Chapter 31

“Wolfie’s looking for you,” Terra told me half an hour later as I stumbled across the other female alpha warming her hands over the radiant heat of the damped-down wood stove.

I’d half expected Celia’s statement about Terra and Wolfie leaving after dinner to turn into mere bait to get me to show up at the surprise party on time. But now the sinking sensation in the pit of my stomach reminded me that my favorite pack leaders had no reason to hang around once Wolf Landing’s territorial status was secured. No, Wolfie would be looking for me because he wanted to say goodbye.

“Did you see where he went?” I asked my former alpha’s mate. But rather than following her pointed finger immediately, I slipped back through the crowd to collect a very important piece of equipment from my car instead. And, there, I caught sight of a shifter who I hadn’t expected to see again...or at least not so soon.

“Sinsa!” I exclaimed, pulling the young woman into a heartfelt hug. I’d worried about her, leaving our pack so abruptly to make peace with the family she’d thought herself abandoned by. But I’d reminded myself that it was Sinsa’s choice to stay behind and get to know her father and brother, her choice to strike out on her own. If she needed me, she’d call.

Only when the male behind her back growled out a complaint at being ignored did I release the bloodling from my grasp and step back to take in the rest of her entourage. Speak of the devil—both father and brother were waiting impatiently to be introduced, their smiles forced when they faced me but the affection in their eyes very much real when they turned toward the young woman by my side.

“I didn’t want to just take off without talking to the pack,” Sinsa said to me then. “I owe Calla an explanation. And everybody else too....”

Her eyes drifted toward the music and laughter emanating from the community house, and I let her off the hook with a certainty I didn’t really feel. “Go on in and talk to them if you want. Your father and I can get to know each other without you present.”

Sinsa raised an eyebrow, seeing through my hearty demeanor with astute lupine eyes. Because, yes, her father was doing a better job at pretending to be human than I was at pretending to be a lackadaisical alpha. But Sinsa and I could both sense his wolf hovering in the background, hungry to test my defenses and throw around his weight.

Still, I nodded again and Sinsa took me at my word this time. Grabbing her brother’s hand, she pulled him along behind in a lupine gesture that contrasted with her current two-legged form. Then I was alone with the new Tribunal member who had donned Stormwinder’s supercilious demeanor at the same time he took over the latter’s place on the regional council.

The male also appeared to have inherited Stormwinder’s need to dominate. Because as soon as the door slammed shut, the air around me chilled by about twenty degrees while Brooks did his level best to send me to my knees. Frost crackled into existence at our feet and my breath once again turned white in front of my nose.

But I wasn’t cowed. How could I be when my wolf wasn’t present to be slapped down?

The thought of my lost partner made me speak without thinking. “Is that what you came for?” I asked grumpily. “To test me?”

The words were ill advised since a Tribunal member had every right to do as he liked, even on another shifter’s land. And as I tasted the foul flavor permeating the air, I half expected Brooks to transition to a more physical form of threat, to dominate me the easy way now that his initial stare-down had failed.

But maybe the Tribunal member was more like Sinsa than I’d given him credit for. Or maybe the shifters drifting out of the shadows to form up behind my back made Brooks change his mind about threatening an alpha in the heart of her clan home. Either way, the frost retreated from the gravel between us and the older male cleared his throat and spoke at last.

“Sinsa says I have you to thank for rescuing her from a one-body hellhole and giving her a home,” Brooks growled. He was no longer visibly threatening me, but his pleasant words stood in stark contrast to the cold and guarded nature that continued to plague his tone. No, the Tribunal member wasn’t willing to relinquish his pride just yet.

In fact, I got the distinct impression that my companion was asking what price he owed me for having saved his daughter’s life. But I wasn’t one to sell a bloodling pup to the highest bidder. “It was our pleasure,” I offered, speaking the unvarnished truth rather than acting like a traditional shifter and playing games when I had the upper hand.

For a moment, we stood in silence, even the partygoers’ exuberant chatter seeming to fade into the background as Brooks tasted and tested my words. Then one corner of his mouth quirked up ever so slightly by way of reply. “I think you actually mean that,” he said finally.

And, despite the seriousness of the occasion, I found myself rolling my eyes. At least I didn’t say “Well, duh” the way I wanted to.

Then, as abruptly as Brooks’ cold eyes had speared me, I was dismissed. “Hunter,” he said, turning to the shifter who guarded my left shoulder, “I have a proposition for you. You need a job and the Tribunal needs an enforcer.”

