Jasper reels back, snapping his slightly lengthened jaws, huffing and growling.
“Stop, Jasper!” I cry out, but I can hardly hear myself over the thunder.
“You reject me?!” Jasper roars.
“No, no, no! Let me explain!”
Lightning crashes close enough I can feel the shock wave as it strikes. When I turn back Jasper is clutching his chest. A bloom of red is spreading from beneath his hands, turning the white fabric of his shirt crimson.
“Jasper?” I step forward but he retreats, his face twisted in pain and disbelief.
“Killer,” he says.
Another flash of lightning and Jasper howls to the sky, his jaws tearing open as he shifts into his wolf form, the clothes exploding off his back as his muscles expand, and he falls onto all fours, scratching at the rain-soaked grass, readying to strike.
“Jasper, I’m sorry!” I cry. “I’m sorry!”
Thunder claps as Jasper leaps, lunging for me with his teeth bared, about to tear me apart when…
I start up in bed, gasping and rising to my elbows.
Jasper is beside me in his wolf form, his shoulders hunched, the hairs along his spine standing upright, growling through the tent’s gaping doorway.
“Jasper?” I ask, wiping the sleep from my eyes. “What’s going on?”
Jasper glances back, his one visible eye large with concern.
The flap of the tent is fluttering in the wind as I crawl forward to see what’s caused Jasper to take this defensive stance.
Blinking in the morning light, I lean through the opening and find myself greeted by over twenty wolves surrounding the entrance to the tent, each growling and showing their teeth.
WE’VE GOT COMPANY
This is bad. Standing on the lakeshore in a crescent shape are twenty, thirty…a whole bunch of wolves, leering, snapping their jaws, growling at Jasper and me.
Where did they come from? They couldn’t have been far from us last night. How come I couldn’t sense them? How come I couldn’t sense any wolves whatsoever? And what do they want?
Judging from their dripping jowls, their snarling, curled-back lips, their raised noses, their narrowed, accusatory stares, their sharp teeth glinting in the light, they aren’t happy to see us.
Jasper’s wolf is by my side, his breaths coming out ragged and thick. His jaws are clenched together, his rear legs tense like coiled springs, ready to pounce. He paws at the dirt with a front foot, growling at the wolf crowd who must have roused him from his sleep.
Last night was stupidly amazing. Jasper and I…well…wereallyconnected. The last thing I thought I’d wake up to was this! It’s a pretty sharp left turn.
I place a steadying hand on Jasper’s side. His black fur is warm and soft, his chest expands into my palm.
“Hey,” I say to the crowd of wolves. One snaps in my direction and a few edge forward in response. “Let’s not do anything too crazy.” I lift a hand like they’re the cops and I’m trying to show them I’m unarmed. “We’re wolves too. And we don’t mean any harm—”
“Max?” a familiar voice cuts me off. The snarling wolves glance between each other as a human face appears amongst their ranks, rising in the second row.
“Omar?”
His skin is more tanned than the last time I saw him, and his hair is a ruffled mess, probably because he, like the rest of our uninvited guests, was in his wolf form. He’s also wearing a whole lot less clothes than when we said goodbye in the snowy valley near the Rocky Pack. But I’d recognize his bushy eyebrows and pouty grin anywhere.
“What are you doing here?” he asks, shaking his head in a bewildered way.
“Camping?”
Jasper glances back at me, unwilling to let his guard drop just yet, and I don’t blame him. Omar’s companions are still growling back at him, at us.
