“Leave,” the grey wolf said, garbled but intelligible.
I’m hallucinating again, I thought. Maybe I’ve passed out. Maybe I’m being ripped to pieces right now.
Something brushed by me. I recoiled when I saw it was several more wolves. With my good arm, I began flailing at them in a pathetic attempt to keep them away, but they ignored me. Their attention seemed fixed on the other, snarling wolves.
When the naked man squatted down next to me, I knew I was hallucinating. I might have even let out a laugh. Maybe all of this was just a horrible dream, and I’d wake up safe in my tent.
“Are you all right?” the man asked, looking me over.
Now I was sure I laughed, but it had an edge of hysteria to it. “Never better.”
I looked at his face - and gasped. His eyes were amber and slanted, just like the wolves’ eyes, and the same wildness lurked in them.
God, please let this be a dream!
The man stood. He had a gun pointed at the grey wolf.
“You’ve gone too far, Gabriel,” he said. “Hunting humans is forbidden. The Pack will judge you for this.”
The wolf snarled. “They hunt us,” it said.
“They don’t know better,” the man replied. “We do. Either you come with us, or I shoot you with her gun.”
I was shaking my head from side to side, even though no one was paying attention to me any more, it seemed. Talking wolves didn’t exist. Muscular men didn’t walk around naked in the forest, chatting with non-existent talking wolves. Why couldn’t I wake up? And what was that noise? It was getting louder, like a swarm of bees approaching.
When the grey wolf sat down, shuddered, and its fur began disappearing into its body, I didn’t even blink. I was concentrating more on finding the source of that buzzing noise. It was almost deafening now.
The last thing I saw before the noise rose to a crescendo and my vision went black was the wolf’s fur being replaced by skin . . . and the body of a naked man where the grey wolf had just been.
Two
Pain tugged on my leg. My eyes opened with a rush of terror as my last memory came roaring back. The wolves. Attacking me.
“No!” I screamed, trying to defend myself.
Something big held me down. I was so panicked, it took me a moment to realize that it wasn’t biting me or covered in fur.
“You’re all right, the doctor is just setting your ankle,” said a deep voice.
My head felt cottony, but I tried to shake that off. I was in a bed. An older blonde woman was giving me a mildly irate look as she bent over my ankle. Someone held my upper body in an unyielding grip, and whoever it was didn’t look like a nurse.
“Let go of me.”
That grip didn’t loosen. “Doc?”
“You can let her go, Daniel,” the blonde woman said.
In my next blink, I was free, staring around the room with its wood walls, rustic interior and bloody bandages on the floor. Sure, I had healthcare, but unless medical standards had really dropped, this wasn’t a hospital.
It took a second for me to recognize the tall, russet-haired man by the bed. “You’re the naked guy,” I blurted. He wasn’t naked now, wearing a pair of loose-fitting denim jeans and a long-sleeved shirt.
He smiled, but it looked strained. “You remember.”
Not all of it. I knew he’d stopped the wolves from attacking me, but I couldn’t remember how exactly. Or why he’d been naked in the woods in the first place.
There was something about the wolves. Something really important that my groggy mind couldn’t quite recall.
“The wolves—” I began.