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What can I really expect from a Dark Moon wolf, though? From what Cole says, they’re all balls and no brains. Brave as hell but so shockingly stupid. I lay down in the snow and scratch at his back with my own, hearing myself whimper when he doesn't move. His leg just twitches under my paw like a dead animal. This is what he deserves for trespassing… I shouldn’t feel guilty at all if he’s dead. I should just get home and forget this ever happened.
I turn and lope back up the hill to the road. I’ll have to go back home as a wolf or risk freezing to death on the road waiting for someone to rescue me..When Momma sees the blood she’s going to be so mad…I stop on the road scenting the air, but all I can smell is that dirty wolf behind me. In the calm of the storm I can see the jeep, crunched against a large boulder with the motorcycle shredded underneath it. Damn fool is lucky to be alive…was lucky to be alive.
I turn and look back, my tail tucked low, and whimper with indecisiveness. Is this technically my fault? I never should have snuck off to the mall, but the sale was just too good! Frowning, I realize all that designer perfume is probably shattered in my jeep. What a waste.
As I watch him he stirs, whines, and collapses again. I growl and lay down, waiting until he stops moving again, his chest rising and falling in a weird way. I could just go, let nature take him.He shouldn’t have been here! This never would have happened if he wasn’t trespassing!I sneeze at him, annoyed, and get up to walk away, but I stop before I’m even five feet away.This isn't right, I can't just leave him out here to die. He’s not an animal, he’s a man.
I growl, shaking to get some of the snow off. I can feel little snowballs gathering in the long fur of my underbelly. Realistically I know I won't be able to make it home, not in this blizzard. I’ll probably die out here with him. Grudgingly I slink back down the hill, staying low to the ground as I walk up to him. He’s so still, too still, his breathing labored and blood trickling out of his mouth. I press my nose to his muzzle, pushing his head and jumping back before he can attack. His nose wrinkles but his eyes don’t open. He doesn’t move.
With a sigh, I admit I can’t leave him here, and I’m going to freeze to death before I get home. There's a cave nearby that I used to play in as a pup, but I haven't been there in so long. A decade at least, but it's the only shelter I can think of. I huff, annoyed. I’m going to have to drag him there. I look at the filthy wolf; he’s twice my size. His undercoat black as night but the tips of his fur caked in dirt. Disgusting. I’m going to have to drag this filthy beast to my childhood playhouse in my mouth.
I grab his scruff, trying not to gag. He smells and tastes like motor oil and man sweat. By the time I’ve pulled him ten feet, I’m already panting. I can sense the path to the cave, it’ll be hard, but it’s our only chance. He’ll die without me, and without his body heat I’ll be a puppy popsicle before dawn.
Wincing, I close my jaws around his scruff again and pull with all my strength. Our path is quickly covered with snow, as if we were never here. At this rate, I don’t have much time before the entrance to the cave is completely under the snow. I pull harder, my teeth piercing his flesh and his blood flooding my tongue. He tastes gamey, wild, and unkept. To my surprise, it’s the greatest thing I’ve ever tasted and I pause to lick the wounds unabashedly. The taste of him fills my mouth and for a moment I can't think straight. My mind goes hazy, wondering what else I don’t know about this wolf—
I shake myself, focusing on what needs to be done.
“If you die, I’ll be so mad!”I scream into his mind, hoping it wakes him up, but he doesn’t even flinch.
The storm picks back up with a vengeance, dumping the white powder over us so thickly that soon it’s like pulling him through sticky mud and not snow at all. I can see the mouth of the cave in the distance, but the longer I walk towards it, the farther it seems to be. The clearing in front of it seems to stretch on forever. The cold seems to freeze the very air I’m breathing. I don’t think we’re going to make—
My foot slips and we tumble into the mouth of the cave, sliding to a stop on hard ground.
I’m panting hard as I raise myself up on shaky legs and squint in the darkness. We made it! We’re in the cave! We’re safe.
