by Michele Hauf
Beck was a werewolf. Like it or not, he made it a point to know what the hunters were up to. Because even though they didn’t believe in his kind, and they hunted the mortal realm breed of canis lupis—the gray wolf—when in wolf form, his breed could easily be mistaken for the gray wolf. And thanks to the DNR delisting the wolf from the endangered species list, the hunt had become a free-for-all.
A fact he knew too painfully well.
“Didn’t you hear the gunshots earlier?”
She shook her head.
“There are hunters in the vicinity.”
“Maybe the ghost wolf warned them away from me?”
Beck chuckled. The ghost wolf was what the media had taken to calling the recent sightings of a tall, wolflike creature that seemed to glow white. Scared the shit out of hunters.
“You shouldn’t put your faith in a story,” he said to her. “You’re not safe in the woods, plain and simple.”
“Well, you were out alone.”
“Yes, but I’m a guy.”
“Do not play the guy card with me. You think I can’t handle myself?”
“No, I just said you could probably scratch—”
The petite wolf turned and, without warning, punched him in the gut. It was a good, solid hit that forced out Beck’s breath and jarred his lower ribs. Picking up her dropped mitten, she turned and walked off while he clutched at his stomach, fighting his rising bile.
“Thanks for the chat!” she called. With that, she picked up into a run.
Beck was perfectly fine with letting her run off and leave him behind. He swallowed and winced as he fell to his knees amidst the wheat and snow.
“The guy card?” Swearing, he leaned back, stretching at his aching abdomen. “She’s got a great right hook, I’ll say that much.”
And he was getting weaker with every shift he made to werewolf. That was not good.
* * *
Daisy Blu Saint-Pierre landed at the edge of town just as the headlights of a city snowplow barreled past her on the salt-whitened tarmac. She’d left her winter coat at home, not expecting it to snow tonight. She never took along more clothing than necessary when going out for a run. Chilled, but still riding the high from the shift that kept her muscles warm and flexible, she picked up into a run.
Her teeth were chattering by the time she reached her loft in the Tangle Lake city center. There were three other occupants in this remodeled warehouse that featured lofts on the second and third floors. She wandered up the inner iron staircase, cursing her need to not drive unless absolutely necessary. Blame it on her parents, who were uber-environmental-save-the-planet types. Her dad drove an old pickup that must have been manufactured in the Reagan era. She suspected it would be more environmentally friendly to put that rust heap out of its misery and off the road, but her father, an imposing werewolf who could silence any man with but a growl, wouldn’t have it.
Once inside the loft, she stripped away her clothes, which were coated on the back with melting sleet. Leaving them in a trail of puddles behind her, she beelined toward the shower and turned it on as hot as she could stand.
The last thing she had expected while out on a run was to literally collide into another werewolf. Though, why not? should be the obvious question. The wolves in the Northern and Saint-Pierre packs used that forest all the time. Yet lately, with the hunters spreading out and some accidentally trespassing onto private land, even that forest had grown less safe.
She never ventured too near the forest’s borders, and always kept an ear and nose out for mortal scent and tracks. The gunshot had been distant. She’d not smelled the hunter, and usually, when out in nature, she could sniff out a mortal scent two or three miles away.
Beckett Severo, eh? She’d heard about his father’s tragic death not long ago. Killed by a hunter who must have assumed he was just another gray wolf. Must be awful for Beckett. She had also heard he had been there with his father when he’d been shot.
Daisy felt awful for punching him, but it had been impulsive. She didn’t know the man, and couldn’t trust him, and he’d been all in her face and trying to chum up to her. She preferred to meet her men in public places, and preferably with an advance review from a friend so she knew what she was getting into.
So maybe she wasn’t an expert on meeting people. Her defenses tended to go up for no reason other than that she was uncomfortable making small talk.
Because really? That man had been one fine hunk of wolf. He’d towered over her, and looked down on her with ice-blue eyes. She’d never seen such clear, bright irises. His sun-bleached hair had been tousled this way and that. A scruff of beard had shadowed his chiseled jaw. He’d reeked of strength and—she could admit it—sensuality.
