by Ellis Leigh
Luc couldn’t argue that, though, to be honest, he was soft on all the mates the fates had gifted his pack. Omegas, the lot of them—powerful shewolves that were often seen as blessings in their world when they weren’t being hunted and exploited for their gifts. He cared for all of them—Sariel, Amy, Charmaine, Ariel, Michaela, and Zoe. Each one brought heart and strength to their Dire Wolf pack. Each one a blessing upon the wolves he called brothers. He was soft on them because they deserved to be honored and respected as family and as amazing individuals. He’d stay soft on them, too.
The short night of late summer above the Arctic Circle fell deeper and darker in the forest, the air growing colder with every minute. Even in wolf form, he could feel the chill on the wind against his skin. If the pack were keeping the women in human form as a way to weaken their wolves—the only reason Luc could come up as an explanation for why he couldn’t sense them—they’d be far more susceptible to the weather. Were they cold? Freezing, even? Did they need to be rescued? He’d do anything to save them, had given up months of his life just on the chance of finding them. If they needed him, he’d be there—once he got a bead on where they were.
“What if we never find them?” Michaela asked, almost as if she’d been reading his mind. She snuggled closer to Phego, keeping her feet and ankles against Luc’s side. Connecting the pack in her quiet way. “What if these women are not actually out there?”
Unthinkable. Something was out there—Luc could feel it. Sense it. There was no turning his back on the sensation, no avoiding the pull to do his job. Something or someone or multiple someones in these woods needed him, was calling on him to save them. He knew that down to the tips of his claws.
Michaela, though, wasn’t finished exploring the path of her thoughts. “What if they’re perfectly happy in this messed-up pack—”
Luc shifted on instinct, growling the entire way through the change. “They’re not happy.”
His sudden appearance and deep, throaty snarl did nothing to dissuade the Omega, though. “How do you know?”
“Because I can feel them.” A lie…sort of. He could feel something calling to him—but not the shewolves in particular. Something that was impossible to explain to people who didn’t even understand how much their own emotions weighed him down. How his sense of the world around him crushed him at times. He knew because he did…there was no better answer.
Michaela frowned, turning her attention back to the fire. “You sense the badness about this pack, I know—but what about the women do you feel? Are you sure it’s them?”
He was not sure of anything anymore.
Phego cut into the conversation, leaning over his mate to look Luc in the eye. “Your obsession is concerning, Luc.”
Of course it was, but that didn’t mean Luc would stop. “The fear I can sense coming from these women—from within this pack—is more concerning. If you could feel it the way I do…”
But they couldn’t. No one could. It was just Luc, alone with every emotion experienced by all the people for miles and miles bearing down on him. Just him and the gift that had been slowly driving him insane for centuries.
The mated pair looked to each other, speaking without words. Shutting him out, or so they thought. Luc could feel their disbelief, their worry. Could sense how much they doubted. He’d never been doubted by his pack—never had a brother question a single order he’d given or a plan he’d laid out. This was new, and Luc didn’t like it.
He didn’t want to stick around and suffer their disappointment for another minute. “I’m going for a walk.”
Michaela rose to her feet, sending a jolt of concern punching through the air. “Are you sure? It doesn’t seem safe out there.”
Safety was an illusion, so Luc didn’t answer—simply shifted to his wolf form and padded out of camp. Leaving the pair behind so he could dig for his own emotions once more, connect to his own feelings instead of everyone else’s. There was a spot overlooking the lake that he liked to visit, one that brought him far more peace than he’d experienced in a while. He headed there practically on instinct, finding an outcropping to sit on so he could look over the vastness of the range before him. There was no such thing as quiet in his world—not with everyone else’s emotions slipping inside his mind all the time—but sitting there, looking over the valley, was about as close as he’d ever come to it.
Bliss. This must be what bliss feels like.
But exhaustion was a bastard that creeped in uninvited, and Luc was definitely exhausted. Bone-tired. He’d spent so much time in these woods, so many days and weeks and months chasing this pack and looking for women he couldn’t be sure existed. He should have surrendered, should have accepted that the women weren’t there once he’d realized the pack contained no feminine energy. But they had once, or maybe his mind had played tricks on him. Maybe he’d been wrong that one time he’d sensed…something. It didn’t matter, though. The fates wanted him right where he was and refused to allow him the strength to walk away. For reasons he’d never understand, leaving was impossible for him.
A fact that his fellow Dire Wolves worried over.
Something was very, very wrong in the Brooks Range, and that negative energy had infiltrated his family unit. The feeling was bigger than pack, though. It was quite literally everything. A shadow covering his entire world and darkening every inch of his soul. Life had gotten harder as he’d searched these woods, his senses growing stronger and his balance weakening. The so-called gift of intuition he’d used to his advantage for centuries had become more of a curse, draining him of his own feelings and leaving him empty. For the first time in over a millennium, he felt as if an end was coming. Perhaps his. Would he welcome the blessed silence of death? Or would he fight for every second on this rock? Would he surrender or battle through? He didn’t know anymore, and that lack of passion for the very concept of life might have scared him more than anything ever had.
