Blood for Wolves (8 page)

I stared directly at Wolf as I said
it. It took a few moments for my implications to sink in.

“Oh no,” he said, frowning. “No,
no. Wolves don’t dabble in magic. We react very badly to it.”

I went to lean against a tree,
bending over to put my hands on my knees. Too much had happened. Too much to
think about. My daypack was gone. We had no food or fresh water. The town had
to be at least a mile behind us and in total confusion.

“Caroline,” Wolf started.

“We have to keep going,” I said,
straightening. “We have to follow her. We have to do something.”

It was all I could say. The only
thing I could think about doing. My brain was overloaded with this place, what
had happened at the tent, everything.

“All right,” Wolf said softly as if
he could sense I was on the verge of a breakdown. He jiggled his right ankle
for a moment. “You stay here. I’ll go back and get your things.”

“What? No, wait.” I lurched forward
and grabbed his arm. “You can’t go back there. It’s crazy. They’ll be looking
for you and there are going to be people everywhere. One of those guys is dead!”

Because I killed him.

He looked at my hand on his arm. A
slow smile came over his face. “Are you worried about me, sweet Caroline?”

Suddenly I felt flustered. So what
if I was? “Well,” I stuttered, “I mean…I don’t want you to get caught. You said
they kill half-wolves, right? You didn’t do anything wrong. If anything those
slave traders should be the people in trouble, and—”

He took hold of my face with both
hands and brought his face close to mine. At first I thought he was going to
kiss me, but he only pressed his cheek to mine. A hug would have felt less
intimate.

“Thank you,” he said quietly. “No
one ever worries about me.”

He let go and once again I didn’t
have anything to say.

“Slave traders in trouble don’t
stick around long,” he said. “The news will soon spread elsewhere, but it’s
that thing they’ll be looking for when it comes to the wolf.”

He turned and started to run off. A
dark spot of blood stained his coat over his left shoulder.

“Wolf, wait. You’re hurt.”

“I’ll be all right,” he called
back, and soon disappeared amidst the trees.

Then I was alone.

I wandered around in circles on the
trail for a while. A thick cloud drifted over the sun, cooling the area and
cutting out the rays of light. A deep shudder rippled through me. I could
handle being alone in my forest. People knew how to find me there, even if they
never looked. But here no one would look for me. No one would know. I gazed up
at the trees, drinking in the fresh air in an attempt to calm down. I wished
the sun would come back out. I closed my eyes. Alone in a fairy tale world. Far,
far away from home. Would they miss me? Would anyone care? How long would it
take them to forget me after they decided I was lost forever?

“Come inside missy,” a voice
rasped.

I broke from my thoughts and looked
to my right where an old woman stood outside the door of a decrepit house. I
could have sworn the house hadn’t been there before. The wood somehow seemed to
be peeling away from itself and the shingles were broken, pieces of them
littering the ground.

“Come inside. You must see,” the
woman said. She leaned on a cane and beckoned to me with a long, disturbingly
boney finger.

A strange sensation danced through
my bones. A similar sensation I’d felt before Marianne had been kidnapped. “No,
I don’t think I will, thanks.”

She smiled, her face full of
amusement. “Not worried I’ll turn you into a toad, are you?”

“Er,” I fumbled for an answer. The
weird thing was that she didn’t seem at all dangerous. She was scary-looking in
that way-too-old-to-still-be-alive way, but didn’t feel threatening.

“Search yourself,” she said, as if
she knew what I was thinking. “You will know whether or not I am to be
trusted.”

Magic
, a little voice in my
head whispered.
She has magic. But it’s safe.
The deeper I delved into
the feeling, the more relaxed I became. “How do I know you’re not doing that?”

“I don’t have that kind of power,
dear. Now come inside.”

A deep calm came over me, and I did
as she asked. I couldn’t explain it. Besides, how could she be dangerous? Townsfolk
wouldn’t let an evil witch live so close to all their children, would they? I
walked up the steps and followed her into the old house.

