Page 8 of A Wolf for Winter

He had to force himself to concentrate and not laugh. “I’m sure you do. Is one of them sitting up, by chance?”

Her iron grip found his forearm, and she popped upright into a sitting position as if she had a metal spring in her back instead of vertebrae.

“Whoa,” Allen said, eyes wide.

Then she groaned, her twiggy fingers probing the bruise on her head. “Ow.”

“Fifi? You’re going to be alright,” Kalina told her, looking this way and that for any more cars. She held Zofia’s cane in both hands like she was ready to bludgeon the hood of any vehicle who approached them. “And when you’re safely in the hospital, I’m going to march right down there to the Cat & Cauldron and give Sam Barley a piece of my mind. The last thing we need are his patrons sloppy with eggnog raging down these narrow streets!”

A drunk driver—he’d thought that too, at first. That’s certainly what it looked like, though how someone that drunk could’ve made it this far up the street from the pub without crashing already was somewhat of a miracle. It was also just as unlikely that the driver had lost control in the storm, as it was a light flurry at best and the snow wasn’t even sticking to the dry street. And how had the sedan, after being knocked off its course of turning Mrs. Hollyoak into a lifeless smear against the truck, managed to escape down the street without further collisions?

Allen sniffed, as if the wind would deliver the answers to his nose.

“The Hawthornes!” Zofia exclaimed suddenly, trying to rise. Hobbles, who had crawled onto her lap, protested with a hiss. Her sweet-potato-sized ankle was having none of it either, and his keen ears heard bones shifting into places they didn’t belong. It was definitely broken.

“No, no, no,” Kalina protested, abandoning her post in the street to keep her friend seated. “Not until the paramedics.”

She shook her head once before her face scrunched up in pain. “You don’t understand. I have to be there. The schedule, the pact—”

“No, Zofia,” said James. “And listen, you can hear the sirens. The ambulance is almost here.”

“No,” the caretaker protested fiercely. Then she caught Allen’s eye, and she looked at him. Really looked at him.

The wolf inside him froze. She knows what we are.

No, she doesn’t. But she knows we’re other.

He shivered, wondering who else he hadn’t completely fooled with his grocery delivery boy routine. She’s known all this time.

“Boy,” she said in that flat, knowing tone.

“You crafty crow,” was his answer.

She smiled without humor, knowing they truly understood each other now. “Take this.” She wiggled the little opal ring off her finger and held it between them. “Light and water of stars,” she murmured, “bind our lives to one.” Zofia gave it to him, and when he tried to put it in his pocket, she snapped, “On your finger, boy!”

It fit on his pinky finger, just barely.

Zofia fumbled with her velvet handbag with shaking hands until Kalina opened it for her. “The keys,” the caretaker said. “Give him the keys.”

Kalina lifted a ring of large brass keys from the purple velvet and held them out to him. Allen took them, this time receiving no reprimand when he put them in his pocket.

“Unlock the Hall and burn the sage,” Zofia instructed him. “You’re the caretaker now.”

“But—”

“Go, boy! You’ve no time to waste!”

Startled, for there was such vehemence in her voice, Allen rose.

“We’ve got her, Allen,” James assured him. “Go on.”

Allen jumped into the truck and crawled across the bench. He shifted the truck into drive and eased onto the cobblestone street. He shot a look at the rearview mirror to confirm his friends were safe before stepping on the gas. Whatever Zofia had done to that ring was making his finger itch, and very unpleasantly, too.

There was only one road leading up the hill to where Hawthorne Hall reigned, and normally Allen would’ve taken the time to truly assess his surroundings had it not been for the itch. By the time he parked the truck at the apex of the circle drive, he was about ready to chew his own finger off.

Allen launched out of the truck. Fumbling for the keys in his pocket, he hadn’t taken one step off the driveway before a shimmering force field blocked him from the brick path to the front doors. Allen stumbled back a step before he shook off the experience and tried again. A ripple of iridescent blue light prevented him once again.

He gritted his teeth against a wolfish whine of pain and did the only thing he could think of. He shoved his hand with the ring on it at the shimmering barrier. The magical gate vanished upon contact with the opal, or so it seemed. A remnant of its physical presence brushed against him like the touch of a ghost, and Allen promised himself he’d examine it—and everything else—later.