The Wolf's Den
Chapter 1
Winter is my least favorite time of year. I'm a California girl to the very core of my existence. The relentless gray skies and blinding white of nothing but snow as far as the eye can see are certainly not as pretty in reality as they appeared in the glossy pages of the travel brochures I collected along the way.
I hate being cold. Hate. It. I learned to tolerate and sort of like Indiana. I enjoyed going to bed with the landscape looking one way, with the lush green of summertime, and then waking up the next day to see everything had changed overnight into a vibrant color scheme of oranges, browns, deep crimsons, and golden yellows. In Alaska, especially in winter, nothing changes except the shape of the snowflakes as they fall ceaselessly to the ground.
We're hidden in a wildlife preserve somewhere in Northeastern Alaska and isn't that the perfect place for us? The wolves holed up in the one of the last remaining wild places left on earth. I'm surprised that anything survives here in this place of snow and ice, but it does. The trees are dense and shrubby, but they're thick and plentiful. Even evergreens, windblown and coated with snow, dot the landscape and add a bit of color to the relentless white.
Our little den is a feat of engineering and creativity. A byproduct of the saying necessity is the mother of invention. Needless to say, I never thought I'd find myself living in a gold mine, but here I am. I've been assured that the ground gave up its last bit of gold sometime around the turn of the nineteenth century. So, there's no point in going on any treasure hunts. However, the idea of stumbling upon a hunk of pure gold entertains my mind.
The long since abandoned mine is a maze of tunnels leading deep into the side of the mountain. I don't know how things work, but all in all life below ground is pretty ordinary. I'm just happy that the place has running water, electricity and therefore, heat. The actual particulars as to how these miracles happen in such a damned inhospitable place really don't matter to me.
There's enough food to last us till the second coming of Christ. All of it neatly stored in containers and stacked on shelves. Technically, we have everything we need to call this hidey hole in the side of a mountain home for as long as it takes and I should be grateful for it. Don't get me wrong, I am. It's just that I'd rather not think of this place as home or dare to consider how long I could be living in it.
Coyote says Nathaniel always had a contingency plan. The plan is this place. Purchased during the Cold War, Nathaniel bought the mine and planned everything down to the last light bulb and can on the shelf with the just in case in mind. It was designed to outlast a war and to keep its occupants reasonably comfortable for the long haul. Well, at least the place is fulfilling its purpose. Short of NORAD, Coyote says that this is the safest place on earth and exactly where I want to be in the event of a war. Well, we are at war. A clandestine war that hopefully, no human will ever have a part of. And while I'm safe, this place is the last place on earth I want to be.
I've been cautioned not to wander off. Snow shifts a lot like sand and you can't count on the footprints you left behind to find your way back. I wouldn't trust my memory or sense of direction as a guide anyway. Outside, everything looks the same, barren, white, covered with snow and ice, and utterly indistinguishable. With the way I hate the cold and howling winds. Going on a nature hike isn't high on my list of priorities.
I've been told my wolf knows the way home. I think Coyote isn't as worried about my getting lost in the wilderness and freezing to death, as he is that my wolf might try to track her way home. I wonder where my wolf would take us. Where is home?
Though I'm a California native and right now a ninety-degree day drenched with sunshine would be heaven. I don't see L.A. as my home anymore. I miss the old Victorian manor house, the rolling flatlands of acres and acres of cornfields, and the majestic hillsides covered with dense woods. But, I'm not sure if I would call Indiana my home either. Home, I guess, really is where the heart is. And sometimes, the heart that I thought beat so sure and true is conflicted.
Coyote is my friend, my protector, and sometimes the only person capable of keeping my feet moving forward. He reminds me that I've got a life back home waiting for me. Han is fighting this war and it's our future he's fighting for.
Han is the love of my life and the father of my unborn child. Coyote never lets me forget that. But, sometimes, I think he reminds me for his own benefit more than mine. He tries to be altruistic, but I know his nature and I've seen it in his eye and felt it in his kiss.
