Page 17 of A Bloom in Winter

Pride was what stopped him.

In the last couple of decades, Apex had made no secret where he was in Caldwell—and he’d stayed in touch with Lucan, who was part of that wolven clan on the mountain. If Callum was here, on this estate? He was a matter of mere miles from his home territory, and it was difficult to believe that the subject of the prison, the breakout, and where everybody had ended up hadn’t been broached at least once.

If only because Lucan was a nosy sonofabitch and he’d want to test the waters.

Everyone in the prison had known about Apex sitting by that bed for all those nights. The nursing routine had been the kind of about-face that people couldn’t sync with his reputation—

A set of headlights blared through the blizzard and the hair on the back of his neck stood up.

Turning in his seat, he watched out the side window as the truck with the beat-to-crap plow turned in to one of the outbuildings and stopped.

As the motion-activated security lights flared, Apex’s hand grabbed for the latch before he could think about what he was doing, and the next thing he knew, he was cutting across the distance, marking a fresh-cut trail of boot punches over the pristine snowpack. As those headlights were killed, the truck’s driver’s door opened on the other side of the vehicle.

He picked up his pace—

In the bright light of the exterior lanterns, he caught sight of that white hair . . . just a hint showing above the top of the cab.

Now he slowed down. Then stopped about ten feet away. He opened his mouth to say something, but he had no voice and told himself it was because he was swallowing too many flakes.

Thirty years disappeared like they’d never been.

Shoving his hands into his leathers, he took them out again. Finally, over the din of the wind and the thundering in his chest, he said, “You know I’m here.”

There was the sound of the door shutting . . . and then the wolven walked down the side of the truck. His profile was like a knee in the gut. None of his features had changed, even though his hair was much shorter now, a brush cut standing those platinum waves straight up: His cheeks and jaw were still carved from a good base of bone, the nose straight, the lips full, the eyes deeply set.

The bare shoulders were a surprise.

The pecs were . . . a shock.

And when the male rounded the back bumper, the full-naked was an overwhelm that just shut everything down.

Except come on, all those clothes that Callum had undoubtedly been wearing before he’d shifted had been destroyed on the change. Unless he’d ditched the wardrobe first and decided not . . . to . . .

. . . put it all back on.

“Put what back on?”

Apex blinked a couple of times as that voice went in one ear and hit his brain with a Cuisinart blade. But then he caught up to the conversation.

Shit, he must have said that out loud. “Hell—” He cleared his throat. “—o.”

Callum’s pale blue eyes were steady in the way a wolf’s were, unblinking, fixated—and unbothered by all the nudity. The male showed no embarrassment at the fact that his rather . . . impressive . . . attributes were out in the breeze.

The cold breeze. Which wasn’t diminishing things in the slightest, not that Apex was looking directly.

“This is a surprise,” Callum said.

“Yeah. It is.”

“What are you doing here?”

“I work for Whestmorel.”

Callum nodded over his shoulder at the truck. “I’m the groundskeeper here.”

“I’m doing some logistics for him. A special project, you might call it.”

Well, look at all this compatibility going on. Who needed horoscopes when you could just covet your coworker . . .

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