Chapter 4
Cat cut off her scream and her flight to the door because the first thing you learn in the woods is never to run from a predator.
She stood frozen, gulping for air and bracing for pain.
Nothing happened, and she slowly turned around to see the giant wolf’s eyes close and its head sprawl against the floor. A fine tremor ran through its fur.
A couple of things were making a lot more sense, like why he was completely naked in the middle of a blizzard and why he hadn’t died on the trek to the cabin.
His words floated back to her: Why couldn’t you come a second later?
He was planning on shifting a moment before she arrived. He hadn’t wanted to do it in front of her. Anyone else would have collapsed twenty feet from the avalanche with no clothes on. Even the fact that he made it to the cabin was proof that he was stronger and fitter than a human being.
When nothing happened for another minute, the raw edge of her panic subsided, and she realized she could move again.
She’d been frozen with fear. Her heart still beat like a hummingbird in her chest, and it felt like every breath had half the air she needed, but she could make her foot move toward the door to get out of there.
As she got closer, she could hear the roar of the wind outside and feel the icy fingers of frost snaking through the cracks. She’d started in the afternoon, but the sun set before five, which meant it would be dark soon. Not only was it freezing and blowing snow, but it was also night.
She looked back at the wolf. While he was still trembling, he hadn’t moved.
She felt a hysterical bubble of laughter float up and ruthlessly swallowed it down.
If you’d asked her the day before what was scarier, a blizzard or a werewolf, she definitely would’ve said the werewolf.
But there was a chance in hell she could survive him, and there was no chance she would survive the weather.
Decisively, she pivoted and took a deep breath.
“Right,” she said and winced, waiting for his eyes to open. They didn’t.
She was feeling pretty cold herself, which meant she had to move.
It still took over a minute to step closer to the wolf on her way toward the kitchen.
This cabin had been abandoned for months, but it was in surprisingly good shape.
The kitchen comprised a giant plastic tub for water over a basin to catch it, and a long stretch of countertop with a shelf above it.
Pots and pans hung from hooks on the wall.
A cooler and a few boxes were tucked under the counter, and that was pretty much it.
The owner must have cooked on the giant stove, because there was no other way to heat food.
She carefully maneuvered around the wolf to get to the stove. Once she was on the other side, she forced herself to breathe again and gingerly opened the giant belly of the thick cast-iron.
She cursed. Someone had been responsible and put out the fire, which meant all that was left in the stove was caked ash.
“That’s okay. We’re in a forest.” There were things to burn all over.
She turned back to the kitchen and pawed around the shelves, shocked by the number and variety of spices.
Who were these people? It seemed like they had a spice cabinet big enough to cook for every cuisine on earth in this tiny cabin with no running water.
There were no obvious lighters or matches, so she started opening containers.
They were well-sealed, but she was surprised she didn’t see any rodent activity in the cabin at all.
Bursts of flavor filled her nose, but every jar so far matched what it said on the label, until she got to a tin for tea, which rattled.
She opened it to find matchsticks. For a moment, she was almost disappointed, because she could’ve used the caffeine, but she was relieved she didn’t have to go full Girl Scout and try to start a fire with friction.
She put them back and opened the cooler with something like fear, bracing for rotted food, but it was empty.
Okay. They had the possibility of fire, which was huge.
She weighed how cold she felt now against the volume of the wind outside.
There had to be a woodpile. There just had to be, and if they got desperate, there were trees.
Sadly, pine trees grew tall before branching out, which meant getting smaller branches she could break off would suck.
Maybe by some miracle, there’d be an ax somewhere.
It wasn’t in plain view, but if they left their spice collection, they had to have left the ax, right?
All of that took light. There were stories of people who died in storms five feet from their house because they couldn’t find it.
She stepped carefully around the stove to examine the bed and then under the bed, the only other place to store something.
There were drawers pulled from a dresser haphazardly stacked on the floor, in which she found men’s clothes.
They look to fit a pretty big man. If he ever shifted back, that would be nice for him, but right now, she saw a chance for defense.
First, she put on a flannel shirt, because her best coat was now trapped with her space blanket under a wolf.
