Blood for Wolves (4 page)

“What are you doing?” Wolf snapped
in my ear.

I suppressed a yelp, almost
tumbling backward. I would have if he hadn’t caught me.

“I can’t just leave Marianne here,”
I hissed back, not at all comfortable being this close to him.

He made a noise like a half growl
that sounded like “Rrrrr.” He stared at me, obviously displeased. “This is a
bad idea. If the giants should catch us they may let me go, but certainly not
you, and I might not be able to get you out again.”

“What?” I whispered loudly. “Why
would they let you go and not me?”

“Because I’m a wolf. Wolves are
supposed to be in the forest. Humans are always sticking their noses where they
don’t belong.”

“Well I wouldn’t have been all tied
up if you hadn’t tried to kill me!”

He rolled his eyes and let out an
exasperated sigh. “I told you, I wasn’t going to kill you. You’re much too
scrumptious.”

“Oh like
that
makes any
goddamn sense.”

“And if I recall correctly, you
attacked me first.”

The both of us shut up at the sound
of grunting and the ground shaking ever so slightly. The giant with the club
sauntered out of one cave to relieve himself against the side of the mountain.

“Oh gross,” I winced, averting my
gaze.

Once he was done, he went back into
the cave, talking and laughing, hopefully with the other four.

“I have to get up there to see if
Marianne’s in that cave,” I said, inching around the boulder.

My would-be killer/rescuer made an
aggravated noise in his throat and grabbed my shoulders, dragging me back down.

“No you will not. It’s too
dangerous.”

I gawked at him. “Says the man with
the twelve-inch knife.”

“I don’t have the knife anymore!” He
huffed to himself. Then he lifted his right leg a little and shook his foot. Then
he slammed it down again as though aggravated about something else. A weird
tingle nagged at me for a moment and then disappeared. “All right. We’ll see if
the girl is in there, but you stay out of sight. Let me do all the talking.”

He slunk up the boulder field
toward the cave. I stayed right behind him most of the way and then ducked out
of sight around the side of the cave.

“And just in case,” he muttered. He
pulled out the rope I’d been tied up with and looped it around one boulder
beside the cave. Then he crept to the opposite side and tied it off on a second
boulder. He paused at the opening, took a deep breath, and then plastered a
grin on his face and strolled right into the cave.

“Good evening chaps,” Wolf
announced, holding onto the lapels of his coat as if he visited giants every
day.

The giants all sat around the fire,
eating something that was cooking on a spit. Much too big to be Marianne. They
stopped talking at once and turned on the newcomer.

“Today seems to be a very fruitful
day,” one of them said, a smile forming on his face.

“A fine day indeed,” Wolf said,
looking around as if considering where best to make himself at home. “Have you,
by chance, come upon a young and very tasty morsel lately?” He smacked his
lips. “I seemed to have let her escape by accident.”

“Did you?” said another. “We caught
two trying to traipse through our fields here. Snapped them up mighty quick. But
you say you just lost the one?”

Wolf smoothed his mane of sable
hair. “Well, the larger one is what interfered with my, ah, meal the first time
around. Do what you like with that one. Gangly and gamey I’m sure she’ll be. I’m
simply interested in the little lambkin.”

“Mm,” said the one with the club. “Sure
enough we caught that one.” Then he paused. “Meal you say?”

“Oh yes.” And then there was a long
silence. They were looking at Wolf intently, but I could only see his back. Whatever
he did, it convinced them that he spoke the truth.

“Get yourself in trouble with that
lot,” the giant across from the fire said. “Don’t let the parents find out, or
they’ll have your hide on their wall.”

The giants roared with laughter,
and I winced. Even Wolf flinched at the sound.

“Yes, well, if I could just have my
snack, I’ll be on my way, if you please,” he said once they finished.

“Aye, we’d like to help out a
hungry creature such as yourself.” The giant swung his club around casually. “But
we’d already done sold her off to a lot of slave drivers looking for some fresh
blood.”

My breath caught in my throat. I
hoped to God he didn’t mean that literally. Wolf deflated a little.

“Is that so? Pity, pity.”

“We got six cows for the little
thing. Would you like a nibble?”

