________________________

________________________

AS THE TEMPERATURE continued to drop outside, it only got hotter inside the cabin as steam rose in the cramped bathroom and fogged up the cracked mirror that hung askew above the sink. The window was misted up both inside and out, the rain freezing on the pane until the falling droplets turned to a heavy slurry that would soon become hail. The fog had begun to lift but it left its roots behind, the echo of a dream hovering in the forest.

Hot water tumbled down Adele's back like a waterfall, dripping down her cheeks as it soaked her hair and flowed over her skin. Closing her eyes, she covered her face with her hands before pushing her fingers through her hair and she let out a heavy sigh, resting her shoulder blades against the cold tiles. She usually kept her showers short, rarely spending more than five minutes under the stream, before she for fifteen minutes she had stood beneath the water as she tried to make sense of the morning.

She had thought that talking to Caleb would clear her brain but all it had done was crowd her head with more questions, forcing an uneasy pill of dread down her throat. Confusion and despair mixed with white rage, her emotions uncomfortably bubbling up as she tried to drown them in the shower. She couldn't shake the heavy rock in the pit of her stomach, the fast unravelling ball of hatred that had her shaking.

She wanted to fly at Jade; to tear her down from the pedestal she had put herself on; to claw at her skin and search for the sister behind the mask. But she couldn't. There was nothing she could say without sending Caleb to certain death. His life was in her hands.

Twenty minutes passed. She shut off the shower. The hot water wouldn't last much longer anyway, stored in a tank beneath the garage, and she began to feel a niggle of guilt that she had left Caleb for so long. Drying her hair with a shake of her towel, she tied it around her chest and stepped out of the hot bathroom and into the freezing hallway. An instant shiver shook her, her fingertips beginning to chill as she padded into the kitchen where her clothes were warming in front of the fire.

Caleb turned around when she stepped in, a mug in his hand.

"What're you doing?" she asked, her hand over the knot in her towel.

"I wanted to make your drink," he said, holding up the mug, "but I don't know how you do it."

A fraction of her unease lifted. "Ok. Well, I can show you sometime," she said, "but why're you naked? Again."

He gestured to his clothes hanging beside hers in front of the fire. "You did it," he said.

"Yes, because I was showering," she said, and she cocked her head at him, swallowing a smile that danced behind the scenes, itching to burst onto the stage. "You haven't spent much time around humans, have you? As in, completely human people."

Caleb shook his head. "You're the only one I've spoken to. All the others have just tried to kill me."

"I guess that explains it," she said. Picking up her bra, she gave him a look. "Can you, I don't know, turn around or something? And put your clothes back on? We need to go out."

He pulled on the jumper. "You said it's not safe," he said.

"And you said no-one saw your face," she replied, struggling a little with her sports bra on damp skin when the back rolled up between her shoulder blades. "We're not going to Buck Pines: we're going to Penlark. We need to get you some clothes."

Without a word, Caleb unfurled the twisted strap for her and she jumped when she felt his cold fingers on her back.

"What're you doing?"

"Helping you," he said.

"I can do my own bra."

"You looked tangled," he said. "When someone gets tangled, you help them."

Moving the towel to her waist, she pulled on a vest and then a thermal top. "What is that, some kind of pack law?"

"Yes."

She looked up at him. His face was sincere. "Oh. Well, thanks, I guess." She pulled on her underwear and let the towel drop, tugging on her jeans and a jumper. "You're still only half-dressed, Caleb. You won't be allowed in the shops."

"Sorry."

"Actually, you know what ... you're going to have to try stuff on when we get to the charity shop and I'm pretty sure it's frowned upon to go commando."

"What's that?"

"You know, let it all hang out. You need underwear." Ducking into the pantry, she sifted through the clothes on her air dryer and found an unflattering yet incredibly comfortable pair with plenty of give. "You don't have to like it, you just have to lump it. If we're going to get you any trousers, you need to be wearing pants."

She watched as he pulled them on, as he wrinkled up his nose and adjusted himself.

"I feel very ... restricted," he said, his discomfort evident in the crinkle of his brow, the scrunch of his nose.

"As soon as you've got your own clothes, you can be as loose as you want but not right now."

"Do you always wear these?" he asked, as though he couldn't believe anyone would subject themselves to the torture of underwear.

"No," she said, throwing him a pair of socks and demonstrating with her own, "but I own my clothes. You don't. Now, let's go. We've still got a lot to talk about. I still have a lot of questions."

"Ok," Caleb said. "Just ... one at a time."

She gave him a smile and a nod. "Deal."

