Thanks for reading!
If you enjoyed this book, please consider leaving a review on Amazon or Goodreads.
Continue reading for a preview of the novel At the Wolf’s Door
“Which of the Parke boys do you think is cuter?” Rosa asked, digging her fork into the pie pan. Aspen had baked the key lime pie for the pot luck table, but Rosa had convinced her to swipe it back, and they were sitting on a bench at the edge of the rec area, a shrub blocking them from the sight of the rest of the attendees.
Nobody tended to notice when one or two of the guests from Wilson’s Bend faded out of the gathering. They called it a three pack meeting, but Aspen knew that the real point was for the wolves of the richer packs to mingle, while Wilson’s Bend was invited because they were in between and it would be rude to pass them over.
“They’re identical twins,” Aspen said. She peered through the foliage to watch James Parke confidently punt a football to his brother Daniel.
“That doesn’t mean they’re literally identical,” Rosa insisted. “I think Daniel is better looking.”
James broke into a wide grin, sprinting away to intercept a pass that his brother had attempted to throw to another boy.
“You’re just saying that because he’s the younger brother,” Aspen said.
Rosa had a tendency to do that. When they were younger she would immediately volunteer to play the handmaid so Aspen could be the princess, or have an orange popsicle when there was only one cherry left in the box, or ride in the backseat before Aspen had even called shotgun. Like because Aspen was the alpha’s daughter it wasn’t worth even trying to fight her. It made Aspen feel slightly queasy, but Rosa would just shake her head and insist, “no, that’s what I want.”
“So you do like James better,” Rosa crowed, sidestepping Aspen’s point.
“I didn’t say that.” Aspen jammed a forkful of pie in her mouth to give herself a second to think.
Unfortunately, that gave Rosa free range. “You two are probably going to be mates, right? Since you’re the alpha’s sister, and he’s the son of his pack’s alpha.”
Even after two years, the words sounded wrong. She still thought of herself as the alpha’s daughter. She still needed reminding sometimes that her brother Elliott was the alpha now. “Um, this isn’t medieval Europe. Our mothers aren’t gonna pair us off like shoes.” She stabbed at the pie, and tried to steer the conversation away from the weird tangent it had taken. “Besides, the Parke twins are way older than us.” The twins were in their final year at college.
“Older can be better,” Rosa mused. “They know stuff, you know?”
“Gross,” Aspen said. She tossed her fork into the still half full pie pan and pushed it away. “I don’t want to talk about this. There’s way better stuff to talk about. Like your quinceañera.”
Rosa lit up at that, and immediately started telling a story from her dance lessons. It was always a safe bet when a subject change was needed urgently—a lot of wolves in the pack didn’t get why some human ceremony could be so important to Rosa. And Aspen really did prefer hearing about it to debating the merits of some boys who couldn’t pick either of them out of a line up.
Over near the food table, where the adults were gathered, she saw Elliott reach out and grab Colette’s shoulder. It was an odd gesture, unusually rough for her gentle brother, but he got tired easily and had been looking pale all morning, so she didn’t think much of it until she heard Colette scream.
Aspen leaped to her feet, but all she could do was watch as his knees buckled and he collapsed.
One Year Later
Aspen stepped carefully on her way down the old back staircase to the kitchen. She was grateful for her night vision—it wasn’t the most interesting of the gifts the wolf could bestow, and she envied packmates with more glamorous gifts like superhuman agility or strength, but it was helpful not to have to turn on the light to find her footing on the patchy carpet. Just because she couldn’t sleep didn’t mean she had any right to wake anyone else in the house.
They all needed their sleep. Her nephew Douglas, curled up under the Star Wars blanket that covered up the old blue knitted security blanket he still needed to fall asleep. Rosa, who had arrived a few days ago with a duffel bag over her shoulder and moved in to the other twin bed in Aspen’s room by silent mutual agreement.
Her mother, asleep in the bedroom she’d shared with Aspen’s father.
