Predator Girl (A Paranormal Romance) (16 page)

I relaxed—dude, it was just a short, old man—but then I found the source of the rawhide smell: he wore a black cloak made of (gulp) wolf fur. Worse, the second we met each other’s gaze, my Finder senses switched off. I could no longer hear his breath or footsteps. His smell was reduced to a whiff of damp bark.

Whatever this Otherworlder was, he was powerful.

The strange man straightened up. “What are you doing here, hunter?” he demanded. He had the voice of an old king, worn but respected, the type that should always be answered.

I hesitated, not sure what to say. Could he be trusted? “My friend is dying and I’m trying to get her out of here. You, um, you don’t know how to get back to the fence do you? Back to the creek that runs through the woods?”

“You will never make it to the fence or the creek in time.” The man swayed forward, his stick silent as it touched the ground. He stood a few feet in front of me. I still smelled nothing. His nose twitched, his eyes falling on Ilume, who still hadn’t moved.

“Ctenizidae,” he muttered. “A run-in with the traps, I see. She needs medical treatment immediately.”

“Yeah, I kind of already knew that.” I shifted on my feet, trying to hide how antsy I was. I didn’t want to piss off this extra-supernatural being, but the Grim Reaper was closing in on my werewolf. I didn’t want to stand here and yak.

The old man looked up at me, then over his shoulder. “Come,” he ordered, stepping back onto the trail. “I have what she needs, but I cannot guarantee she’ll make it. The venom may have already attacked her central nervous system.”

I watched him start up the hill. Crap, I hated situations like this. Follow the powerful Otherworlder who smelled like the enemy, or bolt off into the valley and see if I could find the fence. He wouldn’t attack me if I took off. I had options here.

One glance at Ilume and I knew what had to happen. He was right: the chances of getting her home were nonexistent. A trap or not, the old man had offered me a chance. I couldn’t let it slip by.

“All right,” I said, starting after him as he veered off the trail.

It was a long hike through rough terrain. The tree limbs were intertwined like family members holding hands. Brambles and morning glories ruled the ground, knotted together like the hair of a dryad.

The old man stayed far ahead. He never glanced back, and he only stopped once when we fell behind. “Keep up,” he said firmly, then proceeded up a steep incline.

While I was panting and sweating, he didn’t even pause to catch his breath. I reasoned that my slowness was because I carried an extra hundred pounds. All he had to carry was that stick.

The journey ended in a small field outside a gigantic, white tree. It towered into the sky, trunk twisted, limbs spread like the dancers in Whirlwind. Hollowed out, one could easily fit a bedroom inside.

Old Man stood beneath a branch with orb-shaped blooms. Lifting his stick, he tapped the trunk three times. I jumped back as the tree
moved.
Limbs shifted and the orb blooms glowed like will-o-the-wisps. An exposed root lifted up, revealing a set of steps.

“Down,” he said, pointing.

I snapped my mouth closed, suppressing my awe as I trotted down the stairs.
He made the tree move.
Unless the tree had moved on its own, but I’d never heard of that happening before. Not without fey involved.

The last step took us into an underground room. The dirt walls had roots growing out and around them, the space taken up mostly by wooden cabinets. Below the handles were labels, everything from RHUBARB and NETTLE LEAF in capital letters, to more disturbing titles like COBRA EGGS
and PARROT’S FOOT.

On a lit table against the back wall, old torn books were stacked beside glass jars. All jars were empty but one, which held a gold fluttering thing. The other side of the table was kept clear, save for the few lizards licking a bowl of crushed petals.

“Lay her down in the furs.” Old Man passed me, leaning his stick against the desk chair. The lizards scattered. “That wound needs to be cleaned and sanitized. There are some clean rags in the nightstand.”

A cabinet drawer squeaked as he pulled it open. Something inside the drawer clicked, like glass bottles colliding, as he rooted through.

I headed for the huge hammock strung up in the front corner. The pelt of a grizzly was spread across it, along with a bunch of raccoon tails sewn together and fluffed up like pillows. Reluctantly, I set Ilume down and checked her pulse again. Still weak but present.

