Page 83 of The Alpha Dire Wolf
Sylvie
“Vee!”
I came to a screeching halt, nearly tripping over my feet in the race to focus on what I’d just heard. Or thought I heard. There was no way it was possible. Only person recently called me that name, and he was ignoring me. A long, long way away.
Unmoving, I waited for something else to change. For someone to pinch me or shake my leg and tell me to wake up and stop sleeping the day away. That’s what this had to be, a dream, all of it. No way was it real. I was going crazy.
You must believe it fully and completely. If I told you, you would think I was crazy.
The line from my grandmother’s last journal entry leaped off the page and slapped me across the face. It was absurd, of course, to the point I wanted to laugh. No way could she have known that the ancient tree in her backyard would explode and then come back to life and try to kill me, only to be stopped be an equally outsized wolf.
A wolf I’d seen before.
Muscles in my legs twitched, urging me to run. To dart back to the house and reality, where trees didn’t come alive and try to eat me.
“Vee …”
I closed my eyes, my limbs trembling with fear, trying to shut out the voice and the pain that accompanied it. Leaves rustled in the trees around me as branches swayed and rubbed against one another. The light was fading. I was running out of time.
Did I really want to be stuck in this damned forest with that thing? I needed torun. To get out of there. Go somewhere safe. That’s what I needed.
This is impossible. It’s not real! It can’t be!
The thoughts spun in my forebrain like a carousel, rotating between them over, and over, and over. I couldn’t latch on to a thing. My breathing was shaky, uneven. My feet rooted to the ground.
What if itishim?
There it was. The question I’d been trying to avoid. Tying the voice I’d heard calling my name out here to the only person to say it in recent memory.
Screwing my face up tight, I slowly inched my way back around the direction I’d come. The forest itself seemed to sigh, though in relief or anticipation I couldn’t be sure. Branches drooped. The wind died off. But there was no silence. Birds called in the distance. The soft buzz of forest life was still there, still present. I hadn’t realized it before, but when the tree-thing was attacking, everything was silent. It, the forest, the world around me.
Until it screamed. Well, that and the voice I’d heard in my head. But that was also impossible, not real. Wasn’t it?
There was only one way to find out.
Adding my courage to the list of things being screwed up, I took a step back toward the clearing where I’d narrowly escaped death, or perhaps worse. Then another. Of course, I was still hiding behind the big tree trunk, using it to block me from view as I approached. But cowardice kept people alive. Right?
What felt like an eternity later, but was probably no more than a minute, I was out of room. The thick, rough bark of the tree was inches from my face. On the far side, the clearing. It was either look or turn back the way I’d come. But that option had already been discarded. I was too curious not to look, I needed to know too badly. The last thing I could handle was another mystery, another unknown.
Cautiously, I leaned to the side, peering out around the tree and bracing myself. Anything could be there. Anything
You already know what you’re going to find.
I still gasped as I saw the prone form in the middle of the clearing, right near where the wolf had fallen. There was no mistaking that sandy-brown hair, if the gold and black flannel shirt wasn’t already a dead giveaway, rolled up over forearms that I knew perfectly well could do a great many things …
What made me gasp were the blood stains across his body, matting his hair into giant clumps, as well as the limp sprawl on the ground. The man I knew, the man this body belonged to, who was always soaliveto the point that power seemed to constantly struggle to escape his body. To see him this way was the shattering of an illusion.
He was no god. He was mortal. And his mortality was on full display because ofme. He’d suffered those wounds protectingme. In return, what did he get? Me, cowering in the woods, when he desperately needed help.
Adrenaline spurred me into action. I raced across the clearing, skinning my knees as I slid onto them next to him. “Linc? Linc, what are you doing here? Are you okay? Oh my god!”
Up close, he looked even worse. Blood was everywhere.
“Oh, god,” I said, repeating it over at least half a dozen times. “You need an ambulance. I’ve got to go get you help. There’s so much blood, Linc, oh my god.”
Full-blown panic was setting in. I was babbling, my voice rising to a fever pitch.
A hand reached out, grabbing my wrist as I tried to stand. The movement, but also the physical contact, broke through my fog like an arrow bolt.
