Wild (Savage Alpha Shifters 1)

Oh no.

I swerve right and the animal slides left while I watch a spiderweb-like crack sprawl across my windshield under the mass of it. The animal falls off to the side and the damage to my windshield glints in the moonlight. The moon sticks out, a massive glowing three-dimensional orb directly ahead of me. I slam on the brakes, strangely feeling like I could actually hit the moon as my car veers way too close to that drop to my right. My gaze hits my rear-view mirror, catching motion. Whatever it is that I hit, it rises slowly like a dark and ominous shadow. It moves, staggering as it does, before it disappears from view. I give my head a shake. Was that a bear? A wolf? Too big to be a wolf but not quite wide enough to be a brown bear, I don’t think.

I turn the car off to the sound of nothing but nature – nature that sounds unusually loud in my ears. I hope that whatever it is, I didn’t hurt it enough that it’ll suffer a slow death. Poor thing.

I look ahead and it dawns I’m on a funny angle, pointing toward the sharp incline. I turn the car back on, but then my belly swoops. It feels like I’m sliding. I brake while I take a breath and then throw the car into reverse. The tires do nothing but spin and then my car lurches forward some more, sliding a good three or four feet, I think, and I squeal in shock.

It feels like I’m sinking.

It’s been a cool spring so far, but maybe the ground is finally thawing, because my car is clearly sinking into mud. When Megan and I got to the cabin, the ground was pretty squishy between the cabin and the car, so I tiptoed carefully in, hoping I wouldn’t ruin my new purple boots that perfectly match the new chunky streaks in my blonde hair.

I’m stuck. In the muck. How fitting after the evening I’ve had. I set my forehead against the cool steering wheel as if it’ll help.

There’s another lurch, then the car rocks, as if something has hit underneath the front and I jerk as my eyes dart ahead into the darkness, but I see nothing.

I see nothing, but I sure feel and hear something. The car slides forward another foot or so and stops.

Fuzz. A big tree is not far ahead of me. If I slide another six feet, I’m guessing my car will hit the tree.

Crunch!

The car doesn’t move but the crunch sound is a bad sign and came from the passenger side.

I see nothing, but I hear something hit the car again and my car moves back just a little but then lurches forward and there’s all sorts of noise out there as I slide further.

Have I angered a bear because I hit it and now it’s trying to enact vengeance on my poor little purple car? It could’ve been a massive cat like a panther with those reflective eyes, but I don’t know. Are there panthers around here? Or mountain lions?

I look at my phone. Still no signal.

Another noise tweaks me, but this time, it’s not coming from the front or the back. And it feels like I’m being watched.

Something is looking in the window at me. I gasp, holding my phone in my hand and taking in those reflective eyes, the long line of fur down to a big black nose. A wolf. A massively humungous wolf, bigger than any wolf I’ve ever seen in a zoo or even on television, is peering through the window. It sniffs and condensation forms on the glass around its face.

Shit! I think it wants to eat me.

I haul air into my lungs. And then… nothing. I’m frozen, in shock, as I see those eyes on me.

I can’t breathe.

I finally exhale with a “Shoo”.

I wave at it as if to add emphasis.

At least I’m inside the car, but I’m utterly trapped here for the night because no way in Hades am I climbing out if there’s the slightest chance a scary dire wolf waits for me. Okay, I know dire wolves are extinct, but that thing was huge. I’ll just have to stay put until morning so I can be sure it’s gone before I can leg it to look for a phone signal.

It drops back to all fours, I guess, as I no longer see it. I lean forward and then I gasp in shock as I now see a man. A man is unfolding from a bent position and stretching his back as he stares at me now from the same spot.

“What the fuuuck?” I whisper.

He’s huge. He has long, curly hair.

He’s naked.

He.

Is.

Naked!

I actually hear the shocked blinks I make, which sounds as loud to me as those dolls I had as a kid with the eyes that open and shut.