Winter Lost

The liquid-blue eyes of the stag took in Adam and Mercy in a quick glance. It snorted, the mist of its breath in the icy air rising to disappear in the shadow of the glittering antlers.

Its ribs rose and fell like an animal that had been engaged in a mad run through the forest. But there was nothing frantic about the slow strides that brought it closer to the creature that had attacked Mercy.

Without warning, the deer jumped forward, head lowered. Garmr tried to dodge, but the sharp tines buried themselves in the great hound’s side. It lifted Garmr off the ground and shook him.

Liam burst over the hill and stopped. Chest heaving, he held a long knife in one hand. Adam would have laid out money that it wasn’t a mundane weapon. Like Adam, he made no move toward the combatants.

Out of the wounds and around the horns of the stag a substance flowed from the hound. It was clear and it evaporated into nothingness almost as it hit the air. The hound’s body deflated gradually. The stag quit moving, letting the hound waste away to a mist that dripped off the antlers and dissipated before it touched the snow.

It did not feel like a death.

Adam thought about turning to check on Mercy, but the stag’s blue eyes focused on Adam. The enemy of my enemy is not my friend. Adam bared his teeth and didn’t fight the growl that rose from his Alpha heart.

“No,” said Liam, striding rapidly between the two of them, staying closer to the stag than to Adam—which was prudent of him, because the wolf still wasn’t sure he was an ally.

Unexpectedly, Liam turned his back to Adam and dropped to one knee before the stag.

“My lord,” he said. “Thank fate that you are here. I had despaired.”

Like Mercy’s, the stag’s transformation was instantaneous. If Adam had not been watching him, he’d have missed it.

While a part of him might have expected to see a fae lord straight out of fairy tales, dressed in fashions of centuries ago, what stood in the footprints of the white stag was a young-looking man in black jeans that were wet up to his knees and a T-shirt covered in rips, as if he’d been running through a blackberry thicket. He ran his hands through dark hair that was too short to catch his fingers.

He looked tired. Deep circles of sleeplessness ringed his eyes, and it had been a few days since he’d shaved.

“The hound is loosed?” he said, voice hoarse. “I am too late.”

“No, my lord,” Liam said without rising to his feet. “Just restless, as he gets when the time nears. Especially when it looked as though the marriage and the rebinding were doomed.”

“Is there a reason there’s a naked woman lying in the snow and we’re not doing anything about it? And is the werewolf a friend or enemy?”

Unlike the stag he’d been, Zane Heddar carefully kept his eyes away from Adam’s as he spoke. Adam wouldn’t have needed introductions if he had met the man at a grocery store—he was a male, dark-haired version of his mother. But his dramatic entrance and the reaction of the green man removed any doubt Adam might have retained.

“Friend—or ally, at the very least.” Liam rose to his feet with grace, turning to face Adam.

“Leave off, do,” Liam said, his tone making it a very polite request, not an order.

Adam realized he was still growling.

“This is my lord upon whose arrival all things are made right,” Liam informed him. “Let us help you bring your Mercy out of the storm.”

Zane moved toward Mercy. Adam didn’t think the man was a threat, but he would have put himself between Mercy and a stranger even if his wolf hadn’t been fresh off the battlefield.

“Let me try,” Liam told his lord and master. He unzipped his parka and took it off.

When he approached Mercy, Adam shook with the effort it took to keep his wolf at bay. But he, wolf and man alike, knew how important it was to get Mercy warm, so they allowed it.

With a careful attention to Adam’s growling presence, Liam wrapped Mercy in his own coat, setting the spear-headed walking stick aside. As soon as he had her out of the snow, Liam broke into a swift trot back toward the lodge. Zane made as if to gather up the spear—but the walking stick had disappeared while everyone’s attention had been turned toward Mercy. Zane gave the snow where the weapon had lain a brief puzzled look. With a shrug, he set off after Liam and Mercy.

Adam brought up the rear—the better to watch the others. To keep Mercy safe.

Interlude

Warren

Warren was fueling up his car when he got the call from Sherwood.

“Warren here,” he answered, trying to remember if Sherwood had ever called him before. He thought not.

“Car wreck,” said Sherwood in a low growl.

He paused and Warren heard in the background a woman sobbing hysterically, a man’s angry deep bass, and the howl of the wind.

“Are you hurt?” Warren asked, calming his voice instinctively—as if one of the less dominant wolves had called him for help. He hoped Sherwood wouldn’t think he was patronizing him. Upset dominant wolves tended to get thin-skinned. “What do you need?”