Of Fur and Ice

by Andrea Marie Brokaw

  He came into my room to find me missing first thing in the morning. And when I came in, I most likely stank of someone else. I sigh.

  “Warren, please stop trying to fix me up with other people. I'm only interested in them in your head.”

  There are several seconds of silence before he whispers, “That would be more convincing if you didn't reek of our guest.”

  “True,” I grant. “I was about to take a shower. Would you care to join me?”

  His eyes snap back to me.

  I smile through the feeling of panic in my blood.

  I have no idea why I just issued that invitation. It's not as though I am in the habit of inviting guys into the shower with me.

  On the other hand, this isn't just some random guy.

  His response is slowly measured. “I don't think that's a very good idea right now.”

  Shrugging, I turn away to find some clean clothes. I'll need to wash the Troy-stink off of the ones I'm in before I want to wear them again. “But you'll be here when I get out, right?”

  He takes a second to answer. “Yeah.”

  I don't like that pause. Turning, I try to meet his eyes, but he won't look up at me. “Promise?”

  “Yeah.”

  “You promise you'll be here when I get back?” I clarify.

  There may be a hint of a smile, but it's hard to tell with his face so shadowed. “I'll be here.”

  Nodding, I dash into the bathroom, jumping into the water before it has a chance to warm all the way.

  My shower's a lot shorter than the one I had originally planned. Despite getting his promise, part of me is honestly expecting Warren to have vanished by the time I'm done. I work up an extra lather of shampoo in my hair and use three times as much body wash as usual, although I skip the conditioning phase in favor of getting finished as soon as physically possible.

  The top of several layers of clothes I pull on is the shirt Warren was looking for. He apparently didn't think to look in the box in the bathroom in which I keep my pajamas. The water running down its back from my wet hair may cause it to lose some of his scent, but I'm pretty sure I can get something to replace it.

  When I open the door, I find him sitting exactly where I left him, still looking at Wolfgang. “Hey, Warren.” I sit down beside him, my leg pressing against his.

  “Michaela.”

  He doesn't say the name the way he usually does, but with a worshipful awe as he looks at me and sees what I'm wearing. You'd think I'd come out in top of the line lingerie the way he's watching me. His hand reaches out, tucking wet hair back behind my ear and then grabbing the nape of my neck. Slowly, giving me plenty of time to balk, he brings his mouth down over mine, caressing it with the same masterful grace as always. His tongue flicks across mine, making my whole body sing in approval.

  I move in closer, trying to press against him, but he pulls away. “Michaela...”

  “I love you, Warren.”

  He blinks. “You...”

  “Love... you... Warren.” I grin and run my fingers through his hair. “Which I think is a good thing since I'm your life mate.”

  Taking a shaky breath, he shies away, his eyes tightly shut.

  “I know you didn't mean to blurt that out yesterday.” I inch along the mattress, not letting him get away with breaking off contact. I grab his chin, turning his head toward me, and command him, “Look at me, Warren.” I repeat the order, waiting to go on until he opens his eyes. My hands shift to the sides of his face. “I'm not scared away. I'm still here. I'm not going to run from you.”

  “Yet,” he whispers.

  “Silly wolf. I have no intention of ever running.”

  “And you aren't scared?”

  I meet his scrutiny with complete openness. Maybe I should be scared, or at least doubtful, but I'm neither. “No.”

  His admission is scarcely louder than his breath. “I was.”

  Unthinking, my hands jerk away, but he launches to grab them. “Was, Michaela.”

  With an intense expression, as though he sees only me, he clings to my hands. “I was so scared when I first smelled you.”

  His eyes search mine. “Do you have any idea how terrifying it is for everything to suddenly change that fast? One second, everything was normal, and then a single breath later, everything in my life had been reordered. The things I used to care about didn't matter anymore, and nothing was as important as this new scent. I didn't even know what you looked like yet. And then I did see you.”

  He smiles softly for a second. “You would have been the most amazing thing I had ever seen. Except for the way you looked at me. Like I was some criminal sneaking up on you.”

  His eyes squeeze shut again.

  “Warren. I'm sorry. A stranger surprised me in the middle of the night. I was thrown off, that's all.”

  “You were terrified of me,” he murmurs.

  “Okay,” I breathe. “I was scared. I didn't know you.”

  “I was your mate!”

  I fling my arms around him, holding on tight. “I'm sorry,” I repeat, my heart ripping apart at his obvious pain.

  “I know it wasn't your fault. It was my fault.” He starts to pet me with one hand running up and down my back. “But it hurt so much, Michaela. Hurt even worse than when I saw you with Seth. You literally screamed in terror.”

  “I shrieked in surprise.” I squeeze as tightly as I can. “I did that last night too. And will do it next time you sneak up on me in the kitchen. Twenty years from now, you'll sneak up on me in a kitchen, I'll shriek, and our kids will laugh about it. Twenty years after that, our grandkids will think it's a riot.”

  He takes several long, deep breaths, while he thinks about that. “Promise?” he whispers. “Because the grandkids will be really disappointed if you don't scream.”

