Wolf in the Shadows by Maria Vale

Author:Maria Vale
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Sourcebooks
Published: 2022-05-12T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter 22

Arthur

The last night of the Iron Moon is interrupted by the sound of shooting. It’s not near us—closer to the flat spaces to the west of Beaver Pond—but Julia is not used to being hunted and she freezes.

I bite her hind leg to get her moving toward the High Pines. This huge forested area that floods down from the northernmost mountains and across the foothills is dense and irregular, crisscrossed with windfall trees and tangled vine and hobblebush and water-worn gullies. Another shot echoes and I nip her again and again until she shakes herself awake and surges forward, clearing rivulets and gullies and racing past fallen trees.

She even runs past four adults herding our six littlest pups.

Francesca scratches her ear with her hind leg while looking at me for an explanation, but I have no idea why Julia would run past pups who clearly needed help. Francesca bends her head toward me, and along with other wolves of the 9th, they grab four of the pups and race for the High Pines, the little bodies swinging limp in their mouths.

I nudge Solveig and John forward. They are old enough to understand the need to stay with an adult in an emergency. They are not, however, old enough to understand that the ravine up ahead is too wide, and I have no way of telling them to stay and wait. I will come back. With a growl, I push John back, then leap across with Solveig; I turn around as soon as I drop her, but John is already there, perched on the other side, his hind legs jittering, ready to jump.

A gray wolf races past me and flies over the ravine, barreling into John, tumbling away from the edge with the little pup cushioned in the curve of her body. Solveig and I watch Julia shake herself off, then sniff around John’s muddy fur before she finally takes him primly in her teeth. I can barely stand to watch, terrified that her reticent grip won’t hold as they sail back across.

I curl my lips away from my teeth, showing her how I take Solveig gently right below her shoulders, my fangs forming a cage around her little body.

When another shot rings out, Julia doesn’t hesitate. She lowers her head to John, her teeth creating a gentle vise around fur and mud, and runs.

Other wolves race past us on their way to the High Pines, though Elijah breaks south, running all out, probably to find Thea. The Alpha heads west toward the Gray and the Bone Wolf.

Two more shots.

We run faster toward the border stream that marks the edge of the sanctuary of the High Pines. It has settled into its more sluggish summer banks, though the rocks are still slick from spring and a rand of mud marks either side.

Wolves are everywhere here, though humans would never know it. As soon as we arrive with the pups hanging from our jaws, they emerge from the trees, begging Julia to let them take John because they don’t trust her with him.

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