* * *
It tookme nearly three hours to get Sage back to my cabin. I had to take off my large suede skirt, lay her on it, and then fashion a harness with the twine so that my wolf could drag her like a pack mule. Every time we went over a rocky area, Sage would roll off my skirt, and twice the holes in the suede just ripped and the twine flew out. I had to braid it to make it thicker, and it was digging into my wolf’s shoulders, but she didn’t complain.
Once we’d finally gotten her back, I threw on another skirt, a short one that sat under my giant belly, and lay Sage in front of my cot on the floor. She was too heavy for me or my wolf to lift into my bed, and I wasn’t sure moving her more than we had to was a good idea.
She looked … near death. Her body was covered in scars and bruises, ranging from blue to yellow, and I wondered if her werewolf healing could handle a broken back or internal bleeding or whatever might be going on.
I sat there, chewing off all of my fingernails, wondering just how long she’d been out here looking for me—surely she didn’t come in a week after I left like she joked she would.
She wasjoking,right?
And what in the hell had she meant by being cursed? I stared at her, wondering what in the hell to do, when my survival mode finally kicked in.
I hadn’t hunted today. I had no refrigerator, and other than some mushrooms, dried dandelions for tea, and a few sweet potatoes, I hadnothingto eat. I couldn’t help Sage right now. I wasn’t a doctor and I didn’t have an MRI, but I could hunt so that when she hopefully woke up, there would be a hot meal for the both of us.
Staring at the steady rise and fall of her chest, I decided to just focus on what I could control or I would go insane with worry. Grabbing my spear and net, I set out to the creek behind the cabin to catch some fresh fish.
Okay, Sage was here, near death, but I wasn’t alone anymore. One of those two things was very cool. I needed to focus on the positive.
The baby kicked then, and I reached down and rubbed my belly. “It’s okay. Mama’s got this.”
After about an hour of spear fishing, I’d caught six fish. I normally only caught about two or three before heading back, because I had no need for an excess of fish that would just rot on my wood block kitchen counter, but I was hunting for Sage now too, a thought that brought me untold happiness.
“I’m not alone,” I mumbled to myself, unsure if the gravity of that sentence actually had sunken in yet. “I’m … not alone.” I stopped at the edge of the creek, fish in my net, and broke into sobs.
I’m not alone anymore.
My best friend came into the cursed woods to look for me and nearly died. Did I even deserve that kind of friendship? I wasn’t sure. I had to make sure Sage got through this. I had to take care of her.
I wiped my tears, gathering myself and then headed back to the cabin. The second I neared, I sensed something was wrong. One of my clay pots outside was tipped over, broken, and I could hear weird huffing animal sound. When I rounded the corner, the sight of a giant black bear caused me to stop dead in my tracks.
“Go on!” I shouted. “Get!” I raised my arms to make myself look big.
The bear was peeking inside the open cabin door, right at Sage! I’d seen bears off and on around here, but always from a distance. They never came into my camp and I never kept food overnight. If I did, I tied it up in the trees in a satchel. I knew enough about camping to do that.
What I wouldn’t give for Marmal’s shotgun right now.
“Hey, bear!” I shouted, and reached down to grab a rock, chucking it at his back. My wolf stirred, sensing the impending danger, and in the blink of an eye she was out of my body and had solidified by my side. The bear backed away from the door and turned to face me, his nostrils flaring as he no doubt smelled the fish in the net that I held.
I wasnotgiving up my dinner! Sage needed this meat to get better.
Since I’d gotten here, there had been little use for my magic. Running vampire fast didn’t help when searching for a hidden cave opening, you had to go slow for that, and there were no bullets to stop out here either. So I’d just gotten used to being a regular old werewolf, but now that I was faced with this threat, I felt my magic stirring. The scent of hot wires filled the air.
I set the net containing the fish down on the ground and then stepped closer to the bear.
“Get.Out,” I growled.
My wolf dipped her head low; her lips peeled back to reveal her pointed teeth, then a deep, terrifying growl ripped from the back of her throat. The bear sniffed the air again and immediately jerked backward as if he’d smelled my magic and knew what it meant. Taking one last look inside of the cabin at Sage, he turned and ran away, heading toward the creek to hopefully catch his own damned fish.
I relaxed, my magic fizzling as weakness took hold of me. I couldn’t handle my wolf being outside of my body for too long anymore, and already having her out for so many hours while she dragged Sage here, it was taking its toll.
As if sensing this, she leapt into my chest. I picked up the fish and headed back to the cabin. When I got inside, I was relieved to see Sage’s wolf curled into a ball, her chest rising and falling in rapid pants. That was a good sign. If she was alive enough to shift, that meant she was going to make it.
Right?
She would heal faster in wolf form.
I went about the work of gutting and deboning the fish, tossing cubes of it into my clay cooking pot with wild mushrooms, sliced sweet potatoes, and some wild green onions that had just started to spring up around the creek.
