“Yeah, sure.”
“If it’s someplace really cool, maybe you and Olivia could come, too,” Rachel said.
I didn’t answer right away. The word Christmas immediately evoked memories of the scent of our Christmas tree, the dark infinity of the starry December sky above the backyard, and my wolf’s eyes watching me from behind the snow-covered trees. No matter how absent he was for the rest of the year, I always had my wolf for Christmas.
Rachel groaned. “Don’t do that silent staring-off-into-the- distance-thinking look, Grace! I can tell you’re doing it! You can’t tell me you don’t want to get out of this place!”
I sort of didn’t. I sort of belonged here. “I didn’t say no,” I protested.
“You also didn’t say omigod yes, either. That’s what you were supposed to say.” Rachel sighed. “But you will come over, right?”
“You know I will,” I said, craning my neck to squint out the back window. “Now, I really have to go.”
“Yeah yeah yeah,” Rachel said. “Bring cookies. Don’t forget. Love ya. Bye.” She laughed and hung up.
I hurried to get the pot of stew simmering on the stove so it could occupy itself without me. Grabbing my coat from the hooks on the wall, I pulled open the sliding door to the deck.
Cool air bit my cheeks and pinched at the tops of my ears, reminding me that summer was officially over. My stocking cap was stuffed in the pocket of my coat, but I knew my wolf didn’t always recognize me when I was wearing it, so I left it off. I squinted at the edge of the yard and stepped off the deck, trying to look nonchalant as I did. The piece of beef in my hand felt cold and slick.
I crunched out across the brittle, colorless grass into the middle of the yard and stopped, momentarily dazzled by the violent pink of the sunset through the fluttering black leaves of the trees. This stark landscape was a world away from the small, warm kitchen with its comforting smells of easy survival. Where I was supposed to belong. Where I should’ve wanted to be. But the trees called to me, urging me to abandon what I knew and vanish into the oncoming night. It was a desire that had been tugging me with disconcerting frequency these days.
The darkness at the edge of the wood shifted, and I saw my wolf standing beside a tree, nostrils sniffing toward the meat in my hand. My relief at seeing him was cut short as he shifted his head, letting the yellow square of light from the sliding door fall across his face. I could see now that his chin was crusted with old, dried blood. Days old.
His nostrils worked; he could smell the bit of beef in my hand. Either the beef or the familiarity of my presence was enough to lure him a few steps out of the wood. Then a few steps more. Closer than he’d ever been before.
I faced him, near enough that I could have reached out and touched his dazzling fur. Or brushed the deep red stain on his muzzle.
I badly wanted that blood to be his. An old cut or scratch earned in a scuffle.
But it didn’t look like that. It looked like it belonged to someone else.
“Did you kill him?” I whispered.
He didn’t disappear at the sound of my voice, as I had expected. He was as still as a statue, his eyes watching my face instead of the meat in my hand.
“It’s all they can talk about on the news,” I said, as if he could understand. “They called it ’savage.’ They said wild animals did it. Did you do it?”
He stared at me for a minute longer, motionless, unblinking. And then, for the first time in six years, he closed his eyes. It went against every natural instinct a wolf should have possessed. A lifetime of an unblinking gaze, and now he was frozen in almost-human grief, brilliant eyes closed, head ducked and tail lowered.
It was the saddest thing I had ever seen.
Slowly, barely moving, I approached him, afraid only of scaring him away, not of his scarlet-stained lips or the teeth they hid. His ears flicked, acknowledging my presence, but he didn’t move. I crouched, dropping the meat onto the snow beside me. He flinched as it landed. I was close enough to smell the wild odor of his coat and feel the warmth of his breath.
Then I did what I had always wanted to—I put a hand to his dense ruff, and when he didn’t flinch, I buried both my hands in his fur. His outer coat was not soft as it looked, but beneath the coarse guard hairs was a layer of downy fluff. With a low groan, he pressed his head against me, eyes still closed. I held him as if he were no more than a family dog, though his wild, sharp scent wouldn’t let me forget what he really was.
For a moment, I forgot where—who—I was. For a moment, it didn’t matter.
Movement caught my eye: Far off, barely visible in the fading day, the white wolf was watching at the edge of the wood, her eyes burning.
I felt a rumble against my body and I realized my wolf was growling at her. The she-wolf stepped closer, uncommonly bold, and he twisted in my arms to face her. I flinched at the sound of his teeth snapping at her.
She never growled, and somehow that was worse. A wolf should have growled. But she just stared, eyes flicking from him to me, every aspect of her body language breathing hatred.
Still rumbling, almost inaudible, my wolf pressed harder against me, forcing me back a step, then another, guiding me up to the deck. My feet found the steps and I retreated to the sliding door. He remained at the bottom of the stairs until I pushed the door open and locked myself inside the house.
As soon as I was inside, the white wolf darted forward and snatched the piece of meat I’d dropped. Though my wolf was nearest to her and the most obvious threat for the food, it was me that her eyes found, on the other side of the glass door. She held my gaze for a long moment before she slid into the woods like a spirit.
My wolf hesitated by the edge of the woods, the dim porch light catching his eyes. He was still watching my silhouette through the door.
I pressed my palm flat against the frigid glass.
The distance between us had never felt so vast.
CHAPTER SIX • GRACE
42°F
When my father got home, I was still lost in the silent world of the wolves, imagining again and again the feeling of my wolf’s coarse hairs against my palms. Even though I’d reluctantly washed my hands to finish up dinner, his musky scent lingered on my clothing, keeping the encounter fresh in my mind. It had taken six years for him to let me touch him. Hold him. And now he’d guarded me, just like he’d always guarded me. I desperately wanted to tell somebody, but I knew Dad wouldn’t share my excitement, especially with the newscasters still droning in the background about the attack. I kept my mouth shut.