Night of the Wolf by Alice Borchardt

Author:Alice Borchardt
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780345455536
Publisher: Random House Publishing Group
Published: 2002-03-04T16:00:00+00:00

The girl came back to join Maeniel for the night. He didn’t mind her sleeping with him. Nor did she stir his blood any more than a wolf cub would have.

A whole succession of signals had to be right before his body would be aroused. In that, Dryas had understood him perfectly.

In spite of the terrible scars that marred her face and body, the girl was young and she heated up like a stove. Wolf cubs did the same and, used as he was to sleeping with his own kind, he found it terrible to feel so isolated and alone.

It was going to snow tonight and be very cold. A myriad of factors informed his senses: the humidity, low clouds, the smell of the wind, its direction; and he felt in his ears the minute changes in air pressure. At dusk, the wind began to blow and he could feel the storm moving toward them the way a human hears approaching footsteps and knows from the graduations of sound that someone is coming closer and closer.

The girl ran into the shed. He picked her up and placed her body between his own and the wall on a pile of straw covered by an old blanket She would receive the most protection there. After a very short time, he slept. She woke him once when she slipped past his body to use the trench outside.

She didn’t return. A man might have thought she’d simply gone to the house to join Mir and Dryas, but he wasn’t a man. No matter what Dryas tried to do, he took nothing for granted.

He rose. The storm had been a mild one, leaving only a light snow cover over the meadow, Mir’s house, and the shed. The moon was out and, by its pale light, he could see where she’d visited the trench. But then something must have frightened her and he saw her footprints cross the thin covering of snow on the meadow and vanish into the woods.

He eased slowly through the door, moving quietly as only a wolf can move, being extra careful because the chain was noisy and he was clumsy with the staple on his ankle.

There was little wind. He turned cautiously, feeling the direction on his skin until it was blowing on his face, directly into his nostrils. The odor was man, man and soldier, the combination of iron, leather, and woodsmoke peculiar to the legionnaires in the Roman camp. Not only soldiers coming, but soldiers who stank of the acid perspiration sent out by men who are on edge, aggressive, or afraid. To his surprise, he found he’d developed a new skill. He could count them, five fingers and one. Six.

He took a deep breath and tried to control the instant fear that odor roused in his brain, then remembered that he was dealing with men, not wolves, and he didn’t have to worry about them scenting him.

At the same time, he froze in absolute stillness because he heard a sound.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.