Cry Wolf (Alpha & Omega 01) by Patricia Briggs

Author:Patricia Briggs [Briggs, Patricia]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2011-01-03T07:00:00+00:00

It might be that the spirits were just more active in this valley—or something could have happened. The more he thought about it, the more certain he was that it was more than just spirits making mischief. From last week or a hundred years ago, he couldn’t tell, but something dark lingered beneath the snow.

“You’re a werewolf,” he told her. “Creepy shouldn’t bother you.”

She snorted. “I was never afraid of monsters until I became one. Now I’m afraid of my own shadow.”

He heard the self-directed derision and snorted right back at her. “Baloney. I—” He caught a wild scent and stopped, turning his nose into the wind to catch it again.

Anna froze, watching him. He waited until the scent got a little stronger; their stalker was not worried that they would notice him.

“What do you smell?” he asked her softly.

She sucked in a deep breath and closed her eyes. “Trees, and whoever you stole these clothes from and—” She stiffened as she caught what he had. “Cat. Some kind of cat. Is it a panther?”

“Close,” he told her. “Lynx, I think. Nasty-tempered but not a danger to us.”

“Cool,” she said. “What a—” This time it was her turn to pause. “What’s that?”

“Dead rabbit,” he said, pleased. “You’re starting to pay attention to your nose.” He took another breath and reconsidered. “It might be a mouse, but probably rabbit. That’s why the lynx is still around; we’ve interrupted his dinner.” He was a little surprised that they’d run into a lynx here; cats usually stayed away from places that felt like this. Could it have been driven here by bigger predators?

She looked a little green. “I really hate it that part of me is getting hungry smelling raw meat.”

It hadn’t bothered her to smell Jack’s blood. But he hadn’t fed her in an hour, and she was hungry. Her body was burning up calories to stay warm. But hungry or not, it wasn’t the time to feed her a real meal; he needed to get out of this little draw. So he handed her a bag of peanut butter crackers and got them going again. The peanut butter would make sure she started drinking out of her canteen; he wasn’t sure she’d been drinking enough.

They hiked until the valley was behind them, and the dark feeling stayed behind, too, confirming his guess that it wasn’t spirits.

“Lunchtime,” he said, handing her a granola bar and stick of jerky.

She took them, brushed most of the snow off of a downed tree, then hopped up on it. “I was fine until we hit that valley. Now I’m bushed and frozen, and it’s only one o’clock. How do humans do this?”

He sat beside her eating his own jerky—it tasted a lot better than pemmican, though it wasn’t nearly as strengthening without all the fat. “Most of ’em don’t, not this time of year. I pushed us a little hard to get out of that valley, that’s what you’re feeling.” He frowned. “You haven’t been sweating, have you? Are your socks dry? I brought spares.

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