THE WOLF’S WINTER WISH: CANNON AND EIRA

  The Macconwood Pack Tales 10

  C.D. GORRI

  The WOLF’S WINTER WISH

  Cannon and Eira

  A Macconwood Pack Tale 10

  by C.D. Gorri

  To playing in the snow!

  Copyright 2022, 2023 C.D. Gorri, NJ

  Edited by BookNookNuts

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  This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, names, places, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either part of the author’s imagination and/or used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to any person, living or dead, actual events, locales or organizations is entirely coincidental. This eBook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. All rights are reserved. No part of this book is to be reproduced, scanned, downloaded, printed, or distributed in any manner whatsoever without written permission from the author. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of any materials in violation of the author’s rights. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

  Contents

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Epilogue

  Beware… Here Be Dragons!

  Have you met my Bears?

  Other Titles by C.D. Gorri

  Excerpt from Purrfectly Mated

  Excerpt from Bound by Air

  About the Author

  The Wolf’s Winter Wish

  Some wishes come true in the strangest ways…

  Meeting her mate while treating him for a concussion was not how Eira Sidak expected her holidays to go down, but sometimes accidents happen.

  When the she-Wolf took up her residency at Macconwood Memorial Hospital, she expected long nights and plenty of cases. She just wasn’t expecting him.

  Cannon Bartolf was aptly named, or so everyone in his Pack said. Always charging in headfirst, it’s no surprise a spontaneous game of football ends with him in the ER. At the mercy of his doctor, Cannon wants nothing more than to go home—with her.

  Will the surprisingly sexy little she-Wolf grant him his holiday wish?

  Prologue

  The temperature was cold, but not too bad. A perfect night for a friendly frolicking toss of the old pigskin. At least, that was what Cannon thought until he heard his buddy call out.

  “Watch out for the—”

  But it was too late.

  CRASH! BOOM! BANG!

  “MOTHERFUCKINGOUCH!” Cannon roared as Tiny, their impromptu defensive linemen nailed him hard seconds before he reached the end zone.

  Something popped. Something else ripped. And fuck, was that his head?

  White lights exploded behind the Werewolf’s eyes as he lay in the muddy field looking up at the almost full moon.

  It was pretty fucking awesome that he, along with all the other Wolf Shifters in the world, were no longer bound by the phases of the moon to control their shifts.

  Thank you, Grazi, he thought, wondering if that was redundant. He wasn’t Italian, but he’d dated Italian girls, and if Cannon recalled correctly, grazie meant thanks.

  Whatever. The New Jersey she-Wolf was famous in supernatural circles, especially since being named High Alpha over all Wolves. All as in ALL. Like every fucking Wolf on the planet.

  “Dude? You hear me? Damn. You been makin’ that sausage chili, bro?”

  “Not cool to be sniffin’ a Wolf when he’s down, playa.”

  “Ughhhh.” Cannon opened his mouth to speak, but only a muffled groan came out.

  “Dayum, I think we broke Cannon, bro,” one of the monsters he still played football with on weekends said to the other.

  He couldn’t make out which one since all Cannon could see were blinding lights. Even if he could see them, he was not able to rightly recall their names. Blinking slowly, the lights began to dim, but not much. Barely enough for Cannon to make out their enormous fucking heads.

  Their poor mothers, he thought with a shudder.

  Mothers, hmmm.

  Now, why did that make him so sad? Cannon blinked again bringing his hand up to cover his eyes, his stomach roiled as the memory pushed its way through. Pain and hurt welled inside of him.

  The bottomless pit that was his grief seemed to exist like a gaping hole never to be filled. Even his Wolf, a brown and gray coated beast, howled at the memory of his dame.

  Fuck.

  That’s right. Mom is gone.

  Cannon had lost his mother earlier that year because of a rather aggressive form of leukemia that had eaten away at the she-Wolf’s poor ravaged body until she could not hang on any longer. Physically, Shifters could fight almost anything.

  Almost.

  Fuck, he missed her. His mother had been the most important woman in his life. Cannon had no father, at least none that he spoke to. He had no mate. No pups. He was all alone.

  Which was why he was in an abandoned field in the middle of the night on the Christmas Eve Eve with these knuckleheads.

  “Help me up,” he growled.

  “Nah, chef. You stay put.” One meaty hand pushed against Cannon’s chest, and he landed back on the cold, hard ground with a thud.

  “Yeah, bro, you got your bell rung by my boy Tiny, here,” said his “bro”, whose name still escaped Cannon for the moment.

  Funny, the man did not smell like a Wolf. Cannon growled deep in his throat. He knew they were his friends, but his Wolf seemed agitated that he was injured, weakened in front of them.

  “That’s cause we’re Bears, man. Shit. Hey guys, let’s call an ambo!” The Bear Shifter turned to one of the other hulking males gathered around, and Cannon realized he was the only Wolf Shifter there. He was outside, in the cold, playing football at night, surrounded by a bunch of Bears. Now, why the fuck was he doing that?

