Page 70 of White Wolf

“For–” He broke off suddenly, head kicking back. With his hood up, it looked like the wolf he wore was howling at the sky. He inhaled deeply, nostrils flaring, and when he looked at her again, she swore his eyes were glowing. “Wolves,” he said, softly, reverently. “My wolves.”

“What…” She started to ask, but he was already loping ahead of her, effortlessly passing the others to get to the head of their line.

There were confused exclamations ahead, and the company, such that it was, came to a halt.

Katya unslung her rifle from her shoulder, the weight of it a comfort in her hands. In her experience, wolves were never a welcome thing.

Their group stood in a hollow that would become a stream when the snow was fully melted, mud and water slopping over their boots, the budded limbs overhead occasionally dropping wet clumps of snow on their heads. The slight depression lent their voices an echo, so Katya could hear the captain – Nikita – say, “Sasha, you don’t know that they’ll recognize you.”

“I do,” Sasha insisted, calm but firm. It struck her again – staring at him in his white wolf cloak, the way he stood tall and confident – that something significant had happened to Sasha. He’d changed in some fundamental way. “They’re our pack.”

“Ourpack,” Nikita muttered, shaking his head. “No, Sasha, there is no pack. This is crazy.”

“So is what happened to me. But it’s real.” Sasha showed the captain his teeth, and then he growled.

Katya spun in a tight circle, rifle aimed, searching for a wolf hidden in the underbrush. But there was nothing behind her. The sound had come, impossibly, from Sasha.

She turned back to them. The sound was a low, rumbling warning sound. She’d heard countless dogs in her life make the same noise, heads lowered and ears back. The growl pulsed into the streambed, echoing just as their voices had.

Unbelievable.

“Sasha,” Nikita said, and the growl cut off.

Sasha blushed. “Sorry. I just–”

A twig snapped to her left.

She swung the rifle around and felt all the blood drain out of her face. A pair of amber eyes stared at her from the top of the bank. The wolf was a mottled gray, statue-still; if not for the brightness of its eyes, it might have indeed been a statue. It stared at her without blinking. Not snarling, not advancing, just watching.

She managed to take a shaky breath and said, “There’s a wolf right here in front of me.”

She was aware of the men turning toward her, but didn’t dare take her gaze from the wolf. She’d made the mistake of looking the thing in the eyes, and now she was afraid it would pounce if she blinked first. She didn’t want to shoot it – she was a sniper groomed to kill men, not a hunter with a stomach for killing animals – but she’d pull the trigger if it gave her a reason to.

“Oh,” Sasha said, that one syllable full of excitement, and he covered the distance between them in five long strides. When he reached her, he pushed the barrel of her rifle gently aside and positioned himself between Katya and the wolf. “There she is. Hello, beautiful,” he crooned, extending his hand toward the wolf.

“She’s going to eat you,” one of the men said.

“No, she’s a good girl.” To Katya’s amazement and horror, Sasha moved even closer, and then sank down on his haunches, back of his hand still held out in offering. “I’m sorry,” he told her, and sounded so. “I’m sorry they took him from you. That’s a good girl, come here.”

Katya held her breath.

“Sasha,” someone said, and then the old man said, “wait.”

Sasha made a soft whining noise that sounded like a request.

The wolf returned it. And then…then…it,she, stretched her neck forward, audibly sniffing the air. A paw slid forward. Then another. And then her wet, black nose touched the back of Sasha’s hand. They stayed that way a moment, wolf and man, and then the wolf’s jaws opened, her tongue rolled out, and, panting happily, she shimmied down the bank and into Sasha’s lap.

“Good girl,” he praised, scratching her behind the ears. “What a good girl you are.”

The brush rustled, and the rest of the pack appeared along the bank: gray, and black, and brown. Seven of them, not counting the female panting up at Sasha like a lap dog.

A hand landed on her arm, and it took every ounce of self-control not to jump.

“Don’t shoot,” Nikita said beside her, though he had his own gun in his hand.

“I wasn’t going to.”

His hand tightened once and then fell away.

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