“That’s so nice,” Mina said. “I adore the cocktails you’ve served us.”
Allison smiled at her. They were friendly with each other, but hadn’t quite ever become friends. They were both so busy with their businesses and men that they’d never really found much time to socialize together.
“Now that that’s out of the way,” Allison said with a grin, “you should know that I am crushing it in here. I hope you like the cold, because you are going to be running naked in it tonight.”
“So that’s how it is?”
“Oh that’s definitely how it is.” Allison had a steel in her eyes that Mina admired. Some day soon they’d be sisters-in-law and Allison would officially be family. But right then she was just competition.
“May the best woman win,” Mina said.
“I’m sure I will,” Allison laughed and moved a pan full of sautéed mushrooms off the stove.
As they cooked, they bantered back and forth. Teasing each other gently, probing for sensitive areas and secrets.
“You should know, I’m not here to make friends,” Mina said.
“Well I’m not here to make friends either,” Allison agreed, then they both started laughing. The truth was that both of them were desperate to be friends with the other, but had no idea how to go about it.
Allison cooked holiday classics like bread stuffing, cranberry sauce, mashed potatoes, candied yams and a dozen other dishes that you'd find on a million tables that evening. Of course, she did it better than most people. Allison was cooking to win, sure, but she was also cooking for Michael and for her adopted werewolf pack.
Whereas Mina was cooking for her mother, and also for Matt. But Matt loved any food that was sweet or salty or fatty, so she knew he'd love the meal. For her mother it was different. It was the first Christmas out of Chicago for Mrs. Brooks, and Mina wanted her to feel at home. But Mina also wanted to win. She made mashed sweet potatoes with maple syrup and coconut milk for that extra richness. She made herb-blackened salmon that Matt had caught with his own two paws. She made pumpkin biscuits so fluffy and rich that butter slid right off them. She made a wedge salad, a potato salad with mustard, and sautéed rainbow chard served with a garlic sauce.
There were other dishes, too, steamed carrots and peas and staples so standard that cooking them seemed to take no time at all. And then came the desserts. Allison might be an amazing chef and an outstanding mixologist, but Mina had been a baker her entire adult life. They were not competing on the same playing field at all.
"It's almost better not having the boys in here," Allison ventured. Sweat trickled down her brow as she cooked. "I love Michael more than breathing, but he would just be in the way here."
"They are some big men," Mina said before dipping her immersion blender into the flesh of a steamed pumpkin. With some heavy cream, sugar and eggs it would make an incredible pudding. "Matt can cook though. Basic stuff. Brunch stuff. But he's not afraid of the kitchen. I've been teaching him some tricks, too. It's been fun."
Mina grinned at the thought of the last cooking lesson. It'd gotten derailed after too much time spent close together, and the meal had burned while she poured honey down her belly for Matt to lick off.
"Mmm hmm," Allison said.
Mina's mom popped her head into the kitchen. "Allison, dear, your sister Chloe is here and she's kissing one of those werewolf boys. Should I throw some water on them?"
Allison huffed. "Only if you like the smell of wet dog. But those two, seriously, something needs to be done."
"Oh I think something's getting done," Mrs. Brooks cackled.
"Mother!" Mina gasped.
"That bad?" Allison asked.
"Her pants are still on. For the moment."
"I can't leave this though," Allison said, nodding at the stove top.
"I'll go," Mina volunteered. "I need a breath of fresh air anyway."
She was in charge. Even if Chloe was Allison's sister and not hers, it was on Mina to lay down the law. This was their first Christmas together as a family and precedent had to be set.
In the living room, the wolf pack sat in nearly the same spaces on the couch, playing the same game. Though there seemed to be fewer of them.
Chloe was the last guest expected that day. Her werewolf boyfriend was nowhere to be seen.
“Hey Chloe,” Mina said. “Merry Christmas!. It’s so great you could make it.”
