The Mammoth Book of Paranormal Romance (Trisha Telep) (Kitty Norville 0.50)

Not yet.

Lily had been watching Mac and had noticed he was constantly scanning for any psychic traces of Casey. It would help their search a lot if Casey could tell them where he was . . . plus knowing if he was even alive would be nice. This mountain was unforgiving and had felled many an experienced hiker.

She closed her eyes for a moment, then swung her backpack down from her shoulder. She dug inside for a warmer pair of gloves, wishing for the hundredth time to have Mac’s thick, warm fur.

Mac trotted into the clearing before them, headed in some direction unknown to her. Communication wasn’t one of the man’s strengths, but tracking was, so she’d trust him.

The wind gusted hard, stealing her bre

ath. Mac disappeared over the ridge of a hill. “Hey,” she yelled. “Human back here. I won’t be able to survive the kind of storm brewing up on the horizon.”

Mac looked at her, his handsome head tipped regally. Without a word, he sallied forth, further into the wilderness.

Great.

With a sigh, she followed him, her will to find the boy more powerful than her desire to protect herself. She headed into the wind. It was blowing hard now and slicing against her partially numb cheeks. Little bits of ice had started to pelt down on her, like tiny slivers of metal, and the cold scent of snow had grown heavier in the air. There was a point, when walking into a snowstorm, at which your vision became obscured from all the squinting you had to do. She’d surpassed that point long ago. Her head ached from having to trudge headlong into the wind.

Mac stayed ahead of her at all times, probably more to avoid her company than as a caring gesture. She didn’t take it personally; Mac disdained everyone’s companionship. And, hell, she was a human - beneath his notice completely, she was sure. Although there was a fierce note of protectiveness in him, if you knew where to look. It was in the little actions she’d noticed him make in Pack City, like accompanying an elder to the store and back, or defending one of the middle schoolers against a group of bullies. Right now he was all about finding the boy and that made her admire him — even more than she already did.

You had to be strong to be a lone wolf, to buck the pack. You had to be stronger than the alpha to stand on your own because standing on your own meant you were a threat to the larger social organization.

Kind of like herself.

Her friends and family would be shocked by just how much she knew about shifter society. Lily knew it was unacceptable, but she was fascinated. She always had been, ever since she’d been eight and the werewolves had announced themselves to the world. It was the reason she’d pursued a nursing career and ended up working with the Elgonquinn Mountain wardens and the local pack. She was one of the few human health care practitioners who would have anything to do with the shifters. It was she and her colleagues who worked closest with the seven wolf packs across the country, the Elgonquinn Mountain pack being the largest. That made her sort of an outcast in human society. At dinner parties - which she tried to avoid as much as possible - she received all kinds of odd looks and even odder questions and comments.

“Is it true the alpha has the right to any female in the pack?”

“I heard they’ll eat human flesh given half a chance!”

“And when they shift from wolf to human they’re naked as the day they were born . . . and they don’t even care. Immodest beasts.”

“They’re all inbred, you know, won’t touch a human . . . thank God!”

Most of their information was wrong, but she never bothered to correct them. People guarded their misconceptions of the shifters jealously. It gave them an excuse for their “justified” outrage.

Mac stopped and waited a beat or two for her to catch up and then continued on. It must have been difficult for him to keep her slow pace, but he never complained. Her boots snapped cold, dry twigs as she progressed, the smell of snow heavier in the air. Her coat rustled with every movement.

Suddenly, Mac stilled on the top of the hill, nose high.

Lily scrambled up to collapse next to the huge animal, kneeling on the frigid earth and breathing heavily. “Find something?”

Mac remained still and non-responsive.

I heard something.

He probably meant telepathically, Lily thought.

It’s gone now. Come on, we need to get you to shelter.

He trotted forwards, following some wolfish instinct. Forcing herself to her feet, she tagged along, the cold wind biting her face, digging into her joints and invading her lungs.

The ice chips turned to snow and grew heavy fast. The world was only white, searing her eyes and melting pain into her head like thick acid.

Lily stopped at the edge of a frozen lake to rest, just for a moment, and watched Mac make his way across it, the snow swirling and billowing around his legs as he skated across the glassy surface. He was moving faster now and she had to concentrate on not falling too far behind. She pushed her exhaustion away as best she could and set off. Maybe the fact that Mac was moving more rapidly meant he’d caught some sign of the boy - a psychic or physical scent. Her steps quicker at the possibility, she shouldered the weight of her load and sped up, her boots crunching ice and the wind whooshing into the sides of her heavy hood. Every moment they didn’t find the boy was another moment he might be lost forever.

Halfway across, the ice under her feet cracked.

Lily stilled, terror sending a jolt, colder than anything Mother Nature could create, through her veins. From a distance away, Mac also stopped, turned, stared.