  “Hey, uh, guys what are we doing here, and is it significant that you’re all glowing?” Cannon asked, grinning at the silly lights and colors surrounding his bros.

  “Oh man! Chef definitely has a concussion. How fucking hard did you hit him, Tiny?”

  Tiny— yes, Cannon appreciated the irony given Tiny was seven and a half feet tall and had to weigh at least three hundred pounds— bent over and peered down at his fallen teammate.

  The Bear Shifter frowned, rolling the prone Wolf over, which caused bile to rise in Cannon’s throat. Oh fuck, he really wished the big guy hadn’t done that.

  “Um, this might have had something to do with it,” Tiny announced.

  The Bear Shifter grimaced just then, tearing an enormous rock out of the ground directly beneath Cannon’s head with his behemoth-sized hand.

  The offending rock was larger than the football he’d been about to toss.

  Oh yeah! He was playing quarterback, like he used to back in high school. Outside in the winter, working up a sweat with these men who were— fuck, that’s right— his buddies. The two Bears really were his “bros”.

  “That’ll do it,” Judd— Cannon suddenly remembered one of the other Bear’s name— muttered before he started puking.

  Cannon felt like shit. Dizzy and nauseated, he was seeing two of everything, and that was when he could focus. He was still groaning and vomiting by the time the ambulance came rolling up a good fifteen minutes later due to the non-life-threatening emergency, or so they said. Their sirens were still blaring, cutting through the night like the sound of a thousand angry voices.

  “Shit. Can someone turn those fucking sirens off?” Cannon growled, barely able to get up off the ground.

  “I forgot how cranky you get when you’re injured, Chef,” Tiny added, the big man grinning as he lifted Cannon off the ground like a sack of potatoes.

  “Take it easy,” the EMT said as Tiny lowered him onto the gurney.

  “You good, Chef?”

  “Fantastic,” he said through gritted teeth, trying to stem the pain rushing through his head.

  “We’ll follow you to the hospital—”

  “Nah, you guys go home. Your families will be worried,” Cannon said, waving them off.

  His memory was back but the pain of his injury was getting worse. No sense in having them sit around the hospital when they all had homes and mates and cubs waiting for them. Not to mention cups of Christmas cheer and home cooked meals waiting to be consumed with people they loved, who loved them.

  Not Cannon. He had no one and nothing waiting for him. And now, it looked like he was going to be eating cafeteria style turkey and dressing for his holiday. The idea did not sound appetizing.

  “Ow!” he yelped while two EMTs wrestled him into the back of the ambulance.

  “Sorry,” the one wearing an Elf’s hat replied cheerfully.

  Cannon barely contained his snarl.

  Merry fucking Christmas to me.

  Chapter 1

  “Any snow yet?” Eira asked the security officer, taking a peek through the sliding doors that led outside of Macconwood Memorial Hospital.

  “Fifty-eight and not a flurry in sight,” the older man replied with a pleasant chuckle.

  “Oh well, we’ve got another day,” she mumbled and waved goodbye.

  The temperature was much too warm for the white Christmas Eira was wishing for despite it being December 23rd. Eira had just clocked in for her first ever double shift during the holidays in the breezy Jersey shore town she’d moved to in order to finish her residency. Excitement and nerves warred within her. Working in a hospital struck some as morbid, especially when she showed any enthusiasm for her chosen profession.

  But Eira loved being a doctor, helping people, tackling injuries and disease, and beating the unholy piss out of the odds. A little violent, perhaps, but she was a Werewolf, not one of the nuns from St. Bernadine’s Catholic School where she’d attended through twelfth grade.

  One more year, and Eira would be a board licensed Emergency Department doctor, specializing in sports medicine and diagnostics, and with any luck, she would be offered a position right there at Macconwood Memorial.

  Eira had worked her butt off her last few years of medical school, trying desperately to earn a spot at the hospital where her Dr. Rayne Davis-Evangelos was acting Chief of Emergency Medicine. She had visited Eira’s graduating class and gave a seminar on what she did at the surprisingly busy New Jersey hospital. But that was not the only reason Eira wanted to work there.

  Dr. Davis-Evangelos was a Werewolf, just like Eira. She’d sensed her supernatural side immediately, and after her talk, the prestigious female had approached Eira and encouraged her to apply. It was wildly flattering, and she made sure to tell her parents right away.

  “Dad! Mom! You will never guess what happened to me at the lecture!”

  Eira cringed at the memory of her excited shrieks after she had come home that day. She had been blessed with a caring and loving, if a little loud and large, family of Wolves. They’d been so proud of her after the news, but of course, her father had not been thrilled with her moving to, as he put it, “some mangy Wolf town”.

  “Dad! Maccon City is the home of the Alpha, you know, our Alpha,” she reminded him.

  “It’s still too far, Eira.”

  “Dad, it’s like three hours. Hardly any distance at all.”