And so it begins again, I thought, reaching out to slide my fingers through those of my mate. I could sense his ambivalence in the tension along his neck and shoulders, and I couldn’t say I blamed him. Because on the one hand, he didn’t need another pesky father figure in his life who would let him down at the worst possible moment. On the other hand...well, Hunter had seemed a bit bored lately with only our bloodlings to keep in line. The adrenaline junkie side of him clearly craved a fix.

“I left that job once,” my mate growled at last, his eyes flaring with anger but his gaze turning to the darkened trees rather than meeting our guest’s eyes. Hunter was making an effort not to slap Brooks down out of hand, I realized—I just hoped the older male appreciated the restraint.

“The working conditions weren’t suitable,” Brooks started, only to have Hunter cut him off with a wave of his free hand.

“I don’t give a shit about the working conditions,” my mate interjected. “I didn’t like the orders I was given.”

Hackles raised all around me and this time I did mutter under my breath. Males. If I left them alone to decide the issue amongst themselves, we’d probably end up in the middle of a bloodbath. Just what we didn’t want the inhabitants of Arborville to see when they popped outside for a gander at the stars.

“What he’s trying to say,” I offered, figuring Brooks needed a little translation from feral wolf to sophisticated two-legger, “is that there are shifters all over our region who need help. Shifters like your daughter. Shifters like Grey.”

I hadn’t even realized the uber-alpha in question had shadowed my mate and settled behind my other shoulder, but now I heard his feet step closer as the air chilled along my exposed nape. Glancing back, though, I saw that the uber-alpha in question was bowing his head as he scuffed one foot into the dirt. Grey had accepted our clan more thoroughly than I’d thought if he had no verbal complaint to offer when I spoke on his behalf.

Well, in for a penny in for a pound. Since neither of the uber-alphas flanking me seemed to object, I kept rolling along the path I’d chosen. “Hunter isn’t going to prop up the status quo. But if you let him fix the things that are broken, he’s your man. And Grey is as well.”

Warm fingers squeezed against mine on one side while Grey’s eyes met mine from the other. Then the latter turned those piercing orbs on the Tribunal member, proving that I was on the right track after all.

“Well?” I demanded, ignoring as best I could the tingle that ran down my spine at my mate’s touch as well as the satisfaction that came from seeing Grey act like a real member of our clan. This wasn’t the time to go all gooey-eyed. We had a deal to make.

Before Brooks could respond, though, headlights appeared at the end of the driveway as a latecomer made his way to the party. We had a minute or less before this tête-à-tête would be interrupted by a one-body who we hoped to keep in the dark.

But despite the deadline, Brooks merely stared at us through narrowed eyes for a long moment. Then, when my toes had begun to freeze in my boots, the Tribunal member nodded at last. “Done,” he agreed.

And, finally, I figured it was safe to leave the hot-headed males behind to hash out details on their own. Time to deal with a devil of my own.

***

I found Wolfie in the darkened backyard sitting cross-legged atop a frozen picnic table. And even though my former alpha was in human form, I was pretty sure his ear twitched, wolf-like, as I approached.

Despite the gesture, he continued to stare out at the pinpricks of light peppering the sky while a screech owl called a tremulous whinny into the darkness. The bloodling’s stillness was contagious, and for a moment I paused and let the night cup me in quiet despite the party still going full steam no more than fifty feet away.

Then I took a deep breath and stepped up to the metaphorical plate. An hour earlier, my pack and the assembled community had cheered my approach. But I knew the true test of my alpha status was yet to come. Could I release the crutch I’d been clinging to and stand on my own two feet?

Without conscious volition, fingers slid to my hip to grasp the crutch in question. The hard hilt of Wolfie’s grandfather’s sword was a comforting weight in my hand, a reminder of the weapon’s companionship over the last few months. Still, the time had come to let it go. So I ignored my aching chest and slid the shining blade free to set it on the frost-rimmed wood beside my former alpha’s knee.

For a split second, my fingers refused to release their grip. But then, finally, I pulled away and hopped up onto the tabletop shoulder to shoulder with my companion, legs swinging jauntily above the frozen grass.

The momentary hesitation had fled as quickly as it came. Instead, I now felt lighter, more powerful, as if I could take on a crowd of outpack shifters with my bare hands. Astonishing how relinquishing an outgrown crutch reminded me I already knew how to run.

