Paws & Claus

  A Rune Wolf Short

  Aimee Easterling

  Copyright © 2024 by Aimee Easterling

  All rights reserved.

  No portion of this book may be reproduced in any form without written permission from the publisher or author, except as permitted by U.S. copyright law.

  Contents

  1. Chapter 1

  2. Chapter 2

  3. Chapter 3

  4. Chapter 4

  5. Chapter 5

  Chapter 1

  “What you’re doing,” Maya complained as she nudged at my lupine nose with a jingle-bell-tipped boot, “is ten times worse than the single guy who sleeps in a twin bed and doesn’t understand how that broadcasts his disinterest in a serious relationship.”

  A sisterly lecture. Precisely how every Solstice-eve day should start. I came up onto four paws then stretched into full downward dog with a wide yawn.

  “You’re not even going to shift in order to hold this conversation?”

  Our one-year age difference shouldn’t have mattered now that we were both pushing thirty. Still, this was the day our pack would come together for our first winter celebration under a new alpha—me, unfortunately. Having my only quiet moment intruded upon provoked an entirely juvenile urge to frustrate my sister back.

  Until, that is, I recalled what Maya was going through and immediately corrected my mistake. Turning my back and shifting into humanity, chilly air instantly pebbled my skin into goosebumps. Then, as I did up the buttons on the flannel shirt I'd pulled on over jeans, I apologized. “Sorry. I wasn’t thinking. You need to talk? Let’s talk?”

  Behind me, Maya’s voice turned as brittle as the ice we seldom saw here in southern Arizona. “I don’t want to talk about...that.”

  Enough with the buttons. I turned around and drew my sister into a hug even though her shoulders immediately went rigid and the holly pinned to her sweater jabbed through my shirt and into my skin. “What do you want to talk about then?” I murmured into her hair.

  “You. This.” Maya’s voice was muffled by my shoulder. Dampness soaked through the shirt I’d so recently donned, but that was the only evidence of her crying as she continued to nag. “Carting a dog bed around to a different house every night is stupid. It has to stop.”

  She clearly preferred argument over consolation. So I obliged her. “We did it as pups.”

  “Because our alpha was trying to force us out by refusing to grant us a human bedroom!”

  “And I’m trying to hold the pack together. Being near the alpha is a comfort.” Plus, I could only spend so much two-legged time around pack mates before my brain started buzzing with introvert overload. Letting my wolf take over for a little while helped.

  “Being near the alpha would be more of a comfort if the alpha actually took care of his own needs first,” Maya rebutted. If we’d been ten and eleven, she probably would have blown her nose on my shirt to spite me. I almost wished she had.

  Instead, she pulled out of my arms, eyes redder than they’d been a minute ago. And she laid down the law as only a big sister could. “Put on the holiday sweater I bought for you. Consider doing something nice for yourself. And no more sleeping around.”

  Of course, the five-year-old daughter of the home I’d opted to spend the night in overheard Maya’s last words. “What’s sleeping around, Mommy?” Isabella asked as we lingered over the breakfast table, the bees in my head just barely starting to wake up and churn my thoughts into what, by midday, would become a frenzy. Meanwhile, the sweater Maya had left scratched my skin as much as it had my eyeballs when I made the mistake of glancing in a mirror.

  I’d needed those lost ten minutes of solitude in order to pretend to love the holidays. Still I couldn’t resist cracking a grin as the little girl’s mother spat out her coffee all over the kitchen table now.

  “Who said anything about sleeping around?”

  “Maya,” Isabella tattled. “She told Orion to stop it.”

  And...that was my cue to deflect before making my escape. “Where are you going to hang your stocking?” I asked Isabella. The overexcited child turned sparkling eyes on her parents, I picked up my dog bed, stepped out into the morning light…

  ...And deflated. This wasn’t a pack central fit for holidays.

  At my command, we’d retreated into cliff-side dwellings after losing our old alpha months ago. The goal was to ensure that our weakest pack members—like Isabella—weren’t easy to track down if another clan decided our transitional status turned us into easy pickings.

  To that end, our strongest fighters and I spent time every day making our old residences appear lived in. We severely limited traffic to our canyon location so the narrow track leading here would look untrafficked. There were no spur-of-the-moment hunts and definitely no howling, and I chewed out pack mates who so much as used flashlights outside after dark.

  We were safe here. Our kids were safe here. Safety was worth rules and rock-wall-view claustrophobia.

  So why were three unfamiliar vehicles racing up the canyon floor toward the heart of our clan’s den? Why was wind swirling around them the way it did when desert magic wanted to send me a warning I couldn’t miss?

  Because the worst had happened. All of our stealth measures had failed and it was time to face the expected invasion.

  I dropped the dog bed, donned my fur, and leapt toward the not-really-staircase, descending the cliff face far faster than I would have approved for any other pack mates. No wonder Maya met me at the bottom, already grousing.

  “What happened to your sweater?”

  I whapped her with my tail. There was a time to be my big sister and a time to be my second. Now was the latter.

  The intensity of my concern whipped her around to face the oncoming danger and her voice turned sharp. “Got it. Assembling the troops now.”