Yet the glow from the moon and the reflection of the snow is getting darker and darker, and as I look at the mouth of the cave I swallow hard. Before this storm is over we’re going to be trapped here. I might be protected from the elements, but I’m going to be stuck in a cave, for moon knows how long, with my enemy.
A wolf whose pack hates mine so much that when he wakes up he will probably attack.
I shiver convulsively and bite his scruff again to drag him farther into the cave. Even if he wakes up and starts to fight again I still need his body warmth to survive this. I take him past the small natural pool of water I used to play in as a pup, and to the back of the cave where old tattered blankets are packed in an alcove.
The alcove is much smaller than I remember from when I used to play here as a kid, but I’m able to get in and drag him up off the ground and onto the dusty threadbare blankets. I slink over him as carefully as I can, having to rub my entire underbelly on his back as I go. I feel his ribs shift under me with a sickly cracking sound as he growls in his sleep and kicks his paws.
I can't get off him fast enough, thinking he’s waking up. He thrashes and whimpers, paws clawing the air, and I realize he’s having a nightmare. I sniff his face as he fights some unseen terror, nudging his ear to try and break him out of it, but he doesn’t stop until I bite it. He stiffens, sighs, and rolls over, facing the back of the alcove and slipping into fitful sleep, but not the nightmare. I wonder if he’s dreaming about me killing him, or maybe him killing me? I’ll never know.
Sighing, I lay on the cold cave floor and watch the dim light from the outside progressively disappear behind a wall of snow.Why should I even care if he’s having a nightmare? He’s the enemy.But I remember my nightmares as a pup, waking up in this cave in a cold sweat. The Dark Moon pack would find me in those dreams, their evil Alpha eating me alive. The whole pack rips me apart.
I close my eyes, memories flashing behind my eyelids like a movie. I’d never been so happy in my life than when we got the news that the Dark Moon Alpha had died in a car accident. A brutal one. Such a deserving way for that monster to die. Richard was cruel even to his own pups, taking women right and left while his wife, Vicky, drowned her sorrows in whiskey. I remember my father fighting with him, both as a wolf and as a man.
My first time seeing him was at Bob’s; I must have been four, maybe five. We walked in for a burger and peace talks with the other pack. My dad wanted to end this animosity. He wanted peace. Him and Momma were getting older, he was gonna pass the reigns to my older brother, Cole. When we got there, Richard was fucking some random wolf on one of Bob’s tables while Vicky sipped her beer and ignored it all. Daddy covered my eyes and turned me around, but I could still hear everything.
“Richard, seriously? I told you I was bringing Ruby for a burger, what are you doing?” Daddy asked.
“Give me a minute, Gabe. Breaking in the new bitches when they come of age is a duty, not just a pleasure.”
I remember hearing him grunt, laughing, and I saw the woman run out. She stopped and looked at me, her eyes haunted. It was the first time I’d ever seen a woman run away from a man in fear. Her clothes were torn and her makeup smudged.
“Do you do that, Daddy?” I asked, terrified.
“No baby,” he whispered to me, watching the other Alpha zip up his pants and get a beer. He clapped his hand on his wife's shoulder and she slipped off her barstool with a growl and left. “Only monsters would do something like that,” he told me and we turned around to leave.
“Gabe! Where are you going! Thought you wanted to talk, man!”
“You can't hold a conversation with an animal, Dick. I don’t intend to try today.”
They glared at each other, bodies tensing as both of them prepared to fight. Bob stepped between them then, looking just as he always has; big round stomach, long graying hair at the temples, and an unkempt beard. He smiled at both the Alphas and handed my daddy a box.
“Here’s little Ruby’s burger, just how you like, Princess!” He ruffled my hair as he turned to my dad. Even back then, I hated being called Princess. “Just let it go, Gabe, he’s drunk. She wanted to, really, she just regretted it when she realized her all powerful Alpha was a cruel lover.”
