Cougar Redfern woke up to a strange world.

For a moment, he couldn’t understand why his room seemed so bright: it was winter, after all, season of grey skies and muted, struggling sunlight. But today the walls gleamed almost painfully and it wasn’t until he shuffled out of bed and over to his window that he understood why.

Everything was covered in white, as if it had been wrapped in cotton. Familiar shapes were cushioned and puffy, swaddled against the cold that made him hop from foot to foot on the wooden floor.

He gawped, and then shot out of his room to bang on Jepar’s door.

“Yo, JJ, wake up!”

“Mwuh?” came back the muffled call. “Come on, Redfern, you kept us up until three last night teaching us poker, let me sleep!”

Normally he would have sniggered at finally managing to tire the house’s early riser, but he was too awed. “Get up, you’ve got to see this.”

“See what?”

“Look out of your window, idiot!”

Jepar groaned, but the floor creaked as he got out of bed. Then his voice piped up, “Awesome!”

“I know!” he shouted. “What do you think it is?”

There was a pause then Jepar flung open the door, staring at him as if he were a madman. “What do you mean? Haven’t you ever seen snow before?”

“That’s snow?” But it had looked so soft and fluffy. “I thought it was supposed to be cold.”

The shapeshifter grinned, looking pleased that he knew something Cougar didn’t. For once. “It is. It’s like ice. Well. I mean, it is ice, kind of, but...” He gave up. “Don’t they have snow where you come from?”

“The Satiari enclave?” He snorted. “No way. The family paid some witches to make sure they got the weather they wanted. Boring weather. Light wind, lots of sun, an hour of rain every day from four till five. You could set your watch by it. If we’d had watches, anyway. My father thought a sundial was dangerously progressive.”

“What are you two yelling about?” came a sleepy voice behind him. He turned to see Lisa clutching her dressing gown shut, squinting at them. “Come on, Cougar, we were up till gods know when-“

“Three a.m.,” supplied Jepar.

“-thanks, hon – divesting you of all your hard-earned money. I know you’re bitter, but at least let us-”

She cut off as she saw the view through Jepar’s window. “Snow!” she breathed with childish delight. A smile broke across her face, chasing away the lethargy. “It hasn’t fallen in...gods, years.”

“Cougar’s never seen snow,” Jepar informed her.

She turned to stare with equally shocked eyes. “No!”

They were acting like he’d announced he murdered kittens for fun.

Cougar clapped his hands to his mouth and rolled his eyes up to the ceiling, faking horror. “Yes! I know, shocking. Clearly my childhood lacked something because I didn’t spent it messing around in what looks like a chronic case of divine dandruff.”

Lisa wandered up in her bare feet and peered into his face as if he might start gibbering. He scowled back.

“Don’t worry,” she told him. “We can soon solve that.”

He watched her suspiciously. There was an evil glint in her brown eyes that he just didn’t trust. “What do you mean?”

“Go and put on some warm clothes,” she ordered. “I’ll make us breakfast. And then we can go and rediscover your lost childhood.”

“Playing in the snow is for kids,” he pointed out. “I’m a Redfern. We don’t do snow. It’s not very dignified.”

She fixed him with a flat stare. “Neither is singing along to Abba in the shower, but you manage that.”

“That wasn’t me!” he protested.

“Guilty,” volunteered Jepar, sounding far too happy to admit such a heinous crime. Still, it took the heat off him. “Cougar sings to Wham.”

“I do not!” he gasped. He did, but he certainly wasn’t about to admit to it. “I listen to heavy metal and punk!”

“And George Michael,” Jepar said helpfully, his eyes a devilish green. Cougar considered kicking him. “Never mind. You always seem like you’re hanging onto your dignity. Particularly during the high bits.”

“Excuse me,” snapped Cougar, “but you weren’t traumatised by the horrible sight of you doing the Time Warp in the living room last Thursday. No one should be doing the pelvic thrusts that enthusiastically. What the hell are you practising for?”

Lisa’s smile was older, and knowing, and made him suddenly very aware that she was female.