*

Sleet specked the windshield as fast as the wipers could clear the screen, whipping the glass at full speed as Adele took to the winding road with Caleb in the passenger seat. He stared out of the window, marvelling at the speed of the world passing him by as they trailed out of the deep valley and around the other side. It wasn't often that Adele drove to the town that was so far out of the way, almost an hour further than Buck Pines, but she couldn't risk the alternative.

It was time to lie low, even lower than she was used to.

"Tell me what happened," she said.

"I told you earlier," Caleb said. He looked at her when she spoke. Every time she opened her mouth, his eyes were on her as though her voice as the bible, a mesmerising chant he couldn't tear himself away from.

"About Jade," she said. "What happened?" Her hands tightened around the wheel, her nails digging into the worn leather. "I need to know what happened. Who was there? Just her?"

Caleb nodded. "Just her."

"She was alone? She wasn't with Creighton – the man who came with her the other day?"

"No. Just her." He paused, gathering his speech before he freed the words. "We were safe; they hadn't seen us," he said, his voice low as he spoke. Adele could feel his eyes on her, though she kept hers on the road. Visibility was poor enough on a good day and so much worse now, the sky a murky, swirling grey as the sleet fell. Caleb let out a sigh. His eyes momentarily drifted from Adele to watch as the sleet turned to snow.

"And then we saw her," he said. "We couldn't move. And she saw us."

"What did you do?" Adele asked, her voice falling. The scene played out in her head, the sickening sight of her sister with a shotgun.

"We ran." His voice was almost a growl, low and deep as he relived the night. He spoke slowly, as though testing the taste of each word before it touched his tongue. "She shot at Reed; she hit him twice. She got me. He couldn't run anymore. I had to drag him."

Adele's eyes left the road for a moment. "I don't get it," she said. "If Jade found you, how did you get away? If Reed couldn't even run?"

Caleb let out a slow sigh, shaking his head. He looked out of the window before he dragged his eyes back to her. "She didn't follow."

"What?" She eased up on the accelerator, slowing her speed as she approached a bend. "She didn't chase you?"

"No." He pushed his hair off his face. "She never moved."

"What the fuck?" Adele muttered. "Why?"

Caleb lifted his hands. "I don't know. We ran. She didn't. We got away, and then I heard him."

"Creighton?"

He nodded. "The man she was with," he said. "The one who came over."

"That's Creighton," Adele said. "He owns the Honour Guard; he's the leader."

He let out a growl under his breath, the corner of his lip twitching. "He was mad."

"At Jade?"

"She let us get away. He screamed at her."

"What did she do?"

Lifting his shoulder, he let it drop. "Nothing."

Adele frowned, her mouth hanging open as she tried to process everything but it just didn't fit. That wasn't the Jade she knew, the fighter thirsty for her first kill. After ten years in the Guard, she had yet to slay a werewolf, and she had let the chance slip her by. She looked up at Caleb. "That doesn't make any sense."

He pressed his lips together and rubbed his stubbled cheek. "I know."

*

It wasn't often that Adele parted with her money, and rarely so much at once, but she couldn't bear to see Caleb shivering as they trawled the charity shops. In the first one, she had found him a pair of boots and a pair of trainers; the second had been a treasure trove of jeans and sweatpants; in the third, she had picked up a decent winter coat for ten pounds.

Armed with the envelope Creighton had given her, and no intention to spend even half of the cash inside, she had loaded up her arms and forced Caleb into changing rooms. After five different charity shops, and over an hour, he was kitted out with a winter wardrobe for less than a hundred pounds. It had hurt to say goodbye to the money when it was already far less than Creighton should have paid her, but Caleb needed it. He needed her.

With one last stop, she stocked him with socks and underwear, and a scarf that he immediately wrapped around his neck. The weather had driven people away from town, the first snow beginning to fall. The place was deserted, only the hardiest of souls hunkered down in the cafes that dotted the streets.

"Thank you," Caleb said, pulling on a pair of thick gloves they'd picked up for fifty pence. Living life on a shoestring had taught Adele how to hunt out the best bargains.

"You'd freeze otherwise," she said. "It's no problem." She shivered, the wind running through her bones and the bags weighing down her arms. Caleb took them from her without question as though they weighed nothing. He didn't ask if she needed a hand, he just gave her one.

"Speaking of freezing," she said, "it's really fucking cold. Fancy getting a drink?" She nodded at the closest café, a quiet branch of Costa with only a handful of people inside. "I'm craving a hot chocolate."

"What's that?"

