Winter Fae

by Debra Dunbar

  Her hands brushed through his coarse fur, feeling the powerful muscles beneath and something else—something very strange. There was something odd about this animal beyond the foul magic on the bullets. Of course, all the plants and creatures here seemed odd, but this dog was not the same as the other animals she’d met since she’d crossed the gateways from Hel. There was something about him that reminded her of the angels, a faint hint of a spirit being locked deep inside this flesh. Maybe he’d been given a gift by one of the heavenly beings. Or maybe canines were one of the animals that had caught notice of the angelic host and they were being assisted in their evolution. It’s not like she or her kind had bothered much with the angels.

  Angel-touched or not, Gwylla couldn’t leave him here at the base of her heart-tree, not still injured like this. She’d vowed to nurse him to health. She’d responded to his plea and now his life was her responsibility. Gathering him onto a sled formed from ice and snow, she pulled the dog to her home in the hill, then gently slid him onto a blanket and dismissed the ice sled back outside before it had a chance to melt. Then she warmed water and washed his wounds, putting a bowl of water by his nose.

  She needed to go out. The animal would heal on his own with rest, warmth, and care, but the men who did this must be near. She needed to safeguard her forest, to make sure the glamour and wards that surrounded her sanctuary were unbroken. It would be horrible if humans found her home—especially these humans. She knew where that foul magic had come from, and if the humans who were using it found her, he wouldn’t be far behind.

  The one she’d once trusted, that she’d once thought loved her. The one that she’d thought she loved. She wasn’t ready to face him yet. She might never be ready to face him. It was best for her to stay here in sanctuary alone, hidden from him.

  But she wasn’t alone. Gwylla looked down at the dog on the blanket and smiled. The Goddess had seen fit to send her a friend, and with the bond between them that had saved his life, neither of them would ever be alone.

  Chapter 3

  Dustin blinked one eye open, then the other, forcing the heavy lids to remain up long enough for the blurry gray of his vision to clear into sharp lines and bright colors. He wasn’t dead. He couldn’t be dead, because if he were, these sharp pains and throbbing aches in his chest and hip would be gone.

  Besides, he doubted if the afterlife consisted of a snug domicile that looked like it had been dug into the ground. He was no longer in the woods, no longer outside in a pool of blood next to a freakishly huge hawthorn tree. He was on the floor in human form, laying on top of a soft dove-gray blanket and naked as the day he was born.

  Of course he was naked. He’d been in wolf form, forced into a rapid shift by the magic of those horrible bullets. But why wasn’t he dead? And beyond that, how had he managed to change out of his wolf form? From what Brent and Leon had said, the magic kept a shifter in their animal form, and even when the bullet was removed, the magic tended to linger.

  Actually, the magic tended to kill, possibly turning the shifter rogue along the short journey. It was only a human surgeon’s quick wits and skill that had saved the Juneau Alpha and Dustin’s pack mate from death. The grizzlies hadn’t been so lucky.

  Dustin tried to move, but none of his body seemed to want to respond beyond his eyelids. And mouth. He licked dry lips, wincing at the pain that shot through his head at the motion.

  Where was he? There were no windows, no bits of glass, not even a doorway. And the dwelling was round, with a flattened, low roof, like one of those yurt tents he’d seen in a magazine once. There was a table with one chair, and a bedding arrangement that looked like a mattress on a platform piled high with colorful pillows and blankets.

  Hey. How come he got one lousy blanket on the floor while the bed remained empty? It didn’t seem very hospitable to rescue an injured werewolf and just leave him on the hard floor, although he probably shouldn’t be looking this particular gift horse in the mouth, given that he’d most likely been near death and no one wanted a werewolf bleeding out onto their mattress and good linens.

  Beyond the sparse furnishings, the room held little else. There were several glass washbasins, some bins that looked like the ones used to store potatoes and apples, an unlit fireplace with clay cooking pots and wooden utensils next to it. Lines of string were stretched like a spider’s web near the low ceiling, bundles of herbs clipped and hanging along their white lengths.

