Page 18 of The Forbidden Wolf King
“She could be lying,” Ivanna mused, her dark hair slicked into a nice bun, as she glared at me. “Her brother is a master at mental manipulation. This could be a trick to get us to head south and not waste time looking for food.”
I rolled my eyes. “Suit yourselves.” Reaching down, I grabbed the clothes Eliza had dropped before shifting and picked them up. She might need them later. Then I tapped on her shoulder and started a brisk walking pace to the south. I would bet my lucky hunting knife none of the city girls knew which way south was. They could probably smell their home in wolf form if we’d only traveled for an hour or two out, but at my estimation we’d trekked twelve hours on a briskly paced wolf sled which meant we were probably two days from making it home on foot.Ifwe didn’t get lost. The lack of food would slow our pace and if we didn’t find water it would affect our stamina as well. The other three girls who’d gone off in all directions would be stuck out here for a week and eventually succumb to the elements.
Eliza stayed in her wolf form, which I actually thought was smart. “You’re a really big wolf. You should do all the rest of your fights in wolf form if you can manage to shift fast enough.” Now I saw why her name had been thrown into the ring for top contender. She was as big as the male wolves which was a huge advantage when fighting a smaller female.
She looked up at me and gave me a wolfish grin, appearing to like my compliment.
“And thanks for having my back just now. I owe you one,” I added as she happily trotted beside me.
I peered behind me to see that the girls had gathered into a little group and seemed to be arguing about something. Probably whether or not to believe my advice. That wasn’t my problem. I told them what I knew and pretty soon they would realize it.
“We need to find water. Let me know if you see any plants, even if they look dried up and dead,” I told Eliza.
She immediately put her snout to the ground and took off ten paces ahead of me to the south, sniffing the dirt like a tracker wolf.
We would need to pace our return to Death Mountain and because of the dense fog in the distance, I couldn’t see anything beyond a few miles. We could go without food but needed water.
After walking for an hour, I turned around and saw four blobs in the distance behind me, following my trail. It seemed at least four of the girls had believed what I’d told them. The others would be dead if they didn’t figure it out soon. I couldn’t tell if one of the blobs was Ivanna.
Eliza’s wolf yipped in high-pitched excitement and I spun back to face her. There on the ground between the cracks of earth and dead dry brush were strands of a long dead plant that had little balls attached to the vine. It reminded me of sea kelp.
Exhilaration thrummed through me as I crouched closer. The plant was covered in a white powder which made it appear to have no signs of life but when I picked it up, I grinned. It was heavy and the white powder was coming off on my fingers, revealing a dark green healthy bulbous fruit-like plant beneath.
Squeezing one of the bulbs between my fingers, I laughed when fresh clear water squirted out.
Eliza turned in a circle as if chasing her tail and I scooped up a giant six-foot string of the plant and ripped it from the ground, putting it around the back of my neck to travel with like a scarf.
Eliza whimpered and looked up at me.
I shook my head. “We don’t need it just yet. Let’s ration in case we don’t find any more.”
I was thirsty too but not desperately so.
City wolves.I shook my head.
After a few more hours of walking, we’d discovered ten more vines. I was now easily popping the bulbs into my mouth after brushing off the tasteless powder and sucking down the cool liquid. The roots must have run really deep into an underground water reservoir because they were full of fresh water. I gave Eliza’s wolf plenty as well and we had more than enough for the walk out of here stored around my neck in heavy hanging vines.
I couldn’t help but think where we would be if Axil had not told me about them … his blue eyes, the things he’d said to me over the past two days. They swirled around my head, leaving me in a wave of confusion.
We walked south at a decent pace until the sun started to lower in the sky and my legs felt like mush and my body craved rest. A wolven shifter could go without food for about seven days but it cost us a lot of energy. Especially if we were shifting forms like Eliza had. I knew by the way she was walking, her back legs giving out, that she needed rest.
“We’ll camp here tonight.” I pointed to a cropping of three dead bushes that would give us zero protection against predators or the elements. It was just an easy spot to point to. She walked over to the dried bushes and collapsed in front of them panting and then looked at me as if awaiting the next instruction.
“You can sleep first. I’ll wake you in a few hours for my turn,” I told her.
At that declaration her head dropped onto the dry mud and she closed her eyes. She was out.
I peered at the ground around our little camp before the sun was totally blotted from the sky and found a few smooth rocks and a large stick. Useless as weapons if we were attacked.
I didn’t want to shift into my wolf form and consume the energy, especially without food, which was why Eliza was staying a wolf. She’d already done it once and to go back and forth would kill her of starvation quicker. We both knew that without even saying it.
I was confident Axil hadn’t lied to me and I was sure we were going south. What I questioned was whether we would get lost or slow down so much that it took us longer to reach Death Mountain than I had anticipated.
My mind warred with my instinct as I tried to do the math on when I last ate. We had spent twelve hours traveling here on the wolf sled, and then twelve hours knocked out. Then another twelve hours walking today. Yesterday morning with Cyrus was my last meal. So almost two days.
If I shifted into my wolf form to keep us safe from predators overnight, the walk tomorrow would be slower because I might have to shift back to human form to carry the long and heavy water bulbs. Draping them over my wolf’s back might only cause them to fall off as I walked on all fours and had no boxy shoulders to keep them on.
A howl rose up in the distance and my instinct won. Pushing the wasted energy and the future lack of food from my mind, I stripped down quickly and fell onto all fours as my body welcomed the change. Some wolves didn’t like being in their animal form more than a few hours, others could go days without changing shape.
