Chapter 18
Ty takes us back to the den and starts shaking shit up.
What this means is that every other male in the pack—including some of our guests who stayed behind for pack-unity reasons when their actual packs left the gathering—has to step up and level up.
After the wolf week we just had, every male in the pack is more than here for it.
They all want to prove themselves worthy.
They all want to make it clear that while all the packs might be one pack now, this part of that one big pack is the best.
“I think they’re showing off for their high king,” I murmur to him as all the males in the den charge toward the stairs from the grand cavern to the hilltop after Ty makes an announcement that it’s time to get to work.
He doesn’t crack a smile—not when he’s in his commander-of-everything mode—but I can see the way his dark eyes gleam. “Damn right,” he rumbles at me. “We got shit to do and a death bitch to handle, among other things. Kissing my ass is the icing on that cake, babe.”
I get caught on the other things part, since there’s not much I can personally do about whatever shenanigans Vin?a is planning. What I can do is keep up my vigilance where our traitor is concerned.
Once all the males in the pack have been summoned to the hill, filing past me where I pretend I’m not sniffing them to see if they smell wrong to me in some way—they don’t, sadly—Ty creates new teams. Patrols around the forests close to home as well as in the flooded mountains up by Crater Lake.
Then he decides that he and Connor need to give them all a crash course in training maneuvers.
That lasts the rest of the day and well into the next.
When Ty heads off to coordinate the finer details of his Crater Lake patrols with the vampire king, I decide to take a page out of his book. It’s high time that I turn over the domestic side of den life into my mother’s capable claws. Officially.
“You’ve waited my whole life to whip this place into shape,” I say when I find her, quietly and efficiently analyzing the supply situation in the big den kitchen now that all the other packs aren’t ours to feed. “I mean the whole den, not just the kitchen.”
Johanna allows her lips to curve. “Longer than that.”
“You have my full support,” I tell her, and I mean this with every part of me. “I’ve never wanted this part of being Ty’s mate. I trust you.”
I do trust her, because I know her. She keeps things moving the way they should. She already knows all the undercurrents and dramas here. She also knows how to shape those things. Besides, she was always on Ty’s side, and now that I am too—and so publicly—there’s no tension between us.
The part of me that’s her daughter might find that tough, but Ty’s future queen is all for it.
And I don’t have it in me to play den mother. Especially not after a week with Deirdre and all the young fated ones and newer queens.
I duck out of the den and head over to Winter’s, keeping my awareness high since I know the wolves are preoccupied and we still don’t know who our traitor is—but I don’t scent anything worrying.
Given that scenting hasn’t been as reliable as it should be—and not only because of Savi’s scent-scrubbing around the cottages, I think, remembering how I couldn’t scent my stalker either when Savi was nowhere around—I also take note that I don’t stumble over any torn-up bodies.
I find Winter in the woods behind her house, which is absolutely not where she should be, and especially not alone.
“You were there when they were discussing how bad the sacrifices are at the moment,” I say when I roll up to her without her glancing even once in my direction.
The very opposite of safety-first behavior, and she can’t shift into a wolf.
“Can confirm.” Winter is still not looking at me. She’s staring up at the trees around her, scowling.
“Do you think it’s coincidental that I wandered upon you out here in the woods?
” I ask her, shoving my hands in the jacket I threw on because I wanted to feel cozy.
The cold is turning Winter’s cheeks red, but it doesn’t bother me.
“It’s not. I could scent you pretty much from the moment I stepped out of the den.
” When she doesn’t respond to that the way I think she should, meaning at all, I bump her with my shoulder.
“Winter. If I can track you, anyone can. Including people significantly less marvelous than I am.”
Winter waves a hand. “I think there are new and improved wards. Savi was here very late last night, muttering around the way she does.”
“You know she’s not muttering, right? Those are spells.”
“Why doesn’t that make her a witch?” Winter looks at me then. “I feel like it’s been too long now and everyone assumes I know all the things they do, so I can’t ask. But I do wonder.”
