Another Shot

Chapter 1 – Paced

Cody

There’s a wolf in the trees on my left, keeping pace with us, and he isn’t one I know.

My wolf noticed him first, because he’s the one driving and I’m the guy in the passenger seat who isn’t allowed to touch the radio.

‘He’s been with us since the frozen creek,’ he says, like it’s a fun fact.

The creek was ages ago. You didn’t think that was worth mentioning?

‘I’m mentioning it now.’

After spending so much time away from them the pack’s barely a hum at the back of my head, but I know none of them are close by. It’s a long drive to this park, and they have no reason to come out here when they have perfectly good woods to run in on their doorstep.

For a long time, a wolf I didn’t know meant one of Nyasia’s, and nothing good ever came after that. She’s dead. My body still hasn’t fully gotten the memo, and right now it’s very busy telling me to get to the truck.

The stranger slides out of the spruce and onto the edge of the trail, and I get a proper look at him.

He’s big. Brindled, dark stripes over tan, with long legs that eat up the deep snow.

‘Bigger than us,’ my wolf says.

Everybody’s bigger than us.

‘Not as big as-’

Don’t.

He drops it, which means he’s thinking it extra loud.

The stranger isn’t hunting us, I can see that much. A hunting wolf goes low and quiet. This one’s got his tail up and his ears forward, like a guy walking into a bar who’s already decided the night’s going his way.

Who is he?

‘No idea,’ my wolf says. ‘But he really wants us to look at him.’

That’s putting it mildly. The stranger cuts across the trail right in front of our nose, so close we skid, and he’s gone into the trees on the far side before we’ve got our feet back under us.

‘Oh, it’s on,’ my wolf says.

No. Absolutely not. We don’t chase strange wolves through the woods at dusk. That’s how people end up on missing posters, and I’d know, because I was on one.

My wolf ignores me completely, which is his favorite hobby.

So we race. The stranger lets us catch up, bumps us with his whole shoulder hard enough to knock us off the trail into a drift, and waits while we flounder out of it. Then he takes off again.

My wolf bumps him back the next chance he gets. It’s like watching two drunk guys play bumper cars, except one of the drunk guys is me and I’m stuck in the passenger seat with no seatbelt.

At the bend above the lake, the sky’s gone dark pink over the ice, and I notice I’m not scared anymore.

I’m having fun. It’s been a really long time since anything was just fun.

The trees thin out and the trailhead lot opens up in front of us. My truck’s sitting alone at the far end where I left it, big, black and shiny, and there’s a car parked right next to it.

He didn’t park across the lot, or anywhere polite. He’s right up against my truck, in a lot that’s otherwise completely empty.

It’s low and silver and expensive, with British Columbia plates.

He must have pulled in after I’d gone into the woods, smelled me all over my truck and come looking. I didn’t even check the lot before I took my clothes off. So much for careful.

The shift back doesn’t hurt anymore. It’s about a blink, and then I’m on two feet in the snow with my breath steaming and my whole body still buzzing from the run.

The cold barely touches me these days. Being naked in a parking lot is a different story. Born wolves don’t care about nudity at all, and I’ve mostly gotten over it.

Strangers see me naked all the time, it’s basically my job. Those strangers tip, though.

The brindled wolf shifts beside his car, and he’s in no rush about it, like he’s letting me get a good look.

I’m not ashamed to admit I take him up on the offer.

Dark hair, short and expensively cut. Hazel eyes. A face that’s been told it’s handsome by a lot of people and he probably agreed with every single one of them. Swimmer’s shoulders, and not a single ounce of shame about standing there in nothing but snow.

He has no reason to be self-conscious. Everything is very attractively proportioned.

He looks at me, then up at my truck, then back at me.

“Please tell me that’s not yours,” he says. “How do you even get in it? Pole vault?”

“There’s a step.”

He laughs like that’s the funniest thing he’s heard all day. “It’s got a name, doesn’t it? A truck like that always has a name.”

“No.”

‘Shania,’ my wolf says.

It doesn’t have a name.

‘Her name is Shania, and you sing to her on the highway.’

That was one time and the song was on the radio.

“It’s a good truck,” I say.

