Digging the Wolf: a paranormal romance (Werewolves of Crookshollow Book 1)

by Steffanie Holmes

  “If you say so.” I rubbed a fleck of dirt off the edge of a fox bone.

  “You’re not wearing your bracelet.”

  I glared at Luke, my hand falling over my empty wrist. Old habits die hard. “I was informed it was a health and safety risk. So now it’s not a problem.”

  “If this site is going down for violations, it won’t be because of that bracelet. Go put it on, seriously. I won’t tell.”

  “I can’t.” The words choked in my mouth. “I lost it in the cave last night.”

  “What? Why didn’t you say something?”

  “It doesn’t matter.” I kept my eyes glued on the fox bone. I didn’t want him to see the tears brimming in the corners of my eyes. Having Luke see me cry once was embarrassing enough.

  “Looking at your face right now, I can tell that isn’t true.” Luke leaned over the table. His scent overwhelmed me, that rich, earthy smell that spoke of wildness and untamed lust.

  I opened my mouth to speak, but I couldn’t get any words out without bursting into tears. So I said nothing. The space between us felt non-existent, inconsequential. Heat from his body leapt at me, like flames dancing under the moonlight.

  “Anna?” Luke prompted, his face wearing an expression of recognition. The sight of it shocked me. I was so used to people looking at me with pity. Poor Anna...her daddy was crushed in a factory accident…poor Anna, her boyfriend fell into a ravine and cracked his head open…poor Anna, everyone she loves seems to die on her…poor Anna…

  But Luke’s face didn’t say poor Anna. It said, I get it. I wondered if he’d put two and two together from the way I’d reacted when he’d asked about my parents. But that look…it told me he’d been there. He understood. He’d lost someone close to him, too. The pain sat close to the surface, just under his skin. He still saw their face in his dreams, and still remembered things to tell them, as though they’d just popped out to get the milk.

  “I—” I wanted so badly to confide in him. The words were on the tip of my tongue. I pushed out a breath, trying to push the words out as well.

  “Oh, Luke!” Ruth called out. The spell between us broke. I jerked my head back, seeing Ruth waving her arms madly in an attempt to get Luke’s attention. “Come with me, and I’ll show you that really interesting fungus I was telling you about.”

  Luke cast a look back at me. He sighed. “I have to go.” The fact he looked so annoyed about it made my heart soar.

  “Yeah.”

  “But we’ll talk later, OK?”

  “Sure.” My stomach clenched. I wasn’t sure he was ready for what I had to tell him, but maybe if I scared him away with all my heavy shit, it would solve my Luke problem once and for all.

  I wasn’t quite ready to brave Ruth’s over-the-top flirting, so I stayed in the shed, listening to the rain hammer against the roof while I scrawled notes in our field book and typed frantically into the database. Tin sheds are extremely useful objects with many potential applications, but creating cosy workspaces was not one of them. After forty-five minutes of blistering cold wind howling across the desk and trying to thaw the pen nib against the tips of my fingers so I could continue writing, I’d had enough. If I had to be miserable, I might as well be miserable in the cave, with a trowel in my hand.

  You never know. You could find a buried treasure. Wouldn’t that make Ruth’s face red?

  With that image cheering me up somewhat, I bundled up in my jacket, gloves and scarf, found my trowel, and headed over to the caves. The rain came down in thick sheets, slamming against the exposed skin of my cheeks as I struggled to run in all my layers. For the first time, I felt relieved as I got down on my knees and slid through the muddy tunnel entrance into the cave.

  “Nice of you to join us, Anna.” Ruth gave me a smug look as she punched buttons on the theodolite. Luke stood in front of her, holding up the measuring staff. He grinned when he saw me. I didn’t return the smile. Instead, I went to my quadrant and started scraping down the next layer. My trowel made a reassuring slap against the damp earth – a sound I fantasized I would hear if I decided to slap Ruth’s snotty mouth.

