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“Run? Get some exercise?”
Another grunt, less decisive, more like a maybe.
He pushed to his feet, wobbly, still adjusting to his new center of gravity. He gingerly moved one forepaw, then the next, one rear paw, then the other. He picked up the pace, but still slow as he circled the clearing. A snort, like he’d figured it out, and he broke into a lope, stumbled and plowed muzzle-first into the undergrowth.
I stifled a laugh, but not very well, and he glowered at me. “Forget running. A nice, leisurely stroll might be more your speed. ”
He snorted and turned fast. When I fell back, he gave a growling chuckle.
“Still can’t resist throwing your weight around, can you?”
He lunged again. This time I stood my ground and he checked his leap at the last second…and toppled sideways. I didn’t hide my laugh that time. He twisted fast,
grabbed my pajama leg and wrenched, and down I went.
“Bully. ”
He growled a chuckle. I fingered an imaginary tear in my pant leg.
“Great. I finally get some pj’s and you rip them. ”
He walked over for a better look. I tried to grab his foreleg, but he darted out of my reach and tore across the clearing. Then he stopped, looking over his shoulder as if to say how’d I do that? He turned and tried racing across it again, but his legs tangled and he fell in a heap beside me.
“You’re thinking too much, as usual,” I said.
A dismissive snort as he got to his feet. He tried running again, and didn’t fall, but did more lurching than loping, his legs threatening to tangle at every step.
“Apparently this could take a while, so how about you practice and I’ll head back to the house-”
He darted past me and veered to block my path.
I smiled. “I knew that’d work. So am I right? It’s better when you act, not think?”
A sigh whistled out of his nostrils, condensation hanging in the frigid air.
“You hate that, don’t you? We should keep a scorecard, see who’s right more often: me or you. ”
He rolled his eyes.
“Not a chance, huh? You’d never live it down if I beat you. But I am right this time. Your body knows how to move as a wolf. You just need to shut your brain off and let your muscles do their thing. ”
He dashed at me. When I didn’t move, he tore around me, circling wide, head lowered, picking up speed until he was a blur of black fur. And I laughed. I couldn’t help it. It looked so…amazing. To be in another form. To experience the world that way. I was happy for him. Finally, he threw on the brakes, skidding to a halt, each leg shooting out in a different direction.
“You’re going to need to work on that part,” I said.
He growled and gave a head shake that I couldn’t interpret until he got to his feet, muzzle lifting to catch the wind, ears swiveling forward.
“Someone’s coming?” I whispered.
He grunted. Shhh, I’m listening.
I listened with him, straining to hear what he did. Then came a sound I didn’t need werewolf hearing to pick up-a long, eerie howl. The fur on Derek’s back rose, adding inches to his already huge frame.
“Dog?” I whispered. But I’d heard enough dogs in my life to know that wasn’t what this was.
Derek dashed behind me and bumped the back of my legs. Run.
I raced to the path. Derek stayed behind, the thumping of his paws barely even betraying him, and I finally understood why he always moved so quietly. Predatory instinct. An instinct-and a skill-I lacked, and as we ran that became painfully obvious.
I might be half Derek’s size, but I was the one who sounded like a two-hundred-pound beast plowing through the woods. My breath chugged like a locomotive. My feet found every stick on the path, each snap as loud as gunfire. I tried to be quieter, but that meant slower. When my pace dropped, Derek bumped me from behind, telling me not to bother, to keep moving.
I could see the lights of the house ahead. Then, from somewhere between it and us came an earsplitting whistle. I stopped. Derek did, too, in a skid that knocked me to my knees.
He grunted an apology. As I rose, he’d already recovered and was in front of me now, muzzle raised to sample the wind. The breeze was coming from the side, though, and he paced, trying to catch a whiff of whoever had whistled. When he did, his body went rigid, ears back, growl bubbling up. Then he wheeled, almost slamming into me.
“Who-?”
He answered with a snap of his jaws, catching the hem of my jacket. Just run. I did.
Twenty-one
WHO WERE WE RUNNING from? I’d seen enough horror flicks to know that howl had come from a wolf, and there were no wild ones left in New York State. That meant werewolf.
Liam and Ramon, the two who’d tried to grab Derek the other day, had said all of the state was the territory of the Pack, who’d hunt and kill any trespassing werewolves. Obviously they weren’t that thorough-Derek had lived here all his life. But had they finally found him?
If it wasn’t the Pack, then who had whistled? Andrew said the Edison Group didn’t hire werewolves. Was he wrong? If they wanted someone to track their missing subjects, a werewolf would be the best supernatural bloodhound around.
Right now, it didn’t matter. Derek knew who’d whistled; and even if he couldn’t tell me, his actions said we were in trouble, and all we could do was hope to outrun it.
“There’s a creek over there,” I said, pointing. “If it’s a werewolf that we’re trying to lose, water will hide our trail, right?”
He answered by veering that way.
The creek wasn’t much more than a trickle, but it was enough to swallow our trail. As we ran, it cut deeper into the earth, banks rising to small cliffs on either side. If we kept going, we might find ourselves trapped.
Derek took the lead, scrambling up the creek bank with me following, soaked sneakers sliding in the dirt as I grabbed roots to pull myself up. I moved as quietly as I could, knowing any werewolf would share Derek’s keen hearing.
We ran along the embankment until we reached a thick patch of woods. Derek herded me into a clearing in the middle of it. He crouched in the center, his front legs stretched out, his head and tail down. Trying to Change back to human form. After a few minutes of straining and snarling, he gave up.
“We can’t stay here,” I said. “If it’s a werewolf-”
He grunted, confirming that.
“Then he’s eventually going to find our trail. These woods aren’t that big. ”
Another grunt. I know.
“I think the house is that way. ”
He shook his head and pointed his muzzle a little more to the left.
“Okay, good,” I said. “So we just need to-”
He went still again, nose rising, ears turning. I crouched beside him. He kept sniffing, grumbling deep in his throat, like he’d caught a scent he couldn’t seem to find again. Finally, he prodded me toward the mouth of the clearing with a noise that I thought meant run, but when I shot forward, he caught the back of my jacket between his teeth.
