Lara Larsen, his mother, was down at Eloise’s. The house he’d grown up in for some of his childhood stood empty. He’d spent the first part of his childhood in the alpha’s house when his father left. They’d moved out after the witch cursed his father and brought Flint’s fun childhood to a close.

His wolf skidded to a halt, and before the human in him could squeeze their little shared brain to stop, he’d marked the towering rhododendron bushes and then, for good measure, emptied the rest of his reserves on the azalea bushes that had little tiny pink buds about to burst forth with the spring that February was holding back from the valley.

He let out a quick yip and an internal growl at himself. While his mother wouldn’t pick up on the scent, the rest of his pack would, and now he was going to have a trail of first and second cousins wandering down to the firehouse to ask exactly why he’d done it.

Around the outside of the pack compound, he circled back, successfully avoiding both humans and wolves. At the edge of pack property, he ducked into the lean-to that held bins of clothes. He shifted and dug through them, finding a T-shirt and a pair of bright orange sweatpants. The pickings in his size were minimal. He rolled up the pants—their former owner had a few more pounds around the waistline than him—and slid the pants into the shirt, tying it up like a package. Shifting back to fur, Flint grabbed the tied bits of sleeve in his mouth and trotted off to town.

The pack lands were on the edge of Hundsburg, and while part of him wanted to move away from the center, he didn’t want to get a new job. He liked the crew he worked with at the station, and living in the municipality was a requirement the mayor had put on all town employees to keep them from moving closer to the city. Instead, Flint moved to the opposite side of town, the edge hugging Spring Ridge. Still in his family’s pack territory. Getting there in fur was more than possible, but first he needed to stop by the Pick-n-Pay and pick up some of the same Rocky Road ice cream that Pike had put in the freezer. Maybe he’d fit in these pants someday. Get his abs some cushioning.

Behind Trent’s Auto Repair, Flint pulled on the pants and the T-shirt that turned out to be two sizes too small.

The bells to the Pick-n-Pay grocery store tinkled, but the clerk didn’t look up from the copy of Shifter Today she was reading while leaning over the counter. She clicked her gum. Marley wasn’t a cousin but was a pack member.

“Mirabel.” It was Marley, but calling the twin by her sister’s name was something he’d done since he was ten and they were in fifth grade together. Shifters could tell each other by smell, so while the females might appear exactly the same on the outside, they weren’t at all to their pack.

“Shithead.” Marley didn’t look up.

Flint yanked open the freezer and ignored the flames of magical power licking at his hands. He needed to get the power into a power orb. It wouldn’t melt his Rocky Road, but it might explode the carton if he didn’t get it siphoned off soon. He put the container down next to Marley’s magazine and added two candy bars, a protein bar, and a pack of sugarless breath mints.

Marley finally glanced up. “Nice pants. Afraid someone won’t see you?”

Flint shrugged.

“My mom left those out in the loaning bin. They were my dad’s. She snuck them out. I wouldn’t let him catch you in them.” Marley laughed.

“Copy that.” Flint took three Dragon Ale nips bottles out of the display on the counter and put them in his odd stash of things he didn’t need.

“Flint Larsen, what’s going on with you? Did somebody die?” Marley took a glance at Flint’s bare feet and put his purchases in one of the canvas bags that the pack used for carrying things in wolf form.

“No, put it on my tab.”

“Are you . . . ?” Marley stopped. Because he wasn’t okay. But the female knew enough to not ask anything else. Marley held up a spoon with a shrug, and Flint nodded that he wanted one.

“Thanks.” Flint picked up the bag. “Thanks, Mirabel.”

“Have a good night, fucker.” Marley returned the magazine to the rack.

Flint gave her the middle finger. Having sex with Mirabel in the back of his old truck during a bonfire twelve years ago hadn’t been worth the misery the two had caused him since then. He sat down on the bench outside the Pick-n-Pay. The three boards groaned under Flint’s weight.

He popped the top to the little dragon ale. While the state didn’t allow humans to buy hard alcohol from regular stores, humans considered dragon ale a shifter drink. And it wasn’t regulated by the government. He ate both the super-sized candies and shot back the other two dragon ales before cracking open the ice cream and dipping the protein bar in it. Two bites in and he dropped a big spoonful onto the bright orange pants.

He watched it melt. He’d half planned to find a ride out to his place, but instead he peeled the clothes off. After draping the pants around Marley’s side-view mirror, he wrapped the ice cream in the bag and shifted. The third dragon shot hit his system as he did. Instead of trotting down Main Street, he found himself heading past the fire station to his old school. The building had been empty, like a lot of storefronts in Hundsburg, for a half-dozen years. When a billionaire bought it, no one knew what was going on in the main part of the building. No one but him. Not that he understood what the heck the witch was doing in the school.

He’d heard about the playhouses. One of his second cousins was working for the bear shifter who made them. Said he wasn’t a bad male for a bear. And he’d met Jack once at the Easy Rabbit.

Flint trotted up to the front door, and he picked up Emma’s essence. Fuck, the woman smelled like heaven. Spring teased at them, but Emma smelled like autumn. Flint’s favorite season. Apples, cinnamon, and sugar. He stood and breathed in her faint scent, then jogged along the edge of the walk, following it. It didn’t vanish into a car, no, it meandered off Main Street up the hill. The dragon ale had sunk the rest of the way in.

