Chapter 1
KOJO
PRESENT DAY DETROIT, MICHIGAN
Ihave seen snow before, but never this much of it.
The white covers everything, roads and cars and the skeletal trees that line the motel parking lot.
It falls from the sky in fat, lazy flakes that would bury a man if he stood still long enough, and I stand barefoot at the edge of the lot with my toes buried in a drift that reaches my ankles, watching the snow pile higher on the hood of a car.
This is disgusting, my Bouda announces. Why would anyone choose to live in a place where the sky vomits ice?
It is not ice. It is snow.
It is frozen water falling from the clouds. That is ice with better marketing.
I flex my toes in the drift and feel the cold pressing against my skin, but my body runs too hot for the weather to touch me. Steam rises from my bare feet where they meet the snow, little wisps of vapor that curl upward and vanish into the gray afternoon light.
Your feet are melting the ground, my Bouda observes. The humans will notice.
There are no humans watching. The motel parking lot is empty except for three cars, all of them buried under inches of white, and the owners are inside their rooms hiding from the weather.
I do not know what humans do when the sky decides to attack them, but I assume it involves complaining and turning up the heat.
Can we go back inside now? my Bouda asks. I hate this. I hate everything about this. I miss the sun and the heat and dirt that does not try to freeze my paws off.
We do not have paws right now.
I have paws in spirit. And they are cold.
I take one last look at the snow, then turn and walk back toward the motel.
My feet leave steaming prints in the drift, dark patches that fill back in within seconds as more flakes fall from the sky.
The bone I have been chewing on is still clutched in my right hand, stripped clean of meat but still satisfying to gnaw, and I found it in a dumpster behind a restaurant two blocks away.
Pork, probably. Maybe beef. My Bouda did not care enough to identify the animal before I cracked it open for the marrow.
Good marrow, my Bouda admits. The cold does one thing right. It preserves the scraps.
I push open the door to room 114 and step inside, bringing a gust of frozen air with me. Kade stands by the window with her arms crossed, her pale face turned toward Aiden, who sits on the edge of one of the two beds with his camera bag clutched against his chest. They are arguing again.
“He’s not normal,” Aiden says. “The way he looked at me, Kade. It was not normal.”
Kade rolls her eyes. “Andrew’s a grown vampire. Take it up with him.”
“Reasons for what? For staring at me like I was a meal?” Aiden shakes his head, his shoulders tight with frustration. “Something is seriously wrong with him, and I don’t want to be anywhere near that bar while we wait for transport.”
I close the door behind me and settle into the chair by the small table, lifting the bone to my mouth. The marrow is gone, but the act of chewing soothes my Bouda, so I keep at it. The argument does not concern me, and I have heard it three times already since we left Thirst Trap.
Vampires are strange creatures, my Bouda says. They smell like death and act like they own everything they look at. I do not understand why the other shifters tolerate them.
Kade notices me and smiles, a quick flash of warmth that disappears as soon as she turns back to Aiden.
She has a motherly look about her, which is strange for a vampire.
Most of the ones I have encountered smell like old blood and predator instinct, but Kade smells like old blood and warmth.
Concern, maybe, or just centuries of practice pretending to care about creatures she could kill without effort.
“You pulled out of Thirst Trap after forty-eight hours,” Kade says to him. “My son has been running that bar for years without incident. Maybe the problem isn’t Andrew.”
He makes a sound in his throat, something between a laugh and a growl. “Are you saying the problem is me?”
“I’m saying you’re human, and humans don’t always get what they’re feeling.”
I keep chewing on my bone, watching the conversation from the corner of my eye.
Kade is holding back, and I can smell it on her, a careful kind of restraint that means she knows more than she is saying.
Aiden cannot smell it because he is human, but I caught the scent the moment she arrived.
She knows why Andrew was staring, and I know too.
Aiden carries a fated scent. It is faint, buried under the soap and coffee and electronics that make up his usual smell, but it is there.
Someone out there is meant for him, and based on how Kade keeps dodging the subject, that someone is probably her vampire son.
I have not told Aiden this because it is not my business to deliver that kind of news, and my Bouda agrees.
Let the vampire handle his own mess, my Bouda says. We have enough problems without getting involved in someone else’s mating drama.
