Page 57 of Ravaged Wolf
“I’m good on that. I need some human money. And to borrow a bike.”
“Ah, man, you gonna run? That’s a shame. Your female is gonna be heartbroken. Who she gonna be looking around for all the time if you bail?”
“She looks around for me?”
“I assume it’s you. You’re her mate, right?” Bevan tucks his baggies back.
I tuck that nugget away for later. “I only need five bucks. And I’ll only be gone a few hours.”
“On a mysterious mission, eh? Cool, cool. No need to ask about the bike. Those are communal property. Except if you take one of the bikes that the nobs consider theirs, then you’re stealing, and you have to listen to them bitch about it.”
“Which bikes belong to the nobs’?”
“None of ’em. Like I said, they’re all communal property. It’s a crap shoot. If you come back, and one of ’em is pissed, then you stole it.” Bevan shrugs. “Now, the money…I don’t have it, but I can get it. Gimme ten minutes.”
“Thanks, man.”
“Hang out here,” Bevan says, tilts his head back, empties the cheese doodle dregs into his mouth, and sneezes. When he’s done, he takes off across the den to the area where the ranked wolves from Moon Lake tend to congregate and pulls Seth Rosser aside.
Seth doesn’t seem friendly—even back at Moon Lake, he was not a friendly male—and his face darkens as he listens to whatever Bevan is saying. Finally, Bevan finishes his spiel and cocks his head, waiting for an answer. Seth scowls, but eventually, he takes his wallet out and shoves a wad of bills at Bevan.
Bevan grins, flashing his gold teeth, and then reaches into his weed pocket, digs deep, and takes out a simple woven cord bracelet with odds and ends like bottle caps and shells hung from it like charms. Seth immediately shoves the bracelet into his own pocket and turns back to his group of Moon Lakers.
Bevan bounds back to me. “All right, all right, the day is looking up,” he says, counting his stack. It’s at least a hundred bucks in small bills.
“All that for a bracelet?”
“All that for that specific bracelet,” he says and hands me a ten. “Keep the change. Treat yourself to something special.” He laughs and saunters off, and I head for the bikes.
It’s a long-time habit for me to fly under the radar as best I can and avoid pissing people off, and I try to figure out which bikes might be spoken for, but there’s no way to tell. I end up taking the one in the worst condition, and make a mental note to replace the sprockets and clean the rusty chain when I get back.
I’m not really sure where I’m going, except for southeast. A human road abuts the territory boundary there, and I figure if I follow it long enough, I’ll find what I’m looking for. I’ve got a full tank of gas and five extra dollars, so I’m fairly confident I can make this happen.
My wolf isn’t privy to my plans, so when I drive away from the den, he loses his mind, howling and launching himself into the border between us.
No.
Stay.
Don’t leave her again.
Never again.
I try to breathe through it, try to cast pictures of my goal into his mind, but he’s past listening. I have to pull over to get him back under control, and I’m struggling, until I feel a sharp tingle sensation in the bond. My wolf and I both freeze. For the past six years, there has been nothing but radio silence from our mate. I communicate, but it’s like the radio signal that NASA sends into space. I could very well be transmitting into the void.
My wolf perks his ears. I focus on the place near my heart where the bond connects.
Izzy’s wolf yaps.
It’s not a real, audible yap. It’s more of animpressionof ayap, but it’s clear as day. She wants to know what the ruckus is about.
Now my wolf is in a quandary. The last thing he wants to do is alarm or upset her, but he is alarmed and upset. I will him to chill out, desperately tossing images at him of us returning to the den to stand guard by the corridor to her nest. He doesn’t trust me, but he’s stuck. He lets out a reassuring rumble.
Izzy’s wolf yaps again to let him know what she thinks about him worrying her over nothing.
For the next few minutes, I stand alone by the side of the road, straddling a busted dirt bike, while my wolf and I listen with bated breath to hear whether our mate will speak to us again through the bond. She doesn’t, and we continue on our way, my wolf wary but calm, my heart filled with hope.
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