Most of all Colette. As she passed the second floor she stopped at their open door to see Colette asleep on the recliner next to Elliott’s bed. Her sister—sister by mating, technically, but Aspen had still been writing in crayon when her brother took Colette as a mate, so she had stopped making the distinction a long time ago—only left their room to shower and check in on Douglas.
One of Elliott’s pillows had fallen to the floor. She didn’t need to worry about waking Elliott as she tiptoed in to fix it. The medication took care of keeping him asleep, just like it took care of keeping him out of pain and keeping him calm.
Those little orange bottles lined up on the shelf above his bed felt like foreign invaders. The fact that the sedatives even worked was proof of something she’d heard the adults talk about in hushed whispers, falling silent the moment they noticed her. Elliott’s healing factor was gone. His wolf was either entirely dormant, or had already crossed that final bridge and was waiting for him on the other side. It was common for shifters who reached a very great age, for the wolf to fade away and some ordinary human sickness to take them. But it was unheard of for a shifter Elliott’s age.
He was still the alpha of their pack, not that the alpha powers were helping him any more. The proof of that was in the fact that the pack hadn’t disintegrated. They still orbited around him like he was their sun. But the power was locked somewhere inside him, unable to do anything but wait to be handed over.
She tucked the pillow back under his head, taking care not to jostle the heart monitor taped to his finger. Knocking it askew would set off an alarm, waking not just Colette but the whole house.
She brushed the hair off his forehead, blonde and loosely curling just like her own. He looked so terribly young when he was asleep. Some people’s lives were just getting started at thirty. But he’d lived his life on fast forward. He’d raised a son, loved his mate and lead his pack through its darkest hours. Whoever came next was going to have a lot to live up to.
The fire that ran her grandmother’s old iron stove had faded away to glowing coals in the night, but it was enough to cut through the not quite spring chill and fill the kitchen with a honey warmth. Aspen eased a quarter of a log, about the width of her wrist, out of the basket beside the stove and opened the wrought iron door to feed it in.
Her grandmother’s recipe book had its own shelf. Aspen rarely needed to consult it—she had the recipes memorized—but there was a comfort in flicking through the fragile pages and running her fingertip beneath the looping handwriting as she followed along.
The book was divided into four sections using ribbons pasted to the spine. The front section and most thumbed pages were the daily favorites, the roasts and pies and sauces that kept the family running. The remaining sections held the recipes that marked the endless cycle of pack events—the elaborate desserts and delicate cakes that took so many hours they were only worth the work for mating ceremonies or milestone birthdays, the soups and stews that froze perfectly when there was a new baby and… the last section.
Aspen flipped to that section, and stopped at the first recipe.
“Oatmeal pie,” her grandmother had said to her years ago, while pulling the blue mixing bowl from the top shelf. “The perfect funeral food.”
“But nobody ever eats it,” Aspen had pointed out. She’d seen it at the few funerals she’d been to for great aunts and uncles and other pack elders. The oatmeal pie always got packed up at the end uncut, while the mourners descended on the pigs in a blanket and finger sandwiches.
“Not where you see it,” her grandmother replied. “But the wonderful thing about oatmeal pie is that maybe it’s not the best food for you, but if you eat it straight out of the pan, sitting on your kitchen floor, it’ll fill your stomach but won’t leave you feeling sick.”
The familiar rhythm of rolling out pie crust was soothing, and Aspen fell so deep under its spell that the sudden flood of light startled her half to death.
She looked over at the doorway, heart pounding, to see Colette standing with her hand still on the switch. “Sorry,” she whispered, and hit the dimmer.
Even after waking up from a dead sleep, and after a long day as a personal nurse, Colette looked impeccable, her tight black braids tied at the nape of her neck and her eyes clear. “You’re baking me one of grandma’s widow pies?”
Aspen stared down at the ingredients she had lined up on the counter, realizing for the first time that what was comforting to her would likely be deeply hurtful to her sister. “I’m sorry,” she said in a rush. “I didn’t think.”
