Winter Wishes

by Vivian Arend, Vivi Andrews

  A fair reminder she shouldn’t be so quick to judge.

  Beyond the stacks of books sat a chair with a neatly folded pair of sweatpants and a fluffy sweatshirt. Hoping he’d intended them for her, Nadia slipped from the bed on unsteady legs and tightened the drawstring around her waist until the baggy pants weren’t in danger of slipping off her hips. The sweatshirt was huge too, the gray fabric hanging to her knees and the sleeves falling past her fingertips.

  Size didn’t matter. The clothes were warm and clean and blessedly dry. Even better, they held no memories. No lingering power laced with the memory of violence. She’d just as soon never see the clothes she’d been wearing again, not when they carried traces of the scientist she’d taken them from.

  Not a thought to dwell on. Her escape was behind her now, with only the exhaustion that came from using too much power to remind her of how close to death she’d come. With any luck, the scientists would assume she’d perished in the storm. If they didn’t…

  Well, she’d deal with that eventuality when it presented itself. And she’d deal better with food in her belly and a plan for making her way back to the border.

  She found Shane in the living room, his socked feet propped on the low table and a steaming mug beside him. “Want some coffee?”

  “Yes, please.” With death no longer an imminent threat, she could admire the way he looked, the handsome lines of his body. His dark hair was cut short, and he had a neatly trimmed beard that her fingers itched to stroke. Her tribe considered a clean jaw the sign of a civilized man, but she found Shane’s appearance oddly compelling.

  “Sit.” He disappeared into the kitchen, though he poked his head out a moment later. “Do you take anything in yours? Sugar, maybe?”

  “Sugar, yes.” She sank onto the couch and smiled. “I have a weakness for sweets.”

  “I’ll keep that in mind.” He came back with a mug and a small plate of cookies. “Feeling better? No ill effects?”

  “Hungry and tired.” As hungry as she was, it took all her self-control to reach for just a single cookie and take a modest bite. “I’ve lost track of the days, but it must be close to the solstice now.”

  “Tomorrow,” he told her, rubbing his hands on his pants. “I was about to start dinner. Want to help?”

  “Of course.” No wonder her body felt like it was weighted down. Drowning. The height of winter and she was trapped in the frozen north. It was a miracle she was still alive at all.

  She picked up a second cookie as she rose, and then joined him in his compact kitchen.

  Shane began to gather ingredients, and he handed her a head of lettuce and a knife. A cutting board had already been placed on the counter by the sink. “If you’re steady enough, you can start the salad.”

  It was an oddly domestic scene, and it brought to light an embarrassing deficiency in her training. “I have never had to spend much time cooking. I can’t ruin this if I cut it wrong, can I?”

  “No, not at all. Here.” He took the lettuce and washed it in the sink, then motioned for her to stand back. “You have to take out the core, like this.” One quick slam on the cutting board and he wriggled free what looked like a stem from the middle of the vegetable. “Now you can just cut it.”

  At least she felt comfortable with the knife. The crisp, clean smell of fresh lettuce made her stomach rumble as she washed her hands and began. “How do you have lettuce this deep into winter? I have always been told fresh food is hard to come by above the freeze line.”

  “A local farmer has a couple of greenhouses. If we help with maintenance and solar power, we get year-round fruits and vegetables for reasonable prices.”

  Another rumor disproved. “Most of the Nine Tribes have magical nurseries. But it can take dozens of our strongest witches to keep them alive this time of year.”

  “It helps when people work together,” was all he said as he set a large pan on the stovetop with a clatter.

  He was comfortable in the kitchen, though she supposed he’d have to be if he lived mostly on his own. “What are you cooking?”

  “Chicken. I put it in to marinate while you slept. Is that okay?”

  “It sounds perfect.”

  And it was perfect. Nadia didn’t think it was simple hunger that made it the best meal she’d had in her life, though perhaps part of her enjoyment came from helping to prepare it. Shane seemed more relaxed while she was on her feet, assisting him, as if her infirmity had put his temper on edge.