“So you figured it out,” Wolfie said after I’d savored the sensation of my own strength for a long moment.

“I figured it out,” I agreed. Because despite all of the events of the last week, I’d found time to chew on my current companion’s words from time to time. And once I overcame my fear, my former alpha’s meaning had become painfully obvious.

“You’re nearly there,” Wolfie had told me back in the parking lot of the diner. And, “You don’t need my help.”

Like my mate, Wolfie was a man of few words but much love. He’d tried to show me that everything I needed to become an alpha was already present inside my heart and brain. It had just taken a while to fully get the picture.

And as my breathing calmed and the air around me warmed, a wolf that I’d assumed injured or worse abruptly leapt into life deep within my chest. Rising up along the passageway of my throat, she grabbed at my vocal cords and pulled me into a howl that twined around the celebratory song now emanating from Wolfie’s lips.

Let’s run! my wolf asked. No demanded. I could feel the hairs on my arms lengthening, my spine itching to stretch and to change.

Two weeks earlier, I would have fought against her insistent request, requiring instant obedience to human mores. But now I realized that my inner animal and I were one and the same. Like the wolf, I itched to tear through the woods on lupine paws. Like the wolf, I itched to hunt and run and howl at the moon.

So, embracing both of our wishes, I wriggled out of clothes and shifted there beneath the stars. Looking over one shoulder, I wasn’t at all surprised to see wolves streaming out of the community building, wolves rushing to meet me, wolves running with wind in their fur.

And why should I be surprised? After all, our pack bond was glowing in the air between us, linking my thoughts and actions to every shifter within my clan. Our connections were stronger and brighter than ever before. Of course they’d come when I called.

I hoped my pack mates’ hasty excuses to the one-bodies left behind had been at least moderately believable. But as Hunter raced up beside me, nudging my shoulder and licking my muzzle, I couldn’t find it in myself to care about future human problems. Instead, he, I, my pack, and my wolf, flowed down the hillside united.

Together, we ran.

Yule Moon From the Author:

These five shifter shorts are a bonus happily ever after for some of the characters in the Alpha Underground trilogy. I hope you enjoy reading them as much as I enjoyed writing them!

Polar Bear Challenge A job interview on Christmas day? Well, why the hell not?

Roger wouldn’t have approved, of course. He’d believed weekends were sacred, holidays even more so. During their three short years of marriage, he’d still found time to waft Meeshi away to the Bahamas, to Vegas, even to Alaska for one memorable Christmas she’d never forget.

Polar bears definitely made the season bright.

But her spouse had been gone for over a decade. No, not gone—dead. Meeshi firmly believed that Roger would never have willingly left her side. But even the protector she’d loved with all of her heart couldn’t argue with cancer.

Cancer and the miscarriage all in the same year. No husband, no baby to remember him by. Meeshi had floundered for a long time after that. Thank goodness for the insurance money that had kept her afloat.

But now she was ready to reenter the world, to bring laughter and chatter and people back into her life. A job, an office, useful work to fill her mind. It would all be good.

The directions seemed a little off, though. Not only was she instructed to arrive on Christmas morning, but even the address didn’t seem quite right. Because the GPS didn’t prompt her to turn left into town as she left the airport lot. Instead, the computerized voice led her deeper into the countryside, down rambling roads and up a spiraling driveway into a small community of stately homes.

So...personal secretary to a rich eccentric maybe?

“You’re going to freeze to death out here.”

While she’d been second guessing, the nearest house’s door had opened to reveal a coltish girl leggy with pre-teen growth. For an instant, Meeshi couldn’t breathe. She didn’t think of her own daughter much any longer, didn’t visit Jasmine’s gravestone except on the anniversary of her birth and death.

But the tween impatiently tapping her foot in the cold was just the right age. The sparkle of mischief in her voice was so familiar that Meeshi thought for a moment Roger had been reborn in a female body.

“Are you shy?” The kid tapped on her window until Meeshi rolled it down, cold December air quickly evacuating all of the buffering warmth. “Because that’s okay. The job is work-from-home. You just have to impress Dad once, then you’ll never need to see us again.”

The pit in Meeshi’s stomach deepened. She should have known the offer was too good to be true. The pay was great, the benefits phenomenal, but she couldn’t handle another week stuck in her lonely apartment with only the radio for companionship. The chance to be around people even more than the money was what had finally drawn her out of her funk.

“Sign this.”

