Page 67 of A Wolf's Wound
“Shadow!”she scolds.“Stay close.”
The raccoon tilts his head like a small dog, considering her words.Then he ignores her completely, charging into the woods when we stop in a small clearing by a spring.
“Shadow!”
“Let him,” I say.“Unless you want to chase after him all day.”
He scurries up a nearby tree, still mostly in eyeshot, and she gives in, rolling her eyes.“He’s such a brat.”
“Like his—”
“Don’t even.”But she’s smiling.“So, what am I learning today?”
“Judo.”I demonstrate a basic fighting stance.“You don’t need to be the biggest to win a fight if you know how to use momentum to your advantage.”
She looks appropriately skeptical at this.
“I’m serious.My mom’s a black belt.I saw her flip a guy twice her size like he was a pancake.”
Hannah’s eyebrows raise before she snorts.“She’s also a wolf.”
“So was the guy.”
At that, she nods, clearly impressed.“Your mom is pretty awesome, you know?Being mayor and all.Where I come from, women sort of get lost in the pack while men run things.”
The thought of my mom meekly letting anyone run her life makes me bark out a laugh.“It might not look like it, but women run our pack.I think Gavin tried to boss Mom around once, right when he became alpha, and she had him yelping like a pup with his tail between his legs.”
He’d tried to tell her she couldn’t be mayor, that she should focus more on pack duties instead.After the tongue-lashing he got in return, he’d been out that afternoon with me, hanging up the flyers announcing her candidacy.
“All right, we’re going to work on gripping sequences and how to win some space.”
Hannah takes to it well.I can see why she became a vet.She’s smart as hell, learning so quickly that she’s twisting my arm back in no time, winning some space in between our bodies.Next, we work on some counters and butterfly sweeps.It’s all good until I remember judo’s a contact sport when we move on to grappling.
Our bodies are making a lot of contact.
“Ha!”She grins over me, her knees pressing into my thighs as she pins my hands with hers.“What do I win?”
I look up at her, and she’s looking back.Her smile has faded, but her lips are still parted.Her breath escapes in pants, and a bead of sweat rolls down her neck into the swell of her breasts.She leans forward, our lips almost brush—
Several howls echo across the forest.
Hannah springs backward so fast she nearly falls.
“Why are they howling?Did something happen?”
Chapter 38
Hannah
Ryder’smusclestensebeneathmy hands.Holy shit, there’s a lot of muscle there.I’d enjoy it more if I weren’t preparing to sprint away from danger.
“Ryder?”
The howling fades, and he slumps back down to the ground.His head hits the dirt carelessly.
“Just the morning rounds.”
“Oh.”
