Page 5 of The Alpha Dire Wolf (Bloodlines & Bloodbonds #1)

Sylvie

G ravel under the tires announced that I was finally back. Stifling a yawn, I carefully put the car in park before bending over the steering wheel and taking a minute purely for myself.

Today was a thoroughly draining day—one that had left me exhausted and in desperate need of a recharge.

Sleeping in the car wasn’t going to do it.

That was for sure. I needed real, actual rest, but it was far too early for that.

The sun was still up, though it was setting now.

However, in the early summer months, that took a long time.

It would be hours before I could let sleep claim me.

The reception after the funeral had been nice, but I had ducked out as fast as I could without being rude. I needed to be by myself.

Now, standing next to the door of my car, staring up the wraparound porch, I found myself waiting for a light to spring on in the window, followed by my grandma pulling the door open and beaming from ear to ear at me. She always had a big smile for me.

I wish I’d come to see it more often.

Regret slid in through that momentary lapse in my defenses, a blade driving its cold metal home with a torturous twist at the end—an added reminder of the guilt. I could have come more often. I should have.

But Caidyn didn’t like coming here. So we didn’t come often.

I started to get irate at him again but stopped as a gentle breeze tugged at my hair, lifting my spirits with its caress. Its warmth felt like a reassuring hand on my shoulder, a reminder that everything was going to be okay.

Out back of the house, birds called, their songs floating on the currents of the breeze, tugging me out of the brief spiral I had started to go down.

One bird in particular came and perched on the edge of the roof of the house, singing its song loud and clear for anyone to hear.

I chose to think he was doing it for me.

“Hi, Grandma,” I said softly, whispering to the empty air. “Thank you for that.”

Standing straight, I headed around the car and toward the house.

Halfway there, the wind turned cold, and the birds fell silent. I took a deep breath in, and somewhere deep in the forest, an animal screamed. The shriek went on, lingering in the air like an unpleasant odor, never quite leaving my ears.

I shivered fitfully and hurried inside, glad to be out of the chill breeze that had come out of nowhere to go along with that cry. Looking out the kitchen window at the forest, I pondered that coincidence.

Stop it. You’re thinking way too deep.

Putting my stuff down, I flopped onto the couch, letting the cushions absorb my fall as my body stopped supporting itself. The impact blew air out and bounced the springs. Next to me, my grandmother’s journal flipped on edge and then fell to the floor, spine up.

I stared listlessly for a few moments and then picked it up. It had popped open on a page with a dark pen-filled image of a giant tree. It took up both pages. Smaller images or symbols were drawn around it. I didn’t recognize any of them. The tree looked familiar. It lacked a tire swing but …

Getting up, I went out the back door onto the porch and held the book up at eye height, comparing the drawing to the oak tree with its tire swing.

Almost immediately, I could see they weren’t the same one.

The tree in her journal was bigger. A lot bigger.

I skimmed the forest line as well, but none of them matched either.

“Wonder where this tree is from?” I flipped back a page to see the last journal entry. It talked about the forest and the new noises my grandmother had heard from it but nothing more.

The wind picked up, and the tire swing hanging from the old oak tree creaked as it swayed back and forth. I wandered down off the deck and went over to it, sitting on the ancient rubber and letting myself sway in slow circles, much like I had when I was a kid. Before I moved away.

Before they took me away.

It was an unexpectedly hostile thought. Perhaps I wasn’t as done with therapy as I’d thought. I made a mental note to call and make an appointment when I got back to the city. Today was just ripe with new trauma to discuss. Lucky me.

The wind in the forest called to me—a reminder of the warmth and comfort I had drawn from it as a child. My grandmother had said she felt it too, though she spoke about it also having left her. Had it come back? Could I still feel it?

I left the tire swing behind, walking toward the line of trees.

As I neared, last season’s leaves crunched gently underfoot.

Here and there, a twig snapped. The warm breeze guided me in, and, though I was certain I was imagining it, the mighty boughs of the trees above seemed to groan as they reached out for me to say hello like a long-lost friend.

The trees closed in as I entered, and I was immediately lost in their presence.

Tall and mighty, the old forest was just as comforting now as it was back then.

Eyes half-lidded, I wandered into this new world, my fingertips running across bark and feeling its texture as well as the life contained within. Its pulse.

I recalled the last time I had experienced that feeling, happy to hear that the loss of it must have been temporary. Hopefully, my grandmother described its return in another journal entry.

For me, it was the day my parents told me we were leaving. That they had sold the house, and we were moving four hours away. To a big city, where my parents would find work and support me.

And where they would be killed nine years later.

After they had told me, I remembered crying and screaming, telling them I didn’t want to go.

I wanted to stay. Then I had “run away,” dashing out the door before either could stop me and racing down the street to my grandmother’s house.

My safe place. But on my way there, I had decided not to go inside.

I had run out back, past the tire swing and the shed, and into the forest itself until dinnertime.

My grandmother had taken my side. She pleaded with my dad, begging him to let me stay, that she would raise me. But my father wanted nothing to do with that. He’d gotten angry over it.

