“You shouldn’t be doing this!”

Fensa kept walking. Doggedly moving forward. Trying to ignore the one person she never could: Ola, her twin sister. But her hiking boots were becoming heavier and heavier. Filling with sand, thanks to their lack of shoestrings. The sun beat down on her, relentless and unmerciful. Punishing her. Cursing her stupidity with its heat.

The only thing worse than the sun… effing Ola.

Her sister matched her stride for stride. The desert trek was super easy for her. She wasn’t even winded. Which was too bad, because she was using her every effortless breath to second guess Fensa.

“Girl, you are going to DIE out here!”

Fensa didn’t answer. Just kept moving forward.

“You’re going to get caught, and all those plans you made with Koko to move in with her and finally start college? Poof! Gone like a damn magic show—right before they send you someplace even worse. Why did you bring me back here? You were almost free!” Ola’s voice, usually so Detroit cool, grew more frantic by the minute.

Fensa couldn’t reply for all the sandpaper in her throat. She should have brought water with her. But she’d honestly thought she could make it, since the North American time gate was only about four or five miles away from the facility. But as it turned out, four or five miles was a damn long way to trek in sand-filled hiking boots, and nothing to protect her from the vicious sun but a thin gray t-shirt, and a pair of flimsy shorts.

She should have left at night instead of the middle of the day when the sun was at its highest and strongest. But it wasn’t like she’d had much choice. No…Fensa had seen an opportunity, and she’d taken it.

“You’re going to break Mama’s heart with this, Fenny! Again. Doesn’t she deserve some peace after the divorce and Papa’s funeral?”

Fensa hated that she and Ola were divided on this. Before Papa’s death, her twin had been her most loyal supporter, defending even her craziest actions. But not today, which admittedly gave Fensa pause.

But then, like a wish granted, the bottom of the mountain range appeared. Red and stubby and dotted below with ancient sandstone cave dwellings cobbled together by a shifter tribe from long ago. Fensa glanced farther up the mountain to the natural caves above. They were scattered across the mountainside like moles on an otherwise dusty red face.

She couldn’t see the time gate at all. But then no one could actually see the gate. However, her wolf could sense it. And it was her wolf that propelled her forward, quickening Fensa’s previously leaden steps with the need to get to the portal on the red mountain’s highest, sun-facing steppe.

“What are you going to do when you get there, Fenny?” Ola demanded, striding right beside her on the mountain path.

Look at it. She only wanted to look at it. The gate had been calling to her with its siren song ever since her parents and Aunt Tu dropped her off at the facility four years ago.

“Look there, Daughter…you can view the mountain the time door sits upon from your window,” her papa had pointed out. “When you look to it, think of your papa slipping from his time into yours.”

“Bullshit,” Ola answered her memory. “You’re not just going to look at it and think of him! You know going to that gate won’t bring Papa back. Nothing’s going to bring him back. He’s gone! Please turn around, Fenny. Go back…please!”

“Ola, it will be alright,” Fensa croaked out of her sandpaper throat.

“No, Fenny, it won’t. If I’m here, things are not even remotely alright!”

“It will be alright!” Fensa insisted, her gaze set firmly on the time gate.

“Really? How is any of this going to be alright??? You’re dehydrated as fuck. And you can barely walk!”

But Fensa was almost there. She couldn’t turn back now. “It will be alright. Trust me,” she croaked again, trudging forward.

But it wasn’t. Not even remotely.

The world was upside down, swaying back and forth when Fensa came to. This time, rather than the stark white expanse of snow and ice, she felt rather than saw thick, scratchy fur. It was covering her. Her eyes slowly adjusted to reveal a hairy, brown blanket that smelled strongly of the almost-but-not-quite-elephant she’d scented earlier. And beneath her…a horse. No, wait…not a horse.

She inhaled deeply through her nostrils. Then inhaled again because she couldn’t quite believe her nose. But the nose never lies—especially when it belongs to a wolf. Which meant as difficult as it was to imagine, she was almost certainly draped across a type of reindeer.

What the hell was she doing on a reindeer???

