Hannah Pole - Silence of the Wolves

Leyth watched Tamriel through her flat window. She was up and looking pretty healthy. That was good, right?

He should leave. She would be fine now.

But he couldn’t seem to tear himself away from the window.

When she’d come out of the shower naked, he’d practically had a heart attack, dipping his eyes to give her some privacy. He’d figured she’d go and put some clothes on but no, she had stalked straight into the living room and poured a coffee, butt-naked.

He had to respect a female who was so comfortable in her own skin. And when she’d ordered herself a meal fit for several kings, and proceeded to wolf the entire lot down, he just stared at her in awe. A female that could pig out with the best of them? He never thought he’d see the day!

Shaking himself, he tried desperately to pull himself away, but he just couldn’t leave her.

‘Hey, it’s Tam.’ He heard her voice.

Damn, he’d forgotten that he’d asked Sapphire to call in to her workplace and pretend to be her phoning in sick. After all, the last thing he wanted to do was get her fired!

Tamriel had got through the fever well, her body had handled it and she’d slept like a baby for two days afterwards.

Leyth, on the other hand, felt like death. He hadn’t allowed himself to sleep all the time she was suffering, and when it was finally over he’d carried her to her bed and sat in the corner of the room, just watching. He could really use some shut-eye. But the storm wasn’t over yet…

Snapping back to reality, he found her gasping at herself in the mirror. Her hair looked beautiful. Halfway through the fever it had started to change colour; bright streaks of red running its way through the silky black strands. Generally when females or males went through the fever they took on the colours they were born into, but red? He’d never seen anything like it. It was such a beautiful colour. Staring at Tam, Leyth reached out and touched the cold glass. What he wouldn’t give to be able to stroke those silky strands once more.

A wave of exhaustion hit him. He’d been awake for five days now, and he barely had the strength to stand up, let alone consider talking to Tam and trying to explain away the last few days.

More than that, he wanted to keep details of her heritage to a minimum. If she didn’t go through the fever again, he wanted her to live a normal life, not constantly wonder about what could have been.

The bone-shattering tiredness hit him again, making him wobble on the windowsill he was perched on. He tried to wrap the darkness tighter around himself, trying to stay relatively invisible in the early morning sun, but the energy it took to keep himself hidden sent him over the edge; his muscles failed him and he lost his grip on the windowsill. In that brief moment of weightlessness he tried desperately to shift in mid-air, to turn and land on his feet. No such luck, he passed out before he even hit the floor.

Tamriel heard the whimper loud and clear and snapped her head round in the direction of the noise. She practically jumped out of her skin! There was a huge man with shaggy dark hair crouched on the ledge of her window. Hell, he barely squeezed into the tiny gap; his broad shoulders pressed against the edge of her window, a black bomber jacket dominating the small space. His heavy boots were perched on the little flower basket she had hanging from the windowsill, and she couldn’t help but wonder how he hadn’t broken it. How the hell did he manage to climb two storeys up to her window? And how had he managed to squeeze himself onto such a small window ledge?

Why hadn’t she noticed him before? And what was he doing, watching her?

As hundreds of unanswered questions assaulted her mind and she locked eyes with the man, she recognised him instantly; not that she could understand why or where from, she just knew him.

Working for a newspaper wasn’t necessarily a good thing; she’d researched stories on criminals, abusive men, rapists – the works. He could easily be one of the people she’d written about, maybe she recognised him from his picture? Crap.

Her thoughts were cut off instantly as the man reached out to her. He looked so tired. So lost. As he lost his balance and fell, she cursed, ran out the flat door, down the two flights of stairs and burst out of the entrance. She wasn’t fast enough though. She rounded the corner as he hit the floor. Hard. It was something she felt right through to her bones, rather than actually saw. The crack that rang out was loud enough to shake walls. Running to where he’d fallen, she skidded to an abrupt halt.

He was nowhere to be seen. Instead, on the grass in his place was a big black and grey wolf. Shoving the brief prickle of fear that rose up her spine away, she walked over to the animal. As she reached it, she bent down and slowly reached a hand out; smooth soft fur met her fingertips.

The wolf was out cold but breathing steadily, its chest rising and falling like the tide. By the looks of it, the animal had broken its back leg; the limb was bent at an awkward angle. There was a lot of blood on the floor which appeared to be coming from a large cut on the wolf’s side. Tam scanned the area for the fallen man. Sympathy overwhelmed her as she jogged back to where the wolf had been, though as she reached the grassed area she wasn’t entirely surprised to find the space empty. The wolf had gone. Vanished. All that was left in its place was some sorry-looking, flattened grass and a smudge of blood.

Tam gazed around to the surrounding area. He had to be here somewhere. He couldn’t have gotten far with a broken leg. Stalking over to the pathway, she checked left, then right. Town was to the right; the hills were to the left. Her gut told her to head towards the hills. She broke into a jog and, hammering the pavement, she quickly made her way towards the far end of Folkestone, marvelling at how fast she was going. Yeah, she jogged sometimes, and yes, she’d raced at school, but Christ, she was keeping up with the few cars that were out at this time of the morning.

Then she pushed the thought away and continued on towards the hills. She couldn’t see the wolf anywhere, but she knew she was going in the right direction. How? She had no idea, but over the years she’d learnt to trust her intuition, her instincts. They had never led her astray before and she was certain that now would be no different.

Tam rounded the corner. She could see the roundabout at the top of the road, and knew that just beyond that was her destination. Folkestone’s rolling hills fanned out in front of her, the early morning sun peeking through the tops of them. She kept her pace up, dashing across the roundabout, and leaping over the fence separating the road and the field at the bottom of the hills in one movement. Crap. It definitely wasn’t natural to be able to jump that high and that far, was it? What on earth was happening to her?

Right now, she didn’t care. She needed to find that wolf. She had absolutely no idea why she was chasing down an animal that would, in all likelihood, maul her, maybe even kill her but, hey, it would make front-page news if she managed to survive to find out why there was a wolf in Folkestone. What a killer story! It might even make her career as a reporter. Maybe enough to make her a full-time journalist, rather than just a junior.

The cold winter air brushed past her as she listened intently, but the only sounds to be heard were the distant rumble of car engines on the motorway just across from where she knelt. Inhaling deeply, Tam was amazed at the different scents she picked up on, grass and moisture were the first that she noticed, but picking past these, she could smell mice, rabbit… wolf. The scent was particularly musky, almost manly, in a strange way.