“Excuse me?” Meeshi asked. Despite her age, the girl was certainly bossy.

“Non-disclosure agreement. Blah, blah, blah,” the girl said, finger running down the page of legalese. “Can’t talk about what you see or hear. Sue you for all you’re worth. The usual.”

Meeshi found the pen between her fingers and her signature scrawling across the bottom of the third page before she’d fully regained her breath. It was completely unlike her to sign before she read. But who did she have to tell secrets to?

“Okay, great,” the girl said, all smiles. “One more thing, then you’re hired.”

“Wait, this is the interview?”

“Sure.” There was that gamine grin again, the one that struck directly to her heart. “Turn on the engine. Just in case you want to leave fast, you know?”

Without waiting to see that her instructions had been obeyed, the girl whirled around to face the trees then began stripping out of her clothes right there in the middle of the driveway. Was the kid on drugs? Psychotic?

Meeshi hesitated, torn between hunting down the aforementioned father or dragging the girl inside the nearest house before she succumbed to hypothermia. The job no longer looked enticing. But if this girl had been her daughter, Meeshi would have hoped a stranger would be kind enough save her from herself.

The car door slammed before Meeshi even realized she was disembarking. Formerly frigid air warmed a trifle, perhaps because she was lunging forward to grab the girl’s arm before the imp could escape buck naked into the wintry woods.

Only Meeshi wasn’t holding an arm. She was clutching the foreleg of a massive beast, its fur nearly as thick as the coat of those polar bears she and Roger had oohed and aahed over during that memorable trip west.

For a moment, the two froze eye to eye. The wolf’s iris was the exact same vivid blue as the girl’s had been in human form. Her sharp teeth weren’t the least bit menacing when the snout twisted into the canine equivalent of the girl’s smirk.

“So?”

A new voice prompted Meeshi to release the wolf-girl’s leg and turn to face the man stepping out of the house behind her. She cleared her throat, but was proud to hear firmness in her tone when she finally managed to speak. “So...what?”

“So do you want the job?”

The one time Meeshi had gone looking for work while she and her husband were still together, Roger had warned her that it was easy to think the boss always possessed the upper hand. “He doesn’t, though,” Roger had countered. “You have something he wants. So haggle.”

Obeying her absent spouse, Meeshi lowered her brow as if considering how terrible it would be to work around werewolves. She tried to make her eyes widen in fright even though she was secretly wondering whether she could talk the girl into shifting again more slowly for the sake of examining the transformation from start to finish.

“I’ll take a twenty percent pay reduction in exchange for room and board,” she said at last.

Then her greeter was back, long blond hair brushing against Meeshi’s cheek as the girl slid back down onto two feet. “Pretty good deal, huh, Dad?”

“Pretty good deal,” the man agreed, respect in his eyes. “Can you start today?”

Out of the Closet “Amelia, darling. We should get together after Christmas.”

Even with a cellphone go-between, my girlfriend’s voice was warm in my ear. She’d been so reserved lately that I’d hesitated to even call. But I couldn’t help thinking she might be the solution to my current dilemma.

I turned up the collar of my coat then tucked my spare hand beneath my armpit. The dorms had closed three days earlier and I’d camped out as long as I could in the nearby woods. Eventually, though, a cold front had blown in and sent me scurrying for cover—first to a bus station and now, I hoped, to the only hint of family I’d acquired since my parents died.

“After Christmas?” I repeated, counting down the days in my head. Could I handle the better part of a very wintry week with no sleeping bag or shelter?

On the other hand, could I risk the only real relationship in my life to survival-oriented impatience?

“Get down,” Ginger huffed and I thought I caught the playful yip of a dog in the background. Then her voice once again filled with that terrifying distance as she returned her attention to me. “Yeah, after Christmas would be better. Things are pretty complicated here at the moment.”

I glanced at the metal gates rising large and ominous before my eyes. Perhaps showing up out of the blue hadn’t been such a brilliant idea as it had initially appeared.

But the elderly gentleman who’d taken the risk of picking up a hitchhiker had sped off after delivering me to the base of Ginger’s driveway. I had nowhere else to go and no money with which to get there, so I had to take a risk and hope for the kindness of strangers.

Or at least for the kindness of someone who called herself my friend.

Our shared past bright in my mind’s eye, I plucked up my courage and plodded further along the gravel drive. I’d never been anywhere so remote, at least not since those barely remembered family camping trips over a decade earlier. Subsequent foster parents hadn’t shared my bio-dad’s interest in the outdoors, and somehow I’d morphed into a city girl in the interim. Now, dusk combined with nerves to morph tree branches into bony grasping fingers.