Colette shook her head, and came to sit on one of the stools pulled up to the counter. “It’s fine. I get it, you know? I…” She traced a circle on the counter top with her nail. “Sometimes I find myself debating in my head what I should wear to the funeral. Like, if it hasn’t warmed up yet my gray knit dress will be perfect, but if it’s later in the spring the navy blue jersey wrap would be better. Or should I buy something black? I don’t own anything black. I look terrible in black.”
Aspen leaned across the counter and grabbed her hand. Sometimes Colette pulled back from touch, going stiff and silent until the other person apologized and withdrew—she said that the endless sympathy exhausted her. But she accepted Aspen’s gesture with a small smile.
The shadows of the kitchen warped and whirled as a pair of headlights skimmed past the window.
“Is that him?” Aspen whispered. “I thought he wasn’t coming until the morning?”
“Technically it is the morning,” Colette whispered back. “I guess he made good time.”
Aspen twitched aside the curtain to watch the old pickup truck pull up on to the grass of their lawn. The driver got out, too hidden by his hat and gloves and scarf to make out any features, but Aspen knew it must be Colm. Elliott had assured them all that Colm was a natural leader and a hell of a guy—his mentor and fraternity president during his one year of college, and his friend ever since. The car door slammed behind him and at that moment, it all became real for Aspen. Colm had arrived to take over as alpha of their pack, because Elliott was going to die.
Colette must have seen something on her face, because she squeezed Aspen’s hand again. “I spoke to him on the phone. He’s really charming.”
“Sure,” Aspen said.
No one else could have seen it. As he crossed the lawn Colm swept an appraising gaze across their house—the alpha house—and then smiled to himself in the dark.
Six Years Later
James had driven past the little diner in Wilson’s Bend more times than he could ever count, but had never had cause enough to go in until his date recommended it as a meeting place.
“Halfway between the two territories, owned by a pack neither of us are allied to,” she’d texted. “Neutral ground.”
That rubbed him the wrong way—it was a blind date, not a parley between warring factions—but he didn’t want to be the guy who suggested his date choose the location then quibbled with every suggestion.
There was a sticker on the glass door, showing a wolf’s head inside a broken circle. It was hidden amongst others that advised customers that the diner used CCTV, had free Wi-Fi, and was breastfeeding friendly. To a mundane eye it might be a band sticker or some New Age trifle, but to any shifter it was the international signal that the local pack had agreed to designate the business as neutral territory that any shifter could enter without seeking the alpha’s permission.
He paused for a moment in the doorway, steeling himself.
His wolf sighed. Why do you do this? It’s a warm, dark night. One of precious few left this year. We should forget this and go run.
I’ve told you why we do this, James answered. There was one simple reason why he kept allowing his mother to set him up with every eligible woman she crossed paths with. He’d been in the real world long enough to know that if he tried to fight every battle, he’d lose every one. Appearing to go along with her attempts to arrange an appropriate match was an easy way to look cooperative, so when something came up that he did need to stand firm on, he had capital to spend.
Not that she would ever admit she was attempting to arrange a mating for him. He knew that if he said something she would act like she had no idea what he was talking about, of course she wasn’t trying to do that; arranged mating went out with gas lamps and horse drawn carriages. It was just that, as the alpha’s son, and probable future alpha, wouldn’t it be wonderful if the person he did happen to fall in love with was also someone who had something of value to offer the pack? And by the way, did he have plans for Friday?
A woman stood just beyond the glass, her thick blonde curls held off her face with a red scarf. In their brief, stiff exchange of texts his date, Angela, had mentioned she would wear a red scarf to help him spot her.
When he pushed open the door her pale brown eyes locked onto his, and her smile was like the sun rising. For a fraction of a second all of his annoyance at the whole process melted away. At the back of his mind his wolf sat up, going from peeved disinterest to full attention.
Yes, he said. This one. This one for us.
“Welcome. Booth or table?” she said.
