She wanted more of that. More tastes of skin and lips and anything warm.
A roar from inside the house drew her attention, and then the smaller of the bear-hearts charged outside. He wasn’t as big as the Alpha, but the bear named Matthew was ferocious nonetheless. Had she been unprepared or newly arrived, he might have lasted more than a breath in a battle with her.
But the Winter Witch was at the peak of her powers. He was frozen before he took three steps and then whisked away to her lair to join the others. With two bears and also the wolves, she could feast until spring. If she could weep for joy, she would have, but the tears turned to ice in her eyes.
At the doorway to the house the Alpha and the mortal women saw her.
The Winter Witch curtsied and waved.
Chapter 8
“Marcus,” Mina said. “Who is that? What did she do to Matt?”
A woman stood on top of the snow. She had white-blonde hair that hung in stringy strands like icicles from her head. Her skin was blue at her extremities, fading to white as it neared her heart. She was barefoot, wearing a tattered dress caked with snow and frost. She had blue lips and dark eyes that glittered inhumanly in an unreadable face. Whatever she was, she terrified Mina.
Matt was supposed to be invincible. Matt was supposed to be unstoppable. He was going to love and protect her until the sun burned out in the sky. They were going to watch the world age together, raising shifter cubs, sleeping in, making love wherever they felt like, as much as they could.
He wasn’t supposed to be turned into an ice cube and disappeared by some frosty fairy.
“Name yourself,” Marcus roared. “And know that you stand on protected land! The land of the mountain belongs to the Great Bear Spirit, and you risk his wrath by walking here.” Heat poured off Marcus, making Mina’s belly clench uncomfortably. You could literally cook an egg on him, he was so fired up with anger.
“I name myself out of courtesy to you, great Alpha. But I do not fear your bear spirit. It slumbers even now, unheeding the call of your people. I am known as the Winter Witch and I shall take all of you before dawn rises.” The Witch’s voice was melodic and breathy, almost sultry. It made Mina want to walk to the woman and to be nearer to her.
One of the wolfboys stepped forward, but Marcus grabbed him and threw him back into the house before he could set one foot outside.
“Witch, you will die today for what you have done. My claws and teeth have killed before and they will again,” Marcus growled. “You have only one chance for survival: give me back my people, my brothers, my family. Give them back unharmed and swear a vow to never return and I will let you live.”
The Witch laughed, and her laugh was a haunting melody that made Mina want to dance in the snow. “I have a different idea, strong Alpha. Come with me. Offer your body up to me to do with as I will. Become my slave and I shall spare these last few people of your village. You have so much heat to share. Perhaps you could even kiss my feet before the cold stole you away.”
“Lady,” Marcus snarled, “you can kiss my ass. I am no one’s slave, and I certainly won’t have sex under duress like that. I belong to Bearfield, not to you.”
Mina saw something then in the Witch’s eyes. A profound loneliness glimpsed through a crack in her resolve. What must it be like to be the Witch? Did she have friends or family or a home? Or was her life only ice and snow and turning all those around her into frost-caked statues?
Mina stepped in front of Marcus, careful to keep from going outside. “Why don’t you come in, Winter Witch? You look cold and hungry and we have more food than we can possibly eat.”
“What are you doing?” whispered Allison.
“If she comes in here, I am going to tear her throat out,” Marcus said matter-of-factly.
Mina spun on him. “If you want to see your brothers and my mother and Pete and the wolves and everyone else back alive you will keep a civil tongue in your mouth and you will not lay a hand on her.” Mina poked Marcus in the belly with her finger. It was like poking a stone wall.
“But,” Marcus said.
“Do you understand?”
Marcus growled and for a moment Mina worried he would just pick her up and hurl her outside to the witch. But he nodded and stepped back. “Winter Witch, please come in.”
The Witch blinked uncomprehendingly. “What?”
“Come in, please.” Mina smiled at the Witch and swept her hand into the house.
“This is very unusual,” the Winter Witch said as she took one hesitating step forward.
