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AFTER MIDNIGHT STRUCK, the wind began to howl. It whistled around the cabin to the tune of a nightmare, a swirling gale wailing outside the window as it whipped the trees to and fro and lurched Adele from the comfort of her dreams. It was hard to sleep when the cabin felt as though it might be ripped from the ground; she had tossed and turned for what felt like an eternity until exhaustion had at last overwhelmed distraction.

She rose before the sun. The sky hung like a noose overhead, a hazy shade of uncertainty that smothered the trees, forcing exhaustion on her as she pushed back her heavy duvet with a yawn. There was no point trying to get back to sleep when it was almost seven and the sun would lift its lazy head before long, a pathetic stream of light filtering through her bedroom window if it managed to break through the trees that scraped the walls.

Hitching up her thick pyjama bottoms, she adjusted the sports bra she had fallen asleep in and pulled on a woolly jumper over her top. The vast majority of her clothes came from charity shops, hardly any of them a proper fit, but the baggy snuggliness was appreciated in winter and that morning, she was beyond grateful for the oversized men's fleece she had picked up for a fiver. She tugged the sleeves over her fingers and headed straight for the kettle. Before she could deal with what she had done last night, she needed coffee.

Her heart was beating out of tune; her stomach was ablaze with anxious fire; her brain a knotted web that reformed each time she tried to unpick what she had got herself into. There was no point bothering, not when she would soon have a million more questions plaguing her brain, and the answer to them all was in the garage.

While the kettle boiled, she slowly washed her hands and glanced out of the kitchen window at the pines bending as the wind continue to roar. Just looking outside made her shiver, wincing at the frosted ground. It had frozen overnight, fallen leaves crystallised in the vegetable patch. It was useless when the ground froze, lying dormant until spring rolled around and thawed the mud enough for her to sow seeds and reap the rewards.

Coffee in one hand and the kettle in the other, Adele stuffed her feet into the closest pair of shoes and balanced a mixing bowl between her elbow and her waist, dipping her other elbow down to tease open the back door. A gust of wind whipped it out of her grip, almost shoving her back into the house. She had to fight to keep her balance, leaning against the railing as she carefully descended the three steps that would lead her to the garage with only the dim light from the kitchen to guide her.

As much as she loved where she lived, sometimes the weather infuriated her. All she wanted to do was walk the two metres to the garage and yet even that was a mighty task when the wind threatened to knock her off the feet and the ice willed her to slip down the steps. She wasn't stupid. She knew how to navigate her land even when the snow lay three feet deep, even when hailstones rained down like bullets, but that didn't mean she enjoyed having to plan out every action she wanted to make.

Wincing against the wind, she wrestled open the garage door in a moment of calm when the gale died down, slipping inside without dropping anything. It took a moment for her eyes to adjust to the shadowy garage, the only light coming from the glow of the heater, but she could make out the shape of the wolf. He was sleeping right where she had left him, his back rising with each deep breath. He didn't flinch when she stepped into the room, quietly shutting the door behind herself. Keeping a watchful eye over him, she set her coffee on the shelf and opened the freezer. The weak light illuminated the contents, each plastic bag labelled and dated except for the ones she had no intention of selling or eating.

Pushing past the bags of kidneys and chopped up lung, two organs she had never felt the desire to try, she reached for a frozen heart. That was a treat. Not for her: for all that she hunted, Adele wasn't a fan of the nose-to-tail way of eating her kills. She didn't want to bite into the heart just as she didn't want to much on the intestines of a deer, the brain of a buck.

It was for the wolf.

The cold heart was the size of both her fists, the deep red flesh shimmering with shards of ice. She rested it in the mixing bowl and poured over the hot water to help it thaw. Both bowls by the blanket were empty: he was hungry. He had devoured everything she had laid out for him, not a drop of water left. Careful not to disturb him, she picked up the water bowl and held it close under the tap she used to wash down the table, filling it to the brim.

When the china clinked against the concrete, he opened his eyes.

"Hi," Adele said. She kept her voice soft and low. She didn't want to startle him. "Are you hungry?"

He lifted his head, holding her gaze. That was enough of a sign. It would be a while before the heart was soft enough to eat after being frozen for a week but it would hardly take any time for some of the smaller kidneys to defrost in front of the heater. Taking a bag out of the freezer, she sat down opposite the wolf, the same way she had sat last night and she held a couple of kidneys in her palm, close to the heat.

