Ghost Wolf

Daisy decided next year she’d try her hand at the ice sculpting. She had no skills, but she wouldn’t let that stop her from learning how to use the chain saw. She loved a good competition.

Daisy’s pack always attended the festival. In town they were not known as werewolves. The humans were oblivious. And the pack principal—who was also her father—was all about community and making nice with the humans. All packs existed amongst the mortals. Garnering friendships and fitting in was key to survival.

She recognized wolves from the Northern pack pushing a sled piled with ice blocks toward the sculpting platforms. Supposedly the Northern pack had been a pretty nasty bunch of wolves in the decades before Daisy had been born. Her grandmother, Blu, had been a member then, and Blu’s father, Amandus Masterson, had been the principal. He’d died—but not before first torturing Blu’s vampire husband, Creed. Since the Northern pack scion, Ridge Addison, had taken over the reins as principal, everything had changed, and the pack was now peaceable toward other packs, as well as vampires.

Daisy’s father, Malakai Saint-Pierre, was somewhere in the crowd, probably testing the various hot dishes offered at the bake stands and flirting with the women. Her mother, Rissa, took it in stride because Kai was fiercely faithful to her. But with a former reputation about town as a Casanova, he had no problem soaking up the female attention.

Her mother had stayed at home today in favor of an afternoon to herself. She was uncomfortable in large crowds. It wasn’t because she was one-hundred-percent faery; Rissa was just quiet and didn’t much understand socializing.

Daisy could relate. Her mother had bequeathed her the scarlet letter of introversion. Her four brothers had inherited their father’s extroversion. They could all be somewhere in the area, though she suspected Blade had stayed away. He wasn’t much for crowds simply because he was secretive.

A familiar face smiled through a bustle of winter caps. Stryke was the second-youngest of Daisy’s four brothers, and was full werewolf. Trouble was also full werewolf. Kelyn was faery. And Blade was a mix of vampire and faery (the vamp was thanks to their grandfather Creed’s DNA).

“Hey, sis!”

Stryke pulled her into a generous hug. The guy was a master hugger. When he hugged, he gave his all. The wise, more cerebral one of the bunch, he was the one his siblings went to when they had a problem and needed to talk.

“Why the long face?” he asked, turning to lean against the concrete bike rack where she had paused. “Not into the festivities?”

She shrugged. “I don’t know. Just kinda melancholy, I guess.”

“Yeah, this town isn’t the most exciting. Hot dishes and lutefisk?” He shuddered comically.

“Tangle Lake.” Daisy recited the town’s name. “And not a tangle to it. This town is straighter than straight. The highway dashes a straight line beside it. All the streets are parallel and straight. Even the lake is square! I need a tangle, Stryke.” She sighed, twisting the ends of her pink hair. “I’d even settle for a little twist.”

“I hear you.” Stryke’s gaze traversed a nearby ice bowling match, where the participants bowled ice balls toward frozen autumn squash. “I can’t wait for Aunt Kambriel’s wedding this summer.”

Kambriel, their aunt, who was their father’s twin sister (and a vampire), had fallen in love with the vampire Johnny Santiago and planned to wed in Paris, where she currently lived.

“You might find yourself a European werewolf,” Daisy said, knowing her brother’s strong desire to find a woman and settle down. Yet for some reason Stryke was never compelled to put down roots with any of the women in the area. Not interesting enough, he’d often lament.

“That’s the plan,” he agreed. “A tangle, eh? I’m not sure you’ll find the excitement you’re looking for in Tangle Lake, Daisy. Most exciting thing lately— Well, hell, what about that ghost wolf? You think it’s a werewolf?”

“Yes,” she answered quickly. And then, “No. Maybe. I don’t know. I’m doing a story on it for the local paper. Or I’m trying to.”

“Whatever it is, be careful.”

“I will. Do you think it’s a werewolf?”

“Yes,” Stryke said. And then, “No. Maybe. I don’t know. I’d have to see the thing up close. And I’m not sure I want to. Though I can promise Trouble would like to have a go at it.”

The eldest brother of the siblings, Trouble (whose real name was Jack) had a thing for picking fights and pushing people to their breaking point. But he did it in a playful way. Unfortunately, most people did not get his confrontational humor.

