Worry made me grab Danzig’s hand. “What are they doing?”
“The wolves?” he asked. I nodded. “They’re playing. I’ve been told that healthy wolf packs love to play.”
“What game are they playing with us?”
I felt him shrug. “I have no idea. It’s some game they came up with out of nowhere, I’m sure. It doesn’t have to make sense, only be fun.”
Marduk came to an abrupt stop when we rounded a group of trees to find a cow eating from a trough in a small fenced area. The animal looked up, took us in, then went back to eating as if she hadn’t seen a giant serpent looming next to her enclosure.
“Shouldn’t she be afraid of us?” I murmured.
I heard a laugh and looked up to see Mason in his gargoyle form descending from the sky. He landed near the cow, folded his wings behind him, and grinned up at me.
“Skyler doesn’t like to eat meat because she says she can taste the fear and pain the animal went through before it was killed,” he explained. “So the Clover Pack decided that they’d raise their own beef and make sure it had a good life and painless death.”
“That's not a bad idea,” I said. “How many cows have they gone through?”
“Wait, I can guess the answer to this one: none,” Danzig said, laughter in his voice. “She got attached to the cow, didn't she?”
Mason nodded as a wolf ran up to him and pawed at his leg. I noticed this wolf was significantly smaller than the rest.
“Hello, Julia," Mason said.
I’d met Julia earlier, she was a young teenager and new to shifting into her wolf form, which was why she was smaller than everyone else.
The wolf danced around Mason and yipped.
“Do you want to fly?”
The wolf did a little excited hop, then jumped when Mason held out his arms. He caught her and tucked her against his chest. With several powerful flaps of his wings, he lifted off, taking the yipping Julia with him. They quickly disappeared into the night sky.
“That looks fun,” I said. Marduk made a loud, unhappy hissing sound, and Danzig hugged me tighter.
“Marduk and I think you shouldn’t try flying,” he said. “Except commercial airlines, but only if we’re with you.”
I didn’t answer because if I was given the opportunity, I’d absolutely let Mason fly me around. I heard Danzig sigh.
“You aren’t listening to me, are you?” he asked.
“I’m listening,” I said, throwing a grin over my shoulder. “But I don’t have to do as you say.”
Marduk made a grumpy sound. I didn’t realize snakes could make so many sounds. Then again, he wasn’t a true snake, he was a world serpent.
We moved again, following the sound of howling. Marduk increased his speed, surprising me with how fast he could go. It was fun to weave in and out of the orange trees, then avocado trees. I was having so much fun that I didn’t see the bear until Marduk came to an abrupt stop.
“Move it, Pike!” Danzig called out.
The bear stood up on his hind legs, waved a giant paw, then pointed to Marduk.
“No, you can’t ride him,” Danzig said. “That’s reserved for our mate.”
Pike’s bear face shot us a sad expression but turned excited when a wolf sprinted past him with a teasing yip.
Letting out a bellow, Pike dropped to all fours and followed the wolf. Three more wolves passed him before everyone disappeared from sight.
“I know this game. We must be playing chase!” Danzig said, tightening his grip on me. “Get ‘em, Marduk!”
Marduk set off again and was able to catch up to the last wolf, but he lost her when she ducked through a hole in a wall of trees.
