Tales of the Winter Wolf, Vol. 1

by R. J. Blain

  I meant to eat at the counter, but David pointed at one of the empty chairs. Swallowing, I obeyed, spinning my fork in the pasta.

  The Fenerec watched me until I swallowed a mouthful. The numbing side effects of the sleeping pills kicked in fast—far faster than they did when I took them at night. I fought the urge to yawn.

  Hungry Fenerec ate a lot and ate fast. I stared at them, my mouth hanging open as I watched them. They only paused to gulp down water and breaths of air while inhaling their food. The meatballs, which had taken me an hour to make, were gone in less than five minutes.

  As the minutes stretched by and lethargy settled over me, I worried that the drugs wouldn’t work on Fenerec. The sharp edge of my fear kept me awake.

  David yawned first, pushing back from the table to stretch his arms over his head. The other Fenerec joined him. “That was good. Let’s go watch a movie,” he said, staggering to his feet.

  Sleepy affirmations answered him. I stood, forcing a smile. “I’ll just clean up in here and finish my studying, if you don’t mind.”

  “Whatever,” David mumbled.

  Moving helped keep me awake. I dumped the leftovers into the trash along with the empty pill bottle. The pots, pans, and dishes went into the dishwasher, which I started. I packed up my briefcase, waited for five minutes, and poked my head into the main room.

  The Fenerec were sprawled on the couch, snoring. For a brief moment, I was tempted to pull out my silver knife and slit their throats. Stooping to their level wouldn’t help me. And anyway, if I had overestimated a Fenerec’s resistance to drugs, I had dosed the meatballs with enough to kill them several times over.

  I’d already done enough damage.

  It was risky, but I crept to David. I let out a relieved sigh. He’d left my cell on the armrest of the couch. Grabbing it, I stuffed it in my pocket and headed for the door, snatching up van’s keys as I went. I cracked open the door. Snow swirled into the lodge, blowing around my feet. The chill revived me enough to brave the outdoors, careful to lock the lodge behind me. My hands shook as I fought with the keys.

  The engine protested the cold, stuttering out my first few tries to start it. Finally, it rumbled to life. I drew a deep breath to steady my nerves, put the van in reverse, and backed it away from the lodge. With so much snow falling, all I had to guide me was the flat patches of white I hoped hid the road.

  Until I managed to put some distance between me and the sleeping Fenerec, I didn’t dare stop and hole up, even if it meant I risked driving the van off the road.

  My vision blurred, but I kept driving. I gripped the steering wheel so hard my knuckles were whiter than the snow illuminated by the van’s headlights. My tactic of driving where the snow was flat and smooth worked—for the most part. I had no idea where the road was going or which direction I was headed, but I didn’t care.

  All I needed to do was get away. Once I was safe, I could call my father and mother for a ride.

  When the road intersected a larger one, one with a guardrail, I was so relieved my eyes watered and burned. I put the van into park, drawing slow and deep breaths until I smothered my urge to break out into tears. No matter which way I went, a road large enough to warrant a guardrail would take me somewhere. All I needed to do was keep driving without running off the road or crashing into something.

  It would have been a lot smarter to hole up somewhere and sleep off my medication instead of fighting it. My head nodded, and I had to dig my nails into the fleshy bit of my thumb to remain awake. I was going to have to stop; I couldn’t continue to drive while drugged for much longer.

  My fear of the Fenerec changing into wolves and following me spurred me into putting the van in gear. Since it didn’t matter which way I went, I turned left. With luck, the wind and snow would erase my tracks.

  After a harrowing series of hairpin turns that twisted up over the mountains, the road joined with I-90. It was a little after midnight, and in a numb daze, I headed eastbound.

  The van rolled down a hill and crunched to a halt. I couldn’t tell what I had banged my head against, but it hurt. To add insult to injury, my nose was bleeding, I’d smashed the van’s headlights out, and the engine sputtered before dying.

  The clock, which by some miracle still worked, informed me it was six in the morning. It was still snowing, but the sky lightened with the first hint of dawn. The windshield was smashed, letting in frigid air.