“I have to go,” Stryke said. He nodded toward a crowd of young women bundled up in bright ski pants and boots. Pom-poms bobbed on their heads and mittens, plus a few at their boot ties. A cavalcade of sex kittens. “Got a date.”

“A tangle?”

“If I’m lucky.” He winked. “You going to the fireworks?”

“Kelyn and I usually head out together. I’ll see you later, Stryke.”

He kissed her cheek, a cold smack that made her giggle, and strode off toward the pom-pom kittens.

Sighing, Daisy tugged out the paperback she always took along to public events and found the bookmarked page. She wore gloves with rubber tips on the fingers, designed for operating touch devices. Books were the ultimate touch device. Immersing herself in the fiction, she strolled slowly along the packed snow embankment that edged the hockey rink where makeshift teams had gathered to play. Should have brought her skates. What she wouldn’t give to slap sticks for a while...

All of a sudden, someone charged into her. Daisy dropped her book and made to shove away the annoying guy, but she paused when she saw who it was. The sexy wolf she’d run into the other night at the edge of the forest.

“What is it with you and the need to ram into me every chance you get?” she asked.

“Uh, sorry. I had my eye on the puck.” He tossed the hockey puck he picked up from the snow toward the guys outfitted in knee pads and skates waiting on the ice. “Besides, this is the first time I’ve rammed into you. If you’ll remember correctly—”

“Yes, yes, I recall. So you’re playing with the mortals?”

“Exclusivity to one’s breed is not wise in this small town.” He swept a hand toward the players who had continued the game without him. “They’re a great bunch of guys. I love hockey. There you go.”

“I like hockey, too, but I don’t think the boys would like a woman joining them.”

“Probably not. All the girls are over at the food booths making cocoa and serving us men.”

Daisy’s jaw tightened. “I don’t serve any man.”

Beck swerved his gaze toward her. “Huh? Oh. Right. Sorry, that was—”

“An asshole thing to say.”

“Whoa. This is fast going down an icy slope I don’t want to slip on. Let’s start over.” Tugging off a leather glove, he then bent to pick up her book and handed it to her. “Sorry. The pages got snow on them. Don’t you have one of those fancy e-readers like I see everyone carrying nowadays?”

“I have a few of them,” Daisy said proudly. “Sometimes I prefer the touch, feel and smell of a real book.”

She pressed the closed book to her nose and inhaled. Snow had dampened a few of the pages, but she couldn’t be upset because she also owned the digital copy of this book.

“It’s so personal to hold a book in my hand. I can open it to any place I like with a few flutters of the page. I can trace my fingers down the words, rereading phrases that speak to me. The stories make my heart race and my skin flush. My toes curl when I’ve read a well-crafted sentence. Mmm...”

“Uh...”

She glanced at Beck, whose mouth hung open. Oh, those eyes could attract wise men on a clear winter night beneath a velvet star-filled sky.

He scratched his head. “You just made reading sound sexual.”

So she had. “Books turn me on.” Daisy resumed her stroll along the snowbank shoveled up around the rink.

The wolf in hockey skates followed, blades sinking into the packed snow. “Really? They turn you on?”

She nodded. She wasn’t sure she’d ever find a man equal to the heroes she read about in her stories, but she held out hope. Of course, the stories were fiction. She knew that. But it was okay to dream. And besides, when she finally did find a hero of her own, she felt sure she’d recognize him immediately for his gleaming honor and smoldering sensuality.

“So it’s one of those sex books?” he asked.

Daisy stopped and toed her boot into a chunk of snow. Oh, she pitied the poorly read. “Just what implies a sex book in your mind?” She waved her book between the two of them. “Anything with a pink cover?”

“Anything with sex in it, I guess.”

He was out of his league, and he knew it. Daisy smiled triumphantly. Points to the women’s team.

“Says the wolf who’s probably never read more than fast-food menus and car manuals.”

“Don’t forget The Iliad. I may have been home-schooled, but I don’t think there’s a way for any breathing teenager to avoid that snorefest.”

Daisy rolled her eyes. She wasn’t much for mythology, but wouldn’t admit to him that she agreed with his assessment of the classic tome. That would be too much like flirting. Of which she did not partake.

“I have read a lot of car manuals,” he added. “I own a shop at the edge of Burnham.”

“Hockey, cars and tromping through the forest without a shirt on. Such a guy you are.”

