Frostbitten

UNNATURAL

THE MOON APPEARED then, lighting our way back to the trail. Even through the trees, it cast enough of a glow for us to follow. The wolf tracks continued as we drew closer to our destination. When I caught another whiff of scent, I stopped.

"Werewolf. Probably Dennis."

"Is he out here?"

I shook my head. "It's a trail."

Clay inhaled. "I'm not getting it."

I resumed walking. "It's faint. But a trail means he's been here recently. And that looks like a cabin just ahead."

Clay squinted at the black shape through the trees. "No lights on."

"Out here, off the grid, you don't use any more than you need to."

The moon against the snow lit the clearing to twilight. We looked across the yard.

"Shit, is that…?" Clay blinked, as if seeing things. He wasn't. The snow was crisscrossed with wolf tracks. Not a square foot in the clearing had been left untouched.

I walked a few feet, then bent. "Definitely wolf."

"That's… "

"Weird."

He gave a distracted nod, but we both knew that wasn't the right word. Looking out at that paw-print-covered snow, so close to a werewolf's cabin, the word that came to mind was wrong. More than weird. Downright unnatural.

If new wolves had entered the region and decided to challenge an occupying werewolf, they'd slink around his cabin for a closer look. The Alpha might mark it to make a statement. But here I saw paw prints of every size, right down to yearlings.

"Maybe it's sled dogs," I said.

Clay looked over.

"Dennis could have a neighbor with a team. He comes over, ties them up while he has a few drinks and they get bored, pace around."

"You smell dogs, darling?"

No. I smelled wolf.

I climbed onto the front deck. I walked to the window to peek in, but the drapes were drawn. More prints dotted the sill, as if the wolves had been doing the same thing I was.

The hair on my scalp prickled. I tugged my hat down, then rubbed my icy earlobes. As I turned, I caught a scent that made my breath catch. When I inhaled deeper, though, I couldn't find it again.

I glanced at Clay, crouched by the door, his fingers running down the lower panel, fingertips tracing rough grooves in the wood.

Claw marks. The deep scratches were ridged with splinters. Fresh claw marks.

Clay straightened and banged on the door. "Dennis? It's Clay." He paused, then added, "Clayton Danvers."

The cabin stayed silent. I moved to the window again, looking for any sign of light around the drawn drapes. There was none.

"Dennis?" Clay called. "Jeremy sent me to check on you."

He pounded harder now. The wood buckled under his fist, the door parting from the frame just enough to let out a puff of what I'd smelled earlier.

"Open it," I said.

"What?"

I grabbed the handle and rammed my shoulder into the door. The wood crackled and it flew open. The smell blasted out, sending me reeling back.

I caught a glimpse of what was inside. Then I hurried to the side railing, leaning over it, hands over my mouth, teeth clenched, gorge bobbing.

Clay's hand rested against my back.

"Sorry, I-" I turned. "I'm sorry."

He nodded, his gaze on the forest. I stepped toward him, uncertain. His hands went around my waist and I moved into his arms, my nose pressed against his warm neck. His arms tightened around me. After a moment, a shuddering sigh rippled through him.

"You stay here," I said. "I'll take care of-"

"I'm okay. It's been a lot of years."

We went inside. When I'd first smelled decomposition, I thought Dennis had been killed by wolves. The threat of a werewolf on their new territory might override whatever warning told them to stay away from people. The moment I'd looked through that door, though, I'd known it hadn't been wolves. Not the kind that walk on four legs, anyway.

Dennis Stillwell sat on a kitchen chair In the middle of the room, bound hand and foot with thick wire cables. It looked like he'd been tortured. How much was hard to tell. Despite the cold, he was starting to decompose. All I knew was that someone had tied him up, tried to get information from him, then killed him.

Clay looked at Dennis, his face unreadable.

"I'm going to find them," he said.

"I know."

WE BURIED DENNIS in the woods. We wanted to give him a burial, but more than that, we had to. If Charles or anyone else found him, there would be an investigation and an autopsy, and we couldn't risk either.

Werewolves rarely pass away in their sleep, so it's an unavoidable fact that sometimes there is an autopsy and an investigation, and our world hasn't crumbled yet. The anomalies in our blood and DNA probably left more than one lab tech scratching her head, and maybe a few had made notes of it, put it aside for a personal project, but nothing more. Still, we don't take chances, and even a mutt killing another mutt will dispose of the body. Only, apparently, these ones hadn't bothered. Did they not care? Or was this a message for someone? For Joey?

Clay and I had experience with body disposal. Too much. We'd buried our own and we'd buried mutts, so we knew how to do it. Dennis Stillwell would simply disappear, like so many werewolves before him.

When we finished, we stood at the gravesite, the bitter wind whipping through the trees, freezing every inch of exposed skin and making our eyes water. Those tears were the only ones we'd shed. Nor would we say any words over the grave. That was the human way. Ours was quieter, more private, just a few minutes of silent respect and reflection.

When I felt a familiar prickle at the back of my neck, my head shot up.

"Wait," Clay said, his voice low. "Move slowly."

I turned my head and followed his gaze, sweeping across the forest.

"Oh my God," I whispered.

Reflections of at least a dozen pair of eyes dotted the forest. I could make out gray shapes against the black forest. Wolves.

