by T. S. Joyce
Kristina handed me a thin blanket to coat the ground beneath and with Jeremiah’s strong body curled around me and the hypnotizing fire in front, I fell asleep easily enough enveloped in a fog of safety.
That night, I dreamt terrible things. Daniel was there but his face was always in shadow and I was running but not fast enough to ever truly escape. As I rounded the corner of my drab room in the city, he was there with eyes shining bright and red as Oklahoma dirt. “The wolves are coming,” he hissed in a voice not entirely human.
I startled awake to an urgent shaking. Jeremiah’s back was to the fire and he hunched over it with his weight to one side. Though the embers were blocked, Kristina’s figure was dim against the lighter sky.
The panic was high in her voice. “We have to go now.”
The sound of something cracking was like a canon blast here in the still of the night. A tree branch? My mind was sleep muddled but I scrambled to my feet. A long, low rumble came from somewhere close by and I searched the woods frantically. Kristina was half dragging me and Luke was nowhere to be found.
“Jeremiah?” I asked in a small, frightened voice.
His neck made a strange popping sound as he turned to me, and in the dim radiance of the fading embers his eyes reflected a strange light, like that of a wild animal who waited just outside of a lantern’s glow. I blinked hard and when I opened them again, the reflection was gone and Kristina was pulling me behind her. Her fear encouraged mine.
“What’s happened?”
Panting, she whispered, “The wolves are coming.”
Chapter Twelve
Lorelei
The distance between us and the train and the safety it could provide was too great. I wanted to scream to rid myself of some of the confused terror that came after dreams that directly preceded running for my life. Wolves? What about Jeremiah and Luke? Sure they had proven they could fend off human monsters, but wolves were ravaging predators with fangs. In the dark there was movement running alongside us at a distance. I couldn’t see it well, but I knew we were being hunted.
“Faster,” Kristina yelled never letting loose my hand.
Brave girl would die along with me and my slow, city legs. I lifted my skirts and pumped my legs harder than I’d ever had need to. They burned and screamed at their treatment but I couldn’t stop. Fright drove me.
The snarling reached us just as Kristina pulled on the passenger car door. I stood there in the dark as she tried frantically to wedge it open. “Help us,” she screamed. “Let us in!” Bam, bam, bam rang her fists as they beat against the window.
I turned as a shriek lodged in my throat. It was coming. A great gray and white beast had come to brutally kill me. I’d repay Kristina’s lifesaving kindness by standing between her and the snarling, snapping killer. Just as I lifted my arms to shield my face, hands grabbed my waist from behind and pulled me into the open door. I went limp and let them drag me to safety but not before I saw it.
Another darker wolf came from the shadows of the night, as fast as the wind with white bared teeth glistening to match the snow, and the gray wolf, much closer, turned and catapulted his weight against the other. A fearsome fight raged just outside the windows. Kristina and I and the man in the top hat, Mr. Parker, watched the two wolves try to tear each other apart. Whatever had caused their war, whether it was from encroached territory or the need for an outlet after a failed hunt I hadn’t a guess, but the violent efficiency in which they tore into each other was mesmerizing. Kristina stayed plastered to the window with a look of wide-eyed horror until they’d disappeared back into the shadows.
“They’ll kill each other,” she whispered.
I put my arms around her and squeezed tightly. “At least they aren’t focused on Jeremiah and Luke out there.”
A tear spilled from her pooling eyes. “Yes,” she whispered, though she didn’t sound convinced.
The run left me breathless and my arms shook from fear, but Kristina seemed to need more comfort than me. “Come on, we shouldn’t wake the others.”
The rows of seats were taken with slumbering passengers and the only other one awake besides us and Mr. Parker was the young mother who had her fussy babe at her breast. I didn’t bother to lay us down. It was unlikely that either one of us would get sleep with such terrified excitement pumping through our bodies, so instead, I set Kristina onto a bench beside me and pulled her head to my shoulder.
