But human hunters wouldn’t be able to smell it. We had a little time. Settle down.
I’d brought my cell phone but still didn’t get reception. Probably another ten to twenty miles before we’d get close. We couldn’t haul Conrad that far, and if we didn’t get him stationary and hydrated, he’d die of blood loss before that. The lodge was maybe three miles away. We could defend ourselves better there than we could in the open.
“We have to go back,” I said.
Conrad looked up, focused a moment. So he was lucid and paying attention. Good. “Do we have to?”
“We can’t stay in the open,” I said.
“We’re safer with the others,” Tina said. Conrad nodded. Maybe he was ready to be a team player. “Should we try to wash his leg off in the lake?”
I shook my head. “Stuff’s not clean enough. We’ll use bottled water at the lodge.” Be optimistic—we’d get back just fine. “Conrad, you ready?”
He made a sound, half sob, half chuckle. “No. But that’s okay.”
“That’s the spirit,” I said. Tina and I gathered ourselves, hoisted Conrad over our shoulders, and set off.
We made more noise than I was comfortable with, pushing around shrubs, shuffling through debris on the forest floor. Conrad couldn’t stay quiet, and I couldn’t force him to. He was doing well, considering. I tried to turn my hearing outward, searching for sounds and smells of approaching danger, and couldn’t sense anything. I couldn’t let it get to me. Just had to press forward. We’d take a break outside the lodge; I’d scout for Cabe and Provost and get in touch with the others.
Progress was slow. It would take us a couple of hours at least. We had to keep stopping to rearrange our grip on Conrad, to let him rest. Tina and I were both dripping sweat, despite the cool air. We had only just reached the edge of the lake when the hairs on my neck started prickling. Like fur, like hackles rising. The undeniable sense of being followed. Of walking into danger.
I pulled the others to a stop and waved her to silence when Tina started to speak. Conrad’s head lolled; he’d been drifting in and out of consciousness. I propped them both against a tree and took a few steps away, to get a taste of air that didn’t have so much blood, sweat, and fear in it.
A hint of breeze gave me a scent that bowled me over. I crouched, nose up, taking it in, trying to figure out what it meant. This was wild. Musk wild, without a hint of human to it. Wolf whined; my hands clenched.
The smell of blood had attracted predators.
A wolf stepped out of the trees in front of me. Tail stiff, head down, amber eyes glaring. Earthen gray and brown fur, standing on end. Lip curled, showing teeth.
And all I could think was, he looked so small. Because he wasn’t a lycanthrope.
I knelt, face-to-face with a natural, wild wolf.
chapter 18
Montana had wild wolves. I knew that. I just hadn’t thought about it. I hadn’t thought that I would ever encounter one.
Make that five. Four more came into view, another one ahead, the others to each side of me. Two females, two more males. I could smell them, the differences—I recognized the scents, even though it seemed so wrong. They were various shades of brown and gray, pale on their bellies, tails tipped with black. They smelled like a pack. Like a family. But not mine.
I had never seen wolves in the wild before. I hadn’t even seen one in a zoo since I’d become a lycanthrope. Zoo smells of musk and far too many creatures crammed into too small a space were more than my sensitive nose could handle. Kind of like this. So wild, and so alien. I almost howled for real, because I could feel
the need to Change, Wolf writhing within me. Face wolves as a wolf, it was the only way. But I breathed slow, hugged myself, pulled the need inside.
“Kitty,” Tina whispered. She’d spotted them, too.
I held my hand out, stopping her. “You two, stay up. Stay standing, stay tall, tall as you can.”
Real, wild wolves. They seemed agitated—and who could blame them, with the recent explosion and all sorts of crazies tromping through their territory. They were looking at me. Circling me, studying me. I could read it—the body language was the same. The wary stance, hackles straight up, this waiting to see what I would do. The readiness to defend themselves. They weren’t sure if we were prey or something else. They waited for me to reply.
My eyes were wide, my heart racing—I felt like prey, and they were sizing me up. But I didn’t know what to do.
Yes, you do, the lupine voice within me whispered. Look away, don’t stare at them, lower your head, slouch. Tell them you aren’t a threat. On all fours now, I did that. Turned my shoulder to them. Held my back as if I had a lowered tail. Kept my gaze down. I whispered to Tina, “Don’t look at them. Look down.”
To a predator, a stare was a challenge. I didn’t stare. I couldn’t see what Tina was doing. Not panicking, I hoped.
I put myself between Tina, Conrad, and the wolves. They’d smelled blood—injured prey. They were just following instincts. They’d try to get around Tina and me and get to Conrad. If we were deer, that was what they’d do. I let Wolf seep into my being, as much as I could without shifting, until the world wavered to gray wolf-sight, and I smelled my own fur. Maybe they would smell it, too, and not think us so different than them. With every hair of Wolf’s being, I tried to tell them, We don’t want trouble, we’re not invading. Just passing through. But you can’t have the sick one, he’s ours, our pack. Mine. Let us pass. No trouble here.
We were invaders. They’d have every right to attack. But maybe this was just odd enough that they’d pass us by.