Blood-Lines

Part 2

Two massive silver-back timber wolves crouched low and still as they watched with keen interest through human eyes as the hunter just ahead laid down several blankets before he carefully lifted Running-Deer from over the log on which she'd rested to lay her gently upon them as best he could given the circumstances.

Nostrils fluttered and flared with each breath as both lycans picked up the scent of fresh blood even from this distance with their razor sharp feral senses.

From the hunter's reaction once he'd turned her over; Running-Deer's wounds must have been both ghastly and serious.

They continued to watch as he quickly pulled the blankets over her body for cover and roped her into them much like a more native papoose of her people than of his without doubt.

Once the hunter finished securing Running-Deer over one of his mules, Mikhail moved to follow while Nadia went back along the hunter's trail to further investigate what had led them here in the first place.

Something had seemed odd to both of them about the scene of the fire and what appeared to have once been a hunting lodge or cabin of some sort and been completely destroyed in the process.

How it was that Running-Deer had become so bruised and bloodied while not having appeared to have been burnt up by the fire, remained yet to be seen.

At least now she could take her time as she followed up on a trail of evidence that appeared to offer up as much in the way of suggestion as it did for far more bizarre theories as to what may or may not have happened in the middle of the woods around her.

Back at the scene of disaster, she carefully made her way through what little remained of the cabin, now nothing more than smoldering ruin.

The bitter scent of kerosene from beneath the char of the wood quickly emerged as the most likely culprit to have caused the fire while explosions that followed in due course had finished the job.

Even with that as cover, evidence of blood and other fluids failed to escape her acute canine sense of smell as she checked the floor in and around what had once been the outer door of the cabin.

This must have been where Running-Deer and run afoul of whatever it was that had happened to her, she realized.

As she circled the cabin, it became clear that at least two men must have been involved, but only one appeared to have gone feral while the other remained as much of a mystery as everything else.

Musky orange-peeled scent of bear seed mixed with blood left little to her imagination as to what must have happened during the attack on Running-Deer.

From that she wondered what may have become of the other man who'd also clearly been here but perhaps after everything else had already been said and done.

It was entirely possible he'd prove to be one of the lycan Alpha's men that had followed the deputy.

He may have also been the one that had moved Running-Deer safely away before doing whatever it was that he'd done to destroy the evidence, before he mounted up to follow the man-bear from the cabin and away from where Running-Deer had been left to be found by others.

Having followed several mixed trails from the cabin, Nadia discovered where the hunter had processed his kill in a low hollow where a pair of freshly removed testicles hung as a hunter's trophy of sorts for anyone who may have passed by and wondered.

Both the trail left by Running-Deer and the other man as she'd followed him made it seem that the very hunter that had found her, had actually been used as a ruse of some sort that had failed to confuse Running-Deer and in turn had led her back to the cabin where she'd been attacked and perhaps left for dead afterward.

With such knowledge as to how events must have transpired, Nadia reluctantly turned and ran full out to catch up to Mikhail and the hunter.

To say things had gone from bad to worse would have been a sever understatement in her opinion.

Whoever had done this would need to be found and dealt with long before Poe found him or even he might go as quickly from hunter to prey as his deputy had.