Her chosen mate (The change series 2)

Chapter 13: Consumed by ice

Natasha

We were driving by a forest when I saw something strange, at first, I thought it was the sunlight glittering among the trees, but dad slowed down driving and everyone looked at the same thing I was seeing, then passersby in the street did too. Then everything was chaos. People started running, shouting, others on their phones calling for help.

It looked like an avalanche hurtling towards us, but instead of snow, it was a hail of ice. Sleet and frost moved through the trees, coming downhill fast towards us, it moved like a forest fire, consuming everything it touched.

We didn’t have time to discuss what to do before it came crashing over us. The car shook violently and I clung to Kai. “It’s alright babe,” he murmured, looking at the now blacked out windows, it was so dark we couldn’t even see each other.

It finally sounded quiet outside, and thank god for werewolf strength because dad kicked the window making it shatter when he couldn’t get it to roll down, then he punched his fist through the thick icy snow. He had to keep punching through because it was about five feet thick, finally, light came through and with a lot of work he managed to create a makeshift tunnel of sorts that we could all climb through.

He made mum go first to make sure it was safe, and then he made sure I went next. Pfft, it was more of a struggle for me with my weight, but at least I’d noticed I was finally starting to lose a little bit.

When we were all out, we looked around and saw snow, not quite the soft snow you usually get, it was more icy and glittered in the light, anything that wasn’t covered in the snow was covered in ice instead.

“Why has she done this?” I asked quietly to myself, but dad heard and said, “don’t know, but she’s f.ucking putting every supernatural at risk of exposure, she needs to be stopped.” We all knew him enough that when he said stopped, he really meant killed.

When he started walking towards the forest mum asked, “what are you doing?”

“It came from that way, that’s where we will find her. Come on.” He held his hand out to her and she took it.

It wasn’t often they showed affection in public, dad’s wolfish ways made him like to have both hands free in case he needed to fight, yep, even if we went shopping, his mind was always on possible danger, especially in busy places, he hated crowds, I guess you could call it social anxiety, mum said she used to tease him about it until she finally understood why he was like that.

When I’d asked her why, she said to imagine you were a wolf, a wild wolf, and suddenly, you find yourself surrounded by strange creatures called humans, the panic, and fear a wolf would feel in a situation like that. It made sense, and I understood then why he always wanted to sit at tables where he could have his back against a wall and not to the open, or why he made sure he could see every exit available.

It was a lot of hiking and trekking, the forest was on a hill, and now it was thick with icy snow that we had to crunch our way through, it went up to our ankles and my shoes were already soaked through. “My feet are numb,” I complained, not thinking much of it, but dad turned to look back at us all.

“We should try to be quick, we don’t want frost bite setting in, werewolf or not, that’s gonna hurt and cause some damage if left.” Looking to Kai, he said, “how you doing?”

“Good, can still feel my toes for now,” he joked.

“You carry Natasha, then.”

I blushed thinking of Kai carrying me. He came over and grinned. “Ready babe?” He didn’t wait for an answer and swooped me up in his arms, making me squeal and cling to his neck. He laughed and started walking.

I used to love him calling me babe, I’d blush every time he said it, sometimes I still did, but it wasn’t as special as I’d thought it was, I realised he called every girl babe, so it was meaningless and not some special endearing name he used just for me like I’d naively believed.

Kai carried me like I was a tiny little puppy and not a woman who still wore size eighteen in uk clothes, sometimes dangerously close to size twenty. “You ok there?” I laughed and patted his chest.

“Don’t,” he growled gently at me.

“What?”

“You know what, I hate it when you put yourself down, your weight is nothing to me.”

I laughed it off, but I didn’t say anything else. Apparently I made a lot of jokes about my weight, when I was a kid I used to cry about it if anyone so much as looked at me eat food, now I’d learned to hide behind jokes, the pack hated it, it made them sad that I saw myself in such a negative light. I was lucky to have such an amazing pack.

It took us about two hours to reach the top of the forest, and oddly it was just dirt and trees and so on, no hint of any snow or ice up here. About fifty yards ahead there was a big cabin house that did have snow surrounding it, behind the cabin was a big wall of mud, a cliff too steep to climb or go anywhere.

Dad had us all stay downwind and hide behind bushes to scope the place out. Kai put me down and I was glad to know that although they were still a little numb, I could wiggle my toes again. I caught a glimpse of white hair. The witch.

The mutt was still with her, and he came outside after a few minutes. He looked angry about something and walked around the cabin searching the perimeters and looking out at the forest making sure no one else was around.

When he relaxed, he pulled out a cigarette and lit it. Ew, how could the man call himself a werewolf, the stench must have been overpowering for his nose, but he didn’t seem to care and carried on smoking.

Mutts were a strange bunch, the lone ones with no pack, they always acted the most human, trying to blend in and ignore what they were even if it was painful to their heightened senses, like smoking and wearing too much cologne, or even dangerous behaviour, like not changing regularly leading them to lose control and for the moon to violently force the change on them, it was so much more painful if you waited for the moon to bring it on.

Wolves were built for colder weather with thick fur coats and pads to help walk on the snow and ice, so when dad got everyone’s attention he silently pointed to us all and himself, then made a howling gesture, meaning he wanted us to change.

We backed away a safe distance and found our own spots to change. I tried to bring on the change, hoping that because I still had my wolf hearing I could change, but again, nothing happened, I tried and tried, but it was like a human trying to convince their body to change to another shape, it was impossible and just wasn’t happening.

When everyone came out of their thickets, dad padded over to me, his head was almost at chest level to me, and he tilted it questioningly. Blushing and feeling like a disappointment, I mumbled, “I’m sorry dad, I haven’t been able to change since the frost incident.”

He gave a gentle whine and rubbed his head against me. He never showed affection to anyone while in wolf form, except maybe to mum, in human form he was worse. If anyone still in their human form tried to touch him he would bite, like full on bite the s.hit out of their hand, but I needed his affections right now, so I took the risk and ran my fingers through his fur. He didn’t so much as growl at me, so I pulled him into a hug and held him tight. “I’m sorry, dad,” I whispered.

He nuzzled my face and licked my cheek letting me know it was ok. He was beautiful as a wolf as much as he was a man, his fur was white with a strip of golden blonde like his hair running along the spine, and in wolf form we kept our eyes and his blue ones were striking against the white fur.

Kai padded up beside him and looked up at me. He was gorgeous as a wolf too, with honey golden fur and his grey eyes. “Aww you want a hug too?” I teased, knowing he hated being touched as much as dad did.

He snorted at me and started to turn away, but I grabbed him into a hug anyway, laughing as he growled and tried wrenching himself away from me. In the end, he gave up and sat down, letting me have my hug. Dad bumped my side with his body letting me know it was time to stop playing around and get to work.