by Evie Ryan
As soon as he’d seen the woman, he was glad to have been assigned the territory. She amused him. The way she’d struggled through pitching that tent had been a virtual comedy of errors. She’d maneuvered the poles with childlike clumsiness. She’d clearly been out of her element. If one pole stood straight the other three she’d planted fell. By the time she was nailing one of the stakes into the ground the other five popped up from the impact. At one point the tent’s fabric seemed to have swallowed her and she’d jerked about like a cat trying to get a sock off its head.
Initially, Brandon had enjoyed watching her struggle, because he figured it served her right for having the audacity to venture her city slicker ass into his neck of the woods, but eventually he found her endearing. She had gumption. Determination had rolled off her like steam from an engine. She kicked and muttered and huffed and puffed, but didn’t let her frustration stop her. And as he watched from the brush she succeeded. She got the tent to stand. And when she did, she jutted her hip out, planted her fist on it, blew her long blond bangs out of her eyes and seemed to marvel at the accomplishment.
It had been damn cute.
Not to mention her sporty figure had been of some interest to him. She was petite, on the short side, but toned. The definition in her legs made them seem longer than they probably were. He had been able to tell her arms were strong, equally toned beneath the gray shirt she’d been wearing. And he had to admit he liked her curves, which had been present, but not enough to hold her back from squatting and thrusting the tent into shape. The woman could get her hands dirty.
Brandon had spent the majority of his day wondering about her. He considered the reasons a city girl would be up here this time of year, and alone for that matter. She was probably trying to prove someone wrong. Maybe that someone was herself. She certainly didn’t belong here. She had Seattle written all over her, all the way down to that hunting knife she’d clearly bought on a whim, a last minute attempt to convince herself the wilderness wouldn’t eat her alive.
Technically, it could, which had been the reason Brandon kept circling back to her, as he progressed through his assigned territories. For as much moxie as she had, the terrain was dangerous and if she encountered certain wildlife it could be downright fatal. Deep down he’d started to feel responsible, as though he was her guardian, as though it was his duty to see to it that she’d make it out of here and return to her home city alive and well. Or maybe she wouldn’t return. Maybe she’d stay... The thought had swirled in the back of his mind until he decided, at the very least, nothing was going to happen to her on his watch.
But he’d lost sight of her when she’d ascended the midway point along Tucker’s Ravine. At the time he had needed to get to the lake and do a sweep across the perimeter or he wouldn’t have made it back in time for call at the Sanctuary. He’d told himself he’d swing by her campsite on his way home, make sure she’d returned safely, put his mind at ease. So leaving the facility, Brandon started off in that direction, as he tried to make sense of her.
What the hell had she been thinking going up Tucker’s? It was a trail meant for experienced hikers, not powder puffs hoping to gain a sense of personal empowerment, See Dad, I can do anything, I climbed the ravine, now loan me money so I can start my online jewelry business. Not that she was a powder puff. Nothing about her indicated she had a pipe dream about selling homemade tchotchkes over the internet, but she certainly wasn’t an avid trailblazer.
When he reached the campsite it was nearly dark. He cut across the clearing, hoping to detect some movement within her tent, any indication she’d returned, but it was still and soundless. He went so far as to place his hand on the nylon siding of the tent and walk clear around it, which was unnecessary. He already knew she wasn’t there.
“Beers at Riley’s?” His friend, Mark Houston called out from the tree line.
“Nah,” shouted Brandon. “Gotta check on something.”
“Someone’s camping out here this late in the year?” He asked, as he strode over out of curiosity.
“Just some lady,” Brandon offered, hoping he wouldn’t sound as interested as he was. “She ought to be back by now with the sun down and everything.”
“Ah, she’ll be fine,” said Mark before studying Brandon’s hesitation and getting a read on his friend’s unease. “You’re not thinking what I think you’re thinking, are you?”
“What do you think I’m thinking?” He challenged.
Mark considered the best way to put it, then quickly gave up and stated plainly, “Don’t get interested in some outsider. It won’t be worth it.”
“She was hiking Tucker’s earlier.”
“You followed her?”
“No, she kept coming in and out of my territories,” said Brandon, who realized as soon as the excuse flew out of his mouth that Mark would know he was lying. The trail through Tucker’s Ravine was barely on the outskirts of one of his assigned territories.
Mark must have been feeling kind, because he didn’t call Brandon out on it, only asked, “How hot is she? Is she like an eight? Or is she like a full blown ten?”
Brandon smirked. Mark was such an idiot, he couldn’t help it.
“Do your thing man,” Mark added, punctuating the blessing with a thwack to Brandon’s chest. “Then come to Riley’s. Thursday’s beer night. Don’t you go blowing off tradition.”
“Alright, man,” he said, as he watched Mark turn on his heel and start back across the campsite.
