"Hi, it's me. The buyer came. I was here with him yesterday. I went to the bank already. Just give me a call when you can," Olga told her uncle over voicemail.

She clicked her phone off and set it on the couch. 

Outside the window of the cabin, snow drifted down from the darkening sky.

No more could Olga hear the hum of the noisy mill some acreage away. It was only just past lunchtime. The radar had tracked an oncoming severe wintery storm. Such occurrences were common in the heart of the woodland in which she lived. 

The blinds were ratty, outdated with a faded cobalt blue flower pattern and stained yellow-white fabric. The windowsills had rustic antique farm tools scattered over them with fake potted plants. She wheeled herself by them towards the tiny walk-in shower in the corner of the cabin.

For some reason, the small space always creeped her out. Always tempted before bed was she to open the curtain and make sure no one was hiding behind it. Olga knew the cabin was old and that her fear was silly.

It was routine though and Olga preferred routine.

She opened and shut the curtain absentmindedly while scrolling through her social media feed. It was a Saturday night. Women her age were out partying hundreds of miles away in the city. They weren't trapped in a wooden box in the woods.

They weren't trapped in a chair.

Olga eyed the fireplace. It would be out by morning and the other reason she had called Rollo was because he was supposed to drop off wood today. He was old. She figured he just forgot about it.

She didn't know what the buyer was going to do with the blizzard moving in. She hoped he come back the same day. The town was supposed to get six feet of snow over the next two days.

A sigh left her as she put away her phone and moved to the door. Outside, however, wasn't who she expected. 

"Oh, I'm sorry. I wasn't expecting you to be here so soon...oh! Y-your arm!" she cried out seeing it bleeding terribly. Olga felt uncomfortable watching his bloodshot eyes. She heard his stomach growl and felt pained by the prolonged silence between them when he refused to provide an explanation as to what happened to it. It looked like someone shot him. Her voice turned hushed, "What happened to you? You need a hospital! Why did you come here?"

She knew he was Russian, and because of his new injury that he wouldn't explain, he very well could be part of the mob. Still, he had bought her home, and he was very injured. She didn't want to be bias because of his accent.

She was so close to getting away from the old town.

Olga turned around in her wheelchair with a racing heart. Blood soaked his entire shirtsleeve and a good amount was dripping down onto the ground.

"If you won't tell me, I'll call the police," she threatened in afterthought. 

The hair on the back of her neck crept up feeling him grab the back of her wheelchair. She tried to move forward, but she couldn't. Her heart plummeted knowing how things like these always ended in the movies.

No one would ever find out what happened to her all the way out there alone.

She heard him close the door of the cabin. "I heal you," he told her while walking out from behind her.

Olga screamed when he lifted her out of her chair.

She figured he was on drugs or something. His hands were shaking bad and that wild look in his eyes said it all. Yet, his stride was even as he sat down with her on his lap on the couch. 

"Let go of me!" Olga spat out with tears running down her face.

She had no idea how he could have lifted her with the arm he clearly took a bullet to. 

Abruptly. the woman went quiet. Her head went still, it fell back against Ulrich's shoulder as he extracted his teeth from the crook of her neck.

***

"They were here," Fernando told his alpha. Jax watched Bernard sniff around the spilled blood over the snowy ground. "You can smell it, can't you?"

"Of course, I can smell it!" Jax snapped.

Sashka pat his arm with a look of warning. It wasn't the time or place to get angry.

The ferals surely were only miles away. The smell of copper, blood, was very pungent in the bitter air. There was an underlying scent of something else far more alarming.

An alpha had peed on their territory.

Bernard approached a pile of abandoned timber. More bloodstains covered it on the ground where saws and empty beer cans lay discarded.

"Where do you think they went?"

"Who knows. The storm is already here. Their tracks will be covered, and we'll be risking our own lives out here for nothing," Sashka reasoned. "They won't be out here either, Jax. Let's go home."

Jax could tell his pack was still spooked.

There was no sign of his missing pack members having been alarmed. None of them panicked and even bothered to reach out through their mind-link. Blood was everywhere, but there weren't any bodies.

The alpha felt guilty, but even more so, angry because he had a hunch it was probably someone from the ring. Not a fighter, but a better. 

"Ulrich," he growled while shifting into his wolf form.

Sashka ignored her mate's episode and walked by him into their black SUV.

She shouted to the others, "I'm headed home!"

Fernando nodded. Bernard had already abandoned the lumberyard in pursuit of his alpha.

I want you to go back to the packhouse and wait for us there, Jax told Fernando.

❄