  The day dragged on for an eternity. An icy wind shot through the tunnel, burrowing through my layers of wool and nylon and chilling my bones. I waited for a chance to escape to the back tunnel and look for my bracelet, but Frances was so intent on her work she kept going right through lunch. Luke ignored me all day, the bastard. Instead, he helped Ruth operate the theodolite, even laughing at her inane jokes about whales and seamen.

  “ …oh, you’ll love this one. I learned this one on a save-the-whale rally in London. What’s Moby Dick’s father’s name? Paper Boner.” Ruth threw back her head and let out a high-pitched giggle. Luke gave a short laugh.

  “Gag me with spermaceti.” I whispered under my breath. After what he’d said to me this morning, the way he’d looked at me, I thought Luke was trying to be my friend, or my…something. But then he was over there with Ruth, not even looking in my direction. He could’ve offered to help me in my square.

  As the day wore on Luke and Ruth’s obvious flirting grated me more and more. By 4pm my whole body shook with rage. How dare he make me feel like this? How dare he put on this ridiculous display in front of me? He was the one who was walking around the caves at night, he was the one who kissed me, he caused me to lose my bracelet…

  At the thought of my bracelet, my stomach twisted with fear. That was the most precious thing I owned, more precious even than my first edition of Stranger in a Strange Land. If I’d lost it in the mud, I’d never forgive myself. I was going to have to sneak back there, completely on my own.

  The thought sent me into a spasm of fear. I’d been to all the pre-excavations safety lectures. I knew how dangerous caves could be. And I knew, better than anyone, what could happen when someone ignored safety precautions and forged ahead on their own. But I had to find that bracelet. I just had to.

  Frances started packing up for the day. Heart pounding, I helped her clean off and pack up the tools, trying not to look in Luke’s direction. He gave me a short nod as he walked by, following Ruth back to camp with the theodolite slung over his shoulder like it was a school satchel. I didn’t nod back. At least I didn’t have to contend with him right now.

  I helped Frances lug the last of our equipment out through the tiny entrance and lock the tools up in the safe. The rain had eased off a little, falling in a steady mist across the forest, but the wind still bit deep. My heart pounded. It was now or never.

  “You did good work today, Anna.” Frances said, pulling her mittens on over her stained fingers. “One more day on your quadrant and you’ll be able to move to another area.”

  “I’m excited about that,” I said, picking my words carefully. I pretended to pat down my pockets, searching for something. “My area isn’t yielding much of interest.”

  “That’s true for a lot of archaeology, unfortunately. It’s not all dodging rolling boulders, dismantling booby traps and dragging up treasure.” Frances smiled.

  I held up my own stained hands. “Don’t I know it? Listen, you go ahead. I’ll be right back. I just realised, I left my trowel behind. I don’t want it to get lost.”

  Frances shrugged her shoulders. “Leave it. You can get another one in the morning.”

  “It’s just…I really liked that trowel. It’s the last one left with the left-handed grooves.” I glanced back at the caves. “Go on. Don’t worry about me. I’ll only be a moment. I know exactly where it is.”

  “I’ll go back with you.” Frances grabbed her torch from her belt.

  “No!” Frances glanced at me in concern. I grinned, realising I’d yelled too loudly. Way to play it smooth, Anna. You’re no good at this subterfuge stuff. “I mean, there’s no sense both of us going back in there and getting all dirty again.”

  “I’m not supposed to let anyone on the site by themselves. Luke could shut us down.”

  “Luke is already back at camp with Ruth,” I said, her
name coming out more sarcastically than I’d intended. “He’ll never know. I could have been back by now, and you could be sitting down to a nice hot cup of tea.”

  “You’re right. Sure.” Frances didn’t look sure. But she peered over my shoulder again. Luke hadn’t looked back. Frances tossed me her torch. “If you’re not back at site in ten minutes, I’m going to be very angry.”

  “Thanks.” I bolted back towards the cave. Ten minutes. Just enough time to go back to that cavern and look for my bracelet. I slid down the cave entrance, clicked on the torch to fight the deepening gloom, splashed across the small stream, and carefully picked my way through the site back to the crevice.

