"What do you mean you don't have any chocolate croissants left?" The perturbed looking mother glared at Mia while the eight year old attached to her arm smeared her grubby fingers all over the pastry display case.
"I'm sorry ma'am, we've sold out for the day and we aren't stocked up in the back because of the storm coming." Mia plastered a sweet smile on her face.
"I don't know why everything is so upset by just a little snow..." The woman shook her head and wandered out of the store.
Mia gave a soft sigh. Many tourists came to the area without really understanding how bad the winter weather could get up here in the mountains. The town of Lake Placid attracted people from all over for winter sports, specifically ice skating at the moment. The main strip of town was littered with young children decorated in skating skirts and team jackets, whining to their parents or staring at store windows. Thankfully it was getting on in the evening and Mia was getting ready to close up the bakery. Locking the front door behind her last customer, she wiped down counters and counted down the register before crawling into her Toyota Rav4 for a forty minute drive home.
Snow sprinkled Mia's windshield as she made her way out of town and onto the mountain road that eventually took her to her little slice of solitude in the woods. She carefully turned off the main road down the winding path that her house was on. She braced herself as her tires slide a bit before catching again. Mia had put off getting her snow tired put on and this year the snow beat her to it.
Why I took snow tires off in the first place is beyond me...it's nearly winter all year long. She thought as she drove past the only house on the same street as her. She slowed her car as she noticed a large red pickup truck pulled up to the house and a moving van. The wooden cabin house had been for sale for as long as she could remember but now the sign was missing. She was curious but there was no other activity outside so she continued on to her home to be greeted by her dog, Moose.
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Keenan dusted off his hands as he shoved his small couch into place around his new wood burning stove. His new place needed a lot of work but it was comfortable. It was set deep in the woods away from many people except one other house down the street. He'd seen a small blue SUV around that house and as he thought about it he picked up the sound of a vehicle driving past his house. His keen wolf hearing allowed him to hear much more than an average human ever could.
Two movers inched in through the front door balancing his coffee table between them. Keenan reach over and took it from them, lifting it with ease and putting it into place in his living room. That was another plus of being a werewolf; super strength.
Keenan felt his wolf stir inside him. He knew it was eager to explore their new found territory and take a run in their piece of forest. Before he moved here, Keenan had lived in the city as part of a pack. Many of his pack mates loved it there but it wasn't for him. He needed the fresh air, open space to run and nature to soothe him. Sure he didn't have a pack anymore...but sometimes it was nice not having to deal with the politics that came along with it.
The movers were unloading the last of his things and Keenan knew he had to take a run to ease his wolf. As he shut the door behind them he made his way to the back of the house and exited through the door in his kitchen into the woods behind the cabin. He jogged lightly into the cover of the forest and went a little farther before he began to strip, his eyes changing already to that of a predator. The moment he was unclothed he ran, urging the shift to take over him as he flowed almost effortlessly into the shape of his wolf.
Keenan shook out his black fur and lifted his nose to the air taking in all the smells of the fresh clean woods surrounding him. His muscles trembled with energy and power. He resisted the urge to prance with excitement and instead he turned back to circle his house, marking his new territory for all other creatures to know. Once business was done, he bounded freely into the newly fallen snow, deep into the woods.
