There it was. Thin and musky, and mixed with... something else.
His furred brow furrowed, and he sniffed again, focusing in on the fainter scent lingering beneath the first. It was definitely an animal, but not one of the hares he'd been stalking so far.
He took a few paces forward and sniffed again, before brushing away a tangle of bushes with his muzzle to reveal the bare soil beneath. It was still wet, sheltered from the snow by the undergrowth, and a clear set of paw prints in the earth led off in tandem with the strange scent he'd picked up. They were unmistakably those of a wolf, and if he could still smell their owner's trail in this weather then they must have passed by recently.
The fur prickled on the back of his neck. The scent lacked any of the usual human touches carried by a werewolf; the scent of fabric or leather or woodsmoke. Whoever's trail he was following, he doubted it belonged to anyone from the Highland Pack.
His ears flicked back in the direction he'd heard the voices coming from, the conflict between his human and animal sides forgotten as concern for his fellow werewolves crept in to replace it.
Still nothing but the sound of the wind.
Narrowing his eyes he lowered his shaggy body close to the ground, prowling forward through the undergrowth with barely a sound as he kept the faint scent fresh in his nostrils, eyes fixed on the pawprints leading away from him, in the same direction April and Harper had been headed.
* * * * *
The wind wailed through the hidden crags in the side of the mountain, carrying phantom sounds to April's ears as she jogged, shivering, behind Harper.
She was worried now. They'd come a long way from the camp. The sky was darkening, and the snow was so thick that a return journey might prove impossible before the weather let up.
Harper stopped suddenly, standing stock still with his head held high, staring directly ahead.
"What is it?" April said, her eyes flicking nervously through the flurry of snow shrouding the path in front of them.
Harper shifted back into his human form and took a step back, breathing heavily. "It's one of the ferals, I'm sure of it. I recognise his scent."
"So there was a scent," April muttered.
"Of course there was." Harper looked back at her. "We can catch up to him if we're quick, scare him off back to the other side of the bridge."
"We don't have to, it's freezing out here Harper! Let's just go back and tell Blackthorn. The ferals won't bother us in this weather anyway. They're probably just as cold as I am."
"Why leave it with Blackthorn when we can handle it ourselves?" Harper replied with a note of irritation in his voice. "Let's deal with it now. It's just one of them, I can handle him."
"I'm not saying you can't," April sighed. "I'm saying you don't need to. Can't we just go home and get cosy by a nice fire?"
"Later. Come on, we're close to the bridge now." Harper shifted back into his wolf form before she could respond, giving her an impatient bark before hurrying off.
It wasn't far to the bridge. April saw the robust wooden archway silhouetted in the distance, stretching from one side of the jagged ravine that cut across the mountain path to the other. It was the only safe way on this side of the mountain to reach the higher slopes, and it marked what most considered the border of Highland Pack territory. Beyond lay cold and unwelcoming terrain, the place where they were happy to let the ferals roam free so long as they never crossed over to this side.
This time, it seemed, Harper had been right. At the near end of the bridge a gaunt looking wolf stood with his head bowed, either tearing at some fresh prey or digging in the frozen ground as he snuffled and growled into the snow.
April stopped, crouching down to stay out of sight, her breathing quick and anxious as she looked to Harper.
Her partner bared his teeth, and before she could stop him he barked savagely, the feral wolf jerking its head up in an instant to look their way.
Just run away. Just run, April pleaded to herself. Just get this over with so we can go back.
She was no fighter, but she couldn't leave Harper to handle it by himself if the wolf decided to stand its ground.
The creature stared at them in silence, eyes shining through the blizzard like a rabbit trapped in headlights. April's hands bunched into fists inside her mittens, her eyes watering from the wind, but she didn't dare blink.
Just run. Please just run.
Harper growled and lunged forward, and April let out a breath she hadn't realised she'd been holding as the feral turned and bolted, streaking across the bridge without a backwards glance.
"Harper, no!" she exclaimed as her partner immediately gave chase, his paws throwing up flurries of snow as he bounded after the fleeing wolf.
He didn't need to do this. He didn't need to prove anything to her. Why couldn't his damn instinct just let him stop and slow down for one moment?!
She stumbled after him, the snow tugging at her boots and threatening to trip her with each step as Harper raced to the end of the bridge and turned to cross it, the feral already out of sight on the far side.
Something thudded into the snow beside April, and a grinding crack of splitting stone cut through the air from the mountain slope above them. She spun around, confused, her feet still moving in the direction of the bridge as dull panic built in her chest, feeling that something terrible was about to happen that her mind hadn't quite realised yet.
She cried out as another scatter of dislodged pebbles landed beside her, followed by a thick sheet of snow rumbling off the overhanging rocks above them and crashing against the side of the bridge, chunks of shale skidding across the wood inches in front of Harper amidst a flood of white.
He finally stopped, slipping on the snow and snapping his head around, surprise and confusion registering on his animal features as April shrieked his name. He looked back across the bridge, and she followed his gaze to see the eyes of the feral waiting, watching, hanging back just beyond where the wooden boards ended.
Harper let out a savage bark and bounded forward, ignoring the snow and scattered rocks beneath his paws as he ran across the bridge.
It wasn't far to the other side, but it was further than it would have been to turn back.
April could only watch, her mind blank, barely registering, as another cascade of soil and rock tore itself from the slope above, the main avalanche crashing down against the bridge just as Harper was about to make it to the other side. She lost him in the confusion of falling snow and soil and rocks, the sound of tearing wood reaching her ears over the rumble of the avalanche as a gigantic boulder tore a chunk from the side of the bridge, the outline of tangled boards and rails flailing through the air as they fell into the ravine along with rocks and roots, and the shape of a single, light-furred wolf.
April stumbled forwards on legs that refused to work, her panic rising with the deafening sound of the rockslide until she felt sick. She couldn't tear her eyes away from the bridge, hoping that what she'd seen falling hadn't been there.
The rumbling dimmed, pebbles and snowflakes peppering her hair until only the sound of rocks clacking off the sides of the ravine far below echoed through the blizzard. For a moment her heart leapt as she saw a pair of shining eyes watching her through the snow, but they weren't the eyes of her partner. The feral wolf watched her solemnly from the far side of the bridge, the creaking wooden boards between them a mess of splintered wood and fallen rubble, but nothing more.
Harper was gone.
# # #
To be continued in Part Two, coming soon.
# # #
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Claudia King is a writer based in the United Kingdom, she studied Creative Arts at university and continues to maintain a passionate interest in storytelling (both erotic and non-erotic!) across many forms of media. She owns a banana plant.
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Broken Moon: Part 1 Page 4
