Wild Winter

by Amelia Wilson

  She stirred the soup, unable to stop thinking about the other man in the Jeep. With Kyle inside, he needed to be awake. Her grandfather and Hunter would surely be furious to hear he was sleeping on the job. She knew he had been there most of the night, but that was no excuse, a crazed werewolf was trying to kill her and her grandpa!

  She turned the burner off and went to the door, pulling on her shoes and a coat. She marched down the steps, ready to wake the man up and give him a piece of her mind, but as she came to a stop next to the Jeep, she could only stare in horror through the window.

  The man wasn’t asleep, he was dead, his throat ripped out, red blood had dried to a sticky brown paste down the front of his body. Sasha stepped back, and she screamed.

  Kyle!

  She turned and ran back to the house, not thinking about her own safety as she took the stairs two at a time and came skidding to a stop in her grandfather’s doorway. Kyle stood by the bed, his hand covered in blood. Her grandfather lay in bed, his throat gone, his lifeless eyes staring at the ceiling.

  “No!” Sasha screamed. Kyle turned, and as she watched, he began to change, growing yellow hair on his body, his wolf form ripping through his clothes.

  She turned and ran. Her feet barely touched the stairs as she moved down them, not daring to look back, knowing it would cost her a step or two, but hearing the wolf bound after her, slamming into the hall wall when it came speeding out of her grandfather’s room.

  Her grandfather. He was gone. She had seen him, bloodied, torn open, his eyes wide but unseeing. She couldn’t believe it. She reached the front door just in front of Kyle in his wolf form. She leaped down the porch stairs after wrenching the door open, hitting the snowy ground and slipping backward onto her butt. The fall saved her life, Kyle had jumped at her, jaws wide, and he went right over her head, hitting the ground roughly and rolling.

  Her car. It was close, she had to get there. No, she didn’t have the keys, they were inside on the small table next to her bed. She always kept her doors locked, like she had in Chicago, though her grandfather had made fun of her for it, telling her there was no reason to do such a thing in Tall Tree.

  His truck. It was close, just to Sasha’s left. His doors wouldn’t be locked. She was up and running, the decision lasting a split second in her mind. The wolf was up too, snapping at her heels. She got to the truck, sidestepped, and wrenched the door open, slamming the heavy metal side into Kyle’s wolf snout. He yelped and fell backward, and she dove in, reaching back and pulling the door shut.

  Her palm slammed the lock in the door down, and then she reached across and did the same to the passenger door. The truck lurched, and she looked through the windshield and saw the wolf had jumped onto the hood. Drool ran from its mouth, in stark contrast to the majestic beauty that Hunter had been that morning as he made love to her in his wolf form. Kyle was crazed, his eyes shining a sickly yellow.

  He jumped forward, slamming into the glass and Sasha screamed and pushed back, her head hitting something hard. She rubbed the back of her head, seeing stars, and when her vision cleared, and as the wolf kept howling and snapping its jaws at her through the glass, she turned to see what she had hit.

  Hanging across the back window of her grandfather’s truck was a shotgun. She had made a comment about it when she had first seen it, making a redneck joke that her grandfather had laughed at.

  “Thank you, grandpa,” she said as she turned fully and took the shotgun down, snapping it open to see if it was loaded.

  It was.

  She turned and pointed the gun through the windshield. The wolf’s eyes widened, and then to Sasha’ surprise,e Kyle changed back into a human, his hair and the teeth and claws gone in an instant. He was trying to make himself look less threatening.

  “Sorry?” he said, his voice going up at the end to make the statement a question. “Just following orders,” he added.

  Sasha didn’t say a word. She merely pumped the gun and then fired, blowing Kyle back and off the hood of the truck in a spray of red. Sitting in the truck for a moment, her breath laborious as she waited to see if the man would get up, she couldn’t see him down on the ground in front of the truck. Minutes passed, and she was alone.

  Slowly she got out of the truck and walked to the front, the gun with its last shell held out in front of her.