Old Man pulled out a few glass vials. Moving to the desk he picked up the bowl, dumping the petal mix on the floor. The lizards swarmed it like flies. He began mashing leaves and a blue fungus that smelled like pickles.

I pulled open the bedside drawer, revealing a stack of rags. An old perfume glass made swishing sounds, and held a clear liquid inside. I picked it up and gave it a spray out of curiosity. It held water, not perfume.

Spraying a rag down, I eyed the dried blood peeling off Ilume’s thighs. It had hardened in streams, creating ugly, broken patterns down her legs. I blushed, knowing I was the one to clean it off.

I pulled up the edge of the jacket. It was like peeling off fly paper. The material was stiff, darkened from the wound. I took my time, scrubbing off the scarlet flakes. All the while I kept thinking,
don’t stare, don’t stare.
God, she was beautiful. Narrow feet, tight calves, sculpted thighs leading up to a perfect—

Shoot, I just looked at her ass.
My eyes shot back to my hands, working at her side.
Focus, Jared.

The spider’s bite wasn’t pretty. Bruises crawled up her side, puffy from the infection. Flaps of skin hung around her hip like raw chicken, and that spot of white among all the crimson . . . was that bone?

A shadow passed over me. Old Man shooed me aside, bending down to smear a strange paste over her bite marks. “Wolves are quick healers,” he said. “I think once the anti-venom sets in, she’s going to heal up fast.”

“She’ll be okay?” I asked, holding my breath.

“Hopefully.” He gave a single nod as he went back to the desk. “I think we might’ve caught it just in time. If so, she’ll be very, very lucky.”

Phew.
I exhaled. As he waved a palm over the bowl, the last of the paste turned into a shiny, white powder. Tipping it sideways, Old Man watched the lizards bounce, catching the sprinkles in midair.

“So,” I said, sitting on the hammock. “Do I get to ask what you are?”

“I think it’d be politer to first ask me
who,
” he replied and then sat down in his chair. “But if you must ask
what,
so be it. To your kind, I am known as
mediocris lupus.
”

I stared. Oh, great, Latin lessons. Luckily, I remembered some species list assignment we had in Monstrology last year. “Fairy wolf?” I guessed.

His thin eyebrows lifted. “I’m impressed,” he admitted, “although the name is somewhat inaccurate. While my father was O’Brien, alpha of the Jackals wolf pack, my mother was Dragina, a Witch of the Wood—not a fairy.”

“Dragina?” I didn’t hide my surprise.

Dragina was one of three famous witch sisters that I’d studied in history. The sisters never got along, and their feuds tended to cause chaos like floods and earthquakes. Eventually each had broken off, inhabiting a different area in the world. I didn’t remember much about that lecture in class—yup, another snoozer—but I did remember that Dragina roamed the woodlands of North America, untagged. Made sense she would come here.

“Yes.” Old Man nodded slowly. “But she is ever-moving. I was raised in the pack and stayed until my father passed from old age, but the Jackals feared my power. When a wolf moved to challenge me, I left and sent myself into exile.”

“Oh.” A sudden thought came to mind. “Do you ever, you know, leave the fence? Go out into the woods?”

He shrugged. “Every now and again.”

“And the Jackals—do they ever come through here?”

“They never come over the fence. They know what moves below the ground at the gates. I am the only one that the arachnids don’t dare attack.”

“Oh, man.” I slapped a hand over my face. I should’ve known the second I saw only one set of paw prints; it hadn’t been the Jackals’ trail I’d been following at the creek.

I had traced his tracks instead.

An awkward silence filled the room. I watched the lizards. They’d cleaned up every last speck of sparkle powder and were on the desk again, basking in the lamplight and teasing the gold fluttery thing. I randomly wondered what would happen if I put a gang of those in my bedroom back home. Maybe they’d eat all the old crumbs and gym socks under my bed.

“Sorry, you’re right.” I shook my head, cutting the daydreams. “I should’ve asked your name first. I’m Jared, just so you know.”

Old Man’s lip twitched, like he might smile. “I already know,” he informed. “I know all who wander in my woods. And you may call me Arasni. You are welcome to stay as long as you like, Jared, but I must discourage talk of my home when you leave. I am an old wolf—I like my privacy.”

