Only he didn’t say anything else. We walked in silence for many steps as the snowflakes grew bigger and bigger. As the snow piled up around our feet, I almost offered to carry him on my other shoulder, but he navigated the snow as well as I did.
“Who are you here to meet? If you don’t mind me asking?” Mori asked, tacking on the last part when he realized how nosy he sounded.
“Lero,” I said. “I think he’s your nephew or something like that.”
“Yeah. My nephew. Colton’s my older brother and his sire. Lero’s only lived in the village for a decade or so now, but I thinkhe likes it. He has a really nice house too. Big house. He added on a balcony that hangs over the lake on the far side. He lives a bit out from the main village square. It’s quieter there.”
The wolf rambled on as the thick line of trees came into view. I stopped and squinted, trying to discern where this secret entrance was.
“Gotta follow them to the left when you come this way. You can come straight on from the train station but then you risk walking by a car that will offer you a ride.”
“And you didn’t want a ride?” I quirked up an eyebrow.
“I’m working some stuff out.”
“Because you missed encountering your mate?” the words flopped out of my dumb mouth before I could stop them.
“How do you know that?” he stopped in his tracks and sniffed the air again. His scent turned suspicious and his trunk floated a little higher like it might bowl me over if I made the wrong move.
“I…”
“Do you talk to Dern too?” he asked when I didn’t come up with anything discernable to say.
“Sorry. Never heard of him. I see shit sometimes. Not all the time. Not enough to be helpful. No, I don’t know where he is right now. I take it that you’ve been a little out of the loop of the happenings on Hemlock Mountain recently? Like really recently?”
“I’ve been on a train,” Mori said, eyeing me up and down as if I tried to pull an insurrection on the mountain.
“Eh. I’ve got to learn how to keep my mouth shut,” I sighed. “Anyway, one of my ancestors used to help Frost and Juda’s wolves find their mates sometimes. He waswaaaybetter at it than I am and plus, I don’t want to be asked every day all day about it, okay?”
“I get that,” Mori said. “I see dead people and stuff.”
“Cool,” I nodded.
“Mori!?” Someone’s voice called from the other side of the trees. “Who are you talking to out there? Get your butt in here!”
“Do you know them?” I asked, lowering my voice in case we needed to flee or fight.
“I know everybody inside that tree circle,” the wolf sighed.
“I’M ON MY WAY!” he howled back to whoever spoke on the other side of the thick lines of trees. “WE HAVE A NEWCOMER! TELL LERO HIS GUY IS HERE!”
The sound cut up and down my eardrums and I nearly dropped my trunk. Mori caught it with one hand without missing an ahwooo of his howling words.
“I’m not worried about Lero’s new mail-order boyfriend! Rune says he’s not been off the mountain since Frost and Juda ran things! He’s not going to be any trouble! ” the guy called back. “I’m wondering why my little brother is standing on the wrong side of the trees talking to a man with horns!”
“Colton?!” Mori sniffed the air as if he hadn’t recognized the guy’s voice until then. “Why are you here?! Oh---” he snatchedat my shirt. “Come on!” He tugged me toward the trees, and I swore under my breath as the shoes Rune insisted that I wear dragged across the snow.
“Who is that?” I asked, praying to the snow gods that no one shot me with an arrow.
“My older brother! Oh! Yeah! He’s Lero’s sire too!”
“Doesn’t sound like he’s my biggest fan,” I said, dodging a tree because Mori was trying to pull me in a straight line through the trees when there wasn’t a discernable path.
“Don’t worry. I know what I’m doing,” he laughed. “How do you think we snuck in and out as teenagers?”
“You’re the guy who’s kept one of my mates up worrying all night,” Colton said, pulling Mori into a hug as soon as we broke free of the trees and their grabby, naked branches. “Bolt is sure you’re going to eat him and turn him to stone or something.”
“Why would I turn your mate to stone? Or even ice?” I blinked, raking my eyes over the backside of the village.