Adele was stumped by the question. She never thought she'd have to explain hot chocolate to a grown man, and she didn't know where to start when his life was so different to her own. "It's milk and chocolate, and it's hot," she said. "Wait. Shit. You probably can't have it."

"Why?"

"Dogs can't have chocolate, right?"

Caleb scowled, a rumble in his throat. "I'm not a dog."

"No, I know, but you're a werewolf, right? And a wolf is a canine. And canines can't have chocolate." She sighed, exasperated. "I really don't know how this works, Caleb. I don't know."

"We'll find out," he said, his voice stubborn. "I want it."

"You don't even know what it is," she said with a laugh, holding open the door for him. "Fine. I'll order. You sit."

When he made to sit right where he was standing, Adele grabbed him and pointed him towards a couple of sofas.

"At a table," she hissed, nudging him towards the sofas. "You sit there. I'll get you a drink."

She went all out. Rarely did she waste money on coffee shops but she was craving the sweet hot chocolate, ordering two with cream and marshmallows that she carefully carried over to the table, where Caleb was patiently waiting for her to return. When she set the mug down in front of him, he poked a mini marshmallow into the cream and looked up at her, bewildered.

"You asked for it," she said, challenging him with her eyebrows. She held his gaze as she took a sip. It was like a drug, a hit of euphoria that she hadn't had in years, and she felt it warm her from the inside out as it rushed to her stomach. "Fuck, I missed this."

"You say that a lot."

"What? Fuck?"

"Yes."

"Does it bother you?"

"No," he said, lifting the mug to his lips. "Reed says it too."

Adele's face fell but when she said nothing, Caleb continued.

"It's a daonna thing, I think," he said. When he spied her confusion he added, "Human."

"Cool. Daonna," she repeated. "I like that. It's not an insult, is it?"

He shook his head. "It's a fact. It just means human." He sniffed the drink in his hand, yet to taste it until he licked the cream and, holding the mug in both hands he took a sip. Adele watched him, nurturing her own cup to warm her fingers. Even with gloves, her hands were half numb.

"What d'you think?" she asked. She laughed when he didn't answer, finishing off the entire mug with a gasp, his eyes wide.

"Muthaidean," he muttered, slowly lifting his gaze to her.

"You're going to have to translate," she said.

"I don't know the word," he said. "It's ... it's good. It's ... amazing. What is it?"

"It's heaven," Adele said with a laugh. "Good, isn't it? I don't have it much. Bit of a luxury. You didn't exactly savour it, though."

"Sorry," he said as he drained the dregs of the mug, licking traces of cream from the rim. "Heaven."

Adele glanced at him, resting her elbows on her knees. "Want another?" she asked, raising her eyebrows as she took a sip. Caleb's face lit up.

"Can I?"

"I guess," she said. "You might be sick, though. I don't even know if you can have dairy. You might get the shits." She pursed her lips and snorted a laugh. "Guess we'll find out sooner or later."

In the time it took Adele to finish her drink, Caleb polished off three hot chocolates before deciding that was probably enough, and she zipped her purse shut before he could ask for another. It seemed that even in human form, he had an endless appetite.

"We need to go," she said when it hit three. It would take an hour and a half to get home and it would be dark by five, and she still needed to find something for supper. She was out of venison and she had yet to hunt another deer, and she didn't share Caleb's affinity for innards.

"Where?"

"Home. We need to find something to eat tonight," she said, "and when you're in human form, you eat human food. That means no raw guts and no whole fish straight out of the river, ok? What do you like?"

"I don't know," he said. "I eat to survive. I eat what there is."

"Ok. Well, let's hope something's swimming tonight; I can fry up some fish. I'll show you how to fish properly. No jumping in the river."

*

The fog lifted but the grey sky didn't, the world depressingly dark before the sun had even set. They drove back in near silence as Caleb watched the clouds change colour out of the window while Adele was occupied by her thoughts. She was used to that after years of living alone, but she wasn't used to her thoughts being so dominated by someone else. Ordinarily, she strategized about her next hunt or she focused on whatever task was at hand, whether that was skinning a deer or building a fire, but now she couldn't get Caleb out of her head.

He seemed to know that. Each time his name crossed her mind, she caught a twitch of his lip or the flicker of his eye, the way he turned towards her as though she had called him.

"We don't have long," she said when they made it back to the cabin, unloading the bags into the spare bedroom and heading straight to the garage to collect a couple of fishing rods and a bucket. "The river's not far, if we just go to the bend. It's only a few minutes away. We should be safe there."

"Are you sure?"

