"Fuck!"
They didn't speak as Liam began to pace the room and mutter curses under his breath. "You two said not to worry about it, for now," Doug reminded them. "So don't."
"That was before I realized she is in more danger than we are!" Liam snarled.
"For now, there's nothing we can do. We can't even leave here. Which brings us to a more pressing problem right now," Mike said. "Food."
"Well some of us don't have that problem," Jack mumbled. Liam was about to start yelling at him until he realized Jack wasn't being his usual ass self. His face was drawn and pale as he looked at Liam with blank eyes. "Having them trapped in this house with us is not helping."
"I'm not going to touch her again. It's too soon."
"At least you've gotten something recently. The rest of us are hungry and tired, and their presence is killing us."
"It is," Mike said. "We didn't feed yesterday, and it's starting to get to us now. There's no way we're going to last another day, maybe two, if we can't get out tomorrow. It will start to get to you too."
"It's going to be difficult to control soon," Doug muttered. "We have to figure something out."
Liam looked out the window at the brilliant, white world. "Shit," he muttered as he ran his fingers through his hair. He knew they were right. Even though he had fed sooner than they had, it would start to get to him too. He didn't know what he would do when it did. He did know he wouldn't be able to go near Sera.
"Animals," he said, dropping his hand to his side. "We're going to have to get our hands on some animals."
"How?" Doug asked. "Go tramping through the woods in search of a rabbit?"
"What's up, Doc?" Jack quipped with a stupid grin on his face.
Liam laughed as some of the tension drained out of his body. Doug smiled and turned to look out the window again.
"Well," Doug said. "We do have supernatural powers; I guess it's time to put them to use."
"A rabbit won't even be an appetizer right now," Jack said.
Mike walked over to the window and looked out at the endless snow. "There aren't any other options."
"Well, men," Jack said. "It's time to get in touch with our hunting instincts."
Chapter Fourteen
Liam stepped off the porch and into the blinding snow. He clapped his gloved hands together as he huddled deeper into his coat in an attempt to ward off the chill of the whipping wind. He watched in disbelief as Danielle, Sera, and Kathleen rolled a giant ball of snow. They were laughing as they shoved and pushed at the huge ball, seemingly oblivious to the blizzard around them.
His gaze settled upon Sera. Her hair had fallen loose from its ponytail to hang in damp curls around her beautiful, reddened face. Her laughter filled the air, and he felt a smile tugging at the corners of his mouth in response.
"What are you doing?" Mike called to them.
"Building a snowman," Kathleen yelled back. She laughed loudly as she fell on her ass.
Sera helped her to her feet as the four of them walked over to join them. "Awfully big snowball. How do you plan on getting that one on top of the other one?" Jack asked as he pointed to the larger ball five feet away.
"That's what we have you big strong men for." Sera punched him playfully on the arm.
"Good plan," Doug commented dryly. "Glad we were informed."
"Well, now you know," Danielle said as she clapped her snow-covered mittens together. "So you can help us."
Unable to keep his hands off her, Liam pulled Sera into his arms. Her eyes sparkled as she tilted her reddened face up. "Don't you think you should go inside?" he asked.
"Nope," she said with a grin. "We're going to get Frosty together, and you're going to help."
"Actually," Liam said. "We were going to go for a walk."
Sera's brow furrowed. "In a blizzard?"
"You won't get far, the snow is too deep, and it's tough to walk through," Kathleen told them.
"That's okay, it'll be good exercise," Doug said. "Plus, I need to stretch my legs before we can't go anywhere."
"Not a bad idea; we'll come with you, right girls?" Kathleen said enthusiastically. "I'll show you the lookout. You'll love it. It's an old tree house where you can see everything for miles around. The mountains will be beautiful with all of this snow."
"You know, we weren't planning on going that far," Mike said.
"The look out's about half a mile away. It won't take us long to get there."
Liam's arms constricted around Sera as Mike shot him a look. Sera looked up at him, and then over at the others. Her brow puckered in confusion before her eyes widened in dawning realization. Her hands tightened on his jacket as she turned toward Kathleen. "I would rather stay here and finish the snowman."
"We can't finish it without their help," Kathleen retorted.
"We can roll the last ball and wait for them to come back," Sera insisted. "Besides, I'm getting pretty cold. If we walk through those woods, just think about how much colder we'll be."
Kathleen stomped her booted feet. "Yeah, I guess you're right," she relented.
Liam blew out a breath of relief as Doug and Jack swung shocked and impressed eyes toward Sera. Pride bloomed in his chest as he hugged her closer. "We'll let them get cold, and when they get back, they can put the snowman together for us."
"Ouch," Jack said as he grinned happily. "That's just wrong."
Sera grinned as she stood on her toes to kiss Liam. "Right?" she asked as she batted her eyelashes playfully.
"Blackmail is illegal," he whispered in her ear.
"Yes," she murmured. "But so is what I am going to do to you later."
He laughed loudly and kissed
