Page 26 of Wolf's Whisper

Chapter 8. The storm

"It is freaking cold in this rotten cave," Danny grumbled as she threw another stick on the ridiculously small fire we had going.

We all nodded in agreement. Our fire was barely heating up our cave and even as wolves, we were feeling the nasty bite of the cold.

I glanced at the entrance of the cave. I could barely see the treeline, as almost everything was obscured by the storm of snow raging by. Even if the cave was cold and quite wet, it was by far better than getting caught outside in the weather.

JP turned to me. "W-Where are you headed?" he stuttered, but I couldn't tell if it was from the shivering or just his nervous self. He was already draped in Regan's massive coat and was wearing an extra pair of gloves on his feet, but the poor boy couldn't stop shaking. I guess humans have a harder time staying warm.

"Poor baby," Danny cooed as she cosily curled up next to him, her head resting on his shoulder as she tried to warm him.

"Yeah, where are you headed?" Aspen chimed in as he curiously leant forward, resting his chin in his hands.

"You've been with her for days and haven't bothered to ask what she is doing in the middle of freaking nowhere?" Ashleigh asked, looking at her brother in astonishment as she shook her head in disbelief. "What did you guys talk about?"

The rascal threw her a dirty grin. "Maybe we didn't do much talking, at all."

I quickly cleared my throat, pulling the attention back towards me before the siblings could start their all too familiar bickering. Regan threw me a grateful look while Danny winked at me. How they managed to keep up with all the fighting, was a freaking miracle.

I briefly contemplated I should just lie, but as I felt five pairs of eyes on me, all genuinely wondering where I was going, I figured telling them couldn't hurt.

"I’m actually headed for the East."

"Coyote Country?" Danny frowned. Ashleigh cocked her head to the side as Aspen scratched the back of his head.

"What business could you have there?" Regan asked as he suspiciously eyed me, probably wondering what kind of wolf would voluntarily travel into enemy territory.

"I, ehmm..." Should I tell them? I mean, Ashleigh already knew. But that didn't mean I should tell the rest. The fewer people who knew about it, the better.

"They stole something from our tribe and I need to get it back." There, that wasn't exactly a lie.

"Something important?" Danny inquired, her voice empathic. Of course, she would sympathise with me.

"Very important." I nodded, hoping they wouldn't ask more details. Our Winter Stone was a well-kept secret, the fewer people knew about it, the better.

"Damn Coyotes!" Darren growled as he slammed his fist into the wall of the cave. Okay? Nobody liked Coyotes, but that was a bit over the top. Angry much?

"You okay there?" I asked, looking around in the group as I wondered if him getting angry was a big deal or not. Should I worry here?

But instead of him blowing up like all of them seemed to do, he calmed himself down, put on his pouting face and crawled up to Danny's other side. She caringly wrapped her arm around him as he hid himself in her shirt. It was definitely confusing, a bit weird, and kind of cute.

I wondered what that was about, but nobody in the group seemed to really react to his outburst, so I figured it was probably better to let it slide.

"So, how old are you, Akira?" Danny asked, her two men cuddled up against her. I smiled gratefully at her. They all seemed to have quite a temper and I honestly believed this cave was too small for an all-out fight between either of them.

"Probably around Darren's age? I am... "

"I’m a lot older than I look," Darren interrupted me as he puffed up his chest and loudly exhaled through his nose.

"O-kay?" I slowly said, wondering what had brought on this.

"How old do you think I am?" he smirked, his eyes lighting up as he seemed to have found a fun new game to play. Torture Akira. Yaay.

I groaned. I hated guessing age, not because people got offended, what did I care. No, I hated it because I was terrible at it.

"Do we really have to?" I reluctantly asked, hoping only Darren wanted to play this stupid game. But with the rest of the group's eyes on me and their encouraging smiles, I realised there was no escaping.

"Umm... I don't know, twenty-... six?" I guessed for Darren, already pushing it. If he told me he was twenty-three, I would still believe him.

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