Jax gripped the steering wheel and glared through the window of the truck. He watched the falling snow coat the roads and was amazed at how much had fallen in only a few hours. He didn’t hate the snow but tonight seemed extra shitty. The dormant beast that had been resting in his middle seemed to hate everything. Why? He didn’t know and didn’t give a shit.

“Freak snow storm in the middle of November,” Damon said, sitting back on the bench seat. He had the window on the passenger side of the truck down. “Who would have thought the forecasters were going to be right this time.”

Jax glanced over at Damon, the urge to tell him to roll the window the fuck up burning in the back of his throat. But he didn’t. He wouldn’t do that to his friend. Besides, Damon had so much pent-up rage at this moment he might literally rip Jax’s arm off. He’d done it once before. It was a bitch to put back on.

“Yeah. Freak snow storm. You want to talk about it?” Jax asked, looking over at Damon before gluing his eyes back onto the road. They may be damn near indestructible, but his truck wasn’t and the roads were slippery.

Damon clacked his teeth together, and the sound of him balling his hand into a fist so tight that the muscles cracked sounded through the vehicle. “Talk about the storm? Nah. Can’t do anything about it.”

He didn’t want to push Damon. Jax knew the weight of what was going on in their clan was heavy on his mind. On his soul.

“Damon,” Jax said, putting on his blinker to turn into the parking lot of the grocery store. “It’s not your fault. Cole’s been fighting with the idea of being put down for a while now. It’s been a long time. He’s tired.”

“A long time?” Damon said with a sarcastic snort in his voice. “A long fucking time? He’s not the only one who’s been waiting a long fucking time, Jax.” He gripped his fingers onto the bridge of his nose and pressed.

With a slip on the unsalted ground, the truck slid into the parking space. Jax cut the engine and turned to face Damon. The feel of anger and dominance was pouring off of him and filling the inside of the truck, so much so that Jax wanted open the door and let the heaviness of it drift out into the open air. That or the two of them could punch it out until they were bloody and breathless. No. He’d stick it out with his friend.

Damon was pissed. He was hurt. Jax hadn’t felt this much emotion roll off the man since the time one of their clan members went on a killing spree. They had to have him taken care of by a coven of witches. Jax wouldn’t dare say his name.

When Damon got himself together he looked up and met Jax’s eyes, and they instantly knew what the other was feeling. They had a special link that had been there since the beginning of this life. Hell, even before this life they were a pair. Jax was Alpha to Damon’s Omega, and they lead a clan of shifters unlike any other.

They shared everything. It was meant for those that were part of a triad. They hadn’t met their third, but Jax and Damon would always be a pair. An incomplete pair.

“You need to calm down,” Jax said, running a hand through his short blond hair. He grabbed a handful of it at the nape of his neck and pulled.

He couldn’t have his Omega falling apart. That shit would trickle down through the clan and they’d all be begging to be put down. Or go on a killing rampage, whichever came first.

The hard look in Damon’s eyes would have cowed a lesser man. “You’re the Alpha, man. You could order him. We could put him on ice like…”

“He’s tired, Damon.” Jax took a deep breath, the pain of their missing clansmen coursing through him. “You have to pull it together to help Cole through this. Help us all through this. And yeah, I know it’s not fair that it’s on you. You feel it like the rest of us, but it’s up to you to bring a level to this clan that I can’t. And this isn’t like you. I’m usually the asshole.”

Damon huffed a laugh and opened the door. “That you are,” he said, clapping a bone-rattling slap against Jax’s shoulder. “Come on. Let’s get what’s on everyone’s list so we can get back home.”

Cass glanced up as the light flickered and dimmed in her office. She frowned at the silver light fixture hanging from her ceiling and pointed at the now blown out bulb. “Aren’t you new lightbulbs supposed to have a ten-year guarantee?” she said, her voice echoing in the near empty room.

