It’s like the weather had heard all those internal complaints about the everlasting winter and her wishes for summer, and decided to shove them all right back into her face. Ever since she’d left White Fir Notch, it felt like it hadn’t stopped raining. (Which was not entirely true, but Ari Leigh was not known for her playing down of any situation, nor as her complete reliability of a narrator, neither to which the woman would ever admit.) She still hadn’t found her way to her brother’s pack – with both brothers there now, no less – though the loner was fairly certain she’d successfully made her way further south. The mountain was in the distance, though she wasn’t about to attempt its slippery slopes when she could barely see her paw in front of her face.

The fact that mud was sliding down much smaller slants was not very encouraging.

Ari carefully picked her way over a small mound, pausing only long enough to sniff at the freshly turned mud before the thunder overhead urged the wolf onwards. The heady scent of borders made it obvious other wolves were nearby, but the woman was beyond the point of caring. She was soaked to the bone and exhausted – if she could find a willow one of these slides had uprooted, she would be good as gold, and wait out the rest of the never ending storms.

At least it was better than snow, she supposed.