Which was why he clung to his mission. Why he refused to give up. Why his wolf wouldn’t allow him to.
Over the last few years, Luc had assumed the tiredness that had started wearing on him had been eased by the Omegas who’d joined his pack. With each mating, he’d been given an infusion of energy, of strength. But even with Deus finally finding his witty and sarcastic Zoe, the added Omega energy wasn’t enough to ease the aches in his bones. To control the power that threatened to bury him in other people’s emotions on a daily basis. No, the Omegas weren’t enough anymore. He needed something more.
He needed to find these women.
He needed to save them.
He needed that victory to keep going.
In the distance, a wolf howled a lamenting song, the soulful cry reaching for the heavens and dancing through the low spruces covering this part of the range. It took Luc a full ten seconds to fully recognize what that sound was, to sense it. To feel the energy of the pack. To understand that the entire unit was no longer stagnant.
The pack was on the move.
Everything within him perked up, tiredness gone. Senses on full alert. The pack—the living, breathing sickness of the range—was definitely in motion. Their energy cleared the static from his mind, recentering his world directly on them.
Time to go.
He was running toward the massive energy spike without thought, racing toward the sound that would lead him to the pack along the mossy ground. Unable to stop himself from following them. Not wanting to either.
Must find the women.
2
Cassiel had never expected to be in the herbal medicine business, but that was certainly how she had come to earn an income. Not that she needed much in the way of actual US dollars. Living in the Alaskan bush meant there wasn’t a lot she had to buy—she participated in a barter system long ago worked out to cover the need for most things she might want, and she’d adjusted to going without most of what she couldn’t get access to. Still, brewing essential oils and selling ointments and salves kept her coffee c
an lined in case she ever needed something nature couldn’t provide her.
The copper still she’d scrapped together made a soft hissing sound as the lavender she grew was processed into oil. Dried flowers hung from the shed’s ceiling, and various pots and containers rested along the windowsill and walls. If a stranger had walked into this space, Cassiel would have bet they’d think she was a witch brewing magical potions. Considering her Calendula ointment had been successfully used as an anti-inflammatory in the bush for years, maybe she was.
“What do you think, Moxie? Am I witchy to you?”
The little black-and-white Alaskan Husky, one of her six sled dogs, whined and jumped at her, begging for attention, which Cassiel happily gave. Her dogs and her little shed of plant healing—those two things fulfilled the deepest needs within her. She had fallen into both of them accidentally, but they had ended up being blessings in disguise. She loved her life, her dogs, and her job. But she especially loved sledding with her dogs out on the trail, whether in the blistering cold of winter, racing across the snow and ice on a sled mounted on runners, or in the excessive heat of full summer, her dogs still pulling her sled but with specialized wheels she’d found that could cover the rough terrain of the Boreal forests of the Arctic.
Perhaps mushing wasn’t the most economical transportation method—her dogs could eat her out of house and home—but it was her favorite. Even in the summer months, when the ground grew thick with moss and the sun blazed down twenty-four seven, she loved strapping her dogs into her special sled with wheels instead of runners and taking them for a slow jog to Bettles. Her team may not have been made to withstand the heat of an Arctic summer, but they loved to run and she knew how to keep them from overheating. Besides, riding on her ATV or her snow machine wasn’t nearly as much fun as standing on the runners of her little basket sled while the dogs raced along. Not to mention, engines broke and fuel cost money—the dogs were easier. She fed them, she took care of them, and they offered her transportation. Total win. She needed to be able to access the biweekly plane that brought supplies through the region, and getting to the landing strip in Bettles on foot was a hell she had no intention of experiencing. Dogs were better, especially the sweetheart little one she tended to treat more as a pet than a working dog.
Unable to resist the little whines for attention, Cassiel grabbed Moxie’s face and gave her a couple good ear scratches. “Who needs a bunch of stuff when I have you guys, huh?”
No stuff and no people. Cassiel definitely didn’t need other humans—she’d created a happy family with her sled dogs and knew enough of the people who lived in the bush to have interaction when she wanted it. The solitary lifestyle fit her just fine.
Cassiel looked over the still one last time, checking to make sure every drop of oil had been collected, before extinguishing the flame. The entire shed needed to cool down so the oil could be worked with, which meant it was time for her to head home. Still, she couldn’t help but grin when she saw the amount of oil she’d processed. This would be a good batch, would make her lots of money once she put it into soaps and sprays, candles and roller tubes. And the Calendula teas and salves she planned to make this week would be another boon. Lots of money coming in but, more importantly, lots of items to trade with the locals for caribou meat and other supplies to help her and her dogs get through the upcoming winter.
“Come on, Moxie. Let’s go home and make sure the rest of the dogs are settled in for the night.” She checked one more gauge, verified the fire was completely out, then locked up the little shed just in case. If she put in another full day at the shed, she’d have a good supply of products to sell and trade the next time she met up with the supply plane. Her waiting list for Calendula salve was long and her cache was low on meat, but she’d been waiting for her blooms to flower completely. A few more days and they’d be dried and ready to process into the healing medicines the bush folk loved.
