Silence of the Wolves. Hannah Pole

minute, hang tight,’ he added gruffly.

      When the disinfectant had been applied, he smeared cream across the wound, making her delicate features twist into controlled agony. Anger flared, roaring to the surface. It was anger at himself for scaring her to the point that she felt she had to run away from him. It was his damn fault she was in this much pain and there was absolutely nothing he could do about it.

      ‘I’m going to put a fresh bandage on, cool?’ he said as calmly as he could, though his mind was anything but calm.

      ‘Yup,’ she whispered.

      When he was finished, she sat up and put weight on her feet, wincing. He could literally feel the waves of fear and pain washing off her, see the tears wanting to spill and watched as her face contorted with unspoken agony, yet even as he could see, hear and sense the pain she was in, he could see her desperately trying not to show him that fear; she wanted him to believe her to be strong, to show no weakness. And it was more than a little infuriating.

      ‘Ready?’ he grunted, sliding a hand awkwardly underneath her back and lifting her midriff off the sofa, a combination of his efforts and hers had her arching her back in one hell of a curve so he could quickly wrap the bandage around her, keeping the gauze in place.

      But as she arched, he couldn’t move. His breath hitched in his throat as his gaze took her in. Unwanted images flickered through his mind, images of her arching her back like that for him in a very different way. Desire punched him, hard, hitting below the belt.

      ‘Do it,’ she grunted.

      Crap. He really needed to get away from this female before he did something he would regret. He could not be getting involved with any female, let alone one as vulnerable as Tamriel.

      Leyth made quick work of wrapping the bandage around her stomach, then hastily covered her in blankets, keeping his eyes anywhere but on her. His traitorous crotch refused to cooperate, fighting against his jeans.

      ‘You OK?’ he growled.

      ‘Yup,’ she said through gritted teeth.

      He could see the exhaustion sweeping through her. ‘Do you mind if I grab a shower?’ He motioned to the dried blood still covering his arms and chest.

      ‘Sure. Go ahead,’ she mumbled, waving towards the bathroom.

      ‘Good. Try to sleep.’

      He was almost certain she would be out like a light before he’d even left the room, and maybe that was for the best.

      Chapter Five

      Tamriel was absolutely exhausted but, hell, she wasn’t going to let a silly thing like sleep stop her. Leyth excused himself and went to shower, which was possibly the best thing that could have happened. It gave her a few minutes of vital alone time that she really needed. Time to collect herself and process all that had just happened.

      As he left the room, she didn’t waste any time. Trying her hardest to sit up, she struggled against the sofa. Even that had tears streaming from her eyes and her body screaming in agony. Her mind was buzzing with unanswered questions; she was so confused and frustrated, it was a wonder she didn’t literally burst.

      Cursing under her breath, Tam reached an arm underneath her sofa and pulled out her computer. She hit the power button. She didn’t have long before her captor returned from the shower and she needed answers quickly. She Googled ‘Werewolves, Folkestone.’

      The page filled up with various websites claiming to be an ‘online hangout for genuine werewolves’. All fake gothic crap. Nothing of any interest.

      Tapping her fingers against the arm of the sofa, Tam blew out a frustrated breath before typing in ‘wolves’.

      This didn’t return very much of interest, only pictures of various wolves around the world, a Wikipedia description of the types of wolves around today, and your more generic wolf sites.

      She changed the search term to ‘Wolves in Kent.’

      The first thing that came up was the website for the Wildlife Park called ‘White Wolves Inc.’. It looked pretty normal, a description of the park itself and a bit about the wolves and other wildlife that was kept there.

      It struck her as odd, however, that the park was not open to the public. It was only available for private hire, and even that had to be applied for, scheduled and approved.

      There were no articles about the wildlife park, no reviews or advertisements. Only the low-key website. Tam clicked back through to the full list of searches.

      Port Lympne, the zoo, popped up in Google’s search results, but Tam didn’t bother looking at that. She knew all about the zoo and the Aspinall Foundation, following a story she did on them last year.

      Scrolling through the many results, Tam finally came across an article that hooked her interest. It was entitled ‘Real Werewolves in Kent’.

      Reading through the article, she found it was a detailed description of one researcher’s experience with ‘werewolves’. It didn’t say where in Kent he’d found them, but he did describe a huge man with an attractive accent. The article went on to describe how the researcher had cameras hidden in various areas of woodland around the Kent countryside, and one of these had picked up footage of a huge man walking out into the woodland stark naked. He had apparently then proceeded to drop onto all fours and literally turned into an enormous wolf. The article was incredibly descriptive about how the change happened, and the author, still obviously in shock from what he’d witnessed, then reeled off several of his many theories surrounding the experience.

      Tamriel then did a search on the researcher. His name was Tobias Daniels, and he’d written various books and articles on ‘supernatural happenings’ in the Kent area. Strangely, following that particular article, he’d promptly written a disclaimer telling the world that it was a prank played by some of the local college kids and that he had no reason to believe that werewolves actually exist. Interesting.

      Tam dug a little further. Tobias Daniels had apparently come into a lot of money recently, only weeks after that particular article in fact, and now ran a private research facility in Canterbury, although he refused to publish any of his findings.

      Tam chewed on this information for a little while, skimming through various articles that mentioned the researcher, and published works by the man himself. After a while, she absently typed ‘real werewolf’ into Google, which brought up all manner of websites, some a little ridiculous, others a little more serious.

      Tam snorted at the thought. Was she actually trying to believe this? But, following what she’d witnessed, how could she not?

      Tam rubbed her eyes. She herself was definitely not normal, was it really a stretch to believe she genuinely was supernatural? Probably not.

      Through the thin walls of her flat, she could hear the water running still. She had some time. God that man scared her yet, behind that hard exterior, she’d managed to see glimpses of compassion. She clicked on her email icon and pulled up a new message. Who the hell was she going to email? ‘Help, I’m trapped in my own house, held captive by a werewolf.’ Who on earth wasn’t going to think that was a prank?

      Tam finally decided that dropping her colleague at work an email was the best plan, keeping it short and simple, ‘At home, please send help.’

      As she hit send, she felt a pang of guilt; what if someone came over and Leyth killed or hurt them? The logical side of her pointed out that they were in a building full of people, in the middle of a town, so it would be difficult for her captor to do anything violent and it go unnoticed. Besides, he hadn’t done anything even remotely malicious yet. In fact, he’d only tried to help her; he’d carried her home after she’d injured herself and nursed her back to health. She would probably have died if it weren’t for him and, what’s more, he had brought her home. Plus he hadn’t once said she couldn’t leave; she was just too sore to move.

      As