“We have a problem, and I think only you can solve it.” Mina’s mind worked feverishly. After seeing the Witch snatch Matt away, she knew Marcus would suffer the same fate. There had to be another way to deal with her. There had to.
The Winter Witch stepped forward, crossing the threshold of the house. Her footsteps burned the wood with her cold, scarring it forever. “Is there something you need frozen?” Her voice was different, softer. She was off balance and looking around like she hadn’t been inside a home in a hundred years.
Mina watched as the Witch’s eyes took in the living room, staring at the TV uncomprehendingly, blinking at the electric lights overhead. And all the while, her gaze kept darting back to the wolfboys, who stood as far from her as they could while still being in the same room. The Witch ignored Marcus entirely. She really wasn’t afraid of the Alpha at all.
“Please come to the kitchen,” Mina said, walking ahead of the Witch but keeping her body half-turned towards her, in case the Witch attacked or halted.
“Very well, but I should warn you that if you attempt to push me into an oven, it will not go well for you. Others have tried such a ruse many years ago and found that no flame can match my frost.”
“I am going to say this once, and I hope you can hear the truth in my voice: I mean you no harm and bear you no ill will,” Mina said calmly, fixing her gaze on the Witch’s black, unblinking eyes.
“But I took your mate.”
“And if you remind me of that again, I will totally bear you ill will. All of the illest will. But right now, in this moment, you are a guest in this home and it is Christmas. Everyone deserves a chance on Christmas. Everyone deserves a hot meal served by kind people and a cozy home for the evening.” Mina pulled out a chair in the kitchen nook and guided the Witch to it without touching her. Just being near the weird woman made Mina’s skin ache and bones creek.
From across the kitchen, Allison stared at Mina wide-eyed. Marcus leaned against the refrigerator again, clenching his jaw in fury. The wolfboys all clustered behind the Alpha, watching silently.
Once the Witch was seated, and frost had spread over back of her chair, down to the floor, and across the table, Mina nodded and sat across from the Witch.
“This is our problem. Every year, this family has a cooking competition. Matt and Michael both try to outdo each other.”
“Matt and Michael,” the Winter Witch said. “The bear-hearts. I know them. I took their warmth and saw this contest in their thoughts.”
Mina closed her eyes and hoped—prayed—that taking warmth wasn’t fatal for a shifter. She took a steadying breath and continued. “Everyone left in this house lacks the impartiality to judge the food. I was relying on Sebastian and Sheriff Pete and maybe my mother or Allison’s sister, Chloe, to judge the food. With Marcus as tie-breaker, as is traditional. But you took all of them. We have the wolfboys left,—“.
“We have names, y’know,” one of the wolfboys interjected, but Mina could never keep them straight.
“But they work for Allison at her roadhouse, so they can’t be judges.”
The Witch blinked at Mina. Had she understood anything Mina said?
“You desire that I judge your food?” The Witch cocked her head to the side. “Is that the truth of it?”
“Yes. Exactly. We need you to taste my food and Allison’s food—without knowing who made what—and then to tell us which is best.”
“
What happens to the loser?”
“The losing team has to run to the lake and back, naked.” Allison added, warming to Mina’s approach.
“It is very cold out. That is a terrible punishment,” the Witch said. “This contest intrigues me, but it is quite impossible. All food becomes ice at my touch. I cannot eat or drink or,” her eyes flicked to the wolfboys, “kiss without freezing the object of my attention solid as stone.”
“Right, yes, but what if you had enough warmth?” Mina said, following a hunch.
The Winter Witch started, as if poked with a fork. “Yes, with enough warmth, freely given, I could keep the curse at bay for a time. Not long, though.”
“Long enough to eat some biscuits and roast venison and pie?” Mina grinned at the Witch.
The Witch thought it over, her oddly beautiful face frowning with the effort. “Yes. Long enough for that.”
“Then go out to the dining room table, and Allison and I will bring out some food while Marcus and the wolfboys give you their heat.”
