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I’m not as cocky as I pretend to be, but I did think she would come. I know she enjoyed our time together this past weekend. She said I made her feel things again.
I know she’s not hung up on that ex of hers.
So why isn’t she here?
I check my phone for the fifteenth time to see if she’s answered any of my texts, but she hasn’t.
I step out on the porch of the cabin, trying to decide what to do. Should I go to her place? If so, do I go in wolf form to spy or stay in my human form and crawl in her window again?
I’m caught suddenly by my brain glitching, and I stumble back against the cabin, pain searing behind my eyes and through my skull. I gasp and pant, trying to calm my body and bring my human eyes back.
Is Lauren near? I didn’t catch her scent. That’s not what set me off.
The hairs at the back of my neck stand up. This feels different.
Something’s…wrong. Very wrong.
Even though I can’t see, I force my legs to move toward my Range Rover. The need to get to Lauren overwhelms me.
Before my vision clears, I hear the crack of underbrush. The sound of something big moving very quickly toward me.
I tense, my body preparing to shift to protect myself. I catch the scent of the bear the moment before my vision clears. It eats up the space between us with a huge bounding gait. I’m about to shift, but I catch sight of something between its powerful jaws.
A woman’s sandal.
Lauren’s sandal.
Rage spikes, and my wolf is irrationally prepared to fight this bear to the death if he harmed her. But the bear tosses his great head and throws the sandal at my feet, then wheels around.
“Where is she?” I shout as I pick it up. I’m already racing behind him.
He bellows loudly–a spine-tingling sound–but keeps running, so I follow.
My rational brain is starting to follow. He didn’t hurt her. He came here to get me. But she is hurt, then. Something’s very wrong.
That knowledge makes me run faster than I ever have before in human form. I nearly catch up with the bear.
And then I hear Lauren’s screams.
“Help!”
“Lauren!” I shout back, racing even faster. “I’m coming! Where are you?”
“Abe! Please. Over here.” She’s crying. Definitely scared.
My wolf is frantic. I’m frantic.
“Lauren!” I find her on her ass on some large rocks. Her knees are skinned up, and the foot with the missing sandal is ginormous.
I crouch beside her. “Did you fall? What happened, baby?”
She’s crying–sort of hysterical, hyperventilating sobs. “It was a snake!”
“Oh shit.” Her swollen flesh is streaked with dark marks up her veins, and I spy the puncture-marks at the ankle. “A rattlesnake?” I scoop her into my arms, turning to look for the bear, but he’s disappeared.
“I don’t think so. I mean, it didn’t rattle.”
I start running back toward my vehicle. This is bad. It must be a rattlesnake bite. The dark streaks are the poison traveling toward her heart. Will it kill her? I know they’re poisonous to humans. I’m not sure how deadly.
