The Wolf Fey (A Frost Novella)

by Kailin Gow

Genuine approval shone in each wolf’s eyes as they realized they still have a leader capable of keeping them safe and well-fed. I stood by Father’s side, with Deacon’s pelt, his skin on my shoulders, standing straight and tall. “For now,” Father went on, “we are not part of this Winter and Summer war, you can thank our former Wolf King for that. As for the punishment, what do you suggest as punishment for plotting and then killing the former Wolf King? Should I have leniency or should the punishment be death?”

  The sounds of struggling and fighting was heard in the back of the great hall as all eyes turned to the spot where Jacob, Paris, and Balthazar were standing. Instead of seeing all three young men, the spot was empty. Father shook his head in disgust. Jacob, Paris, and Balthazar were all part of the assassination plot. Now they had disappeared into the night.

  Chapter 7

  Gregory, Oregon

  I had made my trek back to Gregory, Oregon alone. As the new Wolf King, Father was needed to rule the Wolf Fey. He sent me back to tell Mother the news, and in a month’s time, Father would be back again to visit us.

  As soon as I came back, running through the woods near school and Breena’s house, tearing through the trees at night, I rushed over to Breena’s. I have been gone for almost two days, and in a few hours she would be turning sixteen.

  I came close to her house, seeing the amber glow of the porchlight and knowing she was inside. I knocked on the door gently at first, and then louder when no one answered. I was about to knock again when the door opened and Breena craned her head outside. “Oh, Logan!” she cried, grabbing me by my shirt and pulling me inside. “Thank God, it’s you!”

  I cupped her face in my hands and smiled. “I’m glad to see you too, Bree. What’s going on?”

  “I knew you were going to say that.” She looked tired, as though she had not slept very well. “Hey, Logan,” she pulled me into a hug. “I missed you. You missed two days of school. And I called, but your mother said you were sick.” She touched my forehead with her palm. “No, no fever or high temperature.” She opened my mouth and peered inside. “No spotted purple tongue.”

  I laughed, remembering the games we used to play as children, including doctor. She was the doctor, and I was the patient. It had always been an innocent childhood game until now. “Why is your shirt torn up?” She unbuttoned my shirt and took it off. “That’s better. That shirt smells like you’ve been running through the woods or was that a forest for days without a shower. Ewww - it needs to go into the trashcan. Sorry, Logan, no salvaging that one.”

  She went and got me a large t-shirt. Then her hands trailed up my chest to feel my heartbeat. It lingered there for a moment and then I could see her face turned pink with flush as my heart sped up. My breath caught in my throat as she inched her face closer to mine, her lips almost touching mine. I closed my eyes waiting for the moment we would kiss, when she pulled away. “Sorry, Logan,” she said, “but you could use a shower...” she pointed to the bathroom upstairs.

  “That bad?” I asked laughing.

  “Just like your shirt, Logan, but I’m keeping you,” she said, “umm...after you shower.”

  “Okay, I’m going, I’m going, Bree,” I said, walking into the bathroom with the shirt she handed me. As I turned on the shower and pulled back to get undressed, I heard Breena muttered under her breath, “and I need a cold shower.”

  I couldn’t help but smile while I stepped into the shower and let the warm water splash over my sore muscles. It had been days when I last showered, and it felt good. The warmth of the water cascaded over the top of my head and down to the rest of my body, relaxing the tension out of my muscles. I let the warm water flow down my back, my torso, my butt, my thick thighs, calves, and feet, the sorest parts of a wolf. Then I lathered up, smelling the same soap Breena used all the time, a fresh lavender and honeysuckle soap. More feminine than my usual scent, but since it smelled like Bree, I did not mind it. As I washed away all the dirt and sweat from days of travel, running, and fighting; my mind turned to mush. All the events in Feyland including the horrific last day when Grandfather died and I made that promise to him seemed like it was from a long time ago, like another world altogether.

  I wanted Breena’s birthday to be special...the day I could tell her I loved her. The day I could tell her I was a werewolf. I had planned it so often, my speech, what I was going to say, and how. I ran it through my head several times until I could say exactly what I wanted to say to her, smoothly.

  I had planned all this before promising Grandfather that I would find a fairy girl to love and marry. Although Breena was as beautiful as a fairy, to me, she was all human. According to Grandfather’s wishes, I could not be with her. I would have to find someone else to love and marry. My heart was heavy, thinking about the promise.

  I turned off the water and stepped out of the shower. When I reached for the shirt and my old jeans, they were gone. I took a large bath towel instead, wiped down and wrapped the towel snug around my waist. “Bree?” I called. “Where’s my clothes? They seemed to have disappeared.”