“Sometimes I forget you’re fourteen,” she said dryly, and ruffled his hair. “And how little you know.” She put her hands on his shoulders and turned him around. “Go and get dressed,” she ordered. Her voice brooked no argument. A shove in his back sent him stumbling towards his room.

“See?” proclaimed the annoying shapeshifter behind him. “Guilty feet have got no rhythm.”

Lisa sounded suspiciously strangled. “Breakfast’ll be ready in twenty minutes. Try not to leave us hanging.” There was a pregnant pause, and then she blurted, “You know, like a yoyo.”

He contented himself with shooting her a furious glare, admiring his own restraint. Gathering what dignity he had left, Cougar stalked into his room and slammed the door.

~*~

He managed to eat his breakfast in fuming silence, pausing to give the pair of them evil eyes from time to time, but by the time he’d fought his way through a full fry up, he had to concede victory to Lisa and her damnably good cooking.

In fact, Cougar was even feeling magnanimous enough to offer a full apology.

“That was much better than your usual crap,” he announced.

She pinned him with a flinty stare. While on the enclave that might have been taken as a sweeping plea for forgiveness just short of prostrating himself on the floor, he had the feeling it didn’t cut the mustard here.

“I mean,” he tried again, “it was practically edible.”

Her chair skidded back with a screech and the next thing he knew, an irate vampire was advancing on him.

The memory of what had happened last time he offended her surfaced. Cougar left the table with alacrity and backed away, hands held out.

“Babe,” he protested, “I’m saying I liked it!”

Cold air slapped his back, and he had a moment to wonder how the door had opened itself...

“’Sorry’ was the word you were looking for,” she informed him, face stern.

To his immense shock, she picked him up and tossed him over the threshold. Cougar yelped-

And thudded into the middle of a drift, facedown in icy, stinging snow. White swirling around him as he fought his way out, cold, cold, cold, nipping his fingers and face-

Cougar surfaced, spluttering, to see Lisa’s small, roguish smile, and an hysterical Jepar behind her, doubled over.

“I did not deserve that!” he howled, striving to dig himself out and finding to his disgust that the snow crumbled under his hands. “And I don’t know what you’re laughing about, furface! You said her cheese omelette tasted like someone had thrown up into a pan-”

Jepar’s chuckles stopped in a choking wheeze. “That’s not precisely what I said...” he said, alarmed, as Lisa turned an enquiring face to him.

Cougar cupped his hands, just to make sure Lisa heard him properly. “Sorry, you’re right, JJ. You said it tasted like Satan had thrown up into a pan and then fried the contents.”

His supernatural hearing heard Jepar mutter “Oh crap,” and then a rumpled shapeshifter soared through the air, yowling, and landed beside him with a damp ‘oof’.

“You bastard,” croaked Jepar when he clawed his way out. His eyes were a splash of summer in the colourless world, and filled with ire. “I hate you.”

“No you don’t,” he replied easily. “I’m frozen too. She’s the one who decided to chuck you into a pile of snow.”

They both looked at Lisa, framed by the doorway, very much warm and dry.

“Bet we could take her,” suggested Cougar.

Jepar reshaped his damp hair, looking like a gold-tipped hedgehog. “I’ve got a better idea...”

He explained his fiendish plan in quick whispers, and Cougar approved both its ingenuity and its simplicity. A few seconds, a little bit of crafting...

The snowball whizzed through the air – and she batted it away-

Only to have Cougar’s attempt hit her full in the face. She spat flakes and frost, and before either of them could react, she charged down the steps and rugby-tackled Cougar right back into the snow.

It descended into a mad tangle of arms and legs, and snow being smashed in his chest and down his neck, and he was flinging it everywhere until the air was glimmering powder and zooming missiles, snow crunching in his hands, feet skidding from under him, tackles and play-fighting, and suddenly he realised that all three of them were giggling like lunatics, slipping around in a frantic rush to duck the next snowball, and he’d never had so much fun in his life.

But somewhere in the middle of it all, he became aware that a new voice had joined the cacophony, but this one had a different note: one of panic and anger.

