by Lucy Farago
Her cottage, the first place she’d thought she could call home, was on fire.
“Please, Winter. It’s an inferno. Fuck, Winter. I thought you were in there.”
It was then she noticed the arms locked around her were covered in black soot. He’d been in the house. “You went in?”
“I had to make sure. You’re too important to me.”
The last time someone had told her she was important, she’d fled. How different it was to hear those words from someone who actually cared for her and not what she represented. And Sirius cared for her. It was there now in his words. It was there in how he held her, just as much as it was there when they stayed up all hours of the night talking, when they laughed at Loki’s expense, when they made love. It felt…familiar. Like she’d known him all her life.
So when he said, “Promise me, promise me you won’t try to go inside,” she didn’t fight him. But though she drew comfort from the arms that held her, her fury, like her home, continued to burn.
“Are you going to be okay if I help Loki?”
She nodded, afraid that if she opened her mouth, she’d scream.
He pressed his lips to her cheek and whispered, “Everything will be all right. I promise.”
Of course he would think that. Because that was what Sirius did. He took care of people. But this, he couldn’t fix.
There was nothing she could do but watch as he, Loki, and a few others tried to contain the flames. Questions would be asked. And while her sense of smell wasn’t as good as other shifters, the one scent she could pick up, the one scent no one else would pick up, entwined with the unmistakable tang of kerosene. Yes, there would be questions. He’d deliberately planned it that way.
A warm touch on her arm interrupted her plotting her revenge.
“You okay?” Mia asked.
“It’s just things. Thankfully the Louboutins I ordered hadn’t arrived yet,” she said, not wanting to give her friend cause to worry.
“Ha.” Mia tossed an arm around her shoulder. “Like those size tens of yours would fit into Louboutins.”
“A girl can dream,” she said, envisioning a great pair of black, red-soled pumps to keep Mia from reading her mind. Having a friend with ESP could suck sometimes. Over the past year, she’d learned to erect barriers to keep her out, because, while Mia promised not to go snooping in Winter’s head, there were times she just couldn’t help herself.
Winter winced as the roof to the cottage collapsed, freeing flames to shoot upwards, air feeding their greedy hunger.
He would regret this. She was going to shove the ashes of her cottage down his ugly throat. She hadn’t lied to Mia. Anything of real value she’d had to leave behind years ago. But this was her place, and nothing said war like torching where a shifter slept…even among her kind. “I should help them put out the fire.”
The academy was self-sufficient, even able to fight fires. But at this point, there was little to do, other than ensure the surrounding cottages didn’t sustain any damage.
“No.” Mia drew her closer. “I can see it in your face. This is harder for you than you’re letting on.”
“Seeing?” Or mind reading?
“I wasn’t wondering around in your empty void. Promise.”
“Guess you get enough of that with Loki, huh?”
“We’ll just keep that between you and me. Now,” she grabbed her hand and dragged her with her, “let’s go back to my place. No point in being here.”
Winter didn’t put up a fight, partly because she’d have better luck covering herself in honey and fending off killer wasps than arguing with a lynx, but mostly because she knew the asshole was watching and no fucking way would she give him the satisfaction.
She allowed herself to be carted off, and only when they were in Mia’s kitchen, with a glass of white wine in her hand, did she remember her ruined plans with Sirius. Today sucked. “Damn.”
“Don’t worry. Like you said, things can be replaced.”
“Yeah, no,” she explained. “I’d planned this wicked picnic for Sirius.” For that alone, the whale semen deserved to die.
“Good wicked? Or bad wicked?” she said, wiggling her eyebrows up and down.
“Is there a difference?” Then, just to annoy Mia, she visualized the last time she and Sirius had been busy.
“Hey. No fair.” Mia covered her ears as if that would help.
“I thought you were going to stay out of my head.”
“It wasn’t on purpose,” she lied.
While still new to her, Mia had learned to control her re-found talent. What she hadn’t learned was to control her cat curiosity. “If you don’t want to keep seeing us naked, I suggest you keep your promises.” Though she supposed she derived a perverse pleasure in paying Mia back for all the times she and Loki had sex in far-too-public places.
