“No way.” She quickly unsheathed her knife and hurried after him.
Twigs snapped beneath their boots as they moved through the brush toward the commotion. Hudson was nearly knocked off her feet when a blur of white fur flew past her. She registered four legs. A snout. Something dark and fuzzy in its mouth, but the animal disappeared into the trees before she could get a better look.
Rylan caught her arm to steady her, his rifle trained on the retreating creature. “You okay?”
“I’m fine.” She took a breath. “Was that your wolf?”
He shook his head. “My wolf is black as night. Because she was created by the fucking devil.”
Hudson glanced around warily. “Do you think there was some kind of animal fight?”
“Let’s find out. Stay close to me, though.” He smirked at her. “I don’t want that pretty face of yours getting mauled. Otherwise you’ll never find a husband.”
She snorted, but heeded his command by sticking to his side. She hadn’t come across many wild animals when she was living at the compound. The Enforcers had installed an electric fence that zapped any living creature that got too close, so the risks of getting attacked by a wolf were pretty damn low.
But there was no risk when she and Rylan finally reached the scene of the crime. No danger. No fear. Just heartache that cut her deep.
“Oh,” she whispered.
“Shit,” Rylan mumbled.
Hudson stared at the black wolf lying on the dirt. Blood pooled around the creature’s body, not only from the throat that had been torn open, but from the mangled hind leg that jutted out at an angle.
The bloody paw prints on the ground brought a wave of infinite sadness and the sting of tears. She was suddenly reminded of the dogs that lived at the compound, German shepherds and Rottweilers that were bred to accompany the Enforcers on colony sweeps. There were no veterinarians in the city, though; animal life meant nothing to the men. If a dog got hurt, it was put out of its misery. But sometimes Dominik would secretly bring a dog to the hospital for Hudson to patch up, or at least he had before he’d turned into a callous bastard like the rest of his men.
Her heart lodged in her throat as she timidly approached the wolf, clinging to hope that maybe it was alive, that maybe there was something she could do. But it was like hoping for the sun not to rise. There was no coming back from a gashed throat.
“Goddamn it.”
The chord of sorrow in Rylan’s voice caught her off guard. When she turned around, she saw her own anguish reflected back at her.
“You weren’t supposed to die like this, you silly bitch.”
It took Hudson a second to realize he was talking to the wolf. She moved back to his side and reached for his hand, lacing their fingers together. “Is that the she-devil?”
His throat bobbed as he nodded. “I’m the one who was supposed to kill her.”
Except… he never would have done it. His relationship with the wolf had been unconventional, to say the least, but Hudson suddenly realized how much it had meant to Rylan, how much he’d needed something to occupy his thoughts, even if that something was just a silly rivalry with a wild animal.
“No. You weren’t,” she said softly.
He sighed. “No. I wasn’t.”
They looked back at the dead wolf.
“Should we bury her?” Hudson asked.
“Nah. She’s part of the food chain now.”
It was a harsh way to put it, but Hudson couldn’t exactly disagree. She also couldn’t see how a burial was even an option, considering the dirt was packed tight and they didn’t have shovels on hand.
They turned away from the wolf and headed in the direction they’d come from, but Hudson stopped in her tracks when another sound broke the silence.
She furrowed her brow. “Did you hear that?”
Rylan frowned. “Yeah. What…?”
She heard it again. A half squeak, half growl.
Narrowing her eyes, she walked past the wolf’s body and pinpointed the barely audible noises to an overgrown cluster of shrubs about twenty feet away. Her spine stiffened when she noticed a trail of blood leading toward the vegetation. No, leading away from it, as if something had been dragged out of the bushes.
“Damn it, Hudson. Let me check it out before —”
She gasped. “Oh my gosh! Ry, come here and help me.”
He appeared at her side in an instant, using his rifle barrel to push aside a tangle of leaves and skinny branches until he saw the same thing she was seeing.
Wolf pups.
Hudson counted five of them, all black as night, and her heart sank like a stone when she noticed their fur glistening in some places. Wet with blood. She bit her lip, making out another gaping throat, a throat that was so damn tiny compared to its mother’s.