  Unlit fireplace? Dustin slowly turned his eyes and attention back to the cold hearth. Although cold wasn’t an accurate description if he were to guess by the temperature of the one-room house. July in central Alaska wasn’t like a summer day in Florida. There had been snow on the ground when he’d flown through here. At this altitude, outside it was most likely fifty degrees if it were daytime, slightly above freezing if it were night.

  But inside this little round earthen dwelling, it was warmer. Even without a fire, with only those odd sparkly lights like fireflies in glass that illuminated the room, it was close to seventy degrees.

  Which actually was a bit chilly given he was a naked man lying on top of his blankets.

  A door formed in the brown earthen wall, silver-blue around the edges. It opened and someone entered, light streaming in momentarily until it was shut once more. It was daytime, then, although probably not the same day he’d been shot given the state of repair his wounds were in. Brent and Leon had both said the magic on the bullets had hindered their ability to heal. Even with Kennedy’s skillful surgery, it had taken them weeks to fully heal. Had he been here weeks? Dustin’s heart thumped wondering what had happened to his plane, if his pack was looking for him. They must think him dead.

  His thoughts shifted, focusing on the person who had come through the door—a woman by her willowy form and soft voice that hummed an unfamiliar tune. She smelled odd, like no other human or shifter he’d ever known. Like no animal. Actually she smelled like sun on snowy leaves with faint hints of crocus, hyacinth, mint, and pine. And she smelled cool, not like the warm musky scent that humans and shifters naturally bore.

  She had her back to him as she pressed the door closed, that silver-blue light darting around the edges before the opening merged seamlessly into the rest of the house. Her clothing was human—dark jeans, a modest black tank top. White-blonde hair hung straight past her shoulders, brushing against skin so pale it seemed almost translucent. She tilted her head and he caught a glimpse of an ear, its pointed tip rising high through her hair.

  An elf? He’d heard they were all sequestered on some island while the angels taught them how to live productively among the humans. The thought made Dustin want to chuckle. As if the angels knew anything about living among the humans. That one in Brent’s pack was the only angel who seemed to know the human world in any detail and that was because she’d been raised by humans and shifters who’d thought she was a Nephilim.

  The elf-woman said something in a lovely sing-song voice, and turned, a beautiful smile on her rosy lips, her light green eyes warm with compassion.

  The smile froze. Her eyes widened. And her voice cracked as she screamed.

  Even with the horrible pain in his chest and hip, Dustin couldn’t help but clasp his hands to his ears. She had the type of scream that would shatter glass, or at the very least shatter a werewolf’s ear drums.

  The scream went on and on. Was she frightened? Of what? Him? Hadn’t she brought him here? Maybe there was another resident of this bungalow who had neglected to tell his wife, or roommate, that he’d dragged home an injured werewolf.

  “I’m sorry…I don’t…please stop that noise.” He scooted backward, trying to hike the blanket up over his hips in case it was his nudity she was so loudly frightened of. Not that he was that big. Sheesh, this was probably not the first dick she’d laid eyes on. It wasn’t like he had a massive hard-on or had been in the middle of whacking off when she’d come through the door.

  “Who…what…get out. Get out!” The last w
ord of her heavily accented sentence ended on a pitch so high he was sure he wouldn’t have heard it had he been human.

  Get out. Dustin tried to scramble to his feet while bunching the blanket around his hips. He didn’t even make it to his knees before crashing back to the ground. Wet trickled down his chest. The smell of copper filled his nose.

  “Oh sweet Lady,” she stared in horror at the blood oozing from his freshly opened wounds.

  “I’m not a lady, Lady,” Dustin slurred. Hadn’t she seen he had a dick and balls? He’d always considered himself a fairly blessed werewolf in the genital size department, but maybe elven guys were huge, like pointy-eared John Holmeses.

  “How can that be? You were a dog, I saved the life of a dog, not a human”, she babbled.

