Chapter Nine

Wynter

While my stepsisters took a nap and my stepmother was in town for more dresses and a specialized curling iron, I went out to get some fresh air. Sometimes, when I walked out of the house and breathed in that first chilly air of the morning, my body awoke. Coffee was great. I could drink my weight in it, but there was something about being outside that brought me to life.

I kicked at the tangerine, burgundy, and cranberry-colored leaves that the trees had banished from their branches, feeling the oncoming winter and taking its cues from her. They crunched and cracked under my bare feet. Wind whooshed into my ears as I flirted with the idea of shifting and running until my bones broke and I found freedom in pain.

My wolf wanted out but, over the years, I’d managed to quell her need to transform into that other part of me, the one that was free and raw and primal. At least, that’s what I thought releasing my wolf would be like. It had been a long time.

My stepsisters always talked about shifting like it was a chore.

People become numb to things in their lives that they once found beautiful. If I was allowed to shift, I wouldn’t take one single step as my animal for granted.

I sat on a log, one that had listened to my gripes and complaints for many years. I took an end piece of a cheese wedge and the butt end of a loaf of French bread from my bag and sighed. Food I’d been told to discard. This was one of the few chances I got to eat before the afternoon. I was starving all the time, but this would help.

As I chewed on the stale bread, a twig snapped behind me. The forest critters tended to come out while I was sitting out here, so it was no surprise they were running around here now, especially when I had food in my hands.

“You can’t have any, little ones. Today, this is all mine.” It was a lie, of course. As hungry as I was, my forest friends were as well. And with the winter arriving soon, they were stuffing themselves.

A sharp crack sounded, and I startled, not because of the noise itself but from the sheer volume of the sound.

That was no squirrel breaking a branch.

Something big was behind me. The hair on the back of my neck stood up while my heart threatened to beat right through my sternum and throw itself onto the forest floor. I swallowed against the boulder in my throat and struggled to breath.

A huffing came from the creature who must be larger than any animal I’d seen out here before.

“Hello?” I called out before turning. Maybe it was simply a human who had stumbled onto our land. Our fence line had been down for some years, and my stepmother didn’t think it was worth the time or energy to invest in repairs.

A low rumble rang out, and instantly I knew it was a wolf, but as I turned, a gasp broke from my mouth. This was no natural animal or regular shifter. He was taller than any wolf I’d seen. His ebony coat shone in the light of the sun above us. There wasn’t a hint of white or gray in his fur, nothing but pure night.

“Hello. I’m Wynter.”

Yeah, introduce yourself to the shifter stranger.

The wolf cocked his head and stared at me with icy green eyes that would chill me to the bone if I didn’t look away every few seconds.

I didn’t know a lot about shifters and hierarchies, but a huge wolf like this? It had to be a leader of some kind.

The wolf bent his head so low that his muzzle nearly grazed the ground and let out a low growl that, instead of scaring me, sent a thrill right through my core, making my knees wobble as I stood there.

“You are gorgeous,” I whispered. The wolf looked at me again and then took off into the woods. Woods I wasn’t allowed to go to.

Woods that could get a girl killed.