She cried quietly and I understood. I was so worried about Jeremiah I was having trouble swallowing the cotton in my throat. She’d been married much longer and would have a stronger bond with Luke. She must be worried sick with him out there in the cold with those wolves.
****
Jeremiah
The light that filtered through the tree branches and threw blinding rays against my eyelids woke me up. I groaned at the pounding in my head but the tiny noise in my throat only made it much worse. I didn’t usually feel this close to death when I changed. Rolling over onto all fours, I took stock of my body. All of it was still here, but most of me was covered in blood. Blood?
Come on, Jeremiah. Think. What had happened last night that my wolf had managed to bathe in blood? The teeth wounds on my wrist were what gave it away and in a flurry of bombarding memories, like the pepper of gunfire, painfully jagged pieces came back to me.
“Luke?” I yelled in a voice like my wolf had clawed up my vocal cords on his way out. “Luke!”
Logic didn’t return until I’d run a good twenty yards. I had to be a good hunter now, like Da taught me all those years ago. Stilling every shivering muscle, I scented the breeze. The faintest noise drifted on the wind from over the hill and I ran until the numbness in my legs slowed me. I hadn’t a clue where I was or where my clothes would be. All I knew was I had to find my brother. Sliding down the side of the hill, dodging snow covered boulders and branches, I found him in a drift of red snow—glaring at me.
“That was too close, Jeremiah.”
“Are they all right?”
“Kristina got them into the train before you could get to her.”
I sank to my knees. “Good girl,” I breathed.
Was I hunting Kristina, as my wolf always did, or had I been hunting Lorelei? Had I been trying to kill my own mate?
Luke stood stiffly. “Stop it.”
“Stop what?”
“I can practically hear you planning your own death from here. You aren’t mated yet and even if you were, you can’t be certain you weren’t just going after Kristina again. Maybe Lorelei had nothing to do with this. Let’s go before my cock freezes off. Kristina would be pissed.”
Blood loss and the cold made our journey back to our waiting clothes painfully slow. I’d never blacked out before, but by the time our trusty noses led us to the long cold campfire and the waiting warmth of the garments my wolf had somehow wiggled out of, it was close. Washing my half frozen, injured body with snow to clean the red away was likely one of the most miserable three minutes of my life. It at least made it to the top five which was impressive by werewolf standards. It was a rare feat that one of us lived life easy.
Lorelei’s voice echoed across the clearing. “We’re not leaving here until you send another search party out for our husbands!”
“Ma’am,” a man I didn’t recognize said. “We already sent two parties out this morning and we found not hide nor hair of your men. This here’s Indian country. Their scalps are probably bouncin’ across the backside of some painted pony by now.”
The sharp crack of palm against flesh had me galloping as fast as my weary body could manage.
“How dare you,” she spat out. “How dare you talk about my husband like that. Can you not see my friend is at her whit’s end and here you are, talking about such horrid things.”
“Luke?” Kristina called. Her eyes were red and swollen like she’d been crying for some time. “Luke!” she cried, flying down the curve of the snow drifted glade toward my brother.
“I
told you,” Lorelei said behind her. “I told you he’d come back.”
I was so damned glad to see that woman, my insides threatened to burst on me. The snow slowed her down, but not by much. She didn’t look like she’d been crying like Kristina did, but the dark circles under her eyes said she worried all night over my fate and that was good enough for me. She hurtled into me so hard I barely caught her.
“It’s okay,” I crooned. “I’m here now. You’re safe.”
Her voice was thick with emotion. “Oh, Jeremiah. The others have all gone already. We’ve been waiting for you to come back and I was so scared you were lost or hurt out in those woods somewhere.” Her arms shook around my waist from cold or fear or maybe both.
“Come on,” I said against her hair. “Let’s hop this wagon before that fine gentlemen over there feeds us to Mother Nature.”
