Chapter Twenty-Two #3
Seeing no other course since I can’t exactly console them, I go back to digging their brother’s grave. Only Zeke helps me. Khalil and Thorin decide to watch the pups closely for any sign that they might attack me.
Their vigilance puts me at ease, and Zeke and I are able to complete digging the hole deep enough that there’s no chance of another predator coming along and digging the pup back up.
“Um…how do we do this?” I ask when I stand and dust my hands off.
Rom and Remy still haven’t moved away from their brother.
Their brother who still doesn’t have a name.
One comes to me easily enough, but mostly because I try to convince myself it doesn’t matter.
“I don’t want to lose a hand putting Roman to rest.”
“You named them?” Khalil groans and pinches his nose. “Why am I not surprised that you named them already?”
“So what are their names?” Zeke points to the pups who are now growling at Khalil as if they understood him.
“That cutie,” I say pointing to the gray pup, “is Remy. It’s short for Remus. And that adorable lump of fur is Rom. Short for Romulus.”
“As in the brothers from mythology who were abandoned as infants on the shore of a river and nurtured by a she-wolf until a shepherd and his wife found and raised them?”
“Yup. Fitting, right?”
“Sure, but doesn’t the story end with Romulus killing Remus?” Khalil asks.
I roll my eyes skyward. “I didn’t say it was perfect.”
Rom yawns, stretches his body, and stands before lifting his leg and peeing. The stream arches toward Khalil’s foot, who curses and quickly steps out of the way before any can get on him.
The rest of us smother our laughs to avoid startling the pups while Khalil throws Rommy a dirty look.
“Damn, he even has your manners, Khal.” Thorin tilts his head to the side and studies the black pup. “He kind of looks like you too.”
Khalil flips him off and then leans down, quickly grabbing Rom by the scruff. Zeke repeats his action, grabbing Remy the same way and lifting him off the ground. With the coast clear, Thorin lifts Roman from the ground and gently lays him inside the grave.
Thorin and I make quick work of pushing the pile of upturned dirt back inside the hole.
Once we’re done and the grave is covered, I sit there for a few seconds and stare at the mound of dirt.
I feel like I should say something, but I don’t know what.
I never had a pet before, so I have no clue what to do when one dies.
Not that wild wolves should ever be considered pets.
After a few moments of floundering, my lips part and the first song that pops into my head spills free.
Khalil, Thorin, and Zeke are all quiet around me as I sing “Over the Rainbow.” It’s times like these when I wish I could be as hardened as them.
I wish it didn’t matter so much, but how could it not when death has become a constant companion?
“That was beautiful,” Thorin says when the last note is sung.
“Thanks.”
Zeke and Khalil set the pups back on the ground. Khalil narrowly misses losing a thumb, but Zeke isn’t as quick. Remy clamps his jaw down on his forearm, and Zeke has a hell of time shaking him off.
The moment Zeke is free, Khalil runs the pups off, and I rush over to Zeke. Blood is already running from the punctures in his olive skin. Thorin curses and removes his shirt, tearing the bottom hem away to make a bandage for Zeke’s arm. “We need to get back to the cabin now.”
“What about Meera?”
“Aurelia!” Thorin roars so loudly I jump. The rage in his eyes makes me want to run in the opposite direction. “Enough. This is serious. We don’t know what those pups have, and the wound could get infected.”
Shame courses through me, and if I could slap myself without looking like a nutjob, I would. “I’m sorry. You’re right. I don’t know what I was thinking. Of course. Let’s go home.”
I start forward to lead the way, but Zeke stops me with a hand on my stomach and pulls me back until I’m by his side again. “I’m fine. The bite can wait.”
“We need to clean the wound before infection sets in,” Thorin argues.
“She can clean me up later. Right now, she wants to find her wolf, so that’s what we’re going to do.”
She can clean me up later. Those words repeat in my head as Thorin and Zeke engage in a pissing contest. Khalil turns out to be the tiebreaker. He pulls me out of the band of Zeke’s arm, leaving Thorin and Zeke no choice but to follow.
“We can’t just leave them,” I tell Khalil when I remember the pups.
“They followed you once,” he says.
Sure enough, when I look over my shoulder, the pups are weaving in and out of trees as they trail us from a distance.
“This way,” Thorin says after we walk for less than a minute.
He and Khalil must have been following Meera’s trails—or the wolves that killed Roman—when we stumbled upon the pup.
