Chapter 12
Silas came home with rage written all over his skin. Willow could see it in his face through the windshield two hundred yards away.
Her sense of smell sucks, but she caught it when the door opened, sharp and sour. Acrid.
He didn’t slam the door, but the weight of it carried like a blow all the same.
He didn’t speak, didn’t look at her standing on the porch. He just headed for the meadow, boots flattening the dry grass in long, deliberate strides.
She followed, heart in her throat.
He didn’t stop until he hit the meadow, stripping with the same methodical efficiency he brought to everything. Clothes folded, boots stowed in the caddy beneath the stage — controlled, contained, as if the routine and the promise of what came next kept the beast leashed those final moments.
And then he let go. One blink, and the man was gone, a flash of morphing light and shadow that left a wolf in his place, huge and hungry.
Muscle and magic, fur and fury, and the thunder of paws hammering into the frozen ground as he melted into the forest.
Willow inhaled deeply, grounding herself while she thought through what she could do.
The obfuscation spell on the meadow meant they could change under the sky, and she decided this was one of those special circumstances. Kenny had said she could change without permission if she thought he’d agree with her reasoning.
And she thought someone should keep an eye on Silas. Be close once he ran whatever was wrong out of his system.
Also, she wanted to show him someone gave a fuck.
So she stripped, tucked her clothes into a cubby, and leapt into the air with human legs — and a half-second later was beating the wind itself into submission with feathered wings.
Once, twice, and the ground dropped away beneath her.
The hawk screamed into the brittle winter sky.
Below, the wolf’s paws thundered over dried leaves, steady as a war drum. His breath plumed white, each exhale a living rhythm. The forest seemed to bend for him, parting brush and shadow so he could run faster, harder. Wild.
She kept pace above, slicing the wind. The world below was scent and sound to him — vole, fox, damp earth, the musk of deer further out — while to her it was shape and movement, a rabbit bolting from cover, a tremor in tall grass.
Two ways of seeing the world, two predators moving in sync across earth and sky.
Then he veered, all sharp angles and intent.
She saw the shift in his gait and banked left above him just as he lunged, snapped, came up with a vole between his jaws. Two bites, gone. He barely slowed.
The forest kept going. So did they.
Pack lands bled into reclaimed army territory, miles of overgrown forest and decades of secrecy, completely reclaimed by nature.
The wolf ran.
The rhythm of his stride evened out, and the snarl of his rage unraveled into the hum of motion.
She could feel him through the bond.
He didn’t think. He didn’t feel. He ran.
Every push of his paws shoved the day farther behind him until it dispersed into the frozen ground, dissipated under the thud of muscle and will.
There was only the press of air in his lungs, the beat of his heart syncing to the land, the presence of the hawk above.
The man receded; the wolf remained.
Miles later, when he began to slow, she looked around. Scanned the ground. Waited for the pattern to—
Her wings cupped air, angled into a dive. She burst past low branches, talons closing tight around a rabbit. It thrashed, screamed, and then stilled beneath her crushing grip.
She flew with it to where he was running, landed forty yards in front of him, feathers still puffed. Laid the rabbit down and met his feral gaze with the primeval wild in her own.
Flared her wings. Folded them.
The wolf slowed and prowled closer, golden eyes locked on hers. He lowered his head, sniffed, and nudged the kill toward her with the tip of his nose. She tore the fur, ripped free the first bite, and then stepped back.
His teeth sank in, blood darkening the fur of his muzzle, and she stepped forward again.
They traded back and forth, no dominance, no protocol. Just hunger and breath. Fur and feathers.
No pack rules here. No human words. Just two hunters sharing a kill.
When the carcass was stripped clean, he licked his muzzle, and then he licked the blood from her beak with quiet acknowledgment and bone-deep acceptance.
It had nothing to do with seduction, and it struck her how few people would ever understand this moment. Not as metaphor. Not as kink. Not as foreplay. Just… this.
She trembled at the intimacy of it: rough tongue, primal trust.
He tipped his head back and howled, long and low, pulling power from the earth, and pain from somewhere deeper.
She screamed with him, wings flared wide.
For a heartbeat, the forest seemed to pulse with them. Deepening twilight, brutal winter evening, but the magic of it burned hot in their bones.
They weren’t owner and fucktoy tonight, they were hawk and wolf.
He turned first, loping west. She rose with the air and circled above, his shadow running below hers across the frostbitten earth.
