Page 85 of White Wolf
“Fairy tale monsters coming in to kill all the Nazis and rescue the Motherland?”
Yes. Exactly. She shrugged. “Are you so sure they’re monsters at all?”
He sighed. “I know they’re real. I’ll have to think about the monster part.”
A yawn snuck up on her; she tried to smother it into her bed roll, but no such luck.
“Go to sleep,” Nikita said. “The wolves will keep watch.”
“Not sleepy,” she protested, but her eyes were already closing.
She dreamed of wolves, and men with fangs…and the Chekist lying beside her.
20
DANCING
Sasha swung wide around the stream, keeping to the trees, the wind in his face concealing his own scent, while bringing to him that of a young stag drinking at the streambed.
He’d hunted before – and he’d been successful – though now he wasn’t sure how. Now he could hear the squelch of mud beneath hooves; could smell the mustiness of dander as the deer shed his winter coat and the new spring hair pushed through. He swore he could hear the animal’sthoughts, as he crouched in the underbrush with his pack.
He knew his alpha female was going around to the left, one of his strong beta boys to the right. They would close in –
Now. The stag threw his head into the air, nostrils testing the air. He snorted, once, and then leapt into the water, plunging across…
Straight into the heart of the pack.
He carried no gun. There was no keeping still, holding his breath, lining up his careful shot. It was nothing like hunting had always been. His mind shut itself away. And the wolf came out.
Cold air in his lungs. Scent in his nose. Ground underfoot. Wind in his hair. Jump, leap, grab, grip. Knife in his hand. Heat and press of his pack around him. Blood on his tongue.
When he came back to himself, he stood over the steaming body, his pack looking up at him with red, smiling jaws.
“Good,” he crooned to them, bent down and slung the stag across his shoulders. It didn’t seem to weigh a thing.
~*~
It was a cool day, but sweat trickled down her sides beneath her uniform shirt. She’d folded the sleeves back, and she could see the fine hairs on her arms standing on end. Sweat beaded at her temples, burned at the corners of her eyes. Her palm, though, was dry and sure around the handle of her combat knife, her gaze unwavering as she watched Kolya, turning to keep up with him as he circled her.
Before the war, before all of this started, she would have fainted at the sight of him. Even now, with months of sniper training under her belt, she felt her stomach tremble with nerves.
Ivan was the biggest, but Kolya was without question the most threatening. His was a quiet, controlled menace. In his black trousers, and shirtsleeves, and boots, a knife in each hand, watching her from dead, dark eyes not unlike those of their wolves…he looked like he planned to kill her.
She wasn’t sure he wouldn’t.
“Now,” he said, and twirled the knife in his right hand. Forward grip. Then reverse. Then forward again. “The thing to remember is: don’t watch the knife, watch the man.”
She nodded and tightened her hand on her own knife.
“You’re watching the knife.”
And she was, damn it, because he kept twirling it, letting the sharp edge catch the light. He was trying to distract her, and it was working.
“Watch me,” he said, and then lunged toward her.
Katya jerked back, tripped over her own feet, and promptly fell on her backside in the dirt.
“Oh,” Pyotr said, concerned.