She exhaled slowly and looked over at her calendar, instantly wishing that she hadn’t. It was November 18^th, and New Rose, Maryland was being drowned by a freak snowstorm. She hated November 18^th and 19^th. For the past two years, life had seemed to take on a crappy new low on those two days of the year. If she could sleep those two days away for the rest of her life, she would gladly do so.

Another bulb flickered and dimmed, and this time she heard the soft audible pop of the light blowing out. “Damn-it, Andrew. Is that you?” she asked, her voice going hoarse as she spoke to the empty house. “I’m not going out. I’ll starve first.”

When the weather forecasters called for ten inches of snow she didn’t believe it. New Rose never got snow this early, and if they did it was nothing more than the annoyance of a light dusting that did nothing more than coat the streets with fine, white powder. You couldn’t even make a decent snowball with it, but if the snow kept at its current fall the snow queen and her perky sister would be making a snowman by morning.

Cass got up from her messy, dark wood desk and headed to the door of her home office. Her billowing robe danced around her wrist as she grabbed the doorknob, and she smiled. The robe was meant to look like a wizard’s robe, and with that one memory she was almost in tears again. Andrew had gotten her that robe three years ago. He knew she loved the wizard books, and somehow he’d found out that she had herself sorted into one of the houses. He bought her the house rob for their wedding anniversary.

The soft sound of her sob echoed through the room and she slapped her hand over her eyes. “No,” she yelled, willing the tears away. “Just… no.”

She hated feeling like this. Sometimes, it was as if a cloud of sadness and grief had covered her and she had to fight to make it leave before she submerged herself in it. No. She wouldn’t be hopeless in this. She would get over Andrew. She had to. There was no other alternative.

Cass snatched open the door and walked to the kitchen to find something to eat, and was met by the scent of old fish. No amount of scrubbing and airing out of the kitchen had seemed to work. Trying to ignore the smell, she riffled through the cabinets and screamed in triumph as she found two cans of tuna. Jackpot.

She opened the drawer closest to the dishwasher and pulled out her can opener. As Cass went to spin the little wheel to make the can opener work its magic, one of the handles fell off and the wheel rolled across the counter.

With every ounce of restraint left in her body, she fought not to throw the tuna can across the room and gritted her teeth. “Mother-fluffin’ Laurel!”

Cass’s niece, the little cretin, had stayed at her house while Cass had been sent to Boston to train for the new medical coding guidelines. Laurel was walking destruction in the form of a twenty-one-year-old college kid, and Cass knew for a fact that Laurel had used the now three-piece can opener to eat the third can of tuna she had bought a few weeks ago. Laurel had left the empty, opened, unrinsed can on the counter last night and the entire kitchen reeked of fish. Apparently, that was Laurel’s see-you-at-Christmas-break gift she had left before heading back to Louisiana.

“Damn-it, Laurel,” she screamed to the empty house. “I don’t have food because you ate everything while I was gone and I couldn’t go to the market when I got back from Boston yesterday,” she said, pacing the kitchen floor. “I couldn’t go to the market because my car sounds like an eighty-year-old pipe smoker. My car sounds like an old smoker and is smoking like one because you did something weird to it even though I specifically told you not to use my freaking car. And now I have enough tuna to get me through my two days on lockdown but I don’t have a fucking can opener!”

Cass threw the can she was holding at the wall, and with a comical thunk it sank into the wood and stayed there as if laughing at her, daring her to throw the other can. What a shitty day.

The warmth of the heater that sat over the door of the market entrance blasted Cass in the face, and she sighed in relief. “See, Cass,” she said as she unwrapped her three scarves from her face and slid back her hood. “Only took forty minutes to walk a mile and a half in four fluffin’ inches of snow.”

On the rare occasion that she had decided to walk to the grocery store it only took her twenty minutes. Add in the freezing cold winds, four inches (and growing) of snow, and it took her double the time. Oh, what fun it was going to be to make the trek back home with her bag of food on the uphill walk.