  “Stupid, stupid, stupid,” I mumbled, reaching for the seatbelt buckle. It took me several tries to unlatch it. The door creaked its protest as I forced it open. The cold air and the falling snow woke me up a little, though they didn’t do anything for the stabbing pain in my head.

  It took my eyes time to adjust to the darkness. When I could make out my surroundings, I realized the road was at least twenty feet above me. I leaned against the van, staring at the skid marks where I’d gone over the ledge, cringing at where the van had flipped before coming to a stop. It was a miracle that it had landed on its tires instead of on its side or the roof. I couldn’t have been driving fast when the van went over, or I would have ended up farther down the slope. As it was, trees obscured my view of the road above.

  The idea of my having escaped four Fenerec only to crash the van made a giggle bubble out of me. I had no idea where I was, but I had somehow managed to drive for at least five hours before wrecking. I was still laughing when my cell rang. Startled, I reached into my pocket, drawing a blank on how it had gotten there.

  I didn’t recognize the number. With shaking hands, I swiped my finger across the screen.

  “I came alone as you ordered, but you’re not here,” Richard snarled in my ear. “If you’ve hurt her…”

  The threat in the Alpha’s voice should have worried me, but under the influence of my sleeping pills, I couldn’t quite bring myself to care if he was pissed or not. Another giggle worked its way out of me. “No,” I blurted. “Not hurt. Much.”

  I was slurring like a drunk, which only made me laugh harder.

  “Miss Desmond, are you drunk?” Richard asked, his tone incredulous.

  It took me a moment to remember the name of my sleeping pills. “To…Ah—no, that’s not right. Tra—Trad—Traz—Trazodone.”

  “Trazodone?”

  I slid into the snow, wondering if I needed to be alarmed that the cold wasn’t bothering my bare legs. My skirt wasn’t doing a whole lot to protect me from the weather. “Trazodone.”

  “What exactly is Trazodone?”

  “Sleep.”

  “Miss Desmond, you aren’t making any sense.”

  I huffed and hung up on him before I realized it was a mistake. “Oops,” I slurred, banging the back of my head against the van. It hurt. My phone rang after a few minutes, and it took me several tries to answer it. “Hi.”

  “How much did you have?” Richard demanded, his tone sharp.

  Pride at my stunt and my survival thus far leaked into my voice. “Bottle.”

  “You ate the whole bottle?”

  I snorted. “No, you stupid fuzzy-faced baboon. They did. Just a little. Fine.”

  There was a pause on the other end of the line. “They? You fed the Fenerec your sleeping pills?”

  Giggling at the reminder of having outsmarted them, I murmured something I hoped he took as an affirmative.

  “How much did you have?”

  “Dunno. Had some dinner too. They were watching.”

  Richard sighed. “Are they nearby?”

  “No.”

  “Okay, good. Where are you?”

  “Dunno.”

  “That’s not helpful, Miss Desmond.”

  “Sorry.”

  “It’s fine. Describe where you’re at.”

  “Hard,” I confessed.

  “Why is it hard?”

  I shivered, biting my lip as I turned my head to take in the wreckage. Once my father found out I’d crashed a van that wasn’t mine, he was going to kill me. “Sorry.”

  “D
on’t be sorry; tell me why you can’t describe where you’re at,” he snapped.

  Tears blurred my vision and I hiccuped. “I crashed the van.”

  Richard was silent for a long moment. “You crashed a van.”

  “Uh huh.”

  “Are you still in the mountains?”

  “I think so.”

  “Can you see the road?”

  “Sort of.”

  Either Richard had the patience of a saint or he had muted his phone to curse, because his voice was calm and collected when he asked, “How far are you from the road?”

  “Twenty feet, maybe. It’s above. Twenty feet above.”

  “Okay. Do you remember which roads you took?”

  “No.” I paused. “Yes.”

  Richard sighed. “Which roads, Miss Desmond?”

  I scrunched my nose as I thought about it. Fragmented bits of memory taunted me. “I-90 east to…”

  “To where?”

