by Debra Dunbar
When he was wolf, he got to his feet and shook himself to settle his fur.
“Are you done?” she called, her back still turned.
Dustin couldn’t help himself. He snuck up behind her with soundless footsteps, then goosed her in the rear with his nose.
She shrieked that high pitched sound that made his ears want to bleed and launched herself forward. He laughed, knowing the sound didn’t translate well in this form, and was surprised when she laughed in return.
“Bad wolf-man,” she teased, shaking a finger at him. Then she went to where he’d learned the doorway to the house was, tracing a seam with her finger. As the edges glowed a blue-silver, she pushed and the door opened wide.
Dustin blinked at the sudden bright light, then followed her outside, turning to watch as she closed the door to her house, turning it once more into simply a barrow, built into the side of a rolling green hill that had no place in Alaska. By the time she’d sealed the door, the entrance was undetectable. Even with his heightened senses, he could walk up and stick his nose right against it and not know that this was anything except a grass-covered hill of dirt and rock.
She patted the grass then turned, leading the way through the forest. He’d grown to know a bit about her over the last few days, her sense of humor, her warmth, her caring, her odd way of speaking. But he’d never realized the power she held until he walked with her through this forest of her own creation. It was like she’d sliced open reality and brought forth a world of her own making. The size and types of trees weren’t typical, and certainly not typical for this part of the planet. As she walked, the world seemed to bend and skew around her. He could have sworn they’d passed the same tree at least a dozen times, that they’d been traveling far longer than they should have. He’d been shot, and ran for his life while bleeding profusely from what should have been fatal wounds. There was no way he’d ran for hours through the normal Alaskan wilderness, then another few hours inside her acid trip of a sanctuary. There had to be something wrong. Were they going around in circles? They should have been outside the sanctuary by now.
“No, we’re not at the exit, and I wanted us to leave at the same spot you came in as that’s probably the closest to your plane.”
He jerked to a stop, staring at her as she continued forward. She heard him? She’d heard his thoughts? A powerful fae that claimed he now belonged to her, that was most likely enchanting him with her magic and her beauty to stay, and now even his thoughts weren’t his own?
She must have sensed he was no longer following, because she stopped and turned back to look at Dustin quizzically. “Is there something wrong?”
If she could read his thoughts, then she would be very aware that there was something wrong.
The sidhe sighed. “Dustin, I would never intrude on your thoughts normally, but you’re unable to speak when you are a wolf, and I felt it important that we be able to communicate. I promise not to go beyond the surface, or intrude into things you want to keep private.” She took a step forward. “But I do want you to know that I’m not enchanting you. Humans are drawn to us, and since you are part human, that is normal. I can’t turn that off any more than you can stop breathing. As for the bond…I can’t turn that off either, and I am just as affected by it as you are. This was the pact we made when you called to me and I saved your life. Yes, you did not realize what your wolf had done, and I did not know you were any more than a mortally injured animal, but we have entered this contract, and neither of us can break it.”
He didn’t like any of this. If she’d been a human, or a shifter, who had found him in the woods, taken him in and nursed him back to health, he would have been fine. But she was some otherworldly creature with powers he didn’t understand. He didn’t trust whether the attraction he felt was real or some glamor, or this weird bond. And wrong as it might be, he blamed her for the bond that tugged at him to stay in the sanctuary. Moments like these he wasn’t sure if death wouldn’t have been the better option.
Gwylla watched him, and from the patient expression in her eyes, he knew she wasn’t reading these thoughts.
He patted the ground and looked at her intently. This forest couldn’t be as big as you say. I had lost a lot of blood and was running flat out. I couldn’t have gone far before collapsing.
“You were an injured animal in need of help,” she replied. “My forest shaped itself so you came directly to the center, to my heart-tree. My sanctuary is huge, and although I can, and am, folding it so that we do not take all day to leave, it still takes time to reach the border. Folding space takes energy, as does teleportation. And that is energy I need to have available in case we are attacked.”
So he owed his life to her forest as much as to her. Was it fate that led him in this direction, that brought him to these trees? Was it fate that the forest, instead of rejecting him, or letting him wander lost until he died of blood loss, pulled him directly to the spot he needed to be to call to Gwylla for help? It seemed far too much to chalk it all up to coincidence.
Dustin figured it had to have been a two-hour walk before they reached the edge of the sanctuary. There was no line delineating the border, no gate or stream to cross. One moment he was in a thick forest of green leaves and icy white frost, and the next he was in an Alaskan alpine meadow. He turned around to catch sight of the forest behind him and saw nothing but a continuance of the meadow with craggy pines, rock, and patches of snow. It was gone, like an illusion from a fantasy movie. And if he needed to find it again, he was pretty sure he’d not be able to. At least he wouldn’t be able to find it unless Gwylla, and the forest itself, wanted him to.
It bothered him. He wanted to be able to see it. He wanted her sanctuary to be his secret place, too, something they shared between them. He wanted it to always be open and welcoming to him. But the reality was, even with her talk of bonds and responsibility for his life, there was nothing permanent in this thing between them. Maybe she’d always check on him or have some awareness of his health and well-being, but after the hunters were stopped, after this Talligie was stopped, he’d go back to his pack and she’d go back to her forest. And unless there was some unusual circumstance, like if he crashed his plane or got into a fight with a polar bear, he’d probably not ever see her again.