If today had a face I would so freaking punch it, she thought to herself. Cass made quick work of her visit. The store was almost bare. Thank God she’d bought toilet paper last week or she would have been out of luck. The only toilet paper left in the market was the hard stuff that clogged up your pipes.

Ice cream, bacon, and eggs were a must have, and she picked up other food she thought would get her through the next few days. Cass just had to be careful not to buy too much stuff. She had to carry the bags home.

Cass walked down the canned goods aisle in search of a can opener. There was one left and she smiled. “Fluff, yeah,” she sang, reaching for the opener on the endcap of the aisle.

Just as her hand touched it, another hand reached around the other side and tried to grab the can opener. Cass snatched it and held it to her chest as if she were clutching her grandmother’s pearls. The hand felt for it again, and before Cass had a chance to claim her booty and make a run for it, a face rounded the corner and she stopped mid-escape.

Holy mushrooms. The guy was maybe in his mid-twenties with striking blue eyes, animated eyebrows, and hair so dark blond it was almost brown. He was tall, stocky, and his thighs were so thick it looked like he kicked down trees for a living. Ink crept up the neck of his black tee-shirt, and worn grey sweatpants encased his strong thighs.

Confusion blanketed his face and his eyebrows shot up. The side of his full lips quirked in a half smile. “I need that,” he said, his deep voice sounding as if he should be harmonizing with a quartet of sexy tree kickers.

“Umm, not as much as I do,” Cass said, taking a step backward.

He smiled at her and pointed to the can opener she held. “The cashier just walked me over to get that. It’s the last one,” he said.

Cass wasn’t sure if he was looking at the can opener or her breasts. It didn’t matter. She’d wrestle him to the death for the blessed thing she held to her chest. “It still is,” she said, turning around and running into a warm wall of man chest.

A zing shot through Cass’s body as large hands wrapped around her shoulders and steadied her before she fell on her ample ass. At least it was good for something.

Cass craned her head back to look at the man still holding her arms. His touch sent heatwaves against her skin and she welcomed his grasp to keep her standing. His skin was the color of warm, dark honey, and his eyes were an odd shade that made her catch her breath. They were more of a dusky yellow than hazel, and they searched her face as she steadied herself. She raked her gaze over the bulge of his triceps covered in tattoos and back up to his eyes. She shuttered at how focused he was on her.

No one had looked at her like that in two years, and she almost broke down crying as she saw that look in the stranger’s eyes. It was like no one existed in the world accept her. Her heart bumped against her chest like a loudspeaker in an overcrowded nightclub. She yanked her body back before she followed through with her naughty thoughts. She wanted to stand on her toes to force her tongue down the man’s throat. That was usually frowned upon.

“Bye,” she said, abruptly turning to hightail it away from the sexy sasquatch. Fortunately, or unfortunately because she couldn’t decide, she ran into her competition for the can opener.

“Hello, again,” he said, grabbing her hand to keep her from dropping the basket full of food. As he touched her, his eyes darkened and he looked at the man behind her, and Cass felt the same heatwave move over her as she did with the other man. “You feel that Damon?” he asked the man with the yellow eyes.

“Sure as shit did.”

Cass felt something too, but she wasn’t sure if it was repressed sexual aggression, the flight-or-fight instinct to run away from the sexy as hell men with the can opener still clutched in her hand, or the need invite them back to her house. She squeezed her eyes together briefly, trying to clamp down on the urge to grab this one and kiss him silly, and pulled her hand away from his. That same sweet zing that shot through her with the other guy, found its way back to her body and made a connection from her lady-bits to her spine.

She let out a jumbled confused sound and pulled her hand away from his. “I need to—” she started, confused by her confusion. Cass shook her head and then maneuvered her way around him. “My can opener,” she said quietly to herself.

My can opener? Had she turned into a caveman? Cass couldn’t string a good sentence together after looking at the two men, but the sight of the snow pouring down outside brought her back to her senses. The snow was coming down so hard it looked like rain. She could make out the bright glow of the street lights, but the cars that sat in the nearly vacant parking lot were barely visible.