James’s hopes crashed back to earth. Of course. She was the waitress. And his date… he scanned the cozy dining room, and saw a woman in the back corner playing with her phone, her own red scarf draped over the back of her chair.
“I’m meeting someone,” he said, inclining his head toward the woman. An immature part of him hoped he would see the same flash of disappointment on her face that he was feeling, but she just smiled again and led him to the table.
His date—Angela—was pretty in an angular, elfin way that had never done much for him. His eyes kept drifting back to their waitress. He tried to shake it off—Angela deserved better than half his attention.
“James,” she said warmly, placing her phone next to her coffee cup. “It’s good to see you again.”
Again?
“Same to you,” he said. He saw her smile falter as she immediately picked up that he didn’t have any idea who she was, beyond his blind date.
This was something that happened to him sometimes, and he hated it every time. He didn’t like to think of himself in these terms, but the fact was that he came from a prominent, rich family and an alpha line to boot. As a teenager and young man he’d been tall and broad shouldered, good at sports and charming in the glib way his father had trained him to be. The end result was that he made a strong impression on most people he met, but didn’t necessarily remember them the way they remembered him.
“We met a few times as teens,” she said. “At the multipack mixers, and the Montana shifter conference, of course. But then I went away for college and I’m told I’ve changed a lot.” The warmth had completely disappeared from her voice.
“Of course.”
You’ve already ruined this, she hates you, the wolf said cheerfully. Just leave. We’ll go running.
“Thank you for agreeing to meet so late,” James said, ignoring the wolf. “One of my deputies moved on to greener pastures recently, so I have to cover a lot of shifts personally.”
“It’s no trouble,” Angela said. Her eyes drifted to her phone, and then back to James. “It worked out nicely, I had a dinner meeting west of here, so stopping here on the way back let me kill two birds with one stone.”
“Another blind date?” James joked.
“Yes.” Angela took a sip of her coffee.
James didn’t even try to hide his surprise. “That’s… efficient.”
Angela rolled her eyes. “We’re at that age, and we both have responsibilities to our packs. I very much doubt this is the only blind date you’ve been on recently, and I’m not going to pretend this is the only one I’ve been on. We both know why we’re here.”
James knew why he was here. But below the surface reason, there was a part of him that really hoped that the person he found sitting on the other side of the table would turn out to be the person. He liked the idea of coming home to a house that was already lit up. He wanted a family one day. But whoever that person was, he was sure she wasn’t someone who scheduled her dates back to back to minimize the commute.
“The Jardin pack territory is two hundred square miles, correct?” Angela interrupted his thoughts.
“Er… yes. Two hundred and thirty five, actually, although half of that is undeveloped wilderness.”
“Hardly a negative to a wolf pack. Although what you have developed is impressive. Your family has broken even on the capital costs of the resort, haven’t they?”
“You’re a big fan of numbers, huh?” he said. The soft, warm weight of a hand landed on his shoulder as the waitress leaned over him to fill his cup. He was pleased to see the coffee she poured into it was from a simple pot. He’d spent too many years drinking Sheriff’s station coffee to enjoy anything that didn’t taste like it was taking strips off his throat on the way down. She squeezed his shoulder once.
“I’m a big fan of clarity,” Angela said.
“Can I get you two anything to eat?” the waitress interjected.
“If you could give us a couple of minutes with the menus,” James said. He glanced at the little silver name tag pinned to her black shirt. “Aspen.”
Angela remained silent, thin lipped, until Aspen withdrew to the kitchen. “Two hundred and thirty five miles is impressive. Our pack holds one hundred and seventeen. Your pack is too big for a merger to be practical, of course, but once you’re alpha of your pack, and my father is alpha of ours, we’d hold nearly seven hundred square miles in allied territory.”
Somewhere behind them came the sound of crockery crashing to the floor.
James frowned. “Math has never been my favorite subject, but I don’t think you’re adding that correctly.”
