Vale's POV
The wolf nudged my injured ankle with its cold, wet nose.
I jerked back, expecting pain, but something amazing happened instead. The throbbing ache in my ankle started to fade away. Not completely, but enough that I could wiggle my toes without wanting to scream.
"What did you just do?" I whispered.
The wolf stared at me with those silver eyes and made a soft whining sound. Then it stood up and walked a few steps toward the direction I'd come from. It stopped and looked back at me, like it was waiting for me to follow.
"You want me to go with you?"
The wolf nodded. Actually nodded, just like a person would.
My hands shook as I pulled my shoe back on. This was impossible. Wolves didn't heal people and they definitely didn't understand human language. But here was one doing both things right in front of me.
I tried to stand up. My ankle was still sore, but I could put weight on it now. The wolf had somehow made it better.
"Okay," I said, talking to the wolf like it was a person because it seemed to understand everything I said. "I'll follow you. But please don't hurt me."
The wolf turned and started walking back through the forest. It moved slowly, checking every few steps to make sure I was keeping up. When branches blocked my path, the wolf would push them aside with its massive body. When rocks made me stumble, it would wait patiently for me to catch my balance.
It was taking care of me.
We walked for what felt like forever, but the wolf seemed to know exactly where it was going. Even in the darkness, it never hesitated or took a wrong turn. It led me around fallen trees and over small streams, always finding the easiest path for my human legs to follow.
Finally, I saw the warm glow of the cabin windows through the trees ahead.
The wolf stopped at the edge of the clearing and looked back at me one more time. Its silver eyes held an expression I couldn't understand. Then it melted back into the shadows and disappeared, leaving me alone.
My legs felt like jelly as I limped toward the cabin. The front door was standing wide open, and light poured out onto the porch. I could hear movement inside - heavy footsteps pacing back and forth.
Dante was home. And he probably knew I'd tried to escape.
I thought about running again, but my ankle hurt and I had nowhere to go. The wolf was gone, and I'd already proven I couldn't survive in the forest on my own. I had no choice but to face whatever punishment Dante had planned.
I walked through the open door, ready to apologize or beg or do whatever it took to keep him from hurting me.
But when I saw Dante, all thoughts of apologies flew out of my head.
He was standing in the middle of the room with his back to me, and his clothes were completely destroyed. His shirt hung in tatters, like something with claws had shredded it. His jeans were ripped and dirty, and his feet were bare.
His hair was wild and full of leaves and twigs. Scratches covered his arms and back, some of them deep enough to still be bleeding. He smelled like the forest - pine trees and earth and something wild that made my nose wrinkle.
"Dante?" I said softly. "What happened to you?"
He spun around, and I saw his face. His eyes were wide with panic, and there were more scratches on his cheeks. But it was his expression that scared me the most. He looked terrified.
"Vale," he breathed. "Thank God you're okay."
"What happened?" I asked again. "You look like you got attacked by a wild animal."
Something strange passed over his face. "Where have you been? I came back and you were gone. I've been searching for hours."
"I tried to run away," I admitted. "But I got lost in the forest and hurt my ankle. A wolf found me."
Dante went perfectly still. "A wolf?"
"A big black one with silver eyes. It helped me. It somehow made my ankle feel better and then led me back here." I studied his face, looking for his reaction. "Have you ever seen a wolf like that around here?"
"No," Dante said quickly. Too quickly. "Wolves don't usually come this close to the cabin."
But as he spoke, I noticed something that made my blood turn to ice.
There were pine needles in his hair. The same kind of pine needles that had been all over the forest floor where I'd met the wolf. And those scratches on his arms - they weren't from claws. They were from tree branches, the kind you'd get from running through the woods at full speed.
And his feet. His bare feet were dirty with the same kind of mud I'd walked through in the forest.
"Dante," I said slowly, backing toward the door. "Where are your shoes?"
He looked down at his feet like he'd forgotten he wasn't wearing any. "I... I lost them while I was looking for you."
"And your shirt? What tore it up like that?"
"Thorns," he said, but his voice sounded uncertain. "There are a lot of thorn bushes in the woods."
I stared at him, my mind putting together pieces of a puzzle I didn't want to solve. The wolf's silver eyes. Dante's silver eyes. The wolf's intelligence and gentleness. The way it had understood everything I said.
The way it had healed my ankle with just a touch.
"The wolf," I whispered. "It was you."
Dante's face went pale. "Vale, that's crazy talk."
"You're a werewolf." The words came out of my mouth before I could stop them. "That's why you called your family a pack. That's why your eyes glow. That's why you move so fast and seem to know things you shouldn't know."
"People can't turn into wolves," Dante said, but he wouldn't look at me. "That's just stuff from movies."
"Then explain this," I said, pointing at his torn clothes and scratched skin. "Explain how you got so beat up in the twenty minutes you were supposed to be chopping firewood. Explain how the wolf knew exactly how to get back to this cabin."
Dante opened his mouth to answer, but no words came out. He just stood there, staring at me with those strange silver eyes that were exactly the same as the wolf's.
The truth hit me like a punch to the stomach.
My kidnapper wasn't human. He was some kind of monster that could change from man to beast. And I was trapped in the middle of nowhere with him.
The room started spinning. My vision got blurry around the edges, and my knees felt weak. I tried to grab onto something to steady myself, but it was too late.
Everything went black, and I collapsed onto the cabin floor.
When I opened my eyes, the first thing I saw was blood.
Dante was sitting at the kitchen table with his back to me, wrapping a white cloth around his left arm. Red stains were spreading through the fabric, and drops of blood had splattered on the wooden table.
"What happened?" I asked groggily, trying to sit up.
Dante turned around, and I saw his face was grim and worried. The bandage around his arm was already soaked through with blood.
"Bullet wound," he said simply. "They found us, Vale. We have to leave right now."