The place was packed from floor to
ceiling with old junk: chairs on top of couches, the nooks and crannies filled
with boxes, candles, dishes, bits of string, papers with scribbles, metal
trinkets, small stuffed animals both real and the toy sort, dried flowers, and
more. Junk lined the corridor and filled the rooms, leaving only enough space
for a small table with a single globe-shaped candle in the center. It was like
a hoarder’s house, yet miraculously clean and smelling like my grandmother’s
house; beef stew on a Sunday afternoon.

The old woman sat down at a round
table covered in a flowered cloth. Dozens of candles sat in the center,
silently eating up wax as they burned. There was no chair for me, so I remained
standing.

“Do you know why you are here?” she
asked, settling her hands on her cane.

I looked around. “Uh, no.”

“You are here because you followed
the girl.”

I waited.

“You are the Guardian, but an
interesting mix. Interesting choice. You seek greatness. You wish to prove
yourself strong and smart and brave. Yet you shrink away, swallowing your
invisibility, always testing, always waiting in the dark to see who will come
and find you.”

I shifted, tying not to look at
her.

“Are you so insignificant? If you
test those who love you for too long, you will dwell in the darkness and they
will never find you. You will stop reaching for the stars and wait until the
end of time and cry in the dark.” She leaned back and squinted, assessing. “Or
perhaps the opposite will be true. You will reach for the stars. You will try
so long and so hard, you will forget all those around you, and burn up once you
touch them.”

She stood again. “The decision will
be yours, child. But things will be much easier for you if you don’t tell the
Wolf.” She eyed me for a long time before lifting a few things off a peg in the
wall behind her. They glinted in the candlelight. She laid them out on the
table. Three necklaces, each one in a different style with a unique charm
dangling from the end.

“I will give you a choice,” she
said. “Each of these contains power that can help you, but you must be
careful,” she waggled a finger in front of my nose, “because to use one means
allowing it to delve deep into your desires. You must keep the right desire at
the forefront at all times.”

I stared at my three options. The
first necklace was made with what looked like a band of leather. Hanging off
the end was a small figurine that reminded me of a monkey, from its puckered
little face to its curling tail. The chain of the second sparkled like silver,
and attached to the chain was a pair of wings, spread out like angel’s wings,
white and intricately detailed. The third necklace was a string of woven gold.
Its charm was two shapes melded together—the sun and the moon as one.

I pointed to the wings. “That one.”

She plucked it off the table and hobbled
over to me. “Then take it, child. And see if it doesn’t help keep you grounded.”

She slipped it over my head. I
didn’t thank her. Somehow I knew I didn’t have to. Instead I turned and walked
out of the house, gently touching the angelic wings resting on my skin. She
followed me out, stopping in the same place she had when I first saw her.

Wolf was sitting on the ground,
patient but uncomfortable, my pack on the ground beside him. One leg twitched
while he made grumpy faces. He jumped to his feet when I reached him again and
then looked to the old woman. She beckoned him up as well. He let out a tiny
huff, but obeyed. She didn’t take him inside as she had me, but instead spoke
to him on the stairs. He scowled and glared, then looked at me, frowning. His
eyes glittered, but this time it wasn’t nice in the least. The woman finished
whatever she had to say and stepped back, silent. Wolf huffed and then quickly
came down the stairs and shoved my daypack at me.

“Here,” he grunted, then walked on
into the forest.

I said nothing and followed.

At least we had a trail to follow. Neither
of us said much as we walked. I nibbled on a small piece of jerky, mulling over
what the old woman had said. I knew what she meant, though I really didn’t like
it.

“What did she say to you?” I risked
a look at Wolf. He was still brooding, occasionally kicking at the ground.

“I don’t want to say.” Then he
peeked at me out of the corner of his eye. “What about you?”

“She told me not to say.”

He huffed in response. I fingered
the wings on the necklace, wondering what they were for and why she’d given it
to me in the first place. She’d said hoped it kept me grounded, but I had no
idea what that meant. I worried about what she’d really said too, about not
telling the Wolf. I only knew one Wolf and he was stalking up ahead of me,
grumbling and growling. The sun was high in the sky, warming the air around us.
A perfect spring day in the forest. I wished I was in the right mind to enjoy
it. Then I remembered the stain on Wolf’s jacket.

“Wolf, your shoulder,” I started.