They all heard it – suddenly they were straightening, Jepar’s eyes alarmed and grass-green, Lisa kicking clumps of snow from her arms and legs.

And then they saw her.

“Keep away from me!” she was screaming, this short girl with shocking scarlet hair escaping the hat she wore. Her voice was half shriek and half sob, and when she stumbled towards them, he could see her hand was clutched around her wrist and blood dripped from it.

Behind her came wolves, slinky steps, bristling fur. Five of them, snarls dripping on the air.

They didn’t need to discuss it; Lisa ran for the girl and he and Jepar flanked her, the three of them skidding to a halt in front of her.

One of the wolves reshaped itself into a boy, clad in ragged clothes that had clearly seen better days. Whatever animal they were made from, it looked like it had had mange, and probably a dose of fleas with it. “Who the hell are you?” the werewolf asked in a voice as rough as gravel.

“Cougar Redfern,” he purred, putting a swagger into his step. “And who – no, what the hell are you?”

The boy’s lips skinned back. “We’re the Pack. And that’s our trespasser.”

“Take it you’re not going to forgive her trespasses, then,” Jepar said lightly, but he was poised, ready to spring.

“How was I supposed to know I was trespassing?” the girl said loudly from where Lisa was wrapping her scarf around the stranger’s wrist. “It’s not like there are signs.”

“The signs are there if you’ve got eyes to see ‘em with,” the boy barked. “Ignorance ain’t no excuse. Give her back, we ain’t finished with her.”

“No,” all of them chorused, the girl more indignant than anyone else.

The boy made a small beckoning motion and the other wolves prowled closer, their breath fogging the air. “Give her back or we’ll take her back.”

“You’re welcome to try,” Lisa said, her voice deceptively mild. “But I don’t think you’ll enjoy what happens next.”

The werewolf snorted. “Yeah? Seems to me that there’s five of us, and three of you, unless you want to count the half-human.”

There was a crackling sound, and then the girl was holding fire cupped in her hands, giving her face a sinister glow. “And half-witch,” she murmured. “Don’t forget that part.”

Cougar swung his attention back to the wolves. “Your call, furface,” he said sweetly.

Behind him, Lisa muttered, “Oh, you idiot-”

Suddenly there was a wolf flying at him, and then it was sound and motion and frantic violence.

Several busy minutes later, Cougar threw the last furry body over the fence into the neighbour’s garden and dusted off his hands. Bruises throbbed on his face and body, and the last few bites were healing, but he was still covered in wolf drool and that was a pretty disgusting position for anyone to find themselves in.

Nonetheless, he was better off than the wolves, who had been respectively pummelled, singed, scratched, bitten and kicked. He’d never known Lisa had such capacity for violence in her, though he probably should have suspected after she slung him into the snowdrift so casually, nor had he realised that as the son of a prominent shapeshifter family, Jepar would have had a thorough grounding in combat.

“It’s been ages since I had a good fight,” he said happily.

“Not since you arrived, in fact,” Jepar replied, rubbing some of the dirt out of his own cuts. “So...mysterious stranger, got a name?”

The girl glanced up from examining a tear in her jeans. “Sonj,” she said. “Sonj Jameson.”

“How did you end up in wolf territory?” asked Lisa, eyeing them all with motherly concern. “No – tell us inside. It’s too cold to stay out here.”

~*~

“I got off at the wrong bus stop,” Sonj explained glumly over hot chocolate. “I’m supposed to be staying with this cousin of mine, only she’s thirty and I don’t think she really wants me here, but it’s not like I’ve got anywhere else to go-” Her mouth snapped shut as if she’d said too much.

“We won’t pry,” Lisa said, but there was curiosity in her voice.

She surveyed them as if decided whether they were trustworthy. Given that they’d just fought a pack of testy wolves on her behalf, Cougar felt she could have skipped the perusal, but he held his tongue at a warning look from Lisa. “My mother died a couple of years ago,” she admitted. “Cancer, you know. And they’ve just kind of...passed me round since then. None of them know what to do with me. This cousin, she’s a witch though, my dad’s side, and she said she might teach me some stuff.” A faint smile cocked her mouth. “Actually, she said she’d have to after I burned down my uncle’s garage by mistake.”