Knowing how bad it would look if the woman came back at this very moment, but not caring, Brandon unzipped her tent and entered. He knelt by her bed and lifted the comforter to his nose, taking a quick whiff. Lavender potpourri and baby powder was all he got from it. So he pulled a few articles of clothing out of an army-sized backpack that was sitting at the far side of the tent and sniffed those as well. Again, the same crap scents, manmade attempts to mask a woman’s natural odor. He tried again, this time smelling her pillow, Christ she’d brought enough comforts with her. Why bother camping at all? She had her whole bedroom here. But just then Brandon got the information he had been looking for: musk traces of her unique scent, as precise as a fingerprint.
He almost wished she’d barge in right now. She’d be terrified then furious. Maybe she’d smack him. For some reason the thought got him excited. He hadn’t had a woman in ages. He liked the feisty ones who would fearlessly put him in his place. But he was getting sidetracked. He placed her belongings back as best he could having virtually no recollection of how he’d found them, and left her tent, anxious to get to the trail where he’d last seen her.
It was dark and his eyesight was barely serving him. The moon overhead was full and though it shined brightly the canopy of trees overhead obscured what little light it provided. As he ran up the eastern trail along Tucker’s Ravine he knew his eyesight would be sharp, his sense of smell acute if he shifted, so in a flash he did, collapsing onto all fours into his wolf form and instantly sprinting at five times the speed his human legs had been carrying him.
When he reached the ridge, trees no longer blocked the moonlight and he could see clear across the peak. He smelled the woman and padded over to the cliff’s edge where her scent was strongest. Immediately he saw that the ground had been eroded. He was filled with a deep sense of dread in that moment, as he stared at the curvature where the earth was missing. She’d fallen.
Brandon crept along the cliff’s edge, scanning the wall of the cliff until he located a stripped line that led straight down: the path she’d tumbled. Then he saw her far below on the ravine floor and his heart sank. She was motionless, a tangle of limbs. If he’d been human he would’ve thought she was nothing more than a rock, a dark lump wedged between two tree trunks.
Because he knew Tucker’s like the back of his hand and had hiked every inch of its trails, and had bushwhacked through the forest, Brandon sprinted back the way he’d come to circumnavigate the cliff and go around through the northern trail that con
nected the eastern one with its twin. To say he was frantic would be an understatement. He’d last seen the woman just before 6:00 pm and it was fast approaching 6:45. Humans were fragile and their tenacity to hang onto life often faded quickly in the face of hopelessness. The woman had been alone and probably had no hope of being found. She’d been out here all by herself for too long. If she was clinging to life at the bottom of the ravine, it was unlikely she’d hang on much longer. And he needed her to hang on.
As Brandon traversed the ravine floor, he prayed she’d taken her spill not long ago, but when he reached her and sniffed around her neck, she was cold. She had no heartbeat. She had no pulse.
He howled and the call resonated through the ravine, carrying his distress cry all the way back to the Cascade Sanctuary & Wildlife Preserve.
For a moment he was paralyzed with fear, but realizing his wolf form was no longer practical he shifted back into his human body, hooked his muscular arm under the back of her neck, while scooping under her knees, and lifted her to him so that she was securely cradled.
The Elders at the Sanctuary weren’t going to like this, but Brandon didn’t care. There was a reason he’d been drawn to her. There was a reason he had been watching. And he should never have let her out of his sight.
Brandon burst through the front doors of the infirmary where Joseph had been standing ready in wait. Joseph took one look at the limp woman in Brandon’s arms and immediately threw his hands up, barring their entry.
“That’s not a wild animal,” said Joseph, objecting.
“She fell down Tucker’s Ravine.”
Joseph cradled the woman’s head, carefully tipping it back to expose her neck where he felt for her pulse. “She’s dead.”
“I know that,” he barked in frustration. “We can bring her back.”
His boss was hesitant, settled the woman’s head back into the crux of Brandon’s shoulder, and shook his head. “We’d have to have a meeting with the Administration, involve the Board, get clearance-”
“No we don’t. We don’t need to go through all that bureaucracy to save her. We can do this right now.” When Joseph turned rigid at the proposal, Brandon added, “If she was a mountain lion, we wouldn’t think twice about this.”
“And if she was an injured hiker, we wouldn’t either,” countered Joseph. “But she isn’t injured within an inch of her life. She’s dead. She isn’t capable of making the decision. And we can’t take her on if we don’t have permission.”
Brandon barreled past Joseph, ignoring the objections, and started down the corridor to the surgical wing. His boss jogged after him. Brandon had a tendency to be pigheaded when he wanted something, but he’d never wanted anything this big. This would go against every protocol they had and would risk both of their standings with the Sanctuary, but he didn’t care. He needed this.
The double doors to Surgery One swung open when Brandon kicked them. He set the woman down on the long steel table at the center of the room and for the first time really took stock of her condition. The hair on the one side of her head was matted with blood, her face was torn open down the left cheek and the other had countless scrapes. Her left femur was broken. The bone had pierced through the muscle and protruded from her skin, and both forearms were fractured, Brandon guessed judging by the swelling.
Brandon tore his panicked gaze from the woman and looked at Joseph pleadingly. The man didn’t even approach the table, didn’t assess the damage to her petite body.
“When have I asked for anything?” Brandon demanded.