“Fine gentleman, my arse,” she grumbled and threw her hands over her mouth like it would take the words back.
I stifled a smile. “You’re a feisty little curser when you’re mad.”
“I’m so sorry,” she said. Her amber eyes were open wide and her pupils were dilated, making them look darker.
I pulled her behind me. Maybe if we were moving she wouldn’t be able to tell how badly my own hand was shaking. “I don’t mind you being defensive over me, Lorelei, and I ain’t your keeper. You talk however feels right.”
Kristina’s bag of tricks had already been hauled to the waiting buggy and as I reached for Lorelei’s waist to help her in the back she shook her head. The disappointment that welled up inside of me was sharp like the crack of the whip.
Her words soothed the ache. “It isn’t about touch. I just don’t want you injuring yourself any further on my behalf.”
I’d done a decent job of covering all of my cuts and bites and scrapes with winter clothing so the injury she spoke of must’ve been my grazed ribcage which, as it happened, was already half healed thanks to the regenerative properties of me changing last night. That wasn’t something I could easily explain though so I nodded my thanks and jumped up in the bed of the buggy beside her. One shaggy buffalo blanket was all there was to lend warmth to all four of us on the long ride to St. Louis, and though it was big, Luke and I were bigger. We sat the girls together and covered them between us and whatever was left over was plenty enough because I’d nodded off in two swings of an ax once those two ponies pulling the wagon hit a good pace.
If the weather held, we’d be to town by nightfall, but the weariness down to my very bones said I wouldn’t be conscious for most of the trip.
Chapter Thirteen
Lorelei
When I was a child, I’d had this fantasy about living in the wilds somewhere. I’d only just started my courses and was on the cusp of womanhood, and Mother had started daily conversations about who would be appropriate to marry me off to. A marriage was years down the road for me, but at the time it felt just around the corner. I was much too young to be a wife and dreamed of running away to some unknown place no one from the city would ever find me. I’d sit in our lush spring gardens and pretend it was the wilds of the Carolinas and I was living alone and fending for my own independence. I’d hidden books, toys, and food I’d managed to steal from the kitchen and some days, I’d hide out there for hours.
The actual wilds were nothing like I’d imagined. A dangerous beauty shadowed everything. The trees grew close together with barely enough path to walk through them, and the colors were blindingly beautiful. I’d had no idea that many shades of green existed on this earth.
The carriage rocked precariously to the side as the wheel found yet another deep etched divot in the road. The closer to Colorado Springs we drove, the more canyons dotted the road from extensive use. I leaned my cheek against the window. If I lay just so, I could see the side of Jeremiah as he rode up front on top of the coach with the driver. As the days had passed, he’d only grown more agitated and fidgety until finally, he couldn’t bear to ride in the small cabin with the rest of us.
What could his distance mean? He stretched his long leg out to the side like it hurt to stay still, and the early morning sunlight glinted off of the spur on his boot. Had I done something to upset him? Maybe he’d tired of me already and couldn’t stand to be in such close quarters with someone he could barely stand.
The day was uncommonly warm for early February and the gentle breeze stirred up by the motion of the two horse team in front brushed my cheek in comfort. It was here, laying across the carriage window that I saw Colorado Springs for the first time. This would be my new home and a mass of emotions flooded me. Homesickness, hope, and nervous tension were the front runners. What if I accepted my new home, but my new home didn’t accept me back?
A quaint wooden bridge pointed our carriage down a main street of sorts. It was like no town I’d seen. If I blinked, I’d miss the entirety of it. Men in cowboy hats and hide pants loaded wagons and tied up horses. Ladies in plain dress talked in small groups outside of a dressmaker’s shop. A wild horse ran down the street and no one even bothered to notice or chase it down. The town’s people simply stepped out of the way as it barreled down the main road. Chickens pecked lazily through the muddy snow and a fat sow peeked her head out from under a cabinetry shop. I was no longer in Boston, that was for certain.
