Chapter 8: Loose End

I didn't scream.

Not at first.

My right hand was already moving, down along my thigh, to the cargo pocket of the scrub pants I'd slept in.

The trauma shears were where they always were.

The wolf's lips peeled back further.

A drop of its spit landed on my cheek.

I drove the shears up into its shoulder as hard as I could.

They went in to the handles.

The wolf yelped and reared back, and I rolled.

I went off the side of the bed and hit the floor, and its jaws snapped shut on my pillow where my head had been.

Feathers burst into the air.

Then I screamed.

"Vidar!"

The wolf came over the bed after me.

I got the bedside lamp up between us and it bit through the shade.

It was huge, gray, and it stank of blood now, my shears still jutting from its shoulder.

It backed me into the corner by the window.

I had nothing left in my hands but a broken lamp.

The oak door in the wall exploded inward.

The bolt tore out of the frame with a shriek of wood.

Something black and enormous came through the gap.

I'd thought the gray wolf was huge.

Vidar's wolf was twice its size.

He hit it in the air, and they went across the room together and through the little writing desk, and the whole house shook.

I'd never heard a sound like the one that came out of him.

It was a roar, deep enough to rattle the window glass.

The gray wolf twisted and went for his throat.

He let it.

Then he turned his head and closed his jaws on the back of its neck.

There was a crack.

The gray wolf went limp.

Vidar stood over it in the wreck of the desk, his black fur bristling, gold eyes blazing.

Then he turned and looked at me.

I was crouched in the corner with a lamp in my hands and feathers in my hair.

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