Chapter 9
The wolfboys clustered around the Winter Witch where she sat. They kneeled on the floor and sat on the chairs on either side of her. Marcus loomed behind her, flexing his hands as if at any second he might choke the life from her. Or try to, at least.
Mina and Allison gathered what food was ready and plated it artfully, serving up tiny portions of everything.
“This is like the time the San Francisco Chronicle food critic showed up at The Growler,” Allison said. “Except less scary.”
Mina laughed despite herself. “I never had a critic come to my old brunch place in the city. We were too small potatoes.”
“Well, it’s just like this, but the critics are icier.”
“Real cool customers?”
“Butter wouldn’t melt in their mouths,” Allison said, then started shaking as sobs wracked her body. “What are we going to do, Mina? That creature took our mates. What if we never see them again?”
“We will,” Mina said, wrapping Allison in a hug.
“How do you know?”
“Because we’re fated mates,” Mina said with a bright smile. “Because she hasn’t had food in hundreds of years. And because she can’t stop ogling the wolfboys.”
Allison laughed through her tears. “Right? She’s totally eye-banging them all!”
“This will work,” Mina said. “It has to.” Then she took a deep breath, gathered up the plates of food and swept into the dining room.
“Here’s my plan. On the count of three, all of you are going to lay hands on the Winter Witch here and lend her your warmth. Then, she can eat our food and judge the contest and we can see who is better at Christmas food, Team Matt or Team Michael.”
Marcus growled. The thought of touching the Witch in a non-strangling way was off-putting to him.
Get mad, Mina thought. Get furious, Marcus. Share your pissed-off heat with her.
“What are these foodstuffs?” The Witch asked, peering at the plates.
“When was the last time you ate a home-cooked meal, girl?” Allison asked.
“What year is it?” the Winter Witch asked.
“It’s 2015,” Mina said gently.
The Witch wobbled in her chair. “So long. How could it be so long? Where have the years gone? It’s been over two hundred years since I last ate food. But I cannot remember my last meal.”
“You’ll remember this one,” Allison said. “But how about you try the food before we name it? You’ll get a cleaner impression then.”
“Very well,” the Witch composed herself and lifted her chin haughtily. “I am ready to judge your contest.”
Mina glanced at Marcus and the wolves. They were ready. “On three, boys. One. Two. Three!”
All of the shifters in the room touched the Witch at once. The wolves seated next to her grabbed her thighs. The ones kneeling on the floor seized her ankles and calves. Marcus lay two big hands on her neck, but somehow resisted squeezing.
“Oh!” the Witch chirped. “Oh my!” Whether it was because she had already stolen warmth from so many that night or because Marcus was just that pissed off, the combined warmth of the shifters was enough to drive back the Witch’s frost.
The ice on her chair melted and dripped to the floor. The frost in her hair steamed away, revealing her true cinnamon-colored hair. And as Mina watched, the color pulsed back into the Witch’s body. With every beat of her heart, her skin deepened and darkened. The black of her eyes drained away, leaving behind a soulful brown. In the space of ten breaths, the Winter in the Witch was gone, and in her place sat a curvy young woman who looked Native American.
The Witch smiled warmly, her eyes crinkling with pleasure at Mina. “It’s been so long since I felt this. Thank you. Thank you from the depths of my being.” The Witch stretched her hands high, like she’d forgotten what a body felt like, and then, suddenly realizing that six gorgeous shifter men were groping her legs, looked down in alarm.
“I don’t know how long this will last, so please have a bite.” Mina nudged the plate closer and the Witch took notice of it, then fell upon the food like a girl who hadn’t eaten since before California was a state.
She popped a warm pumpkin roll into her mouth. “This is amazing,” she said as she chewed.
She slurped creamy butternut squash soup from a steaming mug. “This is even better.”
She scooped sweet potato pie from her plate with two fingers and licked it hesitantly, then stuffed her whole hand into her mouth, moaning and gasping as she licked every trace of the dessert from her skin.
