Once we were close, Liam collapsed onto the ground, exhausted from having to haul a load over such rough terrain. There wasn’t much moonlight left, but I went off in search of food anyway. Luckily, I was able to snag a small bunny rather quickly. It wasn’t enough for the two of us, and Wolf Scout really thought she should have it since she caught it, but I gave it to Liam, who inhaled it with gratitude in his eyes.
When the sun’s first rays started turning the snow into a field of diamonds, I trotted off to the far side of the cabin to Change. Somewhere around halfway through the transformation Human Scout took charge. Her first thought wasn’t of pain or exhaustion, but the realization that she had no idea where her clothes were.
Chapter 17
Being outside in the snow completely naked is not something I would recommend to anyone, even if you’re a Shifter who happens to Change into an arctic wolf. Even if the air temperature on your exposed flesh and the wet snow crunching beneath your bare feet doesn’t bother you - which, by the way, it will - the frigid breeze whipping across your exposed naughty bits will have you shivering as if your life depends on it. Which, I suppose it might. My understanding of hypothermia is basic at best.
I stood hidden behind the corner of the cabin contemplating if shivering was a good thing or bad and at what point I should become concerned about losing appendages when a sad, frustrated whine reached my ears.
Liam was still in wolf form.
Of course he is, the part of my brain that was completely human and not obsessed with how cold I was said. How can he Change when you’ve got him wrapped up in that harness?
If I didn’t have my hands shoved up in my underarms for warmth, I might have done a face palm. Liam was going to be trapped in wolf form until I could free him from the harness. Sure, he could try to Change back in that thing, but it would hurt, and if he couldn’t break through it as he Changed… Well, I didn’t really know what would happen. Would he be trapped in between forms? Would he just revert back to being a wolf?
There was no way I was going to make him find out, which left me with the whole conundrum of what to do about the naked situation.
“You’re going to have to close your eyes,” I called out. “I’m going to come out and find me some clothes, and then I’ll let you out of that thing, but only if you promise to keep your eyes closed until I tell you to open them.”
Liam yipped.
“Was that a yes or a no?”
His low growl told me I was being ridiculous. And, once I thought about it, a little presumptuous. Like Liam Cole wanted to see my boobs.
I darted the distance to the sled, horrified to realize the cabin had been blocking most of the wind. I couldn’t locate my bag anywhere, but Liam’s was on top. I found a long-sleeved t-shirt and threw it on. Luckily, it came nearly to my knees, since there was no way I could keep his pants on. If it had been Jase’s or Charlie’s clothes I was stealing I would have grabbed a pair of boxer shorts, but my many visits to laundromats had taught me Liam was a tighty-whitey kind of guy, and I was so not going there.
Liam had neglected to mention how to remove a harness from a wolf, but after a few mishaps, one of which had my favorite wolf snapping at me, I managed to break him free.
“Your clothes are there,” I said pointing to where I piled an outfit on the ground next to him. “I know you’re tired, so I’m going to wait on the other side of the cabin” where the wind won’t cut straight through my flesh and embed itself in my bones.
He growled at me and gave me a look which obviously was supposed to mean something. Unfortunately, I misplaced my Wolf Liam to Human Scout dictionary, but took a stab as to the meaning. “Okay, okay,” I called over my shoulder as I walked away. “I promise to not look.”
As I waited for Liam to finish Changing, I tested various methods for staying warm. I rubbed each of my limbs vigorously. Did jumping jacks. I even attempted to Mr. Myagi some heat back into my flesh. I was trying to fold my body in as small of a ball as possible when a furious wolf in human skin barreled around the corner.
“Idiot,” Liam muttered, lifting me off the ground as if I was an unruly pre-schooler. One arm was braced under my knees while the other secured my shoulders. I tried really hard not to think about how close either of those arms were to my bare bottom.
