Wolf Tales. Kate Douglas

      KENSINGTON PUBLISHING CORP.

       http://www.kensingtonbooks.com

      My sincere thanks to Margaret and Bill Riley,

       owners and founders of Changeling Press,

       who provided a fertile birthplace for my Chanku.

       And a very special thank you to my agent,

       Jessica Faust, who has proved

       she is even more persistent than I am.

      Contents

      PART ONE: Stefan

      Chapter 1

      Chapter 2

      Chapter 3

      Chapter 4

      PART TWO: Alexandria

      Chapter 5

      Chapter 6

      Chapter 7

      Chapter 8

      Chapter 9

      Chapter 10

      PART THREE: Anton

      Chapter 11

      Chapter 12

      Chapter 13

      Chapter 14

      Chapter 15

      PART FOUR: Keisha

      Chapter 16

      Chapter 17

      Chapter 18

      Chapter 19

      Chapter 20

      Chapter 21

      Chapter 22

      PART FIVE: The Gift

      Chapter 23

      Chapter 24

      Chapter 25

      Chapter 26

      Chapter 1

      Xandi shoved the deflated air bag out of her lap and used her last tissue to wipe the fog off the windshield, well aware it wasn’t going to change her predicament. She saw nothing but white. At least it was still daytime. Even so, her hands shook, and her heart raced. She paused a moment, fist full of tissue pressed against the windshield, then forced herself to take slow, even breaths. Hyperventilating wouldn’t help one bit.

      Look at the bright side. At least it’s still daylight. This could have happened at night.

      The thought set her heart to pounding even harder.

      She’d skidded at least a hundred yards down the hillside and landed in a cushion of thick snow and heavy undergrowth. Her little white sedan tilted to one side, completely surrounded by small trees and shrubs. Thick, fast-falling snow already hid the hood, and most likely the roof as well. She checked her cell phone again. Damn. Still no signal. The narrow gorge she’d fallen into must be blocking her.

      Staying in the car was an option, at least until the storm abated, but she’d plowed into the drift hard and deep, and the storm showed no signs of letting up. Already the doors were wedged closed by the weight of the white stuff, and the windows were almost completely covered.

      It wasn’t like anyone would be looking for her, and even if someone did, who’d be able to find a little white car buried under a ton of white snow? She was going to have to make a decision, and make it soon, before she suffocated.

      Xandi grabbed her down coat out of the backseat, made sure her boots were tightly tied, her gloves were on her hands and her hat was pulled down over her ears. Slowly, she rolled the window down, pushing the heavy snow back so it wouldn’t fall in her lap.

      The irony of the situation wasn’t lost on her. She had plenty of vacation time accumulated at work, and she’d taken some of it. She’d told her friends and co-workers she needed to get away, needed to think about making some serious changes in her life. Insisted they didn’t need to know her plans, as she would be gone only a couple of weeks and wasn’t going far.

      Well, she hadn’t gone far, not really. She’d made it only about twenty miles out of Portland before the damned diesel had run her car off the road. She wondered if the trucker who’d cut in front of her even had a clue what he’d done.

      Wondered if he even gave a shit.

      Her hands were shaking as she brushed the wet flakes out of her eyelashes and stared through the open window, up the long slope. Cold. She was just so damned cold. And scared.

      “Shut up.” She started, surprised by the vehemence in her own voice. This situation didn’t fit with the thick flakes of snow and the postcard image of pine boughs bending beneath their weight. It didn’t fit with her plans, the reason she’d decided to leave in spite of the storm. It just didn’t fit.

      Nothing did.

      The highway couldn’t be too far above her, though it was hard to tell up from down in the current whiteout conditions. Whatever tracks her car might have left were long gone. She hadn’t lost consciousness, but she’d sat in the front seat with the deflated air bag in her lap, counting her blessings, for way too long. All the while, the snow kept falling.

      Of course, the fact she was still alive after hurtling down the steep slope at over seventy miles per hour deserved a word of thanks. Lately, not much in her life did. She took a deep breath, consciously putting all the crap that was Alexandria Olanet’s life behind her, at least for now. With any luck, she’d get up the hill before dark fell and thumb a ride back to town. So much for her great adventure.

      So much for taking charge of her life.

      Pushing the rest of the snow away from the open window, Xandi clutched her little leather backpack purse in her hand, squeezed her butt through the open window and tumbled out into the swirling snow.