Red in the Blue

Chapter 46

CW: descriptions of wolves hunting; descriptions of domestic violence, including choking

James, Bowen, Josh, and I followed Elias. Zuri was leading the other group of five, but I'd lost their scent hours before. It was unseasonably cold this weekend. The tips of my ears were cold, and there was a strange sensation of walking on nothing as my paws numbed. A freak frost had penetrated the first few layers of earth, but it would burn off.

Bowen was at my shoulder and James just behind me. Josh was up a little closer to Elias. It was challenging, being unused to it, to match my gait to the pack so that I didn't pull too far ahead or fall too hard behind.

10 of us total in the woods this weekend. An excursion that constituted enforcer training. The two packs would scout independent of each other. They would hunt to eat. They would sleep together. When they crossed paths, they would fight. Practical application of formations and strategy. I was, of course, auditing. I was with the more experienced group, the trainers. The other group was mostly newer enforcers. Wrapping up their formal training, though it never really stopped. I was not to join in the actual hunting, and I was to steer clear of the fighting. How many of the weekend's rules had actually been sent down by Cade?

Wind sounds different through the leaves of different trees. The skitter of squirrels sounds different to the freeze and rush of rabbits. To the whisper of bird wings, which itself isn't like the white sigh of snakes in the brush. I never really could hear the deer or the coyotes. I could smell them. By comparison, bears were like freight trains. Wild turkeys lumbered.

There was brackish water nearby, and we stalked the scent to a little trickle and and followed it uphill to its fresh source. I could feel the sun mottling my fur. I could smell that too. The warmth. Like earth gently baking. Like freshly mowed grass. While I lowered my head to drink, Elias and James scanned the trees. I did the same when they drank. Bowen stood still at my flank for a long time, sometimes panting, sometimes sniffing the wind, before he drank deeply while the rest of us waited.

When we started moving again, James brushed against my side, and I didn't need to turn to know it was her next to me.

Before a camping trip when I was a child, my dad and I had practiced pitching our tent in the backyard. At the campsite, we'd made my mom time us. He'd shown me how to bear-proof our food. There was little we'd be able to do if a bear wanted to move in on one of our kills this weekend. We weren't stupid enough to fight bears.

Ahead, Elias was waiting. He looked forward, but his ears were turned back toward us. Every once in a while, the breeze shifted, and I thought I could smell Cade. But he wasn't there.

I don't think there's any way to guess how one might feel after their first sexual encounter with their moon-fated mate. After sleeping with Cade, I'd called Liz from the bath at home. I hadn't wanted to come clean to her yet, but I simply hadn't been able to occupy my body in that state alone.

"How do you feel?" She'd asked. "What does this mean to you?"

I hadn't had much of an answer.

"Well here to talk about it when you're ready," she'd answered. And then, "you know I just give you shit about Cade. You don't have to have anything to do with him just to please me or anyone."

Elias' spine was straight, tail poised. The tufts of longer fur on his shoulders and at the base of his neck fluttered in the breeze like soft feathers. A wild turkey had roamed too close earlier, and Elias' pale muzzle and throat were faintly misted with blood. It clotted in the fur on his belly too, disappearing at the darker brown and gray fur at his sides. The turkey hadn't had a lot of meat. We were tracking deer upwind.