Page 34 of The Alpha Dire Wolf (Bloodlines & Bloodbonds #1)

Sylvie

“V ee!”

I came to a screeching halt, nearly tripping over my feet in the race to focus on what I’d just heard. Or thought I heard. There was no way it was possible. Only person recently called me that name, and he was ignoring me. A long, long way away.

Unmoving, I waited for something else to change. For someone to pinch me or shake my leg and tell me to wake up and stop sleeping the day away. That’s what this had to be, a dream, all of it. No way was it real. I was going crazy.

You must believe it fully and completely. If I told you, you would think I was crazy.

The line from my grandmother’s last journal entry leaped off the page and slapped me across the face.

It was absurd, of course, to the point I wanted to laugh.

No way could she have known that the ancient tree in her backyard would explode and then come back to life and try to kill me, only to be stopped be an equally outsized wolf.

A wolf I’d seen before.

Muscles in my legs twitched, urging me to run. To dart back to the house and reality, where trees didn’t come alive and try to eat me.

“ Vee …”

I closed my eyes, my limbs trembling with fear, trying to shut out the voice and the pain that accompanied it. Leaves rustled in the trees around me as branches swayed and rubbed against one another. The light was fading. I was running out of time.

Did I really want to be stuck in this damned forest with that thing? I needed to run . To get out of there. Go somewhere safe. That’s what I needed.

This is impossible. It’s not real! It can’t be!

The thoughts spun in my forebrain like a carousel, rotating between them over, and over, and over. I couldn’t latch on to a thing. My breathing was shaky, uneven. My feet rooted to the ground.

What if it is him?

There it was. The question I’d been trying to avoid. Tying the voice I’d heard calling my name out here to the only person to say it in recent memory.

Screwing my face up tight, I slowly inched my way back around the direction I’d come.

The forest itself seemed to sigh, though in relief or anticipation I couldn’t be sure.

Branches drooped. The wind died off. But there was no silence.

Birds called in the distance. The soft buzz of forest life was still there, still present.

I hadn’t realized it before, but when the tree-thing was attacking, everything was silent. It, the forest, the world around me.

Until it screamed. Well, that and the voice I’d heard in my head. But that was also impossible, not real. Wasn’t it?

There was only one way to find out.

Adding my courage to the list of things being screwed up, I took a step back toward the clearing where I’d narrowly escaped death, or perhaps worse.

Then another. Of course, I was still hiding behind the big tree trunk, using it to block me from view as I approached. But cowardice kept people alive. Right?

What felt like an eternity later, but was probably no more than a minute, I was out of room.

The thick, rough bark of the tree was inches from my face.

On the far side, the clearing. It was either look or turn back the way I’d come.

But that option had already been discarded.

I was too curious not to look, I needed to know too badly.

The last thing I could handle was another mystery, another unknown.

Cautiously, I leaned to the side, peering out around the tree and bracing myself. Anything could be there. Anything

You already know what you’re going to find.

I still gasped as I saw the prone form in the middle of the clearing, right near where the wolf had fallen.

There was no mistaking that sandy-brown hair, if the gold and black flannel shirt wasn’t already a dead giveaway, rolled up over forearms that I knew perfectly well could do a great many things …

What made me gasp were the blood stains across his body, matting his hair into giant clumps, as well as the limp sprawl on the ground.

The man I knew, the man this body belonged to, who was always so alive to the point that power seemed to constantly struggle to escape his body.

To see him this way was the shattering of an illusion.

He was no god. He was mortal. And his mortality was on full display because of me . He’d suffered those wounds protecting me . In return, what did he get? Me, cowering in the woods, when he desperately needed help.

Adrenaline spurred me into action. I raced across the clearing, skinning my knees as I slid onto them next to him. “Linc? Linc, what are you doing here? Are you okay? Oh my god!”

Up close, he looked even worse. Blood was everywhere.

“Oh, god,” I said, repeating it over at least half a dozen times. “You need an ambulance. I’ve got to go get you help. There’s so much blood, Linc, oh my god.”

Full-blown panic was setting in. I was babbling, my voice rising to a fever pitch.

A hand reached out, grabbing my wrist as I tried to stand. The movement, but also the physical contact, broke through my fog like an arrow bolt.

“No,” Lincoln said, spitting blood. “No ambulance.”