  I smile at the return of his humor. “I promise.”

  We cling to each other, holding tight. Silently, I make another promise, a promise never to let go.

  Acknowledgements

  Thanks, as always, are due to my family for putting up with having a writer in residence. This book has been a number of years in the making, a journey which crossed the width of a continent at one point, and trust me when I say that dealing with me during this time has not always been easy. Thanks to everyone who has put up with me, family or not.

  Jimmy, I love you.

  Eric, I know you don't think you have a choice in the matter, but thank you for all the support you give me; you really are the most wonderful son a mother could have.

  Mom and Dad, thanks once again for raising me to believe in my imagination and in the value of sharing it with others.

  Alaina, thanks for never killing me even if I may have deserved it a few times when we were kids. And for being an awesome creative influence. :)

  Sommer, thank you for believing in this story when I would have let it die. And thank you for always believing in me.

  Melody, I can't thank you enough for all the work you put into this project. Beyond being my cover artist and my editor, you've offered unflagging support and infinite sympathy even though life's been pelting you with curve balls. I consider you a blessing.

  Bama, thanks for letting me ramble about a book you hardly remember so often. Even in the middle of the night.

  And to everyone else I know on G+, Twitter, and in the real world: THANK YOU! You all contributed in your own ways to keeping me sane enough to publish this work. You rock!

  Read more about North Sky Academy in Of Snow and Whiskers, now available from Hedgie Press!

  When the moon is full, Rina Andreyushkina is a snow leopard. In feline form, she is full of grace and power. But when the moon sets, things are harder. Now shy and awkward in her human skin, Rina faces a series of new challenges.

  Her best friend has been suspended for bullying, leaving Rina by herself for the first time in her life. She must learn who she is on her own and whether she likes this person. Complicating things further, the best friend�
��s would-be betrothed comes to Rina for help preparing to fight his way out of his arranged marriage. No stranger to being a political pawn, Rina agrees to train him even though it puts her most important relationship in serious jeopardy. And as though this were not stress enough, Rina befriends the notorious and widely disliked new boy, something the entire school notices.

  With all this going on, when will Rina find time to watch her favorite anime?!

  Chapter One

  The boy in the cage doesn't look threatening. If I were trying to describe him, I'd be more likely to call him "hapless" or "harmless" or maybe even "hopeless." Or maybe I’d use my native Russian and pull out “nezadachlivyy,” which is more like “luck-less.” His dim eyes brighten as they track the tray I carry. Add "hungry" to that list of adjectives.

  "Hey." I slide the cage door open with my foot. It wasn't locked, because despite putting this guy in lockup, the powers that be are fully aware a lock wouldn't stop him if he wanted to leave. He’s an all-were, someone who can turn into any creature he can imagine, from a blue whale down to a dust mite. No, if Mr. Atherton and company were worried about the prisoner escaping, they'd have kept him unconscious. "Ready for lunch?"

  "Yeah. Sure." His words sound despondent.

  "Something wrong?" I ask, immediately before wanting to smack myself for stupidity. Of course something’s wrong! The guy spent weeks struggling in the Alaskan wilderness before ending up here in the basement of North Sky Academy while the local were-community decides his fate. They could elect to kill him, although I personally would bet on them showing leniency and exiling him to the detention center in North Pole. Not that I'd feel people were being nice to me if I were sent to North Pole; I've had nightmares about the place since I was little. "Sorry. Dumb question."

  "It's alright." He scoots down the mattress he's sitting on and takes the tray from me to sit it in his lap. As soon as the food is moved, I catch a good whiff of the room. It usually smells like ammonia and coyote, since it’s run by a were-coyote who is constantly disinfecting things. The usual smells comfort me, but today’s scent has the opposite effect. Because it stinks in here. The prisoner needs a nice, long bath. And he should change clothes. There’s a small stack of clean-looking things on the corner of his bed, but I guess he couldn’t stand the idea of putting them on without cleaning himself. I’m surprised at Nurse Sakura for allowing him in here without a good wash. She can’t be happy with the way he’s making her sick room smell. "What's your name?" he asks.

  "Rina." My hands flop at my sides, unsure what to do now that they're no longer holding anything. I'm cursed with a need for constant fidgeting. "Short for Katerina."

  He grunts acknowledgment. "But it's Rina, not Kat. Interesting."

  "I guess." Since I turn into a snow leopard once a month, I’d feel unbearably cliché if my name was Kat, but there’s no point in telling him that since he can tell my species from my scent. Assuming he can smell me over his own reek.

  "I'm Troy." He picks up his fork and rams it into the pile of mashed potatoes that sits beside a steak and some steamed carrots. Most people I know would have gone for the meat first. "Guess you knew that, though."

  "Yeah." I shrug. "You're kind of big news. Are you really like Michaela and Kim? Because you smell like a snow leopard to me, and they seriously don't."

  "Mike hates being called Michaela. But, yeah, I'm like them. And, yeah. I made them what they are. And, yeah, that makes me an asshole. At best." He says all this while shoveling potatoes into his mouth. "Hungry" was a huge understatement. He's ravenous enough that I wonder if anyone brought him breakfast.