Then she grabbed the rest of the clothes and the sheets off the bed to create a net.
She could tie it to the leg of the stove.
That wasn’t going anywhere. She was less certain about the bed, but it was made of solid wood, so it was her best bet.
She worked for half an hour, trying to ignore how stiff her fingers were, before she gingerly placed it over the wolf and tied down her anchors.
She desperately wanted to wedge clothing into the door, but it was the only way out, and that would slow her down, so she just put on more layers and collected the knives, the cast-iron skillet, and the kettle from the kitchen area and parked herself next to the door, knife in hand.
She chafed her hands together, not liking how numb they were or how tired she felt.
She jumped in place to keep her blood circulating to her toes as well.
She’d been out a long time. Though it was better out of the wind, a permanent chill had settled in her core, along with the conviction that she would never be warm again.
She felt her eyes close and woke with a start when her back hit the door.
“Stay awake. Stay awake. You’re fine.”
If she repeated it enough times, would it be true? Maybe if she were a spellcaster, and her words actually held any power.
Visions flickered at the edge of her eyes, all to do with ice, and she rolled her eyes. “Got it, thanks.”
She didn’t have to be a divination witch to know she was in trouble.
The wind roared faster, and the light faded until she could barely see a hand in front of her face, let alone the wolf on the floor.
Something mighty crashed, and she screamed as a monster burst through the kitchen window. It took her eyes a few seconds to focus on it, and she realized a branch had hit the window above the kitchen.
The wolf snarled, and the knife tumbled from rigid fingers. She scrambled on the floor and got her hands around the cast-iron through.
In seconds, he ripped through the net meant to keep him down and stood with splayed legs, teeth and eyes gleaming in the dim.
She braced for pain and readied to swing with the last of her strength when the wolf flowed away, and the man crouched on all fours in its place.
“Hey, hey, it’s okay!” he said and took a step toward her. She jerked back into the door, and he stepped back, hands up. “I’m not going to eat you!”
The sentence struck her as completely absurd, and the bubble of hysterical laughter that had been trying to escape all day finally let loose. She giggled like a maniac, and he stopped moving.
“Sorry!” she said, but she could not stop laughing.
“I’m glad you think it’s funny,” the guy said as he wrapped his arms around himself. She glanced at the window. They had to block that up, which meant she had to put down the frying pan.
She couldn’t make herself do it. The enemy she’d been taught to fear her entire life stood before her.
“So I would guess you have a question or two?” the guy said. “Surprise, we’re real? Please don’t ever tell anybody, or we’ll have to kill you.”
Cat frowned. In all of her scenarios, she hadn’t dreamed the wolf would try to explain the existence of werewolves.
She gasped. He didn’t know she was a witch.
Of course not. Why would he? She knew nothing about werewolf law, but revealing yourself to a human was probably near the top of the forbidden list, along with avoiding all witches and/or killing them. Although maybe the twins had gotten that one wrong.
Would she be more or less safe if she outed herself? Probably less safe. He was feeling very protective of her at the moment as he tried to shield her from the blast of wind and snow pouring into the cabin, even as he stood there naked as a jaybird.
Right, the man in front of her was not the biggest threat.
She finally dropped the skillet.
“We have to seal that.”
He looked around at the absolute wreckage of sheets and clothing and picked up a pillow.
She shook her head. “No, it’s not waterproof.”
She retrieved the space blanket and held it up. “Oh, and there are clothes.”
“I don’t think I’ll fit in your clothes.”
She shook her head. “They came with the cabin.”
She held up a pair of pants that were knotted with two sheets and winced as she freed the pants.
He found a button-down plaid shirt and put it on. It was only a little big on him.
As he buttoned it, he asked, “Do you think its owner is on his way back?”
She smirked. “Only tourists would ever be caught out in that storm. If he were around, he’d be here.”
“So why does it smell like a Whole Foods?”
“What?”
“The grocery store? You don’t have Whole Foods?”
She’d heard of it. “It smells like a grocery store?”
“Like a spice market and an incense factory all mixed together.”
Another blast of wind cut through the air. “We can solve that mystery later!”