Wild Sign (Alpha & Omega #6)(80)

Zander was singing again, and this time she politely hummed along with him. She preferred Pachelbel to the new tune, which was weird. There was nothing wrong with Zander’s song, and, like many cellists, she was really very tired of Pachelbel.

But the music was soothing, and humming it made her feel better. When Zander quit singing, he asked, “So, what is your favorite subject in school?”

As she answered, she forgot that she couldn’t remember how she happened to be traveling in the dark with a stranger who didn’t feel like a stranger. Or maybe with someone familiar who felt like a stranger.

She was seventeen and headed to Northwestern in the fall, the daughter of a lawyer. Other than her mother’s death, nothing bad had ever happened to her.

That was an odd thought, too. Why did she think something bad was going to happen to her quite soon?

“Tell me about your favorite family vacation,” Zander asked. Before she could answer, he muttered, “You are obstinate, aren’t you? I’ve never had this much trouble, especially not with someone my father has already caught. It’s like everything just wants to flow off the top.”

“Like an iceberg,” agreed Anna. “There’s a lot more under the surface that you can’t see.”

“Like what?” he asked.

But she couldn’t answer him. It was a gut feeling. As if his music should slide off her. She had a big hollowness inside her head that felt denser than hollowness should feel. Something important was hidden there, something with fur and sharp teeth. She felt herself reaching toward that—

“You were going to tell me about your favorite family vacation,” Zander prompted, putting a hand on her thigh. Warmth seeped into her flesh from that hand.

“Yes,” she said hesitantly. “Um, I was about six and my brother was eight—”

And as the SUV turned off the paved road and onto a dirt track, she was lost in the feeling of lake water on bare feet and how her brother had tried and failed to teach her to skip rocks on the last vacation they’d taken as a family of four.

“That’s it,” Zander murmured. “Remember.”

Something pulled Anna’s attention away from the memory. A tug in her chest. She brought a hand up to rub at the spot, but the pressure didn’t go away.

The SUV bounced and jostled over the ground, sides and underside scraping in such a way that she was glad it was this SUV and not . . . not some other beloved vehicle. Some thoughts just slid away from her in a way that was distracting.

She caught the reflection of a wild animal’s eyes just past Zander’s shoulder. She lost track of her family’s vacation entirely and focused her attention on the darkness of the forest.

“Wolf,” she said.

Zander glanced quickly in the direction she was looking in, but he had to return his attention to the road. They had already passed the place where the wolf had been standing anyway.

“I don’t think so, not here,” he said with assurance. “There is a pack a fair bit south of here, and there are some in southern Oregon. But not here. You probably saw a coyote. Size can be deceptive in the dark.”

The wolf was gone from view, but Anna could feel her presence. She pressed a hand to her chest where that certainty lived. There was a wolf out there—and she was following them. It should have frightened her, but like the flannel shirt she wore, it gave her an obscure sense of comfort.

Pack.

The whispered word echoed out of that inaccessible hollowness. But she didn’t know its import. Pack what? Her carry gun was in its usual holster. Was that what that inner voice had meant?

She didn’t know how to shoot a gun.

“Anna,” Zander’s voice called her attention away from thoughts that made her worry.

“Are we there yet?” she asked cheerfully, in an effort to thank him for making her feel better.



* * *



*

LEAH WAS TIRED. It had dawned on her, not two hours after she’d started out for Wild Sign, that she should have taken the car. No one would have thought it unusual if she’d gone for a drive—and she’d have gotten here a lot easier.

But the need to move, the sheer strength of the summoning, had been so overwhelming. One moment she had been out running down the trail of a rabbit, and the next she’d changed direction and loped toward Wild Sign. That wasn’t the name she’d known that place by, of course. And it wasn’t exactly in the same location, either—though the amphitheater had been familiar. But she couldn’t remember what it had been, so she held on to the designations she was given.

She was hungry, too. She’d eaten such things as had come her way on her run, mostly squirrels and rabbits, though she’d driven a coyote off of a deer and feasted for a half hour, letting her body recoup its strength. Most of the time, aided by the supernatural nature of werewolf endurance and speed, and her ability to draw upon the pack energies, she’d spent running flat out.

She knew that she could not, should not, arrive this tired. She needed to find a safe place to rest for a few hours, some food to eat, before she got any closer. She paused next to a fallen tree with a hollow under it.

She had started to burrow into the space when she became aware of the sound of an engine. Abruptly reversing direction, she shook off the dirt and looked toward the noise.

She watched the headlights bounce off trees and rocks, lighting a rough track she hadn’t noticed. The engine sounded familiar, one of the pack vehicles. Charles had taken that Suburban.