Silence of the Wolf

Chapter 19

Later that afternoon, the banging outside of the cabin began again, and Tom groaned. “It’s the damn outside shutters. The latch securing them is bent from the storm. I’ll see if I can fix it and get some more wood for the fire.” He climbed out of bed and hurried to dress. “You stay here.”

Elizabeth felt chilled and anxious as soon as he left the bed. “Maybe you should shift.”

“I’ll take my rifle. In wolf form, I can’t gather wood or do anything with the latch.”

As nonsensical as the notion was, she couldn’t help but worry that the men who had taken her hostage were outside waiting to pounce. Tom had accounted for all of them, but without seeing the dead men herself, she felt they were alive and still looked like they had before the crash.

She quickly got out of bed, searched through one of the drawers, and happily found some women’s clothing mixed in with the men’s—a sweatshirt and pants with Lelandi’s scent. Because they would be a better fit for her, Elizabeth pulled them on, feeling as good as new.

She hadn’t heard Tom leave the bedroom and turned to see him watching her, looking concerned.

“What?” she asked.

“Are you okay? You’re really not hurting any longer?”

She smiled. “After what happened early this morning and again a couple hours after that, you have to ask?”

He chuckled. “Sorry about that. After you scaring me half to death that I might lose you, our coming together in a mating was long overdue.” He sighed. “Sometimes you try to hide how you’re feeling, trying to be all alpha. I just wanted to make sure you really are all right.”

“Don’t apologize. I wanted everything you gave me and more. I feel great this morning.”

“Good.” He crossed the floor and gathered her in his arms, ignoring the banging outside the cabin. He kissed her mouth, promising lots more where that came from. “Won’t be too long.”

She wrapped her arms around him and kissed him just as soundly back. “I’ll count the seconds,” she said cheerfully, but she worried about him being out there alone.

He smiled and kissed her nose, then strode out of the bedroom and grabbed his parka, hat, and gloves from the living room.

Still feeling insecure about him leaving, she pulled on some fluffy pink socks and followed after him.

He peered out the security peephole on the door, then walked over to the window where they’d heard the banging. He opened the inside shutters. The outside shutters were open and swinging in the wind. “Yeah, just like before. The latch has come undone. I’ll see if I can fix it.” He dug around in a kitchen drawer and pulled out a small hammer.

The floorboards creaked in a couple of places as Elizabeth crossed into the living room. She pulled the borrowed sweatshirt tighter. “Can I help you with anything?”

“No, I’ve got it. You don’t need to be out in the cold.” He unlocked the door and pulled it open, letting in a blast of Arctic air. She shivered. Tom shoved aside some of the snow piled up on the porch and closed the door.

She watched as he banged at the latch, then secured the outside shutters. She crossed the living room, closed the shutters on the inside, and started a new fire at the hearth.

By the time the flames took hold, she glanced at the door, wondering how long it would take him to gather some wood. The wind howled and the cabin creaked a little, but otherwise the place remained eerily quiet.

A scary movie theme played in her mind, warning that she should not go outside. That she should wait for Tom to return. She thought of the woman in a movie who sees movement in her house and shouldn’t go inside, but creeps into the house to check it out. Or walks down the stairs into the scary, dark basement when she hears an unfamiliar sound down there. Or thinks someone might be hiding in the closet and yanks open the door. Or jerks the shower curtains aside to see if someone is there. Or… goes outside into the dark night because… she hears a noise.

The problem with being an alpha wolf, even if she was part-coyote—and truthfully that made her even more curious and bold—was that she felt driven to investigate.

Her boots were ruined. Except for a pair of Lelandi’s warm socks, Elizabeth didn’t have anything else to wear on her feet. Was there a spare coat, gloves? Hat? Nope. Even better than human clothes? Her wolf coat.

Elizabeth unlocked the wolf door and hurried to strip and shift. She didn’t hesitate to push through the wolf door into the blustery cold. Her double coat of fur proved the best protection she had against the elements. The soft downy fur closest to her skin kept her warm and dry, while the outer coat caught the snowflakes. Her wolf pads protected her feet as she jumped through the drifts of powdered snow. She was in her element.

Tom was nowhere in sight. She circled the cabin, found his trail, and followed it.

A flash of something moved among the trees, catching her eye.

She hesitated. What if it was one of the rogue wolves who had been prowling the territory and now he was going after Tom?

Heart racing, she leaped through the snow and found that something had traveled in the snowdrifts like she had. The snow was too soft and deep, so she couldn’t make out any tracks. But she could tell that whatever had made the imprints in the snow had headed away from the cabin.

Something moved to the right of her. Her ears twitched back and forth, trying to determine what she’d heard. The wind blew through the trees, ruffling the branches, whistling and howling like a banshee, the snow falling in soft plunks all around her.

The crunching of boots in snow? The breaking of twigs? Tom?