“Fine. But you have to tell me exactly what is going on between you and Sirius.”
Winter had known they were more than lovers ever since that first night. But her kind didn’t examine their feelings. Emotion was a weakness that could be exploited. Except, she wasn’t with her kind. She was here. Winter took a sip from her glass and shrugged, not sure how to answer. Sleeping with him had started as an act of defiance. No one told what she could and couldn’t do. Not anymore. But now… Why couldn’t they leave her alone? Was her happiness so unimportant? Sirius made her happy.
“Do you love him?”
Winter choked on her wine. Love?
“’Cause if you do, I’m hurt you didn’t tell me, your best friend, first.”
“Do you want to know even before he does?” She’d never been in love. Was this love?
“Well, duh.” She rolled her eyes. “So, is that a yes?”
“We have great sex.” The best sex of her life.
“Then is it lust and not love?”
That was a good question. “I don’t know,” she answered honestly. “We have great sex.” And a really weird connection that she was, frankly, too afraid to examine further.
Mia snickered. “Anything else?”
“He makes me laugh.” Laughter had been something very foreign to her when she’d lived at home.
“Laughter is good. Is that it?”
Curiosity might kill a cat, but clearly Mia had been around Loki far too long, because she was worse than a dog with a bone. “He’s a good person. He treats me really well. He’s attentive, kind, everyone seems to like him—all qualities I thought Siberians lacked.” Unlike Loki, she thought, purposely projecting it.
“Loki is all of those things,” Mia pointed out. “But you love to push his buttons.”
She could remind her they both liked to push his buttons, but given that button-pushing ended up with Mia in the sack with Loki, well…ew.
“Seriously. Loki is worried.”
She doubted that. “He can relax. Sirius isn’t going to break my heart.”
Mia smiled ruefully. “He’s worried you’re going to break Sirius’s heart.”
“Oh, come on, he’s not a puppy.” And she would never intentionally hurt him.
“Winter, you see how he is, don’t you? I think he’s falling for you. And don’t take this the wrong way, but Loki says he falls easily. He’s too…he’s too...”
“Yeah, I know, he’s too a lot of things.” He was too giving, too caring, too sensitive to her needs, too…loving. Yes, she knew that. And recalling how Loki told her Sirius had allowed an elephant calf to convince him she was a rhino, completely blind to her manipulations, all because he liked to play the hero, she understood his concern.
“Right. And he ran into a burning building because he thought you were in it. If that’s not love, I don’t know what is.”
“He was just being Sirius.” Right?
“I doubt it. Which brings us to the bigger question. Who set that fire?”
6
Damn. She hated lying to Mia, but she couldn’t exactly tell her the truth. She only hoped Mia kept her
promise and stayed out of her head. “You know my sense of smell. I wasn’t sure.”
“There’s no mistaking kerosene. That blaze was deliberate. Guaranteed, we’re going to have FUC agents all up in our business within the next few hours.”
Our business. Could she be that lucky? Would everyone believe it was an attack on FUC…and not her? Wouldn’t that just piss on his parade?
“That’s going to suck.” She’d loved being an agent. It had given her the freedom she’d been searching for. But some agents were uptight asshats and no fun to be around. Rules this, rules that.
“Were you here? Does anyone know when the fire started?” Had anyone seen him?
“Sirius might. He was here when Loki and I showed up.”
She and Sirius had arranged to meet in her cottage. Did he know that? Would he harm another shifter, simply to send her a message? He couldn’t. He wouldn’t. Would he?
“Winter,” Mia screeched, the sound piercing. “Your hand.”
The pain registered just as she looked down at the remains of her broken glass. “Shit, I’ve spilled wine everywhere. I’m sorry.”
“Wine? That’s what you’re worried about?” Mia pulled her toward the sink. “I knew you were more upset than you were letting on. Look…” she said, turning on the tap water to wash away the broken glass, wine, and…shit…blood. “You can stay with me. Loki can crash with Sirius.”