The door to the cabin gave with three hard pushes from Liam’s shoulder. I tried to get a look at the inside, but Liam whipped me around so fast everything was a blur. He practically threw me in a wooden chair before dropping down in front of me and taking my foot in his hands.
“What the hell were you thinking?” He growled at me. “Is it so damn hard to grab some socks and shoes? And a t-shirt? Just a t-shirt? You think because you’re a wolf you’re invincible? Think again, Snowflake. Even you can lose a toe to frostbite. And it’s not exactly like we’ve got a doctor out here to amputate it. You’ll die from blood infection, and then what in the hell am I supposed to do?”
My lips pulled back over my teeth, Wolf Scout coming off the leash. “Yeah, I was letting myself turn into a Smurf because I think I’m a badass. That has to be it. Has nothing to do with the fact some asshole buried my clothes under a mountain of other bags.”
Liam froze, and then, in a move I never would have expected in a million year, he exposed his throat to me.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “I endangered your life. I accept whatever recompense you demand.” And then he sat there, unmoving.
“Liam?”
He looked up at me, but didn’t change positions.
“Is this one of those Shifter custom things I know nothing about?”
Still no movement, other than what could be interpreted as an eye roll. “You’re supposed to punish me for leaving you in a situation where you could have died thanks to my idiocy.”
“Oh.” I thought about that. “What kind of punishment?”
“One that matches the crime.”
I started to laugh, but his face told me he was serious. I didn’t want any kind of compensation. He forgot to put my clothes where I could reach them. Big deal. My clothes and I have a long history of amnesia. I’m forever forgetting to put them in the laundry basket or take them out of the washing machine. But I could tell Liam wasn’t going to let this go, and I couldn’t really handle much more of this whole submission routine.
“Well, then, Liam Cole, I sentence you to one foot rub.” Because my feet were really cold, and his hands were nice and warm. “Actually, make that two foot rubs. Don’t leave out Lefty down there. She would be sad.”
Not only did Liam rub the feeling back into my feet, he also bundled them up in two pairs of those super-expensive socks I bought from Spence’s shop. Then, he started the task of cleaning out the chimney so he could start a fire. I offered to help, but he shot me a don’t-be-stupid look, although I don’t know if he was referring to my almost-hypothermia or his lack of faith in my ability to clean out a chimney.
While Liam worked, I took a survey of the cabin. It was a one room affair that probably covered no more than 200 square feet (or 61 meters, since we were in Canada). There was very little in the way of furniture and most of it looked homemade - the table, all four chairs, and the two large cabinets swallowing the far wall. The only thing that appeared to be bought instead of forged out of trees was the futon mattress sitting on the wooden bed frame.
When Liam moved outside where he couldn’t yell at me for wandering about on the cold wooden floors, I got up and explored the inside of the cabinets. What I found there reminded me of this crazy show I saw one time about people whose hobby was to prepare for catastrophic events. Canned food was stacked as tightly as possible in the space, along with a First Aid kit, some blankets, a few knives, and several of those old oil lamps one of my grandmothers collects. Stacked in between the cabinets was several bottles of oil.
At first the amount of stuff in there seemed overwhelming, but then I made the mistake of calculating things in my head. It was October and already s
now covered the ground. Most likely, we wouldn’t be seeing grass until… when? April? May? Later than that? I wasn’t up on my Canadian weather patterns. Even if we went with the conservative idea of leaving in April, we would be trapped here for more than six months. Thirty days times seven months was 210 days. Was this enough food to last that long?
I instantly regretted ever having read Life As We Knew It.
I tried to drum down the panic by reminding myself that several of the bags on the sled were filled with nonperishable food. Heck, one small bag was stuffed full of candy bars. We wouldn’t starve if we had like a hundred candy bars, right?
God, I didn’t want to die of starvation.
The sound of something slamming to the ground rescued me from my mini-meltdown. I spun around just in time to see two squirrels race out of the fireplace and around the cabin in a fury of movements. Being able to totally relate to their sense of despair, I took pity on them and opened the door. It took a few minutes, but they finally found their way outside.
