Charlaine Harris: Wolfsbane and Mistletoe

It felt good to be out in the woods, though the air was raw and damp, and it felt good to be using my muscles.

I made my way through the brush for at least thirty minutes, alert for any indication of what had caused the ruckus the night before. There are lots of animals indigenous to northern Louisiana, but most of them are quiet and shy: possums, raccoons, deer. Then there are the slightly less quiet, but still shy, mammals; like coyotes and foxes. We have a few more formidable creatures. In the bar, I hear hunters’ stories all the time. A couple of the more enthusiastic sportsmen had glimpsed a black bear on a private hunting preserve about two miles from my house. And Terry Bellefleur had sworn to me he’d seen a panther less than two years ago. Most of the avid hunters had spotted feral hogs, razorbacks.

Of course, I wasn’t expecting to encounter anything like that. I had popped my cell phone into my pocket, just in case, though I wasn’t sure I could get a signal out in the woods.

By the time I’d worked my way through the thick woods to the stream, I was warm inside the puffy coat. I was ready to crouch down for a minute or two to examine the soft ground by the water. The stream, never big to begin with, was level with its banks after the recent rainfall. Though I’m not Nature Girl, I could tell that deer had been here; raccoons, too; and maybe a dog. Or two. Or three. That’s not good, I thought with a hint of unease. A pack of dogs always had the potential to become dangerous. I wasn’t anywhere near savvy enough to tell how old the tracks were, but I would have expected them to look dryer if they’d been made over a day ago.

There was a sound from the bushes to my left. I froze, scared to raise my face and turn in toward the right direction. I slipped my cell phone out of my pocket, looked at the bars. OUTSIDE OF AREA, read the legend on the little screen. Crap, I thought. That hardly began to cover it.

The sound was repeated. I decided it was a moan. Whether it had issued from man or beast, I didn’t know. I bit my lip, hard, and then I made myself stand up, very slowly and carefully. Nothing happened. No more sounds. I got a grip on myself and edged cautiously to my left. I pushed aside a big stand of laurel.

There was a man lying on the ground, in the cold wet mud. He was naked as a jaybird, but patterned in dried blood.

I approached him cautiously, because even naked bleeding muddy men could be mighty dangerous; maybe especially dangerous.

“Ah,” I said. As an opening statement, that left a lot to be desired. “Ah, do you need help?” Okay, that ranked right up there with “How do you feel?” as a stupid opening statement.

His eyes opened—tawny eyes, wild and round like an owl’s. “Get away,” he said urgently. “They may be coming back.”

“Then we’d better hurry,” I said. I had no intention of leaving an injured man in the path of whatever had injured him in the first place. “How bad are you hurt?”

“No, run ,” he said. “It’s not long until dark.” Painfully, he stretched out a hand to grip my ankle. He definitely wanted me to pay attention.

It was really hard to listen to his words since there was a lot of bareness that kept my eyes busy. I resolutely focused my gaze above his chest. Which was covered, not too thickly, with dark brown hair. Across a broad expanse. Not that I was looking!

“Come on,” I said, kneeling beside the stranger. A mélange of prints indented the mud, indicating a lot of activity right around him. “How long have you been here?”

“A few hours,” he said, gasping as he tried to prop himself up on one elbow.

“In this cold?” Geez Louise. No wonder his skin was bluish. “We got to get you indoors,” I said. “Now.” I looked from the blood on his left shoulder to the rest of him, trying to spot other injuries.

That was a mistake. The rest of him—though visibly muddy, bloody, and cold—was really, really . . .

What was wrong with me? Here I was, looking at a complete (naked and handsome) stranger with lust, while he was scared and wounded. “Here,” I said, trying to sound resolute and determined and neutered. “Put your good arm around my neck, and we’ll get you to your knees. Then you can get up and we can start moving.”

There were bruises all over him, but not another injury that had broken the skin, I thought. He protested several more times, but the sky was getting darker as the night drew in, and I cut him off sharply. “Get a move on,” I advised him. “We don’t want to be out here any longer than we have to be. It’s going to take the better part of an hour to get you to the house.”

The man fell silent. He finally nodded. With a lot of work, we got him to his feet. I winced when I saw how scratched and filthy they were.

“Here we go,” I said encouragingly. He took a step, did a little wincing of his own. “What’s your name?” I said, trying to distract him from the pain of walking.

“Preston,” he said. “Preston Pardloe.”

“Where you from, Preston?” We were moving a little faster now, which was good. The woods were getting darker and darker.

“I’m from Baton Rouge,” he said. He sounded a little surprised.

“And how’d you come to be in my woods?”

“Well . . .”

I realized what his problem was. “Are you a Were, Preston?” I asked. I felt his body relax against my own. I’d known it already from his brain pattern, but I didn’t want to scare him by telling him about my little disability. Preston had a—how can I describe it?—a smoother, thicker pattern than other Weres I’d encountered, but each mind has its own texture.

“Yes,” he said. “You know, then.”

“Yeah,” I said. “I know.” I knew way more than I’d ever wanted to. Vampires had come out in the open with the advent of the Japanese-marketed synthetic blood that could sustain them, but other creatures of the night and shadows hadn’t yet taken the same giant step.

“What pack?” I asked, as we stumbled over a fallen branch and recovered. He was leaning on me heavily. I feared we’d actually tumble to the ground. We needed to pick up the pace. He did seem to be moving more easily now that his muscles had warmed up a little.

“The Deer Killer pack, from south of Baton Rouge.”

“What are you doing up here in my woods?” I asked again.

“This land is yours? I’m sorry we trespassed,” he said. His breath caught as I helped him around a devil’s walking stick. One of the thorns caught in my pink coat, and I pulled it out with difficulty.

“That’s the least of my worries,” I said. “Who attacked you?”

“The Sharp Claw pack from Monroe.”

I didn’t know any Monroe Weres.

“Why were you here?” I asked, thinking sooner or later he’d have to answer me if I kept asking.

“We were supposed to meet on neutral ground,” he said, his face tense with pain. “A werepanther from out in the country somewhere offered the land to us as a midway point, a neutral zone. Our packs have been . . . feuding. He said this would be a good place to resolve our differences.”

My brother had offered my land as a Were parley ground? The stranger and I struggled along in silence while I tried to think that through. My brother, Jason, was indeed a werepanther, though he’d become one by being bitten; his estranged wife was a born werepanther, a genetic panther. What was Jason thinking, sending such a dangerous gathering my way? Not of my welfare, that’s for sure.

Granted, we weren’t on good terms, but it was painful to think he’d actually want to do me harm. Any more than he’d already done me, that is.

A hiss of pain brought my attention back to my companion. Trying to help him more efficiently, I put my arm around his waist and he draped his arm across my shoulder. We were able to make better time that way, to my relief. Five minutes later, I saw the light I’d left on above the back porch.