Where Foxes Hunt with Wolves - K.A. Merikan Page 0,3

stoned out of my mind. I don’t know.”

Radek ignored the scarf and glared at the door instead, his back breaking out in goosebumps. “Wolves.”

Jan whistled and threw his arm over Radek’s shoulders, pulling him closer to the muscular body that still smelled of sex. “Maybe it’s the same pack that ate your dad.”

Fury erupted in Radek’s head so intensely he didn’t care how insensitive Jan’s comment was. “Come on everyone! Get dressed! I’ll show you how we deal with those fleabags in the mountains!” he yelled, his head hot with anger.

“You sure?” Iga asked, but Radek was already pulling his jacket out of the pile, and as soon as he threw it on, he sought out his boots as well, surrounded by the excited chatter and squeals of city rats who’d never seen a wolf in their lives.

Fuck yes, he was sure. He was killing a wolf tonight.

Chapter 2 – Radek

They poured out of the cabin in a bloodthirsty procession with Radek as the deranged cult leader set to come back home with a wolf head on a pike. He didn’t have a pike, but that wasn’t the point. The point was he had a rifle in hand and a whole box of extra bullets shoved down the pocket of his coat.

The freezing wind blasted snow into his face, clutching its icy fingers on his bare head, but this was his land, and he would not be chased back home by a bit of cold. There definitely were wolves around, he could smell them, so he waved at his hunting party and jumped over the simple wooden fence surrounding the house. The snow he’d touched left a biting presence on his fingers, but Radek’s body was burning, even under the skin on his exposed torso. He probably should have put on a T-shirt before venturing out but there was no time for that now.

Someone behind him asked about a flashlight, but Radek didn’t need one. He could see in the dark as well as a cat, so he trekked uphill, toward the old firs covered in a dense white layer, as if they had been arranged to pose for a fairy tale illustration. Blood pounded under his skin as he slid through a passage in the bushes. The branches brushed his stomach, but he was hot enough to melt every single snowflake in the valley and not afraid of either winter, a wolf, or the night.

A shiver ran through his body despite the warmth in his head when the wind pushed under the open jacket, but he trudged on, lifting his knees high in the dense snow. The hardened layer on top broke under his weight, but Radek was already sweating from the effort by the time some of his friends voiced their doubts about this late-night hunt. Cowards. City wimps. They should have stayed at the cabin if they were chickening out. This was his forest. His valley. And if those dirty furbags dared to come anywhere near his home, it was only his right to defend it.

But in the dark, with inches of snow covering every vaguely-horizontal space in sight, all he could see were shades of white and gray. The wind direction must have changed, since he couldn’t smell the unfamiliar fur anymore, but when one of the heavy branches moved, and a large form skirted off, beyond the trees in sight, Radek lifted the rifle and took his first shot.

“Fucking die!”

Spurred on by the whistles and yelling behind him, he ran farther into the forest to see if he’d managed to land a bullet in one of the beasts, but couldn’t sense blood beyond the overpowering odor of gunpowder. When he pushed into the igloo-like space in the shadow of the fir, he couldn’t see dark blots in the snow either, but paw prints were definitely there, leading away from the cabin.

The bastard had gotten scared off, and when his friends cheered in the far-off background, it passed through Radek’s mind that with the wolf chased away his work here was done. But the stars and the moon shone above, giving the forest an eerie blue glow and transforming it into a prime hunting ground. Once he’d walked between the trees, he couldn’t back down.

The ground rose toward a hill where he stepped into a passage of even snow, where tiny trees stuck out, dotting the pristine surface, but Radek’s gaze followed the tracks, and his blood boiled when he saw a shadow at the top