“What is this amazing food?”
“Pie,” Mina said.
“Sugar,” Allison added with a wry smile.
The Witch ate every crumb off the plates, and then asked for more of everything except the deep-fried okra. No one but Mina’s mother liked deep-fried okra.
When she had devoured seconds and thirds and fourths of some dishes, the Witch was finally sated. Her belly strained at the tattered dress. She slumped in her chair and let out a very un-witch-like belch.
“So which is it, Witch? What was the best dish?” Allison leaned forward, arms on the table, eager for a verdict.
“It all was so good. Would it not be a shame to reduce this to a contest?”
“It’s not being reduced,” Mina said. “This meal was built on a contest.”
The Witch nodded. Some of the wolfboys were shivering, their teeth chattering loudly. Even Marcus looked paler than usual. “Very well. Then I judge this maple sweet potato pie with the freshly whipped cream to be the single most enjoyable dish of the evening.”
“Yes!” Allison yelled. “In your face!” She performed a victory dance around the room, shaking her booty in joyous celebration.
The Witch grinned in exuberant joy, then a shadow fell over her face.
“How did you become this way?” Mina asked. “If you don’t want to talk about it, I understand. But you just seem so sad.”
“It’s an old story. It was the depths of winter, but my family had set aside plenty of food. We were warm and safe in our home and happy together. I had a father and a mother and three younger brothers. But one night an old woman came to our door. She trembled with the cold. Her earlobes and nose were blackened with frost’s bite. She begged warmth. She begged food. My parents did not see her. It was me. Only me. I thought I was being prudent in turning her away. She looked like she might pass at any moment. What a waste of food it would be to care for her, I thought. I was a selfish girl and thought our riches made us better than others. But the woman was not as she appeared. She was a goddess, a protector of travelers. And I had failed her test.” The Witch dragged her nails across Marcus’s dining room table, gouging it as if it were soft butter. “For my transgressions she lay this curse upon me. I became a thing of winter and hunger and cold. All would fear me. None would love me. And no one would welcome me to their home.” For a moment the Witch sneered and her skin was white and shone wi
th ice crystals, but then her expression softened and the Witch-face faded.
“But we invited you in,” Mina said.
“And we fed you,” Allison added.
“And you can feel our touch,” one of the thigh-grabbing wolves said, his hand sliding higher still.
“You did. And though it may drive me mad with hunger, I shall repay your kindness with one of my own.” The Witch closed her eyes and nodded quickly three times.
Suddenly, Matt and Michael were standing in the dining room, both naked and steaming. Behind them Chloe, Sebastian, and Mrs. Brooks appeared, followed by the missing wolves. Finally, Sheriff Pete appeared, blinking in the light and swearing between shivers.
“All are returned. My larder is empty. None die tonight in Bearfield. And though I shall weep and scream as the hunger takes me, you have shown me a kindness I never thought I’d see again. And I thank you for it.” The Witch bowed her head to Mina.
But Mina wasn’t paying her any attention. She was too busy crying tears of joy and planting a thousand kisses on Matt’s lips.
Chapter 10
The Winter Witch
The Winter Witch didn’t know what to make of the night. Her plans had begun so strong, but had tipped and smashed when confronted with these women—these marvelous, generous women.
What would the night have been like had they not invited her in? The Witch would have killed the mortals and taken the shifters back to her lair. She would have crowed triumphantly at another town destroyed by her hand, but in the morning she would have felt hollow and ashamed of the extremes her hunger had led her to.
Her belly was full of the most marvelous food. Did everyone know about pie? Did everyone know of coconut sweet potatoes and honey-roasted venison and fluffy biscuits that tasted so good your eyes squeezed shut in delight? For a moment the darkness of the curse welled up. She’d been denied all pleasures of the flesh for centuries and now, for one night, she tasted what she could not have. Tomorrow, would she be angrier? More vengeful? Was the meal a treat or a torment?
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