"We'll go back inside," Clay murmured. "Are there more behind me?"

"A few."

"Okay. Count to three. Then turn your back to me. We'll walk in that way. Keep your gaze up over their heads."

"Don't look them in the eye."

"Right. If one charges, then meet its gaze. It might back down."

I really hoped so. A dozen wolves against two werewolves? Even Clay wasn't itching to meet this challenge.

Back-to-back we walked into the cabin. As Clay bolted the door, I looked out. The wolves hadn't moved.

"Do you think they smelled the body?" I asked.

"Long winter. Food's getting scarce."

"That would explain the scratch marks on the door."

"Yeah."

Our eyes met, exchanging a look that said we were sticking to our story, even though we both knew it was bullshit. These wolves didn't look as if they were starving. They might take Dennis's body if they found it lying outside, but to trample the snow as if they'd been pacing around the cabin for hours and trying to scratch their way in? It was too much. Too unnatural.

Clay found a battery-operated lantern and an oil one, and we lit both and looked around.

"Well," I said. "I guess we have enough work here to keep us busy until the wolves move on. I'll clean up-"

"You look for clues. Get scents. You're better at that."

And he was better at cleanup-having had more experience, though neither of us pointed that out.

We set to work. As I soon discovered, finding scents under the stench of decomposition wasn't easy.

"I'm going to crack open the window."

I pulled the drape. Glowing green eyes peered in at me. I fell back. Clay grabbed me. With the lanterns reflecting off the glass, all I could see was the dark shape of a wolf leaping off the porch. I cupped my hands against the glass. A dark-colored wolf vanished into the trees.

Black wolf. Green eyes.

Clay moved beside me, squinting to see out. "Bold bastard, wasn't he?"

I rubbed my gloved hands over my arms, pushing down the goose bumps. Black wolves weren't that unusual. Green eyes were, but I'd only seen their reflection against the light, and that often made animal eyes glint green. Besides, I could still see the gray wolves at the forest's edge and they'd never let a werewolf run past them like that.

"You okay?" Clay asked.

"He just spooked me."

Clay drew the drapes again. I walked as far as possible from the bloodstain in the middle of the cabin and got down on my hands and knees. A piercing wail sent me scrambling up.

"Wind in the chimney," Clay said.

I gave a shaky laugh. "A little jumpy tonight, aren't I?"

"With good reason."

He moved up behind me and rubbed my shoulders. When I tried to step away, he held me.

"Take a minute," he murmured. "It's only me."

I took a deep breath. It wasn't easy, being a woman in a werewolf's world, worrying that they're watching you for signs of weakness. It meant a lot to have someone in my life who didn't care if wolves at the door spooked me. If I became Alpha-his Alpha-would that change?

I leaned back against Clay and turned my head, cheek against his shoulder, inhaling. When my nerves were calm and the specter of Dennis Stillwell faded, I got back to work.

I didn't need to sniff around for long before saying, "I've got werewolf. And not just Dennis."

Clay nodded. No surprise there.

Another few minutes of sniffing. "It's the same two from the museum-the ones who attacked Reese."

Again, he nodded.

"I'm getting a third scent," I said.

"Werewolf?"

"Yep." I followed it, untangling the trail from the others. "He's related to one of the others-father, son, brother. That's why I wasn't sure I detected an older third trail in that clearing. Similar scents."

"Makes sense."

He meant both my explanation and the family relationship. It was unusual to find three werewolves together, but far more likely if at least two shared a family connection.

Clay had found a toolbox in the closet and was sanding the rough wooden floor. He couldn't buff out all the blood, but it would fade the stain, making it look like an old spill. As he did that, I walked to the dinette. The table was covered with papers and books.

"What did Dennis do for a living?" I asked.

"Electrician, I think. I remember Jeremy had him fix up the old wiring at Stonehaven."

I looked at the handwritten notes. They definitely weren't electrical diagrams.

"Hobbies?" I asked.

Clay shrugged. "Couldn't say. Jeremy would know. Why?"

I picked up a book in my gloved hand. "He seems to have been researching folklore and mythology. That must have been what he was doing at the museum."

Clay brought a lantern over and picked up a notebook as I thumbed through a sheaf of photocopied pages.

"Yeenaaldlooshii, Nagual, Wendigo… " I said. "shapeshifter myths, particularly Native American. I'm surprised he didn't contact you."

He took the papers from my hand, reading them more closely.

"I'll find a bag and we'll take his work with us."

He nodded, his gaze still fixed on the papers. He didn't stop reading until I plucked them from his hand and added them to a canvas bag I'd already filled with the rest.

"What do you think he was doing?" I asked.

"No idea. Maybe a new hobby. Getting older and looking for answers." He took the bag from me. "We should get going."

I nodded and pulled back the curtain. The nightscape was empty. Behind me, Clay checked the other windows.

"All clear?" I asked.

"Seems so."

We stepped onto the porch. I inhaled. I could still smell the wolves, their thick scent hanging in the air, but the forest was still. We walked around the perimeter of the clearing.

"Vanished into the night," I murmured. "Just curious? They might be used to Dennis, so our scent doesn't spook them."

"Could be."

Clay surveyed the forest, but we heard only the whine of the wind.

"Let's go."