Arctic Winds

Chapter 1

Jason paused in the entrance of the pack’s local diner as a tantalizing scent hit him. Although completely foreign, it held a familiarity that compelled him closer.

Smells like home. Jason shook his head. He had no idea where that thought came from. The scent evoked no memories of his childhood home or his current house on the outskirts of town.

Whatever it was, it was doing strange things to his wolf. The sudden urge to shift and start chasing his tail almost overwhelmed him. Better yet, the tail of that woman in the corner booth. Taking a deep breath, he confirmed the strange and delicious smell came from the petite blonde huddling into her sweater. She was definitely a shifter but that was about all he could figure out. She wasn’t any type of shifter he’d dealt with before. Without question Jason would have remembered a scent like hers.

Spotting Martha, a waitress at the diner and a respected elder in the pack, he made his way to the counter.

“Who’s that?” he asked, inclining his head toward the woman.

“Dunno. Came in a few minutes ago and ordered. I was about to phone your office but you saved me a call by coming in. Doesn’t seem dangerous but she’s definitely not local.” As leader, or Premier, of the Alpine Woods pack, Jason was called upon whenever something out of the ordinary occurred.

“Not dangerous at all. Still, I’m having trouble placing her. She doesn’t smell like anything I’ve dealt with before.” They both looked as the woman sneezed into her napkin three times. Who would’ve thought anyone could look attractive while sneezing? “Maybe some kind of cougar?” he guessed.

“That bitty thing? Housecat maybe, cougar no way. Besides, whatever she is, she’s canine, not feline,” Martha murmured, moving away toward some customers.

Jason looked at the woman in the booth again. Martha was right. Whatever she was, she was definitely canine. Her mannerisms reminded him of the fox shifters he dealt with on occasion, but Jason was positive that couldn’t be right. He knew the local foxes and none of them would come into his town without a courtesy phone call first. Besides, the woman’s coloring was not the brassy reds and oranges prominent in fox breeds.

Jason stood and moved next to the woman’s booth, watching her gaping stare slowly travel up his frame. Her eyes grew wider as her gaze raked over him. Jason was large, even for a wolf, and obviously his size intimidated the small shifter.

Though his animal form came from his mother, Jason’s human form came from his father, who was built like a linebacker despite being full human. His father had been shocked after his mother had shown him her animal form, but instead of being freaked out, he eventually came to think of it as amazing. “Why would I want normal when I can have remarkable!” his father had said throughout Jason’s childhood.

His father was thrilled to be mated to a wolf and loved Jason’s mother more each and every day, although he had been disappointed he himself could never be more than human. Contrary to popular belief, a shifter’s bite didn’t “transform” a human.

Lately, whenever Jason visited his parents, he felt a keen sense of longing. He wanted love like theirs someday. When he walked into his empty house after work, he thought about what it would be like to come home to a hot meal and a warm body. At the end of the day, he wanted to share his hopes and dreams with someone. He felt ready to build a home, but as yet hadn’t found anyone he could imagine building that home with. Maybe it was his father’s words echoing in his head, but he didn’t want normal...he wanted remarkable.

He’d dated his share of women, but none he wanted to spend the rest of his life with. Hell, he could barely stand to spend an entire night with them and usually found himself leaving early the next morning. Being the leader of the pack, he never wanted for female companionship, but lately it just wasn’t enough.

“Can I help you?” The woman’s hesitant voice interrupted Jason’s daydreaming, drawing his mind back to the present.

“I’m wondering the same thing.” He slid into the opposite side of the booth, never taking his eyes off the woman driving him crazy with her delectable scent. “What brings a woman like yourself to my town?”

“Your town?”

“That’s right.” Leaning forward over the table, he pierced her with his gaze. “My town.”

She ran her small tongue lightly over her plump lower lip and nibbled absently on the corner of her mouth. Jason’s desire spiked as he watched. When was the last time something so simple made him so horny?

Her eyes got impossibly wider after she delicately sniffed at the air. She started shaking and held a hand out in front of her as if fending off an attack.

“Please don’t. I…I’m sorry. Please,” the woman whispered desperately.

Oh my God! It’s a shifter town! I’ll be lucky if I get out alive. Samantha couldn’t believe she’d made such a huge mistake. Her mind screamed at her to get out quickly.

Stumbling into the diner, she had thought of only one thing. Food. Although running out of money fast, she wasn’t feeling well enough to hunt up meals today. She had decided to splurge and drove into this small town looking for sustenance. But she had no desire to take her life into her hands by trespassing on pack territory.

This damn head cold. Normally she would have smelled the warning signs long before reaching the border of their town, but her nose had been clogged for days. She hadn’t even thought about it as she drove up.