What a man. What a wolf. It was rare Daisy met a male werewolf who appealed to her on more than a simple friendship basis. It was much easier to be a guy’s buddy than to flirt with him.
He hadn’t known her? Probably because he wasn’t in a pack. Yet she knew about his family. Severo, his father, had been a grizzled old wolf. Unaligned with any pack, but respected by many pack wolves for common sense and wisdom that had come from centuries of life. Surely Daisy’s father had mentioned Severo reverently a time or two.
Maybe. Didn’t matter. She didn’t intend to bump into Beckett again soon, so she’d have to satisfy herself with a few fantasies about the sexy wolf.
With the way her shifting abilities had been testing her lately, she was more self-involved than she cared to be. Much as she preferred shifting to wolf, the faery half of her always vied for superiority. She wasn’t sure what the deal was with that, but it was annoying. And embarrassing. She couldn’t remember when she’d last shifted around a family member. So she spent much time in her human shape, which was all right by her, save for her lacking social skills.
She was trying to break free of her introvert’s chains by competing for a freelance internship for the local newspaper. Every January the Tangle Lake Tattler offered an internship to a journalist who offered the winning story. Story competition was never fierce. She had two opponents. But that didn’t mean Daisy wasn’t giving it her all.
Researching the story got her out into the community and forced her to talk to others. She enjoyed it, and she was growing more at ease with introducing herself to strangers. Albeit, with a handshake. Not by charging into them while running out of the forest.
The story she knew would be the winner was the ghost wolf. Which is why she’d been out in the woods tonight. The great white wolf had been sighted twice in the last month. Daisy suspected the creature was werewolf due to the description the local hunters circulated on the rumor mill. Save for one odd detail. Hunters had noted the wolf glowed, as if a white specter. Thus, a ghost wolf.
If it was a werewolf, she wasn’t sure how to handle the story. Her breed valued their secrecy.
She’d deal with that if and when she needed to. Should have asked Beck if he knew anything about the ghost wolf. Hmm...
Good reason to see him again.
Chapter 2
Tangle Lake’s annual Winter Ice Festival parade was followed with a massive community picnic in the park. Since it was the second week in January, everyone bundled up in winter wear, pack boots, mittens, caps, scarves and face masks. It was hard to be cold with the festivities to lighten the mood. Hockey was played on the nearby football field (iced over for winter), ice sculptures were judged in the town square (which was more of an oval, really), and ice bowling, s’mores over bonfires and even a quilt-off were held throughout the day.
Daisy decided next year she’d try her hand at the ice sculpting. She had no skills, but she wouldn’t let that stop her from learning how to use the chain saw. She loved a good competition.
Daisy’s pack always attended the festival. In town they were not known as werewolves. The humans were oblivious. And the pack principal—who was also her father—was all about community and making nice with the humans. All packs existed amongst the morta
ls. Garnering friendships and fitting in was key to survival.
She recognized wolves from the Northern pack pushing a sled piled with ice blocks toward the sculpting platforms. Supposedly the Northern pack had been a pretty nasty bunch of wolves in the decades before Daisy had been born. Her grandmother, Blu, had been a member then, and Blu’s father, Amandus Masterson, had been the principal. He’d died—but not before first torturing Blu’s vampire husband, Creed. Since the Northern pack scion, Ridge Addison, had taken over the reins as principal, everything had changed, and the pack was now peaceable toward other packs, as well as vampires.
Daisy’s father, Malakai Saint-Pierre, was somewhere in the crowd, probably testing the various hot dishes offered at the bake stands and flirting with the women. Her mother, Rissa, took it in stride because Kai was fiercely faithful to her. But with a former reputation about town as a Casanova, he had no problem soaking up the female attention.
Her mother had stayed at home today in favor of an afternoon to herself. She was uncomfortable in large crowds. It wasn’t because she was one-hundred-percent faery; Rissa was just quiet and didn’t much understand socializing.