  Squeezing through the tiny gap, I found myself again in that familiar cavern, the dark mouth of the adjoining cave gaping at me from my left. I shone the light of Frances’s torch over all the rocks, but I couldn’t see my bracelet. Panic rose in my throat. The clasp probably got broken when the bat was thrashing around in my hair. That meant it had to be around somewhere.

  Or, it fell into the water with the torch. Tears sprang in the corners of my eyes. I shone my light into the pool, but couldn’t see anything shining back through the murky water. No, don’t give up just yet. Keep looking.

  I scanned the rocks again, moving in a grid pattern, searching every inch. It definitely wasn’t there in front of the pool. Perhaps it had fallen off closer to the mouth of that tunnel Luke was inspecting…

  I walked over to the tunnel entrance, shining my light across the ground, inspecting the edges of the tunnel for crevices or shelves it could have fallen onto. With every step the knot in my stomach tightened. It’s not here. Why isn’t it here?

  A lump rose in my throat. To prevent myself from breaking down into tears, I tried to distract myself by wondering about Luke. Why had he come back here in the first place? I crept closer into the cave and peered inside. He’d almost seemed as if he’d been looking for something. And he’d been carrying a crowbar…it just didn’t make sense.

  I stepped inside the cave, stooping to fit under the low ceiling. The floor sloped away from me. If I’d dropped the bracelet here, it might have slid deeper into the tunnel. It was worth checking while I was here. I might not get another chance.

  That’s probably how Dad justified lifting the guard on that machine. A voice inside my head railed. And how Ben decided to climb along that ravine without the right equipment.

  My stomach turned at the thought, but I couldn’t bear the idea of being without that bracelet. I just had to be careful. I moved forward, carefully testing where I placed my boots, using the wall to support my weight. One wrong move here, and I was in deep trouble.

  You shouldn’t be here, I scolded myself. This is so dangerous. If you slipped and hit your head, they wouldn’t know where to find you. Just like Ben...

  My light caught something bright on the wall. What was that? I shone the torch up at eye level, and nearly dropped it in surprise.

  I was staring at a cave painting. And not just any cave painting, one of the most elaborate examples I’d ever seen. The wall had been smoothed out – you could see the tool marks at the edges – and the surface cleaned and painted with a grey hue to serve as a background for the work.

  And what work it was! I moved my torch across the wall and over the ceiling, taking in all the details. In the top corner, a family of wolves hunted in the forest. Towering trees rose up around them. They had a hare surrounded. A larger wolf advanced upon it while three smaller wolves – the cubs? – guarded its back, preventing escape.

  Another scene showed the wolves sitting and lying on some rocks. In the middle of the rocks was a black circle. The cave entrance? Did the early cave dwellers observe wolves in the woods?

  The next scene was the strangest of all. It looked to me like the wolves standing up on two legs, and one of them was not really a wolf any longer, but a man, with shaggy hair and human eyes. He wore dark shoes and walked like a man, but he still had a tail and paws and claws and a snout like a wolf.

  In the next scene, humanoid figures hunted the wolves, holding sticks set alight. The wolves ran onward, away down the dark tunnel. In the corner was a woman with long, wild hair. She was weeping, her tears forming a river that cascaded off into the distance. I held my torch up and shone it downward. I could make out the gleam of more paintings further down the tunnel. The place was absolutely covered with ancient art.

  My mind reeled. This is incredible. I was standing amongst some of the most elaborate, ancient, and well-preserved cave paintings in the world. This might be the most important neolithic discovery ever made in England. And I had discovered it. Me, Anna Sinclair, nerdy archaeology student and science-fiction nut.

  Or did you? My mind shot back. Why had Luke come back here the other night? Was this what he was looking for?

  The thought unnerved me. It was a big coincidence that Luke had been looking in this tunnel the day before I happened to discover these paintings. But that only presented me with more questions. How did Luke know the paintings were here? These tunnels were unexplored. There’s no way paintings this elaborate had been discovered and documented without being known to Frances. And if Luke did somehow suspect the paintings were there, why was he carrying that crowbar? Was he planning to destroy them?

