Awakened By The Wolf. Kristal Hollis

house was dark. His vision grew darker. Still, he saw the triumphant gleam in her eyes a second before she escaped.

      * * *

      Brice Walker, my ass!

      Cassidy Albright jumped down the front porch steps. She had no idea who that dirt-streaked hobo was, but he certainly wasn’t the Brice Walker she knew.

      Well, had known from a distance.

      She sailed past her car. The old clunker wouldn’t have started on the first crank anyway, and she’d have been a sitting duck if the naked imposter turned out to be a dangerous intruder instead of a drunken resort guest.

      Shoes crunching the gravel driveway, she sprinted toward the Walker’s Run Resort a mile and a half down the mountain. An easy stretch for Cassie, who’d earned medals in track. Each time she ran, she simply imagined herself running until the layers of her mother’s bad luck and bad reputation peeled away, leaving Cassie free and clear.

      She had a way to go before that happened. Only one more semester of college and Cassie could start over. In a town where Imogene Struthers’s past wouldn’t wreck her daughter’s future.

      She rounded the first curve of a hairpin turn. A creepy vibe spiderwebbed across Cassie’s skin. She glanced back at where she’d been. The waning three-quarter moon provided enough light to see a man wasn’t behind her, but a very large, very hungry-looking wolf.

      Cassie’s heart slammed against her chest before spiraling to her feet. She could outrun a man on a dirt road. Outrunning an animal presented an entirely different race.

      She veered into the woods. Zigzagged through the trees. Zipped around bushes. Leaped over a fallen pine. Sweat coated her skin. Her breaths grew hard, laborious. A stitch gnawed at her side. Her leg muscles began to burn.

      Another downed tree lay ahead. Slightly larger than the last, though not so big that Cassie couldn’t clear it. She sailed over it with ease.

      The landing was harder.

      Her foot slipped on a patch of moss. The belly flop to the ground unleashed an explosion of pain in her chest. Her lungs, shriveling into two tight balls, squeezed out every molecule of air and then some. She couldn’t catch her breath, cough or even wheeze.

      Cassie didn’t want to die, not with a new life finally within her meager grasp. She forced her chest to expand. The muscle beneath her breastbone gave one final spasm and relaxed. Whereas she’d had no breaths before, they now came in rapid-fire succession. In zero to five, she went from starving for oxygen to drowning in it.

      Wolf drool on the back of her neck was imminent if she didn’t get moving. She swallowed two giant mouthfuls of air, the way she did when plagued by hiccups, and locked her elbows to push up. All the adrenaline that helped her run had tanked.

      “No, no, no.” Frantic, she patted the ground, searching for a rock, a branch. Anything.

      Out of luck and out of time, Cassie faced the wolf with the only weapons she had. Her hands and sheer grit.

      He approached, head hunched lower than his shoulders. His thin black lips mocked her with a menacing grin.

      “Nice wolfy,” Cassie panted over her heart’s rampant beat.

      His ears perked up and he tilted his head, taking his sweet-ass time to assess the most delectable spot to munch first.

      A low rumble rolled through the woods. His hungry gaze lifted and a snarl drew back his snout, revealing very large, very pointy teeth.

      Cassie had no hope of winning an outright wrestling match with an animal of his size and bulk. Gouging his eyes might give her a slim chance of survival, and slim was much preferable to none.

      Before his nerve-numbing growl chased all her bravado into the pit of her stomach, Cassie steeled her thumbs.

      The wolf sprang.

      Cassie screamed. She didn’t mean to, but some invisible force seized her vocal cords and wrenched loose the armor-piercing shriek. Apparently the same malevolent force also screwed her eyes shut, because she had to pry them open to see.

      The wolf now paced behind her. Ears flat against his head, he snapped at the woods. A strip of fur bristled along his spine, and the fluff of his tail stretched behind him, arrow-straight.

      With his attention diverted, Cassie scooted backward to get away from the wolf. Her heart pounded so hard and loud that she feared the drum would draw the wolf’s attention from the rustle in the woods.

      The wolf hunched forward, ready to pounce at whatever emerged from the forest.

      It was now or never. As she labored to stand, an ear-shattering squeal sliced through the night.

      She jerked toward the commotion. A huge blur barreled past the snarling wolf and skidded to a halt at her feet. Hot breath steamed her bare legs.

      Cassie didn’t move.

      Neither did the angry sow.

      The wolf, however, plopped on his haunches, and the tips of his fur shimmered with silvery light.

      Poof!

      Just that quick, the wolf vanished. Hunched in his place appeared a fully-grown naked man.

      Not just any naked man.

      The naked man whose balls she’d coldcocked.

      This isn’t happening.

      Obviously she’d whacked her head and was suffering from a massive delusion. That was good news, right? Delusions couldn’t hurt her. They weren’t real. Just figments of her imagination.

      Well, um, her naked delusion stood. Displaying all his glory.

      Cassie squinched her eyelids shut. He isn’t real. He isn’t real. He isn’t real.

      Satisfied her temporary insanity had passed, she drew in a calming breath and opened her eyes.

      The naked delusion limped toward her.

      Whether he was real no longer mattered. Cassie sprang to her feet. The startled sow danced around her legs. The lack of traction on the soft, damp earth caused Cassie to lose her balance. She landed on her hands and knees, face to snout with the hog.

      Cassie sucked in deep, measured breaths to slow her erratic pulse. Unfortunately, her heart and lungs were running a marathon. She swayed from a wave of lightheadedness.

      “Leave her alone, Cybil.” The soft, tantalizing command of the wolfman’s Southern baritone hummed through Cassie’s body with the hypnotic power of the Pied Piper. That fairy tale hadn’t ended so well. Cassie didn’t want to share a similar fate.

      The hog pivoted toward the wolfman. A twitch of her curly tail, a determined squeal, and she charged with the gusto of a matador’s bull.

      Wolfy wasn’t as quick on two legs as he had been on four furry ones. He thudded to the ground.

      “Dammit, Cybil. How long are you going to hold a grudge?” Shoving the sow aside, he lumbered to his feet. Undeterred, she circled around and plowed into him again.

      Transfixed, Cassie watched them tussle. Crazy as it seemed, she found herself rooting for the wolfman, who was trying not to hurt the disgruntled pig. Cybil wasn’t as careful.

      In the scuffle, she stomped his leg. A silent scream of pain twisted the wolfman’s face. Cassie’s chest tightened in sympathy, though she couldn’t fathom why.

      Cybil backed away, allowing him to sit up and rub his calf. After a few long-drawn breaths, he opened his palm. The sow shuffled close enough for him to scratch beneath her chin. Then he murmured in her ear.

      Cassie wasn’t one to ascribe human attributes to animals, but the hog’s expression appeared contrite. Cybil snorted, flicked her tail and trotted back into the woods.

      A werewolf pig-whisperer. Imagine that.

      Cassie