Page 73 of The Unlikely Pair
“Well, I’m trying to keep the light on the carnivorous animals to deter them from turning us into their after-dinner treat,” Harry replies in a cool tone.
“If you hand the torch to me, I’ll try to shine it in their eyes while hopefully giving you enough light to climb.”
“All right.”
Harry hands me the torch, and I try to focus my shaking hand on the wolves watching us while still allowing enough of the peripheral light to shine on Harry so he can see what he’s doing.
“Oww,” I say when Harry’s foot lands on my hand.
“Well, budge over then.”
It turns out this branch isn’t big enough for two grown men to be perched on it. Besides, right now, I’m a big fan of higher.Higher is such a great concept, especially when it involves climbing out of the range of a wolf’s jump height.
I flash the light up the trunk and spot another branch about six feet above our heads.
“Think you can reach that one?” I ask.
“I can try,” Harry replies.
It turns out Harry’s tree-climbing technique is not particularly elegant. He scrambles up the trunk, his polished Oxfords slipping and sliding on the bark.
Nevertheless, he makes it to the next branch.
“Here,” he extends his hand to me.
“Please don’t let me plummet to my wolfy doom,” I say as I grab his hand, and he starts to haul me up.
“I promise to not let you go,” he says.
There’s sincerity in his voice, and I believe him. It’s funny how a week ago, I would have never trusted Harry Matheson on anything, yet I now completely trust Harry will do everything he can to keep me alive and avoid me becoming wolf kibble.
Harry’s grip is strong, his jaw clenched with determination as he pulls me up. I swing my leg over the branch in probably the least graceful move I’ve ever attempted. And that’s saying something, considering my dance moves at the last Labour Party conference.
With an undignified grunt, I manage to straddle the branch. “Well, I guess this experience tells me a career in Cirque du Soleil will never happen,” I say.
Harry huffs a small laugh, which seems to surprise him because he starts to wobble. I quickly reach out to steady him.
“I’m not letting you fall either,” I say.
“Thank you,” he says formally, an unreadable emotion in his eyes.
I rip my gaze away from him to glance below us.
The wolves are moving like gray shadows, circling the base of the tree. My grip tightens on the branch I’m holding.
I think of the comment I made to Callum when I visited him and Oliver at Clarence House.
I don’t think food scarcity and being attacked by wolves are major concerns of mine at the moment.
Oh, how the universe must be enjoying this ‘gotcha’ moment.
One of the wolves sniffs at the survival blankets we discarded at the base of the tree, and my shoulders seize. The survival blankets are so well named. They are literally essential to us surviving out here. I have an irrational fear that the wolf will bite or rip it out of maliciousness.
But then the noise of two other wolves snarling at each other distracts the curious wolf, and it lifts its head.
In the torch beam, I can see what the wolves are fighting about. One of them has dug up the leftover fish bones.
They’re fresh out of luck if they expect much reward for their scavenging, because Harry and I picked the bones clean.