An eerie howl filled the air and I glanced frantically from side to side. Yep, this was definitely a mistake. Campus was a far safer place to embrace my inner vagrant.

“Amelia?” Ginger’s voice was abruptly concerned. “Where are you?”

“I’m...” I began. Then the phone clattered out of nerveless fingers as a truly terrifying sight came barreling down the driveway toward me.

I wanted to believe they were dogs, but I couldn’t quite wrap my mind around the lie. No, my attackers were wolves. Huge, shaggy wolves on the prowl and hungry for meat.

They raced downhill faster than I could blink, let alone flee. At least a dozen of them growled as they flew toward me, lips raised to expose sharp teeth.

In the rear, a final animal came into view, sprinting to outpace its compatriots. It skidded to a halt directly in front of my nose and air shimmered as the wolf leapt upward.

Blinking, I tried to force the vision in front of me to mesh with what had been present a moment earlier. Instead of a raging canine, Ginger stood naked, winded, and red-cheeked.

Woman. Wolf. Wolf woman. Whoa.

I gulped. My girlfriend hadn’t been kidding when she said things in her life were complicated at the moment.

“Are you okay?” she demanded, pulling me up against her slightly taller frame. I couldn’t tell if she was scared her friends had harmed me or whether she was thought I was going to faint on the spot at her secret revealed.

Instead of doing either, though, I relaxed into Ginger’s familiar embrace. So what if my girlfriend was a werewolf? I was just glad to realize I was finally home.

Hunting Christmas “It’s meant to be a surprise, Wolfie.”

I cocked my head and peered down at my mate’s offering. The box she’d handed me was just the right size to cradle in the palm of one cupped hand. Colorful paper was creased to perfection and taped unobtrusively, the whole wrapped up in a shiny red bow.

I sniffed at the tiny gap where paper bowed up and allowed a millimeter of air to seep through. The scent that met my nose was so mild I couldn’t quite pin it down. I was reminded of running through the woods after a light rain, of nosing through the leaf mold in search of critters for a midday snack.

Tilting the box, something slid ever so gently down the incline. Intriguing.

I only realized I’d dropped into fur form when I felt my chin being tipped upward. My mate’s laughing brown eyes fixed me with a mock stern stare. “Do you hear me, Wolfie? We’re opening presents in an hour. I’ll bet you can’t guess what’s inside.”

Then she was gone, off to putter over the thousand and one things she thought were essential for creating a perfect holiday. The tasks were all unnecessary of course. We could both feel the joy of the pack filtering in from every direction. But staying busy made my mate happy, so I couldn’t complain.

Wait, was that a sound?

The tiniest mouse-like scratching emanated from the wrapped parcel in front of me and I dropped down nose to paw to focus on the puzzle. Something living? Something mechanical?

And were those words visible through the tiny gap left between wrapping paper and object underneath?

My wolf eyes crossed when faced with letters and numbers, so I shifted form once again and plucked the box off the ground with human fingertips. Perhaps a little extra light would help me focus on annoying human scribblings.

Stepping closer to the window, I leaned into the sun’s warmth. Flick, flick, flick. It wasn’t really opening the present if I just pried up an edge of tape that was already loose. Or at least I hoped my mate would see it that way.

The noise within the box sped up as if the sun’s rays had accelerated a chemical reaction. Cold-blooded critter maybe? Lizard tails were always so tasty wriggling alone on the patio stones. And beetle exoskeletons crunched so nicely between lupine teeth...

Wait. Crenellated edges, a rectangle full of tiny brown lines in the shape of our nation’s southern neighbor. A stamp.

Unable to wait, I found fingers tearing at paper. Packing tape ripped from cardboard. Tiny brown seeds fell out into my palm.

My mate returned just as I popped the first morsel into my mouth, cracked it between flat molars, sucked out the sweet larva wriggling inside.

Delicious.

Tasty morsel a mere memory, I turned to see my mate clutching my gift to her, this parcel still wrapped. The soft cashmere sweater hiding inside would hug her close when I wasn’t available to do the job myself. From her hangdog expression it appeared she needed a hug sooner rather than later.

Pulling her into my arms, I squeezed the angst out, then stepped back. Her mouth was quirked to one side, her eyes on the three Mexican jumping beans still sitting in the palm of my hand.

