by Kat Keppeler
Winds of Change
Wolves of Winter Book Two
Kat Keppeler
Guinevere Eveland
Copyright © 2019 by Kat Keppeler and Guinevere Eveland
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
Created with Vellum
Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
About the Authors
Additional Books
Chapter One
Skye had never been a morning person. Bartending had been a natural fit for her nocturnal hours and while two of her mates seemed to share her opinions on mornings, Rory was still working at the sheriff’s station despite his ongoing insistence that the pack needed to relocate. His work at the sheriff's department meant that most mornings he was up before dawn. Often, he slipped out of bed, leaving Skye tangled in the arms of Chance and Lee but lately she’d taken to dragging her ass out of bed instead to keep him company in the kitchen as he put together his coffee and breakfast.
It was a nice chance to connect, just the two of them, before the rest of the pack stirred.
A month ago, Skye had rescued and inadvertently claimed fifteen wolf shifters - creatures like the two of them - who had been held in a madwoman’s basement. They were adjusting to the rescue and their new pack but many of them, understandably, had lingering fear and trauma from those long months.
Skye had rescued them, claimed them, and because of that bond, she often found herself with agitated semi-functional pack mates who needed a bit of extra hand holding. If it hadn’t been for Finn, a massive alpha wolf who had also been trapped by the mad she-wolf, Skye would have been run ragged. Finn, though, had kept the wolves in the basement together and sane for months before their rescue. The pack trusted Finn and he made even their most nervous omega pack mates feel safe and secure. In general, Finn was a huge asset to the pack and to Skye, specifically.
The fact that Skye felt the same nascent bond to Finn as she had when she met her mates, that was a problem. It was a problem that Skye had kept to herself, for the moment. Skye kept waiting for it to fade and die but it was only growing stronger much to her dismay. She didn’t even know how to go about broaching the subject with her mates as they’d been a bonded unit before her arrival had turned their lives upside down. Skye had grown up human and many of the nuances of life as a wolf shifter often escaped her.
It was complicated enough to give Skye a headache.
Skye stepped forward, wrapping her arms around Rory’s waist from behind and pushing any troubled thoughts away. Rory was easy to turn to. Rory was the pack’s alpha and a natural leader. Skye adored him. He was tall and broad, with the sort of rugged handsome looks that really made Skye want to coax him into a pair of tight jeans and a cowboy hat. At the moment, though, he was in his uniform for the sheriff’s station which was almost as good.
Skye nuzzled into his back, breathing in the clean scent that defined her mate. She’d know it anywhere. It was hard to believe that it had only been a few months. Skye couldn’t imagine her life without Rory now. He was like a piece of what she’d been missing her entire life, much like her wolf. Rory centered and grounded her, his solid frame a bulwark against the chaos of the world she’d found herself in.
Unlike everyone else in her pack, Skye had grown up knowing nothing of the supernatural world. Her parents had bound her wolf with magic to hide her, to save her from the slaughter of the rest of her kind. She’d grown up with loving adoptive parents who knew nothing of the supernatural or anything of its kind.
Skye still hadn’t figured out how she was going to deal with that either. She had a little time but one of these days she wasn’t going to be able to put off her mother’s suggestions for a visit. Skye had managed to deflect with the winter weather in Belcrest Montana but they would have to cross that bridge when they came to it.
“Do you have to go?” Skye asked from where she cuddled into Rory’s back, her voice quiet so as to not rouse any of the shifters with their sensitive hearing. She nuzzled along his spine, her fingers resting on his belt. “It’s snowing and cold, and you could come back to bed instead…”
Rory smiled into his coffee at his mate’s restless movements, turning in her grasp so that he could stare down into her lovely face. His soft brown eyes met hers, his hands moving to her rump to pull her closer.
“Tempting. So tempting,” murmured Rory softly, before he tipped her chin up to steal a kiss from her soft lips. Skye was milliseconds from getting her way, he could smell her arousal and need on the air. His hand went to her robe to undo the knot, those long fingers of his were aching to touch her soft flesh when there was a cough from the door.
Rory raised his head from Skye to see Finn standing there in a sweat suit, his long hair flowing around his shoulders in soft brown waves.
“Excuse me. I didn’t mean to interrupt, is the coffee fresh?” Finn’s full lips crooked into an amused smirk as he watched the two lovers wound in an obvious embrace.
Rory was far from amused, that was apparent from the frown he directed at Finn. Interruption was a thing of normalcy in this house, and normally Rory didn’t mind the occasional interruption, but Finn was deliberately exacerbating the situation with the way he was propped against the door frame, his arms crossed and a sly smile on his face. Rory sighed, looking down at Skye’s face and kissing the tip of her nose.