“There was a nest of squirrels living in the chimney,” Liam said as the two streaked past him towards freedom.
“You don’t say.” I leaned against the open door as he surveyed the mess sitting in the fireplace. “Don’t suppose you have a broom?”
“Look under the bed.”
I did, and to my surprise, indeed found a broom there. It was the old-fashioned made-by-hand kind that made me want to etch “Nimbus 3000” onto the handle. Instead of handing it over to Liam, I took on my good womanly role and did the sweeping myself.
“How are your feet?” he asked while gathering some wood from a pile stacked just outside the cabin door.
“All pins-and-needles. That’s good right? No feeling is bad; pain is good?”
Liam shrugged. “Sounds good to me.”
It took us the better part of two hours to get the fire going. We stopped just long enough to eat a few sticks of beef jerky and a can of applesauce to restore some of the calories we lost during the Change, although not nearly enough. Normally I gorge after a Change, eating at least 5,000 calories for breakfast alone, but knowing how little food we actually had, I rationed myself.
“Whose cabin is this?” I asked later as Liam took inventory of the firewood stacked against the wall.
“Mine,” he said as he examined a piece of kindling. “My dad built most of the outside, but Alex and I finished it a few years ago.”
“You did all this?” I looked around, taking in everything with new eyes. “Impressive,” I said, and meant it. The cabin wasn’t big, but it kept out the wind and snow. The furniture wasn’t pretty, but it was functional and sturdy. If Jase and I attempted to build a cabin and furnish it there would have been nothing to show for our efforts other than a couple of trees chopped down in the middle of the forest. Actually, that’s probably overly optimistic. If Jase and I managed to chop down a single tree it would have been a miracle.
“Alex is the one who figured out how to make it all work. I just put it together,” he said as if building a cabin and piecing together furniture without the assistance of the home improvement professionals at Lowe’s was a menial task.
Once we both thoroughly examined the inside of the cabin, we began unloading the sled. By the time we had everything inside and arranged in something that could pass as order, it was getting dark. After a dinner of cold beans and tuna, I found myself yawning on a regular basis.
And that is when I realized there was only one bed.
“So… ummm… it’s… ummm… bedtime for Scout,” I said in fashion which in no way hid my discomfort.
Liam rubbed the top of his head. “Yeah, there’s some blankets and stuff.” Which I already knew because I moved them from the cabinet to sit on top of the bed during our efforts to get all the food we brought with us in the cabinet.
I got up and walked over to my bag. “I guess I’ll put on my pajamas now.” My intention had been to go change in the outhouse - yes, we had an old-fashioned outhouse - but I wasn’t looking forward to it. At all. Not only did it not have plumbing, it was completely without heat. Or lights. And was a really long way away from the cabin.
Thankfully, Liam saved me. “I’ll just…” He jerked a thumb towards the door. I nodded a little too enthusiastically, eager to have some privacy, space, and warmth while I stripped.
I assumed Liam was going to the bathroom or some such thing when he left, but when I heard a scratch at the door later I realized what he had done.
“Hey, you,” I said, opening the door for the wolf. “Do I need to go get his clothes?” Liam disappeared back around the corner for a moment, and when he came back there was a carefully tied bundle of clothes in his mouth.
I gave the wolf another can of food and brushed the snow and dirt out of his fur before we crawled in bed, me beneath the covers and him curled up on top, his head resting on the pillow beside mine. I thought it would take a long time for me to get used to his breathing right next to my ear, but it was mere moments before exhaustion overtook me, and I slid headlong into a dreamless sleep.
***
I woke up the next morning, fully rested and completely toasty. My nose was buried in the wolf’s warm neck, my fingers wrapped in his fur. “You’re like a heating pad,” I muttered, only half-awake. “A nice, fuzzy heating pad. Or maybe an electric blanket.” His nose came around and bumped my forehead, and I let out a tiny yelp. “Okay, so not all of you is nice and warm.”
