Page 67 of Wind with a Chance of Wolfsbane

Mina ranher fingers over the rocky cavern wall. She drew her hand back and examined the tips of her fingers, rubbing them together and making a face that said whatever she’d touched had grossed her out. “Slimy.”

“Way to sell it,” I said, sighing. “I was doing a good job ignoring the slimy walls, along with the rest of the spiders and other creepy-crawlies that are in here. We should really drug me or something to knock me out during it all.”

“So that you sleep through the spiders, bugs, and possibly snakes crawling on you?” she asked before cringing.

I did the heebie-jeebie dance. “Never mind on the knocking-me-out thing. It’s just…I’m afraid I’ll get loose again.”

“The chains will hold,” she stated with absolute certainty.

“That’s what you said about thelastchains in the old building outside of town,” I replied, doing my best to keep my voice steady despite the building panic in me.

“That was different. They weren’t secured to stone walls. These are bolted in tight,” she said.

Stiffening, I took in the sight of the iron hooks that were secured to the rock wall. Would they hold? And why did the cave come equipped with them? “Mina, why do you think those are here?”

Her focus was on the old broken, rusted chains that littered the cave floor. “I don’t know. Something was chained here. Something powerful enough to break those.” She pointed to the floor of the cave.

I cringed. “Do you think there was another shifter here at some point?”

“Maybe,” she confessed. “Whatever it was, it was pretty damn strong. Those chains are old, and they would have held a lot. Something made child’s play of them.”

She was right. “When you told me about finding this, you swore you looked around for evidence of it being used recently.”

Nodding, she turned in a small circle. “I combed over it. There isn’t anything in here that looks to have been used recently. No tracks or anything, either. Just the ones I left the other day.”

I met her gaze.

“I don’t think whatever had been chained here has been back recently,” she said softly.

“If it comes back while I’m chained in here?” I asked, voicing what I knew she’d already considered. “What then?”

Silence fell between us.

She pressed a smile to her face. “Hey, maybe I could organize a playdate between you and them? Maybe we can meet at a dog park or something.”

A nervous laugh escaped me. “Okay, but I’m not sure I’m up for sniffing anyone’s butt.”

“You say that now,” she countered.

I lowered my head and laughed. “I really hope the times I’ve gotten free in wolf form, I didn’t end up sniffing the backside of any stray dog.”

Mina tipped her head somewhat. “Do you think you’ve ever run into another wolf? Or even a wolf-shifter that way?”

I started to say no but stopped and shrugged. “Honestly, I have nearly no memory of what happens when I’m the wolf. Maybe.”

A wicked grin spread over her face. “Do you think you’ve ever gotten it on with a male dog or wolf?”

My expression went black. “I’m going to pretend you didn’t ask me that.”

“Pretend all you want. The question will now linger,” she said, waggling her brows.

I mock-choked her, and she cackled loudly, the sound echoing throughout the cave.

We nearly fell. We were laughing that hard.

I righted myself and her in the process and took stock of the chains and how they were secured into the cave wall. They looked sturdier than any setup we’d tried thus far over the course of the last four years.

Mina touched one. “Willa, this is going to have to work this month.”

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