Altruism is not is motive. It's me. There isn't anything he wouldn't do for me. Including keeping me safe and whole, or as whole as a person can be in a world at war. Even returning me to the arms of another man when this war is finally over isn't beyond him.
War truly is hell. The separation from Han grows more difficult day by day. I've seen war from a distance, in movies and on TV. I've never lived it up close and personal till now. Sometimes, it's still inconceivable. Werewolves, or shape shifters, I mean, that they exist at all, and I'm one of them.
Nature always has a balance and a price to pay. We should have guessed, but nobody saw them coming. Vampires are just as real as us. Our blood is the key the vampires need to unlock the gates to their kingdom of glittering sunlight. And that's just one of the things this little war is about.
We're pawns on a paranormal chessboard. Oh, there are good vampires and bad ones. But, in the end I wonder if there's really a difference. Vampires are vampires. I suppose though, if a vampire can truly be considered good. There are good vampires out there, on our side.
Personally, maybe living so long in L.A. as an ordinary human as jaded me, but I see very little decency in anybody outside of my trusted inner circle. I've been deceived one too many times. I trust very few people in this world of the clandestine and immortal that exists outside of the only world, the world of humanity and the finite, I thought there was.
I guess when you've got nothing but time on your side. It doesn't really matter how long a war lasts. Such as it is with Vampires. This whole thing started as a grudge match between two vampires. Van wanted revenge and he got it by dumping his fanged papa into the bottom of the Pacific. But, given enough time and corrosion, even the stoutest of prisons won't last forever. Especially, if whatever is inside wants to escape badly enough.
The pack was drawn into the war. We sure as hell didn't volunteer for it. But, Van has made pretty sure that the only way out of it for us is to fight. After all, we haven't chosen any side, except for our own. It's our lives and our blood that we're fighting for. And that is the reason I'm here, tucked away living like a hermit in the Alaskan wilds. I'm pregnant and this, staying as far away from the danger zone as possible for my baby's sake, ensuring he or she lives, is my fight.
It's up to Han to make sure we have a future and a home to return to. I have nightmares and most of them center around how long and what might happen during the endless string of days we're apart. I can't imagine what he's going through. How terrible it is for him trying so desperately to keep everyone Coyote and I left behind alive.
This war has to be invisible to the outside world that doesn't know a damn thing about us. We'll use the weapons God gave us and no other. It'll be bloody and horrific and if my nightmares are to be believed, long, very long.
Han didn't want our child born in the middle of a war zone. Though it has separated us by thousands of miles, how can I blame him for it? I'd like to think that this, being away from him, staying safe, and delivering a healthy baby into the world is my sacrifice. At least with me tucked away under Coyote's watchful eye. Han doesn't have to worry about us. We'll be fine and safe in our perpetual winter wonderland of ice and snow.
I've never worried much about the baby or myself. I worry more about Han and what kind of man he'll be afterward when the dust settles and there's nothing left to do but bury the dead and move forward.
Coyote and I don't discuss the war or how it will be fought. I saw Han's wolf tear a man, someone who was once a friend, apart with nothing but tooth and claw. Han is old and the things he has seen in his lifetime, both the wonders and the horrors, are things I beyond my imagination. He has lived through wars I've only read about in books. Killing is never easy, even if it is for a good cause. But, killing with a weapon such as a gun and ripping the enemy apart with your bare hands are two different things. It's different when you are the weapon and the taste of the enemy's blood runs thick on your tongue.
I hear it in Coyote's silence. In all the things he doesn't say. I see it in his expression when he thinks I'm not looking and his mask of perpetual joviality and hopefulness slips just a bit. This time, it's different. This war is different, because it's personal.
Coyote has been diligent in his efforts to make certain our trail can't be traced back to this place buried so deeply in the side of a mountain. It took us weeks to get here. We traveled by car, plane, train, on a boat across the Bearing Straight, and finally made the rest of the long journey on foot. He says we can't risk using the satellite phone or contacting anyone at home due to the chance that our call could lead the enemy to the only stronghold we've got.