  A pity, then, that not even the food would help for long. She’d slept through much of the afternoon, but night had fallen now, and she could feel the temperature plummeting.

  Shane frowned. “Your lips are blue.”

  “I’m cold,” she admitted. They’d settled in the living room again, with a blanket curled around her, and still she couldn’t stop shivering. “Even where I’m from, the winter solstice is not always a pleasant time. It’s when we’re at our most vulnerable.” In fact, few adults passed the night alone. All rules of status and social standing could be overlooked on the one night when everyone needed a warm body to curl up with.

  Her host must have come to the same conclusion. “You can’t sleep alone. If you’re continuing to have problems keeping warm, your condition could be more severe than I thought.”

  She craved the warmth in him as much as she might have craved his body if she weren’t so exhausted. “I need to go south. Soon. If you feed me and keep me warm, I might get stronger…to a point. But nothing will make me better except finding a place where the earth isn’t frozen.”

  He leaned forward in his chair. “Will you be well enough to travel that far?”

  If only she knew. “Perhaps. If I can make it past the solstice. If I can get warm.”

  Shane stripped off his shirt, revealing a hard, muscled chest with a light dusting of hair. “You couldn’t go alone.”

  “I could—” She swallowed. “If someone were willing to act as a guide, I could offer compensation once I made it to the border.”

  “You don’t have a choice, do you?” He knelt on the sofa and peeled the blanket away from her shoulders, then lifted the sweatshirt over her head. “You have to go.”

  Casual words and his movements were gently impersonal, so much so that he’d bundled her into his lap and wrapped the blanket around them both before she could phrase a response.

  Not that she wanted to. His skin was so hot it burned, either a side effect of his werewolf heritage or a sign of how chilled she’d become. Nadia closed her eyes and let out a soft sigh, warm for the first time in longer than she could remember. “This is nice.”

  “You don’t feel that cold.” His voice was edged with worry.

  Because the cold was coming from inside, an echo of the frozen ground beneath them. “Witches don’t last long in the cold. Whether I can find a guide or not, I’ll have to start south after the solstice. It’s my only chance.”

  “What will you do? You’re not outfitted for this kind of weather, even if you were in good shape, and you don’t have transportation.”

  She’d do what she had to do, no matter the price. “I suppose I’ll hope your kindness extends to letting me stay here until then and taking me to the nearest settlement.”

  His breath blew hot on her shoulder, though his words were chilling. “They won’t help you.”

  Nadia had survived betrayal. She’d survived experiments that bordered on torture, being caged and spit upon, being considered less than an animal by her captors. She’d survived the escape. She’d survived the cold that had turned her bones to ice.

  She would survive this too. She would.

  And she wouldn’t cry, even if helpless despair formed a knot in her throat so painful she couldn’t swallow around it. “I’m not so proud that I won’t beg. You, them—everyone. Maybe they’ll laugh at me, but I can’t not try. I can’t lie down and die.”

  “They won’t laugh either.” His voice dropped to a whisper. “They’ll find out whe
re you escaped from, and they’ll send you back. But I can help you.”

  Nadia closed her eyes to keep tears from slipping free. “I would be very—” She choked on the word, afraid to utter it when her gratitude had so offended him before.

  “I know.” A deep sigh pressed his chest to her back. “I can’t take you all the way to the border. A werewolf that far south is asking for trouble.”

  “You wouldn’t have to,” she promised. “If I could even get within a hundred miles of the border, it would stop killing me. I wouldn’t be strong, but I wouldn’t be dying anymore.”

  “I could do that,” Shane told her. “I need to get the snow chains on my truck, pack up for a trip. We could leave tomorrow, if everything went well.”

  She thought about the core of ice inside her and how much worse it might be tomorrow, whether the temperature dropped or not. The energies in the earth were spiraling into darkness. Tomorrow afternoon they’d be at their stillest, and she’d be a shadow, dependent on whatever warmth he could give her.

