Page 69 of A Wolf for Winter

“Please take it,” she whispered. “I-I know you haven’t been here in the valley long, b-but I’m a bit of a laughingstock here. People see me as this silly goose—” She shook her head, slinging a tear or two into the snow. “But you never patronized me, not like the others. You’re nice.”

“You do know what I am, Talia, don’t you?” he asked gravely. “Nice isn’t a term I normally hear.”

She looked him in the eye, defiant. “Shifters are run out of town because of the Hawthornes, not people like me. Man, wolf, what do I care? That doesn’t change who you are. Not to me.”

He softened, his wolf settling. It was a relief that the only other person in the valley who knew he was a shifter accepted him too. It would make his stay easier here, if that’s what Lilac decided to do: stay in Annesley Valley and build her potions business locally.

“Thank you, Talia.”

She smiled happily, no more tears in her eyes.

He crouched down, setting the wicker basket lightly in the snow and uncapping the thermos. He took a sip, then a long swallow. Followed by another. The Cat & Cauldron certainly knew its business when it came to hot chocolate.

“So, um”—Talia glanced around, clasping her hands in front of her—“what are you doing out here? I mean, I expected to find you in the Hall.”

“I’m trying to put the puzzle pieces of last night together.”

“Prue attacked me,” she said sharply. “What else is there to know?”

He lifted an eyebrow at her tone, hands stilling where they were in the middle of unwrapping the fruitcake.

She rubbed her hands together, not looking at him. “I’m sorry. I’m just still shaken from the whole ordeal, you know? You look up to someone your whole life, and then they, they betray you, a-and—”

“And it’s hard.” Memories of the desert cave, the looks of horror on his brothers’ faces, came to the forefront of his mind, unbidden. “Trust me, I know.”

Talia sucked in a shuddering breath, nodding, then puffed out a misty exhale. Then she nodded to the half-unwrapped fruitcake. “I hope you enjoy. Family recipe.”

Allen tore off a chunk the size of his fist, gave it a sniff—plums, cherries, cinnamon, and port—and sank his teeth into the cake. Talia’s family recipe surprisingly didn’t disappoint. He took another bite then moved on to open the jam.

“You two were slinging runes and charms around like they were Mardi Gras beads, too,” he told her after he swallowed. “We’re going to have a bunch of visitors to the Hall in a few hours, and I can’t have someone accidentally finding them. So I’m on retrieval and disposal duty too, you could say.”

“Oh! I’ll help you.” She clomped around in the snow, peering and swishing away powder, completely directionless.

“It would be easier if I did it alone, Talia,” he said, trying to keep the exasperation from his voice.

She wasn’t safe out here, and he wanted to process his findings without biased opinion, especially after discovering Prue’s daisy charm. He took his irritation out on the jar of jam, the seal popping like a muted firecracker as he gave the lid a vicious twist. Maybe if he ate her food and praised her some more, she’d be content to just walk away.

Then he froze as a familiar scent wafted upwards.

He looked down at the jar, at the dark gelled spread inside. “What is this?” he asked, tensing. He knew this scent. Had confused it with another all too recently.

Allen was suddenly aware that Talia wasn’t clomping around anymore, that she was bending over and retrieving something from the snow. From the corner of his eye, he saw what looked like a two-pronged fork made of antler gripped in her fist. Strange markings like ivy vines were etched into its surface, bluish-green runes in stark contrast to the yellowish bone.

“Boysenberry,” Talia answered, her voice pained.

Allen twisted slowly from where he crouched in front of her basket, his wolf snarling.

“It’s cousin to the blackberry,” she told him. “In fact, many confuse them, especially their scents.”

He clenched his jaw. His nose had been right all along—that hadn’t been blackberry he’d smelled on the ill-wish splinter. Nor the scent in the strange grove.

What he’d previously thought was a villager’s scent—cinnamon, tallow, and musk—were her scents. Those, and the faintest hint of boysenberry. And on that antler charm . . . fresh green grass and soap.

“Talia,” he growled.

She leveled the fork-like charm at him, the runes glowing with sinister bluish-green light—the same color as the magic wielded by Zofia’s attacker. Talia’s brown eyes were glassy, her bottom lip trembling, but her voice was sure. “Don’t come any closer.”

“You think that can stop me?” he snarled. “My wolf?”