Chapter Twenty-Two #2
Beside me, Thorin stares at me like I’ve lost my mind and then looks over my shoulder at Ezekiel, who’s standing over me. In fact, he’s so close, I can feel his jeans brushing against my shoulder anytime I move. “Zeke, do me a favor. Go get Aurelia’s bow and my gun.”
None of us move until Zeke returns minutes later with his arms loaded with weapons. He hands Thorin his hunting rifle and then gives me the bow and my hip quiver full of arrows while keeping the crossbow for himself.
Once we’re all strapped, we make our way over to the edge of the clearing where the pups are.
They don’t make a sound—probably to keep from being detected by predators—and if I hadn’t seen Meera leave them, I would have been in for a deadly surprise later.
The four of us keep our footsteps just as silent with our gazes scanning the tree line for the same reason.
Some of my worry abates once we’re all close enough to see them huddled together at the bottom of the barrel. The pups, realizing they’ve been had, tuck their tails and growl.
“There’s only two,” I announce despondently. “She had three. Where’s the other one?”
When none of the guys respond, I glance at each of them, noting flaring nostrils, twitching jaws, and the flat lines of their mouths. They also avoid my gaze as if they already know what must have happened and don’t wish to share it with me.
Oh no.
Breathing through the pain that slashes at me like a barbed whip, I step forward and kneel two feet from the crate, ignoring the panicked hiss of one my guys behind me.
The gray pup proves to be the more curious of the two, stretching onto his hind legs.
His head pops free of the barrel—which is only a foot or so high and two feet in diameter—while his front paws come to rest on the wooden lip.
The pup audibly sniffs the air for our scent.
Another head, no bigger than my palm with a tawny patch of fur on top of its black snout, pops out of the barrel next to his brother.
The black pup takes one look at us and releases a few more warning growls just to be sure.
I decide to name them Romulus and Remy.
Mostly because I’ve been diving into my mythologies lately after reading every gardening book my mountain men have in their collection, and they’re the first names that pop into my head. It’s almost fitting actually, if you ignore the tragic end.
I don’t even realize I’m reaching out a hand toward Romulus until Zeke gently scolds, “Whatever you do, don’t touch them. We don’t want Meera scenting you all over them and perceiving you as a threat to her pups.”
“Yeah, okay. Good point.” I pull my hand back just in time to miss the angry snap of the black pup’s teeth. I might be willing to lose a few fingers to scratch that adorable patch that makes him look meaner and cuter at the same time, but it’s not worth dying over.
Meera had come a long way with her pups in tow. She’d obviously been forced to change dens again, which means she’s probably feeling very defensive and ornery right about now.
What if it were other humans this time instead of a bear? Finally understanding how dangerous it is for the pups to get used to me and lose their natural fear of us, I back off and they go back to trying to chew their way free of the wooden barrel.
Not a minute later, their weight topples the barrel and they tumble free.
“You two stay here with the pups,” Thorin says once they’re free. “Khalil and I will try and track Meera.”
“You’ll help her,” I ask, “if she’s in danger?”
I feel all three of their gazes, but I hold only Thorin’s, who bites back whatever he wants to say and nods instead. “I will.”
“Promise me,” I urge despite my voice catching.
“I promise, songbird. I’ll help her.”
“Thank you.”
Thorin walks away, and Khalil runs a hand down my spine as he passes and follows Thorin to the trees. Worry churns in my stomach when the forest swallows them and I can no longer see their large shadows.
“What’s taking them so long?” I ask twenty minutes after Thorin and Khalil leave to track Meera. I’m more than a little anxious.
“Tracking.” It’s all Zeke says from his seat in the grass next to me.
His legs are propped up, and he’s resting his forearms on his knees as he stares at Rom and Remy.
The wolf pups sniff the ground around the barrel and nip at each other, but they mostly keep their distance.
Every so often, he has to toss a rock to lure their interest elsewhere when they venture too close to us.
“But do you think something happened?”
“We would have heard shots if it had.”
I’m getting really sick of his short answers. “I’m going,” I decide.
Zeke exhales but doesn’t try to stop me.
Instead, he jumps to his feet, startling me and the growling pups, and then he holds out a callused hand to help me up.
I stare at it incredulously for a few seconds before I slip my hand in his.
Our gazes meet and his thumb moves across the back of my hand, and I might call it a caress if I didn’t know better.
