“Okay…”
I jammed my feet into my boots and got out of the bed, pulling on another sweater as I made my way across the room. I dropped into the chair opposite Liam in what I hoped was a clearly apathetic heap.
“A half dozen to the Alpha Pack’s twenty-four? Good odds.”
Liam rubbed the back of his head, still messing with the names on his list. He would scratch one off of one column, and put it in another. Then, he’d do it again. And again. And again. I sat on my hands to keep them from taking the pen away.
“It doesn’t really matter,” I said after he moved Silas Elliot’s name around for the eighth time. “We’re not prepping for a battle, Liam. I’m issuing a Challenge. It’s not a a group effort.”
Liam moved Kirk Cates to the “Maybe” category. “It does matter.”
“Why?”
Serious grey eyes met mine. “Because no one should feel like they’re all alone.”
That day we trained harder than ever before. The next, even harder. We still only had a tiny space in which to work, but we got creative. Somewhere in amongst all the push-ups, drills, and attempts to Change when the moon wasn’t full, the kiss went from the center of my thoughts to a faded memory. The first few nights after it happened, bedtime was a tense affair, with one of us making it a point to be asleep before the other crawled under the covers, but eventually we fell back into our old routine. And after a few weeks, I got so comfortable I started titillating conversations most good, sane girls knew better than to even think about. But snuggled up under the covers, the heat of Liam’s back sinking into mine, under the disguise of darkness, I couldn’t help myself. The desire was too strong.
“I would kill for a cheeseburger,” I said into the night. “The kind with a really thick, juicy patty sitting on a fresh bun with crisp lettuce and a sweet tomato.”
Liam’s voice drifted across the bed. “I would assassinate the President of the United States for a steak, with a baked potato covered in butter and sour cream.”
“I would take out the Queen of England for a salad. One of those huge restaurant affairs with chicken strips and honey mustard dressing.”
“There is literally nothing on this earth I wouldn’t do for a sandwich.”
“French fries! French fries! My frozen Canadian kingdom for a single freaking French fry!”
“I want tacos.”
“I want Mexican rice.”
“Fajitas.”
“Lasagna.”
“Spaghetti.”
“Pie.”
“Cake.”
One night I actually cried because I craved a Mello Yello with such a raging desire I thought I might die without it.
Every night we would talk about food until we drifted off to sleep, and every morning we would eat our ration of canned fruits and vegetables and wild game as if we were perfectly satisfied with what we had.
I told myself any parallel I noticed between our food situation and any other situation was completely in my head.
As the winter drug on, I found myself talking less and less. There were no more questions about the various Shifters who were aligning themselves against the Alphas, no random thoughts or insights, no clever quips to try to coax a smile out of Liam. Back home there was a commercial from a local mental health facility which provided a depression checklist. From what I could remember, I had them all.
There were times when it got exceptionally bad. The sun wouldn’t shine for days, the snow would keep us imprisoned in the cabin, and there would be nothing to occupy my mind but fighting and blood and death. When it got to the point where I thought I would break, my lifeline would come from the great beyond while I was asleep. My meetings with Alex were never long, nor did anything significant happen, but for a few moments I would get to stretch out under the warm sun and laugh as Nicole tickled my hand or neck with her little puppy tongue while Alex talked about anything and everything just to keep the conversation going.
In March the weather started getting warmer. It wasn’t like March down in Kentucky, which would herald in the wearing of flip-flops, but the temperature did transition from frozen-river-in-the-inner-ring-of-Hell cold to normal cold. Liam and I were able to be more active outside, which was great. However, we weren’t the only ones.
The first time I realized we might have a problem I was crouched on the ground two nights before the full moon, cursing Liam and wishing for horrible ends for all his descendants. I was no closer to being able to Change at will than I had been in the fall, but he still had me spending ten minutes out in the cold without my knickers on just in case. To keep me from getting frost bite on my naughty bits, I was stationed by our outdoor fire pit, the giant flames keeping one half of my body a reasonably warm temperature. I was watching the shadows the fire created dance across the forest when I noticed something in the snow. Grabbing any excuse I could find to pull on my clothes, I found it necessary to investigate.
I didn’t realize I knew exactly what both Liam’s and my paw prints looked like until I was standing over the markings.
“Liam.” It came out as little more than a breath. I pulled more air into my lungs and tried again. “Liam!”
I was shaking all over by the time he arrived, and not from the cold. I knew I was panicking, and I knew I really shouldn’t, but I couldn’t help it. Someone had found us already, and I wasn’t ready. I needed more time to train and prepare. It couldn’t start now. Not like this.
“What’s wrong?” He came running up from behind the cabin. I had to throw out an arm to keep him from running over my evidence.
“We have company,” I said, pointing to the tracks, not that they were incredibly hard to notice. The forepaw was at least five inches long and maybe four and a half inches across.
Liam squatted down and lowered his nose to the ground. Once he got the scent, he followed the trail, occasionally stopping to sniff a random tree or bush. Not wanting to get in the way, I stayed where I was. Eventually, he came back, concern etched on his face.
“It looks like there are at least four of them, maybe five,” he said, plopping down on the fireside bench next to me. “And they’re all huge. All of the prints were about the same size as the one you found.”
“Four?” My heart pounded against the confines of my chest. Who would they have sent? A local Pack? The Taxiarho? The Stratego? Could Liam and I take on five and win? “What do we do?”