Back in Alaska, where she grew up, shifter communities were interspersed everywhere and God help anyone who ventured into one. The bears would rip intruders in half and send them back to their skulk in pieces before asking questions. And her people were no less fierce. They didn’t have the strength of the bears, but they were crafty and knew how to take down a trespasser before they even got close to the burrows. The moose and wolves were equally defensive. No community let strangers live long enough to explain.

She had managed to get as far as the diner. Maybe she could quietly leave the town and they wouldn’t harm her. Or maybe they were just trying to figure out where to send the remains.

“I’ll leave. Right now, and you’ll never see me again.”

Anger filled the man’s gaze.

Oh God, she wasn’t going to make it out of here. “Please, I’ll go,” Samantha said as everything went hazy around the edges of her vision. No, not here… was her last thought before the world went black.

Jason jumped forward and caught the woman as she collapsed. He easily lifted her and kicked out a chair at the table to the right of the booth, sitting as he examined the beauty he held. She was obviously starving, and felt as if she barely weighed one hundred pounds. She also seemed to be running a slight fever. Why was she frightened upon discovering this was a shifter town? If she was ill, she should’ve been happy to find a town with a doctor used to dealing with her kind.

“Is she all right?” Martha asked, coming to stand beside him. A couple of the diners stood to help but he waved them back to their seats.

“I think she just needs some food and rest, but she should see a doctor as well. Call Eddie and ask if he’ll come over.” Eddie Pritchard was the town physician and, although not shifter himself, was used to taking care of those who were. Unlike most shifter communities, the full humans in Alpine Woods were considered pack. They attended pack meetings and events along with the wolf shifters.

Jason went back to examining the beauty in his arms as Martha moved to make the call. He was surprised at the spurt of frightened anger that ran through him when she mentioned going away and never coming back. He barely knew the woman, but he definitely wanted to change that. His wolf howled at him to find out everything about her. He’d never felt such a strong attraction to a woman before. He didn’t even know her name, but he wanted her with a fierce passion. Even starving and ill, she was the most beautiful creature he’d ever seen. Her hair was so blond it appeared white and fell down her back in long waves. She had a delicate face with a long nose and sharp cheekbones. Her almond-shaped eyes had been crystal blue.

He looked up as the front door opened, the cold air blowing against him where he sat. He watched his younger brother’s eyebrows rise as Ethan took in the woman in his arms. His two brothers, Ethan and Danny, helped him run the pack. As the oldest, Jason was technically Premier, but they were his officers and their leadership was a team in the truest sense of the word. The pack looked to all three to keep them safe and happy.

“What’s with the girl?”

Jason looked back down at the woman he held. It would probably be better to lay her down, but he didn’t want to relinquish her warm body yet. Logically, he knew he would have to once Eddie arrived, but until then, she felt right in his arms, like she belonged there.

“I don’t know. She collapsed. Eddie’s on his way.”

As he watched, the woman shifted slightly against him, seeking the warmth of his body. She was a tiny thing. Everything about her called on his protective instincts. Whatever she needed, he wanted to be the one to provide it. Starting with some food. Jason scowled at her almost sunken cheeks. She was too skinny and looked like she’d been surviving on breadcrumbs.

“Earth to J?” Ethan waved his hand in front of Jason’s face. “Where did she come from?”

“I don’t know. She was sitting in the booth. When I went over to see what she was doing here, she panicked. She looked at me like she thought I was going to tear her head off. Kept apologizing and stuttering, and then collapsed.”

“Interesting,” Ethan murmured, watching him closely as Eddie bustled into the diner carrying his black bag.

When Eddie reached them, he motioned for Ethan to help him push several tables together. Jason felt himself stiffen. As stupid as it sounded, especially considering it was his request, he didn’t want Eddie to look at her. He wanted to bundle her up and take her back to his house to care for her himself. Already his wolf thought of her as his.

Reining in his irrational wolf for the moment, he laid his precious bundle on the hastily put together exam table. Not wanting to give up contact completely, he grabbed her hand and held it in both of his as Eddie looked her over. Jason noticed Ethan staring at their joined hands and growled a warning.

His brother’s shocked gaze rose to meet his, before a wide grin slowly spread over his features.

“So that’s the way it is. Guess we’re adding a new pack mate.”

“Huh?” Eddie asked, having missed the exchange.

“Never mind, Eddie. Make sure we take good care of this one,” Ethan said.

“Just get on with it,” Jason growled. Ethan’s smile widened, silently mocking him. “Get that look off your face. It’s not what you think. Don’t you have somewhere you need to be?”

“Not at all. I can’t think of anywhere I’d rather be than right here.” Ethan crossed his arms and leaned back against the table behind him.

“I swear, your only purpose in life is to torture me. Why don’t you get out before I beat you black and blue?”