She loped through the snow toward the sound and stopped dead in her tracks. Tom had his rifle slung over his shoulder as he broke twigs off a dead tree, gathering them for more kindling.

Her heart jumped as she saw a big gray wolf watching Tom. If it attacked him, Tom couldn’t get to his rifle quickly enough and wouldn’t stand a chance.

She ran to intercept the wolf, growling fiercely, warning Tom to ready his rifle. The wolf turned, surprise lighting his amber eyes. He ran off.

She raced after him, instinctively pursuing him. This was now her territory, she realized. She was part of a pack, protecting their land. And damned proud of it!

“Elizabeth!” Tom shouted, his tone a definite “Come back here!” as he chased after her and the wolf.

With his longer legs, the male wolf soon outdistanced her. She did worry about him leading her into a trap, except that he had been watching Tom, not her. Still, he could be steering her straight to the other wolves, and they could rip her apart.

She lost sight of him, so she followed the path he’d made. Tom ran as fast as he could manage in the deep snow as a human, but he was still a long way back.

Then the wolf let out a pained yelp. He’d been hurt. But by what? Would she fall into the same predicament?

She loped off in the direction from which she’d heard his cry. The closer she got to where she thought he was, the slower she went. Humans could feign a cry of distress, but werewolves in wolf form couldn’t fake such a pained sound.

Tom drew closer. He hadn’t spoken her name again, just followed her trail.

The wolf panted hard out of her line of sight, just around another tree. Her heart in her throat, she edged around the snow-covered Colorado blue spruce, half expecting to see three gray wolves ready to make short work of her.

Instead, a lupus garou’s worst nightmare came into view. A steel leg-hold trap had snapped over the wolf’s right leg. He struggled to get loose, his leg bleeding, his bone at an odd angle. Tom would have to spring him. The trap had broken the wolf’s leg.

The wolf snarled at her. She barked for Tom to come this way, as if he wasn’t already headed in her direction. She also alerted him that she’d found her prey.

It didn’t take too much longer for Tom to reach them. He cursed under his breath as he considered the wolf. She hated to see the pain reflected in the wolf’s eyes.

“What the hell are you doing out here, CJ?” Tom asked, sounding suspicious.

Was he one of Tom’s pack members?

“I’m going to free you, but if you even think of biting me…” Tom let his words trail off threateningly. He stalked forward, set his rifle next to a tree, and leaned down to untie his bootlaces.

What was he doing?

The wolf, CJ, was growling low, but not at Tom, she didn’t think. At the trap, his circumstances, maybe even at Elizabeth because he’d been running from her when he ran into the half-buried menace.

Tom dug the snow away from the trap, then slipped a bootlace out of the boot and tied one end of the lace to the top of the spring where it ran along the jaws. Then he ran the string through the bottom spring loop and up through the top again.

Tom stood on the chain that held the trap in the ground. He pulled up on the string, compressing it, and tied it off. Then he put the safety catch on. In a hurry, he did the same procedure with the other spring. Once he had finished, the wolf leaped back, freeing his leg. He snarled at the trap.

She was glad Tom had known what to do because she would have just tried pulling the trap apart. Probably unsuccessfully, and maybe to the wolf’s further detriment.

“Okay, I’ve got to splint your leg now,” Tom said.

While he searched for a tree branch he could use, she watched CJ, but she was sure he wouldn’t run off.

Tom returned with a branch and dropped it on the snow. He untied his bootlaces and triggered the trap to snap shut so that it wouldn’t catch any other animals. Then he made a makeshift splint the best he could for CJ. Elizabeth was glad Tom was trained on ski patrol to handle emergencies like this.

“Can you make it to the cabin on your own?” Tom grabbed his rifle.

The wolf stared at Tom, glanced at Elizabeth, then limped on three legs toward the cabin.

Tom tilted his chin down at Elizabeth and shook his head. “You were supposed to stay in the cabin.”

She half expected him to tell her to run back to the cabin, but he didn’t. She wouldn’t have, either. Whether he liked it or not, she would watch his back in case others were with the injured wolf.

CJ used the same trail that he and Elizabeth had made, but because of his injury and the deep snow, he kept falling, yelping, and suffering considerable pain, and he had a devil of a time traveling.

Tom finally gave in. “I’ll carry you. But if your brothers attack… I’ll dump you and shoot the lot of them.”

Brothers. Tom sounded serious, but Elizabeth thought he also was upset that some of his pack mates could be the ones causing trouble for the rest of the pack.

He gathered the wolf in his arms. CJ growled softly, but he didn’t snap or bite. Elizabeth breathed a sigh of relief.

“If you weren’t my cousin…” Tom said under his breath.

Elizabeth stared at the wolf. Cousin?

When they reached the cabin, she dove through the wolf door, sniffed the air, ensuring no one had entered the house while they were gone, and waited for Tom to enter the cabin.

Tom shoved the door open, then kicked it closed and said to her, “Stay here. Don’t shift back.”