  Kyle was dead, that much was plain.

  She dropped the gun and then immediately thought better of it and snatched it back up. Sasha ran inside, up to her grandfather’s bedroom. There was a moment of confusion when she saw the bed was empty, and then she looked down and was shocked to see her grandfather there on the floor, having tied a shirt around the wound in his neck, and on his stomach crawling for the door.

  “Grandpa!” she said, rushing forward.

  “Help,” he said, the word a gargle. He had looked dead, and if Sasha was true to herself, he still did. She had no idea how he had managed to survive, but she knew she had to keep him alive.

  She left him there, running down to her room and then back up as she dialed the police. She spoke quickly with a 911 dispatcher, a conversation she wouldn’t be able to recall within minutes. When she was told help was on the way, she hung up and sat on the ground beside her grandfather, holding his head in her lap.

  The paramedics found her like that, and they wasted no time working on Connor enough to get him moved, and then getting him on a gurney and taking him outside.

  “Are you riding with him?” one of the men asked Sasha, and she nodded and got into the ambulance. As they drove, the siren blaring above her even though the roads were as empty as ever, she tried Hunter. He didn’t answer his cell.

  For the first time since all of the horror had begun, going back to the previous night when Kurt had attacked her, Sasha felt hot tears sting her eyes. She tried to hold them in, but she couldn’t, and as she rode along, they fell freely and quickly, sliding down her cheeks, leaving shining trails along her pale skin.

  Chapter Seven

  Hunter hadn’t taken his phone into Damien’s garage with him. Sasha called him again and again, but he was unaware. Instead, he sat in the cold garage around a small card table with three other men. Damien was there of course, and so were Blake and John. Blake was near enough in age to Hunter that they had grown up together, though they had never run in the same circles. Blake was a newer member of the pack, having been sired by his uncle, but Hunter knew he could trust him.

  John was a large black man with massive shoulders, and in wolf form, he was larger than any other member of the pack. He was fifty, his hair kept short and graying, and his eyes were a deep brown which shone with intelligence. Hunter was glad to have him on his side and glad he could trust him, as strong as he was he was even smarter, and they would need a strategist if they were going to bring Kurt down.

  “That little shit started a war,” John was saying, and the others nodded.

  “A civil war,” Damien said. “I don’t know of another pact which has had this happened, not on this scale, not with an attack on a human.”

  “There’s been infighting, but yes, this is unprecedented,” John agreed.

  “So, it sucks, and he sucks, and what the hell are we going to do about it?” Blake asked. He wore a baseball cap that he kept nervously touching the bill of, pulling it lower, then pushing it higher, and then starting all over again.

  “We have to kill him, I think we’re clear on that,” Hunter said, and everyone around the table nodded.

  “So we just kill him,” Blake said. “It’s messy, but we just do it.”

  “I think Hunter is worried about the split,” John said, looking for confirmation from the younger man, and getting it in the form of a nod.

  “What do you mean?”

  “It’s not secret that Kurt has friends, and they think like he does. They want us to take a more proactive role when it comes to dominance within the shifter community, and beyond. We merely coexist as it is now. Connor is no warlord, and we
should be thankful for it. Kurt and his ilk think otherwise,” Damien said.

  “You think he has people on his side?” Blake asked nervously.

  “I know he does,” Hunter said. “He wouldn’t do this if he didn’t.”

  “Hunter is right,” John agreed.

  “And so, this gets a hell of a lot more complicated than just find him and kill him,” Blake sighed.

  “Yes, it does,” Hunter agreed.

  “Okay, so what do we do?” Blake asked.

  “That’s why we’re sitting here. We have others who are loyal, but the four of us, we’re the brain trust. We’re going to figure this out, and we’re going to do it right,” Hunter told the others.

  “And when it’s done, you’ll be the leader,” John said. “I’m glad.”

  “Right, this is it. There’s no going back. It’s going to be a fight, but it’s one that was brought to us. What we do next is what I gathered you to figure out.”