“There are multiple tracks here,” Thorin says when we reach some downfall and a creek running downhill. “Meera’s,” he says, pointing out her distinct tracks. She’s wounded, so they’re off unlike the multiple sets we find. “There was a fight here.” Thorin swears. “Meera was outnumbered.”
My heart doesn’t speed up or slow down.
It breaks.
I completely forget the pups are stalking us until they sniff the ground and whine before suddenly taking off in the direction of the creek.
“What the—”
“Fuck. We need to follow them.” Zeke takes off after the pups, giving us no time to ask why. The rest of us follow, forming an arrow of desperation with the pups making up the head followed by Zeke, me, Khalil, and Thorin bringing up the rear.
Finally, we come across four trails that form an intersection, and lying in the center of that crossroads is—
“Meera!”
I run past Zeke, dodging his hands when he stops instead of pressing forward. I ignore their shouts for me to stop. The pups have already reached their mother. They’re climbing all over her and tugging at her ears and tail, begging her to rise and ease their fears.
But she doesn’t.
The she-wolf continues lying on the ground, and her breaths are so shallow that I’m not sure she’s breathing at all.
As soon as I reach Meera, Zeke snatches me back. “Careful, Aurelia. This just happened. There’s a chance that the wolves that did this to her are still in the area.”
“We have to help her.”
“She’s dying.”
“We have to help her!” I scream. When none of them move to aid the she-wolf, I turn my teary gaze to Thorin. “You promised me.”
Thorin curses and then reaches for his belt.
He quickly unbuckles it and then snatches it from the loops in his jeans before kneeling in front of Meera.
The pups’ ears flatten, and they growl but don’t attack.
Neither does Meera, who I realize is conscious but weak.
Her eyes are glued to Thorin, and worry still churns my stomach at the thought of him getting hurt because of me.
My vision is blurry as I watch him wrap the belt tightly around Meera’s snout, creating a makeshift muzzle, but I pay the unshed tears no mind.
Instead, I kneel when she growls, and for the first time, I allow my fingers to run through Meera’s tawny fur.
A warm feeling spreads through me when Meera stops growling.
I hear Khalil and Zeke also removing their belts and quickly securing them around her forearms and hind legs.
“That should be enough to get her to the truck,” Khalil says before he carefully scoops Meera up. The wolf whines and then goes deathly still in his arms.
Thorin and Zeke grab Remy and Rom by their scruffs, and then we’re off.
I realize, after we’ve taken two steps and I hear footsteps all around us, that their arms are full and we’re really fucking exposed.
Meera, the pups, and my mountain men—I’m their only line of defense.
“Aurelia,” Thorin warns when he spots the same thing I do. A large wolf stalking us from the brush up ahead. The wolves that attacked Meera have returned to finish the job. “Take Remy.”
“That’s okay,” I say as I draw an arrow from my quiver, load it, and take aim. “I got this.”
My gaze snags on Rom. His ears, which were previously flat with displeasure over being carried are now twitching in awareness. A moment later, Remy’s ears do the same, and he whines as he stares off into the bushes.
Khalil shifts his hold on Meera. “Goldilocks, I really think—”
A wolf we didn’t see stalking Khalil lunges from the bushes.
There’s no hope for Khalil to react in time, so heart in throat, I don’t think.
I spin toward the sound and let the arrow loose the moment I see my target.
It only takes a single breath, but it feels like a lifetime before the arrowhead spears the wolf in its hind leg and sends it flying back into the bushes.
“Shit,” Khalil chokes out when he sees how close he came to death. “Guys, I think she’s got this.”
“We need to hurry this the fuck up,” Zeke says. He hands Rom off to Thorin and then removes the crossbow from his shoulder.
Anticipating a second attack, I quickly load another arrow, and Zeke does the same while falling behind to take up the rear. I continue to lead the way five paces ahead.
We nearly make it to the clearing when the wolves try their luck again.
One goes for Khalil again, and I’m not quick enough to stop the large, gray wolf from tackling him.
Meera tumbles out of his hold and the pups yip and whine, but I don’t look to see if the she-wolf stirs.
My focus is trained on the snapping teeth and foaming mouth of the wolf currently trying to rip out Khalil’s throat.
His own teeth are gritted from the effort of holding the wolf back.
My confidence wavers as I redirect my aim to the struggling forms ten feet away.
What if I hit Khalil?
Or worse. What if I hit Khalil and it leaves an opening for the wolf to finish the job? All it would take is the smallest opening, and Khalil would be lost to me. Lost to us all.