Page 85 of A Wolfe in the Woods

She leaned in, kissed my shoulder, then pressed her cheek against it. “Does it ever get easier?” she asked.

“No,” I said honestly. “But maybe with you…the fear doesn’t win every time.”

Her body folded into mine like we’d done this before, like we already knew the shape of each other and our forms were just getting reacquainted.

We lay like that for a long time. Breathing. Listening to the wind move through the trees above us, the scent of moss and pine all around.

I didn’t feel like a monster anymore. Not in this moment.

Just a man.

And for the first time in a long while…I wasn’t alone.

CHAPTER 23

BLANCHETTE

By the time we made it back down the path, the stars were dimming and hidden behind a canopy of tangled branches. The forest that had glimmered so clearly under the moonlight now pressed in on all sides. The trail was narrow, uneven, and pitch black.

I couldn’t see a thing.

I reached out, fingers groping for anything solid…and found Jonathan’s arm. Under my palm I felt his wound. It had stopped bleeding up on the cliff, but with navigating the forest in the dark and helping guide me down, it had split again. I felt his blood, wet and hot and sticky.

It had begun soaking through the fabric I had wrapped around his gash earlier. But he didn’t say a word.

I ran my hand down to his, and I didn’t let go.

Instead, I held tighter, matching his steps, trusting his senses to guide us through what mine couldn’t. He moved like he could see everything, as if the path was as familiar as breath.

Then a crack sounded. Sharp and sudden.

We both stopped.

“What was that?” I whispered, voice low, heart pounding in my chest.

He didn’t answer. Just stilled beside me, scanning the dark.

Suddenly something flickered ahead.

A dim glow hovered, then rose in the distance like a ghost’s lantern. It floated low, just above the brush, near the red cabin of Juniper Hollow. Pale and silent. I tensed, pulse quickening. The hairs on my arms stood up.

And then?—

“Well, well,” a dry voice called from the dark. “Ya lovebirds out here for a midnight stroll?”

Relief hit me all at once, sharp and dizzying.

May.

As we stepped closer, the floating blue glow sharpened. It wasn’t a lantern, exactly. It looked more like a will-o’-the-wisp. A flame suspended in air, hovering steadily without fuel or wick.Magic,I realized.

And standing behind the glow, May stood barefoot in the dirt. Long coat draped over her nightgown, hair loose, her cloudy eyes fixed right where we were, staring straight through us like a knowing sentinel. She didn’t blink. Didn’t tilt her head. Just waited.

“I was beginning’ to worry somethin’ had happened,” she said, voice gentler now. Her nostrils flared, catching scent on the air. Her chin lifted slightly, like a wolf sniffing the wind. “You’re hurt,” she said, looking in Jonathan’s direction. “I smell blood.”

Her expression turned perplexed.

Tone shifting, edged with concern, she asked, “And what happened to your clothes?”