The thought twisted his chest like it was caught in a vise.
“Look.” Her voice was hushed as she crouched down, pointing to something at the edge of a patch of snow. It was a footprint.
Bending his nose to the ground he inhaled, trying to find a scent. Whoever had left this print, they’d done it at least a week ago. But that didn’t mean he hadn’t come back more recently.
Dustin was tired, and starting to feel those nagging twinges in his chest and hip from the long walk through the sanctuary, but he couldn’t lead Gwylla into a trap. Dropping his nose again to the ground, he swept back and forth, cataloging all the varying scents and ignoring everything that wasn’t human.
There had been two. He was pretty sure these were the two that had shot him, given how remote this section of Alaska was and that this was the very spot where Gwylla said he’d entered her sanctuary. They had followed the blood trail—which he was sure a blind man could have followed. There were no recent scents, so they must have given up at least five days ago and left. But…he eyed Gwylla who was frowning down at the patch of snow where she’d seen the footprint. What would the hunters have thought about a significant blood trail that just vanished. No tracks. No blood. No dead werewolf body. Just a spot in the snow where everything stopped. Experienced hunters would know there was something odd about that, and hunters who knew about the existence of shifters probably knew about the existence of magic as well. Had they gone back to whoever their boss was and told him about the strange anomaly? And had that person known enough to let the elf working with them know someone had snatched a mortally injured wolf out of thin air?
It was a stretch. And he was being paranoid. No doubt they figured he’d m
anaged to overcome the bullets—that they were either defective somehow, or that he had abilities beyond most werewolves. Why would they bother to relay something so trivial to the elf?
He walked over and nudged Gwylla’s hand, looking up into her face. I’d really prefer you stay here, close to the borders of your sanctuary.
“No. They came after you, but they left. These tracks are old—even I can tell that. And you’re getting tired. I won’t leave you.”
He was getting tired, and it would be best to get going and stop arguing or else Gwylla might have to carry him back to the sanctuary.
Taking the lead, Dustin trotted ahead, sniffing the ground occasionally to pick up the old, faint notes of his own scent as well as the hunters to make sure he was on the right path. Once he found the dirt road, he traced it back to the ditch where the truck had been overturned. There was nothing except churned up dirt and black snow. He’d run for roughly two miles after being shot—an amazing feat given how much blood he’d lost along the way.
And about fifty yards from where the truck had been was his plane. The doors were open, the pilot’s side one hanging from one broken hinge. He ran to the plane, knowing before he got there what he’d find. Putting his paws on the seat he peered in and saw a mess of hacked up wires. It had been stripped. All the instruments, all the controls were gone. Hopping down and circling it, he saw the propeller was bent, mechanical components completely missing. The fuselage had several huge holes poked in it, and from the lack of spilled fuel, he knew they’d siphoned it and taken it somewhere else.
The fuselage wasn’t the only thing with holes in it. The plane looked like the hunters had used it for target practice as well as hit it with a sledge hammer a few times. The sight made him want to curl up and cry.
Destroyed. He’d loved that plane. He’d been flying it for seven years now, and this plane was like a second home to him. Yes, Jake would authorize the purchase of a new one, and the next one would have more passenger and cargo space, have additional bells and whistles, but nothing would replace his plane.
Gwylla put a hand on his head, smoothing his fur back. “I’m so sorry, Dustin. I can tell you are aching inside because they have damaged your plane. You are just as upset about its loss as them shooting and trying to kill you.”
She was right. Was that weird that he’d nearly lost his life, and yet he was ready to go on a rampage because they’d destroyed his plane? Well, the aircraft might be a loss, but there still might be the satellite phone somewhere nearby. He remembered he’d had it in one hand, the first aid kit in the other, when they’d shot him and forced his shift. He’d dropped it, the kit, and his pistol. And with any luck, the phone would be lying in the dirt nearby.
Dustin put his nose to the ground, picking up the faint degraded scents of the hunters and cataloging them to memory as he retraced their steps. The fallen first aid kit was gone except for a stray bandage that must have fallen out of the box when he’d dropped it. There was no sign of the pistol or the satellite phone beyond a few broken pieces of plastic partially embedded into the ground. They must have taken the gun and smashed the phone.
And there went his hope of contacting Jake and the pack. He’d need to pull together enough strength to hike out to the main road, then hope some passerby didn’t mind picking up either a naked man with a towel or a wolf, and giving him a ride to the nearest town.
“What’s this?”
Gwylla had left his side and was walking over to a dark shape on the ground next to two trees. Dustin trotted after her, wondering what the very thorough hunters could have left behind. Then he smelled them—five humans had been there, and within the last few hours.
“Is this your phone? It looks like it might–”
He’d yipped a warning, but it was too late. A net shot up from the ground, gathering Gwylla up and hauling her into the trees. She gasped in surprise, then began to laugh. “Oh how clever! They must have known you’d return, or possibly that your pack would send someone searching for you and the plane.”