“Leave it.”

“But you’re bleeding. We should look
at it.”

“I said leave it!” he snapped.

We didn’t talk the rest of the day,
and when we finally made camp off the path I tried to do everything possible to
stay busy. I collected firewood, started the fire, rummaged through my pack to
create some sort of dinner out of whatever was left in there. Finally Wolf, his
face softened, stopped me and forced me to sit down. I leaned against a tree
and closed my eyes.

“I used to have a normal life,” I
said to no one in particular. “And now look at me. Nearly getting eaten by
giants and freeing slaves.” Had anyone noticed I was gone yet? Alex would
probably be the first. I chuckled bitterly to myself. My step-brother would be
the first to realize I’d disappeared instead of my sisters and parents. How sad
was that? I opened my eyes to look at Wolf. He shuffled over the fire, cooking
something that smelled like meat over the flames. I wondered where he’d got it.

“We should look at your shoulder
now.” I got up to examine him.

This time he didn’t protest, and
instead took off his jacket, vest, and shirt. Living alone in the forest for so
long had made him lean, but strong. Just like real wolves. Numerous scars
scattered across his skin, the origins of which could have been anything from a
brush with a farmer to scraps with other animals. In a normal situation I would
have taken the time to admire a well-toned male body, but the wound on his back
drew my immediate attention.

I gasped. “Wolf, this cut is like
five inches long!”

“It’s not deep.”

“Yes, but still.” Deep enough to be
oozing blood. “Is there any of that stuff around? That lava-gum stuff?”

“There are gum leaves, but no
lavawort,” he said. “I haven’t smelled any around here.”

I dug into my pack and pulled out
my first-aid kit. It wasn’t very big, but I had a roll of gauze big enough to
do the trick as well as some duct tape to hold everything in place. I focused
on my task, unrolling the gauze and layering it over the dark red line marring
Wolf’s skin. Then I used strips of duct tape to hold the gauze in place. The aroma
of cooking meat filled my nostrils.

“Don’t burn it,” I said, the words
involuntarily tumbling out of my mouth.

Wolf’s shoulder shook slightly with
silent laughter. “I won’t.”

Once his shoulder was patched up, I
sat down with nothing else to do but drown in my thoughts. Not the best idea. Barra’s
shocked, dying face popped into my mind. Suddenly the entire day’s events hit
me in a powerful wave, as though waiting for this very moment to pummel me. I
covered my face with my hands and suppressed a sob.

Wolf was instantly at my side.

“What’s wrong?”

“I killed him,” I cried. “I killed
that man, back in the tent.”

“Oh Caroline.” He slipped an arm
around me. “They were going to kill us.”

“I know,” I said, trying to get a
hold of myself. I wiped away tears. “I know. It’s just…I’ve never killed
anyone. I mean,
I
did it.”

He drew me close so my head rested
on his chest, gently stroking my hair. He was warm, comforting. It felt good to
be hugged. To be this close to Wolf. Something about it felt…right. My heart
slowed down, and after a few minutes, I realized it was beating in time with
his. I slowly began to relax. There was no going back. What was done was done,
as much as it sucked. I had no choice but to find a way to go on and accept it.
I looked up at Wolf.

“Did you kill anyone in that tent?”

“No. I was close, but then you told
me to break the tent pole.”

I almost laughed. Turned out the
most dangerous person in that tent was me, not Wolf. “I didn’t know you knew
how to sword fight.”

“I don’t. I was just swinging it
around as much as I could, hoping that maybe I’d hit something. I’m lucky he
didn’t cut my head off.”

Dusk was heavy on us now, our
little campfire a tiny light in the dark. I heaved a sigh. Wolf pressed a kiss
to my forehead.

“Come. You
must eat something.”

We ate sliced lamb that Wolf had
bought when he retrieved my pack. I wondered how he managed to buy things
without people asking about the huge bloodstain on his back, but let it go. He’d
been right about the lavawort making me crave uncooked meat. I savored every
morsel of lamb even though we practically ate the meat raw. I licked the juices
from my fingers. Having a warm meal in my stomach seemed to make everything a
little better. I took a long drink from one of my water bottles.