She kicked the front door closed, holding a couple of logs. “A cold front blasted through about two hours ago. Didn’t you hear the wind beating up the house?”
Lexi made a shivering sound and approached the fireplace across the room in front of the door. I tiptoed down the rest of the stairs and turned to face the living room. Normally the area in front of the fireplace was kept open, but Austin had moved some furniture around the hearth as he had done the previous winter.
Jericho swaggered into the room from the back hall, wearing his leather jacket, no shirt, and the bear-claw necklace he rarely took off.
“You must have a show tonight,” I said, noticing the thick liner smudged beneath his lashes.
He glanced down at my feet and shook his head. “You can’t walk around barefoot. It’s fucking thirty degrees out there.”
I laughed. “It’s not as if I’ll catch a cold.”
“True that,” Denver said from a chair on the right. He stretched out his legs on the oversized rug, his toes squeezing at the fibers. Milk dribbled down his chin from the spoonful of cereal he was chomping on. “You might lose a toe, but then again, you’ve got nine more.”
I folded my arms and made a deliberate assessment of Jericho’s wardrobe. “Denver has a point. If you’re going out like that, you might want to put on a bra. I may have ten toes, but you only have two nipples.”
Denver sprayed milk into his bowl and stood up, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand as he savored his laugh. A few drops had landed on his grey T-shirt. “Lynn’s in the kitchen cooking up a storm—I think I’ll go see what’s on the fire.”
“Keep your fingers out of the bowls,” Lexi said over her shoulder. “You’re such a scavenger.”
A hollow note quieted the room—a wolf’s howl in the distance. I shuddered and paced toward the window, drawing back the lacy curtain and surveying the property. Moonlight shrouded the land like a death veil. While some romanticized about the full moon, it filled me with dread. The moon was a deceptive spirit—stealing the light from the sun and mirroring it back at us. My mother had once told me never to trust a person who is like the moon. They don’t shine from within but require the light of others to make them look good. The light that shone down and covered the property felt soulless and dead.
“Who’s guarding the house?” I asked.
Lexi lit the kindling and turned halfway around. “Since Trevor spent all day on the property and missed lunch, he wanted to go out for the night. Ben still hasn’t come home, and my mom sent Austin to the grocery store to get a few things. When it gets cold, she thinks we’ll be ravaged by the elements unless we have milk and bread to save us. I told him to buy some fire logs while he’s there.”
“But why? He’s chopped all that wood…”
Lexi stood up and wiped her hands on her jeans. “I’ll be the first to admit that watching Austin chop wood is sexy as hell, but the wood doesn’t burn clean and makes a mess of ashes. And guess who the lucky girl is that sweeps them out because no one else will? Plus, those store-bought logs are easier to light.”
The howl sounded again and I scarcely breathed. “If everyone is accounted for, then who’s that outside?”
Her expression twisted with confusion and Jericho stalked toward the door. The window popped and made me jump.
“It’s just the temperature change making the windows do that,” he said.
“Are the doors locked?” I glanced around and thought about Lynn in the kitchen. “Lexi, we need to make sure the house is secure.”
“It’s fine.”
It wasn’t fine. Lexi hadn’t lived among packs long enough to know the dangers we faced and the terror of bloodshed many of us had witnessed.
Jericho’s voice sobered. “Lexi, check every window and door in the house. Tell everyone to stay inside and not to unlock anything.” He shucked out of his leather coat and let it drop to the floor, showcasing the bold ink tattoo of a guitar on his left arm. “Tell Izzy to come downstairs. I don’t want everyone separated.”
“I’ll go with you,” I said.
“Now wait a minute.” Lexi tapped her fingers on the banister. “I’m sure it’s nothing, but you can’t let Ivy go out there with you.”
“And why not?” Jericho kicked off his shoes and hung his bear-claw necklace on a nail over the letter J. “I need to shift and let my wolf sniff things out. Wolves don’t attack females, and Ivy can identify them since I won’t remember. They can’t kidnap her unless they’re in human form, and if that happens, then Ivy’s wolf will bite ’em in the ass. Isn’t that right, Ivy?” he said with a wink. “Put on your shoes and a coat; I don’t care if you can’t catch cold.”
“Then I’ll go instead of Ivy,” Lexi said.