She didn’t need to figure anything out. What she needed was to lure him deep into the woods, where she would take care of him. “I’m not kicking Loki out of your bed and letting a horny dog loose on the Academy.” At least after he’d moved in with Mia, there’d been less of a chance catching them defiling FUC property.
“She’ll move in with me. Let me do this,” Sirius said to Mia, giving her a gentle nudge so he could take over.
“I’ll go find a clean towel.” Then Mia left, giving them the privacy, she thought they needed…seeing as how the stack of paper towels by the sink would suffice.
Winter allowed Sirius to tend to her injury. It was his thing. He was a nurturer, which was strange for a man, a Siberian no less. They were a pack breed but fiercely independent. And yet here he was. Although the cut on her palm was deep, in a couple of hours it would be gone. But he derived great pleasure in taking care of her, and she derived great pleasure in letting him. It wasn’t that she was being selfish, which she was, but no one had ever taken care of her. When her mother tried, her father intervened. Winter had to be tough, as any signs of weakness could be exploited. Imagine, never being allowed to cry for fear someone might kill you for it.
Winter’s upbringing had been colder than the environment she lived in. She had to be fierce. Survival of the fittest took on new meaning in her household. And yet here she was, falling for a guy who her family might very well chew up and spit out…literally.
Sirius turned the water off, unrolled several sheets of paper towel, and pressed them lightly to the worst of her cuts. “You didn’t argue when I told Mia you were staying with me. I expected more of a battle.”
In truth, she loved the idea, or she had, until now. She tugged her hand and pretended to examine the wound, anything to avoid looking at him when next she spoke. “I didn’t want to argue in front of Mia. I’m going to stay on campus,” she said, making sure to leave no room for argument. Until she crushed her enemy, she couldn’t, she wouldn’t, risk any harm coming to this gentle soul. She’d never forgive herself.
“I don’t understand. Am I worse than hot pokers in your eyes?” he asked, reminding her of what she’d said when she’d chosen to stay with him on that fateful night he’d ripped off her doors.
Her father would be very disappointed in her, because she didn’t have it in her to be cruel. Plus, this wasn’t a game. Nor was it fiction, where the hero would be gullible enough to fall for her lies to keep him safe. Sirius wasn’t stupid.
“This wouldn’t be for a couple of nights. They have to rebuild my house. As much as I enjoy being with you”—and she really did—“we’re not moving in together.”
He’d returned, bolder and far more dangerous, but she wasn’t ready to leave the Academy. Nor would she run—a second time. So that meant neutralizing the threat and sending a clear message to the others who would be stupid enough to try again. She would not be taken.
“We’re practically living together now.”
He wasn’t wrong. “It’s not the same thing. It’s better I stay at the Academy. Besides, I hate putting the cap on the toothpaste.” She laughed. “Can’t imagine doing it, day in, day out…” Until she got rid of her problem, it wasn’t safe for anyone…especially Sirius.
She had to know. How far had he been willing to go? “So, is there anything left?” she asked, to steer the conversation back to the fire.
“Nothing worth salvaging. Which is all the more reason for you to stay with me.”
“All I need right now is clothes, and I can get them in town.” She dumped the bloodied paper towel into the trash and washed off the rest of the dried blood. “You weren’t inside when it started, right?” she asks as nonchalantly as she could muster, given her murderous reaction should he say he was.
“No, I was actually in the back lot finishing my class. I’d have gotten here sooner if the explosives we’d been setting off hadn’t confused the scent.”
Once again, her sense of smell had failed her. She wished she could’ve caught him in the act. She grabbed another paper towel and dried her hands, happy Mia had yet to return. The lynx might be able to tell Winter wasn’t being totally honest. But she could be grateful for one thing. Sirius hadn’t been the intended target.
“You could have been hurt. Better the cottage burn than you.” Sirius, unlike her stuff, wasn’t replaceable.
