Blood for Wolves (2 page)

“He found me. He’s going to eat me
up,” she whispered, frozen in fear.

“No,” I said, smoothing her hair. “It’s
just the wind moving the door. Come look sweetie.”

I got up and headed out of the
room. The cottage door hung open on a single hinge, swinging faintly in the
breeze. It must have fallen off, too old to handle even its own weight.

“Come on out here honey, it’s
okay.” Then I had a thought. “I’ll protect you from all the wolves, don’t
worry.”

I turned and thought I saw movement
disappear behind a second doorway. Unease crawled up my spine. I dismissed it
and headed back to the girl’s room.

“See? It’s all right—”

She screamed.

I lunged for the door. Inside the
room the little girl was pressed against the wall. A man in a brown overcoat
stood in front of her holding a freakishly long knife.

“Look,” he said, a displeased
expression on his face, “I really don’t want to do this—”

“Hey!” I yelled. Without giving it
a second thought I dove at the man and tackled him around the waist. The two of
us crashed into the wall. Behind me I heard the girl scramble off the bed and
out of the room. The man snarled and pushed me off him. I tumbled to the floor,
kicking at him as I fell to keep him away from me. Then I leapt to my feet and
ran from the room. I didn’t get far. He tackled me from behind and this time we
fell onto a table with him at my back. Panic rushed through me. He still had a
knife—where was it?

Suddenly he flipped me over, and I
saw it. The knife was coming down at my face, but at the last second it shifted
and instead the blade sank into the table. The man’s eyes were wide with surprise,
and for several very long minutes all we did was stare at each other. They were
hazel, a forest-mix of green, blue, and brown, but I could have sworn that for
a moment they held a hint of golden red. Even more bizarre was that, except for
the knife, he didn’t look like a lunatic. A little wild with a five o’clock
shadow lingering on his face, but well-dressed and well-groomed for a nutcase.
Something inside my heart did a bizarre flip-flop. He had me trapped with his
body against the table. One of his hands was on my throat, but he’d gone
completely still. I panted, crazy ideas of possible escape attempts tumbling
through my mind.

“Oh,” he said as though he couldn’t
believe what he was seeing. He blinked a few times. “You’re certainly not a
sentry. My apologies.”

I had no idea what to say to that. I
wasn’t even sure if speaking would be a good idea. Who was this guy?

“I thought…” He shook his head. “I
didn’t mean to frighten you. You have to understand, I’m a bit jumpy as of
late.”

Right. Because jumpy was the right
word for coming at me with a knife. I couldn’t help it and glanced at the blade
near my face.

He noticed and winced. “Sorry.” He
knocked it away and I squealed. “Honestly, I don’t even like knives. When you
hit me I just thought…well I suppose it doesn’t matter what I thought. I didn’t
hurt you, did I?” His gaze moved over me as though checking for any injuries.

“No,” I said in a tiny voice. I was
still stuck lying on a table though.

He eyed me strangely and then
cocked his head as though realizing something. “You’re different.”

I didn’t know what to say to that
either. He moved his hand away from my neck at least. His thumb trailed over
the skin, somehow making me feel even more vulnerable and sending a strange
shiver through me at the same time.

“Um.” I risked putting a hand to
his chest. Maybe being polite and gentle could ease me out of this. “Can you
let me up?”

“Yes. Of course.” He looked
embarrassed he hadn’t thought of that sooner. He placed his hand over mine and
held it there while he pulled me to my feet. We were uncomfortably close
together; one of his arms wrapped around my waist to hold me against him. Under
my hand his heart beat almost as fast as mine.

Then he grinned.
Holy shit.
His
canine teeth were longer and sharper than any I’d ever seen in a person’s
mouth. He dipped his head and inhaled slowly. I pushed down the panic and tried
to think of how heavy he might be. How hard it would be to push him away and
run?

“Very different,” he said, his
breath fanning my neck. “You smell very good. You’re saturated with the forest.
Water and frogs, leaves and pine, small animals and…” A delighted look crossed
his face. “Wolves. Tell me, are you half or whole?”

 I gaped at him. What was he
talking about? Did he want to
chat?
Why couldn’t it be hunting season
and I had some kind of panic button and Alex could come and get me and shoot
this guy?