"How're you feeling?" Leaning forward, she scratched his head and he tipped his nose up, closing his eyes. "Better, huh? What's your deal? I thought you were supposed to be able to heal yourself." Lifting his paw, she ran her thumb over the rough pads and gently moved her hand to the gash in his side. It was looking better already. "Slowly, I take it." She sighed, rolling the kidneys over in her hand to heat the other side. "I guess you'll just have to explain later."

The wolf nuzzled her knee, easing himself forwards to lap from the water she had set down. When she held out her palm, he gingerly sniffed her hand, nudging the kidneys before he took one between his teeth and devoured it. He practically inhaled the others with a satisfied lick of his lips and he rested his chin on her wrist, licking her palm clean.

"Plenty more where that came from," she said, shifting back against the wall to stretch her feet in front of the heater and when she moved, he did too, lying beside her with his head on her lap, huge eyes gazing up at him. She met his stare, her hand resting between his ears. "So, you must have a name, huh?"

He let out a short bark and thumped his heavy tail on the blankets.

"I'm not just going to start guessing. You've gotta help me out or I'll just end up calling you wolfie. Or dog."

The wolf growled at that, a low rumble, and she could have sworn he narrowed his eyes at her.

"Does it start with A?"

He ignored her, as though she wasn't even talking.

"B?"

No response.

"I swear to God, your name better not be fucking Zebediah. I do actually have things to do today other than sit around guessing your name."

He pawed her knee and whined. Adele rolled her eyes.

"C?"

He barked, his tail wagging, and she smiled.

"Alright, we're getting somewhere," she said, "but I'm not guessing every letter. Give me a sec; I have something that might help."

He whimpered when she stood, lying helpless on the blankets as she headed over to the door to brave the weather. The wind was starting to die down, it seemed, carrying soft snowflakes on the breeze. They wouldn't settle yet, not for a couple of weeks, but it was a bleak start to the season. The first snow tended not to come until the end of the month, but this year was looking like it would be exceptionally cold.

"I'll be right back. This would be a lot easier for both of us if you'd just shift. Then you could just tell me you name."

He dropped his chin onto the blankets and sighed. Adele watched him for a moment before she dashed outside and back into the house, hugging herself as she headed into the store room that had become a pantry and a laundry room over the years. It had been her bedroom right up until Jade had moved out, when she had knocked through to the kitchen to create a bit of much needed extra space.

Above the washing machine were three shelves stacked high with miscellanea, things she had yet to find a place for or throw away. She was sure she had seen a book of baby names there once. It was the kind of thing her grandmother would have had, and she had never thrown away a single thing her grandmother had left. Jade had tried to get rid of any trace of her after her death, but it hadn't taken too long for her to realise that it wasn't worth it for the fierce fit that ten-year-old Adele had thrown.

There was nothing there. Nothing that would help her now, anyway. A quick internet browse would put an end to the search but out in the cabin, Adele was completely cut off from the world. There was no data signal out there, not that her phone even had the capacity to connect to the web, and she had never had wifi. There was an internet café in town but she rarely felt the need to use it. She had no bank account, no email address, nothing tying her to the online world.

She also had no clue about current events unless Angus or Jade dropped a news story into a conversation, but given the state of the world, she wasn't complaining about that.

There was a bookshelf in her bedroom, wedged between the end of her bed and the wall. Any time Angus stayed over, he ended up with his feet nestled in the nooks between the books: the room was tiny, her chest of drawers blocking half of her bed just to fit in the room, but it was home to her.

Climbing onto the bed, she knelt on the soft mattress to look through the stacks of books that lined her shelves. Almost all of them were non-fiction, guides to hunting and fishing and foraging that her grandmother had left behind. There were maps of the area; charts of the country; a guidebook her father had put together to track the weather patterns and food availability over a ten-year period.

It had come in handy, though Adele hated to admit that. It was the only trace of her parents that remained in the cabin, erasing their existence as soon as Jade had moved out. The fight that had ensued when she had found out had been a big one. It had yet to end.

On the top shelf, out of reach without standing on the bed, she struck gold. The Big Book of Baby Names, the 1987 edition. The same year Jade had been born. Flipping through the book she had never opened, she saw the names her parents had circled. There were more boys than girls. She wondered if her parents had wanted a son.

