AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Chapter Twelve
Charlie
As soon asCharlie was certain the bears were out of earshot, she crumpled to a fallen log and sat there, gasping for breath. Her back hurt, her sides hurt, her feet hurt. Luckily she still had the shoes she’d been wearing, but everything else fit wrong, and she was chafing like hell.
She was beginning to wish she hadn’t had this idea, because she wasn’t certain she could make it to the ranch.
Have a granola bar, she thought. You’re just hungry and grumpy, and you’ll feel better after you eat.
Charlie knew that wasn’t the whole story. When she’d had the idea to go to the ranch, free Olivia, and then call in the FBI, it had seemed genius. It solved all of their problems without killing anyone.
Well, except it involved Charlie leaving Cascadia. The further she got from Kade and Daniel’s cabin, the more she felt physically broken, like a chunk of her heart was missing.
How is that even possible? She thought. You dated Todd for like two years and couldn’t wait for him to visit his parents alone.
But there it was. She didn’t want to leave them.
She only had a few hours to figure out how to stay.
Charlie finished the granola bar, put the wrapper in her pack, and stood. The going was slow, but Kade and Daniel had told her that as long as she walked straight, she was in the wolf territory and they were certain to find her.
She hoped they were right.
Then, twigs and leaves crunched off to her right and Charlie heard a snort.
She froze. A huge gray wolf stepped out of the shadows, its nose curled in a snarl.
She heard another sound to her left. It was another one.
Please be shifters, she thought.
Charlie cleared her throat.
“I want to trade myself for the feral girl,” she said.
The wolves just snarled more.
Oh my god, they’re not shifters, she thought.
Then they looked at each other, almost like they were considering, and at last, one of them stood up, his fur folding back into his body, his yellow eyes turning blue.
“You’re the girl the bears had captive?” he asked.
I’m never going to get used to seeing people shift,Charlie thought. Just watching them always made her a little dizzy.
He was naked, of course, and tall, though not as tall as the bears. He had hard blue eyes and floppy brown hair, and as he talked to her he folded his arms across his chest.
Charlie forced herself to smile.
“That’s me,” she said. “I got away from them, and I’ve been walking since.”
He gave her a long, hard look, but Charlie was too tired to care much.
Finally, he spoke again.
“Come on,” he said. “I’ve got a truck on a fire road not that far away.” He started to walk, and Charlie followed him, the wolf taking up the rear.
Thank God, thought Charlie, but even as the thought went through her head, she remembered: you can’t seem like a threat. You have to seem like you’re barely alive after escaping the bears.