“Come, come, lovely. Don’t be
afraid. Tell me. Half or whole?”

Don’t be afraid? Was he kidding? And
the press of his body against mine was really distracting. I made a few little
huffing noises before I managed to respond, “H-Half or whole what?”

“Wolf of course. I’m half myself.
Never had a pack. Sad thing that half-wolves don’t have packs.”

Oh. My. God. His good looks were
definitely deceiving.

“Well then, what are you?” he
persisted, cocking his head to one side.

“Ha…I’m neither. I’m human.”
Dear
God, let that be a safe answer.

Surprise took hold of his features
again. “Not half nor whole? Hmm. You do so smell like us. Such a shame you’re
not.”

Fuck
. Wrong answer.

But he didn’t do anything. Instead
he kept staring at me like he was trying to figure out a puzzle. If only I’d
known there was a psycho in the woods I would have brought something stronger
than bear spray. As it was, I couldn’t even reach the stupid bear spray. At
least for the moment he seemed to forget all about the girl.

“You’re nervous.”

“Um,” I licked my lips and I could
have sworn his eyes went gold for a second. “Yes.”

“I’m sorry.  I don’t mean to make
you nervous.” He looked genuinely apologetic.  He began to smooth my hair as if
that were supposed to calm me.  The weird thing was that it sort of worked. 
The way he stared at me made me feel as though I was supposed to do something,
but I had no idea what.

He inhaled again. “You smell
wonderful.”

“Thank you,” I said, very carefully
trying to remove myself from his grasp. He didn’t budge. “Can I go, please?”

“Why?” He brought his head down to
my neck again. “You should stay here with me.” His lips brushed over my skin
and a bizarre mix of excitement and alarm rolled through me. If this were any
other situation, he’d be sexy as hell. Too bad this wasn’t any other situation.
“You can feel it, can’t you?” He pressed my hand to his chest more firmly.

“Um,” was all I got out.

He suddenly pulled back. “You’re
not with that girl, are you?” Annoyance crossed his features. “I’m tired of
chasing her.”

Once again I had no clue what he
was talking about.

He made a dismissive motion.
“Forget about her.” Then he smiled and I found myself staring at his canines
again.

“I realize this is probably quite
unexpected for you as a human, but you can trust me. A wolf knows.” He paused.
“I’m not explaining this very well, am I? Again, my apologies. It’s just…I
never thought I’d be lucky enough to find you.”

He’d begun to slide his hand up my
freshly shaven leg, quickly reaching my khaki shorts and slipping his fingers
underneath the edge. He’d shifted his stance in doing so, and I saw a clear
opening for escape.

“I very much look forward to
getting to know you, my heart.”

I slammed my knee into his groin,
yelling and pushing him off me as he buckled. I scrabbled at the table,
climbing over it and trying to get my bearings. Where the hell did the door go?
Or better yet, where was the knife?

“I suppose I deserved that,” he
groaned from the ground. “Awful of me to forget how skittish humans are around
wolves. I thought you might be different, not being from the Kingdom.”

He was too close to the front door
and already getting up. I didn’t see the knife anywhere. I bolted for the back
rooms of the cottage.

“I admit,” he called from the
front, “I shouldn’t have pushed you, but if you would just be willing to come
back here and talk with me, we can sort all this out.”

No way buddy.
All that the
rooms had to offer were the old, circle windows. Dust coated the glass, and
they looked barely big enough for me to… I snatched up an old chair just as he
strode into the room. He held himself up, smoothing his coat with his hands.

“Now, if you’ll just allow me to
introduce myself, we can begin our courtship properly.”

I smashed the chair into his chest,
knocking him out of the room and breaking the chair into pieces. I held onto
one of the legs and made for the window. It only took a single swing to shatter
the glass. I pulled the small wooden cross pieces out of the hole and began
squashing my way through the opening. A few small glass shards still in the
frame scratched at me, tearing through my clothes. Pain bloomed where they cut
my arms and legs.

“Will you stop? You’re writhing
around on glass for goodness sakes.”

