Page 10 of Valentine's Day Treasure

“Ok, I’ll be down after I take a shower.”

Trevor kissed her hand. They smiled and waved good-bye to each other, then she closed the door.

Trevor, about to leave the bedroom, changed his mind and headed to a window to look out at the snow in his driveway. What he saw made no sense at first. Snow was everywhere—bright white and blinding, several feet on top of what they’d already had, weighing the boughs of the evergreen trees down and covering any sign of the ground. The temporary structure that housed their constant guard was gone. His truck was gone. The other vehicles that were always in the driveway were gone.

Trevor scowled and looked closer, until he could puzzle out what he was seeing. His truckwasthere, covered completely in snow, and parked where it shouldn’t be. In fact, all the vehicles were parked funny—in two rows, about six feet apart, with what looked like a passageway between them. Trevor growled in annoyance and left his bedroom, hurrying down the stairs, talking to his brothers inruhi.

Where you at?he said to both of them.

Out front,Troy said,with the team.

Out back,Trent said,patrolling the property.

Trevor opened his front door, prepared for what he was going to see, and it still irritated him. Someone had made a tarp tunnel through his driveway to his house. He walked in a few feet, and his irritation eased a little. The thing was solid, and it was cool. They’d obviously worked hard on it. He heard voices on down the tunnel a ways and he kept walking.

“Pull it harder, Troy, get some leverage,” a voice said and he recognized it as his best friend, Blake, who was a Serenity Police Department patrol officer who frequently volunteered for the guard duty out at Trevor’s place. Blake and Trevor had hit it off easily when Trevor had moved to Serenity and taken over leadership of Serenity’s KSRT team, over two years ago.

Trevor was the lieutenant of the KSRT, which was a specialized police unit full ofwolvenmales, all focused on opposing the demon, Khain. Trevor was the big boss of the unit, and only Deputy Chief Wade Lombard gave him orders. Mac was the sergeant of the KSRT, Trevor’s second-in-command. Mac had a tendency to be brash, loud, and more trouble than he was worth, but he was a damn good Sergeant, especially since he’d quit being a dick to Trevor, which hadn’t happened until the rescue mission into the Pravus a few months back.

Trevor rounded a bend in the tarp tunnel and found Blake, Troy, and Mac, working to fix a cave-in. Snow was all over the ground and Mac was shoveling it out a crack between two tarps, while Blake and Troy wrestled with the overhead tarp and bungee cords.

Troy was a big black wolf with a white mark on his left shoulder—hisrenqua, which looked like a bomb falling. He and Trent were both non-shifting, stuck as wolves forever.

Mac was 6’3’’ or so, which put him 4 inches shorter than Trevor himself. Mac had dirty-blond hair, cut short, and was wearing a dark blue tactical uniform and black boots. Blake was about Mac’s height, with brown hair cut in a crisp high and tight, wearing a similar tactical uniform.

Troy held the bungee cord tight with his teeth, while Blake smoothed the tarp into place, then he took the end of the cord from Troy and wound it around the cab rack of the closest truck.

“Thanks,” Blake said and Troy replied with a quick bark.

Blake saw Trevor and broke into a smile. “Hey, L.T.,” he said.

“Hey, Blake,” Trevor said. “What the hell’s going on here?”

Blake smirked. “You like the tunnel?”

“No.”

Blake raised his eyebrows, then looked at Mac.

Mac threw his shovel on the ground and faced Trevor with a look that could melt steel. Without a greeting, he said, “We’ve been up all night working on it while you slept in your comfy bed. It was either this or we spent the entire night in your living room.”

Trevor nodded slightly. “This is better, then. Good idea.”

Mac gave a knowing nod, his expression hard. “Damn right it’s better.Myidea. Lemme show you the rest of it.”

He took off down the tunnel without a look back and Trevor followed, while Troy and Blake kept working. Trevor caught up with Mac at the entrance to the temporary shelter that had sat in his driveway for months now. The canvas door was rolled open, and they walked right in. A male lay fully-dressed with jacket and gloves on a cot in the corner, possibly sleeping, maybe just resting—afelen—Trevor thought his name was Nalan. Another male, abearen, sat next to a table, dressed in a fire department uniform, talking on a satellite phone. Trevor hadn’t seen him before. Thebearenraised a hand to them, then got up and walked down the tunnel.

Mac gestured to the equipment-covered table. He tapped on a police radio, then said, “Police radio’s out, except for portables. The antenna on top of B building partially collapsed about three hours ago from the weight of the snow. It took us a while to figure out what was going on, but fire still has communications, so we’re piggy-backing on their channels. Power is out because a row of 80-foot trees out on the old highway fell over and took out several poles.”

He scooped a clipboard off the table and read the first page, then the second, then clattered the thing to the table. “The electric company won’t send a crew out until the roads are cleared. Serenity streets are not being plowed—something to do with staffing issues. They’re calling in drivers from Chicago but it’s taking a while. I’ve talked to Wade on the satellite phone and he says all is in order in town and we’re on our own out here. We won’t be getting any shift changes until the roads are cleared and who knows when that’ll happen.”

Trevor was nodding along. Mac gestured for him to follow him through to the back exit. The canvas door was rolled closed and Mac opened it, then they slipped through to the outside where a four-wheeler with a snow-plow on the front was parked. Surprisingly, a five-foot-wide lane was plowed through Trevor’s yard to the forest, with snow walls that reached his waist and higher, but just a look at it told him where it went.

“This is to Bob and Sharon’s place,” Mac said. “We’ve been plowing it all night so we can get there quickly if we need to.”

Trevor nodded. “Nice work,” he said. Bob and Sharon were Lillian’s parents, and Lillian was Cerise’s ‘little sister’. The whole family had come to live on the property because the traitor wolf, Grey Deatherage, was after them.

Mac looked at Trevor like he didn’t expect the praise. He spat on the ground and said, “I was supposed to be off today, but I guess I’m stuck here.”

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