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Chapter Twenty-nine

Chapter Thirty

Chapter Thirty-one

Chapter Thirty-two

Chapter Thirty-three

To the charming and witty, the thoroughly unforgettable,

Miss Eithne O’Hanlon of the Emerald Isle,

for being such a wonderful advocate of the series,

and a source of many giggles and much

mayhem at the message boards.

Thank you for being you!

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Thank you so very much to everyone who helps produce and market my books and put them into the hands of my readers, both in the United States and abroad. I feel incredibly fortunate to be associated with all of you, and I truly appreciate everything you do in support of my work.

Continued, humble thanks to my wonderful readers, whose emails, letters, and online messages keep me smiling at my keyboard, even in the midst of the most wicked deadline crunches. I can’t begin to express how much your enthusiasm and friendship means to me. (((HUGS)))

None of my books would be what they are without the input and support of my husband, whose belief and encouragement—not to mention killer plot ideas—have been invaluable to me. I couldn’t have dreamed of a better partner, both in life and in fiction. Thank you for all the good parts.

Prologue

Under a winter-dark Alaskan sky, a wolf song carried clear and majestic into the night. The howl stretched long, a thing of pure, wild beauty that reached through the dense spruce of the boreal forest and climbed the jagged, snow-covered walls of rock that rose up along the icy banks of the Koyukuk River. When the wolf sent up his haunting call again, it was met by a discordant hoot of laughter, then a drunken voice that answered from across the flames of a small campfire.

“Ow-ow-owwoooo! Owwoooo!” One of the three guys in the group who’d come out to party tonight on this remote stretch of land cupped his gloved hands to his mouth and yowled another ear-grating reply to the wolf, which had since gone silent in the distance. “Hear that? We’re having ourselves a little communication right there.” He grabbed for the bottle of whiskey as it came around the small gathering to him. “I ever tell you I’m fluent in wolf, Annabeth?”

Across the campfire, a soft laugh blew out on a cloud of steam from within the deep hood of the girl’s parka. “Sounded to me more like you’re fluent in stuck pig.”

“Ooh, that’s harsh, sweetheart. Seriously harsh.” He took a swig from the bottle and passed the Jack Daniel’s to the next person in line. “Maybe you want I should give you a little demonstration of my oral skills sometime. I promise you, I’m extremely gifted.”

“You are such an asshole, Chad Bishop.”

She was right, but her tone said she didn’t mean it. She laughed again, a warmly flirtatious, feminine sound that made Teddy Toms’s crotch go all tight and hot. He shifted on the cold rock he’d claimed for a seat, trying not to make his interest obvious as Chad announced he had to take a piss and Annabeth and the other girl with her began to chat together.

A sharp elbow jabbed Teddy in the right side of his rib cage. “You gonna sit there and drool all night? Get off your chickenshit ass and talk to her, for crissake.”

Teddy swung a look at the tall, skinny guy sitting next to him on the rock and shook his head.

“Come on, don’t be such a pussy. You know you want to. She ain’t gonna bite you. Well, not unless you want her to, that is.” Skeeter Arnold had been the one who brought Teddy to this gathering. He’d also been the one who supplied the whiskey, something Teddy, at the age of nineteen, had only sampled once in his life.

Alcohol was outlawed in his father’s house—outlawed in the whole six-person settlement where he lived, in fact. Tonight Teddy’d had the bottle to his lips more than ten times already. He didn’t see the harm in it. In fact, he kind of liked the way it made him feel, all warm and loose inside. Grown up, like a man.

A man who wanted more than anything to stand up and tell Annabeth Jablonsky how he felt about her.

Skeeter handed Teddy the nearly empty bottle and watched him drink