The sultry croon of “Santa Baby” blaring through the crowded cabin might as well have been nails on a chalkboard to Gunner Thoren. The eggnog and holiday cookie smorgasbord only added to his irritation. For the hundredth time he questioned his motivation for coming back into the fold. He’d walked away from a good thing in Las Vegas, to return home to the wolf-pack town of Ushers Run, Iowa. “Eventually you all come home.” Gunner shook the pack-elder’s voice from his already crowded mind. He’d met with the old man along with the pack-leader, Ambrose. It was a lofty position for his best friend to ascend to in Gunner’s absence. Then Ambrose blindsided him with a compulsory invitation to attend the festivities this evening. It was intended for the younger members. Some crap about pack bonding.
Gunner just wanted to enjoy being in nature. It was the only part of being home that he looked forward to after a decade of self-imposed exile. The bright lights of Las Vegas lacked a forest for his wolf to run in. Wolves didn’t belong skulking through back alleys and desert landscapes. At least Ambrose picked a nice spot in the woods for the cabin he’d designed for the pack’s use. Too bad it was currently being overrun with someone’s bastardized idea of Christmas cheer.
From his spot in the corner, Gunner sneered at the garish holiday sweaters covered in ice skating reindeer and penguins decorating evergreen trees. The pack he was born to, or at least this generation of it, might be happy to prance around like drunken fools, but he wouldn’t be caught dead participating in such stupidity. His brother, Asher, loped toward him from across the room in the easy way that came with overstimulated youth. Battery-powered twinkle lights wrapped around the kid’s snowflake-covered sweater. It must have come out of their grandmother’s closet.
Asher grinned up at him. “You aren’t in party gear, bro!”
Gunner growled and hunkered down in his corner, unwilling to acknowledge the fool. This kid was why he gave up fighting and the title shot he had worked for years to achieve. Now he would run his family’s business—the local gym. With their father’s passing, his mother needed the help keeping it from going under and his kid brother from tearing down half the town with his idiocy. Less than two years until he graduated and Gunner could take off again. He was already counting down the days.
“Never fear,” Asher said, undaunted by Gunner’s stoicism. “I knew it would happen, so I brought an extra.”
Asher slapped his brother’s back and gave him an ineffective shove that left the kid rubbing the sting out of his hand. Gunner stood still as a mountain, which he was as a middleweight fighter. He fought at 185 pounds but walked around closer to 220 between fights.
“Nothing’s wrong with my sweater,” Gunner groused. He’d worn a normal sweater, a traditional Scandinavian pattern in grey and navy. A respectable sweater, not some castoff thrift store reject.
“You’re not getting into the spirit,” Asher said, his tone sullen and accusatory.
Feminine laughter that was equal parts wicked and ethereal rose above the chaotic jumble of voices and crappy Christmas pop-music. Gunner tuned out the useless prattle that continued to dump out of his brother’s mouth, searching for the owner of that laugh as if it was a homing beacon meant to draw him in.
“You’ve got enough for both of us.” Gunner answered his brother to stop the distracting noise. He searched the nameless faces. The laughter had stopped but he knew he hadn’t imagined its siren song.
That’s when Gunner saw her. The reason he left town in the first place—Noelle Hiver. She moved like a Nordic goddess come to life—a young and beautiful version of the Norns—as she stood in front of a tinsel-draped tree talking with her hands as if they were weaving a tapestry to illustrate her words. The multicolored lights that reflected off the metallic decorations shone on her like a rainbow spotlight.
The little vixen was a dangerous temptation. Her white sweater dress embroidered with silver poinsettias hugged her lithe curves in places he knew his eyes shouldn’t linger—but he couldn’t stop himself, just like before. No one should look at the pack-leader’s half-sister that way, not if he wanted to keep his eyes. His illicit gaze continued the treacherous journey north to wild platinum blonde hair that skimmed her slender shoulders. He wanted a closer look, perilous as it was. He needed to know if she still wore feathers braided in the riotous curls.
Noelle again laughed at something her companion said, a woman who didn’t exist as far as Gunner was concerned, and it rang like bells calling him home. She glanced his way and his heart nearly stopped. Those eyes, guarded aquamarine glaciers, bored into him from across the room and he was curious what the pack abomination had made of herself.
