Page 96 of The Alpha Dire Wolf
I ran inside and upstairs, pausing at the window to watch him as he threw another shovelful of chips on the pile. He casually flipped the spade around and jammed its end into the ground, resting on it as he stared into the fire. His shoulders rose and fell in a tremendous breath.
Then he straightened, nodded, and went to work stirring up the pile and making sure everything was exposed to flame to burn.
I hurried into the bedroom and did as I was told, climbing into the shower. It was a fast one because I needed the water to be cold. It was the only thing that kept the flames in my blood at bay.
Flames that yearned for Lincoln.
Getting dressed, I met him at the bottom of the stairs. We were quite the pair. Me with my clean black tank top and jeans, looking mostly fresh and alive, hair pulled back in a pony, and then Lincoln. Ripped and tattered shirt, barely holding itself together. Matching pants that showed enough skin to be scandalous a hundred years ago. Blood stains on both thathadn’t fully come out, and bruises and cuts on his face that looked like he’d been on the losing end of a group beat-down.
“Thank you for this,” I said, slipping on my shoes and pulling open the front door.
Crack-boom!
Thunder exploded unexpectedly.
I flung myself at Lincoln with a yelp despite silence from my intuition.
“What’s wrong?” he asked, confusion in his voice.
But not in his actions. Even as he asked, he was sweeping me behind him with one arm, the other curling into a fist, ready for anything.
“Thunder,” I said, peering around his shoulder at the handful of clouds in an otherwise blue sky. It was broad enough I had to lean way over onto one leg. “But no clouds.”
“Maybe we just can’t see it?” he suggested.
“This happened last time,” I whispered nervously. “It’s what brought the tree-thing about. The sky went black without warning followed by a single blast of lightning.”
My spine was still, however, no warning claws scratching their way down my vertebrae. Still, it hadn’t gone off right away the first time either.
“Stay here,” Lincoln rumbled, walking out the front door and down the steps to the driveway where he could look around.
“There. See. Storm is coming in.” His eyes narrowed. “Looks like it’s going to be a bad one.”
Tentatively, but trusting him to keep me safe, I went outside, following his arm. There, just as promised on the far side of town, storm clouds were brewing.
Lightning flashed again, and a split second later, the crack of thunder followed. I flinched, but I didn’t jump into his arms this time. It was improvement.
“We should head out now, though,” Lincoln said. “Get moving before it hits.”
“Yeah,” I said in agreement, watching the clouds come boiling in. “They’re moving awfully fast.”
Again, my instincts were quiet. No warning of danger.
“It does,” Lincoln agreed as we got in my car. “Doesn’t it?”
“Should we wait?” I asked, trying to keep my nervousness from showing.
It’s a normal thunderstorm. You get those. You like those, always have. This is not what happened yesterday. You’re fine. You can do this.
“No,” Lincoln said, pulling open the door. “We should get going.”
I started driving, following Lincoln’s directions. It quickly became clear why he didn’t want to delay.
“We’re heading right at the storm,” I pointed out a few minutes later. The sky above us was still blue, but it wouldn’t be that way for long.
“Unfortunately, we don’t have much choice. That’s the direction I live. To take you there, we have to go that way.”
It’s just a storm.