A third of the way back, movement caught her eye. Another wolf, low and fast — all broad shoulders and steady confidence. Kenny.
She screamed a greeting and his head jerked up, gaze locking on hers in an instant.
The wolves met at full speed, bodies brushing as they circled. They sniffed, shoulder-checked, pressed together with a grunt and a snarl that said everything. Kenny headbutted Silas hard, a shove toward home. Silas growled but turned and ran.
And the hawk flew above them, soaring the icy winter currents with her wings stretched wide.
When the trees thinned and the meadow finally stretched out before them, she sped enough to land before they arrived, alighting in front of the stage.
She changed and dressed quickly, since it doesn’t take long when it’s only a dress and boots.
Her body was still flushed from the wind and magic, heart still thumping with it.
Kenny’s wolf came out of the trees and shifted mid-stride, a shimmer of wolf-light one second, a naked man the next.
Silas came prowling out of the forest on four legs next, but he waited until he was beside his clothes to change back to man and then methodically pull clothes out and put them on.
Human again, he seemed better, but clearly still troubled.
Kenny stood waiting at the far edge of the cubbies, arms crossed. Still naked, like the cold didn’t bother him at all.
“Problem?” he asked softly.
Silas nodded, still not speaking.
“I saw the grief in your face through the windshield,” Willow told Silas, who only grunted and tossed her his jacket.
She ignored the fact hawks have a higher body temperature than wolves and put it on.
Her instincts told her to just do it. Arguing is never appreciated and, while he was already in a mood, wouldn’t be wise.
Mostly though, he was already beyond stressed, and the last thing she wanted to do was add to it.
They walked back to the house in silence, Willow between them, until the lights from the house appeared through the trees.
“Boone,” Silas muttered. “God bless the man and his meat obsession.”
Willow was about to ask what he meant when she picked up the slight scent of something rich and spicy. Wolf noses clearly knew more about whatever Boone was cooking.
Inside, the kitchen was toasty warm, and the sharp tang of cumin, chili powder, garlic, and peppers hit her sinuses. The scent hit like a comforting spell, all rich and primal.
Boone stood at the stove, shirtless, spoon in one hand, beer in the other.
“Three-animal chili,” he announced without turning. “Beef, chicken, buffalo. The best kind of trinity.”
“It’s ungodly delicious,” Kenny corrected.
Willow filled glasses without needing to ask what they wanted. If Boone had chosen beer, the rest would, too.
Silas stood in the doorway like he didn’t quite know what to do with himself. Willow stepped to him, laid a hand on his chest, then pulled him into a hug.
“I wasn’t alone,” he murmured, arms folding around her. “You came with me.”
“I did,” she whispered. “I would again.” Even though she wasn’t sure yet whether Kenny approved.
Boone turned, finally taking them in. “You good?”
Silas let out a long breath, and he held onto Willow while he told them. “Kid who worked for me. Dishwasher. Seventeen. One of the good ones. The crash on the interstate that shut it down this morning, that was him and his mom, both dead. Damned semi just ran right the fuck over them.”
Boone’s jaw flexed, but he only shook his head and ladled a bowl of chili and set it on the table in front of Silas’s chair. “Start with food.”
Kenny sank into his chair with his own bowl of chili in hand.
Silas sat, lifted his spoon, and ate.
“Marcus is coming to the restaurant tomorrow night,” Silas said after a few bites. “Talk to the team. Help them start processing.”
“Smart,” Boone said.
They ate, quiet at first.
“You cook pretty damned good for someone who follows the caveman method,” Silas told Boone. “This hits the motherfucking spot.”
Willow chuckled. Boone can make six or seven meals, and every one of them includes at least two kinds of animals. One has beef, pork, chicken, and duck — along with rice and lots of soy sauce. He says the mushrooms count as vegetables. It’s good though.
Kenny smirked. “It’s like he wants a food fight to happen in everyone’s mouth. I mean, would the chicken scare the buffalo? Or would the buffalo eat the chicken?”
“Not a fight,” Boone argued. “It’s a conversation. Beef brings the base, the deep growl. Chicken brightens it, balances the fat. Buffalo kicks it up, leans into the wild. And the spice…” He gestured with his spoon. “The spice tells ’em all to get along or get the fuck out of the bowl.”
Willow grinned, the conversation and food warming her from the inside out.
Silas was grieving, but food made with love and care, eating it with family, would help him heal, one bite at a time.
She saw Boone take a drink, checked bottles, and stood to get Silas and Boone another beer.