She shrugged. “Yours, mine and in between. We’d have them surrounded. I mean, there’s Wilson’s Bend to the west, but clearly they’re not going to be capturing territory any time soon.” She glanced disparagingly around the diner. “Separately we’re each other’s biggest competition. Together we’d be unstoppable. A steamroller.”
He stared at her, certain he’d misheard. “That’s not unclaimed territory. It’s held by the bear clan.”
Angela rolled her eyes. “The bear clan. It’s held by one bear shifter. The only reason nobody has challenged him yet is sentimentality and fear of his money. The former has run his course, and the latter is nothing compared to our combined resources.”
“Sentimentality,” James echoed. “His entire family was killed. And now you want to seize his territory? The territory they’re buried in?”
“Territory isn’t just about privilege, James. There’s responsibility too. He leaves it completely abandoned nine months of the year. It’s calling out to every land hungry pack this side of the Dakotas, and if someone else takes the bait we’ll all get sucked into a war.”
“You know he already thinks that fire was set by wolves, right? He’ll take any move against him as proof.”
“Then he’s crazy. If a wolf pack had set that fire they wouldn’t wait nine years to make another move.”
Aspen jogged up to the table, looking flustered. “Sorry to interrupt—”
“We asked for five minutes,” Angela snapped.
“You sure did, sweetheart.” Aspen said the word without any bite, but the smile that split her face was nothing like the genuine friendliness he’d seen earlier. “Sir, you have a phone call. It’s your father.”
James’s phone was in his back pocket, still and silent. “My father?” he repeated. His father was in Australia, and would have no idea where to find James if he wanted to call him on a land line.
“That’s right. Seemed kind of urgent. Our phone is in the kitchen. Right next to the back door.”
Oh. James jumped to his feet. “I’m sorry Angela, it sounds like I definitely need to take that call.”
As soon as the kitchen door swung closed behind them, Aspen put a hand on his shoulder and steered him toward a stool next to the door. There was no phone on the wall.
“We’ll wait in here for five minutes, and then I’ll go out and tell her there’s been a huge emergency and you had to leave right away,” Aspen said.
“You’re an angel,” James said, grabbing her hand and squeezing it.
She blushed. “Well, I’m glad I could get you out of there, but it was personal too.”
For a moment James thought she meant she was jealous—what was it about this woman that had him so quick to jump to self delusion?—then he remembered, and his heart sank into his stomach. The bear clan hadn’t been the only fatalities in that disastrous fire. The fire department who responded included several wolves, most notably the Wilson’s Bend alpha. While the humans had been fine, every shifter who passed through the door of that cabin that night was either killed or permanently injured, an almost unheard of rarity. It was a mystery that would likely never be solved, as human investigations had found nothing and the implacable anger of the bear clan’s sole survivor stymied any attempt at shifter investigation.
“Your alpha was killed,” James said.
“He wasn’t just my alpha, he was my father,” Aspen said. “And that’s only the beginning.”
“I’m so sorry, I can’t imagine having to stand here and listen to that.”
“I’m sure you wouldn’t have brought her here if you knew what she was going to propose.”
“If I’d known there wouldn’t have been a date anywhere,” he promised.
Aspen gave him a small smile, but he could see that she was holding back some heavy emotions. “That should be enough time, you’re free to go.”
Why couldn’t this girl have been the one sitting on the other side of the table? His wolf grumbled.
Life is unfair, James said. Once the kitchen door had closed behind her he pulled out his wallet and laid out a tip on the carefully scrubbed prep table. It was all the cash he had, but it still fell far short of what she deserved.
As he pulled out of the parking lot, he noticed an enormous man walking along the river bank with a flaming torch in his hand. He sat at the exit, indicator on, and just watched for a moment as the man started lighting the torches ranged around a small clearing that must have been the Wilson’s Bend challenge ground. The moon was a sliver of nothing in the sky, so they couldn’t be gathering for a moon run, and it was too late at night for them to be meeting to mark a mating or welcome a new baby.
He shrugged, and eased out into the flow of traffic. Odd, but not his pack, not his business.