  Then she scrambled back up the same stairs I’d recently come down while I sprinted toward the closest vehicle. It looked like a tank from my lupine perspective, but the view from the cliff-side terrace promised it was actually a civilian Hummer. Still quite capable of swerving toward me and squashing me pancake flat. Also quite capable of carrying at least a dozen wolves, which didn’t even take into account the capacity of the vehicles behind.

  But the Hummer didn’t speed up and it didn’t aim for me. Instead, it screeched to a halt, brake noises suggesting the others were stopping also. Then a woman unfolded herself from the driver’s seat, a woman who was entirely human even though she reeked of werewolf. I’d seen her picture once but it took me a moment to place her.

  “We’re here to beg sanctuary,” said the second of the only nearby alpha I considered a friend.

  Chapter 2

  “This is Becca,” I told my pack mates, or at least all the ones we’d been able to cram into the gymnasium on such short notice. I transferred my attention from the woman who’d been driving the Hummer to the four male shifters flanking her. “And her pack.”

  Unlike Becca, who stood there with a smile on her face as if she was a welcome aunt come to visit with a trunk full of presents, the strangers all bristled the way any dominant shifter would when facing a pack they weren’t allied with. They were barely a unit. Four dominants rubbing along under the command of an unrelated and now absent alpha. Becca was the human adhesive who held them all together, and she was more like homemade flour paste than industrial superglue.

  I’d learned all that when Prince and I had stumbled across each other in the desert months ago. At the time, this motley crew’s new alpha had been sorely out of his depth, and I’d been in a similar stage of being buffeted by every breeze in my new role as pack leader. Even in the outpack where no one held sway, alphas normally would have fought in such a situation if only to ensure our sniffed-out weaknesses didn’t blow back on our pack mates. But the desert had surprised us with a freak sandstorm that forced us to huddle close together in the only available shelter. While waiting out the brutal sleet of sand, I’d listened while Prince vented. Then he’d listened while I vented. Within an hour, we’d become fast friends.

  Now, I fully intended to abide by my side of the bargain struck while waiting out that sandstorm. I’d give Prince’s pack mates refuge since they clearly were no longer able to maintain the territory newly carved out of outpack land, the same way he would have given mine refuge if my pack mates had arrived with Maya as leader and me gone or dead.

  Because Prince had apparently disappeared yesterday. That was why Becca and the rest of her clan had come here. They needed our help.

  “Who’d like to host one of our guests?” I asked my own pack mates, the words less question and more expectation.

  One by one, I met the eyes of those I thought would step forward. Having me nap on their living-room floor was considered worth fighting over. Surely it wouldn’t take much to tempt hosts to speak up now.

  No one fought over the opportunity this time though. Instead, each pack mate stared back in rigid silence. Down the pack bond, such as it was, came a mixture of emotions, none of them positive. Shock. Anger. Refusal. No one was thrilled to be folding five strangers into our already wobbly clan, especially not during holidays that felt far from festive.

  I gave my people a moment, hoping someone would express their reluctance aloud so I could address the issue without appearing to be borrowing trouble. But our guests were beginning to clench hands into fists, likely envisioning having to fight their way out of a dicey situation. So I accepted the inevitable and began a ssigning hosts.

  “James, you’ll house Becca.”

  “I have a kid!” the man who tended to forget that fact when it got in the way of his tomcatting complained.

  The bees in my head started buzzing, tempting me to turn my request into an order. It was what our old alpha would have done. Instead, I kept my voice calm. “And I’m asking you to host a human woman. Surely your son can handle that the same way he beat up three boys older than himself?”

  “They were bullies.”

  “Which is why he hasn’t been punished.” And I was allowing myself to be drawn off track. I knew that because Maya was giving me the evil eye that meant Alphas don’t explain themselves.

  So I placed the rest of Prince’s pack mates, separating them out one per home and focusing on the families I most trusted. After that, I could have left the way our old alpha would have. Walking away from complaints was an obvious yet effective power play, proof that my commands would be obeyed without me physically present to browbeat the parties in question into submission.

  Instead, I forced a smile and ceded to the reality of Solstice-eve day. There needed to be some festivities, even though the way in which and location where we’d celebrate was constrained by outside dangers. “Who,” I asked, “would like to join me in decorating our old village?”

  We couldn’t string up festive lights outside our new digs without making our presence in the canyon obvious. But there was still pleasure to be had in enjoying old traditions back at our decoy village. Even if the children who would have most benefited had to be left behind for their own safety. Even if our new, not-really pack mates had to be brought along and our strongest fighters assigned to keep a subtle eye on wild-card outsiders.

  So, okay, it was more of a military operation than a holiday celebration. Still, someone flipped on seasonal music loud enough to drift over to the old alpha’s house where I was hanging string lights. And we’d spread out enough so the bees in my head gradually quieted from a buzz to a hum.

  By the time the spicy scent of gingerbread cookies preceded Ari rounding the nearest corner, I was ready to smile at the teenager who I couldn’t admit was one of my favorite pack mates because good alphas didn’t pick favorites. I knew that because the old alpha had made clear who he liked and who he didn’t like and I did everything in my power to be the opposite of what he’d been.