  "That's harsh." Simone would say something sarcastic about how bringing Michaela into the were-world was a criminally horrible thing to do, but Simone's not here. She's serving a sentence of suspension for... well, for bullying the new girl.

  "Is it?" Hazel eyes slide up from the plate to meet my gaze. "As I see things, I got Kim killed."

  I shake my head. "No. You made her an all-were, but you didn't force her to run around murdering livestock and bringing attention to all of us. You definitely didn't make her turn into a demon and try to slaughter the wolf Pack."

  "I should have stopped her."

  The breath rushes from my body and I lean against the fence separating this cell from the one beside it. "I know that feeling. It sucks. My counselor says you can't control people though, not when they're strong-willed. And Kim certainly is... or was..."

  "You think they killed her?"

  "They haven't said. But they didn't bring her here with you, and I think that says something."

  He looks back to his food and stabs a carrot. "All she did was kill some animals. How's that different from slaughtering the cow on my plate?"

  My back straightens as I stare at him. My first instinct is to ask if he's kidding, but I realize he isn't. Where does he come from that endangering the entire community doesn't seem like a big deal? "Ignoring the wolf she killed? Eating beef doesn't tell the human world our kind exists."

  "Our kind?" He shoves another carrot into his mouth. I wonder if his parents never taught him how to eat with his mouth closed or if he's just starved for both food and conversation. "Not my kind. There's only three of us. Maybe two." He looks up sharply. "We're an endangered species, and they may have just killed one of us for doing something wild animals do all the time."

  "Endangered?" He's lecturing a snow leopard about being endangered? My wild cousins aren't exactly bountiful. "We're all endangered. And we'd be more so if the human world knew we were here."

  His shrug implies disagreement, but he doesn't argue as he eats the last carrot and finally picks up his knife for the steak. "Guess there's still the wolf. But I can't believe she meant to kill him. At worst it was manslaughter, not murder."

  The words "dead is dead" spring into my mind, but don't get uttered. Instead, I settle silently back against the wires behind me and watch Troy cut tiny little pieces of beef. He eats them much more delicately than he ate the vegetables. It's an odd contrast to just about everyone else I've seen eat, and as the official sick room volunteer, I've brought food to just about everyone in the school at some point or other.

  "So how'd you get to be prison warden?" Troy asks between bites.

  "I'm more of a student nurse, actually. This is usually a sick bay, not a jail."

  His eyebrows go up into his dark brown hair. "A sick bay with cells?"

  "Sometimes people are sick in animal form."

  "Huh." He shakes his head and cuts more beef with a thoughtful expression. With his pale hazel eyes and dark Mediterranean features, I would be tempted to think he was cute if I wasn’t put off by the whole turning-people-without-consent thing.

  As I look at him, I realize I've already gotten used to his smell, enough to be able to pick out his body scent scent from the assortment of stenches clinging to him. And it is a far-from-objectionable scent. If this is how the all-were girls smell to guys, I can see why so many heads turned for Michaela and Kim.

  He shifts as he moves the tray off his lap. "What do you know about this Warren guy?"

  "Warren? Denali?" I shrug. It's a small school, so I know everyone in it to some degree. I also know why Troy asks about him; it's because Warren's decided Michaela is his lifemate. "He's a wolf. And a senior. And a pretty good guy. He won't hurt her."

  "Unlike me, huh?"

  "I..." I swallow and edge closer to the door. "I don't know."

  His gaze narrows on my movement. "I'm not dangerous."

  "I know," I lie, even though he can probably smell my anxiety.

  "Really." He lets out a breath and leans over his knees. "I know I shouldn't have attacked them, either of them. But I wasn't trying to hurt them."

  "What were you trying to do?" I ask against my better judgment.

  "I don't know." The bed creaks as he bends further forward, then sits up suddenly. "No, that's a lie. I was sick of being alone."

  "But why attack them without t
elling them what was going on?"

  One slide of his mouth tries to smile, but the other side doesn't cooperate. "Didn't want them to say no. Told you I was an asshole."

  After I leave Troy and return his tray to the cafeteria, I change and head into the gym for my daily run. It usually helps clear my mind and brighten my spirits, and I’m hopeful it will today.

  The first mile on the treadmill passes quickly as I replay my conversation with Troy. I'm not sure what to make of him. I know he's done some really bad things, but something about him makes me want to be sympathetic. It's not like he doesn't seem sorry for what he did, and it's obvious he's been very lonely for a long time. I can relate. And how much more would I be able to relate if I was the only were, or even the only snow leopard, that I knew?

  The second mile goes by while I try to talk myself out of liking Troy. Not that it matters if I like him or not since he's probably bound for North Pole. North Sky had a girl sent up there a few years back, but it was before I came here. Nicole, my older foster sister, told me all about it though, and that chick was apparently a total piece of work. I shouldn't be making friends with people like that.

  Right as I start into my third mile, the door opens, and even though my back is to it I can tell that the person entering spends a few moments watching me before committing to coming in.