Two

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“…Take it all back. The man’s a keeper. He can fish like…”

The sound of human voices faded as the black wolf slipped deeper into the forest. He didn’t know what had gotten into him. He had always found it amusing to watch the campers that came up from the city, gawking and clumsy, pitching saggy tents and wandering around in circles for hours. It was certainly more entertaining than watching chipmunks fight over pine seeds, which was how he spent most afternoons when he was too lazy to hunt.

But he’d never been foolish enough to let himself be seen before.

Tanner couldn’t explain why he’d done it. There was nothing special about that girl in the clearing. She was a typical big city camper, from her milk-pale skin right down to that ridiculous little black shirt she wore, the shoulders nothing more than ribbons tied in trailing bows.

True, the shirt emphasized her slim curves very well, and true, too, that her hair was the color of bright copper, and had turned to fire in the melting glow of sunset. But that was no reason why he should have stood there and let her draw his picture; it was no reason why he was still thinking about her now.

He just couldn’t go around letting random humans know there were still wolves left in the Mord Woods. All it took was one human—one redheaded artist maybe—spreading rumors around the city, and the gig was up. Goodbye mountain, hello open road and the search for a new safe place. And he wasn’t ready to leave. Not yet.

A brown rabbit streaked suddenly out from behind a stand a wild asters, straight across his path and looking startled to see him there. It was a grizzled old rabbit, probably stringy and rank, but Tanner’s stomach growled. He hadn’t eaten for two days, since glutting himself on a lame doe.

Never one to let an opportunity escape, he leaped after the rabbit, caught it in three bounds. It squealed only until he crunched down on the fragile spine, and then it hung limp in his jaws.

Only moments later he heard the screams.

Leaping to his feet, he dropped the bone he’d been gnawing and took off, weaving through the trees in the direction the screams had come from, ears flat against his head.

“Abby!”

Tanner honed in on the male’s yell, the cracking voice. He felt a clammy dread in his gut; humans never realized how dangerous the mountain was until it was too late. A bear, a poisonous snake. People disappeared in these mountains never to be heard of again. But still the campers came, cheerfully oblivious.

The other girl, the one with the skull and crossbones bandana, was floundering in the brush at the edge of the camp, fighting her way through briars. “Hey! Hey, you guys, what’s going on?”

Tanner passed her without stirring a leaf. In another minute he saw the man ahead, running along the top of the river gorge faster than Tanner had never seen a man run. He saw instantly that it still wouldn’t be fast enough, as he looked down into the gorge and glimpsed the slender, dark-clad body being swept away downstream.

She must have fallen, and perhaps injured herself in the fall; she didn’t even try to lift her head above the water for breath.

It wasn’t his place to get involved in human affairs, tragedies or not. He knew that, but he couldn’t seem to make himself care, couldn’t seem to slow his pace, or turn from the chase, or stop his heart from beating too hard in his chest. The falls were just around the next bend, and unless he or the man did something, the redheaded girl would die.

But what? He scanned the sheer walls of the gorge. By the time either of them could get down, the girl would be that much farther downstream. He could jump, maybe, but there was too much risk of snapping a foreleg, or cracking a rib. Lupi healed quickly, but but not in seconds—and anything more than seconds would take too long.

The river twisted around the final bend, racing toward the jutting edge where the earth dropped away. A hundred feet down, at least that.

Tanner surged ahead. The man was yelling, but the thunder of the falls drowned out his voice, made it seem very small and far away. He never saw Tanner shoot past.

In the center of the river, only feet away from the edge of the waterfall, a boulder jutted up. The girl struck the rock, her body hitting it broadside. For a moment she seemed to lodge there; then the current tugged her free, washed her unresisting over the falls.

Tanner didn’t stop to think. If he had, he might have realized how close behind him the human man was, might never have taken the risk of being seen. But his body knew what it was about; a powerful stride took him to the edge of the rocks, muscles bunching, and he leapt over the falls after her.

Over the side and down, down, past the furious white falls. The air rushed through his fur, stung his eyes. He had lost sight of the girl; all he saw was the wide pool below, and the roiling base of the falls.

