Wearing his old clothing from captivity was less than ideal, but the borrowed clothing from Leif was comically oversized and he didn’t want to spend the hours of travel in the woods fighting with his clothing to stay on.
Alec wore a backpack with Leif’s clothing, the straps unclipped and rearranged to be worn on the shoulders and not around the neck of a great wolf. Alec did not mind—the thought of a bag hanging around his mate’s neck waiting to get caught on a tree or boulder if they had to run was enough to make him demand the backpack before Leif even tried to get it on.
Looking around, he recognized the area from the morning before.
The bodies had been disturbed, yanked and tugged from where they fell, mauled and pecked. Alec heard the cries of ravens and crows, and there was a pair of turkey vultures soaring overhead, visible through the bare branches.
“Coyotes got to them,” Leif said in that delicious wolfy voice of his.
“Did we scare them away by coming through?”
“We did, but they’ll come back when we leave. I try not to bother them too much—I’m not what they expect from a wolf, so they tend to avoid me.”
“How do you mean?” Alec asked as Leif crouched enough for Alec to slide down. Alec picked his way through the chaos of blood and leaves and knelt by Stu’s body, digging a hand underneath until he came out with the keys he forgot to get the day before.
“No pack. A lone wolf is unnatural, so to them I’m an oddity, a danger.”
“Makes sense,” Alec said as he hopped back up into place on Leif’s back, wiggling until he felt secure.
“Ready up there, little greenbough?” Leif asked, amused.
Alec took two big handfuls of fur from the mantle across Leif’s huge shoulders and nodded. “Yup! Mush!”
Alec laughed when Leif growled, gently shaking him from the force of it.
“Sassy once you feel better, aren’t you? We’ll see about that…”
“What do you mean…”
Alec bit back a screech when Leif took off like a bullet from a gun, the wind biting at his face. The screech turned into a delighted laugh soon enough, and Alec leaned forward into the wind, snuggling down into the thick coat beneath him to stay warm.
Alec
His face was freezingby the time they entered the lower valley. Their progress through the woods was in a general downhill direction the whole way, and he felt the muscle strain from maintaining his balance on Leif’s back. Leif followed no track or trail that Alec could see, but then that was smart—it helped protect his location in the woods all the better if there wasn’t a trail right to the front door.
Leif followed his nose and memory, from what Alec could tell, and he was impressed by his mate. Easily impressed, probably, but then Alec was allowing himself to be so, as finding a soulmate was nearly impossible. To have one handed to him in such a manner, after imprisonment, trials, and pain, made it all the more important that he enjoy himself and the process of bonding.
“What’s the nearest town?”
“Gelridge Hollow,” Leif replied. “It’s tiny, doesn’t even have a stop sign, but it has a storage unit facility where I keep my truck, and a gas station.”
“That sounds familiar, is it near Hemlock?”
“About thirty minutes down the highway,” Leif answered him over his shoulder, one big ear flickering as they spoke. “Why?”
“I lived in Hemlock with Stu and Mom,” Alec said readily. “The keys I took off his body are for the house and his bedroom. I need my license and paperwork and stuff, unless he sold it all along with me. If he kept it, it’ll be locked up in his bedroom.”
“We can check; it’s on the way to the nearest superstore.”
“Sweet! Thank you.”
How quickly his life had improved in a matter of days. He went from beaten and poisoned by chemical exposureon a daily basis to talking to his mate about shopping at the store for essentials.
Alec only knew they’d made it when Leif stepped out from behind a tall pine tree and they were standing at the back of a parking lot, rows of storage unit bunkers in front of them. Orange and red sliding garage doors signaled they were in the right place, and the parking lot was made of dark, small-grade gravel, rutted in places from vehicles coming and going and thanks to mud from autumn rain.
It was impossible to see past the rows of units, and Alec worriedly looked around for cameras—it wasn’t illegal for a werewolf to be in their wolf form in public, but humans were easily scared and violently protective over their property. No point in courting trouble. “Is it safe?”
Leif sniffed the air, great black nose working, and then he twitched both ears backward at Alec. “No one has been here in days.”
