“I know,” he said finally, stepping sideways
as they walked and reaching out to rub Amber’s arm. “I don’t think
he understands human limitations.”
She glanced ahead at Ini-herit’s back. “You
think he’s going to kill us before we can make the switch from one
plane to the next?”
He grinned humorlessly. “It’s like you read
my mind.”
They continued for a while longer in silence.
Gabriel realized that the sunlight was fading. The shadows on the
forest floor were growing longer and less distinct. Although he
wasn’t wearing a watch, he figured it was probably around seven
o’clock. Due to the time of year, they wouldn’t actually be hiking
in the dark unless they were still walking into the very early
hours of the morning.
They would never make it that long, he knew.
He tried not to dwell on that unhappy thought.
“Stop,” Olivia said suddenly.
Recognizing the urgency in her quiet command,
everyone—including Ini-herit—stopped.
“Are you okay?” Amber asked.
“Shhh,” Olivia ordered, holding up a hand. At
her feet, Aurora hissed and arched her back. Olivia closed her eyes
and tilted her head at an angle as though she was straining to
listen to something. When she again opened her eyes, they were lime
green. “Something’s coming. I think wolves.”
“Wolves?” Skye repeated in a loud whisper.
“Can you tell how many?”
“No,” Olivia answered after a moment. “Their
thoughts are too many. They scent us, though. They’re…hungry.”
And then she collapsed, her body unused to
the strain of funneling her power. Ini-herit moved forward and
picked her up. Aurora shifted onto her two hind legs and clawed at
Ini-herit’s pants with her front paws, but he ignored the
animal.
“Walk,” he instructed, and began moving.
Not knowing what else to do, they followed.
Amber, Gabriel and Skye ended up walking swiftly with just inches
between them, their eyes rapidly scanning the thick trees. Aurora
raced ahead of them, very near Ini-herit’s feet. Their pace was
quicker than it had been in an hour. Gabriel strained to hear any
signs of the animals Olivia mentioned, but outside of the noise
they themselves were making as they hurried along, he couldn’t
detect a thing.
“Wolves travel in packs,” Skye explained
nervously, her voice barely audible over their footfalls. “They
usually hunt smaller animals during the warmer months. Voles,
lemming, squirrels…things like that. They can go for days without
eating. But they rarely pass up a chance to take down prey that
enters their territory.” When Amber and Gabriel gave her odd looks,
she smiled grimly and said, “You get a different kind of education
when you grow up out here.”
Skye’s softly spoken warning about the wolves
fed Gabriel’s growing concern. He looked around at the nearby
trees. Most were so tall that there were no low branches they could
grab to climb out of the reach of snapping wolf jaws.
And then they heard them: growls and distinct
animal noises growing nearer.
“Hurry,” Ini-herit instructed from several
yards ahead. And even with the added burden of Olivia in his grasp,
the Estilorian started running at an astonishing clip.
They didn’t need any further urging. Amber
quickly pulled ahead, having both her extensive track training and
her fear of animals to propel her into the lead. Gabriel started
out right behind her, but realized almost instantly that Skye was
much slower than them and was thus going to make the most
vulnerable target when the wolves ultimately reached them. He
instinctively slowed his pace to remain by her side. The growling
got closer.
“Come on,” he encouraged her when she jumped
over a tree root. “Keep moving.”
“I’m trying,” she gasped.
He watched as she untied the sweater around
her waist as they ran, letting it fall to the forest floor. He
heard the sound of snarling and thrashing behind them only seconds
later and guessed the wolves had found the sweater. Skye let out a
frightened whimper when she heard the noise.
They cleared a ridge within the forest and a
sharp wind swept around them, carrying the scent of pine and dirt
and unclean animals with it. He vaguely clued in to the fact that
the wind didn’t seem to be coming from a particular direction,
almost as though they had entered the center of a small storm. Even
with the increased wind, the predatory sounds of the wolves became
loud enough to make the hairs on his arms stand up.
His adrenaline spiked again the moment he
realized they weren’t going to escape. Amber was now a number of
yards ahead of them. She kept looking back over her shoulder like a
heroine in a horror movie fleeing the dreaded villain.
