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“I didn’t ask for the help.” There’s no hiding the rumble in my chest as I take in the…chaos.
“Well, she did.” She points at Lucinda then me. “Maybe you should keep a tighter leash on your guests.”
“Hey, I’m not a dog!” Lucinda snaps back, but I stop listening as my eyes focus on what’s been done in just a few minutes.
There is what I assume and hope to be fake snow covering the couches and chairs I’ve brought in. The ornaments have all been placed on the tree—something I was looking forward to doing by hand. Tinsel hangs from the ceiling, and the only things I had finished myself are nowhere to be seen.
My twinkle lights are now gaudy red, blue, green, and orange lights straight out of the nineties and should really be on the outside of the house. The elves and Santa that I’d set up above the fireplace have been replaced by a train set that seems to be floating on air… Okay, this part I actually like.
The caboose is making chugging noises, and there are small puffs of smoke that rise from the top while soft music plays in the background.
Giving the room another look around, I realize the lights aren’tthatbig and the snow accents kind of twinkle in a pretty way, maybe even better than the lights had.
Damn it. This is all actually pretty amazing.
Beatrix stands in front of me and pulls her hand out from her back, handing me a silver star. “Why don’t you finish?”
Oh, this witch. Just when I want to strangle her, she makes me love her even more.
My arms wrap around her, and she actually returns the gesture. “Thank you,” I whisper.
“You’re welcome as long as I’m allowed to stay,” she says. “My ogre of a soulmate decided to take a trip to the woods, and it’s boring back home. Apparently, his magic is out of sync and he needs nature to realign himself. I don’t know what happened to the scary version of him. I miss that.”
Lucinda snorts. “He lost that long before he met you and chose to wear socks with sandals.”
“You’re never going to let that go, are you?” I shake my head but laugh.
Maybe things don’t have to be as stressful as I originally thought they might be.
Chapter8
LYKEM
Leaving the pack that’s become my second home, I head northeast toward the coordinates River gave me. It’s been a couple months since I took a mission, so this should be fun.
Normally, I’m teamed up with River, but it’s just a lost wolf. Plus, River isn’t cool. He would have made this take too long not being able to fly. With the roads looking as icy as they do, driving would be dumb.
My deep red wings stretch out alongside me as I soar through the snowstorm. It’s not severe enough that I can’t see where I’m going, but the darkening clouds up ahead give me some concern.
Thanks to Andie’s shielding spell she embedded in me, I fly over the highway, unseen by the humans below. Cars honk and traffic is backed up, and I’m again grateful for my dragon.
I continue flying north for another twenty minutes before I start to cut east. I mapped the location out on my phone before leaving. There should be a mountain ridge just around… Yep, there it is.
As long as the she-wolf hasn’t decided to be a pain in my ass by moving around, she should be at the base of the second crest.
My wings flap harder, and I notice icicles growing off the tips. Great. It’s getting colder out. I’ve never flown in a deep freeze. Now,thatmight be a problem.
Knowing there’s nothing I can do now because it’s too late to turn back, I increase my speed and get to the ground as quickly as possible.
Folding my wings in when I land is painful thanks to the layer of ice on them, but I manage and shift back to my human form. It’s cold enough to make my balls feel like they’re frozen, but that doesn’t stop me from trekking through these woods.
I pull my phone out and check that I wasn’t wrong about the mountain. The dot on the GPS is only about five hundred yards ahead.
For the second time, I try the phone number to the wolf shifter that we were given, but it goes straight to an automated message.
According to River’s intel that he forwarded, she called into the tip line set up for supernaturals to let the protectors know when they suspect something needs to be investigated, stating she was out hiking and got lost.
That alone is confusing coming from a wolf shifter, but the fact that she didn’t reach out to her alpha is even more concerning. I’m surprised River didn’t question this more. Then again, he’s been in a hurry to get to East Texas for days now.