The instant before he hit the water, he pushed himself into the shift, and the dull blow of impact blended with the muscle-tearing pain of becoming wolf. He could shift faster than his parents, faster than any of their parents before them. If any had been alive to know him, he thought they would have been proud.

The water closed around him, bearing his body down to the smooth rock bottom. The pool was breath-takingly frigid, the river flowing down from high in the mountains where snow already capped the peaks.

Pushing off from the bottom at an angle, he came up several yards from the falls’ base, teeth-chattering. Only a few feet away, the redheaded girl floating face down.

Tanner swam to her side, not knowing if she was dead or alive. When he fisted a hand in the back of her shirt and lifted her from the water, she hung limp in his grasp, hair dripping around her face.

He drew her body tight against his shoulder with one arm, and dragged her to the shore. Thick green ferns formed a soft bed along the bank, before the ground was swallowed up by the forest. He laid her there, beneath the shadow of the trees, and bent low over her. She wasn’t breathing.

He felt at her jaw for a pulse. There was a flutter beneath his fingers. Soft, uncertain, but there just the same.

Tanner leaned lower, knowing what he had to do, but hesitant. The heaviness of her life rested in his hands now, and he had never held such a responsibility. He had taken lives. He had killed creatures as defenseless as mice, and as dangerous as men. He had killed to feed himself, to protect himself. But to save a life, that was another thing altogether.

He bent the rest of the way down to her, tipped her head back to clear her air passages. Pinching her nose shut and setting his mouth over hers, he breathed into her lungs.

Nothing.

Her pulse still danced beneath his fingers. He breathed into her again. Again.

Her body hitched beneath him, shuddered.

Tanner rocked back on his heels, just as the girl began to cough, jerking onto her side and curling in on herself as her body threw up a stream of water.

“Thank god,” he murmured, as she choked out the last of it, and lay gasping in the ferns. “Are you all right?”

Lips parted around her ragged breaths, she opened bright green eyes and stared up at him. “Who—” She stopped, choking on a cough. “Who are you?”

He realized with chagrin how strange he must look, some kind of modern savage, brown as an Indian and completely naked. He shifted so that his groin was covered by ferns. “My name’s Tanner. I was just, ah, swimming, when I saw you go over.”

“Over?” She stared at him blankly.

“The falls.”

She followed the direction of his stare, and though no recognition lit her eyes, her face lost what little color it had. “I went over—I don’t remember. I don’t—” She struggled to get up, gasping as she put weight on her left ankle and it folded inward.

“It’s all right.” He laid a hand on her shoulder to steady her, her skin clammy beneath his touch. “You’re safe now. You were lucky.”

“Gage. My boyfriend. Where—?”

“It’ll take him a while to climb down here. You took the express after all.” Tanner tried for a grin, but it felt crooked from disuse, not very friendly. “Why don’t you just relax a minute?”

“No, I have to find him.” She struggled to her feet, pushing his hand away and stumbled to the edge of the forest to grab a low hemlock branch. Her clothing dripped, skinny jeans and that little black shirt both stuck to her damp flesh. Tanner tried not to stare at the way her jeans molded her rear. But it was when he dragged his gaze up that his heart stumbled, as he saw the blood coursing down the back of her neck.

“Abby!”

She jerked her gaze back to him, blinking rapidly. “How do you know my name?”

He was halfway to her, but she staggered back. He strangled a frustrated growl. “You’re hurt—”

“Stay away from me!” She whirled, grabbing at trees, and hobbled from him with surprising speed.

“Wait, you don’t understand.”

She tripped and fell to her hands and knees, crying out, but never slowed in her escape. Crawling, she scuffled through old leaves and pine needles—and ran head-first into a pine trunk.

Perplexed, he paused a few steps from her. “Are you… okay?”

She didn’t respond, hunched over with her head in her hands, the pant of her breath harsh and shallow.

“Abby?”

With a groan, she doubled over and dry-heaved, her body convulsing violently. Tanner closed the distance between them, dropping to his knees beside her. She shuddered as he drew her close, but didn’t push him away. With his hand on the back of her neck, he felt the heat of her blood flowing over his knuckles.

