Page 48 of Ravaged Wolf
I feel like Cadoc isn’t describing a hypothetical. “Me?” I answer.
“Not you. You’ll be scavenging the woods for a rabbit that looks exactly like Harriet while you concoct a plausible story about how she escaped and miraculously returned home.”
I hope that’s a hypothetical, too. Harriet is adorable.
“I guess I’ll fix this hutch, eh?”
Cadoc grunts. He turns to leave, but before he goes, he stops and levels his gaze at me. “Like I said, I can’t imagine what you’ve gone through, but I want you to know—in case it’s doubt that makes you think you need to leave—the witch wouldn’t have asked you to bring the others here if she didn’t trust you. I wouldn’t have let you stay around my mate and pups. And, say what you will about my father, if he thought you were a monster, there wouldn’t have been a trial or exile. He would have slit your throat.”
My lungs tighten. Six years ago, what he said would’ve dropped me to my knees, but I’m a different male now. A shell. I hear him, but I can’t take the words in.
I give him a grim nod and take my hammer from my belt. I need to claw out these bent nails before I fit new slats.
Cadoc nods back and sees himself off.
Listening. Patience.
I ripped the meat of her shoulder from the bone. I ground her clavicle in my fangs.
What could she possibly want to do except curse me?
What else do I deserve?
10
IZZY
I’m asleep,but this cave-within-a-cave dormitory is new, this bunkbed is new, and so are the sounds of the other females snoring and tossing, so my sleep is shallow. This is a dream.
My wolf stands guard. There are too many unfamiliar sounds and smells.
And her mate is here. Close.
Not only his wolf.Him. She can’t scent him—not with so many shockingly grubby females around—but she knows it all the same. He’s not as close as the main cavern with its tempting pool, which she will be swimming in soon, but he’s not much farther. Maybe he’s sitting just outside the narrow entrance, his back propped against the mossy rock, his forearms resting on his bent knees. Guarding us.
Part of her is pleased, but most of her is angry. He should be here, with us, not skulking outside, leaving us alone in a strange place again.Heshould be the brave one, not her, not us. He’s stronger, after all. If he wasn’t, none of this would have happened.
Growling low in her throat, she bares her fangs whenthe beaded curtains of the dormitory clink, and his wolf strolls in with a fat gray partridge in his maw.
He pads over and drops it at my wolf’s feet, pride in his strut and the swish of his tail. For my wolf, it’s a flash of red to a bull.
She picks the bird up by its head and tosses with all her strength. Its neck snaps, its body goes flying, and blood sprays across the woven rag mat covering the cave floor. She doesn’t want it. This is a dream. She can’t eat dreams. She wants real.
She snarls in his face, snaps at his muzzle, and then tears at the bleeding carcass, shredding it to pieces until it’s an inedible pulp of feathers, muscle, bone, and organs. Then she hunches over it and howls at him while blood drips from her fangs.
She wants her mate.Allof him. He broke this. He has to fix it. We came this far. Does he not want us? Is he disgusted with us, too?
His wolf lowers his head. His blue-gray eyes are sad. He turns and trots toward the door.
A fresh wave of rage rolls over my wolf. She stamps her paw in the bloody mess of partridge.
His wolf looks over his shoulder and jerks his head, asking her to follow him. She lifts her muzzle and with her head held high, she goes to him, surreptitiously wiping her paws on the rug as she goes.
He leads her down a corridor, through the cavern, past the pool and the banked fire and snoring wolves piled together in nests. Because it’s a dream, blue moonshine, glittering with starlight, streams through the opening in the roof, and the den takes on the fairy-like feel of a miniature inside a shadowbox egg.
Then we enter the pitch-black passageway that goes outside, and finally, emerge into fresh night air. His wolfstops. Mine stops beside him. Beside the entrance, just like we imagined, Trevor sits with his back against the den’s outer wall. His knees are bent. His head rests against the rock, and he stares at the moon.
Pain is carved on his face and shines in his eyes, its weight bearing on the bunched muscles of his shoulders.
