AllFreeNovel
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Perched on a slope of ice, surrounded by endless hills of more ice, I shiver deep in the center of my bones.
Before I left, Kody and Wolf stuffed me into more furs and insulation than I can move in. My feet are warm enough in the expensive hiking boots Monty gifted me a lifetime ago, which Wolf strapped into snowshoes with built-in crampons to help me scale slippery inclines.
Head, face, hands—every part of me is thoroughly protected. But there’s a chill way down inside, like my body knows this isn’t natural. My skinny ass isn’t made to be out here.
Leo, on the other hand, was born for this. Standing beneath the black December sky with winter in his eyes and snow in his whiskers, he holds a rifle loosely at his side and waits. Watches. Tracks the barren landscape with predatory stillness.
It’s been hours, and we haven’t seen a wolf, bird, or squirrel. Dead or alive.
Tiny, weightless crystals float around me, plinking like falling sand. The sound consumes me for a long while, taking my mind off the dark, cold boredom.
“Do you hear that?” I whisper.
“Your chattering teeth?”
“No, listen.”
He wipes his sweaty brow on a fur-lined shoulder. How is he sweating? The man isn’t human.
“What am I listening for?” He cocks his head.
“The sound of snow.”
Lifting his face to the sky, he opens his mouth and collects swirling flakes on his tongue.
God, he’s beautiful. Strong and ferocious and so damn masculine. Even when he’s catching snow with childlike innocence.
His thick outerwear fails to hide the power in his tall frame. Now that I’ve felt that hard yumminess moving against me, inside me, I’m an addict.
I read somewhere that animals only mate in safe and suitable environments. If that’s true, my body must know, despite my environment, that he is safe and suitable.
He prowls toward me on silent boots, moving with the carnal fluidity of a lion. One that will pounce on a jugular without hesitation.
“What are you thinking about?” He crouches at my side, his gaze ever watchful on the darkness.
You.
I clear my throat. “The average person has over 60,000 thoughts a day. Of those 60,000, ninety percent of them are repetitive. The things we think about today are the same things we thought about yesterday. Our brains are on a redundant loop of rinse-and-repeat.”
He huffs a quiet laugh. “We are fundamentally small and stupid creatures.”
“What other species consciously destroys the environment it depends on for survival?”
“There’s no hope for us.”
“I’m afraid not.”
He stills, eyes sharp on the hills, and holds a finger against his lips.
My ears perk, and my pulse triples.
What does he hear? Is it a wolf?
His gaze locks hard on mine as he mouths, Stay.
Gun at the ready, he stalks off into the shadows, leaving me shivering on the icy slope.
Motherfucker.
My chest becomes a drum, banging a chaotic anthem.
If he gets himself killed, I’m going to kick him so hard in the nuts.
Something stirs in the distance. A scrambling disturbance of snow. Then a masculine gasp.
I slap my glove over my mouth, stifling a scream.
After a wretched moment of stillness, his voice drifts from the inky black. “Frankie, bring a stake and rope from my pack.”
Relief quakes through me.
I retrieve the items from his tent sack. The tent is a precaution in case we get stuck in a blizzard.
With a rifle strapped over my shoulder and multiple knives beneath my furs—a girl can’t be too safe—I follow the sound of his labored breaths and find him on his knees.
His gun rests on the ground, where he bends over something small and white. It squirms all to hell, kicking and flopping.
“Is that…?” I creep closer.
“Arctic hare.” He pins it to the snow between his legs and reaches for the rope in my hand.
I watch with fascination and confusion as he quickly knots a harness around its body.
Part of me is rooting for the poor thing. In my mind, I’ve already named it Harry. And now that he has a name, well, we can’t kill him!
A foolish wish. We need the meat. But Leo said it can only feed a couple of us. Seems like a waste of life.
I look away, warring with myself to keep quiet about it.
The fleeing scamper of feet draws my attention back just as Leo slams the stake into the ice. He attaches one end of the rope to it. The other end…
I follow the taut line into the darkness, watching it weave back and forth as the freed rabbit pulls and pulls…
Not free.
“Bait.” I gulp.
“The wolves will scent it.” He collects the rifle and leads me back to the slope. “Now we wait.”
“I can’t believe you caught him with your bare hands.”
“It was luck. The thing is half-starved. I won’t get another chance like that.”
We settle back on the slope for more excruciating, ice-cold idleness, where I dwell on the horrifying death of a fluffy white bunny.