He’d never called her that, but nearly everyone they knew had. A half-breed shifter witch was not welcome among purebred werewolves, but her brother Ambrose, Gunner’s best friend, had changed that when he took over, hadn’t he? At least for this one pack he had. Gunner had never worried about any of that as she was just Noelle to him.
He closed his eyes against visions of the past that clawed to the surface of his mind and realized his brother was still talking. “Bro, hotties heading our way. It’s too late to fix you now.” This time when Asher shoved, Gunner moved as his eyes flew open. Just a step closer to her but it was as if he jumped a chasm.
Noelle sauntered toward him, her friend in tow. A sweet smile spread across her pouty pink lips. A knowing smile. Gunner steeled himself against its impact. He knew this would come when he made the choice to return home. He just wasn’t ready to see her tonight or for her to see him. But those lips brought a flash he’d give anything to forget, just to relieve the torture.
An image of her broke through, unbidden, from the past. That same smile as she sat waiting for him in the passenger seat of his Camaro on another winter night, reaching for something other than the gear shift, or at least not the one that belonged in his car.
“Gunner, fancy seeing you here.” Noelle’s silken voice pulled him out of the past.
“You’re brother’s invite clearly stated that I didn’t have a choice.”
Noelle smiled at the growl in his voice, clearly finding some kind of perverse pleasure in his words.
Asher glanced from Gunner to Noelle. “Dude, you know her?”
He’s back. Noelle felt the heat of his gaze before she saw him, but once she did her feet were compelled toward him. It was as if Gunner was north and her inner compass had no choice but to point his direction. She abandoned her best friend Laney, still in mid-rant about the teetotalers who tried unsuccessfully to make this a dry party for the kids and moved toward Gunner as he watched her watching him.
Neither the magazine articles she had seen him in, nor the fights, both televised and live, had done justice to the changes time had wrought in Gunner. Staring at him with his brother was like looking into a window of her past. Asher was the gangly youth Gunner had been a decade before when she had trailed after her own brother and his handsome best friend. The boy who never seemed to notice her stood juxtaposed with the man he had become, the fighter he had grown into.
Both men had coal black hair; the younger man wore his spiked in a fashionable faux-hawk while the older brother slicked his back. The difference was in their eyes. Asher’s were grey, like stone. They were fine eyes, but they were not Gunner’s. His midnight blues held the stars for her and she wanted to be lost in them. Or she had before he left her and everything she offered him.
When Gunner rejected her and left town, it had served as a confirmation that he saw her the way everyone else did—the abominable snow witch. He was just too polite to say it. Before her brother took the pack, the wolves of Ushers Run openly viewed her as nothing more than a half-breed atrocity. She was born every bit the wolf her father and brother were but more. The other half was her mother, a snow witch who shifted into an owl. No one else in the pack had two animals to call. They probably still hated her for it behind closed doors. She thought Gunner appreciated her the way she was, but then he ran, too.
“Yeah, I know her.” Gunner’s eyes didn’t leave hers when he said it.
“Come on, kid,” Laney said as she grabbed Asher’s hand and pulled him forward. “Let’s go spike the eggnog and give these two some space.” Asher followed like a lost puppy, no doubt lapping up every second of the attention he suddenly found himself receiving.
Noelle rolled her eyes before settling them back on Gunner. He looked like a changed man on the outside, all hard muscle, not the lean youth she remembered. The size he had grown into was overwhelming: six foot five with shoulders the width of a small car. If she didn’t know for a fact that he was a werewolf she would have guessed his animal was a bear. He made her feel wonderfully small when he wasn’t brooding like some kind of vengeful thunder god.
The teenage version of herself, who was somehow braver than this college-educated shadow she became, urged her to stand on her toes and taste him. Would his lips feel the same? When she kissed him last, he hadn’t had the beard. She wanted to run her hands in his closely trimmed facial hair and draw him down to her. Enticing as the feeling was, she knew better than to take the chance with her heart. Appearances can change; what lay inside was another matter.
“Your friend wasn’t very subtle.” His voice rolled through her, like the stroke of fur against her skin. “It’s been a long time, Noelle.”
“Can we get some air?” she asked, her own voice coming out weak.
