Prologue

Jeremy

I hung the phone up from talking with Elena. 'Alaska,' I thought. That was where Dennis and Joey went after leaving the Pack. 'I should probably give them a call. At the very least a heads up that Elena and Clay are headed in their general direction.'

I gave the phone one last glance before heading for the kitchen, and the short list of telephone numbers I had written on a note pad. Dennis and I still talked, but it'd been almost two months since our last conversation. That was the way it'd been since they left—sporadic phone calls with no real pattern as to their timing, with a few scattered letters and holiday cards in the mix, maybe a post card if they took a vacation. Lately though I'd begun to get an uneasy feeling that seemed to center around them—nothing specific, unfortunately. Just a vague sense of worry similar to what I'd felt when Peter had left the Pack to travel with that band.

I paused reaching for the notepad. The feeling of unease had started up again. When the phone rang a moment later I picked up immediately. "Hello?"

"Jer?" I stifled my sigh of relief. It was Dennis. 'At least they're alive.'

"Dennis," I acknowledged.

"Holy Toledo, you actually picked up. I was anticipating a rousing conversation with the answering machine." Despite his light joking, his tone was just barely off. Dennis was nervous about something.

"Very funny. To what do I owe this call?"

He didn't say anything for a minute. In that pause I could hear faint laughter from his end of the phone, and recalled that Joey had two young sons now, a bit older than the twins. Finally, Dennis spoke again.

"Well… There's some trouble up here, Jer. Corpses turning up, with the throats torn out, various degrees of flesh eaten. We don't know who's doing it; we thought we were the only one's up here, but I guess we were wrong…"

"A man-eater?"

"Looks like, yeah."

This time it was me who paused to think. Dennis heaved a sigh. "There's something else I've been meaning to tell you too, Jeremy."

Though he couldn't see it, I raised an eyebrow. "And that would be?"

Another, shorter sigh. "Well, you remember Michael Santos? Wally and Raymond's brother?"

How could I forget? Only a bit older than Antonio and myself, Michael was the only one of the three brothers who didn't practically worship the ground my father walked on. He'd left the Pack a year or so before Clay came, and apparently never looked back. Because no one had had any news about him, most presumed him dead, though he still had half a page of Elena's dossier for himself.

"Of course I do."

"Well, Mike's alive."

'That's good. I think.' "You don't think he's the one doing the killings?"

"Oh God, no! First, if he was going to kill a human, he wouldn't be so sloppy with it. Second, he can't be in two places at once, and seeing as he called from Russia last night, he'd be racking up some serious frequent-flier miles by now."

True. Especially since Alaska is a few time zones behind New York. "If that's the case, it seems safe to cross that suspect off our list."

"There's more." He sounded apologetic. Deciding this could be hazardous, I kept my mouth shut and waited patiently for him to continue. "Mike's married," 'Oh, boy,' "with two daughters."

When Dennis didn't continue I spoke again. "Give him my congratulations."

"Will do." There was that reluctance again.

"There's more, isn't there?"

"Yep…"

"Well?"

"Well, y'see, Jeremy… One of them's a werewolf." 'Shit! Well, now I know what the reluctance was about.'

"Jeremy?"

I pushed aside my shock. This time I was reluctant to answer. "Yes?"

"There's more." 'Oh, God…' I think he read my thoughts because he quickly added that it was good news this time.

"Go on."

"She's on the police force over in Anchorage, meaning she can get access to the autopsy reports and crime scene photographs. Maybe even the other evidence if she plays the right cards."

Well, that was good news. I stifled a sigh. Now for the big questions. "Dennis, would you mind telling me why you didn't tell me any of this before?"

He sounded sheepish this time. "Mostly because I was afraid Svetlana would castrate me slowly and mount my balls on the wall as a trophy for potentially endangering her baby girl. I swear that woman could glare the stripes off a Siberian tiger!"

"I can only assume Svetlana is Michael's wife?"

"You got it. Intimidating little thing, too."

"So I gathered."

"Believe me, Jer, you have no idea."

"Want to tell me more about this new female werewolf?"

"Where do you want me to start?"

"Start with the basics: how old is she, how was she bitten, how long has she been a werewolf, how good her self control is, etcetera. Oh, and a name would be nice too."

"That I can do. She's thirty-seven now, and she was bitten when she was eleven, so she's been a werewolf for twenty-six years now. We weren't up here at the time, so I don't know the specifics on how she was bitten, but to give you the reduced version, Val was in the woods behind their house, found what she thought was just a big dog, which proved itself to be of supernatural origin when it promptly bit her in the leg when it heard her father calling her. Mike apparently makes a pretty good teacher, because her control's on par with his. Well, aside from the death glares."

"Val?"

"Valeri Elisabeth Santos. Val, Lor, or Lori for short."

"Ah."

"So, on a more somber note, getting back to the killings."

"Clay and Elena are already headed your way." I explained about the situation with Liam and Ramon's bad habits.

"Shit. We'll keep an eye out for the kid. Actually…"

"What is it?"

"Why don't Joey and I pick up Elena and Clayton from the airport? They can stay with us too. It'll save you all some money, and it's been years since we've seen Clay."

"Hmm. I suppose. And you can explain more about these man killings." I told him that I would inform Clay and Elena, and we said our good-byes and hung up.

After speaking with Clay and Elena—separately as they were on different flights –I picked up the phone again and started dialing. "I have got to tell Tonio and Nick about this," I muttered.

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Well, there you have it. Rating subject to change, as always. WARNINGS FOR FUTURE CHAPTERS: language, sexual innuendo, suggestive themes, general blood/gore, and morbid humor ahead! And OCs, obviously. Don't like, don't read. All Disclamers apply(If I owned the Otherworld series, Nick would have more mini-stories by now. ^.^) No flames!!(Constructive critism more than welcome, of course. ^.^)

I'm sure I must've forgotten to put down SOMETHING, so check out my profile if you want more info. As you might have guessed, this prologue happens right after chapter 3 of Frostbitten. I don't think the prologue was all that great, but hopefully the other chapters will be better. Can't think of anything else to say right now, except enjoy the rest of the story if you havn't already decided it will be Epic Fail because of any of the warnings either here or on my profile. So, enjoy!

(Hint- reviews are always nice, or you could PM me if you'd rather. I like having little conversations with fellow authors and readers, and if you have any questions, I'll be more than happy to answer them. Well, unless of course I'm PMSing, but that's a whole other can of worms that we aren't going to open right now! ^.^')