Chapter 1

Two eyes, as wide and yellow as the moon that held its attention, watered from the chilly wind. A muzzle quivered and strained to greater heights while fur, dense with the scent of sweat and blood, swayed in the wind. It was not, however, its own smell the creature focused on. A stronger odor…this…other…And the scent made its ears perk up and muddled its already fuzzy mind.

It lowered its broad head, shook, and growled at the soggy earth. This turn of the moon always brought urges. This hunger, though, was stronger than anything it had felt in a long time. Not since…

The sharp bite of loss clamped onto the wolf, breaking through the fog in his mind, and he did the only thing he could do: he lifted his gaze back to the moon and wailed.

* * * *

Randy stared through the glass of the bay window, his eyes on the lightening sky. He took another sip from the mug in his hand—good red wine in fired pottery. He figured he should probably be ashamed of himself, but it wasn’t a crystal stemware kind of night. Might not, he decided, ever be again.

The house seemed too quiet since the wolves had stopped calling. Short of the random texts from his mother (Harold’s up on charges again, moron never will learn to hold his alcohol. Ella and Phil just had their baby, a girl I think they said—call them! Your father is driving me crazy, suggest a hobby to him, will you?), the wolves seemed to be the only things breaking the silence anymore. He leaned against the window frame and closed his eyes. If he wasn’t so damn stupid, he’d be in bed. Sleeping, of course. Alone, of course. But that had been the plan, after all. Peace and solitude, space and freedom

Great idea, really. If it hadn’t turned out to be so damn stupid. Just like everything else in his life it seemed. Stupid house, stupid decisions. Stupid life. Stupid Randy.

Hours prior to this, he’d claimed the term as his word of the day. He’d run it through his head so many times that he was surprised it hadn’t manifested on his forehead as a bleeding, oozing wound—a psychosomatic warning to others: Stay away, folks; this here’s a stupid one.

He lifted a palm to his face, scrubbed at his skin, and mumbled to the empty room, “This pity party brought to you by the word ‘stupid’.” He lifted his almost empty mug. “And the number six.”

Something heavy fell outside his window—a branch, a bin, the form of an unfortunate animal misjudging its leap, or even one of the wolves he’d been listening to—and Randy scowled at his yard.

Stupid wolves, and stupid Wolf.

Wolf, Wyoming. It had been the coolest sounding place Randy had ever heard of. He’d found it on a Google Maps search during a moment of madness, and it seemed like the perfect place to hide. Wolf was the kind of small town that promised retreat, yet community; seclusion, yet connection. The kind of small town where “small” was an exaggeration. He’d been stunned to learn the entire town consisted of only a couple of dozen homes and maybe a hundred year-round citizens.

The state’s website had proudly told him that although Wolf was part of a larger county (Sheridan), she herself was an ‘unincorporated community’. Which, Randy found out, pretty much meant that Wolf looked out for Wolf. Info on Wolf had been limited. He’d found details on a bona-fide dude-style ranch retreat, complete with home-cooked meals, rodeo-wrangling, and an annual horse drive. It was also the fabled grounds of one or two ‘real-life’ ghost stories, and dozens of gossip-enhanced tales of ancestral cowboys.

The weather pages had noted that from May to November, Wolf was mild and dry and beautiful. Blog sites told him that if a traveler was among the lucky, they just might catch sight of one of the massive moose bulls that were known to ramble out of the forests. If they were really lucky, they might even run across some of the wild horses that wandered in from Sweetwater. Randy had never considered himself to be among the lucky few, but he’d had no doubt that even without the moose, the horses, or a good close wolf sighting, he’d still enjoy the mountains, the long expanses of open fields and meadow, and the tall, thick evergreen trees that had stood their ground since the days of Davy Crockett and Sacagawea.

The warnings were out there, though. From December to April, Wolf could be a real bitch. Even if a person liked snow. Even if a person relished the idea of spending day after day barricaded in their home without contact from the outside world.