Page 104 of Corbin
A sharp smell on the wind yanked her head to the right. She sniffed again to be sure. Wolf.
The pack was close by. Just as she’d planned.
Good. Nico was safe. He had to be.
But ... what would happen to Nico if the wolves killed her?
Her bear rumbled at her, attempting to convince Elianna she had options if she’d let her bear out.
Elianna rolled her eyes. She had never put her bear in a life-and-death situation, because the silly animal would rather swim—or chase that tabby cat to play with—than fight a pack of wolves. Did her bear think she actually believed this attempt to help?
Me swim, me swim, me swim,her bear said in a singsong voice.
See? Her bear was never serious. Even if Elianna could bring a bear to this fight, being exposed as a shifter in this city could blow up in her face if humans found out her true identity.
She and Nico would be hunted to sell for experiments.
The Black River pack was rumored to pay top dollar.
Shaking off that thought, Elianna sharpened her attention. Survive tonight first, then figure out how to leave this place immediately.
She’d met Lubov, a merchant ship captain, when she’d been hired at the docks to unload the smaller vessels, and the old guy liked her. As a walrus shifter, something she’d never heard of before she’d met him, he would understand her dilemma better than a human would.
He’d once told her if she was ever in trouble to come to him.
She was in much trouble.
He might let her owe him for the fare.
With each breath she drew, icy air spiked her lungs and stung like tiny needles, but still, she preferred the cold.
Her nose twitched. The stink of wolf came from the left this time.
They were surrounding her, hunting as a pack.
In fact, this particular bunch was rumored to pass a woman around, which meant they’d probably done the same to her mother. They must have drugged her mother, or they’d have faced a polar bear who would have crushed their skulls. Elianna wouldn’t shift, but these wolves would lose body parts, favorite body parts, before she went down.
She looked longingly at where moonlight dusted the mountains and volcanoes in the distance. She could have led the pack out there where she would have had the advantage of knowing the land better than a visitor, and also of shifting if she’d decided to make that gamble, but the wolf shifters might have lost patience and come back to hunt for Nico instead.
No, this was it. She would make her stand here.
Rising to her full height, all five foot eight inches, she prepared for the attack.
Then she heard them moving in.
They weren’t being quiet. They didn’t care that she heard them coming. They wanted to terrorize her.
She stepped out of her cubbyhole and put her back to the brick wall, which felt like a block of ice.
Two figures emerged from behind one of the frontend loaders. They’d probably jumped the fence on that side.
Two more dropped to the right of her from the roofline, like demons spit from the night. Fifty-gallon, steel drums were stacked in a three-high pyramid on her left.
The wolves smelled of her mother’s death.
Blood splattered their faces and clothes where they’d ripped apart her body.
Elianna’s heart quivered at the horrible pain her mother must have suffered.
