The Fire Wolf's Mate

t open t

im exhale on the other side and say, fine, and go back down the stairs. I waited until his truck started up and the sound of it went off along the ridge

ounty's evacuation center since the first week of August. The 4 H barn had been turned into a shelter for dogs and cats and one very unhappy parrot. The grandstand had cots und

radio in one hand and a paper cup of coffee in the other a

. "Nine. I have been calling every unit in the

m so

in the morning." She looked at my face and

out of my pocket and turned it over in my f

ffee and made a face. "There is a man in the grandstand asking about you. Tall, sandy hair, says he runs the smokejumper crew out of t

ame is

know

walk into anything alone. "Tess, I need you to pull the fire reports for the whole season. Every

ed walkin

is a burned windowsill in the old lookout that says somebody lit it, and I want to

a long moment with her

anyon this morning with a kid in your arms and a look on your face like you had seen a ghost, and you

wl under my ribs, and the paper in my pocket, and the word ni

d. "It is n

t, and a woman folding clothes on a bench, and a row of cots with nobody in them. And there was Dane

longer than he used to wear it, falling over his forehead. The dark line of the fire shelter strap across his c

the grandstand, and it carried the ash and the smoke a

as a young woman's foolishness, a crush on the Alpha's son, a summer thing, and that memory had grown

me and my knee

moke or cedar, and it went straight past my nose and into a part of me I had been sitting on since I was twent

too, the way a man feels a hand on the back

d. "It has bee

e was steadier than I ex

ed at Tessa, then back at me. "Can we t

p, that she had paperwork to do. She walked away toward the office trailer with her c

m on the bench, and there were maybe four feet be

said. "What

two winters ago, a car on the highway at night, and the mother did not know what her husband was until after. She has been

s he when

s is four. He is not going to shift for a decade. But he was born pack, and the

said. "It was a woman. That is what the bo

d a truck went past and somebody laughed, and the

f a lady." Dane looked at the floor between his boots. "He is four yea

o not beli

er known a wolf who could carry a four year old child out of a fire and not be burned."

I thought about the way the wolf had set hi

er,"

nt very

as a way to stop a wolf from shifting if you wanted to, and she said she had a way of doi

nd there was something new in his voice, somet

es

nd and stood with his back to me and one hand on the roof post,

alled it an accident. There were two bodies in the building and one of them was your sister and the other one was a wolf from my pack who was supposed

of this. I

ou for fifteen years. I have been trying to find out what happened in that building since before I could shave, and every door I open has a man in Denver standing behind i

mell of him came with him and

e and everything in me went quiet. You are my mate, Rhea. You have been my mate since before your sister died and yo

"I understand that

is a man from Denver arriving in this valley in two days and he has the power to sign my pack out of existence

you I do not

r evacuation routes and your arson investigation. The pack has forty two wolves and

nty officer for help,

out of him. It was not

whole grandstand, the sleeping family, the radio on my hip, the fire season, all of it went out of my mind like a match. I leaned up and he met me, and his mouth

neck and held on. He made a low sound against my mouth and pulled me close

oke apart and I grabbed it before m

," I said.

north station. His vo

ebreak, and there is a truck up there that does not belong. And Rhea, there is a family liv

one the way a wolf's face goes w

re in twenty m

h me, and I put my hand flat on his chest for a moment bef

Or I found the door of it, anyway. It was open and there was a

ere is a fa

ere is a fa

slung it over his shoulder. "Get in my truck," he sa

t is not on a

said. "That i

the office trailer with a folder in her hand and her

from the first week of August, the one that says lightning started it

the folder.

an hour ago in a dry erase board and a thousand times on a hundre

name on the report, Rhea. Sig