  She popped her head out of one of the rooms. I can smell the fresh scent of laundry detergent. “I’m washing your jeans, Logan. Where have you been besides being sick in bed?” She walked out of the laundry room with one of her hands on her hip.

  I did not know if I could tell her about Feyland there and then. Did she know about Feyland? How can she? “Bree,” I said walking up to her. “I probably should tell you some...”

  I stopped in my track, as Bree opened her mouth and her eyes widen in surprise and then something else similar to fascination and then appreciation. The towel I had wrapped around my waist had fallen to the floor at my feet. I was standing in front of Breena buck naked, and she was taking it all in.

  My wolf senses were heightened, and I can hear her swallow and then breathe in shorter faster breaths. She blushed and said, “Oh, my.” She rushed over to me, bent down to retrieve the towel on the floor to cover me up, but stopped, realizing how close we were standing next to each other with me this naked. She turned a brighter shade of red and shoved the towel into my hands. “Here, cover up!”

  I took the towel, but deliberately did not cover up. I was in my most primal form, the way I would be when I shifted from wolf to man again. I took Breena in my arms and turned her to face me. “Bree,” I said, wanting desperately to kiss her, although I knew I was supposed to find and love someone else. Someone with fairy blood. I could not help how I felt about her, though...and holding her in my arms felt so right.

  Breena closed her eyes. And as I leaned in close to brush my lips on hers, there came a loud crash in the living room.

  Breena’s eyes flew open, I covered up with the towel, and we both ran downstairs. There in the middle of the room, trying to eat the television remote control, was a charcoal grey gargoyle perched on the edge of the coffee table, its claws wrapped around the remote, and its teeth biting into it.

  I could see the gargoyle as plain as day, and as I looked over at Breena, she was staring at it, too, her mouth opened in awe.

  I almost did a double take at the way Breena was staring at it, as though she had seen it before. “It’s back,” she whispered. “The gargoyle.”

  “You can see it?” I asked.

  “Yes, it’s on the table, trying to eat the remote.”

  My heart at that moment leaped in the air. Gargoyles cannot be seen by human eye. Only enchanted ones or ones of the fey or mythical creatures can see them.

  I studied Breena’s beautiful profile, her creamy skin and lavender eyes. What can Breena be? Certainly more than human?

  At that moment, Breena whispered, “It’s gone...just like that...that gargoyle.” She turned to me with a look that had me concerned. “Logan...these past few days...I’ve been seeing things, strange things...what can it mean?”

  I took her hands in mine and smiled. We were going to find out together.

  ********************

  Logan and Breena
’s story continues in

  The Frost Series

  starting with Bitter Frost

  The Frost Series

  About the Snow Queen and The Winter Fey

  Bitter Frost (Frost #1)

  All her life, Breena had always dreamed about fairies as though she lived among them...beautiful fairies living among mortals and living in Feyland. In her dreams, he was always there the breathtakingly handsome but dangerous Winter Prince, Kian, who is her intended. When Breena turns sixteen, she begins seeing fairies and other creatures mortals don't see. Her best friend Logan suddenly acts very protective. Then she sees Kian, who seems intent on finding her and carrying her off to Feyland. That's fine and all, but for the fact that humans rarely survive a trip to Feyland, a kiss from a fairy generally means death to the human unless that human has fairy blood in them or is very strong, and although Kian seemed to be her intended, he seems to hate her and wants her dead.

  Forever Frost (Frost #2)

  Breena's entry into Feyland is marred by danger and beauty. A prisoner in her own palace, she longs to see and touch her forbidden prince Kian. Yet her heart is also still with her friend Logan. The discovery of a long-lost figure in Breena's life propels Breena into the heart of fey politics. In a stunning turn of events, Breena suddenly finds herself faced with the most heartbreaking decision in her entire life.

  Silver Frost (Frost #3)

  Enter the world of Feyland, where beautiful strong fairies have been at war for years. Breena, the beautiful half fairy, half human princess from Oregon, has ascended to her rightful place in Feyland, as Queen of the Summer Kingdom. Being Queen isn't at all what she expected. Now the weight of Feyland falls heavily on her shoulders. The landscape of Feyland is scattered with the silver blood of fairies, turning the once whitish blue frost of the Winter Kingdom to silver frost, and danger lurks everywhere including within her own court. Secretly in love with her intended Winter Prince Kian, now Breena is faced with the realization of war, and the possibility of Kian as her greatest enemy. To help her navigate through the politics within her court and Feyland, help comes in the form of an old friend. Before she knows it, Breena's heart is torn between two loves, just as torn as Feyland. The fate of Feyland depends on her choices, can she make the right ones even if it means turning away from her love forever?

