Tropical Wounded Wolf (Shifting Sands Resort 2)

He stirred and muttered, but didn’t wake from his restless sleep.

“Neal, listen to me. You have to shift, you have to. I can’t heal you, I don’t know how. But your wolf can, if you let him.”

He didn’t snap this time, far too deep in his fever to register her words or fight the idea— but too far, also, to understand the urgency.

Would he die this way, stubbornly resisting his animal form to the very end?

Mary’s hands clenched reflexively. She couldn’t let that happen.

Neal, she said firmly, without speaking. Neal!

There was no answer, just muffled silence behind her closed eyes.

Dammit, Neal, I love you, and I’m not going to let you go like this.

Deeper and deeper she fell into his mind, through fever-crazy dreams and prickling fears.

I won’t leave you, she told him.

Then, abruptly, Mary was kneeling in a sunlit plain with no sky, her deer standing beside her. Neal’s human form was limp in her arms, ghostly transparent and cool to the touch. She looked for his wolf form, expecting to find it lying nearby in the tall grass.

You have to find him, her deer told her urgently. They need each other.

Mary tilted her head back and shouted with all of her strength, “Neal!” It echoed back to her through the strange cavernous space, mockingly. Neal! Neal!

As the last echo faded, he came.

Mary had expected him to be injured, as the human self was, but the red maned wolf pranced through the grass on long springy legs, eyes feral and mocking and full—unexpectedly—of anger.

He needs you, she said, and she heard her deer say the same in chorus with her.

He doesn’t want me, the wolf said slyly. He rejects me.

His look for Neal’s ghostly form was full of contempt.

He is hurt, Mary told him. He will die without you.

He is weak, the wolf retorted.

You will die without him, Mary’s deer said, and she paced in circles through the grass, tossing her delicate head.

I am not weak, the wolf scoffed, and he circled the deer hungrily.

You are angry, said Mary with sudden clarity. He is not the one who hurt you, but you have no one else left to blame.

The wolf paused, and the deer put her nose down to touch his in his moment of stillness, fearless and determined.

I can still run, he replied at last.

I can run faster, Mary’s deer said gently.

The wolf pulled his lips back in a snarl, but the deer did not back down, keeping her velvety nose against his.

You can heal him, Mary begged, watching Neal’s human form fade further and threaten to blow away altogether.

He can heal you, her deer added to the wolf.

The wolf flicked his big ears, staring back into the deer’s eyes without words.