Page 19 of Wolf Reborn

But then he thought of a possible missing kid alone on the mountainside, and he couldn’t be.

He knocked on the door of this one a couple of times. It was big enough that maybe someone in the back couldn’t hear a knock. There were no prints in the new snow, so if the boy was there, he was well settled in. Miles didn’t see any hint of a person moving around inside, or anything out of place.

He shook his head and went back to the car. “Hey, James,” he said into the radio. “I’m at fifteen, but I don’t think I’m gonna make it too much farther in this storm.”

“You should get back into town,” James agreed readily. He’d gotten more and more concerned as the afternoon had gone on, despite their worries over the child. “You’re not going to do anyone any good if you get stuck out there.”

“All right,” he agreed. “Heading back.”

He did a five-point-turn in the drive, not wanting to accidentally cut too close to the edge of the flat surface and slide off, and headed back down the miles-long drive toward the highway.

He was more than a mile from either the house or the highway when a small, four-legged form darted out in front of the car, and he hit the brakes too hard.

For a decade, Miles had been driving in the snow. He damn well knew not to brake so hard on slippery, snowy roads. He tried not to panic, let up on the brakes, tried to even the wheel out, but it was way too late for that.

There was no time to berate himself with “should have”s, since the cruiser spun out, sliding all the way around to face the opposite direction. Then, with sickening inevitability, the driver’s side tires slipped off the edge of the road, and the entire car fell down the ravine next to it.

There was a surreal feeling as the car spun out, like he was having one of those bizarre dreams where his car could fly.

His car could not fly.

When it went over the edge, flipping onto its side and slamming Miles hard against the driver’s side door, his brain kept replaying a scratching record track of “I’m about to die,” followed by “wait, that can’t be right. It’s just a Thursday.”

He hadn’t even gotten to talk to Gavin, and dammit, he was in love with that asshole.

10

A Murder of One

Less than an hour after Gavin got home from talking to Miles, the entire pack—less Hannah and Paige—were out on the mountain searching for Lyndon. Gavin had given strict orders to check in every half hour, and that when things got too much, they would stop for the night.

There was no certainty the child spotted was even missing, let alone their runaway. Gavin was not going to lose someone to a half-cocked theory about a boy who might not even be in Colorado, let alone on their mountain.

In the interest of keeping Graham from doing something unwise, he sent the others in pairs. It made the most sense anyway, sending Ash with Graham, and Dez with Sawyer. They worked best together.

No, Gavin wasn’t jealous of them all having found that.

The area Miles had indicated was huge. They were in the middle of the Rocky Mountains, and there was a lot of territory to cover.

Gavin could only hope that the others, with their werewolf instincts and senses, had a better shot at finding the boy than he did.

As such, he sent them closer to town, since the kid had been seen by resort employees, and so was likely to be closer to town than not.

That was how he ended up in the part of Kismet that had his family’s old cabin. He wasn’t sure if they even still owned it, but it didn’t make much difference to Gavin anymore. He hadn’t spoken to any of them in a decade.

His sister had tried to reach out once, when he was in Afghanistan, but by the time he’d gotten her letter, it had felt too late to answer it. And what was he supposed to say? Sorry, the man you called your brother doesn’t exist anymore—he’s been reshaped by the real world.

It didn’t matter. He didn’t have time to get distracted by the ancient past. He needed to look to the present. To the snow, and the possible missing child. Cub? He wasn’t gonna call the kid “omega.” That was a term that had already been weaponized against the boy in all likelihood, and Gavin wasn’t going to add to that trauma.

He was freezing, even in his wool coat.

It was good that the others could change into wolves to go looking. Their fur would keep them from freezing on the side of the mountain.

He hoped Lyndon could shift.

Gavin... Gavin had some of the abilities Ash had told him to expect—his hearing was better, and his sense of smell off the charts. He was probably stronger than he’d been before, but he didn’t lift weights, so it was hard to judge. His cock had once knotted while masturbating, and that had been fucking awful. He sometimes healed faster.

Sometimes, though, he didn’t.

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