  Two things were for certain. I’d just made a brilliant archaeological discovery, the kind of discovery that could define my entire career. And there was definitely something our new ranger wasn’t telling me.

  6

  Luke

  I gritted my teeth against Ruth’s onslaught of inane conversation, and kept my eyes on the caravan door. After a few moments Frances stepped through and kicked off her muddy boots. But Anna didn’t follow her.

  “Where’s Anna?” I demanded. Ruth shot me a filthy glance from behind the stack of vegetables she was chopping.

  Frances stammered out a response. “She’s…just gone back…to pick up a trowel she dropped.”

  “Back to the toolbox? Or into the caves?”

  Frances shifted her weight from foot to foot. “In the cave. But she’s perfectly safe—”

  “You’re not supposed to allow anyone in those caves alone, not even for a moment.” I scolded her, as I shoved my chair back. My chest tightened. Anything could’ve happened to Anna. “This is ridiculous. I’ve already warned you about this. I could have you shut down for this.”

  “She was just going back to get a trowel,” Max said, grabbing a beer from the fridge. “What’s the big deal?”

  “She’s very forgetful and clumsy.” Ruth said, relinquishing the dinner prep to Frances with a look of resigned disgust.

  “I don’t care if she’s Saddam fucking Hussein.” I grabbed a torch from the shelf by the door of the caravan and shoved my feet into my boots. “I’m not going to let her bleed to death after falling down a chasm while you all sit here bad-mouthing her.” I jabbed the torch at Frances’s chest. “When I get back, we’re going to have a little chat.”

  She opened her mouth to protest, but shut it quickly when I fixed her with a glare. “I’ll come with you,” she said in a small voice, handing the knife back to Ruth.

  “Fine.” I stormed back towards the cave, my heart pounding against my chest. The idea of Anna down there, alone, filled me with dread. I shouldn’t have tried to distance myself from her today. I’d just wanted to give her space to think, even though being away from her made my whole body ache with need, and my ears rang from being in close proximity to Ruth’s incessant chatter. I should never have let her out of my sight for a moment.

  What if she’s hurt? What if she’s disappeared? What if another wolf has turned up? The pain of losing my dad was still raw under my skin. I couldn’t bear to lose my mate, too.

  What if she discovered the paintings? At that moment, I wasn’t even sure I cared any more. I just wanted to make sure she was OK. Visions of her body bent and broken against the rocks surged against my eyes. I jogged faster.

  Foot
steps crunched in the leaves behind me. “Luke, wait up.” Frances sprinted alongside me. I grunted at her, but didn’t slow down. At least with Frances out here with me, Ruth would be inside cooking dinner and it might be in at least some way edible.

  “There she is!” Frances pointed, her pinched features softening.

  And sure enough, there was Anna, jogging across the forest towards us, her auburn ponytail bouncing along behind her, and her shapely thighs undulating even under her layers of thermal gear. Relief washed over me. My arms ached to crush her against my body, to hold her tight and never let her go.

  Anna stopped running when she caught sight of us, and waved frantically for us to follow her back to the cave. “You won’t believe this!” she cried out. “It’s amazing.”

  Shit.

  Anna was an archaeologist. The only time archaeologists ever got that excited was a) when the local pub did an Indiana Jones–themed quiz night, and b) when they discovered some incredible remnant of a lost civilisation. A remnant like a cave filled with intricate paintings.

  Before I could stop her, Frances dashed towards Anna, her skinny arms swinging like chicken legs, her archaeological discovery radar going off the charts. “What is it?”

  “It’s in the caves. Quickly, you have to see. You won’t believe it!”

  Frances overtook Anna and squeezed through the tiny mouth of the cave. Anna made to follow her, but I grabbed her, pulling her close to me. Her eyes were wild, dazed by what she had seen.

  “What were you doing, going into the caves all by yourself?” I demanded.

  “Oh, I don’t know. That same thing you were doing,” she shot back. Fine. I deserved that.

  “So, did you find them?” I covered up my concern for her with a sneer.

  “Did I find the mysterious cave paintings you knew about all along? Of course I did. What I want to know is, how did you know they were there?”