The freezer had been dead for a week and it still smelled like fish.
Dora: You're really driving that thing up to Birchfall?
Nola: It's a freezer, Dora. Not a war party.
Dora: That's pack land. With a pack Alpha on it.
Nola: He looked right through me at the fountain. He'll do it again.
Dora: And if he doesn't?
Nola: Then I charge him extra.
The road climbed north until the town dropped away, and pine trees closed in on both sides.
Cold air poured through the open window, but her skin prickled anyway, long before she reached the gate.
Something under her ribs turned over in its sleep.
Nola: Not today. Lie down.
The ranger cabin sat at the end of a dirt track, all dark wood and chimney smoke.
Two black SUVs were parked outside, and she knew one of them.
Nola: Fuck.
He came around the side of the cabin with his sleeves rolled up, and his gray eyes were already flat.
Merrick: You're the repair woman.
Nola: I'm the repair woman.
Merrick: I told the town to send somebody. I didn't think they'd send the one who talks back.
Nola: I can talk less. Costs extra.
His mouth didn't move at all, and she decided she preferred that to the stare from the fountain.
Merrick: Put it in the back room. Don't touch what isn't yours. Don't wander.
Nola: Wouldn't dream of it, boss.
Merrick: And don't call me that.
She swallowed the word bastard the way she had swallowed a hundred others.
The freezer weighed two hundred pounds, and she had hauled heavier alone without complaining about it once.
Halfway down the hall her hands started to burn, the same way they had in the shop two nights ago.
Nola: Not here. Not fucking here.
Merrick: Something wrong?
Nola: Fine. Just heavy.
Merrick: You're sweating.
Nola: It's a freezer. They're cold. I'm warm. It's a whole thing.
He didn't offer to help, and she would have told him where to shove it if he had.
Then it hit her low and hard, like a fist under the ribs.
Her knees folded, the freezer tipped off the dolly, and she went down with it.
The floor was cold against her cheek, and everything else was on fire.
His boots stopped beside her head, close enough that she could see the dust on the leather.
Merrick: Get up.
Nola: Working on it.
Her voice came out wrong, too rough and too low, closer to a growl than a word.
He went still the way a wolf goes still right before it moves.
Merrick: What the fuck is that smell?
Nola: Antifreeze.
Merrick: No.
He crouched down close, close enough that his nose almost brushed her hair.
Her whole body leaned toward him like a plant toward a window, and she hated that more than the heat.
Nola: Back off.
Merrick: You're in heat.
Nola: I'm not.
Merrick: You are. Right here. In my cabin.
He said it like she had done it on purpose, like she had tracked mud across his clean floor.
Merrick: You should've stayed in whatever hole you crawled out of.
That one landed where it always landed, and she felt it settle in her chest like a stone.
Nola: I was invited. Your pack ordered the freezer.
Merrick: Then get on your feet and get out.
She tried to get up and her legs wouldn't answer, so she made a sound she would hate herself for later.
Something in his face cracked, just for a second, and what showed through was hungry.
Merrick: The council is going to love this. A rogue in season, in a pack cabin.
Nola: There's no scent on me.
Merrick: There will be.
The door was six feet away, and it might as well have been six miles.
Neither of them moved, and the silence stretched until she could hear her own pulse.
Somewhere under the fear, her wolf lifted its head and said mine.