She might think it was funny, but he didn’t. The net held her high above the ground. It would have been easy enough for a werewolf to bite through the ropes and escape—if the net hadn’t glowed with a magic that made the hair stand up on the back of his neck.
Dustin knew without a doubt if it had been him caught in that net, or any other shifter, they could have chewed and clawed to their heart’s content and not escaped. It was meant to hold them until the hunters returned. He’d set enough snares in the last seven years that he knew the importance of checking them regularly. They’d be here before nightfall. Heck, for all he knew, they had some type of spell that let them know when the trap had been triggered.
Can you get yourself out of there? We need to go?. He tried to put as much urgency into the thought as possible.
She swung the net from side to side, poking her fingers through the holes and testing the rope. “Yes. This is not a complex spell. It’s similar to the nets the elves make to hold demons they find trespassing in their lands. See? I just counter the magical current at the junction here, then reroute it—”
The magic vanished, the net fell apart and Gwylla shrieked, frantically grabbing at the rope as she fell to the ground. Dustin began to rush forward, to try to break her fall, then stopped, realizing that it wouldn’t do Gwylla any good to land on top of a wolf. And it most certainly wouldn’t do him any good to have a woman landing on top of him either. Feeling rather unchivalrous, he watched her crashed onto the snow and grass, the net a tangle of ropes on top of her.
And now he rushed over, pulling the deactivated net from her and poking her with his nose. She looked up at him. “Ouch. Don’t let anyone tell you that sidhe always land on their feet, because you have now witnessed what an untruth that is.”
He laughed, relieved she wasn’t hurt. Then he gripped the net in his teeth, yanking it over to the side. We need to go, and fast. If they’ve set this trap, they check it regularly. They might be on their way right now.
Gwylla got to her feet and straightened her clothes. “Back to the sanctuary? Or is there somewhere you’d like to hide and lay in wait for these hunters to arrive?”
He hadn’t thought of that. His first impulse at this situation was to get Gwylla back to the sanctuary where they both could be safe, and where he could make plans for getting to the nearest town. Could they ambush the hunters? The idea appealed to him, but he was injured, he had no idea what use Gwylla’s magic capabilities might be in this situation, and the hunters were packing bullets that could easily kill either of them—Gwylla by the metal in the bullets, and him by the magic coating them. No, it would be best to run back to the sanctuary and hide.
The hunters would follow them. And this time they’d know something was up when two tracks vanished in the same place where the blood had stopped before. And then, instead of having the element of surprise on their side, he and Gwylla would be trapped in the sanctuary under siege by humans with magic bullets and a powerful elven ex-boyfriend.
Let’s stay, he told her. Although it might be uncomfortable. We’d need to find a spot to shelter and hide for hours.
“I can make the ground soft and dry, and assist with an illusion to hide us better,” she said.
He shook his head. They might have something that would sense the illusion. I don’t want them to know we’re here until we are on top of them. No sense in taking the chance that an illusion would give us away.
“How far away should we be? How fast can you run?”
He looked around. They’d want to be on top of the hunters before the humans had a chance to take stock of the situation and begin shooting.
I’m fast, but we should probably be no farther than a hundred feet from the net. They’ll be ready to aim and shoot, and hyperaware once they see the net is disabled and on the ground.
“There?” Gwylla pointed to a patch of briars. Dustin winced at the thought of spending hours where every movement would send shar
p thorns jabbing into his side. It was the best cover available at a reasonable distance, though, so he headed toward it, only to stop when a light appeared over by the plane. It was a long sliver of light that reminded him of the transporter beams on Star Trek.
“Elves,” Gwylla hissed.
His skin prickled. Elves? As in plural? Was this the ex-boyfriend come to retrieve Gwylla? If so, he’d have a fight on his hands. Dustin might not be an Alpha, but he wasn’t going to die being shot in the back as he ran away—not when Gwylla’s life also was on the line.
The light expanded, and as if they were stepping through a doorway, three hunters appeared, their guns at the ready. They took one look at Dustin and pulled the trigger.
Time seemed to slow. The flash of gunshots, Gwylla’s outstretched hands. He leapt forward, determined to at least take down one of these hunters before their bullets killed him. Two steps in he hit something solid, something cold.
Ice. A wall of ice. Somehow Gwylla had managed to erect a wall of clear ice between them and the hunters. It wasn’t thick, and the hunters seemed to realize that, as their bullets chipped away at the barrier faster than Gwylla could repair it. The humans moved closer, the force of their gunshots nearly penetrating the wall. She couldn’t keep this up for long. He’d need to run around the wall to attack, and they’d see him coming, they’d shoot him dead before he could round the corner. And in the time it took him to do that, they’d be through the barrier and have killed Gwylla.
On my word, drop the barrier, he told her. I want them close enough that the rifles are ineffective and we can grapple.
The idea of Gwylla grappling with the hunters was ludicrous, but it was the only thing he could think of. Hopefully she’d be able to at least hold her own while he killed them one-by-one. Then he thought of the wall of ice before him. She wouldn’t need to punch and wrestle, she could probably deep-freeze them with a touch.