Kade sighs and uncrosses her arms. “A storm is coming.”
“I know,” I say around the bone. She looks at me with one eyebrow raised, and I shrug. “I can smell it. The pressure has been building since yesterday.” I tap my nose. “Big one. Two days, maybe three.”
Kade nods and looks between me and Aiden.
“The roads will be impassable by tonight. It’s too dangerous to drive right now, so you’ll need to wait it out another day or two just for the storm to pass.
” She straightens her shoulders. “I’ll be here with a truck when it clears. I’ll get Kojo to Wintermoon myself.”
He sets his camera bag aside and stands. “That is the plan, then. We wait.”
Kade tilts her head, those pale eyes cutting sideways. “How much?”
Aiden blinks at her. “What?”
“How much do you want for delivering him?” She tilts her head, studying him. “Three years of travel, hiding, running. That is a lot of work for a human. What is your price?”
His face hardens, and he straightens on the edge of the bed. “I didn’t help Kojo for money. I helped him because I saw that he was special.”
Kade snorts, one hand resting on her hip. “A helpful human always comes with a price.”
“Not this one.” Aiden crosses his arms, mirroring her posture, and I can smell the truth on him. His heartbeat stays steady, his scent carries no deception, and my Bouda confirms what I already know.
He is genuine, my Bouda says.
“My Bouda says he is genuine,” I offer.
Kade turns to me, a smirk at the corner of her mouth. “Your hyena is a know-it-all.”
I stop chewing. My Ridge prickles, and my Bouda goes very still inside my head.
The anger rises through both of us at the same time because hyena is not a word we use.
Hyena is what the humans call us when they want to make us small, when they want to pretend we are scavengers instead of predators, and it is a slur that Kade knows damn well she should not be using.
“It is Bouda,” I say, my voice flat.
Kade grins, showing a hint of fang. “I know. I was just trying to piss off your animal.” She winks at me. “And it worked.”
I hate her, my Bouda growls. I hate vampires and the cold and this entire frozen hellscape of a country.
Kade pulls a phone from her pocket and checks something on the screen before tucking it away.
“I’ll be back when the storm passes. Stay inside, stay warm, and try not to kill each other.
” She glances at me. “Especially you. The last thing I need is to explain to Wintermoon why their newest resident ate a journalist.”
“I do not eat humans,” I mutter, and she laughs.
“Good. Keep it that way.”
She steps back from the window, and the black smoke begins to form around her feet.
The teleportation makes my stomach turn even from across the room, my Bouda recoiling at the wrongness of it because shifters are not meant to travel that way.
The magic feels like a violation of natural law, a shortcut that the body knows should not exist, and then she vanishes in a swirl of dark mist.
Good riddance, my Bouda mutters. Now can we leave this box and find somewhere with actual air?
Aiden lets out a long breath and sits back down on the bed.
The room feels smaller with just the two of us, the walls pressing in from all sides, and I hate this place.
I hate the low ceiling and the stained carpet and the smell of chemicals they use to clean the sheets.
The window is too small and the door is too thin, and everything about this room tells my Bouda that we are trapped in a box with only one exit and no room to fight if something comes through it.
I miss my village. The open sky and the red earth and the sound of cubs laughing in the compound.
The smell of frankincense burning on the altar and the heat of the sun on my bare shoulders and the way the night air carried the voices of my clan from one end of the territory to the other.
I miss home, even though home no longer exists.
It will get better, my Bouda says quietly. Wintermoon is supposed to be safe. Open land, hills, lakes. Room to run.
Room to run is not the same as home, but it is better than this box.
Aiden clears his throat. “So. Wintermoon.” I look at him, and he picks at a thread on his camera bag. “What do you think it will be like? Starting over, I mean. All of it --- the land, the people, everything will be different.”
I consider the question. I have been running for three years, moving from one hiding place to the next, surviving on scraps and shadows, and I have not thought much about what comes after because thinking about after requires believing there will be an after.
For a long time, I did not believe that.
“Different,” I say finally. “It will be different.”
Aiden nods. “Different is not always bad.”
“No, not always.” I go back to chewing on my bone, and my Bouda settles into a watchful silence. Outside, the snow keeps falling, and somewhere in the distance, the storm builds. We wait together for it to pass.