  “You whipped this up out of left-behind ingredients?” I asked now as I bit into a cookie that tasted like the very best parts of Solstice barely remembered from when Maya and I had a mother who tucked us into our own beds at night.

  Ari ducked his head. “I’m sorry, alpha. I shouldn’t have brought eggs and butter from home. I...”

  “Ingenious,” I interrupted his unnecessary apology. Clearly, I hadn’t spent enough time around the youth if he thought I was going to chew him out when I’d rather chew up the entire basket of deliciousness he was holding. Looked like he’d planned on one cookie per customer, though, so I kept my paws to myself. And also reworked my mental schedule to make sure I’d poach on the corner of Ari’s parents’ living room one night this week.

  I opened my mouth to set the teenager further at ease, then spun instead as angry words carried down the block from a house that used to be behind me and was now directly in my line of sight.

  “You manhandled her,” growled one of the new dominants. Oliver? Aiden? Whoever it was, he appeared to have shoved our most problematic pack mate—James—in the way that begged a fistfight. Meanwhile, beside the two of them, Becca wiped at her mouth as if trying to remove an unwanted kiss.

  James was our resident manwhore. Ever since I’d locked down our pack for safety, he’d been stuck trolling for easy lays among his neighbors and finding few takers. No wonder he’d seized upon the excuse of mistletoe and a woman unaccustomed to his greasy charm to steal affection that wasn’t willing to flow his way.

  Unfortunately, pack mates who would have been glad to see James’ lights punched out yesterday were now surrounding Oliver/Aiden in the solidarity that only arises from facing down outsiders. Glass crunched under someone’s foot as ornaments turned into potential weapons.

  Beside me, the basket slipped out of Ari’s fingers. I barely managed to catch the handle before the delicacies spilled out across sandy ground.

  Chapter 3

  Our pack bond was wobbly but not so much that I couldn’t have blasted my own pack mates with an alpha command, freezing their feet in place and preventing any thrown punches. I didn’t want to be that kind of leader however. And Becca stepped in before I’d closed more than a quarter of the distance between the old alpha’s residence and the incipient mob.

  “I don’t need you to fight my battles, Oliver,” she said, shouldering between the two males and looking particularly small when sandwiched by their burliness. At the same time, she met my gaze, her demand that I let her handle this as clear as one of Maya’s glares.

  I stopped moving but didn’t turn away. It would be lovely if Becca was able to defuse the situation, but she was entirely human. Not only did she lack dominance, she didn’t even have a wolf to draw upon if matters ended up being settled by fur and claws.

  Still, when she leaned in and whispered something in James’ ear so low even my shifter hearing couldn’t pick up on it, he blushed and his mouth quirked up into the most honest smile I’d ever seen from him. “Really?” he said aloud.

  Her reply was just as quiet as her initial observation, but this time James nodded. “Yeah, you’re right. My bad.”

  “Apology accepted,” Oliver growled. “As long as it never happens again.”

  “Oliver.” Becca’s amusement was audible. “What part of I fight my own battles was unclear to you?”

  I was no longer surprised when Oliver’s gaze dropped to his feet. “Sorry, Becca.”

  “Now shake hands and make up, both of you.”

  The pair obeyed, looking like overgrown schoolboys chastened by the teacher. Two dominants offering apologies at the behest of a human—a Solstice miracle. No wonder, the crowd started dispersing. Being the first to spread gossip was far more exciting than hanging around hoping for a fight that wasn’t going to materialize.

  Still, I would have stayed to make sure tensions didn’t reignite if my sister hadn’t tapped me on the shoulder at that moment. “You’ve either forgotten that today’s your birthday or you’ve forgotten our tradition.”

  I turned to face her, lying by omission as I did so. “I would never forget our tradition.” Then I followed up with the honest truth. “But I can’t. Not this year. The pack can’t handle being left alone right now.”

  Maya’s face fell. She’d really been looking forward to sneaking away to spend the afternoon together out in the desert. No duties, no dramas. Just friends sharing the same afternoon we’d spent together for my entire life.

  I needed a compromise, but no clever idea was making it through the bees at the moment. To my surprise, Ari was the one who spoke up.

  “I’ll be your conduit.”

  I’d lost track of the teenager’s presence while watching James then focusing on my sister. Now, I raised one eyebrow and his gaze hit the ground even faster than Oliver’s had. Total submission rounded his shoulders and curved his neck toward me. The kid was going to strain a muscle.

  “You want that?” I asked quietly.

  He didn’t want that. A conduit opened themselves up entirely to the alpha, letting their leader see through their eyes and hear through their ears while often catching hints of intimate thoughts never intended to be shared with outsiders. Maya could have done it—she and I spoke down the pack bond as easily as we spoke aloud and we had no secrets from each other. Most of the rest of the clan, though, was less willing to fully embrace my authority, so our ability to communicate via pack bonds was deeply muted.

  Despite his submission, Ari maintained some of the strongest mental barriers I’d ever seen. As if he’d had to practice keeping his thoughts to himself for survival purposes.

  I had a feeling I knew why.

 

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