LOGINNoah"Fifty-six," Lainey says, closing her notebook like the number might keep climbing if she leaves it open."They haven’t changed their route or the time they walk, but there are four big grey ones now instead of two. Two up front, two right behind the last wolf. Nobody's getting near the back of that line again."Lainey looks at Reena questioningly."How did you even know it was a girl?" she asks. "Before she shifted. You kept saying she."Reena looks at her like she’s asked where the sun goes at night."Scent. You humans are the only ones who have to look."Dax hasn't sat down. He's leaning on the front table with his arms folded, and he hasn't looked my way once since we came in.I already know he's furious. Not at me exactly. At what I'm about to say.“It doesn’t matter if the back of the line’s being guarded now. I’m going to be waiting in the middle of the road when they approach. Where they can’t miss me.”"And then what?" Reena asks incredulously. "They chew on you until th
Dax"Quit it.""What?""You keep staring at me like I'm a test you're about to fail."Noah's got hold of my face in the dark and he's been doing that on and off since we first lay down. Thumbs under my cheekbones, eyes gone all distant the way they go when he's looking under the surface.It's the tenth time tonight. I started counting so I’d have facts to confront him with."You’re there," he says. "All of you.""That’s good news, right? Why do you look so miserable?""Headache. Looking under the surface constantly hurts."He lets go and rolls onto his back.“Baby. If it hurts, stop doing it. You know all of me is here. And you don’t usually have to strain to see me and my wolf, do you?”"No. Not really. It’s not like you look like two pictures laid over each other when I look at you. Your wolf is more like a shadow. An impression rather than something solid. I just know he’s there. When I look properly, he’s clearly visible.”“Great. So why don’t you stop when you can sense the impre
Noah"You can't sit in there shirtless. You'll scare her.""She's a wolf. She's seen skin.""She's a teenager. I doubt she’s seen that much of it. Or that quality."Dax looks down at himself like this is news.He’s muddy from his boots to his belt and Danny's blood has dried in brown streaks down his chest.It takes nothing away from how searingly hot he is.I've recently spent four solid days licking that chest and Doc Merrin's back step isn't the place for the thoughts I'm having about it. My body isn't consulting me.The sex addict isn't in remission.Merrin comes around the corner of the house with a folded shirt and the face of a woman who's had enough of all of us for a lifetime."I had to pull an extra cot into my garage for Danny. Finn's asleep and Mato's sitting with the two of them."She shoves the shirt at Dax."Finn's, it should fit. Put it on before people start stuffing dollar bills in your pants. I’m not running that kind of establishment."Dax flashes her a grin and pu
Dax"They're coming," Noah says quietly.I can hear them too.Fifty-eight sets of paws on wet snow, walking down the old logging road toward us, and not one growl or yip in the whole lot. It creeps me the fuck out.Werewolves are not naturally quiet. Not even in wolf form. Finn and I are an excellent case in point.I’m also incredibly uncomfortable. The thaw's made a swamp of this hill and I've been lying in mud for an hour.My wolf’s been complaining about it for fifty-nine minutes. No idea when he turned into such a precious princess.'We're wet through. When this is done, our mate will warm us up.'That's your answer to everything.'Show me one time it wasn’t the best solution.'Noah's belly-down next to me with the crossbow up and one of Merrin's orange bolts loaded. He looks calm. He isn't. His heart's running like he's already sprinting, and I can smell how badly he wants this to go right."If I miss," he says, "You're never allowed to bring it up."He must really be nervous. He
NoahThe plate won't let go of the floor.I’ve got two fingers under the rim to try and pry it up, and it's putting up a genuinely impressive fight.Four days under a throw blanket has welded the chicken grease to the boards, and I decline to examine that any closer, it’s gross.Maybe we should have cleaned the room before showering, because I feel like I may need another one after this."Little help?""Can't. Carrying glasses."Dax walks past holding two of them, out of the roughly nine hundred lying in a line across the floor, looking very pleased with his contribution."You brought them all up here. I’m sure you can get them back downstairs a little faster.""I was a man possessed. Younger. Hornier. You can’t judge me by my previous work."I don’t dignify that with a response.The plate finally comes free with a sound I'll be revisiting at odd moments for years. Not fondly.I carry it downstairs at arm's length, and when I get back to the bedroom Dax is staring at the eleven sealed
CodyThe man on the screen has been dying for eleven minutes.He's been stabbed, he's fallen down a well, and now he's crawling across a parking lot explaining the plot to a woman who wasn't in the first hour of the movie. The music thinks this is very sad. The actor is giving it everything he has, which isn't much."He's obviously going to make it," I say."What do you mean obviously? He’s currently in mortal peril.""You don't survive a well and die in a parking lot. There are rules.""You've never seen this one.""I don't need to have seen it. Almost nobody’s watched it. I checked. It has nine reviews and four of them are from the same guy. He’s probably related to somebody in the movie."The man in the parking lot dies and the woman he barely knows is devastated.Mato looks at me with the expression of a person who has been right about something unimportant and intends to enjoy it.This is our fourth night in his house. Every night has been a different terrible movie, and I’ve cal
DaxThe thing's in pieces at our feet and my body's still waiting for round two.I never come down off a kill clean. My blood's still up, ears still straining, every muscle still voting to hit something else.I don’t think it’s a werewolf thing. It’s an adrenaline thing.So when the wolf decides to
NoahThe wolf hits it like a truck, and the thing barely rocks.Wrong.Two hundred pounds of Alpha at a dead run should fold anything with a spine.This rotten thing takes the hit, slides back a boot-length in the dirt, and swings an arm the size of my leg.The wolf has to wrench sideways midair to
DaxThe wolf wants to turn around.He's wanted to turn around since I cleared the fence, and he isn't being quiet about it, because quiet isn't a thing he owns.He just keeps shoving the same word into the back of my skull like a toddler with a doorbell.Ours.Ours, ours, ours."He's a hunter," I t
NoahThree weeks I've been hunting this wolf, and tonight, finally, he does me the courtesy of holding still long enough to kill.Big of him.He's at the tree line where Northgate's fence gives up and the real woods start, and he's shirtless.Obviously. He almost always is.Cold's got nothing to sa







