Page 4 of Entering a New World

My wolf didn’t like the idea.

However, our chances as a friendly appearing wolf were at least a bit better than our chances as a naked man—simply because they couldn’t be any worse.

Just… what would I do then? I needed to get him away from the beach and somewhere safe… at least until tomorrow. Somewhere he wouldn’t freeze to death, somewhere he’d be able to stay dry. Somewhere… the old cabins!

Internally, I gloated at my bright idea. They weren’t that close, but not that far away, either. Long abandoned, kind of in ruins, but better than the bare forest floor.

Decision made, I carefully pulled my snout away, taking a couple of steps back. It’d probably be better if he could see me coming from afar, right? And I’d need to grab his attention, without being too frightening. No howling. Maybe just being loud would help. Stepping on twigs and shit like that.

Go, my wolf said, his excitement spiking. Mate, go.

I snorted, but felt the same wave of excitement rushing through me.

Yeah, I thought. It’s go-time.

Chapter 2

Levi

I would die out here.

I would so die out here.

I would be one of those tragic stories on the news. Young, gullible, taken advantage of by a greedy manager, even though you usually had to be famous for that. I wasn’t famous. I wasn’t rich. I was just a guy who overshared on social media.

And now I was the guy who’d die in the wilderness—and it was my fault for being dumb enough to sign that damn contract with Alistair. I’d had a bad feeling about it right from the beginning, but logically, he’d said all the right things. His arguments had been solid and the prospect of someone taking a bit of the ever-increasing workload off my shoulders? Yeah, it’d been tempting. Too tempting.

If it sounds too good to be true, that usually means it is. At least, that’s what my mom used to tell me whenever she’d seen one of those skeezy ads promising you to lose fifty pounds in a week or a way to become a millionaire in a year.

I should’ve listened more closely to what she’d had to say. If I’d done that, maybe I wouldn’t be here.

Sighing, I started stuffing everything back into the backpack. I didn’t know what to do, but I knew I couldn’t stay here. The wind was picking up and getting colder and colder, and the water started coming closer to where I was sitting. The only problem was that I really didn’t want to go away from here, just in case Alistair realized what a bad idea his plan had been, or because it’d all been a really, really, really bad prank.

Were prank-videos still in?

I didn’t know. Then again, I hadn’t known that abandoning people with no survival skills whatsoever in the wilderness was a thing now, so I might just be the wrong person to ask.

A loud snapping sound made me flinch. I turned my head in the direction the sound had come from, and my heart stopped for a moment as I saw a huge, sandy-brown wolf emerging from the thick underbrush.

Holy shit.

My eyes widened as I took his form in, unsure of what to do. Could I even do anything? The wolf was massive, bigger than I’d ever expected a wolf to be. Like, I knew they were bigger than regular dogs. I also knew people tended to underestimate how big a wolf really was, but that thing far exceeded any of my expectations.

And it was coming right at me.

Was running away an option?

Was I supposed to run away?

My legs were firmly rooted to the spot, my ass glued to the tree trunk I was sitting on, and my heart hammering as I watched the wolf slowly, casually approach me.

It looked… happy?

It was ridiculous. The wolf wasn’t happy to see me. Or maybe it was because it’d just found a tasty snack wrapped in a bright red jacket that screamed ‘I’m here’ from a mile away.

How did one behave if they saw a wolf? Was I supposed to look intimidating? Yeah, good luck looking intimidating to a wolf that was almost as tall as I was if I was when standing. Or was I supposed to play dead? Would it help to just drop to the ground and hope for the best?

The wolf was still coming my way, his tongue lolling out of his mouth on one side, a spring in his step. No matter how ridiculous it sounded, the wolf did indeed look happy.

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