“You’re disappointed,” she said. “I shouldn’t have gotten you a gag gift.”

I titled my head again, brow creased. She was such a perfect mate, I sometimes forgot she couldn’t see inside my brain. Words then.

“Are you kidding?” I countered. “Hunting Christmas was the best gift ever. Let’s do it again next year.”

Joining Up After a certain age, a man on the prowl for a life partner has to accept that the dating pool is pretty much limited to single moms. I was good with that.

So when Celia told me about the existence of an estranged daughter, I empathized. And when that same grown daughter came back into both of our lives, I knew I had to do the right thing.

I’d ask Fen for permission before I popped the question to the most important woman in my life.

“Just don’t stare into her eyes,” I reminded myself. “Werewolves hate dominance displays.”

Perhaps that’s why I felt more like a wildlife biologist than a cop as I headed up the hillside to the cabin Fen shared with her spouse. No, scratch that. Her mate. Gotta get the terminology down pat if I wanted to make this errand a success.

“Paul?”

I whirled, pulling my hand away from my absent sidearm. I’d forced myself to leave the firepower behind, knowing that guns and girls don’t mix. Only this wasn’t a girl. This was a massive male whose brawn wasn’t half as intimidating as the feral wolf that peered out from behind his eyes.

“Hey,” I said, watching him sniff my fear out of the air. “Is Fen around?”

Her mate jerked his chin at the cabin barely visible through the darkening forest. “Need any help?”

“No, thanks. I think I’ve got this.”

He smirked. Turned, dropping pants onto the frozen earth. Fell to the ground in the shape of a massive canine and loped away into the winter-bare trees.

I gulped. Combine the size of the male’s teeth with the emotional volatility of a woman and I had a sinking suspicion I wasn’t going to make it out of that cabin alive.

Luckily, I had an ace in the hole. Feeling within my pocket to make sure the trinket was still present, I strode forward with squared shoulders. This really shouldn’t be any worse than the time I’d gotten the call about bank robbers while my partner was out of town. Okay, well, no worse than I’d assumed facing down those bank robbers would be...before they’d materialized into dumb kids in Halloween costumes looking for a candy fix.

The cabin door opened the second my fist touched the wood. Creaking ominously inward, the widening crack revealed an interior pitch black to human eyes. Perhaps putting off this project until sunset hadn’t been the brightest idea.

“Paul?”

Unlike her mate, Fen appeared perfectly normal. Well, perfectly normal with tattoos running up and down her arms and with hair that appeared to have been hacked short with a machete.

She was nothing like her mother. Still, she could have passed for human on a city street, probably because she was only half werewolf on her father’s side. I just hoped Fen was like Celia in the only way that currently mattered.

“I...”

I stuttered my way back to silence, the long explanation I’d dreamed up over the past few weeks stubbornly refusing to emerge. Here I was taking the step I’d dreamed of for so long and I couldn’t spit out more than a single word.

We stood and stared at each other. Finally, Fen’s mouth quirked upwards into a hint of a smile. “Okay, guess I’ll do the talking.”

She stepped back, waiting for me to join her inside. The glass front of the wood stove in the corner glowed from the light of the fire within, but everything else receded into darkness. I inched forward anyway and the door clicked shut behind my back, shutting me inside with a werewolf who I suspected soon wouldn’t consider me her friend.

She was polite, though, as she flicked on a table lamp then pulled a beer out of a mini-fridge and tossed it my way. I grabbed the bottle out of the air...and felt her fingers slipping into my pants pocket faster than should have been humanly possible.

Of course, she wasn’t human. Best not forget that.

Fen’s eyebrows rose as the same hand emerged with her prize. “Not what I was expecting. What’s this?”

My military ID dangled from her fingertips, the spiel I’d planned fleeing from my brain. “I want to marry your mother,” I said at last, all flowery language long since faded into the dim recesses of a brain that begged me to flee, flee, flee.

“And the neck bling?”

I cringed away from words that no longer sounded nearly as amusing as they had in the safety of my own home. Hesitating, I cleared my throat then spoke. “It’s a dog tag. To prove I want to be part of your pack.”

For a moment, all was silent except the crackle of the fire. Then a choked huff emerged from the werewolf’s throat. I couldn’t decide whether to apply the Heimlich maneuver or to run as fast as I could in the other direction.

Only when the hacking erupted into gales of laughter did I relax at last. Like mother like daughter. A woman enjoys a man who can make her laugh.

