Chapter twenty-one
The storm raged for fourteen hours.
We huddled in the shelter while the wind screamed and the snow piled up outside. James kept me warm, his body curved around mine, his shifter metabolism running hot enough to compensate for the heat we'd lost. The feral wolf lay next to us, his shape rising and falling with shallow breaths.
I slept in fragments. Every time I drifted off, the pain in my hand yanked me back—throbbing, insistent, the flesh swelling against the bandages. James changed the dressing twice, his movements gentle, and I watched his face in the dim light and tried not to think about infection.
By morning, the storm had passed.
Fresh snow had buried everything. The world was white and silent, the sky a pale washed-out blue. I stood in the shelter's entrance and did the math: no food, almost no water, an injuredhand that needed real medical attention, and an unconscious wolf who weighed at least two hundred and fifty pounds.
"We can't carry him," James said, reading my thoughts.
"No. But we can drag him."
I explained the plan—tent as a sled, poles as runners, rope harness to distribute the weight. James listened, nodded, and started taking down the tent without argument.
Building it took two hours.
The tent laid flat, sleeping pads underneath for structure, poles lashed to the bottom with paracord. It looked like exactly what it was: desperation held together with knots.
Moving the wolf was harder. Dead weight, completely limp, offering nothing as we struggled to roll him onto the fabric. James did most of the lifting. I guided with my one good hand and tried not to pass out from the pain in the other.
When we finally had him secured, we were both drenched in sweat.
"Ready?" James asked.
I looked at the wolf. At the matted fur, the visible ribs, the scars mapping a history I didn't know. Through the bond, I felt his presence—faint, distant, like hearing music from another room.
"Ready."
We shouldered the harness and started down.
The first section nearly killed us.
A steep traverse, snow-covered scree hidden beneath the white. James's foot punched through into a gap between rocks and he went down hard, the sled's momentum dragging him sideways. I threw myself against the rope, boots skidding, andfor three horrible seconds we slid toward a drop I couldn't see the bottom of.
James's hand found a boulder. Held.
The sled stopped.
We lay there gasping, the wolf's unconscious body inches from the edge.
We moved slower after that. James breaking trail, probing with a tent pole for hidden gaps, while I controlled the sled from behind. Progress measured in feet instead of yards.
Two hours in, we hit a section too steep to traverse. The only way down was a fifteen-foot drop onto a snow shelf below.
"We lower him," I said. "You go down first, I'll feed out the rope."
"With one hand?"
"You have a better idea?"
He didn't.
James scrambled down the drop, finding footholds in the rock face. I wrapped the rope around a boulder for friction and started feeding it out, the rough fibers tearing at my palm while the sled inched toward the edge.
The wolf's weight hit the rope all at once when the sled tipped over. The force nearly ripped my arms from their sockets. I heard myself scream—pain and effort indistinguishable—and then James was shouting from below.
