Chapter 15 #2
Ned didn’t move a muscle. His hot breath dusting us as we skidded hard to the right.
I wrapped completely around Honey as we tumbled, rolling into the snowdrifts, limbs flying everywhere.
My fear spiked. I messed this up. The only thing she asked was not to get hurt and our first run had us spilling off the sled.
Flat on her back in the drift, I lay on top of her for a moment, gathering the nerve to read her expression because all I sensed through the bond was static.
Stealing a peek at her, her hands suddenly shoved me up.
I popped up on my hands and knees. As my heaviness left her, she gasped out a laugh.
When she regained her breath, her mirth only grew louder.
“That…” Her heavy breathing drew my eyes to her chest. Her blue cable-knit sweater obscured everything, but my hands remembered their gentle weight.
“That was incredible! Better than riding Evie as a dragon.”
She started up and I went to scramble off her completely but she caught the back of my neck and kissed me.
Not the peck that our ruse had obliged her to give me in the kitchen, but her lips wrapping around mine with a wet heat that made me want to bite down.
I gripped her curls right back, my fingers threading through them, tightening all my need to the snapping point.
Her mouth only left mine long enough to change the angle of her attack.
My tongue flicked out to taste more of her.
She eagerly tried to suck on it. I never thought that would actually be hot but I was about to immolate the surrounding snow.
Her tiny groan flitted over the snow, but so did the heavy panting right by my head. Afraid I crushed her, I pulled back for just a moment to make sure she wasn’t panting in the bad way and her head turned to Ned, who plopped right next to us.
“Just ignore him,” I whispered, not wanting to break the spell.
She turned to me, scooching back just enough that my heart crashed down.
“I can’t. He sounds like a creepy old man.”
The moment was definitely over and I couldn’t stand the thought she might twist it into another justification for our fake mating.
Thanks, Ned.
Unrepentant, Ned flattened his front half into the snow and then zoomed in a circle, making Fallon laugh.
“Did we almost squish you?” When he stopped again, she grabbed Ned’s floppy face and squished it instead. He gave her wet kisses and she pushed him away, beaming at me. Her radiance poured into my soul and all of our collective hours together melded into this moment.
“Again, Dec. Let’s go again!”
If I got to kiss her like that at the end of every ride, we would never leave the hills.
I presented my back and she hopped on, her legs wrapped around me as I pulled the sled behind us.
Ned barked the entire way up the hill in his excitement.
Fallon eagerly positioned herself on the sled and I took comfort in plastering her to me again.
As we took off for another run, Ned raced beside us until he flattened himself and slid on his belly for the last bit of the rise.
Fallon chased after him until the snow defeated her and I carried her up the hill again.
By the time we got to the bottom, two pairs of eyes were waiting for us.
Briggs and Cosomo barely contained their enthusiasm, ribbing us for getting the freshest powder.
Fallon sassed a ‘snooze, you lose’ before all but pulling me onto the sled.
Ned chased us with tongue lolling, all of our breath fogging into the crisp air.
At the top of the hill, Fallon turned to me. “Can you beat Ned to the bottom?”
“You’re okay going down by yourself?”
“Nothing to it!” she said as if her checklist was long forgotten.
Her butt wiggling on the sled in her excitement was so cute I wanted to bite it.
Shifting in a flash, the Old Magic generated by the group of us swelled me bigger.
Briggs and Cosomo stared up at me, but Fallon and Ned already took off down the hill and I wouldn’t let her go alone.
In a few bounds, I made it half-way down the hill to find most of the pack gathered there.
They milled around Fallon in a blizzard of fur and fun.
I stamped my feet, undecided whether I should defend her, or see if there was any hope she would withstand the pack’s enthusiasm.
They brushed against her in their wolf forms. Some of the younger pups had more optimism than coordination but Fallon held her own. She laughed with them, encouraging everyone up the hill to join the fun.
I spotted the missing wolves’ brother, but before I spoke with him, Fallon had her hand in his. The small smile that came across his face twisted my noble intentions with my instincts.
“I’m glad you came out,” Fallon said.
His mumbled reply didn’t deter her. If she let go of his hand, I wouldn’t have to show my teeth.
“You have to get to the very top for the best ride,” she told Arden Whitewolf.
“I don’t have a sled,” the boy said more clearly.
Fallon smiled, her one-track mind always looking for a solution. “Do you want to ride with me?”
That was a bit too friendly. I stood behind her, my shadow falling over both of them and the pup flinched.
“I’ll take him,” Briggs said.
Bless her. I picked Fallon up by the back of her sweater, keeping my teeth far away from her skin and carried her back up the path despite her protests.
“Silly wolf! Put me down!”
I spat her out at the top of the hill and she righted her clothes in an indignant huff. It was so cute, I couldn’t help but play bow to my mate just as Ned had.
“I’m not a stuffed animal.”
That was debatable.
“Just because you got giant doesn’t mean you can cart me around.”
Fallon shoved my shoulder and her tiny hands had not a chance in the seven hells of moving me, but I tumbled over anyway in a dramatic flail of limbs and rolled all the way down the mound, Fallon shouting after me.
A couple of other wolves slid down on their bellies and that must have given Fallon ideas because when I loped up the hill again, she was ready.
“Up, up!” She tried her hardest to scramble up me until I flopped down in the snow. She mounted the base of my neck.
The shouts and good cheer called the Old Magic, sending us fresh snowflakes without dipping the temperature. Our tracks filled in. Our paws didn’t churn the rise into a mess of mud. When wolves clashed together, they helped each other up.
The slide down the hill with her pressed to my head and neck was worth every year I spent apart from her before we met.
Nothing about the day could have been better.
A cloud passed over the sun, and in the changing light, I caught a red blotch out of the corner of my eye. Just before the Old Magic brought the downwind scent of bacon to my sensitive nose. I didn’t care if she didn’t like it. I tossed Fallon by the sweater to Cosomo.
Pups and elders to the village now!
Even as I turned, the monk moved.
Enforcers to me.
My claws dug into the earth, racing up the foothills to the lookout point marked by only two footprints. Percy. We all scented the area for something more than that monk’s mixed magic and bacon. Any clue to their hiding hole. I scraped deeper into the snow where the monk had stood and I caught it.
Snow jelly only formed in one place in the territory in winter. The monks had moved onto our actual land with no one the wiser, and it stood my fur on end.
Dead Man’s Dell. When was the last time we swept it?
Marcus spoke up. It was clear in the summer.
My snout met the dirt to confirm my suspicions and I froze.
The faint scent of the missing wolves lit my anger.
I howled into the crisp air, the Old Magic swelling me larger with lethal intent.
Our previous interaction at the border turned downright sinister if they had our wolves. The pack all took turns verifying.
Growls took on a feral warning, and the enforcers milled about in agitation.
We must find those monks. Whatever it takes. Work in shifts to scour the Dell. If they have enough magic to create portals, they may be shielding themselves from us.
My howl bolted small creatures into their burrows and startled birds from the trees. Old Magic amplified the threat so it resounded over the entire territory.
The pack was on the hunt.