“Why is this important to you?”
“It just is,” he said, unwilling to explain further or perhaps uncertain of what that explanation would include. He didn’t know. It was just a feeling he had, an intuitive knowing that this woman was meant for more than an accidental death. She was meant for him, but he couldn’t put that into words, not without sounding irrational or downright insane.
Joseph grasped the telephone off the wall and pressed the red button.
“What are you doing? They’ll never permit this! You’re wasting time!”
“I can’t save her, Brandon. Not by myself.”
“We have a hiker,” Joseph said into the mouthpiece then hung up.
“You didn’t explain anything!”
“Because if I said she was already dead they’d tell me to take her out to the graves. Let me see what I can do. You have to calm down.”
But Brandon couldn’t calm down. He was pacing the room, accidentally knocking supplies from the counters with his swinging fists. He tried stilling himself by running his fingers through his dark hair, but it amounted to holding his head in grief.
“When Elektra and Ismay get here, let me do the talking,” instructed Joseph.
“I’ll give her the wolf bite,” offered Brandon. “Tell them that.”
Joseph gritted his teeth. “Wait outside,” he ordered.
“But-”
“Outside!”
Brandon approached the woman and took her face in his hands. He drank in her features, memorizing the details, and hoped it wouldn’t be the last time he was able to do this. Then he backed away and though he was reluctant, passed through the double doors.
In the waiting area, he took a seat, which only served to heighten his anxiety. Part of him wanted to tear through the wilderness, run as fast as he could, take down large game, anything to let this overwhelming anger out.
Soon Elektra and Ismay walked up the corridor, passing the waiting room where they took brief note of Brandon’s presence, then continued on to Surgery One.
Brandon knew he wasn’t their favorite. Though he’d been with the Sanctuary for nearly half his life (which amounted to nearly two hundred years), he was regarded as a loose cannon, not because his instincts were off or because he made reckless decisions. It was quite the opposite. Brandon had such strong instincts that he often disregarded orders, acted on impulse, and ruffled a lot of feathers along the way. The result of his strong will saved lives, however. He’d never refused a territory without locating a creature in dire need in another. Every injured hiker he’d insisted on admitting to the Sanctuary ultimately became a strong member of the pack, loyal and obedient. He had a way of choosing the right people. But the Sanctuary had become over populated. And admittance was becoming more and more select. He only hoped, no, prayed that the Elders wouldn’t turn their back on this woman just because they had an aversion to Brandon’s gall.
Once he heard the double doors drift shut, Brandon positioned himself just beyond them and listened intently. At times he angled his view so that he could see through the small glass windows on each door. It killed him to be excluded.
“She’s gone,” said Elektra, gazing her black eyes down at the woman then brushing the woman’s hair back with her long finger. As the Head of Administration, Elektra carried herself with an air of ancient wisdom. Regal, yet formidable, she stood at 6’2”, had a wild mane of black hair, olive skin tone, and a muscular Amazonian build.
Ismay, the Dean of the Training Center at Cascade, was equally powerful, though he often deferred to his life partner on matters such as this. He eyed Elektra for direction.
“The wolf bite would still take,” said Joseph when neither had offered a plan of action. “We’ve done it before.”
“We have,” Elektra admitted. “But you overlooked one critical detail.”
Joseph looked at her confusedly. He had taken her physical condition into consideration and wasn’t sure what had been overlooked.
Ismay prompted the man four hundred years his junior. “Do you smell that?”
Joseph sniffed, but couldn’t get a read on what they were referring to so he lowered his nose down to the wound at the side of the woman’s head and breathed in deeply. Then he lifted up, analyzing the scent in his fast thinking mind.
“Even if we gave her the wolf bite, her blood would still kill her eventually,” said Elektra regretfully.
“It would buy her
time, though,” countered Joseph.
“Time for what?” Asked Ismay. “This woman is dying of blood cancer. For all we know she came to the Cascades and intentionally threw herself down the ravine.”
“That’s not what happened!” Brandon yelled, barging into surgical room.
“Get out of here, Brandon!” Ordered Joseph.
“She didn’t want to die. She didn’t mean to fall into the ravine,” he insisted.
“How do you know that?” Asked Ismay.
“I just do,” said Brandon.
Elektra lifted her hand to silence the men.
Brandon had to bite down on his tongue not to rant on. He planted his fists on his hips and gave the Elders his full attention. He didn’t breathe. He didn’t even blink.
“I’m going to need to see a big change from you, Brandon Scott. No more heroics. No more disobedience. From now on you’ll do exactly as you’re told, no objections, no hesitations, no going against the pack. Do you understand?”
“Yes,” he said nearly cutting her off. His agreement had been locked and loaded and he fired the cannon without thinking twice. It was only after he’d agreed that it occurred to him how difficult it might be to live up to the promise.
“She isn’t going to be a werewolf-”
Brandon nearly blurted out an onslaught of babble at the unfairness, but twisted the impulse into a wordless snort.
“She can’t be, Brandon. It would be futile. But we can save her.”
Brandon drew in a deep breath and found the words to thank her.