Suddenly I realized what was on the
spit—a whole cow.

Wolf glanced to the side where the
other cows were being kept. I thought I saw his eyes change color for a second.

“No, no. As much as I would love to
take a taste, I have big things to return to. And cow has never been on my
preferred table.”

“Mind you don’t eat too many young
‘uns—farmers with pitchforks will be after ya.”

The giants rocked with laughter
again, and Wolf shuffled out of the cave.

“Pass up a lovely meal like that,
the things I do just to please,” he mumbled as he emerged.

“Slave drivers?” I hissed. “What
the hell kind of place is this?”

“What sort of question is that? You’re
here, now let’s go.” He grabbed at my arm.

“I am not going anywhere with you.”
I jerked out of his grasp. “You are crazy. This isn’t normal. Any of it.”

“Look, I am the only one that can
find that girl and if you want to find her too, then you’ll have to stick with
me, do you understand that?”

“Oy! Who are you talking to out
there?”

We froze. A few of the giants
climbed to their feet while the others leaned over to look outside the cave.

“No one,” Wolf called. “Just, ah,
my mate. We were both looking for the morsel, but we’re going now.”

“I think not. She sounds an awful
lot like that scrap we caught earlier. Let’s see her.”

I stared at Wolf, petrified.

“No, no,” he yelled back, his hands
on my shoulders. “She’s got this silly fear of giants, says they’re too big for
her taste.”

“We insist.”

The command was low, dangerous. Wolf
gave me a tiny nod and gently pulled me forward so the giants could see me. The
one with the club grunted.

“Thought so. Why didn’t you tell us
you was a she-wolf?”

I opened my mouth but nothing came
out. Wolf pinched me in my side.

“Ah,” I half-shouted. “I, um, was
too scared.” I laughed weakly. “Concerned about my…food. At the time. Sorry.”

Their stony faces remained
unconvinced.

“Show us your side then,” said one
of the standing giants.

I gaped again. My side? What did
that mean? My wolf side?

“You can’t,” Wolf said, his voice
barely audible. “Run.”

They’ll just follow us.
I
racked my brain for an idea. I had no idea what they were looking for, but so
far it didn’t sound much like humans were fond of wolves. Maybe…

“Well,” I spoke haltingly, “would a
human woman do this?”

I looked up at Wolf and braced
myself.
Oh Caroline, you’ve gone off the deep end.

I grabbed his face and brought his
mouth down on mine. He was surprised, but quickly recovered and put his arms
around me, kissing me back and milking it for all it was worth.

This is so nuts. I’m kissing a
possible serial killer. God, where did I go wrong? This is so beyond screwed
up…he tastes like berries and mint…

Finally I pulled away, collecting
my bearings again. The rational part of me wanted to move farther away, much
farther away, but Wolf held me where I was, his forehead resting against mine
looking for all the world like he’d just had the best day of his life.

“Now then,” a giant said, “that’s
certainly something.”

I tried not to look at Wolf’s eyes.
That kiss had been…quite…. I wished my heart would quit pounding and hoped that
he couldn’t feel it. My head started throbbing again.

“Still, in the days of old humans
did that all the time,” said another. “And besides, you said she was the one
who made you lose your meal in the first place. A dirty lie, I warrant. I say
we sup on the both of them.”

The other four cheered in approval
and they charged for the cave opening.

Wolf pushed me to the side. “Run!”

I sprinted down a little path
around the side of the mountain face, praying I wouldn’t slip and fall, and
that the giants wouldn’t be able to catch me over here. I looked over my
shoulder in time to see Wolf pull the rope he’d tied around the boulders earlier.
It went taut and the first giant’s foot caught on it, sending him banging head
over heels through the boulder field. The two other giants had too much
momentum to stop themselves and did the same, each one crashing over the other.
The club went flying and hit one of them in the head. Then Wolf let go of the
rope—I couldn’t fathom how he’d managed to hold onto it in the first place—and
waved me on as he ran after me.

Together we half ran, half slid
down the mountainside, occasional patches of scree sliding down with us. Far
above the giants cursed at one another and the mountains shook and reverberated
with their movements and yells.