  “I’m not a dog,” he told her, wincing in pain. As soon as the words were out, he realized she might have never seen a wolf before, or any canine. How long would it take elves to learn the various animals and plants here? And how long would it take them to come across werewolves and other shifters that they most likely didn’t realize existed?

  She waved an impatient hand. “Wolf? Or coyote? No, you’re too big for a coyote, so you must be a wolf if you’re not a dog. But you’re not either. You’re a human, and yet you were a wolf when I found you.”

  Wow, he hurt. It hurt to breathe. It hurt to think. It hurt to keep his eyes open. “Because I am a wolf.” Did he say that out loud? Because it sounded like he’d just thought it. Or maybe he whispered it. “Wolf-man,” he continued. “And I got shot. Cause bad guys.”

  There was this weird static sound, like a hundred bees swarming around his head. Her eyes were so green, her skin and hair like two shades of alabaster, those pink lips an ‘O’, a splash of color. They were the only things besides her eyes that relieved the whiteness of her skin and hair. Like jewels in snow. Like emeralds and drops of pale blood in snow. His blood was soaking her blanket. Guess it was a good thing she hadn’t put him in her bed after all.

  Although it would be nice to be in her bed. She was beautiful, like an elven princess from a fantasy role-playing game come to life. And those electric green eyes that were distorting and fading as he slipped into a sea of pain were breathtaking. They were the last thing Dustin saw before there was nothingness.

  Chapter 4

  How was he a man when he’d been a dog—or wolf—just an hour ago? Gwylla stared down at the human sprawled across her floor, bleeding dark blotches onto one of her favorite blankets. She’d barely known humans. In Hel, she’d seen them in the city or at various elven functions, but she had seldom been close-up with one. After coming through the gates to this strange new world, she’d seen far more humans than ever before. But never had she seen one that was sometimes a wolf.

  He’d smelled like a dog. He’d looked like a dog. Yes, he’d smelled and looked a bit different than the other canines she’d seen in the last few months, but there had been nothing to indicate he was a human in wolf’s clothing.

  And he had broken open the thin scabs that covered his wounds—the wounds that didn’t want to heal. The wounds that she was partially to blame for. With a tsk sound she filled a bowl with water and went to him, peeling the blanket from him and carefully washing each bullet hole, singing her spells of healing as she worked.

  If he’d been found by anyone else, this wolf-man would not have had a chance of survival, but she had pledged for his life. And she knew this magic that had infected him. It was the mirror to the magic that ran through her like a river. She could slowly redirect its flow, change its purpose so the wolf-man could heal. It wasn’t easy, and these injuries required constant attention or they’d revert to the rot they were intended to cause. But it wasn’t just her magic that was making this wolf-man better, it was something inside him.

  He had remarkable healing abilities. She could feel it as she ran her fingers over his smooth golden flesh, caressing the hard muscle that curved like mountains and valleys across his chest and down his torso. His skin was so warm, so responsive to the stroke of her hand. It felt like heaven to touch him. It soothed her like the song of her heart-tree, like the sound of falling water. Was it the bit of angel she’d detected in him? Was that what allowed him to have two forms and heal?

  “It was easier to care for you when you were furry,” she muttered, pulling her hand away from his skin as his eyes blinked open.

  Green eyes. Darker than hers with flecks of brown and gray. It had been a shock to come home and find a naked human on her floor where she’d left a wolf. If she hadn’t noticed that he had the exact same injuries, she wouldn’t have realized the wolf and the man were one and the same. Although if she’d gotten past her shock and actually considered the situation she would have remembered that there was no way a human could have seen, let alone entered her sanctuary without her permission.

  Although the wolf had been able to. Animals could see her forest, could enter and exit without any special magic. That there were wolf-men who could enter her sanctuary was a surprise. It was a design flaw she’d have to address as she’d not accounted for wolf-men sneaking through in their animal forms.

  But if that flaw hadn’t been there, this man would have died, bleeding out at the edge of her sanctuary instead of using his blood to mark her heart-tree and call for help. Was it the wolf that had known to do that or the man?