Gabriel!
I know!
Suddenly, Skye emitted a shriek. His heart
pounding with exertion and fear, he whipped his head around to help
her—and suddenly found himself airborne.
“Gabriel!” Amber shouted.
She had heard Skye’s short scream and had
turned to try and help, only to find no one behind her. Now,
instead of running away from the wolves, she turned and ran toward
them.
A voracious howl came from her right. She
felt her knees trembling. She knew she should run, but she couldn’t
without knowing what had happened to Gabriel. Her head jerked
sharply from side to side as she simultaneously looked for Gabriel
and Skye and scouted for the wolves. The sound of her drumming
pulse thundered in her ears.
“Amber, run!”
Gabriel’s voice seemed to come from the
trees. She looked up, but saw only the heavy canopy of branches and
leaves above her.
“Run!”
She turned and ran. If they had managed to
climb a tree—and she didn’t see how that was possible with the
branches being so high—then she was the only one in any danger.
They’re coming!
Amber heard the thought in her head as she
hurdled over a fallen log. A loud growl came from only a few feet
behind her on her left. Another one sounded from even closer on her
right. She felt her fear like a tangible object rising into her
throat.
Amber!
A gnashing jaw lashed out behind her,
snagging the sweater around her waist. The resulting tug slowed her
down, but didn’t stop her. She fumbled with the knot of the sweater
as she ran. Another vicious growl sounded even as the knot loosened
and the sweater slid away. Her eyes scanned the surrounding forest
in desperate hope for a tree to climb or some other means of
escape, all to no avail.
When she tried to jump over another fallen
tree, the wolves descended.
From more than thirty feet above the ground,
Gabriel clung to the tree branch he had landed on after whatever
force Skye had managed to generate swept them off the ground. He
lost sight of Amber only moments after she realized that he was in
no danger and she turned to run.
Within seconds, five large, gray wolves
passed under the tree in which he lay, moving quickly and
stealthily in Amber’s direction. The sight chilled him to the
bone.
Skye was crying beside him. “I’m sorry! I’m
sorry!” she chanted. The branch she was on vibrated under her,
leaves falling to the ground due to the strong movement. Her
tear-filled eyes were the color of blue ice.
Gabriel looked around him, desperately trying
to figure out a way to get safely to the ground. Below him was
nothing but bare bark along the tree’s trunk. He could taste his
fear, knowing Amber wasn’t going to make it far with the wolves so
closely on her tail. The ominous sound of their growling and
snarling carried through the trees.
Just when he turned to Skye to have her try
and use what power she had to get them down, he heard Amber’s
scream. It cut off abruptly, leaving only the deadly sound of
ravaging wolves.
“No!”
His terrified cry echoed across the
forest.
The weight of the first wolf shoving her to
the ground provoked Amber’s scream.
She realized quickly that the sound did her
little good, and focused instead on trying to stay alive. Curling
into a ball, she rolled until she was pressed in the fetal
position, facing the fallen tree. She brought her arms up to cover
her head, doing her best to protect her neck from their powerful
jaws. Her T-shirt pulled up, leaving her lower back bared to their
claws and teeth.
Unspeakable pain erupted along her back and
left side even as she heard Gabriel’s cry. Then the sound of
determined, hungry animals filled her senses. Flashes of red and
black flooded her vision. Nausea rolled through her.
Then nothing.
Olivia abruptly regained consciousness when
she heard Gabriel. Her mind went from gray to crystal sharp clarity
in the span of a second.
“Put me down!” she demanded.
Ini-herit put her on the ground. Olivia
started running. Aurora darted ahead of her, guiding her to the top
of the ridge leading down to where the pack of wolves was attacking
Amber.
“Stop!” Olivia shouted, praying she could
control her power enough to save her sister’s life.
Gabriel clutched the tree branch beneath him
in numb, raw disbelief after Amber’s scream abruptly ended. Skye’s
sobs beside him grew louder, the torment in his shout of denial
causing her to clutch her hands to her ears.
“I’m so sorry!” she said again, her breath
hitching uncontrollably.
