Chapter 2
WEST
“You punched me,” I growl, palm pressed to my jaw.
“You snuck up behind me in the dark with an axe!” she shoots back.
“This is my property,” I bite out. “I was getting firewood and saw someone on my porch. There was no sneaking.”
“Well, maybe try being less”—she waves a trembling hand toward me, shivering so hard her teeth chatter—“murder-y.”
Her round eyes are wide, ocean blue, lashes tipped in frost. Her cheeks are cherry red from the wind. Her pink puffball coat looks drenched, and she’s dusted in glitter and ice like a nearly frozen Christmas ornament.
The wolf inside me stirs.
Fox.
I can smell it now—sharp, sweet, Arctic. Her scent curls through the air like sugar, and the animal in me bristles, curious and territorial all at once.
A stranded fox shifter on Solstice. Exactly what I don’t need.
She sways on her feet, knees wobbling. “I’m fine,” she says, voice slurring just slightly.
“Sure you are,” I mutter, step forward, and shove the door open. The warm air from inside hits us both. “Get in before you freeze solid.”
She hesitates.
Smart girl.
But the storm howls, and survival wins out over pride. She stomps her sequined boots on the threshold, shaking snow across the wood floor
I shut the door, drop the latch, and immediately regret it as the scent of her—warm, wild, sweet—floods my cabin.
Shivers quake through her, and her hands are shaking so hard she can barely grasp her coat’s zipper.
“Sit,” I order. “You need heat before you drop.”
“I’m fine,” she insists again, teeth clacking. She staggers past me toward the fire, drops her bag, and yanks off her gloves with her teeth. “I just need—uh—snacks.”
“You need to warm up.”
She ignores me and digs through her bag, pulling out a tin and muttering something about cookies. Her fingers are so stiff she can barely get the lid off.
The wolf rumbles, uneasy.
Hypothermia.
I cross the room, grab a wool blanket off the couch, and toss it over her shoulders. “Wrap up. Now.”
She jumps at the contact but doesn’t argue. “I was going to do that,” she mumbles.
“I’m sure you were,” I say. I stoke the fire higher, keeping my back to her so she can pretend she’s not shaking herself apart.
Behind me, something clatters. I turn and catch her tearing open a bag of pastel marshmallows.
“What are you doing?”
“Getting snacks,” she says through chattering teeth. Her hands are shaking so badly a few mint green and petal pink mallows escape, bouncing across the floor. She scoops them up and shoves a handful into her mouth.
“Why?”
She blinks like it’s obvious, chews, swallows. “Because I’m still not entirely sure I’m going to survive the night,” she says finally. “And if I don’t, I’d at least like to go out with a bang.”
I rub a hand down my face. “A bang?”
Her lips twitch. She lifts a pink frosted cookie from the tin. “A sugary bang.”
I exhale through my nose. “You’re not dying tonight.”
“Most people who go missing in blizzards don’t think they’re going to die either,” she says, voice wobbling as she shivers. “But I’ve listened to enough murder podcasts to know this is how the cold open starts.”
“Nothing’s going to happen to you that’ll end up on a podcast.”
She tilts her head. “So, you’re saying I’m not getting murdered. Great. Which means my other option is to go back out there and become a popsicle. Unless…” Her eyes brighten. “Please tell me you have one of those satellite phone things.”
“I don’t have a phone.”
That gets me a look of disbelief wrapped in a shiver. “Wow. I knew you were older, but I didn’t think you were that old.”
My jaw tightens.
She takes another bite of cookie as she shrugs out of the blanket.
Her fingers fumble with the edge of her coat, trying to peel it open.
I cross the space in two strides and tug it off her shoulders.
It’s soaked straight through, heavy and freezing.
Her sweater underneath isn’t much better—clinging, wet fabric plastered to her skin.
“You need to get out of those clothes before your core temp drops any lower,” I say, reaching for another dry blanket from the couch. “Like I said, you’re not dying tonight.”
