Page 73 of The Last Sanctuary
They did not appear threatening. Still, to be in close quarters with such powerful, lethal creatures was disconcerting.
Raven curled up on the rocky ground on the far-right side of the cave to give the wolves their space. She lay facing the entrance, the rifle next to her.
The cold hardness of the rock seeped through her clothes. Though the dank air within the cave was significantly warmer than it was outside, it was still frigid. Her breath expelled in white clouds. She shivered.
Feeling cold was a good thing, wasn’t it? She pressed the back of her hand to her forehead. Still no fever. But her throat was dry and hurt when she swallowed. She was so tired. Every muscle hurt. Was that a symptom of the Hydra Virus? She couldn’t remember. She was too tired to think about anything.
Which was a good thing. Her eyes stung with a fountain of unshed tears. Grief was always there, crouched deep inside her. Her heart was a mangled wreck. Zachariah was gone. Her father, dead. Everything she loved, in peril. She was being hunted, forced to take shelter with huge furry predators who could devour her if they so wished.
No use thinking about any of that now. She could worry and mourn in the morning, if she lived through the night. And if she did live, she needed a plan.
After a few hours of sleep, she could think clearly enough to figure something out. For now, she desperately needed sleep.
Raven flicked off the flashlight to conserve the battery. She fought to keep her eyes open, determined to remain alert.
While she wasn’t afraid of the wolves—well, maybe a little—Vlad was still out there. So were the Headhunters. She couldn’t afford to let her guard down.
Despite her best efforts, her eyelids grew heavier and heavier. She breathed in the sweetly dank scent of wolf and watched the narrow sliver of daylight beyond the cave entrance blur and fade to darkness.
Chapter Thirty-One
Raven awoke with a start.
For an instant, she had no idea where she was or why. Complete darkness enveloped her. Her limbs were stiff. Her muscles ached. The ground beneath her was hard and cold.
Something huge, hot, and hairy pressed against her right side. Something equally warm and incredibly heavy lay across her legs.
Bewildered, her heart rate spiked. She reached tentative fingers into the dark. Her palm skimmed a dense pelt of fur. Beneath the fur, the rise and fall of steady breathing.
She blinked rapidly, her eyes adjusting to the darkness. The palest hint of starlight trickled in from the cave entrance.
Gradually, she made out Luna’s pale silvery shape sleeping beside her. The dark form of Shadow sprawled across her shins. His head was lowered, his muzzle resting on his forelegs.
His eyes gleamed faintly. He was awake, keeping watch. Protecting Raven and Luna. Protecting his pack.
Powerful emotions surged in her chest. Astonishment. Wonder. A deep, incredible awe. It was extraordinary. These feral creatures. Accepting her as one of their own.
The world was unbearably broken. This was true. The world also held a profound and fragile beauty. An unknowable magic, the unexpected and unexplainable.
Little by little, she became aware of another feeling expanding within her ribcage: a deep sense of contentment. Even amid the grief and the fear and the horror. In that moment, she felt at peace.
She was somehow a part of the wolves, and they were a part of her. Her soul connected to the universe, connected to the great whirling galaxy of stars and planets and suns, to God, to everything.
It was like nothing she’d ever felt.
It was belonging. It was comfort. It was connection.
Memories flooded her mind. The times she and her father had spent together: deep in the forest, crouched in a blind, waiting to spot a deer; shoveling bonobo dung and cracking poop jokes; lugging great hunks of meat to the wolves; field dressing a snared rabbit.
In all those years, he had never hugged her. He’d never put his hand on her shoulder in approval or tugged affectionately on her hair. He had never once said, “I love you.”
Before her mother left, she used to tell Raven, “You know he loves you.”
That was not true, though. Raven hadn’t known. And neither had her mother, drowning in her unhappiness and misery until it drove her to despair. Until, finally, it drove her to abandon her daughter, too.
Raven remembered that day. The day she wished she could erase, take back, that she’d buried so deep, she hoped the guilt could never hurt her. It could, though. It could and it did.
The image flared in her mind, unbidden. Her mother, sitting at the kitchen table, clutching a cup of coffee, the light streamingfrom the window haloing her dark hair. And her words: “Do you want to come with me?”