  Her father was a little protective of his baby girl. No wonder, after having five strapping sons, her parents had finally given birth to a girl. First and last in the bunch.

  Her family still lived there, in a brownstone in Brooklyn Heights. It was only a few hours away by car, but it had been so busy, Eira had not been back to visit since Thanksgiving.

  “Doctor! We need you.” One of the Emergency Department nurses popped her head around the corner and motioned to Eira.

  Here we go, she thought, focused and ready to attend to her next patient.

  Chapter 2

  “Hello, darling!” her mother’s lightly accented voice reached Eira’s ears as she sipped tea from a paper cup.

  She’d been working twelve hours straight and was just starting the second half of her double shift when Eira was forced by one of the many nurses on staff to take a break.

  They truly were the heartbeat of the hospital, she thought back on Dr. Davis-Evangelos’ favorite refrain with a grin. So, there she was, taking a break and with her tepid cup of tea in hand, she decided to call home.

  “Hey Mom, are you busy?” she asked, not needing to explain her impromptu phone call.

  “Never too busy for my favorite daughter,” came the usual reply. “Oh, I almost forgot. Happy almost Christmas, darling,” she added.

  “I’m your only daughter, Mom, and it’s Merry, not Happy Christmas,” Eira teased.

  “Cheeky,” her mom mock scolded. “Well, you are still my favorite daughter, whether you are the only one or not. I am surprised you had time to call. Teatime for surgeons, is it?”

  “I’m not a surgeon, Mom,” Eira reminded her mother with an eye roll that would have done her brothers proud.

  “I know that, dear. Seriously, though, how are things looking? Will you be here bright and early on Christmas Day?”

  "I am going to try, but I am pulling a double and don’t know if I can manage the drive,” she hedged, and braced herself for the undoubtedly long and harsh guilt trip her mother was about to put her through.

  God love her, Eira thought the second she heard her sharp intake of breath. There was no hope for it now, so she stood her ground and listened dutifully.

  “Oh, no! Now Eira, your father can come—”

  “Mom, Dad will be exhausted as is.”

  “Nonsense! Besides, I will not have my only daughter, helpless and alone, and stuck in some mangy Wolf town on the holidays,” her mother began.

  Her parents, Manan and Moira Sidak, had emigrated to the United States when Eira was just an infant. The couple was very protective of their offspring, regardless of the fact that all six children, including Eira, were adults, and Werewolves to boot.

  She and her brothers were perfectly capable of taking care of themselves, but did they acknowledge that? Of course not. And it was worse for Eira because she was their baby.

  Grinning, she allowed her mother to continue her tirade, tipping the phone so a fellow resident, and Wolf, Chandra Pierce, could listen.

  I love her accent, Chandra mouthed without voicing the words, and Eira shook her head.

  “Don’t call Maccon City mangy, Mom,” she reminded her mother, ignoring Chandra.

  It amused her to no end how easily folks were impressed by accents in the states. But maybe that was because her family had such a wide variety of interesting accents. Especially according to her friends over the years.

  Why, her brothers could charm the panties off any girl within fifty feet of them just by saying hello. Of course, they grew up in England and sounded like Prince William, whereas Eira was raised in Brooklyn and sounded like an extra from My Cousin Vinny.

  Being a Werewolf with supernaturally enhanced hearing, among other things, meant she could mimic them well enough, but why should she? Eira was raised in New York and was proud of her distinctly American accent.

  Education had smoothed the rough edges of her cadence of speech, but what could she say? She was a product of her environment and would make no apologies to anyone for it.

  Eira was a true American melting pot success story. She could curse in more than half a dozen languages, taking on the intonation of both her parents’ native countries, and those of her many relatives across the globe, not to mention the New Jersey and New York natives she lived among.

  Switching from her mother’s snooty UK vibe to her father’s Punjabi uproarious swearing—the dirtiest she had ever heard which was why, incidentally, it had been banned from the Sidak family dinner table for going on a decade now—was quite fun for Eira.

  “Well, maybe there is a reason your father calls it mangy, you ever think of that? Those Jersey Wolves might have some sort of Shifter skin condition or whatnot—”

  “Mom!”

  “Well, anyway, what of Rick, dearest? Will he be joining you? I imagine some Christmas magic might be just what the man needs to pop interesting questions,” she said in a singsong voice that grated on her daughter’s nerves.

  Ugh. What was it about the holidays that made every mother in the world want to see her children engaged?

  Eira cringed and closed her eyes. She had forgotten to inform her mother of her breakup right after bringing the male home with her for Thanksgiving.

  Rick Morrison had been impressed by her large and boisterous family, but less than thrilled with her more reserved self. He’d even called her boring. Especially in bed were his exact words, and wasn’t that a serious blow to her ego?

  “Um, actually, there is no more Rick,” she said.

  “Oh no! Not another one,” her mom said, quickly adding. “Not that it is your fault. I am sure he had his own baggage. Don’t worry, darling, maybe Santa will bring you someone special this year.”

 

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