From her dangling position under the rank-smelling blanket, Fensa could make out a set of large black hooves—cloven like those of a deer or goat—deftly navigating the snow and ice covered ground below. And beyond the hooves, she spotted the fur-and-hide wrapped feet of two of the four shifters who’d jumped her with their spears. She assumed the other two must be up ahead, leading the way.

At first, she thought to call out to them, but then remembered what had happened the last time she tried reasoning with this gang of spear-wielding thugs. So instead, she focused her mind on more important things. Such as…

Where were they taking her?

As if in response to her silent question, the reindeer came to an abrupt halt. Fensa heard a sharp whistling sound and the crunch-crunch-crunch of feet moving towards her through the snow. And then the musky hide was whipped off her, thrusting her back into the unimaginable cold. But before her teeth could even begin to chatter again in protest, hands grabbed her and hauled her off the reindeer like she was an oversized couch they’d been charged with delivering.

Sadly, this wasn’t the first time she’d felt like oversized furniture. Her mother was a 5’10” video game designer, and her father was a ginormous Viking. Lucky her, she’d inherited her mother’s awkward social skills and her father’s inability not to stand out in a crowd. Which resulted in her morphing into a huge nerd—both literally and figuratively. This had caused her no end of trouble during her teen years because—yay! the only thing better than being a chronically shy adolescent? Being a chronically shy, six-foot tall adolescent who’s fatter than the average she-wolf.

Her cousin Koko wore her height and curves proudly, declaring, “The softer the pillow, the better the lay.” But ever since puberty, Fensa felt less like an inviting pillow, and more like the huge, unwieldy piece of furniture these male shifters were treating her as.

“What are you doing? Where are you taking me?!” Fensa demanded as soon as they set her down on her now considerably less shaky feet.

Apparently, her second head-wound nap of the day had done her well. Yay for that. But not really…because the male shifters now surrounded her, their spears pointed towards her vulnerable middle.

The largest of them shouted words at her.

^{“Unknown language. Unable to translate,”} her GoGen unhelpfully informed, making her want to rip the damn thing out of the back of her neck.

But it wasn’t like she needed a translator. The big guy (relatively speaking) brandished his spear and used the tip to roughly prod and jab at her clothing, his message vicious and precise: Strip. Or else!

He wanted her to take her clothes off? Here?!

“Are you fucking kidding me!?” Fensa asked, no longer interested in diplomacy. She’d gladly let all four of them stab her with their spears before she gave up even one stitch of clothing in this intense cold. So they could just go fu—

All thoughts disappeared when she glanced up mid-angry eye roll and noticed the structure. Right there in front of her. Completely tuning out the mini-shifters and their spears, Fensa gazed up, awestruck. To think she’d completely missed this huge…thing.

What exactly am I looking at??? she wondered, taking an unconscious step forward.

For one ridiculous moment, Fensa was nearly convinced she’d stumbled across the intimidating ice castle from that old Disney movie, Frozen. Brought to life. Minus the angsty queen with the blond braid and beltin’ 1000 singing voice.

It only took her a nanosecond to abandon that line of thinking. Because although the resemblance was there, this thing didn’t look exactly like an ice castle, per se. The structure was at least a hundred feet tall and loomed over her with the massiveness of a glacier. A giant glacier that someone…or something…had put a lot of time and effort into hewing and carving to closely resemble...well, a beautiful building. Made of ice. Fensa was no expert on architecture…but she was pretty sure the two thrusting towers at either end of the structure were turrets. And the walls glowed blue as if lit from within. Oddly though, the structure had no windows.

Fensa had seen holo-pics of glaciers when she was a kid in school. And she’d visited the few remaining ice caves in Alaska during her childhood. This structure shared similarities with both, but it didn’t fall easily into either geologic category. Her thoughts bounced from the teacup-sized shifters wielding bone-tipped spears to this elaborate, futuristic ice palace.

Seriously. Where the hell was she?! When the hell was she?!

It felt like her mind was exploding inside her head. Which was probably why she didn’t notice the four shifters closing in on her. Again. But this time, instead of knocking her out, they started ripping at her clothes.

In preparation, she would soon find out. Because they were about to sacrifice her to whatever lived inside that ice fortress.