The corner of his mouth quirked up and he reached forward, past her cheek to the feather concealed in her hair behind her ear. Heat rose to her face at the casual touch. She fought back the overwhelming urge to nuzzle her cheek against his hand. As it was, her breath caught in a soft gasp. He let his hand drop and she instantly mourned the loss. Five minutes in this man’s presence and she was already a sentimental schoolgirl. God help her.
“Let’s do that.” Gunner took her hand and led her through the press of inebriated partygoers who never saw her anyway. He took her outside through a pair of sliding glass doors to the back deck and the freedom of the cold night air—alone with the one man she always needed to see her.
Tonight Noelle wasn’t sure she was ready to be seen, not after so long. Here in the dark she could hide the feelings poised to come rushing back after a decade of forced seclusion. She could admit to herself that she never had let go, not really. She dated in college to give the false pretense she had moved on. The men had mostly been human; no one she would consider forever. Through it all she kept that scrapbook, followed his career while she made her own.
Candles sat perched at random intervals along the railing of the raised patio area. Someone had taken the trouble to sweep it clear of this morning’s fresh snowfall. The music followed them out into the night through her brother Ambrose’s hidden sound system. He always did fancy his gadgets. She found it comfortable the way the melody filled the silence between them. “I’ll Be Home for Christmas” began to play. The irony of that was not lost on her.
“Finally something good on his playlist,” Noelle sighed.
Gunner eased her into his arms. He didn’t ask, just carried on as though things were as they had been before that one night, and began to move to the slow holiday ballad that created its own spell for them. “It’s not Bing Crosby, but it’ll do. I can’t stand that pop crap they try to pass as Christmas music.”
“I remember. You never could,” she admitted as she looked up in his eyes. “You’re just jealous you know.”
“Me? What do I have to be jealous of?” He asked it casually, so sure of himself as he looked down at her, searching for something.
She was glad he couldn’t see her blush in the dark. “His voice. Michael Bublé could melt a brick with it.” She left off that Gunner’s was far more devastating.
Gunner laughed at her answer. She felt the rumble of it through to her toes, another piece of him she had forgotten to miss. Awareness flooded her, his touch was everywhere—the pressure of his hands steady on her waist, his voice caressing her in places he couldn’t know, and his gaze, stripping her shields bare.
“You’ve changed, Noelle.”
“How can you be sure?” she asked. “You’ve been gone ten years and back ten minutes.” Her eyes met his and she did want to know what he saw. That lonely girl wanted to know if he saw her finally.
“You used to be this little bohemian girl, all flowing skirts and careless attitude.” He paused and she glanced up at him, finding his gaze considerate, appraising. “You used to wear your feathers openly and not just one or two hidden in your hair. That’s what I remember about you. Now you look so…polished. What do you do now?”
“You really want to know?” It surprised her that he would care. Not one letter in ten years. Dozens to her brother—she often handed him the mail—but never one to her.
“I really want to know.”
Noelle pulled away and turned. She hugged herself as she moved to the rail overlooking flocked trees and the reflection of the moon on the frozen pond beyond that—unable to look at the lie in his eyes. She turned her face up to the sky. At least the stars were honest.
“Why’d you come home, Gunner? We’re all doing fine here without you. Don’t you have a title fight to go win or something?” Tears welled but she wouldn’t let them go. He hadn’t said anything wrong, not really.
“Asher needs me and eventually we all come home. It was just time.”
A distant part of her, the hopeful girl that waited for him in that car and brazenly laid her heart out for him, had hoped for a different answer. But she wasn’t surprised, not really. She was just Ambrose’s little sister after all.
Why would he want her when he could have someone who was bred to mate a warrior? That’s what he was, only his battlefield was a cage, where he had to control his beast and muzzle it while still fighting an opponent. That he did it at all fascinated her.
“We should go back to the party. I’m sure you’re missed.”
“I’m sure you’re wrong,” Noelle said, the words coming out harsher than she had intended. “Besides we haven’t finished our dance.”
It was a challenge more for her than him, she wouldn’t let him see how he affected her. If he could hold back his beast, surely she could tame this useless desire that still burned for him. She turned back to him before she changed her mind and looked straight up into his eyes, willing a challenge in her own gaze, and wrapped her arms around his neck.
Gunner didn’t touch her, instead he stared at the glass door behind her, stealing her bravado. When she turned and saw the source of his curtailed attention, irritation flared to anger. She caught someone’s notice, just not the man she intended.