Then we left and never come back. I hadn’t returned until their funeral. Nine years of absence.

“I hope you can all make nice up there,” I said, glancing at the bits of sky visible through the thick leafy treetops, the branches from various trees all coming together to intertwine. “Maybe watch over me? When I join you, I’d love if we could all be a happy family again.”

Silence greeted my request. I sighed, though what had I expected? A hologram of all three of them to appear above a bonfire and nod at me like they had sorted out their differences and were all good now?

“Ha.”

My sarcastic laugh echoed eerily in the forest, bouncing off the trees and becoming distorted. The sound was twisted, unpleasant.

All at once, I’d gone far enough into the forest.

At the same time, the warmth fell away, replaced by that same cool breeze from before. Prickles ran down my neck, joined by a sudden tightness in my stomach.

Danger was close.

I had definitely come far enough. Looking around for any obvious signs, I turned to go. A twig snapped underfoot, cracking like a gunshot in the silence. Nails tracked down my spine, digging in around each vertebra like a vise.

Shadows around the trees grew deeper as the silence became more profound. No chirping of birds, no rustle of leaves. No signs of life . It was empty.

“Hello?” I called nervously, trying to watch my every step so I didn’t trip and fall. The ground was far more uneven than I remembered upon entry. I hadn’t been watching where I went. The forest had guided me.

Now it was an obstacle course, preventing me from getting out.

Deep in the forest, something screamed. Deep and throaty, it was not the dying cry of an animal. It was the hunting call of a predator. I took off. Leaves crunched, twigs broke, but I didn’t care. I had to get out of there. The forest wasn’t welcoming. My grandmother was right. It was—

I came skidding to a halt as a giant black shape shuffled out from behind a tree twenty yards in front of me. I froze, looking down and away as the black bear reacted to my presence. Maybe if I did nothing menacing, if I just stood there, it would go away.

But when it lifted its head, and I saw the redness to its eyes and the saliva dripping down its jowls, I had a brand-new fear.

It’s rabid. The damn thing is rabid. Is that even possible?

Possible or not, I was confronted with the reality that I was at its mercy.

I am so fucking dead.

A momentary spike of irony reminded me of my talk to the heavens about reuniting with my parents and grandmother. I hadn’t meant for it to be this soon, but fate was funny like that sometimes.

The bear growled deeper, rising up on its hind legs and letting loose its bellow at full blast. I braced myself, looking around, unsure of where to run. I couldn’t outpace it. I knew that. I would have to dodge, somehow. There was no other way. Use the trees to my advantage maybe?

Dropping down onto all fours again, the bear charged, its eyes red with madness and focused entirely on me. All my plans went out the window, and I screamed, sure that death had caught me.

The ground shook as the bear closed the gap fast. I squeezed my eyes shut, fear rooting me to the spot against my wishes.

And at the last second, something hit me in the side, tackling me out of the way. My eyes snapped open as I flew through the air. All I could see was gray fur as I landed on top of it.

Gray. Not black. It wasn’t the bear.

We rolled, hard and fast, and I was tossed free, bouncing roughly before coming to a stop facing away from the bear. I could hear it making noises as it crashed to a stop. Closer by, something answered it back.

Something deep and powerful.

Spinning over, I could only watch as a giant wolf challenged the bear, standing between it and me, its dark gray fur rippling in the cool wind that now made its way through the forest. Crouching low on its front legs, the massive beast jumped.

It was far larger than any wolf I’d ever seen, and when it hit the bear, it bounced off, landing on its feet with impossible agility.

The bear fell backward, and I saw matted fur where the wolfs claws had sunk in deeply.

Unfortunately, all the attack did was enrage the thing.

It charged again, wildly fast, but the wolf darted away, easily evading the attack.

Again it played out, this time the wolf leaped up and over the charging bear, landing on its back to tear at the fur there before jumping free and waiting for the bear to gather itself yet again.

While it waited, it swung its head toward me. I stared back. It had mismatched eyes—one a bright blue, the other vibrant amber-yellow. Both of them locked on me, unmoving.

Time slowed and came to a standstill. The wind moved so slowly I could have stepped around it. The distance between the wolf and me seemed to stretch, colors blurring and mixing. Stars flashed past my eyes, and somewhere in the periphery, purple clouds closed in.

And then, just like that, it was past. Reality snapped back into focus, and I drew in a sharp, needed breath that I had been holding.

The wolf blinked and shook its head with a weird-sounding growl. Then, in a very humanlike motion, it jerked its snout to the side. In the direction of the house.

Was it telling me to leave? How could it …

The bear was charging again, and the wolf played matador. With the beast distracted, I got to my feet.

“T-thank you,” I said to the wolf as it risked a glance at me again.

It dipped its head.

My jaw dropped and I stopped moving, despite the bear roaring. “Can you understand me?” It was a stupid question. Of course it couldn’t. It was a wolf.

The mighty gray hunter blinked its multicolored eyes slowly, and then, in a blur, it sprang at the bear, clawing its face and further enraging the thing before leading it deeper into the forest, away from me.

Leaving me alone.

Leaving me safe.