  “Lester?” I frowned. “I think there was a sign for Lester.”

  “Just sit tight, Miss Desmond. There’s only one road to Lester, and it’s not far from here,” Richard said before hanging up on me. I glared at my phone. In my frustration, I threw it down into the snow, forcing me to dig around to find the damned thing again.

  Why did every last Fenerec I meet have to boss me around? I spat curses until my teeth chattered too much for me to say anything at all.

  I wasn’t good at following directions.

  Sitting tight wouldn’t keep me warm, and with the van’s windows busted, staying with the vehicle wouldn’t do me any good. I found a jacket in the back that was too big for me. It came down to my knees. Moving helped, but the cold settled into my bones until it hurt to walk.

  The bank leading up to the road proved problematic. While there were trees, the trunks were too big for me to get a good hold on them. The underbrush crumbled under my weight, sending me rolling back down the slope to the wrecked van.

  After thirty minutes, I was fairly certain my memory had failed me and I had either hallucinated seeing a sign for Lester, though it was possible I had seen it and kept on driving. I lost track of how many attempts it took me to reach the top, but when I did, I was gasping for breath.

  The only sign of my crash was a gap in the guardrail. The road twisted around cliffs, so narrow two cars would have trouble passing each other. I sat on one of the wooden posts, rubbing my hands together to warm them. I pulled out my phone, wrinkling my nose at the low-battery indicator.

  If I tried to make a call, I doubted it’d survive long enough for any sort of conversation. With sunrise, the temperature went up and it stopped snowing, leaving me to wait in a slushy mess.

  Whatever road I was on, it was in the middle of nowhere. When I heard the purr of an engine, I thought I was hallucinating. I squinted at the pink Porsche, not certain if it was real. Richard stepped out of the car, circling around the front to crouch in front of me.

  “Well, you did find a sign for Lester,” he announced, pointing down the road. “You would’ve made the airfield if you had gone for ten more minutes. Where’s the van?”

  I pointed down the hill at the wreckage. Taking off his jacket, he draped it over my shoulders before peering down into the ravine.

  “Are you aware you have a cut on your forehead and you have blood all over your chin?” Richard asked, turning to me.

  When I didn’t say anything, he sighed. “Did you leave anything in the van?”

  I shook my head. In my rush to make my escape, I had left my briefcase with the Fenerec.

  “Then there’s no reason for us to hang around here,” Richard announced. He opened the passenger side door. I judged the distance wearily, wondering where I was going to find the will to get up and take the three or four steps to the Porsche. Before I could protest, Richard slipped his arms under my back and knees, picking me up as though I weighed nothing.

  I did manage to belt in without his help. Richard hesitated before he closed the door and circled around the car, watching me as he pulled a phone from his pocket. He dialed and put the cell to his ear. The low rumble of his voice conspired with the lingering effects of my medication to lull me to sleep.

  I slept all the way back to Seattle. Richard detoured to a cafe to ply me with coffee. Rubbing at my bleary eyes, I blinked at the dark leather interior of his Porsche. It took me several minutes to remember how I had gotten into Richard’s car.

  “I was going to take you to the hospital, but your mother thought it would be wise to bring you home first,” he said, driving his car along the tree-lined streets leading to my father’s house. “Apparently, she called your doctor in California to find out how much it’d take to overdose on your pills and what the symptoms were. You’ll probably be fine, seeing as you were conscious and reasonably coherent.”

  I sipped at my coffee, making a noncommittal noise. It tasted terrible. Richard was blasting the heat, and it was doing a good job of keeping me more than half asleep. After a moment of thought, I sacrificed what little I had left of my pride and muttered, “Thanks.”

  He chuckled. “For what? You did the hard work, Miss Desmond.”

  “Only dated, uptight assholes call me that,” I said, looking out the window. “Nicolina. I’ll warn you now, if you call me Nicky, I will leave scorpions in your shoes.”

  “I’ll keep that in mind. If we’re on a first-name basis, then it’s only fair if you call me Richard.”

  “And what nicknames do overbearing Alpha Fenerec dislike being called?”

