Shifter Planet by D.B. Reynolds

Author:D.B. Reynolds [Reynolds, D.B.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Select Otherworld, Entangled, sci-fi, stranded, Alpha hero, D.B. Reynolds, enemies to lovers
Publisher: Entangled Publishing, LLC
Published: 2015-10-25T18:30:00+00:00

She had to force her way through the ice and snow built up around the thicket, only to fall face first into several feet of powdery fresh snow. It took a moment to get herself right side up, and she was still spitting out snow when she finally got a good look at the sea of white surrounding them. Bushes, shrubs, anything shorter than five feet had become a lumpy white swell beneath a low gray sky. It was just good fortune that their hideaway was elevated by the slight hillside, or they’d have been buried along with everything else. The trees she’d escaped through last night stood all around them, spots of color in the otherwise colorless vista. Great drifts of snow had piled around the thick trunks, and the lower branches were so weighted down that they were nearly scraping the ground.

A light snow still fell from the curdled sky, while a brisk breeze set the airy flakes to dancing sporadically, kicking up flurries to skim along the surface, vanishing as quickly as they started. She lifted her face to the cold and laughed out loud at the flakes that clung to her cheeks. It felt good.

She waited a moment more, enjoying the fresh air and the weak sun on her face, then she closed her eyes and listened. The song wasn’t as strong here as it would be in the Green. That didn’t mean it wasn’t there. The forest was still, not so much as a vole disturbed the perfect silence. Sinking deeper, she found the song beneath the quiet, the trees content in their blankets of white, accepting the freezing storm, as they would the warm thaw that came after, as part of the natural cycle. Each had a part to play in the pattern of life and death on Harp. Submersing herself in the flow of the trees’ awareness, she searched for a threat—shifter or animal, both were the enemy for now—and found nothing. Everything that lived was hunkered down, waiting to see what the weather would bring next.

Rising slowly back to focus on her immediate surroundings, she pushed up her sleeve and unwound the coil of wire from around her wrist. With a final glance over her shoulder to the thicket where Rhodry slept unaware, she turned for the top of the hill and slogged through the thick snow to set up a snare. She had to be careful where she walked, an unwary footstep and she’d sink up to her thighs. Though it would be difficult to travel in these conditions, they couldn’t stay here forever. She needed to figure out a better transport for Rhodry and put together some snowshoes for herself. She’d never made anything like a snowshoe before. She’d certainly seen pictures, though, and she understood the principle behind it. While whatever she came up with wouldn’t be pretty, it would work.

Another day or two and the storm would clear. The intense cold would retreat back to the glacier that had birthed it, and the snow would begin to melt.

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