“Understandable,” I agreed.

My grandpa was the same way, which is probably why we haven’t heard or seen him in six years. “No worries. No one will know we were here.”

Where was Jared?

Gritting my teeth, I rolled off the bear fur. Everything wobbled, and I pressed against the wall while standing up. It took a minute for the nausea to pass.
This definitely takes the spot for worst injury I’ve ever had.

A set of dirt steps caught my peripheral vision.
That must be the way out.
I limped up them. At the top I hit a dead end. Reaching up, I searched blindly for a bar or flat spot like at Gram’s. Before I could find one the ceiling moved on its own. I stumbled back, nearly falling down the stairs. It was a tree root. A huge, white tree root that curled up, revealing the exit.

Whacked. Maybe it was a faerie’s den or something, although most faeries hated living underground. And they hated werewolves. They sometimes played tricks on us. This in mind, I wondered what happened while I was out. If it
was
a faerie, had he done anything to me? God, I still had my innocence, I hope. Someone would pay with their life if that had been taken from me.

I stepped out into a colorful clearing. Poppies, violets, and purple-tipped clovers waved in the breeze. Among them I smelled something sugary as the folded, twisted blooms of fey flowers appeared. Large lightning bugs flitted by my head, will-o-the-wisps perched in all corners of the tree.
Those wisps look awfully small.
I did a double-take and saw they weren’t wisps at all; they were bubble-like blooms with an eerie glow.

I had just started across the clearing when a voice called, “Ilume!”

I stopped, swiveling to the side.

Sitting in the grass below a pine tree, Jared waved at me, smiling.

He was here.
He stayed for me.
In an instant, I stopped worrying about the blackout. Jared must’ve brought me here, and he wouldn’t have let anything bad happen to me.

Leaping to his feet, he came jogging over. His feet skidded to a stop, and for a second I thought he might hug me. Blush crept into both our cheeks. He pocketed his hands. Dried blood covered his tee and jeans, yet all he had was a few scratches. Was that my blood?

“You’re okay,” he whispered, relieved.

“Yeah,” I breathed, tucking a wild curl behind my ear. I’d meant to sound relieved, too, but my reply had been solemn. While I was grateful to be alive, the sleep had been peaceful. No pain. No worries.

No memories of cuddling up with the boy before me.

A figure shifted on my left. I hadn’t noticed the old man sitting pensively in the shadows. I couldn’t place his scent, a familiar mix of wildflowers and rawhide. Breathing deeper, I whiffed wild dog, creek water.

I stiffened. A Jackal!

“No, it’s okay,” Jared assured, hearing the rumble in my throat. “He’s a friend. He doesn’t belong to the pack anyway—he’s a solitary.”

I quit growling. “Solitary?” Solitary wolves didn’t just show up every day. The orphan wolf pups and their mother had been the first I’d heard of in months.

“Yeah. He’s the one that saved you.” Jared tossed a hand toward the trees, motioning for me to follow him.

I was hesitant, then slowly started after. A Jackal? A Jackal had a hand in saving my life? Even as a solitary, each favored their own kind. It was like sports fans: you might not literally be a part of the team, but you still picked a side.

The old man rose as we approached. He scanned me with unusually pale eyes, not an ounce of hatred. Then he bowed, like I was royalty or something. “Alpha Ilume,” he greeted. “Welcome to my woods. I am Arasni, son of Dragina and O’Brien.”

“O’Brien as in, the previous alpha of the Jackals?” My eyebrows lifted. He nodded.

I didn’t know what else to say. A witch and a Jackal alpha—that was a stranger couple than a human and a wolf. Of course, it explained the currents of energy that I felt zipping through the air. Arasni wasn’t full werewolf then; too much power and magic flowed off him. But it was positive energy. I relaxed. Maybe he wasn’t bad news after all.

“Thank you,” I told the witch’s son. “I would’ve died without your help. How can I repay you?”

“This time, I’ll let it go without cost,” the warlock replied, a flicker of a smirk on his face. “But I will ask you as I did Jared that you tell no one of my position here once you leave. I enjoy the peace of my woods and do not wish it endangered by wars beyond the gates.”

“Oh. No worries.”