Page 75 of White Wolf
“Why?”
Philippe sat forward, face and voice earnest. “Look around you, Sasha. The world is on fire. This war, this bloody war, is the product of idiot mortal short-sightedness, and the evil of men like Hitler, and Stalin. The immortals of the world have been asleep; they’ve been hiding in the shadows, denying what they are. Men can’t end the war that they started, butwecan. We can end it once and for all. It’s high time the powerfulheldthe power.”
The breeze stirred the coals, glowing a painful red inside the ring of stones. An owl hooted softly.
“What about my friends? My family?” Sasha asked, quietly, hand tightening in the omega’s ruff.
“If we end the war, then we’ll save them all. Isn’t that what you want?”
“Yes.” And it was.
~*~
They marched north through the forest and fields for a week, the sky beating at them with sun and snow in turns, so that the ground was a slushy, muddy mess. Katya was tired, and cold to the bones, and sore. Aside from Sasha learning how to better become a wolf, she hadn’t figured out what any of this was about. She’d stopped questioning it. As Kolya put it tersely at breakfast one morning, she should be happy she wasn’t dead in an anti-tank ditch somewhere.
Truthfully, she wouldn’t have cared if she was, but she’d nodded, because she sensed that he hated her.
So she found solace in the fact that none of them had tried to rape her, and that Sasha and his pack of wolves kept them well-fed with fresh game. Pyotr and Sasha were sweet and friendly, and the old man liked to ask her questions about her training. It wasn’t the most terrible situation of her life – not by a long shot.
And then there was Nikita, who looked at her in a way that made her stomach hurt.
She was lulled by the repetitiveness of it, and she let her guard down. And so she wasn’t on her toes the day they came across the scouts.
It was mid-morning. An overcast day, the clouds low and heavy, cold wind tugging at their clothes. They walked in what had become their usual formation: Sasha and the wolves fanned out in the front, on point, the others in the middle, Katya in the rear…and then Nikita behind her.
She’d told him a few days ago that she was fine, that she didn’t need guarding, and he’d given her an unimpressed look and stayed where he was.
She’d be loath to admit that, at this point, the regular crunch of his footfalls was a comfort, especially when the wolves started circling and barking, like they were doing now.
She pulled up short. “What is it?”
Nikita stepped up beside her, frowning. “Dunno. Sasha!” he called through cupped hands. “What are they on about?”
Sasha drew in a deep breath and made a canine chuffing sound on the exhale, frowning. “Humans.”
“Hunters,” Ivan said with a dismissive wave. “Goatherders. Something.” He laughed when one of the beta wolves, a mostly-black one, shoved his head into his hand and whined. “Leave off, beast. Sasha, tell them to go on.”
Sasha ignored him. “I don’t like it,” he said, still testing the air with his nose. “They’re armed.”
“As hunters are,” Feliks said. “Come on. What’s more dangerous out here thanyou?”
Sasha stood poised a moment, head cocked to the side. A white wolf on two legs. And then he took off at a lope, his wolves with him.
“Sasha!” Nikita called after him. But he was gone, light-footed as a deer, slipping between two tree trunks and disappearing. “Fuck.”
Katya felt a tightening at the back of her neck. Sasha was always running off into the woods, but they hadn’t encountered another human in all their hiking.
“Hunters wouldn’t be this far from civilization,” she said.
Nikita shrugged, but the movement looked stiff. “They might. If they’re trailing something.”
They stood side-by-side, staring across the bleak landscape. Wind scudded low, rippling tiny waves in the mud puddles. Nothing stirred: not a deer, or a rabbit. Between the trees at their backs and the trees Sasha had ducked between lay a slick, open expanse of ground. It was a wide-open clearing, where nothing and no one could take cover. If someone was approaching from the west, she’d have a perfect view. The tree behind her was a sniper’s dream nest.
Katya slung her rifle over her back and took hold of a low birch branch.
“What are you doing?” Nikita sounded almost worried – it must have been a trick of her imagination.
“I want a good shot, if it comes to that. Here, give me a boost.” She lifted her left foot, not expecting him to help – and was surprised to feel his hands cup her knee and hoist her upward. He looked strong, and proved stronger, propelling her to the next branch up.