  “We need a list of people we know are loyal to us. People that are in this with us, and who want Hunter to be the pack leader.”

  “Okay,” Damien said. He had a notebook in front of him, and he flipped it open and grabbed a pen. “Shoot,” he said.

  For the next half hour, they made a list of sixteen names. There were forty-two men (and women) in the Tall Tree pack. Those sixteen were people Hunter, and his cohorts knew they could count on. There were seven more that they were almost as confident about. That left more people than Hunter would have liked as unknowns. Some of them would be with Kurt. Some of them may even prefer to remain neutral so they could throw in with whoever won. That put a bad taste in Hunter’s mouth, but he found he wasn’t sure he could blame anyone for going that route.

  “So, what’s next?” Hunter asked, looking around the table.

  “We make some calls,” John said.

  Hunter stood and reached into his pocket, forgetting that he didn’t have his phone with him. He went inside then, and as soon as he saw that he had no less than ten missed calls, all from Sasha, he dialed her and held the phone to his ear.

  “Where have you been?” she asked, answering before the first ring had even stopped.

  “I’m sorry, are you okay?”

  “Grandpa is in the hospital.”

  “What happened?”

  “One of the guards, he killed the other, and he attacked grandpa. I don’t think they can save him.”

  Hunter closed his eyes and pinched the bridge of his nose between two strong fingers. “I’m coming there.”

  “Hunter, bring Damien, please,” Sasha said, and then she disconnected.

  Hunter rushed into the garage and told Damien what had happened. They asked John and Blake to make the calls and then rushed out of the garage.

  “Who the hell is Sasha?” Blake asked, and John shrugged.

  At first, the doctors were hesitant to let Damien into the room, but Hunter took one aside and spoke quietly with him, and then Damien was ushered in to see Connor.

  “What did you say to him?” Sasha asked as Hunter joined her in the small waiting room.

  “Us being shifter’s is sort of the worst kept secret in Tall Tree. Some people pretend not to know, but most people do. I just told him who your grandfather was and that Damien might help save him.”

  “I can’t believe we have to go through this again,” Sasha said, and with that, she cried once more as Hunter slipped his arms around her.

  Hunter didn’t leave Sasha’s side for hours. Calls came in for him, and he took them, sitting in with her in the waiting room. The doctor’s and Damien were in a tense battle for Connor’s life, but finally, once the sun had fallen, and had indeed been gone from the sky for the past few hours, Damien came out, his face pale, his eyes tired.

  “He’s stable,” he said, and Sasha jumped up from her seat and wrapped her arms around the man she hardly knew. He smiled and hugged her back and then passed her off to Hunter.

  “Can I see him?” she asked a doctor who had followed Damien into the waiting room.

  “Tomorrow,” the doctor said. “Let him rest.”

  “You could use some too,” Hunter said.

  “I won’t leave him,” Sasha said, shaking her head.

  “I’ll have people here,” Hunter said, and when he saw a dark look cross Sasha’s features her pulled her closer to him. “Better people. I promise. Come with me, you can sleep at my place,” he said.

  “I don’t want to leave him,” Sasha argued.

  “Come,” Hunter said, and finally the girl nodded, and they left the hospital.

  Chapter Eight

  Hunter and Sasha drove in silence, the moon silver and fat in the air, Sasha’s eyes upon it, something itching at the back of her mind, but her unable to quite put her finger on it. When she finally did, she was standing in Hunter’s bedroom, looking out of the window, still at the moon while he took a shower. She had just taken one, standing under the hot water, letting it run down her nude body, letting it wash away the grime of the day, allowing it to rejuvenate her.

  She felt some embarrassment as Hunter came out of the bathroom, a towel wrapped around his lower half. She was wearing his robe, blue and fluffy and long on her, the hem tickling the tops of her bare feet.