Daisy could relate. Her mother had bequeathed her the scarlet letter of introversion. Her four brothers had inherited their father’s extroversion. They could all be somewhere in the area, though she suspected Blade had stayed away. He wasn’t much for crowds simply because he was secretive.
A familiar face smiled through a bustle of winter caps. Stryke was the second-youngest of Daisy’s four brothers, and was full werewolf. Trouble was also full werewolf. Kelyn was faery. And Blade was a mix of vampire and faery (the vamp was thanks to their grandfather Creed’s DNA).
“Hey, sis!”
Stryke pulled her into a generous hug. The guy was a master hugger. When he hugged, he gave his all. The wise, more cerebral one of the bunch, he was the one his siblings went to when they had a problem and needed to talk.
“Why the long face?” he asked, turning to lean against the concrete bike rack where she had paused. “Not into the festivities?”
She shrugged. “I don’t know. Just kinda melancholy, I guess.”
“Yeah, this town isn’t the most exciting. Hot dishes and lutefisk?” He shuddered comically.
“Tangle Lake.” Daisy recited the town’s name. “And not a tangle to it. This town is straighter than straight. The highway dashes a straight line beside it. All the streets are parallel and straight. Even the lake is square! I need a tangle, Stryke.” She sighed, twisting the ends of her pink hair. “I’d even settle for a little twist.”
“I hear you.” Stryke’s gaze traversed a nearby ice bowling match, where the participants bowled ice balls toward frozen autumn squash. “I can’t wait for Aunt Kambriel’s wedding this summer.”
Kambriel, their aunt, who was their father’s twin sister (and a vampire), had fallen in love with the vampire Johnny Santiago and planned to wed in Paris, where she currently lived.
“You might find yourself a European werewolf,” Daisy said, knowing her brother’s strong desire to find a woman and settle down. Yet for some reason Stryke was never compelled to put down roots with any of the women in the area. Not interesting enough, he’d often lament.
“That’s the plan,” he agreed. “A tangle, eh? I’m not sure you’ll find the excitement you’re looking for in Tangle Lake, Daisy. Most exciting thing lately— Well, hell, what about that ghost wolf? You think it’s a werewolf?”
“Yes,” she answered quickly. And then, “No. Maybe. I don’t know. I’m doing a story on it for the local paper. Or I’m trying to.”
“Whatever it is, be careful.”
“I will. Do you think it’s a werewolf?”
“Yes,” Stryke said. And then, “No. Maybe. I don’t know. I’d have to see the thing up close. And I’m not sure I want to. Though I can promise Trouble would like to have a go at it.”
The eldest brother of the siblings, Trouble (whose real name was Jack) had a thing for picking fights and pushing people to their breaking point. But he did it in a playful way. Unfortunately, most people did not get his confrontational humor.
“I have to go,” Stryke said. He nodded toward a crowd of young women bundled up in bright ski pants and boots. Pom-poms bobbed on their heads and mittens, plus a few at their boot ties. A cavalcade of sex kittens. “Got a date.”
“A tangle?”
“If I’m lucky.” He winked. “You going to the fireworks?”
“Kelyn and I usually head out together. I’ll see you later, Stryke.”
He kissed her cheek, a cold smack that made her giggle, and strode off toward the pom-pom kittens.
Sighing, Daisy tugged out the paperback she always took along to public events and found the bookmarked page. She wore gloves with rubber tips on the fingers, designed for operating touch devices. Books were the ultimate touch device. Immersing herself in the fiction, she strolled slowly along the packed snow embankment that edged the hockey rink where makeshift teams had gathered to play. Should have brought her skates. What she wouldn’t give to slap sticks for a while...
All of a sudden, someone charged into her. Daisy dropped her book and made to shove away the annoying guy, but she paused when she saw who it was. The sexy wolf she’d run into the other night at the edge of the forest.
“What is it with you and the need to ram into me every chance you get?” she asked.