Clutching the book under her arm, she jogged back to the garage and slammed the door, startling the dog.

"Got it," she said, showing him the book. "Baby names. Though I don't know how old you are. You might not have been very popular thirty years ago." She flipped through the girls' names, scanning for her own. It was circled once in pencil. Finding Jade, it had been circled three times in red pen and highlighted with a strike of bright yellow.

"Let's narrows this down a bit," she said to herself, finding the boys' names beginning with C. "The second letter of your name. Is it a vowel?"

He wagged his tail.

"A?"

Another wag. That helped. There were around a hundred names beginning with Ca, and she hoped his would be one of them. Settling back onto the blanket, she idly stroked the scruff of his neck and moved one finger down the page as she read out the names.

"Caiden? Caine?" she tried, twenty names in. So far, the wolf had made no move, his head warm on her thighs. "Caius? Never even heard of that one," she muttered. Neither had he. He sighed, the sudden breath hot on her hand. "We'll get there. Cal? Cale?"

He looked up. She watched him.

"Your name's Cale?"

He dropped his head again.

"Caleb?"

He pawed the page and barked, his tail thumping. Licking Adele's hand, he barked again.

"Alright," she said with a smile. "Caleb it is."

He put his heavy paw over her hand, his pads rough against her hand, and he nudged her.

"Oh, sorry. I'm Adele," she said. "Just about the only person in this godforsaken town who doesn't want you dead. Did you already know that?" She tilted her head at him. "It's just, you seem way too trusting for a guy who's obviously been on the wrong side of a hunt. If I were you, I don't think I'd trust anyone. These woods aren't exactly safe for someone like you."

He harrumphed and rolled onto his side, his legs splayed out. Adele sighed.

"You and me both, Caleb."

His ears twitched, the hint of a smile on his lips when she said his name and she smiled back. It dropped from her face when she heard a familiar rumble outside, a crunch of tires that came to a stop just a couple of metres away, on the other side of the garage door.

"Shit." She didn't have her phone on her. She hadn't even checked it since last night. It was still on her bedside table and time had flown as she had sat with Caleb. The sun had lifted its weary head, and so, it appeared, had her sister. "Fuck. You need to stay absolutely silent," she hissed. "Don't move."

He lay still, not flinching when she threw a blanket over him, covering him so he just looked like a pile of rags. Slipping out of the back door, she dashed into the kitchen and in her bedroom, she yanked off her pyjama bottoms to tug on the jeans she had discarded yesterday, throwing on a coat over her jumper just as there was a sharp rap on the door.

Yanking it open, she flinched when she came face to face with Creighton's hard gaze, his steely eyes boring a hole in her. He had a harsh jaw, an unwelcoming stare with pale, icy eyes that froze Adele. Behind him stood Jade, her hands tucked into the pockets of her puffy jacket. It wasn't flattering, Adele thought. It made her look bigger than she was.

"I called," Jade said before Adele could ask what she was doing showing up without warning. "You didn't answer."

"You never answer," Creighton said, his voice as cold as the wind. "I don't know why I support you if you don't have the decency to answer your phone."

Adele leant against the door frame. "You don't support me. Jade does."

He slowly raised one eyebrow. "And who supports her?"

Each word was like the slice of a knife across her skin. She tightened her jaw and stared him down. "What do you want?"

"It's a full moon tonight," Jade piped up. "There's a hunt."

"Didn't you just have a hunt two days ago?"

Creighton glared, narrowing his eyes at her. "Tonight's the big one. The full moon. Everyone needs to be on top form. Jade needs to cook; we need meat. And only the best. I don't want any offal."

"I've never given you offal," she said through clenched teeth. She made sure of that. The meat she gave to her sister and her fiancé was only ever the best, if only to keep another argument at bay. "How much do you need?"

"Enough for the whole Guard," he said.

"And that is?"

"About a hundred," Jade said. Her voice was smaller than usual, a flicker of distress in her eyes. She didn't normally let that show.

"A hundred?" She widened her eyes, doing the maths in her head. Twelve ounces per person; sixteen ounces in a pound. Three quarters of a pound per person. "That's seventy-five pounds of venison."

"Do you have it?" Creighton asked, almost cutting her off.

"Let me think," she said. On average, each kill gave her fifty pounds of meat. In the past month, she had hunted three deer, one of which had been almost twenty pounds larger than average. "I should. I think. But that'll cost you, you know." She eyed him up. "Three hundred."