The metal of the door sliding open against the frame grated on her as Pierce stepped out onto the deck. His yellow eyes narrowed, his nostrils flaring as if he scented her emotions like a dog who didn’t like it one bit. It was disrespectful at best in their current skin, but deep down it goaded her further. Pierce didn’t really want her; he wanted the pack-leader’s sister. She used him once to warm her bed when the loneliness threatened to swallow her and tonight she would pay the price.
The two men glared at one another, hackles raised as their baser instincts took over. They somehow resisted the change and stayed trapped in their human skin for the moment, but their posturing turned their behavior into something that resembled the animals beneath. Noelle looked from Pierce with his hate-filled eyes to Gunner and saw something she never thought to see. Was he truly jealous? She had to stop this before one of them turned.
She looked past Pierce to her brother, who stood beer in hand, looking ridiculous in his snowman sweater and quite pleased with himself. The smug bastard. He stepped out onto the deck and Noelle hoped he came to stop the fracas before it started.
Instead, Ambrose ambled to her side and leaned down to casually whisper in her ear, “You can thank me later.”
Gunner had no right to be jealous. He had walked away from her. No, he had run as fast as his collegiate scholarship could take him. But when Pierce walked out onto the deck and scented the air, they hadn’t even needed words to hate each other. Over her.
How much had she changed in Gunner’s absence? The things Pierce had said about her when they were young she couldn’t possibly know. If she did, she wouldn’t even entertain the idea of whatever relationship had formed between the two. That Ambrose had let her start something with Pierce, when her brother knew the vile crap the two-faced jackass said about her, made Gunner fume—Hell, the two had come to blows over it at one point. The dog-eyed bastard didn’t deserve her.
He shouldn’t have come home.
Noelle moved. Her head whipped around at something her brother had said and her cold eyes lit with an eerie green fire that marked her as separate from the rest of the pack. That difference terrified them and enthralled Gunner.
Wind that seemed to find its source in her emotions whipped the loose snow off the deck around her. It circled Noelle and Ambrose as if the air could draw a circle around the sibling standoff. In contrast to her seething agitation, her brother’s posture was loose. His easy good-old boy smile quirked up one corner of his mouth, and he stood with one hand wrapped around a bottle of Bud Lite and the other hooked casually on the edge of his jeans pocket.
The glass doors shook as bodies pressed against it, eager for their entertainment. It was the reminder Gunner needed to leash the beast that had surged too close to the surface for comfort. He made his living off his control and here at her brother’s house, in this spectacle of trashy clothes, he nearly lost it.
“Stop it,” she said, her voice shrill. “Pierce, I don’t know what you think you saw but you don’t have the right—”
“I had the right when I marked you.” Pierce spat the words and they felt like a blow.
She let that trash mark her? Gunner felt his claws slide free, contorting his hands before he clenched them tightly back into human fists. The pain bit deep in his hands and his heart.
Noelle’s eyes flared brighter with her witch light, washing them all in their glow before dimming again. “You mean when you tried.”
Those words eased Gunner. They were a relief, but not as much as the knowledge she was strong enough to fend off anyone she didn’t want. He allowed himself to admit that, in a dark place in his heart, he worried that the witch in her might have made her too weak. But his concern hadn’t made him stay. Why was Pierce behaving as if she was already his? He simply couldn’t shake the small insidious voice of his doubt.
They were at an impasse, neither man wanted to step away and show weakness. Not in front of the pack-leader and not in front of her. With a frustrated growl of her own, she broke the stalemate.
“I’ve had enough of you both,” she said, her voice strained with anger.
The snow moved faster, the wind whipping it up instead of in the slow circle it had been in, as if great wings beat against it. Noelle’s arms spread wide as she flowed with her change. Hair smoothed into feathers and rushed rapidly down her body as she reformed. Her newly shaped wings, white and wide, pulsed against the air as she rose over them and then was gone, seeking freedom, and leaving them to sort out the mess.
“All right, show’s over,” Ambrose said to the crowd assembled at the door.
With a collective groan they began to disperse, leaving only the three men on the deck, one of whom Ambrose pointedly ignored. “Come on, Gunner,” he said as he slapped his best friend on the back. “Let’s get us some eggnog. I hear the mix just improved.”