  “Please don’t scream again,” he told her, his voice raspy like he’d been swallowing broken bits of glass. “I don’t think my ears can take it. My brain might explode.”

  He was funny. How long had it been since she’d heard humor? Since she’d laughed? Unable to stop herself, she ran her fingers lightly across the skin of his shoulder and down his arm. So warm. Warm, and smooth, and an appealing combination of hard and soft. “If you had rescued an injured wolf and returned home to find a naked woman in its place, you would have screamed, too.”

  He grinned, those green eyes dancing. “Absolutely not. I would have thanked God for answering my prayers. Every man alive hopes to find a naked woman sprawled across his floor when he comes home.”

  She felt her lips twitch upward at the thought. It had been a long time since she’d had someone flirt with her, felt this fluttering in her chest at the look in another’s eyes. This wolf-man found her attractive, and unlike the stupid elves, she was not averse to taking pleasure where she found it. But he was recovering from his injuries, and the last time she’d shared passion with another, she’d ended up giving herself unwisely.

  “There will be no more screaming, I promise,” she told him. “I am not one of those who loses her mind at every unexpected event.” She put the basin of water and cloth aside, touching a hand to her heart. “I am Gwylla. I accepted your plea for help and have saved you from death, so now your life is mine to protect.”

  Having a wild dog linked to her in spirit was what she’d imagined when she’d answered his call and accepted the bargain between them. But a wolf-man? This would be unusual. No, this would be unprecedented. A wolf would have continued to live as an animal, remaining in her forest and near her, but this wolf-man would no doubt be more comfortable here inside her home. She glanced at the bed. She’d need another, and another chair as well. Although there probably would be no need to construct another bed, not if she was reading the expression in this man’s eyes correctly.

  “I don’t think I heard you right. Did you say that my life was yours?” The wolf-man seemed uncomfortable at that prospect. “Umm, I’m Dustin Schafer from the Swift River Pack. No offense, but as much as I appreciate your assistance, my life is most definitely not yours. I have an Alpha. And a pack.”

  He clearly was not understanding the situation. “I don’t know this pack or the Alpha of which you speak. You laid your blood down around my heart-tree, cried your prayer into the wind. I answered the prayer, and the magic that holds death at bay now binds us together. You are now mine.”

  Yes, he was very uncomfortable, on the edge of anger even. How did h
e not understand?

  “I’m kindly,” she assured him. “I will not force you to do anything against your will or treat you unfairly.”

  “Oh, gee, thanks so much.” Was that sarcasm in his voice? “I recognize that you saved my life, and for that I thank you, but no matter what you think, I’m not yours.”

  Silly wolf-man. Of course he was. Didn’t he feel it? Couldn’t he sense the threads that now bound them together, that would remain in place until one of them died?

  She stood, taking a few steps to compose herself. “I am merely stating the situation. Trust me, I am not pleased about this either. I thought I was pledging to a wild dog, an animal, not…you. Had I known you were a wolf-man, I would not have answered your call.”

  “So instead you would have left me bleeding out beside your tree? You would have just let me die rather than save a shifter?”

  Yes, he was definitely angry. Which was okay, because she was starting to feel angry as well.

  “You do not get one without the other. Either we are bound together as part of the magic that saves you from death, or you die. I would have rendered aid, but no, I would not have bound myself to a human. Or a wolf-man. Or anyone. I thought you were an animal.”

  “Well, I’m not an animal,” he snapped, wincing as he tried to sit up. “And as much as I appreciate you doing whatever you did to keep me from dying, that doesn’t mean I’m bound to you.”

  “Yes. You are. And I am as well. Even though I expected to be taking a wild canine to my side, I am bound by the agreement. As are you. You extended the offer. I simply accepted it. If anyone should be upset, it should be me for having been deceived into believing I was saving a dog. But it was my fault for not recognizing what you are or knowing the creatures here well enough to see that you were not a dog after all. I’m sure there was no deception intended on your part.”