“I almost didn’t,” she said. “The weather is super weird out there. Did you know that outside of Bearfield it’s like in the eighties? But once you get near, it’s like driving into another world. Snow everywhere. I had to go like five miles an hour to avoid sliding off the road.”
Mina’s phone buzzed. A text from Michael. “Have you heard from the others?”
“Who?” she wrote back.
“Pete or my bros?”
“No,” Mina texted. A chill slithered up her spine.
“Where is Donovan?” Chloe asked. “He was just right here and then he went off to get us drinks and never came back.”
Mina walked over to the TV and turned it off. The wolf pack reacted with a chorus of moans, but with one sniff they could tell she was serious.
"Everyone come to the kitchen," she said. "Something weird is afoot, but I also have to check on my biscuits."
Chapter 6
Mina led the way to the kitchen, with her mother, Chloe, and the wolf pack following. They crowded in amongst the boiling pots and sizzling pans and Allison had to slap more than one hand away from the cookies she pulled fresh and steaming from the oven.
“No,” she said. “These are for dessert.”
“We need to do a headcount,” Mina said. “We’re missing people.”
Chloe looked around the room and announced “Ten. We have ten people here.”
Allison frowned. “There should be thirteen. Where is Sebastian?”
“Where are Donovan and Harper?” Rhett asked. He was one of the wolves, and was lighter than the others in coloring.
Mina checked on the biscuits and stirred a pinch of nutmeg into her mashed sweet potatoes. “So here is what we know: a freak storm blew in last night, dumping a mountain of snow on us and only on us. According to Chloe, every other town around is sunny and dry. People around town have gone missing, including Sebastian, Harper and Donovan. Not just mortals, but shifters, too. So whatever is taking people has to be tough. You can’t just snatch two werewolves off the street.”
She was trying hard to keep it together, but this sort of mystical, magical mystery was far from her wheelhouse.
“Did you hear that?” Mrs. Brooks said. “At the front door?” Mina’s mother left the kitchen and went to check.
“Now the key thing is, we shouldn’t wander off alone. You do everything here with the group.” She yelled after her mother, “Did you hear me, Mom? Don’t wander off!”
But there was no answer.
Mina grabbed Chloe’s hand and Chloe grabbed Allison and the werewolves tagged behind in a long human chain to the front door.
The door loomed open. Eddies of snow blew in. Mina’s mother’s boots and coat were still hanging in the closet.
“She’ll be okay,” Allison said. “The boys will find her. Michael can find anything.”
“Something took her,” Mina said.
“Nine of us now,” added Chloe.
Distantly, two lumbering brown shapes made their presence known in the midst of the snowstorm. Two bears, the smaller one larger than a Honda and the larger one the size of a van.
“Where’s Michael?” Allison asked as the bears approached.
The smaller bear shifted and Matt was there in front of Mina, holding her tight, his body burning with warmth and reeking of the sweetly spicy shift scent.
The larger bear shifted and suddenly Marcus was in its place, naked as the day he was born. Mina had never seen Marcus naked before, somehow, despite having seen Michael naked almost every day she lived in Bearfield. The big Alpha’s muscles
had muscles which also had muscles. He was a mountain that walked, a moving landmass. The man was built on a different scale than everyone else and primal fear gripped her whenever he got too close. Was it an effect of his Alpha-ness, or something else? Thick scars, brown with age, marked his belly and back. Five lines, deeper near the navel and then swooping upwards across his back, almost as if a massive clawed hand had tried to rip him in half.
One day she’d get that story out of him. But not today.
“Half of the town is gone,” Marcus growled. Rage radiated from him. Not for the first time, Mina looked at Marcus and thought of The Incredible Hulk. “Half of my people are gone.” He said the words quietly, but the anger blasted from him in a wave. It moved through Mina’s blood, stirring her to anger, too. Ever since she became officially mated to Matt and became part of their pack, she’d been linked on a mystical level to the bears. Usually she didn’t notice. Tonight she did.
Everyone moved inside, with Mina directing them all to the kitchen.
“Where is Michael?” Allison asked again, on the edge of panic.
