Boone might be twice Kenny’s size, but Kenny’s magic was stronger. Hiswolfwas stronger.
It helped that neither of the other wolves wanted the headache of being Alpha. Silas says it’s all he can do to keep his business running and his employees in line. Boone came for steady work and a well-run, healthy pack, not supernatural politics.
“Weather report has the storm coming in tomorrow mid-day now, instead of tomorrow evening,” Boone said.
“I’m looking forward to watching it roll in from up here, so daylight should give us more of a show.” Kenny moved one of the Adirondack chairs so he could watch Silas work, and sat with a beer. The plan was to cook steaks over the fire tonight and let Silas work his magic after. He’d wrap and bury a pig in the hot ashes, bank the coals, then build the fire to slow-cook the pork overnight so the meat would fall apart in the morning.
They’d eat breakfast and then enjoy a daytime run in the woods on four legs before the storm rolled in.
Chapter 2
Willow sat in the living room facing the wall of windows and watched the storm roll in from a distance. The lightning, the rain, the roiling clouds. Nature’s fury unleashed with raw power.
A small fire crackled in the hearth, a pot of chili simmered on the stove. She’d finished her second book hours earlier and was well intoSafeword: Arabesque, thoroughly enjoying her visit with old friends — Isaac’s warm caring, Frisco’s rules and ironclad consequences if they weren’t followed to the letter, Cam’s loyalty and honor. She was getting warm just thinking about it.
But the arriving tempest had her attention for the moment. So much violence rolling across the mountains and valleys.
The storm surged up the mountain with a low, gathering growl, then hit in a sudden, sideways fury. Rain hammered the roof in pounding bursts, a drumbeat that rattled the glass walls and sent thin rivulets racing down every pane. Outside, the trees lost all pretense of dignity. Limbs thrashed and flung themselves about like dancers in some wild, wind-whipped frolic — bowing low, snapping upright, twisting at the waist to fling their dripping hair. Pines swayed from the hips, oaks spread their arms as if to ward off the squalls, and every gust only made them wilder.
She was curled on the couch, her e-reader on the table beside her when, somewhere lower on the mountain, a deep crack split the storm’s rhythm, followed by another, then a whole staccato of them — the sound of trunks giving way. She rose from the couch and moved to the glass in time to see the mountainside below her shift in slow motion. An entire swath of forest was sliding, the ground itself turning liquid, carrying trees, earth, and rock in a grinding, snapping tide.
The power didn’t bother flickering before it died.
The avalanche of mud and trees was over in less than two minutes, the view below carved with a raw, ugly scar.
The trees around her cabin still stood firm, their roots holding fast.
She took a steadying breath, moved her chili pot off the stove and set it on the hearth. Outside, rain slapped the porch roof in hard bursts as she dashed to the grill. She wrestled the grate free, carried it in dripping, propped fresh firewood to settle the grate over the fire, and adjusted her setup to keep the chili warm enough to simmer without burning.
From there, it was a matter of triage. She grabbed the cooler from her SUV, dumped in all the freezer ice and the packs she’d brought, then transferred her perishables into it. It was colder outside, so she carried the cooler to the screened porch and wrapped one of the thick comforters around it to hold in the chill.
If she was quick each time she opened it, it’d probably stay cold enough a good twenty-four, maybe thirty-six hours.
And then she stood on the porch, the driving rain misting her through the screens, and breathed. The air smelled of turned earth and rain, sharp enough to taste. The mountain had moved, and she was still here.
She stepped back in and looked at her cozy setup. With a fireplace and plenty of food, she didn’t need power. She’d wanted solitude and it looked like she’d be stuck here a while.
That was fine with her. Perfect, in fact.
She sat on the sofa and checked the battery power on her ereader. It was an e-ink device and had at least three ten-hour days left, but she had a battery pack if she was here longer. Her phone had a full charge and was turned off. She was good.
* * * *
Boone shook off the last of thechangeand stood four-footed in the dim wet. Ears high. Nose working. The storm had eased, but the air was still thick with it — sharp wet pine, ripped-up earth, the hot-metal tang of lightning burned into the clouds.
He padded out from the covered porch, across the yard, and made his way through dense trees, paws automatically finding the firmest ground. Water ran in small streams between roots. The forest smelled of broken roots, crushed leaves, and the sharp scent of mud pulled from far below.
The wind carried more. Rain-cold air. Sap bleeding from torn trunks.
He moved down the mountain, weaving between trees, keeping his weight light. Paw pads found the soft give of moss, the slick slide of wet leaves. Branches above still shivered, shaking down drops that spattered his ears and back.
The slide’s edge was a sudden rip — one moment forest, the next a raw gap. The forest floor simply gone, the mountain carved open. He stepped closer, claws digging in. Looked down. Tree bodies tangled below, roots in the air, their scent heavy with sap and rot-to-come. The strip of road that had run through here was gone, with only wet, broken stone jutting from the dirt where the pavement ended in nothing.
He stood there a long moment, tail still, listening to the quiet drip of rain and the rush of water finding new paths. Behind him, the forest kept breathing. In front of him, the mountain waited to settle.
The wolf turned and raced back up the mountain, close enough to the hawk’s scent to be assured her cabin was still standing before he made his way to his cabin’s back deck.
Mustn’tchangeuntil he was back under a roof. Even with the cloud cover, the rules said you couldn’tchangeunder open sky anymore.
