Chapter 2

This was not the other wolf.

As he froze and watched, it moved again, and he realized it was something human. He flattened himself against the ground and crept closer. The figure was tracking something through the snow, and Ian had a sudden strong suspicion that it was following Justin. The other werewolf always had run faster, so he was probably far ahead by now.

Then a hint of breeze brought the stranger’s scent to him and he bristled. Not human, nor anything even remotely like human. It was a vampire. He bit back a low growl. He couldn’t let the creature hear him and he couldn’t let it stalk his partner!

Silently, he rushed across the space between them, hurdling brush that might have rustled underfoot and sending snow spraying up around him. With a silent snarl, he leaped at the vampire.

* * * *

Thomas caught a flash of white teeth out of the corner of his eye and twisted away with inhuman speed. It wasn’t quite enough. The wolf’s snapping jaws closed on air as he moved, but its body hammered into his, dropping him to the ground with two hundred pounds of wolf on his chest. Unfortunately for him he fell not on bare ground but on a tangle of fallen wood, and his head bounced off a branch. Many legends about vampires were lies, but this much was true: wooden weapons could harm him. Pain shot through him from the impact, and darkness followed it. He lay still, knocked unconscious and unbreathing, as the wolf picked itself up and snarled down at him.

* * * *

He woke slowly to an awareness of throbbing pain, quickly supplemented by arguing voices, very nearby.

“…absolutely not. Back off.”

“Why not? It’s a god-damned vampire, Justin!”

“You should listen to yourself! Heis a person with a condition not unlike our own.”

“That’s different. You should know that. Werewolves mix the wolf and human, and neither of those are evil. Vampires aren’t human at all.” Thomas bit back a groan and considered sitting up. He didn’t feel well, and he couldn’t be sure if lying still and letting the argument play out would be better than getting up and joining in.

“Ian…You don’t know that”

“I know a vampire killed Rachel.” The first voice was very flat as he said that, the flatness of grief held tight within. Thomas winced. It couldn’t have been him, but all the same…He was sure he had left people with that dead voice, that iron grief.

The second voice sighed deeply. “You don’t knowthat either. I know how it looked, but you’re still just assuming. I would think that after all the assumptions humans have made about us, you’d know better.”

“He was hunting you,” snapped the first voice. “I know that much, at least!”

Finally having something to add, Thomas opened his eyes and said, a little shakily, “Actually, I wasn’t.”

He saw two men standing over him. Neither was human. Both were, well, wolves. Wolves that stood upright, a melding of human and animal; swathed in fur, and with protruding canine faces and stubby hands that ended in claws, but humanoid, all the same. One very strongly resembled the animal he’d been following, a gray and white timber wolf with darker markings along its back and shoulders. The other was a little taller, and darker furred, but otherwise quite similar. Werewolves.

The lighter-furred one bent over him. “Are you all right?” That was the voice that had defended him, Justin, presumably.

Thomas slowly sat up, gingerly putting a hand to the side of his head. It was tender, and his hand came away bloody, but it didn’t seem to have cracked the bone. However bad the wound, he’d heal eventually, but that didn’t stop the aching in the moment. “I guess.”

“Justin…” That was the darker-furred wolf, presumably Ian. His eyes were intense, pleading with his fellow canine.

Thomas stayed silent, wiping the blood on his fingers off on the snow. A hint of his own blood-scent hit him in the nose as he did, and his stomach twisted with hunger. He’d been ravenous before this, but the injury was demanding more of his energy, and now he felt positively hollow.

Justin gave Ian a quelling glare and turned back to Thomas. His eyes flicked down to the streak of blood on the snow. “You’re hurt.”

Thomas shook his head, and immediately regretted it. He groaned.

“If you weren’t hunting Justin, then why were you stalking him?” said Ian, his voice still hard with suspicion.

Justin sighed. “Ian…Please don’t.”

“It’s fine.” Thomas considered trying to get up, then thought better of it. “I understand how it looks, but I wouldn’t hunt a wolf with my bare hands, vampire or not. I was following your friend,” he said, nodding towards Justin, “because I was hunting for some kind of prey animal, and doing a miserable job of it. I thought a wolf might be able to lead me to one. I need to feed, but only an idiot would try and feed from a wolf.” He attempted a smile, hoping that humor might lighten the mood a bit. “They bite back.”

Ian still looked darkly suspicious, but Justin chuckled. “Look, is there any way we can help you?” asked Justin.