Matt put a reassuring hand on her shoulder. “I’m sure he’s fine. He’ll be here soon. He probably just followed a trail or went to check on one of the remote cabins.”
Mina grabbed Matt’s hand and squeezed it, seeking reassurance from him. He smiled at her, but there was pain in his smile. There was something he wasn’t telling her.
Rhett walked around the kitchen and turned off all of the burners and ovens. “If we get taken, it’d be great if this house didn’t burn down, too,” he explained.
“Marcus, do you know what’s doing this? Have you heard of anything like this before?” Mina asked.
The Alpha shook his head. “I’m not an expert on the lore. I’ve never had to be. Nothing and no one dares mess with Bearfield, because they know our strength. They know what I’ll do to them.” He folded his arms and leaned back against his refrigerator, tipping it back with his weight.
“So whatever is doing this doesn’t know any better?” Mina asked.
“Maybe,” Marcus grunted.
“That doesn’t sound good,” Mina said.
“Knowing all about the supernatural has never been our strong suit. That’s what the Ladies Quilting Society does,” Matt added. “But let’s check off what we know and make a case.” He began to pace the kitchen, walking between Mina and Allison on one side and the six wolfboys on the other, as if he was in court. “One, it’s taking people regardless of age or sex or race or their supernatural status. So it’s greedy. Two, there are no signs of struggle anywhere. Everyone went willingly. Three, there is a giant snowstorm which may or may not be related.” Something in Matt’s voice was off. He knew something he wasn’t telling. Mina could sense it through their mate bond.
“Likely suspects?” he asked. “Goblins only take children. Trolls only take adults. Both do so by force, so we’d see a struggle. The ravens are missing people too, so it wasn’t them. There were no leaves at the scenes, so we can rule out dryads, nymphs, and woodland fae.”
Mina’s mind reeled. She had no idea such things existed. Matt never talked about the other things that lived in the shadows.
“We’re pretty far from the sea, so unless a siren traveled with a portable pool and a megaphone, it’s not a siren. What else?”
“A Ringmaster,” Liam the werewolf suggested, fishing a beer out of a cooler in the corner. “Or a demon.”
“No sulphur at the scenes, and none of the milk was curdled, so we can rule out demons. And I’ve never even heard of a Ringmaster before,” Matt responded.
Liam shrugged and downed his beer. “They take people and make them perform in the midnight circus for the viewing pleasure of some very bad dudes.”
Mina shivered. The world was a scarier and more dangerous place than she’d ever realized.
“None of these creatures would dare set foot in Bearfield,” Marcus rumbled. Every word he said was a bass thump that shook Mina’s bones. “Not while I am still standing.”
“We don’t know enough,” Matt agreed.
Something was off in Matt’s voice. There was something he wasn’t saying, something he was hiding. Mina could feel his shame prickling through their bond.
“Matt, what is it?” she asked.
Mina’s heart broke as she saw tears come to her husband’s eyes. “I didn’t know what to get you for Christmas. It’s our first Christmas together as a married couple and I wanted it to be perfect and you seemed so sad that you were here in California and not back in the Midwest.”
A rumbling growl spilled out of Marcus.
“So I found a spell. It was just supposed to make it snow a little! I swear. I don’t know why people are missing or why it’s snowing so hard. This wasn’t supposed to happen, Mina. I just wanted you to have a white Christmas.”
Mina ran to Matt and threw her arms around him, hugging him tight. “You don’t need to give me anything, Matt. I have you. I have us.”
“You damn fool,” Marcus snarled. “Always looking for the easy way out, the lazy way out. Well look what you’ve done this time.”
“We’ll fix it, Marcus. Calm down.” Matt put his hands up in a soothing gesture, but Marcus’s eyes blazed with fire.
“Did you hear that? That song outside?” One of the wolfboys turned and walked out of the kitchen, but no one but Mina saw him leave. Everyone else was staring fixedly at Marcus, wondering if he was about to throw down on Matt.