“I’m sure it is.” He comes around his car, barefoot in the snow. “Rafe.”

“Cody.”

“I moved out here from the west coast a little while back. I’ve been running this park for a couple of weeks, and you’re the first wolf I’ve seen.”

He’s not lying, as far as I can tell. And he smells interested. My nose isn’t great at a lot of things, but it’s always been very good at that one.

A hot, apparently rich wolf, naked in the snow, interested in me.

“What are you?” he asks. “Beta?”

“Delta.”

He grins. “Suits you. And you’re turned. I could smell it from across the lake. That’s what threw off identifying your designation.”

That stings more than I’d like. I know how I smell to a born wolf. Nobody at Northgate ever mentioned it, because they’re all too nice. This guy just says it, standing in the snow with his d*ck out.

“Is that a problem?”

“Not for me. I know what you are and I’m asking anyway.”

“Asking what?”

“Dinner. You and me.”

“Anyway,” I repeat. “Wow. Be still my heart.”

He laughs, loud and easy, not even a little sorry. “That came out wrong.”

“It came out exactly the way you meant it.”

“Okay, yes. But I’m still asking.”

A wolf is asking me out. Not some guy from town who’d need a cover story for every single thing about me.

A wolf who knows exactly what I am and wants to buy me dinner anyway. The fact that he said so to my face actually counts in his favor.

I never want someone tiptoeing around me again.

For about a second, things below the waist start getting ideas, which is spectacular timing when the only thing I’m wearing is a dusting of snow.

‘He’s not our bear,’ my wolf says.

And just like that, my d*ck packs up and goes home.

He means Mato. Every time a guy gets anywhere near me, my wolf brings up the bear, because Mato’s the size of one, and every part of me that was interested loses interest so fast it’s upsetting.

He’s been doing this to me for three years.

Rafe’s standing here telling me he’s interested, without any reservations, and all I can think is that it’s the wrong man saying it.

Mato texted me exactly once since I left the Reserve. The first week I was home.

How are you coping?

I wrote back, All good and he responded with a thumbs up. That’s the whole conversation, start to finish, and I’ve reread it more times than I’d admit to anybody.

I should say yes. Rafe’s hot and funny. He knows what I am. That should be a relief.

It isn’t. It just makes me feel like I’m cheating on somebody I’ve never even kissed.

“Maybe,” I say.

He looks genuinely pleased, like I’ve given him a challenge. “Maybe’s good. It means I get to ask again.”

“I didn’t mean it as a challenge.”

“It’s what it means to me.” He opens his car door. “I’m out here most nights. You know where to find me.”

He gets in and drives off without waiting for an answer, which I strongly suspect is a habit of his.

I get the key out of the magnet box behind my back tire and climb into Shania. Into my truck. My wolf is never naming anything again.

I’ve got one leg in my jeans when my phone lights up on the passenger seat.

It’s a message request on Instagram, from someone I don’t follow. Sloane Tremblay. Her profile picture is a woman in a red beanie, grinning, holding a microphone up to the camera.

Hi Cody! My name’s Sloane Tremblay, and I host a podcast called Gone North about disappearances up here.

I’ve been reading everything I can find about the people who went missing around Tamarack, and your name keeps coming up. You were working at the gas station on the highway the night you disappeared, right? And you came home months before any of the others did. Nobody’s ever asked you about that.

I think your story deserves telling. Can we talk?

Chapter 2 – Every Hour

Cody

“Codes! You came back to us!”

Tanner’s arm hooks around my neck the second I’m through the front door, and he drags me into the living room to show me off to people I’ve already met.

The house is doing what it does most nights. Music I can feel in my fillings, a bowl of chips somebody’s been using as an ashtray, half the party piled together on a couch built for three.

Somebody’s playing beer pong on the kitchen table, which is also where we eat.

‘He smells like a gym sock that came to a party,’ my wolf says.

I’m in no position to argue. My face is in his armpit.

“Hey.”

“Where were you, man? You missed Kyle and the fire extinguisher.”

“I’m sure he’ll do it again.”

“Yeah, you’re probably right.” Tanner lets go of my neck so he can grab my face with both hands instead.

Tanner touches everybody like they’re a dog he’s really excited