Page 111 of The Last Sanctuary
Chapter Forty-Eight
Raven watched in mounting alarm as another wolf appeared beside the first.
And then a third and a fourth wolf. Then two more, then three more, until nine wolves were ranging around them, perhaps thirty yards away, no less.
Red wolves were not native to Georgia, though she remembered her father telling her that a few wild packs survived further north in the Chattahoochee National Forest. A wolf pack wouldn’t normally travel so near to humans, but everything had changed. There were far fewer humans now.
For a split second, she’d hoped it was Loki or Aspen, but these were not the wolves of Haven Wildlife Refuge.
They were smaller than Shadow at sixty to eighty pounds, but the wolves were lean and long and lethal. Two of the wolves bared their teeth.
Raven went rigid. The whittling knife in one hand, the half-carved bear in the other hand. She kept still and quiet so they wouldn’t see her as a threat.
Shadow raised his hackles. His ears laid back against his skull. He snarled another warning. Aggressive, dominant.
There were nine of them against the black wolf, if they decided to attack. They could circle him, come at him from multiple angles, tear into him, piece by piece. Wolves regularly took down much larger prey. They could take down Shadow.
Raven shuddered. Fear caught like a hook in her chest. Her rifle lay at her feet next to her pack. She didn’t want to kill any of them, but she’d shoot as many as she could to protect Shadow. She didn’t like their odds, though, two against nine.
The red wolves remained at the fringe of the clearing. They didn’t slink closer. Neither did they back down or disappear. One of the wolves, the largest one and the closest, raised its head and howled. The other wolves joined in.
Their howling joined in a lilting chorus. It was a high, plaintive sound. Beautiful and haunting. The hairs raised on the back of Raven’s neck.
The wolves weren’t threatening to attack. Something else was happening here. Her heart thudded harder against her bruised ribs. The coppery taste of dread settled in her throat.
Shadow’s ears pricked forward. She waited, not daring to breathe, to see what he would do. To see if he would howl back.
Sometimes a pack would announce a vacancy, putting out a call to any nearby lone wolves who wished to fill it. Potential candidates would be challenged by the pack to ensure the chosen one was strong, smart, and capable enough to defend and protect their new family. Then, they would welcome the new wolf as one of their own.
Shadow was the lone wolf.
They must have heard his mournful, solitary howling over the last several nights, and they had come to find him, to feel him out, to allow him to audition, if he so desired.
Did Shadow feel like a lone wolf? Did he want to join his own kind? Though he was a hybrid, they still seemed willing to accepthim. Their howls increased in volume, mingling with yips and yelps, filling the clearing with their symphony.
Shadow looked over his broad shoulder at her. His amber eyes were steady as he stared at her. As if he were asking her for permission.
Her gut tightened. She felt like she was balanced on the edge of a cliff, about to fall into a bottomless black pit of nothingness.
“Do you want to go?” she asked.
His tail swished once, twice, three times. His hackles had lowered. He stared at the wolves with great interest. More than curious, he seemed fascinated by them.
Three of the red wolves loped eagerly back and forth along the edge of the clearing. The biggest wolf lifted its head again and howled, long and loud and high.
Shadow gave a low yip. It wasn’t a howl of acceptance. Not yet. Not quite.
He glanced back at Raven again, whined low in his throat, plaintive and woeful.
Did she detect yearning in that whine? Longing in that amber gaze?
The words hurt to speak aloud. They were like boulders in her throat. But she knew this if she knew nothing else: love always gave the choice.
“I understand,” she said, barbed wire in her throat. “You lost Luna. It’s only me, now. You deserve a family, too. You and Luna saved me. You have my blessing, my loyal friend.” It felt like dying. The thought of losing Shadow like losing a part of her soul. Still, she spoke the words aloud. “You can go. You can go to them if that’s what you need.”
Shadow did not go. He did not bound off into the meadow and join the waiting wolves as she expected, as she dreaded with every fiber of her being.
Instead, he turned and loped back to her side. He pressed lightly against her thighs. She rested her hand on the ruff of his neck. The feel of the fur beneath her fingers, the taut strong muscles bunched beneath his skin.
