Page 3 of Taken By The Wolves
My heart skips a beat.
I know there’s someone there before I look. The prickle of unease I had in the bar returns tenfold, and I whip my head around, finding the creepy man behind me by only a few paces. Was he waiting in the undergrowth for me to pass, or had he followed me all this time? That same rotten energy brushes up against mine. He’s too close. Too quiet. Too intentional.
Don’t trust strangers, my mom’s voice screams in my mind.
“Hey,” he calls out, casual and smooth. “You want me to walk with you? It’s not safe out here.”
“It’s okay,” I say, trying to sound light and breezy, like I’m not unraveling inside. I wave a hand, dismissively. Keep it friendly. Don’t escalate. But he doesn’t fall away. His stride matches mine, unhurried and too confident.
“It’s no trouble.” He smirks like a wolf.
“I’m fine,” I say firmly. My feet are burning from the heels. I wish I wore sneakers, something I could run in. I quicken my pace, and he keeps up easily.
“I guess what they say about redheads is true,” he mutters.
I don’t take the bait, but it’s hard. Every word from his mouth grates like sandpaper across my skin.
“What’s that?”
“Feisty,” he says, and that’s when his hand clamps around my wrist.
I gasp, twisting my body away, trying to yank free, but his grip is solid, snagging my skin and bruising my bone.
“Let go of me,” I hiss, yanking my arm back again, but he grins, his yellow teeth turning my stomach.
“Don’t be like that,” he croons. “I’m looking out for you.”
“I know,” I lie, gathering my senses. Rage won’t help me here. He wants the struggle. His eyes light up with it, bright with the thrill of dominance. “But I don’t need looking after. My husband’s back at the motel. He’s waiting for me.”
He turns my wrist, inspecting it like he owns it. “No ring,” he says, voice thick with amusement. “And no man in his right mind would leave you to walk alone. Not looking like you do.”
I have no comeback. Nothing will work. He doesn’t care what I say. He’s already made his choice. He’s going to take what he wants unless I stop him.
So I scream.
I scream with everything I have. My lungs tear with it. He tries to shut me up, lunging with his other hand, but I twist, kicking and thrashing, refusing to make it easy. We stumble off the road and into the woods. My ankle catches on something, and I crash forward. Still, I scream.
“Shut up,” he barks, yanking my hair, turning my face roughly. His hand clasps viciously over my mouth. I bite. I bite so deep, I taste blood.
“Bitch.” He slaps me around the back of the head, pain exploding in white stars, and I blink furiously through the haze. Then something moves. Low to the ground. Fast.
A growl splits the night.
He spins.
Wolf.
His grip slackens. There are two of them. Massive, muzzles low, yellow eyes trained not on me but him. Salviathreads from the jaw of the closest one, its lip curled in a silent snarl.
I stumble back, tripping over a fallen log and twisting my ankle. When my ass hits the ground, all the breath is knocked out of me, and a white-hot scream of pain flashes through me.
The man backs away, his bravado gone. Now he’s a scared animal in the sights of something bigger, stronger, and more deadly.
The wolves look hungry and angry, like they want to tear the man limb from limb, not for food, but for pleasure.
But wolves don’t attack humans. I know that much from school. They’re shy, reclusive creatures, except these ones don’t seem that way. They are monstrous in size, intelligent in the tilt of their heads, in the stillness of their poised bodies. They’re not interested in me. Only him.
The wolves prowl after him until they’re lost to the gloom, the sounds of his scrambling feet and their giant paws in the dry leaves the only indication they were ever here. Then they vanish into the dark with him, swallowed whole.
