Page 24 of The Alpha Dire Wolf
“I’m okay,” I finally managed to eke out, hoping I didn’t sound quite as much like a mouse being strangled as my ears said I did. “Who are you? Why are you following me?”
It was perhaps a bit rude of a first question, but this was the second time I’d seen him. Both times he’d been watching me.
“Following you?” he asked, tilting his head sideways. Somehow that made him evenmoreattractive. “You’re the one following me. You were looking for me.”
“What?” I shook my head forcefully. “No, I wasn’t.”
“Then whoareyou looking for?” he stressed, those damnably different eyes not wavering from me one bit. “I heard you call out for someone. Did you lose them? Did a pet run away?”
“No.” It was all I could manage.
Fresh warmth coasted in on a new gust of wind. The forest sighed happily in response, if such a thing was possible. Birds chirped, and squirrels chittered. A comforting blanket of safety wrapped itself around me as I considered the stranger in front of me.
“Well, I’m the only one out here, and I don’t think I’ve ever met you. Have I?”
“Not unless you count watching me at the cemetery,” I said brazenly. “But, no, we’ve never actually met. I would remember that.”
His full lips ticced upward slightly—not much but enough—and I flushed red all over again, my entire face burning. He didn’t have to say it outright, but it was very clear he’d understood the inflection in my words that I had never intended to put there. Where had it come from? Why the hell couldn’t I control myself around him?
“I was there on business. I apologize for staring. But I must agree,” he said, both eyes burning holes inside me. “I wouldneverforget meeting you.”
Oh, god. His words curled my insides in the hottest, most pleasantly spicy way imaginable. The man couldtalk.
“I didn’t come out here looking for you,” I reiterated, not bothering to hide my attempt at a topic change. If he took one step toward me, I wasn’t sure what would happen. Not with him looking like … like …that!
“Did you find what you were looking for?” He shifted his weight, pulling his shoulders back and emphasizing the fit and muscle his gray flannel was hiding.
“No, I didn’t,” I said, thinking about the wolf with matching eyes. “I’m not sure I ever will. It’s confusing.”
I tried to wave it off, like it was nothing. The man didn’t let it go. He leaned a little closer. We were separated by something like ten feet still, but I swore he could have kissed me had he come another inch. The pull of hiseverythingwas sucking me in, a black hole threatening to take hold of me and never let go.
“I understand,” he said with far greater gravity than two words spoken between strangers should ever be able to contain. “But you shouldn’t be out here.”
The spell broke over the hardness as he spoke.
“I shouldn’t? Why the hell not?”
“Because some secrets are best left buried,” he said, his face losing its warmth and becoming cold steel as hard as his muscles. “You should leave them that way. Don’t come back looking again.”
Without waiting for a response, he was gone. A cold wind escorted him out. The forest pulled back, bushes shrinking, limbs lifting away. It was empty.
“Wait!” I shouted, rushing off after the man without taking a moment to think it through. “You can’t just go!”
The forest seemed to swallow him up. I followed his footprints for a few dozen steps before skidding to a halt as a fallen tree loomed out of the bushes. At the base of it was a thick, unmistakable print of a boot.
Haphazardly I climbed over the trunk that was almost as tall as I was, looking wildly on the ground beyond, desperate to find another print. I had so many questions for the mysterious forest-man with two different eyes.
What I saw on the other side pinned me in place. I didn’t dare jump off the log. Not now.
In the soft forest floor on the other side of the log, clear as day, was a print. But it wasn’t that of a boot. It was larger. With fewer, but far broader toes.
A wolf.
I looked deep into the bushes and the forest nearby, trying to figure out what had happened. Where had the man gone? Wasthe wolf here watching us the entire time? Why? What did it mean?
For a moment, I wondered if perhaps it had attacked the mystery man, hunting him as it did its other prey. No. I would have heard screams if that were the case. Besides, that man, whoever he was, he was no prey.
That man was a hunter, just like the wolf.