“You have my blessing,” my stepdaughter said, pulling my head down to drape the chain back around my neck where it belonged. “Welcome to the pack.”

Potatoes and Gravy “What do you want for Christmas?”

Calla stroked tentative fingers across soft red fur then peered up at the human’s fluffy white beard. She wasn’t quite sure why this stranger was so over-dressed or why he asked such nosy questions. But she was a good-natured kid, so she ignored the former discrepancy and obliged the latter request.

“Snow.”

“Snow? That’s all? What about a Barbie. Little girls love Barbies.”

Calla had a vague understanding that Barbies were miniature plastic humans useful for practicing haircuts and streamlining fashion consciousness. She wasn’t remotely interested in learning to accessorize. If she wanted to look pretty, she’d just grow out her fur and return to her more familiar lupine shape.

Werewolves didn’t need Barbies.

“Snow,” she repeated firmly. “I want snow for Christmas.”

“Well, I’ll see what I can do,” the human said, his words agreeable but his body language tense as he all but pushed her out of his lap. Calla shrugged and pattered back to her waiting pack mates, all of them older than herself and more able to fit into this strange human world they’d recently found themselves in.

“Snow, huh?” Lupe asked, pushing her nose into Calla’s hair. Humans would think Lupe was smelling that cute little-girl smell, but Calla knew her pack mate was reassuring her as an older wolf should.

“Snow,” Calla agreed.

“Weather’s supposed to be warm and dry tomorrow,” Sterling said quietly. The protector of her new foster siblings didn’t want to see her disappointed. “Might snow later in the week.”

“How about a snow cone?” Lupe interjected. She flourished crisp dollar bills, still proud of being the one granted the cash when their alpha had dropped them off at the mall an hour earlier.

“I like cherry,” Calla said to make them all happy. She did like cherry. But she also wanted snow. Real snow like she’d seen on television, falling out of the sky. She wanted to catch a snowflake on her nose while music swelled around her. To dance and caper in the cold, white fluff.

Calla’s life had changed so dramatically over the past few months. She’d gone from being a Sit-Stay-Aren’t-you-listening? dog to a wolf who could make herself heard with human words. She’d traveled north to join a pack, had found true friends and family, and had learned to walk on two clawless feet.

Still, in the movies, there was always snow at the grand finale. She wanted snow.

The rest of the day passed in a blur of hot chocolate and “Which Christmas present do you want to unwrap tonight?” and stockings hung by the chimney with care. There was a story about Santa Claus—so that’s who the mall human was pretending to be—and flying reindeer and melting snowmen.

The drippy snow creature was ominous. But if reindeer could learn how to fly, surely her pack could rustle up just a little snow.

Creeping downstairs the next morning, she passed by the bulging stockings full of goodies her alphas had hidden in the back of their closet two weeks earlier. She’d really been looking forward to those treats—puzzles and fluffy mittens and, last time she’d nosed into the stash, even some lusciously ripe pears.

But there was something else she wanted to check out first.

Cracking open the front door, she peered out into the dim morning light. The sun was barely beginning to creep up over the mountaintop and frost glinted silver atop the grass.

Silver...but not white. The sky was cloudless, the air was dry. There was no snow.

She shouldn’t have been disappointed. After all, Sterling and Lupe and fake-Santa had all warned her it was too much to ask for. Still, she couldn’t help pressing a hand to her aching stomach as she took a step backward, began to close the door.

Magic isn’t real.

Then, out of nowhere, a snowflake appeared. The house above and behind her woke as music filled the air. “Twas on a night like this,” her pack mates crooned in glorious harmony.

More flakes. She inched out into the gentle cascade, stuck out her tongue, twirled amid the sparkling fall of brilliant snow.

Mmm, tastes like mashed potatoes. Yummy.

Looking up, she caught Lupe sliding closed the window above her head. A last few granules of instant potato mixed with glitter glinted in the rising sun as they drifted down into Calla’s hair.

Licking her chops, Calla smiled. She’d gotten what she wanted. Now, everything else was gravy.

***

I hope you enjoyed the Alpha Underground trilogy! If so, you won't want to miss my next series, Wolf Legacy, about a cupcake-baking werewolf.

Or perhaps you'd rather download fan-only extras, be alerted to new releases, and read through a FREE starter library? If so, you can sign up for my email list at www.aimeeeasterling.com.

Thank you for reading. You are why I write.