“You’re joking. Right? You’re lying in a pool of your own blood. You need help.”

He shook his head and then groaned. “I’ll be okay. I promise.”

“You are very badly hurt. Possibly fatally.”

“Not fatal,” he grunted and then slumped limply back flat to the forest floor. “I’ve been hurt worse.”

“I highly doubt that.”

A ghost of a smile tugged at his torn lips. “Promise. Besides, you’re here now. I’ll be okay. I’ve got you.”

I pulled my eyes away from his face, looking down his body as he talked.

Some of his wounds were fresh and still bleeding, but others were older and healing.

Ugly and red, but closed and showing signs of fresh pink skin.

That was good, but they presented a new problem, including the one on his face.

Because it most certainly had not been there the night before.

“Did the wolf do this to you?” I asked.

“No. The wolf did not do this. You know that.” He rolled slightly, looking me directly in the eyes.

Staring, unblinking. Forcing me to look right at him.

Right into those different-colored eyes.

Heterochromia—a fascinating genetic trait that made it difficult to look away.

A trait he shared with the wolf that had saved my life.

Those eyes were boring into me now. They contained a truth. A truth he wanted me to see.

“Lincoln.”

“Yes?” his voice was stronger now. Less near the precipice of death. That was good.

“Why …” I paused, gathering myself while trying to ask the absurd question. “Why are your eyes the same color as the wolf? And how did you get here? Where is the wolf? It was hurt badly … just like you.”

My eyes fell to his side, where two long, jagged marks that were still all sorts of ugly were beginning to heal. Bisecting them, however, right through his clothing and down through the flesh, was a wider, more vicious-looking gash. Right where the tree-thing had whipsawed the wolf near the end.

“Lincoln, what the hell is going on here?” I swallowed. “Who are you? What was that thing?”

A long silence lingered between us, long enough I had to wonder if he had maybe passed on without me knowing.

Then his chest rose and fell in a large, ragged breath.

He cautiously pushed himself into a sitting position across from me, wiping at his mouth, likely trying to remove some of the black gunk smeared across his chin.

“I don’t know what it was,” he said at long last.

My eyes narrowed.

“Honestly,” he replied, taking another deep breath. “I’ve never seen or heard of any such thing before.”

That wasn’t good enough. Not by a long shot. Not for me, not now, after all I’d witnessed and gone through. He needed to do better.

“But you weren’t surprised by it either.” I didn’t phrase it as a question. I didn’t want him dodging the answer.

“I’ve seen a lot of unusual things,” he said, speaking carefully. “To the point that it takes a lot to truly surprise me these days.”

He was still holding back. We both knew it. I opened my mouth to accuse him of just that, but he surprised me by continuing with blunt honesty.

“There’s a lot you don’t know.”

My laughter echoed through the forest like a gunshot. “Lincoln, if there is one thing I do know, it’s that I don’t know a lot. That everyone around me has been leaving me in the dark. Including you. So how about for once, you break that trend, and tell me .”

I hadn’t meant to get angry, but I was, and it was showing. I locked eyes with him, and this time I held them, forcing him to be the first one to look away. It was key that he knew this was a make-or-break situation with me. No more double-speak, no more avoidance. The truth, or nothing more.

“Not here,” he said at last. “We should leave before it gets darker. Get to your place.”

Bring him back to my place? That didn’t seem like a good idea.

Linc’s eyes lit with fire from within. “Vee,” he said with more strength than I’d thought he still possessed, “I am not leaving you alone. Not now, not after what happened. I’ll sleep outside if I have to, but that thing is still out there. I won’t risk it coming for you. I can’t.”

Swallowing was suddenly impossible. My throat was dry and blocked with a lump the size of my fist at the protectiveness he was exuding. Regardless of how weak he was, how hurt he was, Lincoln still wanted to be there. For me.

If I let him. A man who shouldn’t be where he was. Who shouldn’t have the wounds he had. Who shouldn’t … who shouldn’t … anything. None of it should be!

“Vee,” he said softly, taking my hand and squeezing it in that annoyingly reassuring way that could always break through the darkness. “You can trust me. I swear it.”

I stared at where my hand was sandwiched between his thick paws, disappearing into the giantness that was Lincoln. My gut was telling me he meant it. That I could believe him and be safe with him.

But then I looked up. Into his eyes. One blue. One amber. The same eyes as the wolf.

Impossible …