A blindfold snapped across her eyes, tied too tightly at the back of her head. Harper swallowed a whimper. Her skin was slick with sweat, her breath coming too fast.
No.
In through the nose. Out through the mouth.
She held herself together.
That much, at least, was still hers.
3
The wolf wasyoung and stupid enough to investigate a hunter’s trap.
Pavel Morozov had tracked her pack for three winters, knew each of them by sight. Her mother, the alpha female with the scarred muzzle. Her mate, the alpha male, protective and watchful. Their five pups from last season, including this one, growing into their strength.
The pup bleeding into the snow, one foreleg caught in steel jaws, was the curious one. She’d get herself killed if she kept testing boundaries like this.
He approached slowly, hands visible, voice low, alert to any protective siblings lurking out of sight.
But she was alone.
She watched him with yellow eyes. Afraid, but not panicked. Somewhere in her wolf-brain, she recognized him. The human who lived on the mountain. The one who didn’t smell like guns and hate.
“Easy now.” He kept his voice gentle, not that she’d understand the words, but tone was everything. He kneeledbeside her, shrugged off his jacket and draped it over her head. Darkness calmed prey animals and wolves too, sometimes.
She stilled beneath the fabric, so he worked quickly—injured animals gave you a narrow window. He sprayed antiseptic on the wound and jabbed an antibiotic into her flank. She snarled when the needle went in, back legs scrabbling against dirty snow, but she didn’t bite.
“Almost done, devochka.”
The trap’s release mechanism was Soviet-era, probably set by herders too lazy to guard their sheep—easier to blame wolves than do the hard work.
When he freed her, the wolf yelped and scrambled free, testing her injured leg as she limped away. She’d heal—wolves were survivors. She paused twenty feet away and glanced back, intelligent eyes meeting his and then she vanished between two scrappy fir trees.
Wolves didn’t pretend to be something they weren’t or lie about what they needed. They killed when they were hungry and protected their pack. Simple and honest. Everything humans weren’t.
He packed up the used needle and antiseptic, shrugged his winter jacket back on, and lifted the trap over his shoulder.
The sun lingered low, staining the snow blue-pink before surrendering to the horizon. Spring was still weeks away. Winter wasn’t finished with the mountains. He turned and descended the slope, heading back toward his cabin.
The cold burned everything numb. Out here he was free of orders and compromised objectives. No voice breaking through the static, calling his name. No brother he failed to bring home.
He blew air through clenched teeth and rammed the fragment of memory back down, locking it away where it couldn’t destroy him any more than it already had.
Ten years he’d been up here. Ten years of silence. Ten years among things that killed honestly. It still wasn’t enough. Maybe it never would be.
Voices sounded from up ahead, crunching up through the snow toward him. Two hunters appeared through the fir—rifles slung, passing a vodka bottle between them. Swaddled in army surplus fatigues, their faces were red from the cold and alcohol. They spotted the trap on his shoulder and slowed.
The nearest one had a thick black mustache and the twitchy alertness of a scavenger animal guarding a carcass. He swung his rifle around, barrel down but ready. “That’s ours.”
Pav dropped the bloody trap in the snow. “Not anymore.”
“You released our wolf?” The second hunter stepped closer, waving the vodka bottle. “You know what those animals do to livestock?”
“Leave.”
The two men glanced at each other. “We have a comedian here.”
“Last chance.” Pav’s voice was level. “Walk away.”