  It was hard to ask, if only because it bared the depth of her helplessness. “Maybe the next day? Tomorrow will be hard on me. But the next day starts the new cycle.”

  “Either one, it’s no different to me.”

  Nadia shifted just enough to tuck her forehead against his neck, closed her eyes and let the tension in her body slowly unravel. “There are human traders who cross the border. When I arrive home, I’ll send one to you with payment. I hope you’ll accept it.”

  A noise that could have been agreement or denial rumbled in his chest. “We’ll see.”

  With that, she’d have to be content. Nadia smiled and folded one hand under her chin. His skin was warm against her fingers, smooth for all that it was stretched over hard muscle. She liked the scratch of hair, the wild scent of him. Not one of her kind, but not human either.

  This far from home, otherness was the safest bond she could have. With his warmth seeping into her and that feral other tickling along the dull, icy edges of her senses, she drifted into the quiet peace of sleep.

  * * *

  Shane placed the last box into the bed of the truck and closed the tailgate. With only two days to prepare, he’d packed way too much, but he had to plan for everything—including the possibility they might find themselves up against bad weather and stranded for several days until conditions improved.

  He studied the assortment of boxes and packs. There was no room left to spread out sleeping bags, but they could always shift supplies into the cab of the truck to free up space. One last look and he carefully lowered the insulated glass window of the camper shell and locked it.

  A tarp-covered heap in the corner of the garage drew his attention, and he swallowed hard. He’d always meant to go through those boxes, didn’t even know why he’d brought them here, but it had been easier to put off going through them for another time.

  No time now, but perhaps he could do something better. Shane shoved aside the dusty tarp and hauled the boxes, two by two, into the spare bedroom just inside the house. “Nadia?”

  A few moments later she appeared in the doorway, busily plaiting her long, dark hair. She looked better today, with color in her cheeks and clarity in her eyes. She tied off the end of her braid and flicked it over her shoulder as she gave the boxes a curious look. “Supplies?”

  “Clothes.” He had no idea what he’d say if she pressed him for an explanation. “I don’t know how much of it will fit, but you should look through them.”

  “Oh.” A tiny furrow appeared between her eyebrows as she sank to her knees and opened one box. “Are you sure you don’t mind me using them?”

  Shane looked away and back again. “They’ve just been sitting out in the garage.”

  She pulled out a faded T-shirt and held it up. “I may be able to wear some of it. Thank you.”

  Pink cotton, the yellow silk-screened logo cracked and flaking off in places. One of Cilla’s favorites. “You’re welcome.”

  “Is there anything else you need me to do before we leave?” She folded the shirt and set it aside, her hands gentle.

  He still had to plot out the best route. “Where do you need to go, exactly?”

  “The quickest way south, or to anyplace where the ground is thawed. Honestly, I barely know where I am.”

  A frisson of impatience made him grunt. “No, where do you know people? Tell me where you’ll go after you get to safety.”

  “The Baja territories.” Her gaze stayed riveted to the clothes. “I’ll probably stay at the border for a time. One of my tribe sold me to the scientists who brought me north. I need to be strong before I go back there to face them.”

  It wouldn’t take nearly as long as having to cut far east as well as south. “That shouldn’t be hard. I know a border town where you should do all right.”

  Nadia looked up and smiled. “That would be perfect, Shane.”

  “Yeah.” That smile scraped his nerves, tightened his chest to aching. “You deserve a chance.”

  “Now I’ll have one.” Amusement flashed through her eyes as she turned her attention back to the clothing. “I know it might be hard to believe, looking at me now, but I’m actually considered a respectable warrior among my people.”

  He knew better than to judge anyone by appearances. “Really?”

  “When I don’t wobble every time I try to stand.” She pulled open a second box and began to sort through the neatly folded winter gear. “How soon will you be ready to leave?”

  “After lunch, if you’re up to it.”

  “As long as you don’t expect me to drive.”