He stabbed the hockey stick into the snow and propped both wrists on the end of it. “I can’t tell if you’re admonishing me or trying to flirt awkwardly.”

“I—” Stymied, Daisy turned her gaze away. She did not flirt. Because if she did, it would be exactly as he’d implied—awkward.

One of the men guiding the puck across the ice with the mortal crowd called to Beck to return. He waved and said he’d be right there.

Shoving up the sleeve of his jersey to reveal the long thermal sleeve beneath, he winked at her. “If you’re in the mood to test your flirtation skills later, come find me.”

“I, er—”

Without waiting for what would surely be the awkward reply of the century, Beck tromped off, blades cutting hashed tracks toward the ice.

Daisy couldn’t help but notice the flex of his quadriceps with each stride. Clad in jeans and a fitted long shirt, over which he wore a big loose hockey jersey, the attire highlighted his awesome physique.

“Nothing new,” she said to herself. All the wolves in the local packs were ripped. It was the very nature of a werewolf to be so muscular.

Unless of course he was Kelyn, her youngest brother. Who wasn’t actually a werewolf at all, but rather, had inherited their mother’s faery DNA. He was lean and lithe, yet her father deemed him the most deadly of all his boys. Faeries were swift and malicious, Malakai would often say.

Daisy hated to think of Kelyn as malicious. And he was not. She hoped he wouldn’t develop a complex because of her father’s words.

No longer interested in the book, she stuffed it in her coat pocket and wandered under a massive willow tree where a half dozen tween girls were sipping hot chocolate and cider from thermoses and texting on their cell phones, fingertips bared by half gloves.

“Why is your hair pink?” one of them asked as Daisy walked by.

“Because my mom dropped a can of paint on it when I was born,” she offered, smirking. “Why is yours red?”

The befreckled girl shrugged. “Yours is pretty. I wish mine wasn’t so ugly.”

“Yours is gorgeous,” Daisy offered. “Don’t ever let anyone tell you differently. It’s good to be unique, not like everyone else.”

The girl sat up a little straighter. The friend beside her, sporting a hot-chocolate mustache, nodded in agreement.

“What’s the best food to get today?” Daisy asked the group. “I’m in the mood for something sweet.”

“Try my grandma’s chocolate peanut butter brownies. Over there.” One of them pointed toward a table draped in red, around which dozens loomed. “She’s selling them cheap.”

“Thanks.” Daisy waved them off and wandered toward the food tables, her boots crunching across the snowpack.

Unique, eh? She smirked at her encouraging words. But not so unique that a woman’s body couldn’t make up its mind whether or not to be werewolf or faery. That wasn’t unique; that was just pitiful. She had to get it figured out. But she had no clue how to do so.

When she reached the table, she had to wait in line, and when only halfway to the front, a tall, blond man approached her and offered her a treat. “These are awesome. I figured you’d like to try one.”

“Are you following me?” she asked as she accepted a brownie as heavy as a small kitten. She got out of line. “You were just on the ice.”

“And then I was not. I always answer the call of my stomach. Even if it sets me back a cool ten bucks for two brownies.”

“What? These cost five dollars apiece?” The girl had said they were cheap. Shady sales tactics at that.

Daisy bit into the thick, moist chunk of chocolate and peanut butter and sighed one of those after-orgasm kind of sighs.

“Right?” Beck agreed. “Well worth the expense. I may never eat my mother’s brownies again. Ah, that’s not true. I’ll chow a brownie any day. Even the five-dollar kind. Now I need something hot to wash this down with.”

“Over there.” She pointed to a refreshment stand. He grabbed her by the free hand and led her toward where she had pointed. “Did I say I wanted something to drink? Dude, we are not on a date.”

“I know, but I figured the brownie should earn me some chat time with you. I’ll get us some cider, and there’s a tree over there that’s calling our names.”

“Do you even know my name?”

He paused from digging out his wallet from a back pocket. “Uh...I guess not.”

“Bring cider,” Daisy said.

With a wink that surprised her probably more than it did him, she wandered over to the tree.

* * *

With the brownie gently clutched between his jaws, Beck headed toward the tree where the gorgeous pink-haired wolf sat. Reading while others partook of the festivities? She was a curiosity to him, and he liked that he couldn’t figure her out.

He bit off a bite as he sat, catching the brownie in his palm. She snagged the foam cup of cider before he’d even settled against the trunk.