Her lips part like she’s about to toss back something sarcastic, but whatever it is freezes on her tongue. Instead, her teeth chatter, and she just nods. “Wh-where’s the bathroom? So I can take my clothes off.”
I glance toward the window and jerk my chin.
She blinks. “Outside? What is this, the eighteen hundreds?”
I frown. “It’s a cabin, not a hotel.”
She looks around, as if finally taking in the space.
It’s one open room with a king-sized bed tucked into the far corner, wood stove and small kitchen on one side, the fireplace dominating the other.
It’s practical, simple. Built for solitude, not guests.
Definitely not hypothermic sugar-scented foxes.
When she sways, I step forward, catch her elbow. “Come on,” I murmur. “I won’t look.”
“Because you’re such a gentleman?” she teases weakly.
“Something like that,” I say, and lift the blanket like a makeshift curtain.
I fix my gaze on the floorboards, every muscle strung taut as I listen to the soft rustle of wet fabric, the dull thud of boots, the faint sound of her breath hitching as air hits bare skin.
Her scent shifts—less frost now, more warm skin, cinnamon and sugar. It curls through the air like smoke, sweet and spicy at the same time. The wolf in me stirs, hungry, restless, prowling under my ribs.
My fingers flex on the blanket.
Stop. I command, pushing down the hot pulse of instinct.
I force my attention back to the floor, pick a knot in the wood and focus on it.
I breathe in slowly through my nose, out through clenched teeth.
The wolf is awake, pacing, tail flicking, nose full of her.
It’s been years since he’s stirred like this.
Too many. I’d almost forgotten what it felt like to keep him at bay, to hear his voice, to let him run free.
A whisper of fabric again, softer this time. Then her voice, quiet and uncertain. “Okay.”
I wrap the blanket around her, careful not to touch more than I have to. She’s so small inside it, trembling like the fire can’t reach her fast enough.
My wolf goes still, watching through my eyes, all instinct and awareness. There’s no hunger this time, just something older, quieter.
Keep her alive.
She shifts in my arms, turning to face me.
The blanket slips a little, brushing across my knuckles, revealing her smooth shoulder.
She tilts her chin up, lips pale, gaze unguarded and trusting.
The cabin narrows to the crackle of the fire, her small, trembling breaths, and the hammer of my own pulse.
I force my hands to drop, step back, and clear my throat. “I’ll make tea.”
I grab the kettle off the stove and fill it at the small sink.
I set it back on the burner, twist the gas knob, and the blue flame blooms to life with a soft whoomph.
Two chipped mugs wait on the counter. I drop a sachet of chamomile in each, the scent of dried flowers rising as the kettle begins to warm.
Across the room, she’s curled on the couch in front of the fire, burrowed deep in the blanket.
Her knees are tucked under her, bare feet peeking out, skin still pale from the cold.
Her blond hair has started to dry, falling in long, tangled waves around her shoulders.
The firelight flickers against it, turning gold to copper.
The kettle whistles, shrill in the quiet. I pour the water into both cups, add a splash of scotch to mine, (more than a splash, if I’m honest), and carry them over.
“Tea’s ready,” I murmur, setting hers on the table beside her.
She doesn’t stir. Her head’s tipped to the side, cheek pressed to the couch cushion, lips parted slightly. Her breathing is slow, even, peaceful. There’s a smudge of pink frosting still at the corner of her mouth.
The wolf stirs.
Mine.
No.
The fire pops, the mugs cooling in my hands as I just stand there. I don’t know what to do with the ache tightening in my chest. She’s half my age, a stranger, a fox for fuck’s sake.
“Get it together, West.”
I take the leather armchair near the couch and drop into it. The cabin creaks in the storm and the fire crackles as I force myself to sip the scotch-laced tea and look at the flames instead of at her.
For now, the wolf is settled, satisfied that this mysterious fox is safe and alive, but the scents of cinnamons and sugar linger, warm enough to stir something I haven’t felt in a long, long time, and I already know sleep isn’t happening for me tonight.