7

Emma didn’t want to get up. It was Sunday and the sun wasn’t up yet. She could sleep in, but her brain wouldn’t shut off. She couldn’t fail at this job, and she didn’t want to let her best friend, her mother, or herself down.

Her little townhouse made her happy. The first day she’d been there, she’d painted the kitchen bright yellow and hung sky blue curtains. Now, on every trip to the thrift store, she was looking for plates shaped like clouds. Did she expect to find them? No, but that was part of the hunt. The adventure. Could she have used her magic? Absolutely. But at a cost. Magical power came in limited amounts. Like sleep or energy.

The bedroom needed unpacking, and she wanted to use her magic, but she needed to save power for work. She needed to shake off the lazy⁠—

A low growl rumbled from outside.

Emma’s heart pitched. She’d lived many places, but all of them had street lights and didn’t back onto the woods.

Another low-pitched growl came from out back. She’d cracked the window in the middle of the night. Yesterday, the temperatures had tipped up. This morning, the cold air tickled at Emma’s bare feet. She tiptoed to the back wall near the window—yes, she was on the second story, and the chances of a wild cat climbing up the tree outside her window and crawling right into her bedroom were slim but not none. The sound grew louder. And then a series of thumps shook her backyard-facing wall. Smack, smack, smack.

Emma steeled her courage and peered out the window. There was nothing out there but a rusty barbecue left by the last renter because it had been stuck in the snow and a broken black plastic chair.

Smack, smack, smack.

Emma leaned forward, resting her head on the upper storm window. When she tilted her head enough, she could spot a black fluffy tail.

Pulling away from the window, she huffed out a breath and covered her mouth. There was a wild animal out there. She leaned against the glass again, cocking her head until she could see a little more. A wolf.

Her cell phone was downstairs. She would quietly go downstairs and call Jack, her best friend’s mate. They lived fifteen minutes away. If she locked herself in the bathroom, the thin hollow door might keep her safe until he got there. A bear shifter could handle a little wild wolf.

No, the thing wasn’t getting inside. She needed to calm down.

Carefully, she tugged the window closed. She braced herself on the way down the stairs, trying to make as little noise as possible. Each step set off a creaking loud enough to wake her grandfather when he’d taken his hearing aid out to sleep. Shh little house. She held up her hand to perform a spell to keep her quiet, squeaking out the last bit of her power. But then why bother? Courage bubbled up around her. Really, how was a wolf going to get into the townhouse even if it was rabid? It wasn’t.

She let out a reassuring sigh and took the last three steps at regular speed. They groaned with the same decibels as when she had tried to remain quiet. In the kitchen, the smacking noise was louder. Cellphone in hand, she started to dial, but then thought about it again. It was Sunday. And she needed to handle this on her own. She couldn’t call Jack and Shiori every time something minor happened. No, she could deal with this, and if the thing didn’t disappear, she could stay inside today. It would vanish at some point, hopefully.

On her tiptoes, she snuck over to the slider next to the kitchen cabinet. In the far corner of the kitchen, she could see its whole body. Massive didn’t begin to describe the thing. It lay against the house. Dark black fur with white spots and white tipped fur around its mane. That didn’t look quite right. Was it sick? It was huge. She’d never even been around a wolf.

Its back leg started to smack the wall of the house again. But this time the beast tilted itself so that the leg waved around in the air. Something light blue flashed in between the wolf’s legs. She knew that color. The wolf twitched again. It wasn’t in pain—well, maybe it was, but it was dreaming of something. Probably chasing a squirrel. Its hind paw stretched out, and that was when she realized how she knew the color. The thing had stolen her ice cream. Her beloved ice cream from her freezer. But how did it get inside? She raced to the freezer, but her pistachio ice cream was still there. She turned fast enough to strain her neck. Goddess. She snuck to the window. Where had a wolf gotten ice cream? Oh, there was even a canvas bag next to it.

That wasn’t a wolf. That was a wolf shifter. What the heck was a shifter doing lying in her backyard with a half-gallon of melting ice cream? Was it the last renter of the town home? She hadn’t even rented it for herself; her boss had found it for her. Housing was part of the package. And he’d set up the lease as a rent-to-own.

The renter of the other half of the building was a nice older couple that had gone to Florida for the winter, and they wouldn’t be back until June, so it couldn’t be them. But she didn’t want a vagrant shifter hanging out next to her rusted barbecue and broken chair.

She rapped on the window. It echoed in the kitchen, startling her. The wolf shifter didn’t move. Perhaps she had it wrong. The wolf might be rabid after all. Do it, Emma. She moved to the slider and this time knocked with her whole fist. The slider shook in its track, and the idea that it might shatter sent a bubble of fear through her stomach.

The wolf cocked its head like a child who didn’t want to get up and dropped it down onto its paws.

Emma knocked again. This time the wolf sat up on its haunches. The empty ice cream container sat in front of it. It blinked its brown eyes at her, and her heart thudded. She’d never wanted a dog. Every ShifterChat quiz she’d ever taken had come out that she was a cat person. But right now, she wanted to open the slider and let the wolf come in and eat her precious pistachio ice cream.

He—she knew it was a he somehow—cocked his head the other way at her, and she found she mimicked him. “Who are you?”

The wolf lifted his gums and bared his teeth.

Emma slapped the glass. “Stop that. Don’t be rude.”

He cocked his head and closed his eyes, looking away from her.