“I should have gotten two,” he said.

“That’s okay, I only want a sip.” She handed him the cup.

Beck peered into the cup. It was half-empty. “A sip?”

She shrugged and finished off her brownie. He wanted to tweak those cat ears on top of her hat, but instead he wolfed another bite.

“So who do I have the pleasure of sitting with under the maple tree this chilled and frosty January afternoon?”

“Daisy Blu,” she said, and offered a hand to shake.

Beck gripped the cup lip with his teeth, and with brownie in one hand, shook with his free hand.

“Saint-Pierre,” she then said.

He dropped the cup and it almost spilled in his lap, but he made a fast-reflex save. “Uh, Malakai Saint-Pierre’s daughter? The pack principal who makes swords for a living?”

She nodded, licking her fingers clean of chocolate crumbs.

“I thought he only had the boys.”

Beck scanned the picnic area, filled with mortals and paranormal breeds of all sorts and sizes. Living in the next town ten miles north, he didn’t know a lot of people in Tangle Lake. He kept to himself far too much. But everyone knew about Malakai Saint-Pierre.

“Four boys,” Daisy said. “But I was here first. Who you looking for? Don’t worry, my dad’s not around. At least, I don’t think he is.”

Beck stood and nodded that she follow him around the trunk. “Let’s sit on the other side of the tree, okay?”

She settled next to him with a laugh. “Are you afraid of my father?”

“I wouldn’t say afraid, more like leery with an edge of self-preservation. Dude’s not the sweetest wolf in the pack.”

“Yeah, he’s not too keen on unaligned wolves. Which is what you are, am I right? You being Severo’s son?”

“Not for lack of your father trying to get me to join your pack.”

“Really? My dad has invited you to join us? Why haven’t you done so?”

“I have nothing against the Saint-Pierres. Or any of the local packs, for that matter. Joining a pack doesn’t feel right to me. My father was always adamant that a man didn’t need a pack to stand up for what was right within the werewolf community.”

“I’ve heard about your father. Severo was a good man. But I have to point out the serious flaw in your sneaky attempt to hide out.”

“What’s that?”

“Now we won’t be able to see my father coming.”

“Shit. Maybe we should—”

Daisy placed a hand on his knee just as Beck attempted to stand. The woman’s hand was warm, even in this weather, and her heat crept quickly through the jeans and to his skin. Nice. He settled against the snow-encrusted tree trunk.

“I’d scent him before he got too close,” she said. “I’ll give you advance warning if you need to run.” Then she smiled and tucked a swath of hair over her ear. “I shouldn’t be talking to you, either. But I like a little risk in my life now and then.”

“Don’t get enough from your books?”

“Not exactly.”

“Is that why you think it’s a good idea to run in the forest all alone? You really should take someone with you.”

“I’m a big girl. I’ll be fine. You going to eat that last piece of brownie?”

Beck held up the piece, and Daisy made a remarkable snatch with her teeth. She giggled, pressed her fingers over her mouth, then snagged the cup of cider from him, as well.

Licking his fingers clean, he could but shake his head. This one, as much as he should stay the hell away from her, he wanted to learn more about. Because getting close to Malakai Saint-Pierre’s daughter could prove a lesson in Stupid Things Guys Do. But at the same time: kitty ears, pink hair and an irrepressible giggle. How to resist that?

She looked at him now with such curiosity that he matched her gaze with an intense stare. “What?” he implored.

“I was just thinking there are probably icebergs in the Arctic the same color as your eyes.”

“Wow. Look who just got their flirt on.”

“I wasn’t—uh...”

He waited for her to realize that she had indeed been flirting. Didn’t take her long. She busied herself with the ends of her hair. Ha! She liked him.

“So what do you do, Daisy Blu with the kitty ears who wanders about with her nose in a book?”

“You mean like work? I am a budding journalist.”

“Is that so?”

“I’m competing for a freelance position with the Tangle Lake Tattler. I’ve always wanted to be a writer, but I’m not so good at making up stories. I like digging for facts, learning the truth.”

“A noble pursuit. So what truths have you dug up lately?”

“Well, Mrs. Olafson, who lives at the corner across from the courthouse? She’s growing marijuana in her backyard shed.”

Beck faked a shocked openmouthed gape. Could he touch that pink hair? Just a careful slide of his fingers over it without her noticing? Because if she wanted to flirt...