Liam’s eyes shone with laughter as he stood up and leapt off the bed. He grabbed his clothes bundle, trotted over to the door, and waited impatiently for me to open it.
“Grow some opposable thumbs,” I said from the bed. “I like these blankets and have no intention of leaving them until I absolutely have to.” I was already starting to get cold without him. I couldn’t be sure, since we didn’t have a thermostat, but I thought the temperature had dropped significantly in the past twenty-four hours.
Liam didn’t really care about my distaste for facing the cold, if his impatient growl was anything to go by. I tried to ignore it, but when the whining started up, I gave in. I made sure to call him a few choice names and wish for unmentionable body parts to get frostbite as I let him out.
My first few days as a Canadian were exhausting. The cabin had survived without anyone tending to it for years better than one could have reasonably hoped, but there were still lots of repairs to be done. Liam and I climbed on the roof to remove a limb and fix the damage underneath. We worked on sealing off all the cracks where air could get in. There was an ax hanging next to the fireplace, and Liam and I used it to chop down a tree.
Have you ever chopped down something with an ax? Not fun. I now have serious doubts regarding George Washington and his cherry tree.
Every night, Liam went outside and Changed before bed. Every morning, I woke up cuddled into the wolf’s warmth. It was nice, but it couldn’t continue.
“You can’t keep doing this,” I said on the fifth night when Liam made his way outside after sundown. “We don’t have enough food to fuel your Change every night.” He just stood there with his hand on the door. “You’re not getting enough calories even now. There’s no way you can do this all winter.”
He came back into the cabin and grabbed the extra blanket I hadn’t felt a need to use yet from beside the bed. It wasn’t until he began folding it into a long rectangle that I realized his intention.
“You’re not sleeping on the floor.” The look he gave me made color rush to my cheeks. “Good grief, Liam. I’m not going to molest you. Just get in the freaking bed.” I plopped back onto my pillow and then turned quickly to face the wall. There are very rare times when I get so embarrassed I cry, and if this was going to be one of them, I didn’t want Liam to see my tears. It would only serve to piss me off, which often brings even more tears.
Sometimes being a girl is all sorts of awesome.
I thought he was going to be stubborn and sleep on the floor anyway. If he did, I decide
d, I wasn’t going to feel sorry for him or guilty. And I wasn’t going to take turns. I didn’t have any problems sharing a bed, so I wasn’t going to give it up.
I was about to share this realization when I felt the covers pull back and Liam slip into the bed.
***
The next morning started just as every other morning in Canada. I woke up slowly, my back slightly chilled, but the rest of me kept warm by the fur I had clutched in my fingers.
Except it wasn’t fur.
I pried my eyes apart slowly and then had to tilt my head at an equally sluggish pace since my face was smashed against Liam’s very human chest. With an exceptional amount of care, I unbent each individual finger, letting go of the sweatshirt Liam wore to bed. It took me no less than five minutes to fully disentangle myself from Liam, although even when I was finished his arm was still nestled underneath my waist. I wasn’t quite sure how to move away without waking him up, and waking him up was the absolute last thing I wanted to do. I couldn’t handle the horror on his face when he realized how I had cozied up to him in the night. My own horror was quite enough, thank you very much.
I weighed all the options and finally decided to just roll out of bed as quickly as possible. With any luck, I would be out and away from the bed before Liam woke up enough to figure out who had been where.
I counted to three and then made a leap for the floor. And find the floor I did. With my face.
“Scout?” Liam asked, his voice rough with sleep.
“I’m okay.” Nothing wounded but my pride. “Blanket reached out and grabbed my foot.”
“Beware the blankets,” he intoned like a bad horror movie. I peeked up over the side of the bed to make sure he hadn’t been spirited away by sprites and a Changeling left in his place, but he was already back asleep.
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