as she tried to figure out why it was quiet now.
“That way.” Liam dragged her along with him, running faster than was humanly possible.
Even though she wasn’t graceful about it and she was just barely staying on her feet, Zoe was able to keep up with him as they dashed through the forest. Trees whipped by them so quickly she could hardly process what was going on.
Her brain was still getting used to all the extra information her new senses were feeding her. It was overwhelming so she tried to focus on what she could see, but the speed was too much to really get details.
Liam stopped just as quickly as he started, and Zoe stumbled forward. She would have fallen on her face if he hadn’t caught her. “We were too late.” The pain in his voice was almost as bad as the pain she felt in response to his.
It was like for one single moment their thoughts and emotions were shared, and Zoe saw everything through his eyes.
She blinked and the echo disappeared.
Pushing off of him she went for the body she could see and even though she could hear the heartbeat she found herself searching for a pulse on instinct. They were alive, whoever they were. The second body though…
Zoe sank to her knees and studied the man who looked like he had died from blood loss and not the bite. Whoever had bit him had torn out his throat, but not very well. It was sloppy and most of the damage was on his shoulder.
“They managed to nick the carotid artery,” she muttered, gently tilting his chin so she could study the damage better. “His skin is cold.” Zoe pulled off her glove and dipped a finger in his blood, spreading it between her thumb and pointer finger. “Blood is still warm and hasn’t coagulated. Whoever attacked them is probably still in this forest.”
Liam checked his phone as she pulled out a wipe and cleaned her fingers before getting up to inspect the guy who was still alive. She only half listened to Liam relay everything she’d said to him.
This one was breathing, and he didn’t look too bad. The bite was on his shoulder, far enough away from the neck that Zoe wondered if he’d been attacked second. There may have only been one wolf hunting them, or perhaps two and one of them was still new at all this like her.
“I don’t understand, wouldn’t it make more sense to take them? All they’re doing is building your ranks.” Zoe started cleaning the blood from his body so she could see what she had to work with. Hopefully he was already healing. That would help with any infection.
Liam hung up and crouched down beside her to help move the clothes aside. “It’s not that simple. Brand new wolves take a lot of time and care. They have human lives they have to figure out and they can’t shift until their first full moon.” He shook his head as he watched her work. “A lot of them end up on missing persons lists or dead. We have a lot of clean-up to do whether they live or die and only so many of us in the pack to handle everything.”
She mulled that over as she studied the healing wound of the once-human man. If he was lucky, he’d survive.
“What they’re trying to do is take over our territory since we’ve been a weak pack for a long time. Even with Kai rebuilding things and making all the improvements, there are a lot of people out there who don’t trust us yet. If Cascade bites enough humans in our territory, it can be reported to the Council and they can take our territory away from us, or assimilate us into the closest pack, such as Cascade.”
The skin looked brand new and pink so the human was going to be fine as long as he could wake up. She sat back on her heels to wait and see what would happen.
“You smell weird,” she said softly. “I don’t think I’ve ever smelled this on you.”
Liam sighed. “I’m afraid that things will go back to the way they were. Kai needs to figure out what he’s going to do about Cascade. This isn’t their first offense, and we can’t afford to let them walk all over us. A war is against Council law, but there are ways to fight one without alerting them. It’s just…bad news all around.”
Zoe had