I screamed as his fingertips
touched my ankle. I kicked back as hard as I could, felt my heel connect with
something, and then I was free. I crashed onto the leaf-laden ground. In a
moment I was up again, running as fast as I’d ever run through the forest, not
paying attention to the direction or the cuts on my body. Thank God for tread
machines and motivation. I could at least get a mile or two away from the
cottage before the demented wolfy guy got his bearings again. That last kick
had been pretty damned hard.

But I’d only gone half a mile when
I slid to a stop in a gully. What about the girl? He was trying to kill her,
too. Where had she gone? I couldn’t just let him find her and kill her. I tried
to slow down my breathing, running a hand through my damp hair. Finally I
doubled over to rest my hands on my knees, trying to calm down as much as
possible. I’d escaped, I was alive.
Fuck
. I really wished I had my
radio. I didn’t even have my daypack anymore. I put my hands to my face and
breathed deeply.
I do not smell like wolves…

“Psst.”

I jerked upright, looking around in
a panic.

“Down here.”

The voice was soft, scared. I
relaxed when I realized it was the little girl’s. I searched for the origin of
her voice and found her hiding in a hollowed out log. I let out a long sigh.

“Are you okay?” I asked.

She nodded and sniffed, still
teary-eyed.

“He didn’t hurt you?”

She shook her head.

“Will you come out? I think I beat
him up pretty good back there.”

After a moment’s hesitation, she
crawled out of the log. I couldn’t believe how clean her dress was even after
shuffling through a rotted out log. An image of bluebells popped into my mind.

“Is he gone for good?” she asked.

I put my hand on her head. “No
honey, I don’t think he is. We need to get out of the woods and call the police
on him.”

“We can’t get out of the woods. The
forest is everywhere.”

“No it’s not sweetie. All forests
end somewhere.”

This didn’t seem to register with
her, though she said, “Oh.” Then she paused. “What are police?”

What kind of question was that? She
had to be at least eight years old, certainly her parents had told her about
the safety of police. I took her hand and together we started walking.

“Police are the men in blue
uniforms that help people. Haven’t you ever seen them?”

“I’ve seen the men in black
uniforms, but they’re kind of mean.”

“Well, sometimes police do wear
black uniforms, but they still help people. Do you really not know any of
this?”

She shook her head again, her
golden curls bouncing.

I let out a long breath. “Don’t
worry. We’ll get out of here and call someone and tell them where that man is
so he can get arrested.”

“He’s not a man.”

“Yes he is. He just thinks he’s a
wolf. He’s sick in the head, honey.”

“No, he’s a wolf.”

Fine. Whatever. I wasn’t going to
argue with her. I was too tired. I’d woken up at 4 am, sat in the dew and the
dark for two hours, then waited another three for Isabeau to finally get her
cubs out of the den. I was damp, I’d fought off a wacko, and now I had mean
little cuts all over from the window and it wasn’t even eleven o’clock.

“What’s your name?” I asked the
girl.

“Marianne Greta Gertrude West. What’s
yours?”

“Caroline McKenna.”

“Just two names?”

I laughed. “Yes, just two. My
parents never gave me a middle name.”

“Why not?”

“I don’t know. I think they
couldn’t decide on one.”

“That’s sad.” She kicked at a small
pile of leaves.

“Why is that sad? It’s just a
name.”

“More names are better.”

“Ah,” I said, grinning, “I see.”

We trekked on for a while. I wasn’t
familiar with the terrain, but I knew that if we kept heading due-north we’d
bump into a trail. There weren’t many roads in the backcountry of Wyoming, but
there were a healthy amount of trails. I knew how far the trail I’d used was,
and several more intersected with it after cutting a path in the north. Going the
other way would be too dangerous, what with insane wolf-man behind us. I
wondered if he was conscious yet. Probably. I hoped I’d at least broken his
nose or something.

“I’m not sure this is the right
way,” Marianne said after a few hours.

“It is, don’t worry. I may not have
my compass, but I know where the trails are. We should bump into one any time. Then
we can follow that out.” I wasn’t worried about shelter. It was a warm spring
season, and the campsites filled up fast in this part of the wilderness. We
could meet up with some campers and share a tent and then hike out with them. If
anyone saw our would-be killer, a little bear spray would sure as hell do the
trick.