“Where are we going?” Not back to Westvale. Not yet.
“So impatient. Were you one of those kids who peeked before Christmas morning?”
“I suppose you were in total control,” I groused. “Never shook a present to see what was inside.”
“When I had them.”
I shoved on the boots and grabbed the coat I’d worn—I’d left it on the floor, but it was now hanging from the hook by the door. “Okay, mister I-never-peeked-at-Christmas, this better be good.”
Amusement made him look younger. “Worth the wait.”
And what waited outside was a pure, clean world covered with fresh snow. And a gang of children, young pups, some brave enough in jeans and sweaters, others bundled up by their mothers—who hovered in the trees, gossiping between themselves.
But the pups were all grinning and bouncing on their toes.
“We come to help the owl-fuh,” one red-cheeked boy shouted, while the others cheered.
I felt something break open in my heart.
“The snow-wolf brigade,” Grayson said. He gestured toward buckets and shovels, a box with carrots and coal, a black top hat, a striped scarf. Huge fake wolf ears. “Tradition. On Christmas morning, if there’s enough snow on the ground, the alpha builds a snow-wolf.”
I looked at the sweet faces, wreathed in anticipation… joy flooded into my heart. “And all the good boys and girls come to help?”
The pups nodded. I turned back to Grayson. “How did they know?”
“Word got around that I was here.”
Mace. Bless him. I pressed a hand against Grayson’s chest. “Then we shouldn’t keep them waiting.”
He turned and said, “Ladies first.”
A cheer rang out and the first snowball hit, a wet bull’s eye smacking against my chest, spilling snow down my shirt—while children giggled and the best laugh I’d ever heard bubbled up in my mate’s throat.
After that opening salvo, the chasing erupted, the hooting and conspiring until snowballs pelted the Alpha of Sentinel Falls into submission. Young pups dog-piled on until he howled in surrender, with one determined little girl sitting on his chest and smooshing his cheeks between her small hands.
He lifted her off with one hand, set her on her feet. Slowly, a snow-wolf rose into being, perhaps a little lopsided, all three mounds of him, becoming what I could only describe as spectacular. Truly the best snow-wolf in the world, and I wished for a camera to document the achievement.
No camera appeared, but as the sun warmed, snowmobiles dragging sleds arrived with food and tables for a feast. Owen Griffith’s clan. Miranda Kirk was with him. And Albert. When I talked to them, offered to syphon, Albert shook his head, grinned when he said his wolf purred.
“Whatever you did worked,” Miranda whispered, patting my hand.
As we ate and chatted and moved about, Grayson’s tension lessened. This was what he needed—to see how the pack loved him. Supported him. Warmth flushed my cheeks. I moved from group to group, murmuring the same two words. “Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.”
They stroked their hands down my arms. Against my back. Offered food in case I was still hungry. Adriel hugged me. Catrina hugged, too, and I spoke my condolences to her privately. Holding her hand.
Her mother had died at Azul. But she was fast friends with Adriel. She used sign language as naturally as Jodan had, speaking and signing. I’d be happy to know, she’d added, that Owen came up with a special food for Burn, and the dog was moving easier now. Perhaps the wish I’d made months ago, that I’d run through the forest with Burn one day… perhaps that wish would come true.
Then the feast was over. Families disappeared into the late afternoon, some on snowmobiles. I didn’t know where they’d all come from, didn’t want to jolt the magic or the perfection of the day with logic and human concerns. Grayson and I stood to watch them all leave, his arm around me. My arm around him. As if we realized our time was fading, too. That, soon, he’d be going back to the Refuge and I’d be going back to Westvale.
We had two more magical winter days when we cooked, played, made slow love in front of the fire. Then passionate, hot sex that raged through both of us. With my back to the wall, he claimed me. I claimed him while he writhed on the floor, his head pressed back, my name on his lips as I brought him to ecstasy. Memories, each one more precious than the last.
More desperate.
Careening toward an ending.
On the third magical day, we sat in front of the fireplace, and Grayson lectured me. “Vampires can’t come inside unless invited,” he said, his fingers playing with mine.
“Yeah, yeah,” I teased. “They say that in all the vampire movies.” I’d watched one popular series on television, at midnight, while I ate ice cream out of the carton and yelled at the characters as if they were actually in the room.
