by Cara Wylde
“How about Soul Seed?” she finally answered.
“Soul Seed?”
“Yes. I’m pretty sure Jake was conceived there.”
“Soul Seed Falls. I like it.”
“I want it to be official.”
Max thought for a second. “We can try… but it’s so small, you can’t even find it on the map.”
“The locals know about it. We’ll just make one of those wood signs, paint Soul Seed Falls on it, and that’s that. It’s on Blackmane land, anyway.”
“Huh. The perks of owning almost a third of the Black Forest Mountains…”
She turned around in his arms. Her blue eyes were filled with happiness.
“Will you do it for me?”
Max allowed himself to get lost in his mate’s beautiful orbs. If he looked hard enough, he was sure he could see her soul. And her soul was kind, loving, and completely devoted to him and their pups.
“I’ll do anything for you.”
She lifted herself up on her tiptoes, closed her eyes, and kissed him deeply, slowly, passionately. No tongue, at first. The point wasn’t to get naked again. Well, he was already naked… All Avelyn wanted was to make him feel her love. She imagined her sweetest emotions were pouring through her parted lips and latching themselves onto him. Her need to be one with him was overwhelming.
“Avelyn…”
“Max…”
Neither of them wanted to break eye contact. Not now, not ever. He grabbed her by the waist, lifted her off the ground, and walked her to the nearest snow-covered rock. He gently placed her on the cold, soft surface, and descended onto her, his mouth devouring hers, his hands roaming all over her curves and sneaking under her fluffy pullover to squeeze her heavy breasts and caress the sensitive skin of her belly.
When Max moved down to kiss her jaw and neck, Avelyn dug her fingers into his raven black hair. Panting heavily, she looked at the endless sky, at the full moon reigning over the stars, and laughed with joy. Her laugh startled him.
“What’s so funny?”
“Nothing. I’m just… happy. I mean, look at me. I’m a mother, I’m in a beautiful marriage, I’m a wolf hybrid, which means I won’t age very soon, and I have the most gorgeous husband on top of me. My husband. Naked. In winter. I love winter. Have I ever told you that?”
“Baby, you love all the seasons.”
“Well, now winter has become my favorite.”
He cupped her rosy cheek, then traced the contour of her full lips with the tips of his fingers.
“Alright, winter is your favorite season. And you’re my favorite person in the whole wide world.”
She grinned. “What about Nikolas, Lucas, and Jacob?”
“Well, they’re not here now, are they?”
“Oh, yes! Thank God.”
They both laughed. They made themselves as comfortable as they could, and watched the waterfall, the sky, and the forest for a long while. They didn’t keep track of time.
“We should have brought a blanket, at least.”
“We’ll do that tomorrow night.”
“And a bottle of wine.”
“Only if you’re sure you can carry everything and still hold on to me.”
“Oh, I can do anything I set my mind to.”
He kissed the top of her head.
There was no point in climbing up the mountain slope, not tonight. Tonight was about enjoying each other’s presence and contemplating just how happy they were.
Over two hours passed when Avelyn noticed her back was rather stiff, and she could use some chocolate chip cookies and a few glasses of wine. So, Max shifted, she jumped up on his back, and they both left with the silent promise to return the next day. Neither of them said it out loud, but they also hoped they could return here next Christmas. That was… if their wolf pups gave them another permission slip.
CHAPTER FOUR
This year, Avelyn and Max had bought gifts for everyone in the family, but not for each other. In truth, they hadn’t had the time. They had made sure the huge Christmas tree in the living room, at the Schloss, would hold mountains of presents for Nick, Luke, and Jake underneath its evergreen branches, and the effort of remembering what each of the pups wanted had left the two parents exhausted. When the kids presented them with the gift from them, both Avelyn and Max agreed it was all they had ever wanted for Christmas. Material gifts didn’t mean much, anyway. Okay, Max had taken the time to buy his wife a sexy set of lingerie, but that was a different story.
So, there had been no cutely wrapped boxes waiting for them under the small Christmas tree the Beta, Kevin, had decorated for them in the cabin. And that was fine. As they were rushing through the deep forest to get back to the comfort of the fireplace, neither of them was thinking about Christmas presents. Avelyn was dreaming of a tall glass of wine, and Max couldn’t wait to dig into the Christmas pudding. All this running around had made him hungry again. For a second, he considered hunting. But that meant leaving his wife at the cabin and going alone, and he didn’t want to spend a single minute away from her, let alone one hour. The pudding would have to do.
When they arrived, Avelyn hopped down and went right inside. Max needed a few seconds to shift back into his human form, then followed her.
The cabin was warm although the fire was almost out, and the tiny lights in the Christmas tree were glowing happily, enveloping the room in subtle light. However, something was off. Avelyn and Max stopped in the middle of the room, all their senses alert. Max sniffed the air, and Avelyn inspected every corner with her keen sight. Something wasn’t quite right, but they couldn’t put their finger on it.
“Do you smell… lemongrass?”
“So, it’s not your perfume?”
“No, I left it at home.”