“I really shouldn’t miss work. Right now there’s only two of us, we still haven’t elected a sheriff or hired another deputy.” Rory pulled away, leaving Skye’s robe still gaped open from his tugging. The white terry cloth parted enough to reveal the swell of her full breasts. Rory glanced over her pale flesh with mingled longing and appreciation. He reached out to gently run his fingertip along the soft skin and watched the pulse leap in her throat in response.
“You’re a buzzkill, Finn.” Rory scowled as he walked past Skye then to the coat rack where he donned the uniform coat and hat. Turning to see Finn was looking over his shoulder with the same taunting smile, Rory’s frown deepened and he added curtly, “I’ll see you both later.”
“Goodbye, lover boy.” The older male drawled his reply which prompted a disgusted noise from Rory as he stepped out, shutting the door with a bang behind him. Finn turned back to Skye and let out a little laugh. “It’s so easy with him!”
Skye’s cheeks were flushed with arousal and embarrassment in equal measures. She’d have been less unsettled if her arousal hadn’t spiked even higher when Finn had stepped through the door to catch the mated pair in their embrace.
“What is?” Skye frowned and then realized her robe was still hanging open. She pulled her robe closed and went to fumble and retie the sash. It took her longer than it should have and eventually she yanked the fabric closed and cinched it tight.
�
��Are you trying to needle him for some reason?” Skye wanted to know as she fussed with her sash and then reached up to pull her pale blonde hair back from her face before she dutifully turned towards the coffee pot to pour two cups, “Do you take anything in it?”
“Take anything in it? Do you mean do I get anything out of it?” Finn snickered, deliberately misunderstanding, as he walked closer to get a cup. His gait had a slight limp to it. Despite having a prosthetic leg for nearly sixty years, it never got much easier. He slid onto the kitchen stool, getting the weight off the prosthesis. It was well past when he should have replaced it but he’d stubbornly held onto the leg. It ached something fierce though when he overdid it.
“Yes, I get lots out of it. He’s an alpha, I’m supposed to give him hell even if I follow him.” Finn smiled broadly at her.
They had been in the same house for about a month now and he had picked up on the subtle cues from Skye. Finn was older than her mates, older than any of the other pack members. He could catch the scent of arousal on the air and recognized it for what it was, Finn just didn’t know what he was going to do about it yet. Taking the cup as she handed it to him, he sipped it and stared up at Skye with gentle blue eyes.
“It’s a thing. I’m not going to challenge his dominance but he wouldn’t know I liked him if I didn’t give him a bit of attitude.” With both hands around his mug he changed the subject to other things. Now that Skye and Finn were alone, her arousal on the air, the silence that fell between them did nothing but increase that tension.
“So let’s talk about Lee’s basement idea.” Finn said, clearing his throat a little.
Skye folded her arms up over her breasts, turning to meet his gaze directly.
“Can you feel it?” Skye wanted to know instead of answering his question about whether or not they should put in a den and furnished basement for the overfilled house. “It… whatever it is. I had it with my mates before I even knew I was a wolf. I don’t feel it with anyone else in the pack but I can feel it with you. What is it?”
Skye took a few steps closer to Finn, not yet in his personal space but close enough that his scent filled her nose and she had to resist the urge to close the distance. “Or am I just nuts? Maybe my wolf is just nuts.”
Finn cleared his throat. So… Skye wanted to do this. He was quiet as he mulled over his coffee with Skye’s bright blue gaze boring into him. Was he ready for this talk? Was he ready for anything that might come with it? After about a minute of dead silence with the tension growing between them Finn slid from his seat.
“Oh, look at the time. It’s five thirty already?” He took one final sip of coffee. “Gotta get Micah up and get the meds going. You know how he gets when we let him sleep ‘til six. Get that risperdol in early and he’ll have a good day. We really need to talk about the basement!”
Finn started for the back rooms, turning his back on Skye as he limped quickly to the spare bedroom where his pack mates would need to be woken up for meds. Once the door shut behind him Finn let out a slow breath as if he had been running away from danger. His curse was very soft but also entirely heartfelt, “Fuck.”
Skye’s low growl rumbled through the kitchen, audible to Finn’s keen hearing and stirring Micah in the bed automatically as he jerked from sleep to wakefulness. Micah was barely more than a cub among the shifters, really. Though he was close in age to Skye, he was more on par with their typical maturity at that age. He was all gangly limbs with a crop of short cut ginger hair and wide worried eyes that blinked up at Finn.
“S’a threat?” Micah wanted to know as he shoved out of the knot of the youngest pack members where his pale limbs tangled with his litter mate’s, Caleb. His blue eyes darted to the door where, thankfully, Skye had her temper in hand but her tension filled the household and stirred the pack without Rory there to temper it. Skye had bound the lost wolves to her in a way that they didn’t entirely understand. It was of the old world; magic that ran in her family’s blood but there was no one left alive to explain to Skye what she could do so the pack just had to figure it out as they went.
