Page 37 of A Wolf’s Wound

Ryder

“There’s a bit of a dip coming up.”

That’s putting it mildly. My dad’s always talked about hiring someone to smooth out the road to the cabin or even having all of us take a few days to fill the dip because when the rains come, it becomes uncrossable.

The way things are going lately, though, I wouldn’t mind some rain.

Hannah doesn’t respond, even when the car jolts over the dirt road and we begin our winding climb up to the cabin. It’s a steep incline, but she doesn’t seem nervous at all. A swell of pride blossoms in my chest. She trusts me.

A loud snore makes me jump.

Nope, she’s just asleep.

With Shadow for a makeshift pillow, she’s curled up together with him in the passenger seat, her head buried in his fur. I feel a tender sort of ache in my chest when I look at her from the corner of my eye, and I slow down, taking care to avoid the roughest patches of dirt.

I’ve driven here often enough that I know where all the major holes are, even in the dark. Hell, when I was a kid, Gavin and I used to speed across them on purpose on our four-wheelers, trying to see how high we could get them to jump.

Cody made some noise about taking the four-wheeler out during our family vacation here last year, which Gavin had immediately vetoed. When Gavin complained that the kid was giving him gray hair, Mom had just snorted.

We gave her hell as kids, even if we weren’t exactly looking to do it. Trouble always seemed to find Gavin and me, wherever we were. Or maybe we just had a knack for finding trouble.

Not too much has changed except for the gray at Gavin’s temple, I guess.

“Home sweet home,” I murmur to myself.

Shadow wakes, takes stock of Hannah’s exhaustion, and lumbers onto my shoulder instead. I suppose I could wake her up, but I don’t have the heart to do it. Not when she’s sleeping like this, so carefree.

So after I unlock the door, I carry her inside. Her face burrows against my chest, a sensation I’d enjoy more if her raccoon wasn’t busy clawing his way to the top of my head.

“Go on, get,” I mutter, leaning my head down to the bed.

He chitters and makes himself comfortable on one of the pillows as I peel back the comforter and carefully lay Hannah down. Her hair falls over her face, so, tentatively, I brush it back.

She’s so fucking pretty it makes my teeth ache to look at her sometimes.

It’s a little scary how natural it feels to be around her. I’ve never felt like this about a woman before, like her comfort is my priority. Pulling a blanket over a woman snoring like a hammer drill shouldn’t make me feel like a melting pat of butter.

I should just leave her. She’ll be fine for the night. But I tuck the blanket in around her, making sure she’s covered. There’s a bit of a chill in the air, and some primal part of me can’t stand the thought of her being cold.

As soon as I step outside, I cover my face in my hands and resist the urge to scream. I don’t know what Hannah’s doing to me, but it feels like I’m in free fall, and I’ve got no idea if there’s a soft, pillowy landing or a bucket of rusty nails waiting for me at the bottom of it.

The next morning…

She wakes with the sun in the morning, and I pointedly do not look at the smooth expanse of her stomach as she stretches her arms over her head and yawns.

“Good morning.” She sounds more well-rested than she has all week, and I try and fail to smother a bit of pride at that. “Coffee, too? Aren’t you a prince.”

“That is one thing I’ve definitely never been called before.

” I watch as she fixes up her coffee how she likes it, taking note of how many spoonfuls of sugar she dumps in.

I brought some milk and perishable groceries from my mom’s house, but I probably should have brought more.

She’s basically drinking sugar milk with a splash of coffee.

“Stop judging,” she says, her back still turned to me.

“I should have brought a damn cow.”

She laughs, a bright, happy sound, and it lights me up. We haven’t had much time together, just existing.

“Listen.” The reason we’re here weighs me back down. “That was a close call last night.”

“I’m not looking for a lecture.” All the laughter’s gone out of her voice, but she doesn’t sound angry. She’s looking at Shadow, who’s crept into the room.

“And I’m not looking to give you one.” Her eyes meet mine. “You want your independence, and I get that. I do. But you need to learn how to defend yourself, and I aim to teach you, if you’ll let me.”

Her face does something complicated before she takes a long sip of the abomination she calls coffee. “When?”

I stand, my knees popping like I’ve been sitting too long. “No time like the present.”

She brings her coffee and Shadow bounces behind her. He keeps straying, excited to be out in the wild.

“Shadow!” she scolds. “Stay close.”

The raccoon tilts his head like a small dog, considering her words. Then he ignores her completely, charging into the woods when we stop in a small clearing by a spring.

“Shadow!”

“Let him,” I say. “Unless you want to chase after him all day.”

He scurries up a nearby tree, still mostly in eyeshot, and she gives in, rolling her eyes. “He’s such a brat.”

“Like his—”

“Don’t even.” But she’s smiling. “So, what am I learning today?”

“Judo.” I demonstrate a basic fighting stance. “You don’t need to be the biggest to win a fight if you know how to use momentum to your advantage.”

She looks appropriately skeptical at this.

“I’m serious. My mom’s a black belt. I saw her flip a guy twice her size like he was a pancake.”

Hannah’s eyebrows raise before she snorts. “She’s also a wolf.”

“So was the guy.”

At that, she nods, clearly impressed. “Your mom is pretty awesome, you know? Being mayor and all. Where I come from, women sort of get lost in the pack while men run things.”

The thought of my mom meekly letting anyone run her life makes me bark out a laugh. “It might not look like it, but women run our pack. I think Gavin tried to boss Mom around once, right when he became alpha, and she had him yelping like a pup with his tail between his legs.”

He’d tried to tell her she couldn’t be mayor, that she should focus more on pack duties instead. After the tongue-lashing he got in return, he’d been out that afternoon with me, hanging up the flyers announcing her candidacy.

“All right, we’re going to work on gripping sequences and how to win some space.”

Hannah takes to it well. I can see why she became a vet.

She’s smart as hell, learning so quickly that she’s twisting my arm back in no time, winning some space in between our bodies.

Next, we work on some counters and butterfly sweeps.

It’s all good until I remember judo’s a contact sport when we move on to grappling.

Our bodies are making a lot of contact.

“Ha!” She grins over me, her knees pressing into my thighs as she pins my hands with hers. “What do I win?”

I look up at her, and she’s looking back. Her smile has faded, but her lips are still parted. Her breath escapes in pants, and a bead of sweat rolls down her neck into the swell of her breasts. She leans forward, our lips almost brush—

Several howls echo across the forest.

Hannah springs backward so fast she nearly falls.

“Why are they howling? Did something happen?”