“You’re okay going down by yourself?”
“Nothing to it!” she said as if her checklist was long forgotten.
Her butt wiggling on the sled in her excitement was so cute I wanted to bite it. Shifting in a flash, the Old Magic generated by the group of us swelled me bigger. Briggs and Cosomo stared up at me, but Fallon and Ned already took off down the hill and I wouldn’t let her go alone. In a few bounds, I made it half-way down the hill to find most of the pack gathered there. They milled around Fallon in a blizzard of fur and fun. I stamped my feet, undecided whether I should defend her, or see if there was any hope she would withstand the pack’s enthusiasm.
They brushed against her in their wolf forms. Some of the younger pups had more optimism than coordinationbut Fallon held her own. She laughed with them, encouraging everyone up the hill to join the fun.
I spotted the missing wolves’ brother, but before I spoke with him, Fallon had her hand in his. The small smile that came across his face twisted my noble intentions with my instincts.
“I’m glad you came out,” Fallon said.
His mumbled reply didn’t deter her. If she let go of his hand, I wouldn’t have to show my teeth.
“You have to get to the very top for the best ride,” she told Arden Whitewolf.
“I don’t have a sled,” the boy said more clearly.
Fallon smiled, her one-track mind always looking for a solution. “Do you want to ride with me?”
That was a bit too friendly. I stood behind her, my shadow falling over both of them and the pup flinched.
“I’ll take him,” Briggs said.
Bless her. I picked Fallon up by the back of her sweater, keeping my teeth far away from her skin and carried her back up the path despite her protests.
“Silly wolf! Put me down!”
I spat her out at the top of the hill and she righted her clothes in an indignant huff. It was so cute, I couldn’t help but play bow to my mate just as Ned had.
“I’m not a stuffed animal.”
That was debatable.
“Just because you got giant doesn’t mean you can cart me around.”
Fallon shoved my shoulder and her tiny hands had not a chance in the seven hells of moving me, but I tumbled over anyway in a dramatic flail of limbs and rolled all the way down the mound, Fallon shouting after me. A couple of other wolves slid down on their bellies and that must have given Fallon ideas because when I loped up the hill again, she was ready.
“Up, up!” She tried her hardest to scramble up me until I flopped down in the snow. She mounted the base of my neck.
The shouts and good cheer called the Old Magic, sending us fresh snowflakes without dipping the temperature. Our tracks filled in. Our paws didn’t churn the rise into a mess of mud. When wolves clashed together, they helped each other up.
The slide down the hill with her pressed to my head and neck was worth every year I spent apart from her before we met.
Nothing about the day could have been better.
A cloud passed over the sun, and in the changing light, I caught a red blotch out of the corner of my eye. Just before the Old Magic brought the downwind scent of bacon to my sensitive nose. I didn’t care if she didn’t like it. I tossed Fallon by the sweater to Cosomo.
Pups and elders to the village now!
Even as I turned, the monk moved.
Enforcers to me.
My claws dug into the earth, racing up the foothills tothe lookout point marked by only two footprints. Percy. We all scented the area for something more than that monk’s mixed magic and bacon. Any clue to their hiding hole. I scraped deeper into the snow where the monk had stood and I caught it.
Snow jelly only formed in one place in the territory in winter. The monks had moved onto our actual land with no one the wiser, and it stood my fur on end.
Dead Man’s Dell. When was the last time we swept it?