  As jokes went, it was stilted and awkward. Shane smiled anyway. “Not in my truck.”

  She laughed, a warm, soft sound that seemed to almost surprise her. “I see some things are universal.”

  “Yeah.” He needed to get away from her, from her laughter and the boxes of his dead girlfriend’s clothes. “After lunch, okay?”

  A solemn nod. Her eyes were as gentle as her smile. “I’ll be ready.”

  Chapter Three

  Shane crested a hill, then downshifted and slowed as a mountain of snow appeared in the road ahead. “Could be a stalled car, maybe even fallen trees,” he told her. “We’ll have to go off-road.”

  “All right.” His truck seemed more than capable of handling the rough terrain, which was nothing short of a miracle to Nadia. Some tribes embraced technology and fought to restore and improve upon the luxuries that had been available before the endless winter, but her enclave was dominated by traditionalists who valued magic over machine.

  The first two hours of the drive had been nerve-racking, but Shane had politely ignored the way she clutched the seat, and she’d gradually grown accustomed to the rumble of the engine and their slow but steady pace. “Your vehicle is very efficient. And your house was comfortable. I was always led to believe humans struggled to survive this far north.”

  The safety belt tightened around her as the truck dipped off the shoulder, but Shane remained calm. Confident. “There are some places where it’s like that, but small settlements like Hamilton are simple. If everyone does his part, everyone has enough.”

  It sounded almost peaceful, especially compared to the tempestuous life she’d left behind. “It’s like that in the south too. After the quakes started, many of us came together. The tribes—they didn’t really exist before then. Not before the elders brought us out of hiding.”

  “I’ve heard the stories.”

  The stories rarely painted her people in a good light. “Do you believe we’re to blame?”

  Shane shrugged one shoulder. “Does it matter? The earth shifted, things changed. It doesn’t matter to me why. We have to live with it either way.”

  If she touched the back of her neck, she’d feel the tender spot where the collar they’d fixed there had shocked her. Fear had driven them to it, the certainty she would use her magic to destroy them, because that was what witches did. “I don’t think it sh
ould matter. But it does, to some people.”

  “Yes, it does.” The truck lurched again and evened out, the engine rumbling as Shane pressed the accelerator.

  He fell silent, and Nadia bit her lip against the urge to pick a new topic, to press conversation in order to hide her nerves. Instead she turned to look out the window, at the endless leagues of pure white snow. Even bundled in layers and snug in the relative warmth of the truck’s cab, the sight made her shiver.

  Or maybe it was the chill that lingered inside her. The day of the solstice had passed in a blur, her only clear memory the warmth of Shane’s body curled around hers. That sensation had followed her into fitful dreams, where she was strong and alive and he liked the way she touched his skin, the way she kissed him and curled close.

  Not something to ponder closely, not when they’d be squeezing into the tiny camper tonight, in quarters too close for her own good. Nadia cleared her throat and fixed her gaze on the trees to their right, a line of young pines that formed a bright splash of green on the unending white of the horizon. “You said you know of some hot springs on our path south?”

  “There’s a whole system of them down near the river.” At her blank look, he said, “The Payette River, around Grandjean.”

  Her knowledge of geography was sadly limited to her own territory. “How long would it take to reach them? If it’s not out of the way…Well, visiting them may not help me, but it can’t hurt.”

  “Depends on the roads. We might reach them in time to stop for the night.”

  “All right.” She’d never tried to pull energy from the earth so close to a volcanic zone. The heat of the magma might keep the earth from freezing, but the power would likely be different. Perhaps dangerous.

  But no more dangerous than the weakness that made her beyond helpless.

  Shane glanced at her. “What’s wrong?”

  Dulled by the cold or not, his senses were werewolf sharp. “There are places where magic runs peacefully. A hot spring strong enough to survive in this climate? It’s not peaceful. It’s wild.”

  His hands tightened on the wheel. “I can keep it under control. You don’t have to be scared.”