“Witches are supposed to be in balance with nature, so they have to pay the price for any imbalances that come up with the magic they do.” I lean against the nearest tree and smell the smoke of woodburning stoves in the distance, spicing the cold air.
“They’re more like wolves that way. In tune with the seasons, very concerned with the moon, and all of their magic is a conversation with the natural world.
Sorcerers, on the other hand, are born magical and can manipulate the natural world, and everything else, to their own ends.
It’s a completely different kind of magic system.
” I consider. “A person can become a witch, but only sorcerers are sorcerers.”
Winter considers that. “Why is some magic genetic and other magic something you can get through a bite or a course of study or whatever?”
“Because magic does what it wants,” I tell her, something that is as obvious to me as the location of the sky.
I have to remind myself that Winter’s only known about magic for three years, and only understood her own magic for a couple of months.
“When it wants, how it wants. That’s just the way it is. ”
Winter makes a low noise at that, as if she wants to argue but can’t quite think of what to say.
“But you haven’t answered my question,” I say. She looks at me again, and I let my eyes widen. “Hello. Wandering around in the woods like a too-stupid-to-live heroine begging to be axed right out of a horror movie?”
“It’s Christmas Eve,” she says blankly.
I count days from the solstice in my head and think, Oh, yeah.
Winter glares at me when I have no other reaction. “I need a Christmas tree, Maddox. The world might be a hellscape on a downward spiral at the best of times—”
“In fairness, that’s always been one of Medford’s selling points, no?”
She looks like she can’t decide if she wants to scowl or laugh. “That’s no reason not to decorate a goddamn evergreen tree.”
I blink and peer up at the great many evergreen trees stretching above us. “Do you really do that? Chop down an innocent tree and festoon it with trinkets?”
“Please don’t pretend that you don’t know that just because you’ve been howling with the wolves for the past week.”
“I . . . am a wolf. So.”
“You grew up here. I saw you eyeing the Christmas tree in Jacksonville last week which, yes, was also chopped down and is now covered in ornaments. Welcome to the world you’ve lived in for the past quarter century.”
“Werewolves really aren’t Christmas tree–type people.” I shrug. “I think they’re pretty, sure. I like a lot of lights this time of year, but that’s not a religious thing. The only rituals I’m into involve the moon.”
Her face changes then, and she looks softer.
Wistful, almost. “Gran always made sure there was some kind of Christmas situation in the house each year. No matter what state my parents were in. No matter what was going on with Augie. Even when my grandfather was sick, she decked a hall or two to mark the occasion. And, despite everything, she pulled something off the last three years, too.”
“I didn’t know she was . . .” I don’t know what word to use for the old oracle.
“She liked a Christmas tree,” Winter says quietly. “It’s not a tradition that I intend to let die.”
Her voice rings out a little and echoes back from the trees. It’s late morning, and the mist is still pulling here and there beneath the sullen sky. Christmas trees don’t mean anything to me, but I understand grief. And loss.
“Let’s get you a tree, then,” I say, trying to sound festive, though when I do I’m suddenly reminded of that swirling red cloak in Jacksonville.
I try not to make it obvious when I look around, certain I can feel eyes on me.
“Luckily enough, this is the Pacific Northwest. One thing we still have is trees.”
Too many trees to count, in fact.
Finding the right one is not the quick and easy process I expect, however.
It turns out that any old tree won’t do.
Winter has very intense and specific criteria for the Christmas tree that she intends to take back into her grandmother’s house, though it is not the kind of criteria that can be shared. Or explained.
“I’ll know it when I see it,” she tells me.
It’s afternoon and edging toward dark when I finally reach over and wrench the axe out of her hands, whack down the tree she’s chosen at last, and then carry it back to the house.
In fairness, Winter helps. But to preserve her dignity, I don’t point out that I’m the one who’s carrying most of the weight.
Inside the house, the real work begins. It takes several trips down into the basement and back up the rickety old stairs to pull out every box with Christmas written on the side in old, spindly handwriting that I know is her grandmother’s without having to ask.
Winter makes us mugs of hot chocolate from her secret stash that she only pulls out every now and again. And only, I’m pretty sure, with me.