“Maybe I should use my money to buy the parts for a greenhouse. Then I could grow my plants more regularly than I do in the shed.” Cassiel looked at Moxie, who seemed happy enough with the idea. “We’ll talk to some people, see if anyone has an old greenhouse frame or knows where I can dig one up. Maybe even just a couple of windows to make a small one to start. I could connect it to the house so I can grow through the early parts of the winter.”
The dog didn’t answer, not that she expected her to, but that didn’t matter to Cassiel. In fact, she rather liked not having to listen to others talk. The relative silence of the region had always been one of its biggest selling features for her. Relative because there was no such thing as silence in the forests—too many creatures and critters running around at all hours, especially during the never-ending sunlight of June and endless night in the depth of winter. And some of those critters were of the claw and teeth variety. The Brooks Range wasn’t exactly overrun by predators, but it also wasn’t the safest place to live. There were definitely scary creatures out there—big, mean animals who would think nothing of stripping the flesh from Cassiel’s bones and eating her whole.
She’d grown accustomed to the threat of the beasts over the years—had plans in place and weapons to protect herself in case the black bears showed up or the lynx that roamed the tundra decided she was a threat to them—or a tasty treat. Living alone in this level of wilderness came with some pretty severe dangers, but she’d grown to understand them. To be prepared for them.
At least until the last few months.
As the seasons had turned from spring to summer—as the days had grown longer and eventually never-ending—she’d felt something in the woods closing in on her. Developed a sense of something wrong polluting her land. She couldn’t quite wrap her head around what the threat constituted, though. What made it up. All she knew, all she could firmly grasp, was the unease that had plagued her lately. The dark energy swirling around the woods. She’d felt that sense of dread before, an uncomfortableness in her own skin that ate at her confidence. But lately, it had grown so much worse.
Which meant she needed to make it safely home before the darkness of the upcoming short night fell. “C’mon, Moxie. It’s dinnertime for me anyway.”
The two hurried to her little cabin sheltered against some tall spruce trees. The dogs—protected in their little day pen where they could run around but not get into any trouble—grew excited as their packmate rejoined them, though they yipped and cried more for Cassiel. She was the food giver after all. They’d already had their dinner, but she tossed a few extra bits of dried char fish their way to give them something to do while she put away the last of her supplies and readied her property for the night.
By the time she left the pen and headed for the cabin, Cassiel had all of her dogs following along beside her. Close—she wanted to keep them close. Night had finally fallen. The world had gone dark, not a single artificial light around. Nothing but the soft glow of moonlight sparkling along the lake in the distance and stars twinkling in the velvet above her.
“It’s beautiful tonight, guys,” Cassiel said, taking a moment to enjoy the cool air blowing down from the tundra. The worst of the summer was already over, the temperature dropping her into what she liked to call jacket weather. This was her favorite time of year—that little window before the days stayed below freezing and after the bright and deep heat of the summer. Just a month or so a year of blessed coolness before she and the dogs would be plunged back into cold and dark. This was the best time to be in the bush, carving out a living and sustaining herself with what the land provided her, because the land was giving. And dangerous. So very dangerous.
A rustling in the shorter spruces on the other side of the pen reached her ears, and Cassiel’s heart began to race. She had dawdled too long. Nighttime was for predators in this place, and though she wouldn’t be searching them out, it wouldn’t be unusual for them to find her. Usually, she gave them their space and they left her alone in hers, but being outside after dark was asking for trouble. And she
didn’t need to put herself and her dogs at risk.
“Let’s go, my loves.” She hurried onto the porch and opened her front door, holding it ajar, kissing the air for the dogs to follow her. “It’s puppy pile time.”
Six dogs loped into the house with Cassiel following closely. A little piece of calm falling back into place as she closed and locked the door. Home. Shelter. Safety. It wasn’t much by most people’s standards—a bed, a chair, a soft rug made from animal skins in front of the wood stove, a tiny kitchen in the back corner, and not much else—but it was exactly what she’d always wanted. It was all she needed.
“You kids already ate, so don’t go begging for my dinner as I cook it.” Cassiel washed her hands, tossing a glare at the dogs. They saw right through her, though. No way would she ever deny them food. Heck, they still should have been outside, snuggled in their kennels for warmth and sleeping away the Alaskan night. If she treated them as most mushers did, they wouldn’t be allowed inside. She couldn’t help but spoil them, though. Each and every night, she brought her dogs—all six of them—home with her and spent the time before bed giving them individualized attention. All but Gunner—that dog hated to be touched. Out of her team of six, he was the only one she left alone. He liked it that way, too. Preferring to be close but not requiring any more interaction than when she tugged his harness on him. Cassiel had once been that way—so deep inside her own head that the very thought of someone touching her sent her mind skittering to the darkest corners imaginable—so she could respect that.
Once Cassiel had cleaned up, she pulled out a fish she’d caught earlier in the day and heated up her pan on the propane burner. Cleaning fish had become second nature to her, so she made quick work of removing the skin and guts and filleting the meat. No need for anything more than that one fish. A quick, nutritious dinner was all she cared about—a little protein and fat to fuel her body through the night and into the morning. Nothing special.