He’d completely busted the lock, and she looked around for something to wedge against it. He pointed feebly to the bed, but she could never move it. It was the only furniture besides shelving units along two walls and a gigantic stove that took up a quarter of the room. There were no chairs.
She rummaged in the corner with shelves and pushed a box on the floor to the door and shoved it closed. The wind cut off like someone had changed the channel.
He was so hot.
Dimly, some part of his mind realized this was the next phase of hypothermia, but he couldn’t help feeling relieved.
She was talking to him. She was saying something important as she tore apart the shelves along the wall of the primitive kitchen, searching for… What? He didn’t need food.
Then she turned to the stove. Yes, he needed the stove.
Then she ran to the bed. He wanted to go to bed. What was she doing?
She pulled the quilt off of it and pushed it over him, but what would a cold piece of fabric do for a cold wolf against a cold floor?
Wolf?
He looked at the back of his hand. Why was it a hand?
He was a wolf!
Why was he freezing in his skin? What was he thinking?
The wolf within him roared in relief, and in moments, he was warm.
And she was screaming.
4
Cat cut off her scream and her flight to the door because the first thing you learn in the woods is never to run from a predator.
She stood frozen, gulping for air and bracing for pain.
Nothing happened, and she slowly turned around to see the giant wolf’s eyes close and its head sprawl against the floor. A fine tremor ran through its fur.
A couple of things were making a lot more sense, like why he was completely naked in the middle of a blizzard and why he hadn’t died on the trek to the cabin.
His words floated back to her:Why couldn’t you come a second later?
He was planning on shifting a moment before she arrived. He hadn’t wanted to do it in front of her. Anyone else would have collapsed twenty feet from the avalanche with no clothes on. Even the fact that he made it to the cabin was proof that he was stronger and fitter than a human being.
When nothing happened for another minute, the raw edge of her panic subsided, and she realized she could move again. She’d been frozen with fear. Her heart still beat like a hummingbird inher chest, and it felt like every breath had half the air she needed, but she could make her foot move toward the door to get out of there.
As she got closer, she could hear the roar of the wind outside and feel the icy fingers of frost snaking through the cracks. She’d started in the afternoon, but the sun set before five, which meant it would be dark soon. Not only was it freezing and blowing snow, but it was also night.
She looked back at the wolf. While he was still trembling, he hadn’t moved.
She felt a hysterical bubble of laughter float up and ruthlessly swallowed it down. If you’d asked her the day before what was scarier, a blizzard or a werewolf, she definitely would’ve said the werewolf. But there was a chance in hell she could survive him, and there was no chance she would survive the weather.
Decisively, she pivoted and took a deep breath.
“Right,” she said and winced, waiting for his eyes to open. They didn’t.
She was feeling pretty cold herself, which meant she had to move.
It still took over a minute to step closer to the wolf on her way toward the kitchen.
This cabin had been abandoned for months, but it was in surprisingly good shape. The kitchen comprised a giant plastic tub for water over a basin to catch it, and a long stretch of countertop with a shelf above it. Pots and pans hung from hooks on the wall. A cooler and a few boxes were tucked under the counter, and that was pretty much it. The owner must have cooked on the giant stove, because there was no other way to heat food.
