Flutter (My Blood Approves #3)(14)

His eyes were the thing that caught me the most. They were gentle and large, reminding me of a puppy.

In the water, the first vampire crouched down lower, poised for an attack, and my mind raced to think of a way out of it. Mae and Jack warned me to run, but I couldn’t outrun him. I wasn’t even sure if Ezra could. He had to have some kind of super speed to appear out of nowhere like that.

“We don’t mean to bother you,” I said weakly, and Ezra squeezed my arm.

From the water, the vampire growled at me, but the one with the kind eyes stopped him.

“Stellan!” he snapped, and the vampire in the water made an argument in Finnish, but he cut him off.

“You’re American, yeah?” the amused blonde vampire asked, his tone lilting with an accent.

“Yes, we are,” Ezra responded. “I’m Ezra, and this is my sister, Alice.”

“I’m Dodge,” he smirked at us. “I’m from Boston.”

“Leif,” the kind vampire gestured to himself, and then to the vampire in the water. “That’s Stellan.” Stellan turned back to him and retorted something in Finnish, but Leif shook his head.

“What are you doing out here?” Dodge cocked an eyebrow at us. “It doesn’t look like you’re on a friendly hike.”

There wasn’t really a good answer to the question. We didn’t look like vacationers or skiers, and these were probably the lycans after Peter.

“She’s never been here before,” Ezra chose his words carefully. “She wanted to explore.”

“I like exploring,” I added, and Ezra shot me a look.

Dodge chuckled but that only infuriated Stellan. He stood up straighter, making himself larger and more imposing. To Dodge and Leif, we appeared to be a curiosity. Leif especially looked at us with tolerance, but Stellan seemed threatened.

Glancing back at Leif, Stellan shouted something in Finnish. He kept talking to Leif, but he didn’t take his eyes off us. Ezra could understand everything he said, but he played dumb.

“Did you know this was our territory?” Dodge asked when Stellan finished his rant.

“No. This is a National Park, isn’t it?” Ezra pretended to be confused.

Leif and Dodge exchanged looks. They seemed skeptical of our intentions. But based on Dodge’s casual shrug and Leif’s nod, they didn’t think we were a danger to them. We probably weren’t, so that made sense.

“This is lycan territory.” Leif looked gravely at us. “It’s best if you don’t wander around here.”

“We’ll be more careful in the future,” Ezra apologized.

“Make sure that you do,” Dodge said, abandoning his earlier humor. His face and voice hardened, resembling Stellan’s. They were threatening us.

Ezra nodded at them and ushered me away, back the way we came. The lycans didn’t move, and I felt their eyes on us as we hurried through the forest. Ezra kept his hand on my back, pushing me to go faster. I started to say something several times, but he shushed me until we got to the car.

“What are we doing?” I asked when he unlocked the Range Rover and got inside.

“Get in,” Ezra commanded and slammed his door shut.

“It’s only one-thirty.” I climbed in after him. “We have plenty of time to look for Peter.”

“If they caught us in the woods again tonight…” He trailed off.

He made sure the doors were locked before racing down the snowy road. He kept glancing in the rearview mirror, and I turned around, half expecting to see a pack of wolves chasing after us. But there was only an empty road.

“What’s going on? They didn’t really seem that bad. In fact, other than the Finnish one in the river, they seemed like ordinary vampires,” I said.

“That’s not the whole pack.” His eyes flitted back to the rearview mirror. “They were following us, and that’s why I wouldn’t let you say anything in the woods. Now they’ve seen us, and they know our vehicle. We can’t do anything more tonight.”

“You’re just being paranoid.” I shook my head, but his certainty was unnerving.

The road had patches of snow and black ice, and the signs on the side warned of reindeer crossing. In spite of that, Ezra sped up faster, and his eyes rarely stayed on the road in front of us.

“I don’t want to scare you,” he confessed randomly.

“Thanks,” I said.

“I’m not sure how many lycans are in his pack anymore. At times there were as many as fifteen or twenty, and other times there were as few as four. It depends on what kind of mood he’s in. He’ll wipe out his entire pack for the hell of it, and start over fresh,” Ezra talked as if he was explaining something to me, but he started in the middle of the idea.

“Who are you talking about?” I looked over at him.

“Gunnar.” His eyes went to the mirror again, as if saying his name summoned him. “He’s led a pack in the Lapland for the better part of three centuries. They winter up here, and summer in Russia and Siberia.”

“How do you know that he’s still the leader?” I asked.

“It’s been fifty years or more since I saw him last,” Ezra admitted. “But when I was told of Peter’s troubles, Gunnar was mentioned by name.”