My stomach knotted with need. I looked up at that moon, now exactly half a grayish orb. A thin wisp of clouds floated over it. A real horror show type scene. Maybe I did need to move onto another genre of books. In fact, I’d gone for horror all week just to avoid romance altogether.
In that moment, I sensed someone watching us. I focused on the car, placing my hands against it for balance even as I reached to open the door. Gripping the handle, I paused. A shiver, one born of danger, sent my instincts into overdrive. Adrenaline rushed through me, quickening my heart, putting my muscles at the ready. With an abrupt turn, I saw the eyes. My wolf. The two golden orbs peered at me from around the corner of the building. All sense of danger vanished into thin air.
“You haven’t abandoned me,” I spoke the words out loud.
The mixture of relief with my original flight or fight response left me weak and dizzy. I trembled as heat washed through my core. My breaths erratic, I gulped for air, the crispness and coolness of it burning my lungs and working like caffeine for my overwrought brain. I shook my head in an attempt to fully clear the cotton there, preventing me from making a rational, best move here.
Stepping toward the animal with great care, I heard a long sigh, one us humans would think exasperation. The sound had a deep mournful tone of sadness that hung in the air around me as if I could feel each and every emotion the animal felt. That had never happened before. To my addled emotions was added confusion, the internal fight with one’s self to stay or to go, to interact or to run away. Hints of anger like punches to the gut encompassed a full love, one that overrode everything.
None of it made any sense, yet I felt it, my body and my brain reacting to each feeling so foreign to my own, yet easily understood as if we shared a bond I couldn’t possibly comprehend. I needed to catch the unseen culprit who had punched me in the gut and tried to strangle me. I fought for clarity, blinking, gripping my hands into fists, taking deep breaths. None of it helped. The only thing clear to me was the overriding drive to reach out and touch this beast, my wolf who could also be deemed a fierce savior.
As I quickened just a bit my slow pace, to come out from the shelter of the car, Chloe asked, “Where the hell are you going? You think you are going to find him around the corner, in the alley? Shit, Christina. This is bordering on psychotic. I’m done being nice. I’m getting down right worried.”
I couldn’t respond. I felt drawn to my wolf, my guide. As I inched closer, the eyes, those familiar eyes, they flashed between the memories of my spirit guide and my savior from two weeks ago. They had to be one and the same. I was almost sure of it now. Maybe my mind, in a state of stress-induced insanity, just hadn’t been able to handle the sum of the equation. I didn’t know what to do with it now, if I should be afraid and run away or if I should be grateful and throw my arms around his neck. The third option was to go back to denying it altogether.
Would he even let me get that close? Would he let me touch him, or would he maul me too? Instinct said he’d save me, protect me, whatever the situation. He couldn’t help his nature, the way he knew to help. Animal trainers sometimes learned that animal instincts could prevail no matter what relationship they had with the animal. The story of that lion trainer who’d died when his animal had tried to save him came to mind. The beast had snapped the guy’s neck trying to move him away from perceived danger with his powerful jaw.
In an instant, the moment I paused, the hairs raised on my neck. At the same time, I heard a low growl, and the eyes disappeared. Hearing the scratch of claws on pavement, I ran to the side of the building. I saw the fur already in the distance, too far away for me to even bother trying to catch up with. The muscled hind quarters bounded the creature forward and away from me at inconceivable speeds.
I fell into a lean against the brick wall. A little light-headed, through the stars that threatened to turn my vision to black, I saw the animal stop. He looked over his shoulder at me. I’d never gotten this close, not enough to realize that my spirit guide was so large an animal. He truly wasn’t the size of a normal wolf. The beauty and majesty of the creature increased with every additional inch and ounce, it seemed. He or she nodded its head at me before it took off into the night. My gut told me the wolf was a he, just as I’d always referred to him in my thoughts.