by Stella Night
The white wolf savaged her attacker. It tore at the man’s exposed flesh with sharp fangs like daggers. She watched, mesmerized, trying to make sense of it with her pain-addled brain.
It was like the creature was defending her. Appearing in the clearing like some mystical forest guardian. Was it possible that the wolves knew why she’d come to this place? Did they know she wanted to help them?
She giggled at the ridiculous thought. She knew the world didn’t work that way. The thought had come from her damaged head. She must have a concussion. But even as she dismissed the thought as mere fantasy, a part of her deep down still wondered if it was possible.
What she saw next made her certain that she was hallucinating.
The armed man lay still on the forest floor. The wolf turned to her, looking at her with eyes too intelligent for a simple animal. The gold eyes seemed concerned, troubled.
She waved at the creature. “Don’t worry,” she said, her words slurring. “I’m good.”
The wolf nodded. Of course, it did, she thought. Why the hell not?
Then the air around the wolf shimmered like a heat mirage. It was as if the moonlight had taken form and rippled through the air in front of her.
Then Santiago stood where the white wolf had been.
Amanda sat down hard on the forest floor, although it was more like falling than sitting. Her butt hit the dirt so hard it rattled her teeth and sent another shock wave of pain through her throbbing head.
Santiago rushed to her side and knelt down next to her. “Are you alright?” he asked.
She looked at him, barely believing he was actually there. “That depends. Are you naked?”
He nodded. “I am.”
She nodded in return. “Okay, then I’m alright. Are you my guardian wolf?”
He nodded again. “I guess I am.”
“Okay, good,” she said, shooting him a thumbs up.
The words were barely out of her mouth when the light faded and she passed out.
***
Amanda awoke to the smell of fire.
She was in some kind of enclosure. Little pinpricks of light pierced the walls, letting her know it was day time.
The dim light hurt her eyes. Her head felt like it was stuffed with cotton. She was lying on a bed of leaves, surprisingly soft beneath her. Where the hell was she?
She moved to sit up and a wave of nausea swept over her. Bad idea, she thought. Her hand probed tentatively at her scalp, looking for the source of her pain. She winced when her fingers brushed over a quail egg sized lump just above her right ear.
Memories of the night before came flooding back to her. Some of it was hazy, like something out of a dream. Their camp had been attacked. She ran for her life. And then somehow she ended up here.
It was the forest guardian, she thought vaguely, not knowing what it meant. Where had that come from?
The outside of the enclosure rustled and a patch of woven branches slid aside to reveal a crude door. Santiago peeked his head in.
“Thank god, you’re awake,” he said.
“Yeah, why do you sound so relieved?”
“I wasn’t sure if you would. You cracked your head pretty hard last night. You’re lucky you’re not in a coma.”
She raised her hand to touch the knot on her scalp but quickly realized she was better off leaving it alone. “What the hell happened last night?”
Santiago crawled into the makeshift hut. “I was about to ask you the same thing. Don’t you remember?”
“Bits and pieces.”
“Tell me whatever you can,” he said, sidling up next to her. In his hands, he held a bundle of plants.
“What is that?” she asked.
“Some herbs I gathered. I’m making a poultice for your head. It should help with the pain and the swelling. So what do you remember?”
She watched as he mashed the herbs with a rock against a smooth piece of bark. “The poachers found us. Well, they found me. I have no idea where the hell you were.”
Santiago didn’t look up as he ground the plants into a muddy looking paste. “I went scouting after you fell asleep. I wanted to make sure we were safe for the night.”
“Fantastic job,” she said sourly. “I was really safe.”
“I shouldn’t have left you alone. That was a mistake. One I won’t repeat again. How did you get away?”
“Luckily, I wasn’t in the tent when they came skulking into the camp. I managed to run.”
He nodded. “Did you manage to grab any of the supplies?”
Amanda looked around the small shelter. “Does it look like I have any of our gear? I was a little busy running for my life and all.”
“Right.”
“It sure would have been nice if I’d hired some kind of survival guide to keep me safe. Like, I don’t know, an ex-soldier maybe.”
“I already apologized.”
“No, you didn’t.”
He looked up at her then, meeting her gaze. His eyes shone gold in the flickering fire. “You’re right. I’m sorry. I should have been there. I won’t leave you alone again.”
She felt small under the intensity of that gaze. There was no doubt in her mind that he meant what he said. It smoothed over her rumpled feelings about the night before. “It’s fine. I’m alive, right?”
“Yes, you are,” he said, turning his attention back to the herbs. “And I’m going to get you patched up, good as new.”
Santiago went back to grinding the herbs with his stone age tools. The steady scrape of the stone against the wood filled the shelter. For some reason, she found the sound soothing. “I hope so. My head hurts like a son of a bitch.”
“Speaking of which, what happened after you ran? How’d you bang your head?”
“That part’s kind of a blur. One of the poachers was chasing me. I tried to hide, but he had night vision goggles.”
Santiago looked up, frowning. She waited for him to say something, but he motioned for her to continue.
“I managed to blind him with my phone light.”
Santiago grinned. “Well done.”