“Thing is, she has no clue what it is. I couldn’t bring myself to actually write about it. Besides, I’ve got a bigger, better story I’m working on that I know will win me the job.”

“Much luck to you. Isn’t often you hear of pack princesses working.”

“No one calls me princess unless they want a black eye.”

“Duly noted. So you’re the modern working-class prin—er, wolf chick, eh?”

“I’m half faery.”

“Is that why your hair is pink?”

“No one will ever pull one over your eyes.”

“A faery wolf. I like it.”

“So what do you do? You said you’re not from Tangle Lake?”

“No, I’m up in Burnham. I have a garage just off the highway. It’s not open to the public yet. I’m working on some friends’ cars right now. Want everything to be perfect and have a career plan in place before I put up signs. I get a lot of business just by word of mouth anyway.”

“If I drove more than once every few weeks, I’d bring my car to you just because you were so nice to share your last sip of cider.” She handed him the cup, empty, and served him a wide grin that teased him for a kiss.

But that would be too risky. Her father was a pack leader. And princess or not, Beck knew she wore a flashing no touch sign as a tiara.

“I should have bought two cups.” He snickered and leaned his head back against the trunk. “So journalism is a full-time job?”

“Hardly. Only a few hours here and there. When I’m not pursuing a career, I’m also a sculptor.”

“That’s cool. You enter the ice sculpture contest?”

“Next year. That’ll give me the winter to learn how to use a chain saw.”

It wasn’t difficult to imagine her wielding a chain saw. Not after that powerful right hook she’d served him in the field. She was petite but packed a punch. “What do you sculpt?”

“Anything with recycled metal. My dad’s a blacksmith. I used to watch him forge swords when I was a little girl. Always wanted to be able to manipulate metal the way he did. One day when he was welding on his old truck, I asked to help, and I’ve been welding my designs ever since.”

“Welding? That sounds macho.”

“Yeah?” Daisy bent up her arm, making a fist. An impressive bicep bulged beneath the sleek white winter coat. “I grew up with four brothers. I don’t think I could do feminine if I tried.”

“You’re doing it right now.” Beck traced a strand of her hair back over her ear. Score! It felt as soft as it looked. She flinched and gave him the curious eye. “Sorry, just wanted to touch it.”

“It’s hair, dude.”

“And you’re kind of defensive, you know that? Is it because of the ‘you shouldn’t talk to an unaligned wolf’ thing? Or is it that I just don’t appeal to you?”

“You appeal to me,” she said quickly. She sat up, tilting her head down and closing her eyes. Shaking her head, she said, “I didn’t mean to say that. It just came out.”

“You like me,” Beck teased. He dipped his head to catch her straying gaze. “It’s because I seduced you with brownies, right?”

She punched him playfully on the biceps. Beck winced. It hadn’t been quite as gentle as she may have intended it to be. So he fell over to his side and moaned.

“Yeah, and don’t you forget it,” Daisy said.

The sass that ran through her veins just needed a little prodding to rise above what he suspected was a bit of a shy streak. He hadn’t seen her talking to anyone here at the festival. And if she had a boyfriend, she wouldn’t be talking to him right now.

“So what do you sculpt?” he asked, moving closer so their shoulders touched.

“Anything that I’m feeling at the moment. I’m working on a project for the wolf sanctuary up north. I use lots of abandoned scrap metal. Right now I’m into recycling bicycle chains.”

“Really? I have a whole box of bicycle chains at the shop. They’re yours if you can use them.”

“Of course I can.”

“Stop by anytime and pick them up. I’m at the shop most of the day, and if not, I’ll let Sunday know they’re yours.”

“Sunday? You mean Dean Maverick’s wife?”

“Yep. Sunday used to have a shop when she lived in North Dakota. She’s a gearhead like me. My shop is the only place she’s got to get her grease on.”

“And her husband doesn’t mind?”

“Dean’s a cool guy. We chat when he stops by to pick up Sunday. Not all in the packs are against the lone wolves like me, you know.”

“I’m not against you. I just don’t understand why you don’t feel the need for family that a pack offers.”

“I have family with my mom and my—” He hung his head. Now was no time to step into that bleak memory. “You want another brownie?”

“No, thank you. I should get going. I promised my mom I’d stop by with some treats from the picnic.”

“You going to the fireworks later?” he asked.