Page 58 of To Keep A Wolf
We all hear it at the same time, our heads whipping toward the back door as one.
My wolf stirs, and I feel the hairs on my arm stand on end as the noise outside grows louder. Paws padding over grass.
In the darkness, something moves.
Tripp is closest. He’s up and out the door before any of us.
My mother and Levi are right behind him and then my dad, careful to keep his body in front of mine, though I’m sure he doesn’t think I notice. I call up my wolf, ready to shred right through these clothes and shift the moment I see whatever’s stalking its way toward the house.
A tracker, judging from the way the creature prowling the backyard seems locked onto the cabin. Not to mention the lithe, quick way that it moves through the darkness; cutting through air and space toward its prey.
My heart thrums at the idea that we’ve been found out.
But by the time I lay eyes on the massive wolf rounding my father’s garden, Tripp is already upon it. With a deadly growl, Tripp’s wolf explodes from his skin. He rakes sharpened claws over the tracker’s snout even before the thing can fully lock onto its new enemy.
Tripp’s teeth rip into the thing’s throat, speed and fury combining to make my friend just as deadly and swift and strong as the tracker itself.
The sound of teeth against flesh is wet, promising a messy kill. Levi pulls up short, angling back so that he’s shielding me from the worst of it.
“Where did Tripp learn to fight like that?” I can’t help but ask.
Levi casts me a look. “Training.”
Beside me, my father grabs my arm to keep me from getting closer. Annoyed, I try to pull free, but when I catch sight of the carnage ahead, I realize there’s no point.
Tripp’s wolf rips through the tracker-wolf, laying it out on the ground until it’s nothing more than blood and parts. My mother, still human, ventures closer, but she’s already been rendered needless.
The dead tracker wolf is no longer a threat.
We all stare in silence at the dead wolf, and my mind races at what it means.
“If Jadick didn’t know we were here before, he will now,” Levi says grimly.
“Two trackers that won’t be returning,” my father mutters in agreement. He looks up, first at Levi then my mother. Finally, to me. “We can’t stay here any longer.”
Regret flashes in his eyes.
“I know,” I say, but he shakes his head.
“I told you this was a safe place,” he says.
“It’s not your fault,” I tell him.
He looks sad, though. It makes me wonder what he expected.
“We’ll have to leave first thing,” Levi says.
He looks at me, waiting. I nod. Still in wolf form, Tripp nods too.
The decision is made.
Winded and coated in blood, Tripp steps back and then heads for the hillside. I start after him, but my father stops me. “There could be more,” he says.
“That’s why I’m going,” I tell him, pulling away from him and starting for the woods.
Instead of stopping me, Levi jogs to my side.
“If you try to tell me to wait at home, I’ll claw your gorgeous face off,” I tell him.