“Keep going, into the trees,” Wolf
shouted behind me. “They won’t follow us in there!”

I didn’t argue and kept running until
we were well within the forest again. The light had faded significantly. The
sun barely showed through the trees, now just a ball of burning orange sitting
on the horizon. I stopped, breathing hard, and leaned against a tree, setting
my hands on my hips.

“My, my,” Wolf said, stopping in
front of me. He was barely breathing hard at all. “You most certainly can run. Almost
like…”

“Like what?” I huffed.

“A doe under the hunt.”

Wonderful. My head pounded. I shut
my eyes for a moment. I wanted to lie down and take a nap, but no way was I
going to do that with him around. Why had he saved me anyway? He said he didn’t
want to kill me, but that’s what a lot of killers said, wasn’t it? Sorry I
don’t want to kill you, but I’m going to anyway?

“You’re hurt,” Wolf said. “You
should rest.”

“No, I’m fine. We need to find
Marianne.”

“Why are you so intent on finding
the girl?”

“Why are you?”

He narrowed his eyes and sniffed. Then
he shook his right foot for a moment.

“Look,” I said, “you heard those
giants. They sold her into slavery. I can’t believe you have that around here. And
for a bunch of cows. She deserves to go home. She’s just lost, that’s all. I
can’t know all that and not try to help her. That’s awful.” I paused. “Not that
I expect you to care. You’re…crazy. Or something.”

I also had no idea how to get back
home. I suspected I had to go back through the pond, but that had to be several
miles south now and my head was killing me. I couldn’t abandon her. I couldn’t
leave her alone. Poor lonely little girl.

“I am not crazy,” Wolf said, his
voice more even than I’d heard since meeting him. If one could call a
near-death experience a meeting. “I just get a bit…rambunctious, that’s all. You
really ought to sit down and rest, my heart.”

Why did he keep calling me that? I
shut my eyes again. I needed an ice pack. Concussions weren’t something to be
ignored. I needed medical attention, X-rays, CAT scans. Leaves crunched near
me.

“Come here, little fawn.”

His hand touched my arm. No way was
I going down without a fight. I swung my fist out, hoping to catch him in the
jaw, but he ducked out of the way and caught me as I fell. The ground tilted
crazily and before I knew it, I was on my back, staring up at him.

I’m going to die here, in the
arms of this killer, somewhere that isn’t home.

“Rest here, Caroline,” he said, his
voice soft. “I’ll take care of you.”

Just before
the world went dark again, I wondered,
How does he know my name?

When I woke, it was practically
dark. My head still hurt, but it felt a great deal better than before. A small
fire was burning in a little clearing surrounded by stones. Wolf sat across
from it, poking at one of the logs with a stick. I reached up to touch my head.
It was covered with something cool. I hoped for a bandage, yet what I touched
felt an awful lot like a leaf. Wolf’s gazed snapped up and in an instant he’d
jumped over to me.

“Don’t touch it now. It needs time
to work.”

“What is it?”

“Lavawort covered with gum leaf.”

Hi, I’m Caroline, and I’ve just
moved into Fairy Land where everything is cured with lavawort and gumleaf and
magic apples, how are you?

“Oh.”

The air around us was cooling down
for the night, but the fire was nice and cozy. I gazed at Wolf. He was rather
well put together with his brown overcoat, white dress shirt and crimson vest,
though his pants were oddly baggy. He had a belt keeping them in place. He
still needed a shave though, his jaw line covered in dark stubble. It made him
look just that much rougher, but still, somehow, approachable. His eyes were
indeed hazel, with no trace of the red-gold I’d seen earlier. His nostrils
flared as he breathed in, a pleased smirk on his face. I almost couldn’t
believe he was the same person who had come at me and Marianne with a knife
earlier in the day. He was…handsome.

“How did you know how to make a
fire?” I asked.

He chuckled. “Just because I’m a
wolf doesn’t mean I don’t know how to start fires. By the way, do you know
magic? Because those little sticks are amazing.”

I frowned in confusion. “Sticks?”

“You know, the ones you just scrape
on something and boom! Fire comes out.”

“You mean matches? Wait.” I blinked
a few times. “How did you get my matches?”