  Frost Kisses (Frost #4)

  Coming in March 2011

  Midnight Frost (Frost #5)

  Excerpt from

  PULSE

  Book 1

  kailin gow

  Prologue

  She ran like an animal. Her clothes were wet, sopping, clinging to her thighs and to her chest, hollow and transparent around the curve of her shoulders. Her hair shook out droplets of rain; her cheeks were flushed and she was breathless. He could see her heartbeat throbbing at the side of her throat, see it in the rhythmic panting, hear it from across the street, pounding in his ears, intermingled with the thunder bolting from the sky. He could feel it - it felt like an earthquake to him, shaking his ribs, his shoulders, his legs. It had been so long since he had seen a heartbeat like hers - since he had felt a heartbeat at all.

  The skies had opened up - as they so often did in North California - without any warning, without any hesitation. It was as if the smooth blue glass ceiling of the world had shattered all at once, letting the primordial oceans pound down upon the pavement. He could see her consternation, her irritation - she wanted nothing but to get out of the rain, to dry herself off, to curl up into something warm and dry.

  But Jaegar loved the rain. He loved the energy - the pulse of life beating down upon the earth. He could hear the scattered raindrops in their rhythmic approach to earth and pretend that each fall of rain was a beat of his dead heart. And she was alive with the energy, too - alive as he had never seen a woman alive, tossing her hair back, running into shelter, and her lips were pink and her cheeks were red. He remembered that his lips would never again be pink, that his cheeks would never again be red.

  She was so young.

  Humans so often surprised him in that way. They looked no different from him - he could have been seventeen; he had been seventeen for so long - but their youth never failed to surprise him. The way the world was so new to them - that rain could still take them by surprise, when he had seen so many rainfalls.

  He could smell her. The wind carried her scent to him like an animal's scent, and it was all he could do to keep his fangs in check. He leaned heavily upon the branch and parted the leaves to get a better look at her. He could feel the blood - stagnant in his veins - begin something like a torpid, sluggish, shift towards life - the closest thing he would ever get to a heartbeat. She was the sort of girl who made young boys' hearts pound, he thought - and they never knew how lucky they were to experience that sensation.

  For it was the physical aspect of it, he thought, that humans understood least of all. They romanticized vampires, of course - how terrible it would be to live at night! To drink blood! To prey upon humans! These were things they could intellectualize, understand. Humans had been forced to commit murder. Humans had been forced to bite back their most natural, primal desires - and so they could almost understand, when they imagined vampires, what it was like to feel that insatiable hunger for a woman's throat, her breast, her wrist. But not a human in the world had ever been alive without living, without a heartbeat - and so they took it for granted - what it meant, that constant linear throbbing, clock-like, towards inevitable death. For Jaegar was a vampire, and he was not alive, and the dull ache in his chest where a heartbeat should have been was for him one of the most agonizing things in the world.

  They don't know, he thought. They'll never understand.

  He had been told that she was the one. He had waited for her until sunset - the sun agonizing upon him, even with the ring around his finger. Vampires were not meant for light, and even the strongest magic could not take away the pain, searing, burning, aching, in his flesh. He was unnatural in sunlight, and only now that dusk was beginning to settle over him could he find relief. He sat perched in the tree, obscured by the leaves, staring at her as she ran down the street.

  He leaned in too closely - the birds noticed at last that something was wrong in their midst and took flight; a flurry of wings beat up around him and the branch snapped from the tree and plummeted to the earth below.

  It was enough time to make a distraction.

  He concentrated, and in half a second he was behind her, so close he could feel the wind blow her hair upon his lips, and then he opened the umbrella above her.

  “Miss,” he said.

  She startled.

  “What the...” She rounded on him.

  “You looked wet,” he said. She did not seem amused.

  “I'm warning you,” she said. “I know kung fu.”

  He had learned kung fu once, many centuries ago. He thought it better not to mention it.

  “I'm sorry,” he said. “I was just trying to help.”

  She softened.

  “Thanks,” she said, lamely. “I'm sorry - I didn't mean to snap at you. But you need to learn not to sneak up on people like that. You scared me.”

  Her eyes remained fixed upon the tree from which he had come. A suspicious glare clouded her gaze. Had she seen - was she wondering? He knew she knew something was wrong. He tried to maintain whatever pleasant normalcy he could. The sequoias were tall, after all. No human could survive a jump from them - he knew she knew this. He knew she thought he was human.

  From Bestselling Author

  Kailin Gow

  PULSE

  17 year-old Kalina didn’t know her boyfriend was a vampire until the night he died of a freak accident. She didn’t know he came from a long line of vampires until the night she was visited by his half-brothers Jaegar and Stuart Greystone. There were a lot of secrets her boyfriend didn’t tell her. Now she must discover them in order to keep alive. But having two half-brothers vampires around had just gotten interesting...
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