Max cocked an eyebrow and walked over to the fireplace. The fire was dying, so he threw three logs onto the pile of embers and watched them come to life. They didn’t really need the light, nor the warmth, but he was trying to keep himself busy as he thought. He felt like they were being watched. He slowed his breathing and expanded his wolf senses as much as he could. Soon, he’d identify where the intruders were hiding. Because, yes, he was sure that while he and Avelyn had been gone, intruders had broken in.
“Max?”
Avelyn’s hesitant voice made him jump to his feet. He ran to her side.
“Are you okay?”
“Look…”
She pointed towards the Christmas tree.
“Those… weren’t there before, were they?”
They stepped closer to what they could see was peeking from underneath the lower branches, and knelt down to get a better view. Christmas presents. Six boxes of various sizes, with their names on them. The writing was sloppy and impersonal, as if the person doing it had intentionally tried to mask their real style. Well, they had failed. Because Max and Avelyn could recognize Luke’s hand anywhere. He had done his best, sure, but he had completely failed to hide the flowery stroke of his “y”.
Avelyn chuckled. “I don’t believe this.”
Max ran his hands through his hair, rubbed his temples, sighed, then stood up and looked around the room again. He checked the small kitchen and the bathroom, but they were empty.
“Outside,” Avelyn suggested. “Behind the cabin.”
Sure enough, when they went to search the woods behind the cabin, they found tiny paw prints everywhere. By the looks of it, the pups had sneaked in through the bathroom window, left the presents under the tree, sprayed some of Avelyn’s perfume to cover their scent, then went back out through the same window, making sure they cleaned all possible tracks they might have left inside. Unfortunately, there was no way they could cover the prints they’d left in the snow. In the past hour or so, it hadn’t snowed at all.
“Fresh,” said Max.
Avelyn smiled. “You’re not mad, are you?”
“Of course I’m mad! How did they even find o
ut where we are? They ran away from home. It’s the only explanation, because I know for a fact that Jocelyn would’ve never let them come here.”
“Relax. I’m sure they’re fine, hiding behind the trees. Why don’t you go get them, and I’ll go call Josie?”
“Good idea.”
She grabbed his arms and squeezed lightly to get his attention.
“And don’t scold them, okay? Promise me.”
“They deserve it.”
“Not tonight. They just wanted to bring us our Christmas presents.”
“Not an excuse to run away from home.”
“They wanted to spend Christmas with us. They’re children, Max. I bet they regretted ever writing that permission slip the second they gave it to us.”
He sighed. “I’ll do my best not to flip.”
“Thank you.”
She gave him a quick kiss on the lips, then went back inside the cabin to frantically look for her phone. She was worried, too, but she kept it to herself. Max was already angry. There was no point in feeding his exasperation and disappointment.
“Josie, hey! Hope you weren’t sleeping.”
“N-no…”
Avelyn’s sister-in-law did sound groggy, and it wasn’t because of too many glasses of wine. Shapeshifters never got drunk. It was obvious she had woken her up.
“Could you do me a favor and go check on the kids?”
“What? Why? I told you two to just relax and have fun. Ryan and I have everything under control.”
“Is that so?” Avelyn chuckled.
“What do you mean?”
Avelyn heard the bed squeak when Jocelyn got out of it, then the door shutting behind her when she went out on the corridor. Normally, her room was in the right wing, but she and Max had asked her to take their own room in the Crescent wing, so she’d be closer to the wolf pups.
“Well?”
Jocelyn first knocked on their door, and when nothing happened, she opened it slowly.
“Shit.”
“Yes, shit. That’s a good word for it, Josie. I couldn’t have put it better myself.”
She heard her switch on the light and checking the three beds and the closet. Avelyn rolled her eyes.
“Why would you ever think they might be hiding in the closet?”
“I… I don’t know. Where could they be? Wait.” She paused to think. “How did you know they’re not in their room?”
“Because they’re here, silly.”
“There? At the cabin? At Triberg Falls?”
“Yes! I mean, I hope they’re still somewhere around here. Max went out to look for them. They sneaked in while we were gone, and left a bunch of presents under the tree.”
“Oh my God, this is all my fault! I insisted they could give you the presents in three days, when you’d be back, and they hated the idea.”
Max and Avelyn had chosen to raise their kids without lying to them about anything, not even about Santa Claus. So, they’d told them the story, but explained to them that Santa, in fact, was just a fantasy character, and the Christmas gifts always came from family and friends.
“Did you, or Ryan, by any chance, mention to them where we are?”
“Nope. No way!”
“Did you talk about it between the two of you?”
“Err… maybe? I… I don’t remember. Yes, we might have.”
Avelyn started laughing.
“I’m so, so sorry, you guys. I’m the worst aunt…”
“You’re not. They’re just hard to deal with. Wait… I think they’re here.”
Avelyn opened the door for Max and the pups. Already in his human form, he ran inside to put some clothes on. Nick, Luke, and Jake, though, sneaked past her, one at a time, and showed no intention of shifting. Their big paws left snow prints all over the carpet.
“Are they okay?” asked Josie through the phone.
“Yes, they’re fine. Call you later.”