“Don’t be sorry!” he responded harshly,
suddenly furious. A fresh wave of pain rolled through him, and he
knew it was Amber’s. Anger and helplessness clashed in his chest in
a searing wave. “Get me the hell down from here.”
“I can’t!”
“Yes, you can,” he insisted, trying to calm
the tone of his voice and failing. “You got us up here. You can get
us down.”
She shook her head.
He suddenly wanted to grab her and shake her
fiercely, an impulse he had never had toward a female in his entire
life. Amber was down there, most certainly hurt and possibly—he
couldn’t think it. The fact that he suddenly couldn’t sense her in
his thoughts impacted him even more deeply than her cut-off scream
and projected physical pain.
“Skye Tomaganuk,” he said through gritted
teeth. She looked at him, her eyes much lighter than usual. He took
that to mean that she was still at least somewhat in the grip of
her power. “Listen to me. We’re about to jump out of this tree,” he
decided right then. “And you’re either going to save us…or die
trying.”
“
What?
” she asked in a high, terrified
voice.
He didn’t respond. Instead, he crouched on
his tree branch and sprang over to hers. She shrieked as his added
weight bowed the branch, tipping them rapidly toward the
ground.
“Time to show me what you’re made of,
Tomaganuk,” he said.
And then, grabbing her around the waist, he
leapt.
The wolves obeyed Olivia’s command, suddenly
stopping their assault on Amber and coming to rest on their
haunches in front of her body. Olivia saw blood on most of their
muzzles and open, panting jaws. Normally, that would have appalled
her. Now, however, she was partly in their minds. She understood
their hunger. Their need to survive. Their dispassion.
“Leave,” she commanded, sending the message
out with her mind as well as her voice.
With a few loud, keening whines, they turned
and dispersed.
Just as Ini-herit walked up behind Olivia and
the last wolf disappeared into the trees, Gabriel burst out of
them. Olivia sank to her knees as he jumped over the fallen tree,
his eyes fervently scanning the woods. He caught Olivia’s gaze and
started in her direction…until a splash of red on the ground caught
the edge of his vision. Whirling, he finally spotted Amber on the
ground just as Skye rushed onto the scene.
He fell to the ground beside her. His breath
was choppy with fear and excursion as his hand went to her
blood-matted hair. “Amber!”
There was blood everywhere. Her back, side
and left arm were a mess of bites and claw marks. Her left shoulder
had been viciously torn where they had tried to get at her throat.
Blood continued to pour from the gory wound. He pulled his shirt
off and wrapped it around the injury as best as he could. She
remained still, her mind shrouded in a veil of darkness.
Ini-herit stepped beside him and placed a
hand on his shoulder. “She lives,” he said in his placid voice.
The Estilorian’s words released the tight
hold of terror over Gabriel. He clutched Amber against him and
shook like a newborn foal.
Amber resisted consciousness. In the dark,
there was no pain. No fear. She could remain apart from the
devastation imposed on her body. In the dark, there was at least
the semblance of calm and comfort.
Eventually, though, something besides pain
compelled her to resurface.
Amber.
She was unable to resist his imploring call
to her mind. The flavor of him was on her lips. On her tongue. She
felt his fear and the depth of his love for her…pulled on the well
of his strength as he willed her toward full consciousness. As she
eased from the darkness, she sensed the energy he was sharing
through his kiss pulsing and swirling through her as shades of blue
and gold. Not fully aware of what she was doing, she allowed her
developing instincts to direct the energy in a way that would heal
her the most effectively.
Tissue knit. Blood vessels closed. As she got
nearer to the surface, pain peaked brightly and then ebbed. Her
shoulder felt as though it was on fire. Then ice. Her body bowed in
Gabriel’s arms. Her throat ached with the need to scream, only to
have Gabriel’s prolonged kiss soothe and extinguish the rending,
consuming agony.
Gradually, in deliberate degrees, she eased
back toward consciousness. She became aware of the sound of someone
crying. The cat, Aurora, was purring loudly not even a foot away.
Concerned whispers were exchanged, but she couldn’t tell between
whom. A crisp breeze drifted across her, bringing goosebumps to the
surface of her bare skin. The scent of blood mixed with freshly
turned earth and crushed green leaves filled the air.