A feeling of warmth spread through her at the compliment. She didn’t know why she cared so damn much about his approval, but she did. “Then I whacked him with a branch. I think I hurt him pretty bad. And then…”
She trailed off, searching her clouded memory for what happened next. “Then it’s hazy. I think there was a wolf. And you were there? Is that right?”
Santiago nodded. “I found you in a clearing, blood running down your face, barely conscious. It’s a miracle I found you when I did.”
“Wait, were you naked?”
Santiago froze for a split second. Just long enough for Amanda to know he was about to lie to her. “You must have dreamed that part.”
She shook her head firmly, igniting a flash of pain in her skull. “No, that was real. You’re not wearing your normal clothes. Those are the clothes from the poacher that chased me.”
Santiago sighed. “Okay, yeah. I had to ditch my clothes.”
“Why didn’t you just tell me? Why lie about it?”
He shrugged. “I guess it’s kind of embarrassing to get caught with my pants down. Anyway, I grabbed these clothes after I found you. You were unconscious. I carried you here, built this little shelter, and well, you know the rest.”
He scooped the brown paste into his palm and sidled up behind her. “Try not to move,” he said. “This is going to sting a bit.”
He applied the paste with a gentle touch, but to her tender skull, it was like being hit in the head with a hammer. She cried out in pain.
“It’s alright,” Santiago said. “You’re going to be alright.”
Amanda clenched her jaw tightly. The salve was cool against her scalp. It felt good, even though her head still throbbed angrily. She caught a whiff of the paste. It smelled almost minty. Soon, she barely noticed Santiago’s fingers on her scalp. Whatever he was putting on her, it worked. Her pain quieted to a dull murmur, still p
resent but infinitely more bearable.
“You know, you’ve spent a lot of time rubbing things on me out here,” she mused.
“You’ve spent a lot of time getting injured.”
“Well, I need to get back in fighting form if we’re going to take on those poachers.”
Santiago’s hands froze. “Are you serious?”
She turned to glance at him over her shoulder. “Of course. We need a game plan.”
“The plan is to get you the hell out of this forest. End of story.”
Chapter 6
Amanda whirled on him, seeming to forget her aching head. “That is not the end of the story.”
Santiago had expected some resistance to his suggestion, but nothing as fierce as this. He thought she would need a bit of convincing, but not this much.
“You almost died last night,” Santiago said.
Her eyes blazed at him. “Thanks to you.”
“No, thanks to those poachers. Which, by the way, I don’t think are actually poachers.”
“Are you kidding? Wolves are dying and there are men roaming the woods with guns. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to do the math.”
He wasn’t sure if that was a jab at his intelligence. Santiago might not be an astrophysicist, but he was smart enough to not take the bait. “I don’t think it’s that simple.”
“Okay, fine. What do you think is going on?”
He thought about the strange energy he’d felt last night. The powerful pulse resonating through the woods, calling to him like a beacon. He remembered the wolf pack running at his side. Not guiding him, exactly. More like joining him on the journey.
But he couldn’t tell her about that. It was a lucky break that she didn’t remember seeing him shift from his wolf form. He wasn’t about to reveal his secret to her now. Who knew how she would react? Probably not too well. And he needed her calm and rational if he was going to convince her to abandon her mission.
And there was no way she’d believe him about feeling a mystical pull from some unknown source. She was a scientist type. All facts and data. Her world had no room in it for the unexplainable.
What Santiago really wanted to tell her was he thought the armed group of men were here looking for whatever energy he’d felt last night. It was too big of a coincidence. But he couldn’t tell her that. Not now. Not without any proof.
So instead, he told her as much as he could. “The man chasing you last night, did you see what he was wearing?”
She shrugged. “I don’t know. Like soldier stuff, I guess.”
“Right. That guy wasn’t out here on a hunting trip, illegal or otherwise. He had on tactical gear. Specialized stuff. You wouldn’t wear that on a hunt, you’d wear it into battle.”
“What would they be battling out here in the middle of nowhere?”
“To be honest, I don’t know. But it’s something more dangerous than wolves.”
She shook her head. “So you don’t think they’re out here hunting wolves? You think it’s just a coincidence?”
“No, I doubt it’s a coincidence. These men we ran into, they’re probably killing the wolves. But they’re not doing it to sell their skins or whatever the hell poachers do. There’s no market for wolf pelts. It’s not worth the trouble. If these guys are killing the wolves, I think it’s more like collateral damage. These guys are out here looking for something, and your wolves are just in the way.”
Amanda sat staring at her lap, like she was processing this information. Finally, she said, “I need some fresh air.”
Santiago removed the door from the shelter and crawled out of the exit. He stood just outside and offered his hand to Amanda. She didn’t accept it.
Frustration welled up in him. Why was this woman so goddamn difficult? He was trying to protect her. It was why she hired him in the first place. Why did she have to fight him at every turn?
Santiago wasn’t built for this kind of warfare. He was a soldier, not a diplomat. He spoke plainly and directly. Straight to the point. But this Amanda situation required a more delicate touch.