“Where did you find this spell? You know how I feel about shifters doing magic.”
“I picked it up ages ago, from a guy I defended in court. He didn’t have any money, so he paid me with some old spellbooks. I’ve never cast a spell until now and you can believe me, I won’t do it again.”
“And you waited all day to tell me,” Marcus's voice rattled the windows in their panes.
“Guys,” Mina said, “we just lost another.”
“I knew how you’d react!” Matt yelled back at Marcus, and then he realized what Mina said. “Another?”
“One of the wolves just walked out and I bet he’s gone.”
“Shit,” Matt cursed, then took off after him, charging out the door and shifting into a bear the second his feet touched snow.
“Matt, no!” Mina yelled, but it was too late.
Mina and Marcus and Allison raced after him. They were too slow to save him, but not too slow to see a sheath of ice form around Matt mid-stride and then cold blue hands whisk him away into the shadows.
Chapter 7
The Winter Witch
The Winter Witch had found something unusual. There were bear-hearts in the town. Men with animal spirits in their souls, burning like bonfires in the night.
She took one while he was walking naked in man form. He didn’t see her as she walked on quiet feet behind him. He couldn’t smell her either, for she smelled of snow and ice and sap freezing beneath bark.
With one touch she captured him, sealing him inside her frost. She drank his heat in greedy gulps, feeling it spill down her chest but unmindful of the waste. He had so much of it. She could drink and drink and drink and he might never run dry.
This one she would keep.
In his memories she saw a home full of bear-hearts and wolf-bloods. With so many, she could feast for a year. Perhaps she could even drive the cold away. The Winter Witch would gladly abdicate and give up her title if she could, but absent a worthy successor to pass the gift to, only an overwhelming display of heat could drive the freezing curse from her bones.
The bear-hearts might hold such warmth.
They would not survive the process, but many more people in the coming centuries would be spared. Wouldn’t that be worth it?
The Winter Witch took another drink from the captured bear-heart—Michael was his name—and stalked off towards the den of his brothers. The heat made her head bubbly and fizzy and she found herself laughing and skipping like a girl. She hadn’t been drunk since the curse fell
upon her, and the bear’s heat went straight to her head.
Outside the bear’s den—a large castle made of felled logs—the Winter Witch waited and watched. She couldn’t take them all at once. A whole pack of werewolves lay within. They had sleek bodies and handsome faces that chipped at the ice on her frozen heart. Was it the intoxicating heat that gave her lustful thoughts of the men? Or had she stolen enough of the bear-heart’s essence that her humanity was really coming back to her?
If she had been a normal woman, even a normal witch, she would have swooned for them. But she was not normal, and she carried a terrible burden that had to be fed. She pushed thoughts of love from her head. As if she could ever love again. Not with her curse. Any man who touched her found himself frozen within a heartbeat. Perhaps if she stole enough heat from the bear-hearts she could kiss one of the wolves before the curse took him. Perhaps she could run her fingers down his muscled chest, savoring the feeling of real skin under her touch, before he was snatched away by frost.
She contented herself with her fantasies and sang her song. She snatched a man, a wolf, a woman, another wolf. The storm blew mightily through the trees and her power grew. By dawn the whole town would be encased in ice and the mortal experts would think up comforting explanations for the tragedy that had befallen the village, but none would guess it was the Winter Witch let loose on the world again.
As the Witch watched and summoned her song again, two of the bears plodded by. They didn’t smell her or hear her, as she stilled her song. If they had glanced her way they might have seen her. They might have had a chance if they attacked at once, especially with the Alpha radiating his fury into the world. But they did not look and they lost their chance.
Winter always wins.
Once the bears were in their den-home, she sang her song again and lured another of the handsome wolves out into the cold. It was daytime, but the clouds were so large and so dark with their fury that it may as well have been night. The wolf took one step outside before the Witch snatched him up with a kiss on his shoulder. He tasted divine, like a past of mortal pleasures the Witch had all but forgotten.
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