“You hit your head,” he said again, gently. “I need to see, all right? I won’t hurt you.”

“I don’t feel—I feel—”

When he looked down into her face, he found her pupils dilated, huge and black. But when she spoke, blinking up at him, her voice was curiously calm. “Who are you?”

“I’m… Tanner.”

“Oh. Where’s Gage?”

He frowned. “You need to rest. Just sit here—” He maneuvered her so that her back was against the tree trunk, neck bent forward to let him see the base of her skull. It was hard to find the source of injury in all the blood, flowing down her back, the red barely visible against the black cotton of her shirt. He guided his fingertips gently along her scalp, found the laceration, and felt his stomach drop impossibly low.

The base of her skull was fractured just above where her brain stem would be, the bone depressed sharply.

He sat back to face her. “Abby, we need to get you—”

To a hospital.

Her eyes were shut, jaw slack.

“Abby?” He shook her gently. “Abby, can you hear me?”

There was no response, only her head lolling forward on her neck. He clenched his jaw. Fuck. Fuck.

Tanner didn’t know much about brain damage, but you couldn’t have a sister nearly die of a bullet to the head and not know something. He knew the dilated eyes meant her brain was swelling. And there, that pinkish-clear liquid dripping from her ear, that meant the lining of her brain had been ruptured. Both very bad things. A blood clot, he thought. And unless it was cleared soon, she would die.

He tried to think. It was hard with her in his arms, fragile and more than likely dying already.

He could leave her for the boyfriend to find, but it would take hours to get her to a hospital. First there was the long trek back to their car, then the drive down to Mifflin. The hospital at Mifflin was small, used to dealing with cuts and scrapes, a few broken bones. He doubted they had the facilities or the specialists for brain surgery.

But what else was there to do? Without help, she would certainly die.

But with his help…

No. He couldn’t do that. Never without her consent, and the chances weren’t good that it would work anyway.

Accidents happened. People fell, people died. It wasn’t his fault, or his place to interfere. She was just a human, after all. Not even one of his kind. He shouldn’t care.

But he did.

Christ. He hadn’t felt this helpless in years. Not since that night so long ago when he’d made the choice to desert his family, to value his life over theirs. And look what that had cost him. His parents, dead. His sister, sassy Lita only eleven-years-old, and now as good as dead to him.

He stared down at the girl, Abby. Not so much a girl after all. Mid-twenties maybe, about the age Lita would have been. And so beautiful, with her pale skin and bright copper hair. A wood sprite, he’d thought when he saw her for the first time in the clearing, her nose tiny and upturned, her mouth wide but very solemn. The kind of woman who wasn’t afraid to meet a wolf in the mountains.

“Abby!”

A yell, heard faintly over the thunder of the falls, coming from the brush across the pool. That would be the boyfriend. And how strange that his approach should tighten something inside Tanner. He wondered if the human loved the woman he now held in his arms, if he would have offered his life for hers. If she were his, Tanner thought he would traded places with her in an instant.

And so, shouldn’t he do everything possible to save her life now? Even if it meant she might hate him later?

The sound of the human’s voice neared. Any moment he would come out of the forest, see Tanner sitting with Abby in his arms, and it would be too late to do anything but relinquish her.

He couldn’t do that.

Lifting her as carefully as possible, Tanner stood. It might not work after all; her injuries might be too severe, the full moon too many days away. He had never done it before anyway, never set his teeth against human skin with the intention of ushering them into the world of the Lupi. But he had to try.

He would do everything he could. If she lived, she would be his, and his alone.

A/N: Darkened Storm - Thanks for the note; I'll try to explain things better instead of making ya'll go, "Wait, what??" Although the questions about Lita in this chapter are intentional. :)

waitingformyownlovestory - The wolves here are pretty close to those in Ring of Fire, though there may be some differences later. I suppose I didn't do a good job of explaining some things in RoF either (oops!). Gideon did recognize Kelsey when he was a wolf, but bit her because it was ultimately what he wanted (to turn her) and because he had fewer inhibitions in his wolf form.

Thanks to everyone for reading!