“Wow, you must be really bad with magic,” Cougar informed her. “All the witches I know stopped doing that when they were five.”

She gave him a murderous look.

“Ignore Cougar,” advised Jepar. “It’s his inner Redfern. He can’t help being obnoxious.”

“I’m not obnoxious!” Cougar thought about it, then leaned over to Lisa. “What does that mean, anyway?”

“It’s not a compliment,” she murmured out of the corner of her mouth.

“Oh. Then I’m definitely not obnoxious,” he said firmly.

“-and I left all my bags in the woods,” Sonj was saying gloomily. “The moment they started chasing me, I just dropped them all and ran.”

“We could go and get them,” he offered. There hadn’t been much excitement lately, and he was curious about this pack who thought they ruled the town. And eager to correct them. “JJ and I could take them.”

“And I suppose we’ll wait for your return and then shower you in fiery kisses and swoon at your feet?”

He gave Sonj the same measuring look that she had given him. Only his paused for a moment below her face and took in her burgeoning curves that had promise of the hourglass figures he’d always eyed in the enclave women. He didn’t notice the dangerous line of her mouth. “Can I get a double helping of the fiery kisses?”

Orange filled his vision: only when he was clutching his face and glaring at her did he realise what she’d done. “You burned me!”

“Think of it as a fiery kiss,” she snapped. “And then look at my damn face next time you talk to me.”

“Since when was looking a crime? It’s a compliment.” He’d heard his father say the same to one of the girls on the enclave, and she’d seemed pleased by it.

He had to scramble over the back of his chair to avoid the next fireball, which set the upholstery smouldering.

“Oh dear,” sighed Lisa, beating out the flames. “Cougar, don’t treat people like things, they don’t like it.”

Wounded, he stuck his head over the back of the chair. “Not even pretty things?”

She shook her head. “And Sonj...he’s spent his entire life on an enclave.”

“A what?”

“You know those little towns you read about in horror stories where everyone’s desperately inbred and insane?” The girl nodded. “Well, Cougar was born in one of those and he’s only been out in the real world for a few months. So cut him a little slack and be glad he hasn’t tried to stick his fangs in you.”

“It’s not his fangs I’m worried about,” Sonj said darkly. Whatever she meant, he didn’t get it, but Lisa covered her mouth for a moment.

“He’s really not that clued up about the real world,” Lisa said as if he wasn’t sitting right there, then to make matters worse, she patted him on the head. The look she gave Sonj was thoughtful. “Yet.”

“I’m right here!” he protested loudly.

“We noticed,” Sonj said. “Kind of impossible not to.”

“I’m not fond of you,” he said to her, trying to get the hint across that she should leave now.

“It’s mutual.” She didn’t go. In fact, she didn’t leave for the whole day. She mocked him. She openly mocked him, and she laughed at his name, and when he tried to have a quick cigarette to soothe his nerves, she threatened to set his hair on fire.

He didn’t like her, he decided. Not one bit.

At nine o’clock, he slammed the door on her a little harder than was necessary. There was no way in hell she was coming back. Ever.

“Hey,” she called through the door, “Smoky?”

“That’s not my name!” he howled back.

“Whatever. I’ve got something for you.”

Suspicious, he peered through the letterbox but could see only her legs. “What?”

“A different kind of kiss,” she purred.

Hopeful – he had fond recollections of his first kiss, stolen on the enclave, and his father had hinted that better things were to come, though he hadn’t specified what – he opened the door.

A snowball hit him in the face.

“What the hell?” he yelled.

She gave him a cute smile, the first he’d seen from her all day, and it brought an exquisite radiance to her features, marvellously soft and bright. “You really are just a pretty face, aren’t you?”

“I hate you,” he told her, and slammed the door.

“See you tomorrow,” she called through the letterbox, and he leaned back against the door, confused and frustrated and strangely flattered all at the same time.

“I hate that girl,” he informed the other two when he got back into the lounge. And neither of them looked like they believed him.

He didn’t know why.