She bolted to the cash register and quickly unloaded her goods. Digging into her backpack she pulled out two sturdy reusable bags. Cass knew they would be easier to carry on the walk back up the hill.

“I bet one of those mountain men could carry me up the hill,” she whispered low so the cashier would hear her. “Get a grip, Cass.”

“You walking in all this?” the young cashier said as he scanned her items. “You shouldn’t be walking in all this.”

They didn’t know each other, but from his nametag Cass had known his name was Neil. She had run into the boy over the years when she would come into this store.

She nodded and shrugged. “Yup. I’m walking. My niece killed my car. Thanks for your concern, but I’m fine.” She reached over and grabbed an extra flashlight and pack of batteries, just in case the lights went out from the snow storm. “How about you? Someone picking you up?”

He nodded and kept scanning, never looking up to meet her eyes. “My dad’s picking me up. He drives a truck.” Giving Cass her total, he finally looked at her while she put her bank card in the little machine. “If you wait a few hours I can have him drive you home, too.”

She smiled at him, gratitude pooling in her brown eyes. She blew a strand of thick, dark, coily hair out of her eyes and shrugged. “That’s really sweet, but I can make it. It’ll be my exercise for the week.” Cass slipped her hat on and grabbed her bags. “I’ll see you back here in a few days when my car is fixed. Be careful getting home.”

With a wink and smile, she wrapped the three scarves around her head and walked to the door. That small bit of kindness made her feel better. Instead of the vile, debilitating, hatred she constantly harbored on the 18^th and 19^th of November, she felt nice. It was nice to feel something else. That all faded when she stepped outside and was slapped in the face by the biting cold air and still falling snow.

Letting out an exasperated sigh she whispered, “If today had a face, I would so punch it.”

With his blue eyes still centered on the caramel-skinned beauty, Jax sniffed the air as she practically ran away with the can opener like her ass was on fire. He and Damon had scared her. And turned her on. He could smell it, her arousal like a fine wine wafting from an open decanter ready for him to taste. But the sweet aroma was tainted by sorrow and fear. He wanted to kill what made her feel this way.

“It’s her,” Jax said, panting as if he’d just run a sprint. His heart raced to match the woman’s. A low rumble slid its way up his throat, and it took everything inside of him not to go after the voluptuous woman and claim her as theirs.

Damon glanced at Jax who was still watching her. “Jax. Get a grip. She’s sad. And we frightened her.”

Jax dipped his head once and adjusted his cock. He could taste her in the air. Her wide hips, large breasts, and cinched waist did things to him. To the both of them. They watched her as she left the store, both of them frowning as she passed the cars and kept walking across the parking lot.

“She’s walking in this?” Jax said, more to himself. He shook his head as he watched her stop in the falling snow and double wrap the straps of the bags around her arms.

“Fuck that,” Damon said, already starting toward the door. “Not while I have breath in my body.”

The snarl that carried in Damon’s voice made him sound more shifter than he really was. Finally finding their third let them both know that their dormant beasts were now within their grasp. This would finally be over.

Jax looked down at the cart and then back to the woman walking up the slippery hill. He shook his head. “Damon,” he said with a sigh. “You go. She’ll probably think we’re trying to kidnap her if we both go. I’ll go check out with Neil and pack the car to meet you. And get your eyes under control.”

Jax looked to the checkout lanes and saw Neil, the only other person in the store and son to the local Raven shifter’s Alpha, typing away on his phone. Fuck The entire shifter community would know by morning that they had possibly found their mate and third in their triad. That may not be a good idea just yet, but right now he didn’t give a single shit. They’d found her. Her. He sighed and shook his head.

Damon’s eyes were glowing white like the florescent lights that illuminated the grocery store. He closed them, and when he looked at Jax again they were back to their strange hazel color.

Looking at Jax, Damon smiled and said, “If this is what we think it is, the time of the Ghost Shifters is coming to an end. She can make us whole again.”