”

“So soon?” Souls escaping from Hell wasn’t uncommon, but nor was it an everyday occurrence; I usually averaged one per month.

Claudia’s green (but not really) eyes flicked up at me. “This one’s not a soul, Graham.”

I clenched my teeth. “Demon.”

She nodded, stirring her latte with a wooden stirrer then sucking the stirrer clean in a way that had every male occupant in the room (except me) staring, slack-jawed and wishing they were the stirrer.

“His name is Kraven. Have you heard of him?”

I shook my head.

Claudia snorted in exasperation. “Do you ever do your homework?”

“I read the books when I arrived.”

“You need to re-read them then. Your memory isn’t perfect, don’t forget. You’re human.”

It’s the little things that take the longest to get used to. Angels don’t forget things, humans do. When I arrived on earth, I’d done the required reading, the Who’s Who in Hell, the Demonology of Dante, the Demonography of Bosch. At the time, it had never occurred to me that the knowledge would fade over the centuries. In fact, it had faded far more quickly than that. Humans were so badly designed. I should have re-read the books long ago, but being a human also means you’re always busy; working, eating, sleeping, or performing some sort of bathroom ritual. It’s amazing they find time to do anything.

“Shorthand,” Claudia went on, “Kraven is one of the bad ones.”

“As opposed to the good Demons?”

“You’ve been doing this for long enough to know there are bad Demons and there are bad demons.”

“And Kraven is a bad Demon.”

“No, Kraven is a monster,” said Claudia, firmly. “Kraven is a Demon that other Demons steer clear of because they think he’s a bit unhinged. All Demons like chaos, but Kraven lives for it. Worse still, he causes it. Which should at least make him easy to find. He’ll gravitate towards violent people and just by being around them, he’ll make them more violent. Follow the gang war and you’ll find Kraven. Most Demons break out of Hell just to go on a bit of a spree; torture some people in the real world for a change, but Kraven…”

“Major spree?” I suggested.

Claudia shook her head. “I honestly don’t know, Graham. Demons aren’t sophisticated animals. They like causing pain and that’s about all there is to them. But once in a millennium, you get one like Kraven. A Demon with ideas. Word is he’s got delusions of Lucifer. Sees himself as the one in charge. That’s not going to happen, but when he’s let out without a leash then… We just can’t predict what’s going to happen. Could be anything.”

“What does he look like?”

“Can’t be certain, but…” Claudia reached into her jacket pocket and brought out a newspaper cutting which she passed to me. “This is Lloyd Horton, small-time crook employed by a local crime boss. His family died last night in horrifying circumstances. Lloyd is missing, presumed psychotic. There’s a chance Kraven is wearing his skin as a disguise. There’s also a chance that Lloyd is just a nasty piece of work, who will one day end up in the place Kraven escaped from.” She drained the last of her coffee and looked around the room with an expression somewhere between pity and disgust. “Sometimes I despair of humanity.”

“You’ve been doing this job too long.” I didn’t know how long Claudia had been looking after people like me, but it was a job that required an Angel to come to earth on a regular basis. Even though she spent most of her time in Heaven, you couldn’t spend that much time as a human without picking up bad habits like negative emotions. When faced with the way humans treat each other on a daily basis, it was difficult to hang onto infinite compassion. It was a problem I knew well.

“Well, when I’ve got my new assistant trained, then maybe I’ll take a break,” nodded Claudia.

“Anything else on Kraven?”

“Nothing much,” she admitted, shaking her head. “Except to say this is a big one, Graham. Get this creature back where it belongs and Heaven will be grateful. You’ll still be down here but… you’ll be a lot closer to not being down here.”

Part of me wished she hadn’t said that. Hope could make you crazy. It could make you rash. I got through the day to day of life on earth by not thinking about the future and what it might hold. However much I was driven by a desire to get back into Heaven, I still told myself over and over again that it would never happen, that it wasn’t possible, that I’d never be allowed to return, that I’d never see Lelia again. If I let myself believe it was a possibility, then every day would drag into eternity.

