chapter SIXTY-NINE
• SAM •
Everything about this was wrong. We were in the open, we were bunched together, we were too near the vehicle. Instincts made my hackles rise. The light of the moon glowed inside the mist, making the world artificially bright. A few of the wolves started to retreat back into the darkness of the trees, but I broke into a run, herding them back snugly by the lake. Images flashed briefly into my mind: us, by the lake, all together. Me and her.
Grace. Grace. finding the wolves. the lake.
I’d done those things. What now? There was no what now.
Grace could smell my anxiety. She nosed my muzzle, leaned into me, but I wasn’t comforted.
The pack was restless. I had to break off again to drive a few stragglers back to the lake. The white she-wolf — Shelby — snarled at me but didn’t attack. The wolves kept looking up to the vehicle; there was a person in it.
What now, what now?
I was torn by the unknown.
Sam.
I jerked. Recognition rang through me.
Sam, are you listening?
Then, clearly, an image. The wolves running down the road, freedom ahead, and something — something menacing behind.
I swiveled my ears, trying to find the direction of the information. I turned back to the vehicle; my gaze was met by the young man’s steady one. Again, I got the image, even more clearly this time. Danger coming. The pack pelting down the road. I took the image, honed it, threw it to the other wolves.
Grace’s head instantly snapped up from where she was doing my job: keeping a wolf from wandering back into the trees. Across two dozen moving bodies, I met her gaze and held it for the briefest of moments.
In my paws, I could feel the vibration of something unfamiliar. Something approaching.
Grace tossed another image to me. A suggestion. The pack, me at the head, leading them away from whatever threat promised to arrive from behind us. Her alongside, driving them after me.
I couldn’t mistrust that image being sent to me from the car, because it came with this, again and again: Sam. And that made it all right, even if I couldn’t quite hold the entire concept of it in my head.
I sent an image to the pack. Not a request. An order: us moving. Them following me.
By all rights, the orders should have been given by Paul, the black wolf, and any others punished for their subordination.
For a moment, nothing happened.
Then, we broke into a run, nearly simultaneously. It was like we were on a hunt, only whatever we chased was too far away to see.
Every wolf listened to me.