“Winter”—he pulled her into his arms and held her in a tight embrace—“by the time I got here…fuck, I thought you were inside. Damn, I don’t know what I’d do if I lost you.”
She returned his hug, unsure what to say, uncertain about how she felt, coming face to face with all this emotion. She cared for him. That much was true. But what the hell did she do with his feelings for her? “I told you I was going to be a little late. Did you forget?” she asked, choosing to play it cool.
“No, but I caught your scent,” he said.
Although squeezing her a little too tight, that wasn’t what knocked the breath out of her. “My scent?” She tried to extricate herself, but he was having none of it.
“It was so pronounced I thought for sure you were inside.”
She finally managed to wiggle free of his arms. “I don’t understand.”
Now he looked as perplexed as she felt. “You stopped masking your scent around me. What’s there not to understand?”
Given her current predicament, she hesitated to answer, as there was nothing to mask. The night of the storm she’d assumed he’d spotted blood drops and his brain had filled in the rest. But shifters simply could not identify her kind by smell. That was problem number one, which would have, any other time, been simply inexplicable. Now, however... She didn’t know what should concern her more, his ability to detect her or her very uninvited, soon-to-be-dead intruder?
Sirius didn’t understand her confusion. He had assumed sex that first night had been, frankly, so off the charts she either didn’t feel the need or, less flattering, had forgotten to mask her scent. They’d never really discussed why she did it. He’d thought it a personal choice and left it at that, given that he still didn’t know what kind of shifter she was, only that he could distinguish Winter’s scent. Now, however, her lack of understanding was a definite surprise. She didn’t know.
“You never mentioned it. Every time you said I smelled good I assumed you were referring to my perfume.”
“I like your perfume. Especially that floral one you wear.” He brushed his knuckles against her cheek, embarrassed to admit he’d pilfered one of her T-shirts to have her scent near on the nights they didn’t sleep tog
ether.
“So it’s my perfume?” she said, sounding oddly hopeful.
Why did it matter to her? They were shifters. Every shifter had their own distinct aroma. Was masking hers that important?
“No. That floral one blends with your own. It’s like walking through a tropical forest filled with hundreds of orchids,” he said, gauging her response, hoping she’d be pleased with his knowing. Maybe even comfortable enough to finally reveal herself. Not that it mattered. He had no family, no pack to interfere, no one to tell him he had to mate with his own species. Some did, although, from what Loki had told him, FUC agents didn’t give a shit about sticking to their own kind. He’d been pleased to learn he wouldn’t be joining an organization with stringent biases.
But if he’d expected her to suddenly divulge what kind of shifter she was, he was wrong. Her brow furrowed, either perplexed or, worse, disturbed by the news. Why?
As disconcerting as this was, it would have to wait. Someone had used her cottage as a bonfire, and that was far more important than his hurt feelings for her not trusting him.
“How about we discuss who the hell set fire to your cottage?” he said, unable to hide his disappointment. The last thing he wanted to do was give her a reason to push him away.
“You smelled it too?”
“The kerosene?” It was a silly question to ask. “Everyone did.”
Outside, he’d gotten the distinct impression she was hiding something, something other than her species. Her scent had changed, taken on an earthy undertone, like walking through the woods after a heavy rain instead of a sunny day. She was lying, nervous even. Did he call her on it? Because truly, what did he know about her? Knowing a woman liked chocolate ice cream wasn’t enough to build a solid relationship. Was that what he wanted? A relationship? Or was he allowing his childhood neurosis to rear its ugly head. Was he that desperate to have something in his life that belonged to him that he’d attached himself to Winter? Was the tether he felt all in his head?
He followed her into the living room and watched as she gazed out the window to the remains of her home and realized—somewhat horrified—that he didn’t care how little he knew about Winter. What the fuck was wrong with him that he didn’t care? All he knew was that, ever since that first night, somehow, someway, he’d fallen for her. Loki would go crazy. He always complained Sirius fell too hard, loved too easy. He was gullible, easy prey for women to use and abuse. Was he those things? Was he setting himself up for yet another fall?