“How are the waffles?” asked Claudia.

“They’re pretty good.” Everything on earth tastes like ashes compared to Heaven, but I’d been here long enough to develop a taste for waffles. And Gummi Bears.

Claudia stood, smoothing out the creases in her suit. “Watch yourself, Graham. I don’t know how powerful Kraven is, but there’s a chance he can kill you. He looks human–never forget he’s not.”

I nodded. “Thanks for breakfast.”

Not all demons could take human form, but it made finding them a hell of a lot harder when they could. Some of them could change shape, others could possess humans. Then there were ones like Kraven who, according to Claudia, hollowed out a body and squeezed into the skin, like the big cockroach in Men in Black.

Fortunately, like Angels, Demons had a tell my Angel eyes could pick up; their eyes glowed red and there was nothing they could do to hide it. Better yet, Demons didn’t have Angel eyes, so I’d know what Kraven was, but he wouldn’t know what I was. That would give me the advantage–and, from the sound of it, I’d need an advantage. Of course, all this only mattered if I could find the bastard.

Where to start?

First things first, I had to stop off at the office.

***

“Good morning, Mr. Kincaid.”

I’d given up telling my secretary, Joan, to call me ‘Graham’. She wasn’t comfortable with it and I didn’t actually care what she called me. Joan was indispensable—to the point that I wondered if she was literally Heaven sent.

Joan worked for an almost absurdly small sum and never complained about it. She was capable of running the office while I wasn’t there; most importantly (and most bafflingly) she never asked a single question, not one, about the odd things she saw. She’d met Claudia on numerous occasions and never asked how one woman could have so many missing pets; she’d seen me bruised and bloodied and never asked how I was fine the next day. She also never asked why I vanished for days on end on some secret assignment she wasn’t privy to and which paid nothing.

Joan was the most perfect thing outside of Heaven.

“I’m not available for the next week,” I said. I hoped a week would be enough.

Joan nodded. “Right you are, Mr. Kincaid.”

Joan was in her mid-fifties, averagely heavy, and never showed up to the office without her hair neatly done in a style that made her look like a nineteen-fifties housewife. Her make-up was always severely but exquisitely applied. She always wore what looked like the same skirt and blouse, though I guessed she must have had more than one of each, and a rotating selection of cardigans in pastel shades. She wore big glasses on a cord around her neck or pushed up to her forehead. She typed at a mile a minute, but I had no idea what she was typing–I seldom asked for anything. Perhaps she was using her downtime to write the great American novel. Which was fine with me.

“I’m going out now.”

Though I could talk easily enough with Claudia, I’d never been very good at conversation with mortals. It was one of those things I’d expected to pick up quickly, but quick to an Angel is different to a human. Fifty years is a short time to an Angel, even though it drags appallingly for an Angel on earth. By the time I mastered human conversational style, that style had moved on. In the nineteen-forties, I talked like a nineteenth-century gentleman; in the nineteen-eighties I talked like a prohibition era gangster. Mostly, I just tried to keep my words brief and to the point. It was easier that way and it discouraged conversation–I didn’t want anyone to think I wanted to talk to them or that I might care what they had to say.

Empathy was another thing I had yet to master.

“Will you be in the office next week?” asked Joan, scribbling notes in the voluminous diary she always kept on her desk–another thing I liked about Joan was that the digital revolution was as anathema to her as it was incomprehensible to me.

“Probably,” I replied.

Either that or I’d be dead.

Hell on Earth

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H.P. Mallory is a New York Times and USA Today bestselling author. She writes paranormal fiction, heavy on the romance! H.P. lives in Southern California with her son and a cranky cat.

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About Chanel Smith:

Chanel Smith was born and raised in Los Angeles, California. She has since moved to Portland, Oregon, where she lives with her husband and two dogs. When not writing, she spends her time training dogs, hiking, biking and anything else that will get her outside in nature.

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