Chapter 8
ELLIE
Ilost track of time somewhere after the third hour of walking, my entire world narrowing to the rhythm of putting one foot in front of the other.
My leg throbbed with every movement despite the makeshift bandage, and I told myself I’d look at it when we made camp for the night.
My lungs burned from the cold air and the relentless pace.
My muscles trembled with exhaustion that went bone-deep, the kind of tired that made thinking feel impossible, and from Nathan’s and Megan’s face I could tell they felt the same after fighting the storm all night.
But we kept moving because the wolves kept moving, and stopping meant being left behind to fend for ourselves.
Even Nathan could see now that we needed their help.
They travelled in human form, laden with heavy packs that would have staggered me but barely seemed to slow them down.
Bundles of meat from their hunt, supplies, weapons were strapped to their backs or slung across their shoulders with the casual efficiency of people who'd done this a thousand times before.
One wolf stayed in animal form, ranging ahead through the rocks, scouting the path in rotating shifts.
Every few hours someone would peel off, shift, and take their turn, the transition so fluid and natural it was clear they often worked together.
I watched them with a kind of dazed fascination.
The bear shifter, the healer with the deep brown eyes, checked on Dev constantly, adjusting the stretcher when the ground got rough, his large hands gentle as he repositioned Dev's splinted leg.
He moved with quiet authority, the other wolves making space for him automatically, and I found myself tracking him through the journey even when I tried not to.
There was something compelling about his presence.
Not threatening, despite his size. Just..
. solid. Grounded. Like he was the kind of person who'd weather any storm without breaking.
I wondered what his name was.
The leader ranged up and down the line, checking on everyone, making decisions with sharp gestures that sent wolves peeling off to scout or adjust course.
He fascinated me in a different way. All predator grace and coiled danger, but with an intelligence in those amber eyes that suggested he missed nothing.
When he'd looked at me during one of his passes, assessing, I'd felt like he was cataloguing every weakness, every capability, measuring whether we were worth the trouble we represented.
I had no idea what conclusion he'd reached.
Nathan trudged ahead of me, his shoulders hunched against the wind.
Megan walked beside him, never straying from his side.
I wondered how she’d felt about his submission to the other alpha.
He might not have had a choice, but there was a small, bitter part of me that resented him for not fighting harder to save us.
If these people hadn’t shown up, I didn’t want to think where we would be now.
Enslaved, or maybe even dead. Like Stephen.
The thought kept hitting me in waves like my brain couldn't quite process it.
Stephen with his terrible jokes and his quiet competence and his fierce loyalty.
The memory of watching him being swept away by the river, helpless, unable to do anything but scream his name into the storm.
It was hard not to spiral when exhaustion made everything feel impossible.
When my leg throbbed with every step and my chest ached from breathing frozen air and the landscape around us looked wrong in ways I couldn't articulate.
Too wild. Too untamed. Too new. We'd stepped back into a world that existed before humans learned to reshape nature to their will.
We were in the ice age. Actually, genuinely in the past, surrounded by people who had never seen wheels or electricity, and animals that had been extinct for millennia.
A world so harsh it would kill us within days if we were left alone out here.
The reality of it kept sliding off my exhausted brain, too big to comprehend.
I stumbled over a hidden root and barely caught myself, my injured leg buckling.
One of the younger wolves caught my elbow instantly, steadying me with easy strength.
He said something in their language, his tone concerned, and I just nodded because what else could I do?
He didn't let go until I was stable again, then moved back to his position in the line with a small gesture that might have meant be careful.
They keep helping us. Why do they keep helping us?
I didn't know how to process that kind of unearned kindness.
These wolves owed us nothing. Had every reason to leave us to die in the forest. But instead they'd fought for us, loaded us up with their supplies, and now were hauling us toward safety without asking for anything in return.
Maybe they were just... good people, the kind who helped because it was the right thing to do, not because they wanted something.
The concept felt foreign, but when I looked up and caught the healer watching me, making sure I was ok, something in my chest cracked a little.
His appearance was a little daunting, lean muscle and a hardness that had helped him survive in this wild place, but his expression was gentle, concerned even.
Like my wellbeing actually mattered to him.
A warmth bloomed inside my chest, and I looked away quickly, my face heating despite the cold.
This was not the place to finally find another man attractive, but after a few hours, I admitted to myself that I couldn't stop noticing him.
The breadth of his shoulders as he moved through the forest. The quiet competence in every gesture.
The way other wolves sought him out for reassurance or guidance, like he was someone they trusted implicitly. The way he kept looking at me.
Stop it. You can't do this. You’re too broken.
My bond was shattered beyond repair by Nathan's rejection, a cold void in my chest that nothing could fill. The idea that I could feel anything for anyone else was absurd.
By the time we finally stopped the light was fading to twilight and the temperature was dropping even further.
I was shaking with exhaustion and cold, and my leg had gone from throbbing to a steady, vicious burn.
My hands were numb and not for the first time I wished for the gloves that had been left in my tent.
I’d dragged myself out in the storm, pausing only to put on my boots and my jacket over my travel trousers and thermal vest. I needed more layers, but they were gone, swept away by the rising river and the vicious wind.
My face felt frozen, my lips cracked and bleeding from the cold air. But we'd made it. We were alive.
As the wolves began setting up camp with practiced efficiency, I sank down onto the cold ground and watched.
They were fast. That was the first thing that struck me through the fog of exhaustion.
No wasted movement, no deliberation, no standing around debating who should do what.
They simply moved, each wolf falling into a role as naturally as breathing.
Two of them scouted the immediate area. There was a shallow hollow in the hillside where an overhang of rock created a natural shelter from the wind.
It wasn't a cave exactly, more like a deep alcove carved by centuries of weather, but it was big enough for all of us and the rock face would block the worst of the wind.
Within minutes, they'd cleared the ground of loose stones and debris.
Others were already unrolling hides, stretching them between wooden poles they'd lashed together from branches, creating low lean-to shelters that angled away from the wind.
The leather was thick and dark, stiff with age and use, stitched together with sinew in tight, even seams.
The fire came next. One of the younger wolves built it with an efficiency that would have made a survival instructor weep.
A base of dried moss and bark shavings, then kindling, then larger pieces of wood, all arranged with architectural precision.
He struck sparks from a piece of flint against what looked like iron pyrite, and within moments the tinder caught.
He blew on it gently, coaxing the flame, feeding it with patient expertise until it grew and steadied and began throwing real heat and light across the hollow and sending sparks spiralling upward into the darkening sky.
I watched those sparks rise and disappear into nothing, and thought about how our camp had looked.
Our camp had been neat. Organized. Colour-coded stuffed sacks and vacuum-sealed meals and LED lanterns that charged off solar panels that obviously didn't work here.
We'd had Gore-Tex and titanium tent poles and a portable water filtration system that weighed less than a bag of sugar.
All of it designed by engineers in climate-controlled offices, tested in labs, optimized for weight and efficiency.
All of it gone now.
They'd laid Dev down near the fire, four wolves working together to transfer him from the stretcher to a thick pile of furs with barely a jostle.
He was grey-faced with pain and exhaustion, his splinted leg elevated on a rolled hide, but he was alive.
Nathan and Megan had collapsed nearby, Nathan still clutching that branch like a weapon even though no one here had shown us any hostility since the fight with the other pack, the ones who'd wanted to take us prisoner.
I shivered and shoved that thought away before it could take root. We were safe now. Probably.