The Wolf Code

What the hell? Senora thought, too shocked to give life to the question.

It had only been a few seconds since he had thrown her onto his back mid-stride, and already, she could feel his body changing beneath her seat.  She held on, more afraid of the men on the four-wheelers than she was of the monster beneath her. 

Ty was headed straight for a large, smooth boulder that jutted out from the trail like a ramp as the last of his human features disappeared and ears sprouted from the top of his head.  He was still on two legs when he hit the bottom of the natural ramp, racing up it at an alarming speed and leaping into the air at the end.  Senora held on tight, burying her fingers in the coarse coat, too afraid to even close her eyes. 

Ty’s body stretched out mid-leap, and when they hit the ground on all fours, he took off so fast that Senora’s stomach lurched, and this time, she did squeeze her eyes shut.

Her mind struggled to make sense of what was happening as the four-wheelers gradually faded into the distance behind them, but one word kept circling in her mind repeatedly.

Wolf.

Even knowing what she was seeing wasn’t helping Senora make sense of everything. 
She was sailing through the forest on the back of a giant, dark gray wolf, running from a corrupt police force in a small town in the middle of nowhere.  There was nothing rational about anything that was happening on any level.

Ty ran for a long time after the four-wheelers were well behind them and had probably turned back or given up completely.  Senora still listened intently and stayed low over Ty’s back while her eyes scanned the forest around them.  Everything looked the same, and without being able to see the sun overhead, she wasn’t even sure which direction they were going.  She was lost, and the only way she was going to get out of this was to place her trust in the hands of a handsome stranger who had turned out to be a wolf.

Great, she thought.  Just great.

They were almost to the river’s edge when Ty slowed, looking over his shoulder at her.

“I’m fine,” she said.  “As fine as I can be riding on the back of a wolf, in the forest with deranged men on four-wheelers behind me.”

Ty’s eyes lit up, and she knew he was silently laughing at her, but she was exasperated.  Things weren’t supposed to go this way.  The good guys were supposed to be good, men were supposed to be human and Senora was supposed to investigate the case until she reached a resolution and then walk away. 

She was about to dismount when he stepped into the water and began picking his way through the shallows, using the occasional boulder when the water got too deep.  Because it was summer, the river wasn’t very full, though the water still went up to her knees.

She hoped that Ty remembered the sensitive materials in her backpack and didn’t submerge them accidentally.  Her backpack was water resistant, but she was pretty sure that was meant to protect from a light rain and not swimming in a river.

  Despite the heat, the water was cool on her legs, and she relished the feeling as her body started to cool down from their mad dash through the woods.  Still on edge, she searched the tree line above them, but there was no sign of the Sheriff and his men.  They had gotten away. 

Now that the most immediate danger was gone, Senora was left with her thoughts and a large wolf beneath her.  Much larger than a real wolf, Ty was nearly the size of a horse.  If she had encountered him in the woods without knowing who he was, she would have been terrified. 

As it was, she knew that she should be terrified, but she wasn’t.  Ty had been alone with her on multiple occasions and hadn’t harmed her.  He was using her to further his cause, whatever that was, but he wasn’t going to hurt her.  At least not until he got what he was after.  Once that happened, she wasn’t sure if she would be safe.

She hoped to be long gone by then.

Ty dipped his head in the water just then and shook, spraying water all over her face and yanking her out of her thoughts.  She laughed and held her hands up to shield her face from more droplets of water.  He looked back at her over his shoulders, his eyes the same shade of deep brown as they were before, the only remnants of his humanity left in the wolf that he’d become.  He drank from the river quickly, then pulled himself up the bank and onto the flat grass in the meadow beyond. 

Senora slid off his back, walking beside him until they reached the edge of the tree line and stepped into the shade again.

She took her backpack off and set it on a fallen log as she sat down.  Unzipping the bag, she was thankful that she’d packed a bottle of water that morning just in case she found herself outside of town and thirsty while she ran her investigation.  Too bad she hadn’t realized exactly how important that water would be, and how much she would wish they’d she’d brought some food with her, too.  But she hadn’t expected to end up in the wilderness with only the clothes on her back and a single bottle of water in the Texas heat. 

Her back was to Ty as she drank the water a few sips at a time and left it more than half full.  She didn’t know how long they would be in the woods, and she wasn’t sure if he would need some, too.

“I hope you have a plan for getting out of here or we’re going to be dead by morn-” she turned, then stopped, her mouth dropping open.  “Why are you naked?”

“My clothes ripped when I shifted.  I didn’t exactly have time to undress and neatly fold them beforehand.”

His tone was wry, his face in a half-smile. 

“I can tell you’re really upset about it,” she said.  “I’ll walk in front, and you can tell me which way to go.”

“I don’t mind leading.”

“I mind,” she shot back.

“You didn’t look like you minded, but maybe I misread that look in your eyes.”

She felt her face flush, and she cursed him under her breath for making her feel this way.  He was right; the view was nice.  More than nice, his body was chiseled perfection.  But that didn’t mean that she wanted to spend the rest of the day staring at his naked backside or trying to keep her gaze level when he turned to her.  It was tempting to look, and even more so since she’d gotten a glimpse of his entire body and she already knew that every inch of him was beautiful.