She threw her phone on the table, and proceeded to cross her arms over her chest and glare at the three young wolves. They had grown a lot in the past year. They still had a long way to go before they reached their father’s dimensions, though. After a few minutes, Nikolas got bored of their staring game, growled, and went to lie down by the fire. Lucas and Jacob where a tad more well-behaved than their brother, so they stayed put.
“You know what? I’m not talking to your three until you shift.”
She knelt beside the Christmas tree and started opening her presents. Max was in the kitchen, doing some angry breathwork to calm his nerves, but when he saw her so relaxed, he decided it might be better to follow her lead. After all, the boys were his sons. Staying angry at them would only worsen the situation. Max himself had never been good at taking lectures. The pups had inherited that from him.
“Oh, wow! I love this!” Avelyn wrapped the soft scarf around her. “Thank you, Jake,” she said, reading the card.
The wolf pup reluctantly stepped closer to her, intentionally avoiding his dad, just in case, and licked Avelyn across her right cheek. She scratched his ear lovingly, and he relaxed. He still wasn’t ready to shift, though. It wasn’t that he didn’t want to, but he was waiting for either of his older brothers to make the first move. Both he and Luke looked up to Nick, but Jake looked up to Luke, too, although the boy wasn’t quite aware of it.
Max opened his present from Jake, too. It was a scarf, as well, albeit manlier. He chuckled and wrapped it around himself.
“Oh, we’re twins now,” Avelyn laughed.
The scarves had the same bluish color, except Avelyn’s came with a snowflake pattern.
Luke, the artist of the family, had painted two small winterscape paintings for them. In one of them, a huge wolf was carrying a red-haired woman on his back, and in the other one, three smaller wolves were playing in the snow. Both had the Schloss, or… what Luke understood the Schloss looked like, in the background.
Avelyn’s eyes started watering when she unwrapped her painting, then saw Max’s, too. Max himself felt a tug at his heart. The pups were almost forgiven. He motioned for Luke to get closer, and ruffled the short fur on his head.
“Okay, now for Nick’s presents,” said Avelyn.
The wolf pup didn’t even look at them. He was staring into the fire, making it a point to avoid his parents, as if they had done something wrong, not him. As usual, Nikolas had been the leader, the one who’d convinced his younger brothers it was a good idea to sneak out of the castle, shift, and then run through the night for one hour and a half. They had wrapped the boxes in cloth bundles they could easily carry in their mouths. It hadn’t been difficult for them to reach the cabin. They’d been there before. In truth, they had thought their parents would choose a place much farther away than Triberg Falls, and when they overheard their Aunt Josie talking about the cabin near the Schloss, they couldn’t have been happier. Their plan was achievable! They could run through heavy snow for around two hours, no problem. More than two hours would’ve been a real challenge.
“Aww…” Avelyn melted when she unwrapped her last gift, pulled out the music box, and opened it. “This is perfect!”
It was obvious it was handcrafted. As “Silent Night” played, a black wooden wolf danced in circles, its head thrown back, as if it was howling at the moon.
“Baby, you made this?”
Nick growled.
Avelyn sighed, shook her head, then went to sit with him by the fire. She placed the music box between them, and let it play its song over and over.
“This is beautiful. You’re very skilled and talented, Nikolas.”
She had seen him play around with wood, metal, cogs, and miniature engines taken from toy cars, but she’d never thought he could make something so amazing. In her defense, Nick was usually very protective of his projects. He didn’t like it when someone hung around and looked over his shoulder while he worked.
“Son, this is amazing. Thank you,”
said Max.
His father’s voice made Nick tense, but when Max scratched his ear, he relaxed. All was well. He could shift now.
“What did you get?”
Avelyn pulled Max down, and they both sat in front of the fire while, behind them, bones snapped and cracked as the three wolf pups shifted.
“A compass.”
It was rather big, made of wood, and exquisitely carved and decorated. It wasn’t made to be used, but placed somewhere nice and looked upon. Max had every intention to place it somewhere in the living room, the perfect spot from where anyone visiting could see it.
“I’m sorry I didn’t make you anything,” whispered Jacob.
He’d found some of his old clothes in a drawer and put them on. Both the pants and the T-shirt were too small now, but at least he was dressed.
“Oh, baby, come here. Your gift was amazing. See?”
Avelyn pulled him in her arms and wrapped the scarf around the both of them.
“Your father and I love the scarves! We love all of your gifts. It doesn’t matter whether you bought them, or made them.”
“Yes,” Max agreed. “You know we treasure all your presents. Forever.”
“Especially that permission slip,” Avelyn chuckled wickedly. “We’re thinking of framing it.”
Nick and Luke had also found clothes which were way too small for them. They came to join their parents and brother by the fire.
“Sorry,” said Nick. “We just thought it wouldn’t be as fun to give you your presents three days after Christmas.”
“You could have given them to us this morning, before we left,” said Max.
Luke blushed. “It’s my fault. I wasn’t done painting the sky on mom’s present. I needed more time, and then a few more hours for the painting to dry.”
Max and Avelyn burst out in laughter. Of course. Leave it to Lucas to be the perfectionist. Unfortunately, the combination between perfectionism and his artistic endeavors would probably end up sabotaging him instead of helping him. But that was a discussion for another time.