  “Can I ask you something dumb?” she said, turning as he pulled the covers of his bed back and let the towel drop, his penis long but un-erect, hanging down the inside of this thigh. Her eyes traveled along it with interest, but she was exhausted, and she found sex seemed far from her mind.

  “Of course,” Hunter said.

  “The moon is full,” she said.

  He laughed, understanding exactly what she meant.

  “We’re shifters, not werewolves,” he said. “We control it.”

  “Are there werewolves?” she asked.

  “I don’t know,” Hunter said truthfully.

  Sasha thought of course there were not werewolves, how could there be such a thing, that was like saying there were vampires or zombies.

  But then, she was standing just feet away from a man who could turn into a wolf at will. Was the idea of a werewolf, or Dracula, too crazy? She would have thought wolf shifters was crazy too, but here she was, with all that had happened that day.

  “Come to bed,” Hunter said softly, lowering himself onto his bed and under the blanket. Sasha untied the robe and let it fall to the ground, Hunter’s eyes shining softly in the moonlight as he took in her form. She found she had more of a sexual appetite with every step towards the bed, and instead of lying she took the covers and pulled them back, pleased to see Hunter’s manhood twitching and hardening at the sight of her naked breasts and form.

  She knelt on the bed and lowered her head over his member, parting her full soft lips and taking him into her wet mouth, her tongue swirling around his bulbous head.

  She worked him for some minutes, and then it was her turn, he took her by the shoulders and lay her back, shifting down the bed so he could bury his head between her legs his tongue lapping up along her, plunging inside of her.

  He brought her to climax, which she announced by gripping his hair tightly in both fists and arching her back so she pressed her pelvis against the bottom half of his face, screaming out as the orgasm rocked her body.

  He began climbing atop her when she was finished, laying back and panting, sweat making the sheet below her damp, but she pushed him away so that he lay on his back, and then she threw one leg over him, lowering herself onto him.

  She rode him, grinding her hips slowly against his. She rode him for what felt like an hour or more, until he could no longer take it, and he grabbed her by the hips, his hands having previously been on her breasts, and he pulled her down as he arched upwards, emptying everything he had inside her.

  After they lay down together, limbs entwined, and they slept deeply, their troubles momentarily forgotten.

  The morning sun brought those same troubles back, however, and they each showered again and then dressed, Sasha ch
oosing some clothing from a cardboard box Hunter brought in from the basement.

  “It’s my mother’s winter stuff. Hopefully, you can find something you like,” he had explained as he dropped the box onto the bed. “I told them I would take what they weren’t taking down to Florida with them, I guess I kept meaning to donate it or something, but it’s just been sitting downstairs.”

  “This is great, thank you,” Sasha said, choosing jeans and a long-sleeved shirt and dressing quickly. When they were ready, coffee in travel mugs and taken with them, they rode back to the hospital.

  This time the doctor let Sasha in to see her grandfather, and Hunter told her he would wait for her in the waiting room. So, she went in alone, and since she had expected the old man to be sleeping, she was surprised to see him awake.

  He was heavily bandaged, thick gauze wrapped carefully around his neck, but he seemed alert, and he smiled when he saw his granddaughter.

  “And you thought Tall Tree wasn’t going to be exciting,” he said, and it made Sasha laugh and cry at the same time. She went to her grandfather’s side, bending over the bed and hugging him gingerly. He reached up, which clearly caused him great pain, and hugged her back. When she pulled away, she was surprised to see tears in his own eyes.

  “I’m sorry I got you involved in this,” he said. “I never would have thought…” he trailed off then, looking up at his granddaughter.

  “It’s alright,” she said.

  “I should have told you, I should have told you what you would be getting yourself into,” the old man went on. “I should have told you what I was.”

  Sasha managed a small smile. “I can’t even wrap my head around it all. I keep waiting for it to really hit me, and then I’m worried I might have a stroke or something like my brain will just turn to jelly. My grandpa is a wolf-man.”

  Connor laughed, a reaction that seemed to cause him pain because he stopped suddenly and pressed is hand to his throat.