Frostbitten by Kelley Armstrong Page B

the frame just enough to let out a puff of what I’d smelled earlier.
     
    “Open it,” I said.
     
    “What?”
     
    I grabbed the handle and rammed my shoulder into the door. The wood crackled and it flew open. The smell blasted out, sending me reeling back.
     
    I caught a glimpse of what was inside. Then I hurried to the side railing, leaning over it, hands over my mouth, teeth clenched, gorge bobbing.
     
    Clay’s hand rested against my back.
     
    “Sorry, I—” I turned. “I’m sorry.”
     
    He nodded, his gaze on the forest. I stepped toward him, uncertain. His hands went around my waist and I moved into his arms, my nose pressed against his warm neck. His arms tightened around me. After a moment, a shuddering sigh rippled through him.
     
    “You stay here,” I said. “I’ll take care of—”
     
    “I’m okay. It’s been a lot of years.”
     
    We went inside. When I’d first smelled decomposition, I thought Dennis had been killed by wolves. The threat of a werewolf on their new territory might override whatever warning told them to stay away from people. The moment I’d looked through that door, though, I’d known it hadn’t been wolves. Not the kind that walk on four legs, anyway.
     
    Dennis Stillwell sat on a kitchen chair In the middle of the room, bound hand and foot with thick wire cables. It looked like he’d been tortured. How much was hard to tell. Despite the cold, he was starting to decompose. All I knew was that someone had tied him up, tried to get information from him, then killed him.
     
    Clay looked at Dennis, his face unreadable.
     
    “I’m going to find them,” he said.
     
    “I know.”
     
    * * * *
     
    We buried Dennis in the woods. We wanted to give him a burial, but more than that, we had to. If Charles or anyone else found him, there would be an investigation and an autopsy, and we couldn’t risk either.
     
    Werewolves rarely pass away in their sleep, so it’s an unavoidable fact that sometimes there is an autopsy and an investigation, and our world hasn’t crumbled yet. The anomalies in our blood and DNA probably left more than one lab tech scratching her head, and maybe a few had made notes of it, put it aside for a personal project, but nothing more. Still, we don’t take chances, and even a mutt killing another mutt will dispose of the body. Only, apparently, these ones hadn’t bothered. Did they not care? Or was this a message for someone? For Joey?
     
    Clay and I had experience with body disposal. Too much. We’d buried our own and we’d buried mutts, so we knew how to do it. Dennis Stillwell would simply disappear, like so many werewolves before him.
     
    When we finished, we stood at the gravesite, the bitter wind whipping through the trees, freezing every inch of exposed skin and making our eyes water. Those tears were the only ones we’d shed. Nor would we say any words over the grave. That was the human way. Ours was quieter, more private, just a few minutes of silent respect and reflection.
     
    When I felt a familiar prickle at the back of my neck, my head shot up.
     
    “Wait,” Clay said, his voice low. “Move slowly.”
     
    I turned my head and followed his gaze, sweeping across the forest.
     
    “Oh my God,” I whispered.
     
    Reflections of at least a dozen pair of eyes dotted the forest. I could make out gray shapes against the black forest. Wolves.
     
    “We’ll go back inside,” Clay murmured. “Are there more behind me?”
     
    “A few.”
     
    “Okay. Count to three. Then turn your back to me. We’ll walk in that way. Keep your gaze up over their heads.”
     
    “Don’t look them in the eye.”
     
    “Right. If one charges, then meet its gaze. It might back down.”
     
    I really hoped so. A dozen wolves against two werewolves? Even Clay wasn’t itching to meet this challenge.
     
    Back-to-back we walked into the cabin. As Clay bolted the door, I looked out. The wolves hadn’t moved.
     
    “Do you think they smelled