He took out an envelope. "Two hundred and fifty."

There was no use arguing with Creighton. She had never known him to budge from his conviction. She took the envelope, counting the cash inside. Twenty-five crisp ten pound notes.

Creighton looked at Jade and nodded at Adele. "Help your sister. I'll make space in the car."

Jade opened her mouth to say something but he strode off, leaving her on the porch. Adele eyed up her sister.

"You've never ordered for a hundred before," she said. "Not even on a full moon."

"It's a big night," Jade said. Her cool exterior returned. She clasped her hands in front of herself, taking on Creighton's role when he wasn't there.

Adele stepped out of the front door, round to the garage's main entrance, and she sucked in a deep breath. Switching off the heater, she plunged the dingy room into darkness and when Jade tried to follow her in, she held up her hand.

"No."

"Adele."

"Do you want your meat or not?" She raised her eyebrows, challenging her. "I'll get it. You wait."

Her heart was pounding. Caleb was right there, hardly breathing beneath the blankets she had thrown over him. He knew. She just hoped Creighton didn't.

It took her a few minutes to count out a hundred portions of venison, wrapped in batches of four. Loading twenty-five of the parcels into a several bags, she left each one outside the garage until she brought out another.

"One hundred," she said. "That's virtually everything I have, so don't expect to come back tomorrow."

"If tonight goes right, we won't have to," Creighton said, "but maybe you should get hunting. Just in case. Wouldn't want to upset your family, now, would you?"

"What's so big about tonight? I thought two days ago was a big hunt."

Creighton hauled the last bag into the back of the car. Jade refused to do that. Adele couldn't tell if she had lost or gained her fiancé's respect in doing that.

"Tonight we're going to catch the bastards that escaped," he said, a slick smirk on his stony lips. Adele's pulse increased, her eyes widening a fraction.

"How many?"

"Two," he said. "Little shits got away, but we got them pretty bad. I'd wager a lot that they're half dead out there." He shot a look at Jade. "Maybe tonight's your night. Impress me."

She said nothing. Adele's gaze flickered between the two of them, her stomach curdling more each second that they remained.

"They're people too, you know," she said, her words short.

Creighton barked a laugh, more animated than she'd ever seen him. "They're mongrels, Adele. Don't be stupid. You of all people should want the whole lot dead." He eyed her, judging her. "You should join the Honour Guard. You can take down a buck; might as well put a bullet through a monster's brain." For a moment, he almost seemed to respect her. "You're an accomplished hunter. And the Guard pays handsomely for a legitimate kill."

She stared him down. "The Guard killed my grandmother," she said, her words measured and slow.

He narrowed his eyes, his words equally weighted. "It was a legitimate kill."

Her skin ran cold, and not just because the wind picked up with Creighton's words, forcing them at her with a spiteful chill. A scrap of paper flew at her, the torn and muddied corner of a picture she knew too well. Every now and then, the wind picked up shreds that had been torn apart by the weather, fossilised beneath the ice. Two years ago, the town had been plastered in missing posters that carried the grainy picture of a redheaded boy. Now they were gone, and so was any hope that he was alive.

Creighton turned to Jade, his fingers denting her skin where he gripped her hip.

"Let's get you back to the kitchen," he said, moving his hand to her shoulder to direct her to the car. He turned his back on Adele and she scowled, hating him a little more each time she saw him.

"Thank you," she called after him. He stopped and turned around, holding her gaze for a second.

"Thank you," he said, before he yanked open the driver's door and with a rumble of the engine and a puff of exhaust smoke, he and Jade were gone.

Shivering, Adele switched on the garage light and plugged the heater back in before she sat down in front of it, uncovering Caleb. He nuzzled her arm, his nose wet on her bare hand, and settled his chin on her knee when she scratched his head. He was a welcome warmth on her lap.

She let out a sigh. "Shit."

The army was coming out in full force tonight, a hundred ruthless hunters with a taste for blood, and they wanted nothing more than to kill the wolf under her wing. 

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i hope you enjoyed that chapter! what're you thinking so far?

time for a creighton picspam. whose do you want next chapter? let me know! i have also made a tutorial for how i make these picspams. it is a photoshop tutorial, but most of the skills can be applied to free software such as pixlr, which is still great, but not quite as intuitive. you can find the link to my youtube channel on my profile.