I steer onto the gravel. We get out and slide into the quiet crowd. Two hundred yards out, a gray wolf slips from the grass. It’s massive, a ghost of muscle and fur, moving with a fluid, terrifying grace like it owns the place.
It stops. Turns its head. And stares right at us. No, at her.
Silvia, who’s never met a silence she couldn’t fill, goes totally still. Her camera hangs forgotten. She takes a slow step forward. Then another.
“Silvia,” I whisper, grabbing for her arm. “Wait.”
She’s locked in, staring at the wolf’s yellow eyes. There’s something ancient in that gaze—cold, hungry, and absolute. I see her stepping off the gravel, into the grass and panic spikes.
“Silvia, stop!” I hiss. “You’re too close.”
“He sees me,” she murmurs, dreamy, almost sleepwalking. “Della, look at his eyes…”
She’s moving faster now, drawn like a moth to a flame, oblivious to the murmurs of the tourists behind us, oblivious to the danger. I lunge to grab her jacket, but I miss.
"Silvia!"
Suddenly, a shadow looms over us partly blocking out the sun.
A hand—huge, rough—lands on Silvia’s shoulder, halting her momentum with the abrupt, jarring force of a wall.
"That's far enough."
The voice is a low rumble, a sound like tectonic plates shifting deep underground.
Silvia gasps, blinking as if waking from a trance and spins around. She tilts her head back.
The man holding her is a mountain in a green and gray uniform. He is tall, broad-shouldered, built like a cliff. He’s not looking at the wolf—he’s staring at Silvia.
His eyes are the color of moss and river stones, set in a face carved by wind and sun.
"He's not a dog, ma'am," the ranger says, his tone flat, and utterly unshakeable. "He will tear your throat out before you can blink."
For a second, Silvia just stares up at him, breath caught. She’s all wild energy, churning and restless.
He’s a mountain—silent, unmoving. The unstoppable wave crashing into the immovable rock.
"I..." Silvia stammers, her cheeks flushing a deep red. "I just... his eyes. I couldn't look away."
"Then look at me," he commands. It’s not a pickup line but an order for safety, a way to break the predator's hold. Or is it?
Silvia swallows hard.
"I'm looking."
He holds her gaze, just a beat too long. I catch something shift in his eyes—a flicker, like he recognizes the storm inside her. He lets go, but doesn’t step away. Still shielding her, body between her and the wild.
“I’m ranger Brad Wilder,” he says, tipping his hat. “Stay on the pavement. Wild things out here don’t care about rules.”
He glances at me, nods, then heads for his truck—NATIONAL PARK SERVICE painted on the side. He walks like he’s got roots.
Silvia lets out a long, shaky exhale, her hand going to the spot on her shoulder where he touched her. She watches his truck drive away, her eyes wide.
"Holy..." she whispers. "Did you feel that?"
I laugh, the tension draining out of me. "The wolf or the mountain?"
"The mountain," she breathes. "Definitely the mountain."