  “Anything other than Richard,” he replied, arching a brow at me.

  “So Dicky is out?”

  “How about I start calling you Princess Cupcake,” he countered.

  I shuddered. “Moron.”

  “Smartass.”

  Snorting, I shook my head. “Lilac.”

  “Lilac? What the hell sort of nickname is Lilac?”

  “As if Princess Cupcake is any better.”

  “And what makes you think Lilac suits me?”

  “Let me count the ways.” I snickered, pointing at the dashboard of his Porsche. “Here’s two to start: your car and your tie.”

  “You’re such a bitch.”

  While I was aware that being called a bitch by a Fenerec was a compliment, I bristled. “Yeah, well, don’t let my sister catch you flirting. She’s the one who wants to be the trophy wife of a testosterone-poisoned man.”

  “You’re pretty stupid for a Stanford student,” he murmured. Several blocks from the house, he pulled over, grinning smugly at me.

  “Did they even have universities when you were growing up or were you a direct import from the Stone Age?”

  “I’m not that old,” Richard muttered.

  “Father really must be scraping at the bottom of the barrel if he’s resorting to introducing us to antiques.”

  Snorting, Richard reached over and poked me in the arm. “Actually, I came to do some business with Mr. Desmond, although I will admit I do have a younger brother. He’s as Normal as it gets, twenty-one, and not interested in any of the pack’s bitches.”

  “If he’s the eligible bachelor, then why isn’t he here?”

  “Exams,” Richard replied while smirking at me.

  The reminder of the exams I couldn’t study for both irritated and depressed me. In my effort to hide the fact his comment had gotten under my skin, I snapped my fingers and pointed at Richard. “Ah-ha! I’ve figured it out. You’re already married. That’s why you have a pink car and wear pink ties. You’re whipped.”

  Shaking his head and putting his car back into gear, he headed towards the house. “Fortunately for you, I’m an eligible bachelor as well.”

  “Fortunately?” I narrowed my eyes at him.

  When he smiled, I scowled, considering which insults in my arsenal to use on him.

  “Perhaps unfortunately for you is a better way to put it. Maybe I like women with backbone.”

  “Were you complimenting m
y spine or my ass?” I demanded, cracking my knuckles one by one.

  “What if I answered both?”

  “Pervert. Need I remind you that I’m underage?”

  “However will I survive? And you won’t be—not forever.” He wagged his eyebrows at me.

  In the five minutes it took Richard to reach the house, I had exhausted my supply of curses, leaving me to scramble for more insults. He parked the car, cocking his head at me. “You like me.”

  I spluttered. “What do you mean by that?”

  “If you didn’t, why would you spend so much effort on your insults? And here I thought you were among the rare women on Earth uninterested in anyone—at least, that’s the case if Mr. Desmond is to be believed. Interesting.”

  “Well, don’t you have quite the ego, Mr. Murphy.”

  He smirked, parking the car. Leaning towards me, he whispered in my ear, “Just be glad I’m not a traditional antique, or I’d be within my rights to ask for a reward for your rescue, Princess Cupcake.”

  I flushed at the feel of his breath on my neck. “You’ll regret that.”

  He pulled away, grinning at me. “I look forward to seeing how a young lady such as yourself might make me regret anything.”

  “I’ll find a way,” I swore. “And maybe I’m not eligible. That’d put a kink in your tail, now wouldn’t it?”

  “The college boys that don’t go running when they realize you’re not even sixteen yet are probably scared off by the fact you’re younger and smarter than they are. You’re single.”

  The truth stung, and in my determination to hold my own, I blurted, “So what’s wrong with you, then? You’re good looking and rich. You probably have women throwing themselves all over you. Why aren’t you taken?” Unbuckling my seatbelt, I reached for the door, pausing to stick my tongue out at him. “It’s obviously because of your charming personality.”

  After living all of my life with Fenerec parents, I knew how fast they could move, yet it still took me by surprise when Richard managed to get out and circle to my side of the car before my feet touched the ground. Like he had on the road, he picked me up.