He wracked his brain for some way to get her to understand that she needed to leave. That her very life depended on it. He’d already told her that, but it didn’t seem to get through to her.
For some reason, he thought about Eliza, then. She’d always told him, “Know your enemy.” Of course, she’d been talking about real enemies in combat situations. Not something like this. But his old friend’s advice still applied here.
He just needed to figure out what she wanted, then maybe he could get through to her.
Amanda paced slowly around the tiny clearing outside their little hut. There wasn’t much room to move. He’d picked this spot specifically because it didn’t look like a place to camp. Whoever was out there would still be looking for them, and he’d made sure they wouldn’t be easy to find.
She looked so different from the woman who’d walked into the forest with him the day before. Her perfectly sculpted hair now flowed down her shoulders in waves, stirring idly in the breeze.
She’d looked so soft when they first met. Someone used to a cushy, clean lifestyle. Her clothes had been immaculate. Her makeup had been done up just right. But now she was changed.
It wasn’t like she’d physically changed much. Although he could have sworn her body looked leaner than before. Hell, she’d probably lost about ten pounds of water weight running through the woods. But it wasn’t that.
Something in her eyes had changed. Something in the way she held herself.
This version of Amanda had a fire in her. Something hot and fierce that burned in her core like the heat from a volcano. And she looked about ready to erupt. Coming face to face with death had a way of stripping away parts of a person, revealing their inner self underneath.
Santiago hadn’t seen the whole confrontation between her and the soldier the night before, but she’d hurt him pretty bad by the time he showed up. The man would have died out in the woods from the wounds Amanda had inflicted.
Santiago hadn’t executed the man. He’d put him out of his misery.
Of course, Amanda didn’t know she’d essentially killed the man, and Santiago wasn’t about to tell her. Facing her mortality was one thing. It could make a person stronger. But killing a man, even in self defense, could leave a black stain on the soul.
Santiago knew that better than most. There was no honor in killing. It was always ugly, always brutal. Amanda should never have to bear that kind of burden.
She stood with her eyes closed and her head back, warming herself in the sun. Her pale skin seemed to drink in the sunbeams so that she looked like she was glowing. A dull ache throbbed in his chest as he watched her.
Amanda was beautiful. He’d thought her pretty before, but here, in this moment, she was so much more than that. The revelation struck him like a truck. How had he not seen it before?
He promised himself, then and there, that he’d die before he let anything happen to her. If only he could convince her to leave the woods.
He said the first thing that came to mind. “Feels good, doesn’t it?”
Her eyes blinked open and focused on him. “What? The sun?”
He nodded. “The sun. The air. Everything. It feels good to be alive, right?”
Her brow furrowed. “I was just thinking that. How did you know?”
He smiled sadly. “I’ve been there before. We don’t appreciate the simple joy of being alive until we face the prospect of death.”
She nodded slowly, letting it sink in. “I suppose you’re right.”
“I’m glad you’re safe. Now I want to keep you that way.”
She sighed. “I don’t want to leave.”
“I know.”
“I can’t leave.”
“Amanda, why did you come out here?” he asked.
She prodded a stone in the dirt with the toe of her boot. “You know why.”
“Tell me again.”
“I knew the wolve
s were dying. I needed to know why.”
“And now you know,” he said.
“Do I?” she asked, looking up at him. “We don’t know what’s going on in these woods. You said so yourself.”
“Does it matter if it’s poachers or soldiers or whatever? You know there are armed men killing off an endangered species. Now you can go back to your people at the NCC. Tell them what you found. And then all of you can figure out how to handle this problem. Because you can’t do it alone.”
“But I’m not alone. I have you.”
He smiled. “I appreciate the vote of confidence, but I doubt I could take them all myself. Even if I wanted to. There are people who can handle this. People who are trained for this sort of thing.”
“I can’t go back without evidence. I need something tangible. I need proof.”
Santiago threw his hands up in frustration. “Really? They wouldn’t take you at your word? Isn’t that enough?”
She shook her head and looked away. “No. It’s complicated.”
“I guess so. Because I don’t understand. You got what you came for. There’s nothing more you can do. If you stay, you’ll be risking your life for nothing.”
“You don’t understand. I’m not even supposed to be out here.”
***
Amanda felt her cheeks burning with shame. She dropped her head, letting her hair fall in curtains around her face.
“Okay,” Santiago said. “Now I’m really confused. You told me you’d been sent here by the National Conservation Council. To investigate. Was that not true?”
“Not entirely,” she said.
“So then what is the truth, entirely? Do you even work for the NCC?”
“Yes. Well, kind of.”
“Kind of?”
She raised her eyes to meet his then. He looked back at her incredulously. His eyes demanding an explanation. “Okay, technically I’m just an intern.”
“Are you shitting me?”
“No, but that doesn’t mean I don’t know what I’m talking about.”
“Really? Because aren’t interns like the lowest man on the totem pole? Just filing paperwork and making copies and stuff?”
Anger burned inside her at his dismissive comments. She marched up to him until they were face to face. When she spoke, she jabbed a finger into his chest. “I’ll have you know, I worked with some of the top conservationists in the world.”
