Page 29 of Running with Direwolves
Her heart stuttered and she scooted closer to Grady. He didn’t stop, he alighted the train then turned and took her into the curve of his arm.
She’d lost Tarl’s presence behind her.
“What’s going on?” she asked, fear sliding into her veins. Was this it? Was this as far as she was going to get?”
“Your scarf, sir, you’ve dropped it.”
“It’s okay,” Grady said, “Tarl dropped something, it’s only the guard.”
“Is he looking at me?”
“No, and we won’t give him a chance.” Grady walked to the right, heading along the platform at speed. “Tarl will catch us up.”
Sure enough, by the time they’d ducked out of the station and navigated past a row of cabs, Tarl was beside them again. “Damn scarf,” he muttered. “Didn’t even realize it had come out of my rucksack.”
Grady shrugged. “We’ll go north.”
“How?” Sienna risked a look around.
The town was quiet, not a tourist spot, and there had been a frost making the ground sparkle.
“I told you, you can ride.” Tarl grinned and winked.
“I’m not sure if—”
“Not really any choice, honey.” Grady shrugged. “But we can’t shift here, we need to get to the forest. This way.”
He didn’t wait for the others to agree and headed off, Sienna still in the safety of his arm.
A car drove past, stuttering from its exhaust, and two children pedaled frantically in a race with each other to a chilly looking park. A ginger cat stepped in front of them and instantly hissed, arching as it backed away.
“Cats hate us,” Tarl said. “Whether we’re human or direwolves.”
“They’ve never liked me either,” Sienna said. “I guess that’s why I ended up working in the canine enclosure.”
After ten minutes of walking, they came to the last of the houses. Before them stretched a dense-looking forest. A slight mist hung over the tips of the fir trees and a huge bird of prey soared in the heavy gray sky.
“Come on,” Grady sped up, as though the need to shift was getting greater. “We’re almost there.”
“And then what? You shift and I just climb onboard?”
“And hold on tight.” Tarl curled his hand over her shoulder.
“How long for?”
“It will take us an hour to cross the border then we’ll go northeast for another three hours. That should get us there late evening.”
“To Kochi?”
“Yeah, to Kochi.”
She nodded. Was she strong enough to hold onto the back of a direwolf for so long? She hoped so, and there was only one way to find out.
The hard ground crunched underfoot and the air was damp and heavy with the scent of mulch.
Tarl dropped his rucksack to the ground and began to strip off.
Grady was still searching, looking for anyone who might spot them shifting.