Within a blink of an eye, the moment is gone and then he’s hauling me to my feet. “Let’s go.”
He doesn’t let my hand go as we follow the bloody tracks Meera left behind and head for the trees.
God, there’s so much blood.
I take one last worried look back at the puppies who aren’t playing anymore. They’re both still as they watch us go with their ears raised.
“You think they’ll be okay all alone?”
“They’re not old enough to hunt yet, so Meera must leave them hidden in their den for hours while she does,” he says while squeezing my hand. “They’ll be fine.”
I choose to believe him—to have faith—because Rom and Remy need their mother, and right now Meera needs us.
We lose the blood trail and neither of us are good enough trackers to find and follow Thorin and Khalil’s tracks, so for twenty minutes, Zeke and I walk in circles until a shot rings out and the echo sends the birds nesting in the trees above us into flight.
Zeke and I take off in the direction the sound came from, and less than a quarter mile later, we finally find them.
Thorin is kneeling over something I can’t see with Khalil standing by his side. I purposely step on a twig, and it puts them both on alert as Khalil whirls around and Thorin shoots to his feet doing the same with his gun already taking aim.
“You two okay?” Zeke asks.
“We told you two to stay with the pups,” Thorin snaps.
“We heard a shot,” I tell him. “What happened?”
“Bear,” Khalil answers, making my stomach twist itself into knots. “Thorin fired a shot to scare him off.”
“So what is that?” I point to whatever they’re doing a great deal to hide from me. “What did you find? Is it Meera?”
Thorin’s jaw ticks before he glances at Khalil. The two of them silently communicate before they finally move out of the way, and I feel my eyes well when I see the small, lifeless form lying on the ground.
The wolf’s blue eyes are still open while its white fur is covered in crimson.
Meera’s missing pup.
Oh God. “A b-b-bear did this?”
“No. It just stumbled upon a fresh kill and easy meal.”
“Then what—”
“Wolves,” Thorin answers before I can finish voicing the question.
“Wolves? Why would wolves kill Meera’s pups?”
None of my guys respond, not even to remind me that this was the wilds and a natural part of it. The air is thick with grief, and I realize it’s not just mine. They’re not as unaffected as they pretend to be.
After a while, the weight of my sorrow surges, and it sends me to my knees before the slaughtered pup. My lips tremble and my shoulders shake and pretty soon there are actual tears.
It’s a foreign feeling that I chase away with a resolving breath.
“Aurelia,” Khalil warns when I reach out to run my fingers through the pup’s fur. His blood is still warm, telling me this happened recently. I stare at it for a long time and then I’m on my feet, searching the forest floor.
“What are you up to, songbird? What do you need?”
Ignoring all of them, I continue my search until I finally find a big enough branch, one that’s as big as my arm, and I return to the pup.
“We need to bury him,” I answer distractedly as I start to dig.
I know the guys carry portable shovels, but none of us have our packs, so the branch will have to do.
I’m so devoted to my task that I don’t even notice the three of them finding sticks of their own and joining me. I stop when they start to dig and I blink in astonishment as I watch them stab the end of their branches into the soft ground.
“You…you don’t have to help me. I know you think it’s stupid.”
“It’s important to you, so it’s important to us,” Zeke says. His gaze only meets mine briefly before he returns to the task.
After ten minutes, my arms are burning and I’m quickly losing steam. “How deep do you think—”
I’m interrupted again, but this time it’s by the rustling of the foliage behind me and the pitter-patter of little paws. My heart drops as I stand and spin around to see Remy and Rom scampering out of the bushes. “Shit,” I say with a gasp and wide eyes. “They followed us.”
The scrape of multiple sticks stops immediately as the pups approach.
They don’t seem to be paying us any mind with their noses low to the ground and their tails wagging.
Remy reaches my ankles first and I brace for an offensive nip, but all I feel is his fur as he passes me with Rom next to him.
I look down to see them sniff and nudge their brother who doesn’t respond.
Rom whines and barks a few distressed sounds while Remy sits back, tilts his nose up to the canopy and howls. Rom joins him a moment later. They’re still so very young so it isn’t a fully formed, coordinated sound, but it’s impossible not to feel their loss. Their pain.
When they’re howled out, Rom and Remy lie down next to their brother with their little heads on their paws and their solemn gazes peering up at me.