“Uh, sorry. I had my eye on the puck.” He tossed the hockey puck he picked up from the snow toward the guys outfitted in knee pads and skates waiting on the ice. “Besides, this is the first time I’ve rammed into you. If you’ll remember correctly—”
“Yes, yes, I recall. So you’re playing with the mortals?”
“Exclusivity to one’s breed is not wise in this small town.” He swept a hand toward the players who had continued the game without him. “They’re a great bunch of guys. I love hockey. There you go.”
“I like hockey, too, but I don’t think the boys would like a woman joining them.”
“Probably not. All the girls are over at the food booths making cocoa and serving us men.”
Daisy’s jaw tightened. “I don’t serve any man.”
Beck swerved his gaze toward her. “Huh? Oh. Right. Sorry, that was—”
“An asshole thing to say.”
“Whoa. This is fast going down an icy slope I don’t want to slip on. Let’s start over.” Tugging off a leather glove, he then bent to pick up her book and handed it to her. “Sorry. The pages got snow on them. Don’t you have one of those fancy e-readers like I see everyone carrying nowadays?”
“I have a few of them,” Daisy said proudly. “Sometimes I prefer the touch, feel and smell of a real book.”
She pressed the closed book to her nose and inhaled. Snow had dampened a few of the pages, but she couldn’t be upset because she also owned the digital copy of this book.
“It’s so personal to hold a book in my hand. I can open it to any place I like with a few flutters of the page. I can trace my fingers down the words, rereading phrases that speak to me. The stories make my heart race and my skin flush. My toes curl when I’ve read a well-crafted sentence. Mmm...”
“Uh...”
She glanced at Beck, whose mouth hung open. Oh, those eyes could attract wise men on a clear winter night beneath a velvet star-filled sky.
He scratched his head. “You just made reading sound sexual.”
So she had. “Books turn me on.” Daisy resumed her stroll along the snowbank shoveled up around the rink.
The wolf in hockey skates followed, blades sinking into the packed snow. “Really? They turn you on?”
She nodded. She wasn’t sure she’d ever find a man equal to the heroes she read about in her stories, but she held out hope. Of course, the stories were fiction. She knew that. But it was okay to dream. And besides, when she finally did find a hero of her own, she felt sure she’d recognize him immediately for his gleaming honor and smoldering se
nsuality.
“So it’s one of those sex books?” he asked.
Daisy stopped and toed her boot into a chunk of snow. Oh, she pitied the poorly read. “Just what implies a sex book in your mind?” She waved her book between the two of them. “Anything with a pink cover?”
“Anything with sex in it, I guess.”
He was out of his league, and he knew it. Daisy smiled triumphantly. Points to the women’s team.
“Says the wolf who’s probably never read more than fast-food menus and car manuals.”
“Don’t forget The Iliad. I may have been home-schooled, but I don’t think there’s a way for any breathing teenager to avoid that snorefest.”
Daisy rolled her eyes. She wasn’t much for mythology, but wouldn’t admit to him that she agreed with his assessment of the classic tome. That would be too much like flirting. Of which she did not partake.
“I have read a lot of car manuals,” he added. “I own a shop at the edge of Burnham.”
“Hockey, cars and tromping through the forest without a shirt on. Such a guy you are.”
He stabbed the hockey stick into the snow and propped both wrists on the end of it. “I can’t tell if you’re admonishing me or trying to flirt awkwardly.”
“I—” Stymied, Daisy turned her gaze away. She did not flirt. Because if she did, it would be exactly as he’d implied—awkward.
One of the men guiding the puck across the ice with the mortal crowd called to Beck to return. He waved and said he’d be right there.
Shoving up the sleeve of his jersey to reveal the long thermal sleeve beneath, he winked at her. “If you’re in the mood to test your flirtation skills later, come find me.”
“I, er—”
Without waiting for what would surely be the awkward reply of the century, Beck tromped off, blades cutting hashed tracks toward the ice.
Daisy couldn’t help but notice the flex of his quadriceps with each stride. Clad in jeans and a fitted long shirt, over which he wore a big loose hockey jersey, the attire highlighted his awesome physique.