Liam kicked a chunk of ice off the leg of the bench. “Nothing, I guess.”
“Nothing?”
“Yeah, wolves usually leave us alone. I’m surprised they got this close to the cabin.”
“Wolves don’t…” It finally clicked into place. I couldn’t stop the laughter erupting from my chest. “Wolves. As in natural wolves, not Shifters.”
The look I got suggested I might not be mentally stable, which was a pretty accurate accusation. “You thought they were Shifters?”
“No.” Of course not. Nope. Not me. I didn’t jump to ridiculous, outrageous conclusions and almost have a complete and total meltdown over them.
Proving he wasn’t stupid, Liam didn’t believe me. “If there was a Shifter nearby, we would both know it. I promise.” He frowned as his eyes followed the trail the tracks left in the snow. “Actually, I can’t believe we didn’t notice these guys. It must have happened while we were asleep.”
“Do you think their den is close?” Knowing I wasn’t going to have to fight for my life, I became curious. I had never seen a natural wolf in the wild before and was eager to compare them with us.
“Doubt it. They were probably just passing through and caught our scent. We’ll probably never see them again.”
But he was wrong. We didn’t see the wolves, but their tracks became a common sight in the area surrounding the cabin. They never again got as close as they did the first time, but they seemed to travel around it on all sides. I thought it was cool, but Liam seemed uneasy.
By April, we were able to spend longer stretches of time outdoors. Liam and I resumed our sparring sessions, taking an exorbitant amount of delight in throwing one another into trees and rolling across the semi-frozen ground. Our canned food supply was dwindling down to virtually nothing, but we were able to compensate with wild game. Liam and I were both out hunting - me with a spear since the bow and arrow, while cool and a sentimental favorite, wasn’t exactly functional, and Liam with teeth and claws - when I heard the wolf pack for the first time.
The howl ripping through the afternoon sky was beautiful and terrifying at the same time. I stood in awe, listening for more. Then, I heard them. A second wolf growled. And then a third. A fourth.
A fifth.
My heart stalled as my nose confirmed what my ears already told me.
Liam was under attack.
I don’t know which happened first - my starting to run or the wolves attacking - but in my head it was at the exact same moment. I flew across the ground, ears and nose trained on the fight Liam had no chance of winning. I don’t know what I thought I would do, one girl in human form with a pointy stick, but I knew I had to get there and help him, or he would die. Liam was strong, his wolf one of the single most amazing creatures I’ve ever seen, but even he couldn’t overcome five to one odds.
I was so attuned to Liam, I wasn’t paying proper attention to where I was going. One second I was running at top speed through the trees, the next my face was speeding towards the ground.
No!
I knew something, or somethings, were going to break when I hit the ground. I would be no use to Liam, and I would most likely have to lie there until the next Change, if I made it that long before the wolves smelled weakened prey.
It happened without conscious thought. After all those Buddha-like attempts at mind over matter, it was instinct that had me smacking the ground in the form of a human and raising up as a wolf mere seconds later. Not having the time to marvel over my bout of awesomeness, I shook off tattered clothes still clinging to my body and started running at four times my human speed.
A battle was well underway when I arrived. The wolves in the pack were huge, although none of them were quite as big as Liam. They were all bigger than I was, but Wolf Scout didn’t care. She jumped into the fray, which was now down to three fully functional wolves and one injured wolf against the Shifter she considered hers.
I had never really practiced fighting in wolf form. Sure, Liam and I messed around and hunted, but never were there any lessons on how to best take advantage of my opponent or how to best employ my strengths. Human Scout took about half a second to worry about that before Wolf Scout shut her up and let instinct take over. I bit and ducked and lunged and jumped, not because it was the way I was taught, but because it was the way I was going to stay alive. I felt the teeth of others as they grabbed onto me, but the pain didn’t stop me, and I was able to break their hold before too much damage was done. In fact, I thought I was doing a fairly marvelous job of taking on an entire wolf pack.
It was my overconfidence that kept me from noticing the alpha of the pack had quit paying attention to Liam and decided I needed to be dealt with. He slammed into my side, catching me off-guard. I tried to dig my claws into the ground for traction, but the melting snow left it too soft and muddy. He was on me before I fully hit the ground. The last thing I saw before his mouth clamped over my throat was Liam’s panicked grey eyes.
Chapter 21
The temperature at the lake was perfect, as always.
“What’s up, ketchup?” I linked my arm with Alex’s and pulled him alongside me as I strolled up the beach. “It’s been a while.”
His answer was a succinct “yes” that sounded as flat as a nine year old girl’s chest.
That wasn’t right. Alex was always happy to see me. It was the way this whole dream thing worked.
“So, how is the afterlife been treating you?” I asked, hoping to pull him out of his funk.
“Fine.”
No luck there. Maybe we needed a third party to distract us.
“Where is Nicole?”
Alex nodded up ahead at the same moment a little girl stepped out from behind a tree. Her hair was more red than brown, but her grey eyes gave her away.
“Oh wow,” I breathed. “Look at you.”
She waited with her hand stretched out until we got close enough for me to clasp it.
“Hey, Scout,” she said, her little hand tucked comfortably into mine.
“Hey, you. What’s with the girl suit?”
Her eyes flicked towards Alex’s. “I didn’t want you to go away without ever getting to talk to you.”
“Sweetie, I’m not going to go away. I’ll always come back here to see you guys. It’s my very favorite place to be.” I thought my words were of the reassuring variety, but they just made Nicole frown harder. I glanced over my shoulder and noticed Alex’s mood wasn’t faring any better. “I’m missing something here, aren’t I?”