She nodded. "Even if someone did see us, there's no way they'd know you're a werewolf. They won't hurt you if you're with me. You're safe," she said, her hand resting on his elbow for a moment as she passed him, beckoning for him to follow her. He crunched behind her in his new boots, crushing frozen leaves as they forged their way through the forestry to the curve in the river. Adele tended to venture further afar but the light was fading fast and she was already growing hungry.

Although the temperature hovered below freezing, the flow of the river had kept it from turning solid so far. That wouldn't last for long: soon, the negatives would stick around for longer when winter set in deeper, and she would lose the source when the forest began to shut down. The entire area seemed to hibernate over the Christmas period, preserving itself until the sun reappeared, and Adele wasn't ready for that year.

"You're a quick learner," she said as she unhooked a grayling from Caleb's line, sticking her thumb in its mouth to snap its neck before she dropped it into the bucket. They had three decent-sized already, and he had caught two of them.

"Instinct," he said. "Survival of the fittest." He cast out the line again. Adele did the same, a few metres downstream of him. Hardly a word was said as they waited for a bite. She liked that, a bit of quiet company.

By the time the sun fled, the bucket was half full. Plenty of fish for supper for two. Her mouth water at the thought of a bit of fried fish: it had been weeks since she had last had grayling and she couldn't wait to tuck into the tender meat. As they walked back, she glanced over at Caleb and he looked across at her, and he smiled.

*

Adele sat in the armchair with her legs over the arm and one hand over her stomach, a can of beer in the other. Happy and full, she let out a sigh and turned her cheek against the cushion. Caleb was sitting on the floor beside the fire, one arm across his knees while he held the pan over the flames. He was never full, it seemed, and even after almost a kilogram of trout all to himself, he was following Adele's guide to fry up slices of liver from the freezer.

"Do you want some?" he asked when it was done, holding out the pan to Adele. She wrinkled her nose and shook her head.

"I'm stuffed," she said. "And even if I wasn't, it'd be a no. Go to town."

He narrowed his eyes in thought, as though picking his words out of a hat one by one. "But it's late."

Adele rolled her eyes. "It's an expression," she said. "Eat up – it's all yours."

"Oh."

While he ate, she rested her eyes. Although she hadn't exerted herself at all, the day had wiped her out. Her mind was weary, tripping over too many thoughts that still crowded her out, and she was shattered after three hours behind the wheel and more time spent in town than she had ever shopped for before. She covered her mouth when she yawned, but it did little to hide her exhaustion.

Her thoughts wandered to her sister and her stomach twisted. She didn't know what to think, Caleb's account skewing with her mind. It sounded as though Jade had given up, as though she had changed her mind halfway through the hunt, but that just wasn't her, and the more Adele pondered it, the more confused she became.

The fire was dying. The flames faded, the wood blackened to a crisp, and the heat began to flicker away. The first shiver was her cue, standing with a shudder and a yawn.

"Time for bed," she said. Caleb stood too, launching to his feet as soon as she moved and he followed her into the hallway. She opened the door to the spare bedroom. "The bed's all made up and there's a heater in there if it gets cold."

Caleb frowned, his mouth open as he looked from Adele's room to the tiny spare room. "I stay with you."

She laughed. "Not anymore, Caleb. It's one thing when you're a wolf but now you're kind of a strange man in my house. And I'm sorry, but we're not sharing a bed. Plus, you'll probably be more comfortable in your own bed anyway."

"No," he said, sounding utterly confused. "I..."

"Am going to bed in the spare room," she said, nudging him towards the door. He looked utterly defeated, his face falling.

"But ... you're my mate."

Adele wearily laughed, rubbing her tired eyes. "And Ainslie's my mate too, but that doesn't mean we share a bed," she said. "I don't know how werewolves do it, but that's not how people work. You can stay in there."

He gazed at her, unmoving, and she rolled her eyes at him.

"I'll see you in the morning, Caleb," she said. "Sleep tight."

She pushed her bedroom door shut and crawled beneath the sheets, switching out her light and turning on her heater. Exhaustion overwhelmed her as soon as she hit the pillow, her heavy head sinking as her eyelids drooped shut, and she was out cold within minutes. She didn't hear the low whine on the other side of the door, the sorrowful whimper of rejection. 

________________________
________________________

i hope you enjoyed this chapter! time for a cute and fluffy picspam. very much adele's winter aesthetic: warm clothes, thick gloves, black coffee, a log fire ... and a wolfie companion ;)

daonna: (day-on-ah) a human (not an insult)
muthaidean: (math-ee-un) wow