Fortunately for all of them, the queen of their pack was compassionate and strong. If Skye hadn’t had the temperament that she did, they could have suffered a great deal.
“Nah, buddy, it’s fine. Time to get up though, chores and stuff. You start dishwashing at Pete’s today, three remember?” Finn moved toward Micah, grabbing a pill bottle from the night stand and fishing one out for the omega.
“Don’t stress, I think Skye just stubbed her toe.” Lying wasn’t exactly the best thing to do but Finn didn’t feel like he could explain to Micah that Skye was struggling with her own arousal and the frustration of him fleeing her questioning.
Chapter Two
The omegas were all up in short order, following Finn outside into the snowy morning. Chance had taken to teasing the big alpha saying he was a big, dirty hippie but the morning meditation groups had really helped some of them overcome the stressors of their dreams in preparation for the start of the day.
It was Lee who came out to see Skye still standing in the kitchen, a complaint rumbling from deep in his chest.
“Okay I get the kumbaya circle and all, but do they have to do the throat noises? I mean can’t it just be silent meditation? How does Chance sleep through all that?”
Skye had the island gripped and when Lee walked out, she buried herself in his arms, tucking her nose against his neck like he was the dominant wolf; her face hidden there. Distress rolled off of her in waves, chased by self loathing and agitation.
She shivered in his arms, hers tightly locked around his waist and her face hidden. Skye didn’t know how to go about talking to her more dominant mates. Chance and Rory adored her but they were problem solvers and carried the weight of trying to forge their new ramshackle pack into some sort of unified whole. Lee, however, Skye knew that he’d never push her away.
“Oh, Lee, I think there’s something wrong with me,” she admitted almost barely audible against his skin. “Or my wolf. Or both of us. I don’t know what to do.”
“There, there.” Lee said, his arms around Skye affectionately. Lee was the most sexual of her group of mates, he often instigated foreplay. Mostly he did it because he was an omega and had learned long ago the praise he sought could be earned through sex. Since Skye had come into the mix he had settled down a lot, she was demonstrative whether or not it was a sexual experience. She cuddled into Lee for comfort as much as pleasure. It was a strange transition for him, to be sure, but Lee found himself happier now that he had someone who looked at him more as a person. Not that Chance and Rory had seen him as anything else, but they were driven to protect the pack omega. Neither of them would ever think to lean on Lee but Skye couldn’t help doing just that, as she did right now; nuzzling into his arms.
“There’s nothing wrong with you; you’re doing great.” Lee replied as he kissed Skye’s head and stroked her blonde hair. “You’re the glue that’s holding us all together Skye. There is nothing you could do that was wrong… But, honey, where’s this coming from?”
Skye closed her eyes, focusing on the cool, clear scent of her mate wrapped around her and tried to let go of the guilt that swamped her.
“It’s Finn,” she said, her words tangled and she shook her head. This was why she turned to this mate to talk. If it had been Rory or Chance and she stood in their arms distress and agitation and named one of their pack mates as the source, there was a real risk they would turn immediately to try and deal with the problem. Lee, though, he always listened.
“I was hoping it would get better but it's only getting worse. My wolf wants him, like how I was drawn to the three of you - but I don’t need anyone else! I’m happy, I feel so content wrapped up in your arms together. I asked Finn if he felt it - and what it was - but he just walked away, so clearly I’m just nuts.” The words tumbled out of her and she hunched a little smaller in his arms, the scent of her embarrassment acute and sharp. “Do you
think my wolf was a little broken with how long she was bound by magic?”
Lee tsked as she spoke, shaking his head at her even if he smiled just a little. “Skye, it’s not abnormal for you to feel connection to a wolf even if they aren’t one of your mates. Finn just isn’t one to move quickly into anything. If you like him then you like him, but I think Finn is still in mourning for Drusilla.”
Skye’s brow creased in concern and she looked up at Lee with a question in her eyes. Lee sighed. Finn’s wife, a subject that Finn himself wouldn’t talk to Skye about yet. The wound was still too fresh it would seem. When Skye looked up at Lee he sighed, always the talker, and started explaining right away.
“Probably not my place to say, but it’s history so…” Lee let Skye go and moved for the kettle to start making a cup of tea. “You know that we were exiled some sixty years ago, abouts, and Rory challenged Aiden. It had always been in the works, we were trying to figure out a way. The plan was to turn half the pack into supporters and then if we needed them we had the full support if the fight turned into a brawl.”
He switched the front burner on and began rummaging around in the cabinets. The sweatpants he wore were ridiculous, pink with rhinestones on the rump that spelled out JUICY. Clearly he had rummaged them from Skye’s drawer, they fit even if they were snug. He found the box of citrus tea he had been looking for, snagging a pack of ginger tea as well and laid one bag of each into a coffee cup with a gold unicorn on the front.