The driver pulled the horses to a stop in front of a saloon, and no sooner than the wheels halted, Kristina poured out of the carriage door and onto solid ground.
“Home,” she groaned.
I stepped onto the wooden walkway in front of the shops and stretched my back. An older couple waddled past and I waved. “Good day to you.”
The woman’s face tightened into an unimpressed grimace, and she huffed angrily when her eyes lit on Jeremiah. “The devil’s breeding right here in town,” she muttered. “Right under our noses.”
I frowned up at Jeremiah but he only shrugged. “You need anything from the general store?” His boots made a tremendous thud as he jumped gracefully from the top of the carriage.
“I don’t think I do. I don’t really know.”
“She needs an apron,” Kristina said. “Come on. The boys have to get a few supplies and grab our horses and it’ll take them a bit. There’s someone I want you to meet.”
“Trudy?” I asked. I’d heard so many stories about her, I felt I already knew her.
“Yep.” She led me to the back door of an eatery named Cotton’s and there, for all to see, she snuck up on a freedwoman and threw her arms around the back of her.
The woman laughed and turned, her profile full with child, and hugged her back. I wasn’t the only one who looked scandalized. Half the town seemed to be eating in the restaurant and scowled in unison.
Now, Massachusetts had been a huge driving force toward anti-slavery long before the Civil War, and we were more open than most with the Emancipation and I was proud to come from a place that encouraged change and freedom. However, even in Boston freedmen still worked as paid servants for most of the families I knew. They were trained in kitchens, stables, and gardens and as such would tend to work in areas they knew well. The difference now was they were usually compensated for their work. Even in Boston, it was a rare sight to see two different races embrace each other in such a public fashion. I frowned. Really, it was rare to see any women embrace in such a way because it was considered improper manners and common. Kristina wasn’t any woman though and I really shouldn’t have been shocked that her best friend was a freedwoman. She didn’t care about pleasing anyone else outside herself and the Dawson family, and I was starting to realize the benefits to that mindset. Never before had I met a happier person than my sister-in-law.
Kristina’s face was lit up like a lantern. “Lorelei, I’d like you to meet Trudy. Trudy, Lorelei.”
A polite smile took over Trudy’s full lips and her caramel skin glowed around her dancing eyes. She was a striking woman, with thick, dark hair pulled back into pins. Her dress was almost the same charcoal g
rey color as mine, but hers looked finely made, while mine was frazzled at the seams due to rough use.
She held out her small hand. “Nice to meet you, Mrs. Dawson.”
I shook it gently. Mrs. Dawson. That was the first time I’d heard my new surname.
Kristina gave a delighted gasp. “We’re both Mrs. Dawson now!”
It was hard to stay reserved around her level of excitement all of the time. She made me want to join in on her completely inappropriate jokes or in the very least, laugh. I knew she didn’t need the encouragement and that Jeremiah leveled her a disapproving look at minimum ten times a day, but I couldn’t help but want to join in on the fun. My husband’s subtle disapproval was the only thing keeping me a lady.
“It’s very nice to meet you too, Trudy. Do you work here?”
“I do. I run the kitchens here and seeing as how this is the best eatery in town, I’m sure you’ll be tasting my recipes at some point.”
“It smells delicious.”
“You know,” Kristina said, “when I come here fresh off the carriage, I had two hungry men to feed and not a lick of experience in the kitchen. It was Trudy here who taught me how to keep a man from starving.”
“Well now, I can’t take all that credit. You had to improvise and learn to cook over an open fire.”
Kristina shot her a frantic look and shook her head.
“Y’all going to stay for dinner or are you headed on up to your place?” Trudy asked without missing a beat.
“I’m famished,” Kristina said. She turned to me and grabbed my hands. “I have enough coin to share a meal if you want.”
“Okay,” I said uncertainly. “What about the men?”
She waved her hand nonchalantly. “Those boys can fend for themselves better than I’ve seen anyone do it.”
