Wild Rogues (third in lone wolf series)

Chapter One

Chapter One

                Side by side they sliced through the icy night. Two dark shadows that moved together as one. The cold wind cut through them like a dagger but still they ran. Their long, lean legs were pumping as they passed swiftly through the darkness. No sound could be heard except the panting of their breaths and the racing of their hearts.

The prey was close. So very very close.

The sliver of the moon was bright in the sky above the dark silhouettes and the multitude of stars shimmered on their long dark fur. Frigid wind whipped against them but they did not even seem to feel it as they continued with their task.

                With a yip the dark figures separated, lancing through the oppressive night as the young calf and cow they’d been tracking came into view. The mother called out a warning to her child and the calf bleated loudly.

                Snapping their jaws the wolves flanked their quarry, giving it no choice but to run in the only unprotected direction.

                One of the wolves leapt forward snapping its jaws only centimeters from the cows flank. She kicked back nearly catching him in the temple before hastening her pace.

                Working as a team the two wolves herded the wayward cows back toward the herd before breaking away and loping off toward the barns looming in the distance.

                Then one of the wolves growled in annoyance when the air filled with another scent. It was the scent of yet more cows not with the herd. With a grunt and a snort the wolves set back out into the night.

***

                Abigail Martin, or Abbey as she preferred to be called, was exhausted. Exhausted and frightened.

                She had run away from her abusive husband for the second time after he had nearly killed her and the police had been unable, or unwilling, to help her. Joseph’s brother was a high ranking police officer in their small Virginia town after all.

                And so now here she was with her two young children in the frigid Wyoming winter, during the dead of night with no real idea where she was going to go. She was running out of gas, out of money and out of hope.

                Abbey glanced through the rear view mirror and saw her babies sound asleep with their heads together. A four year old and a six year old had no business being out in this kind of weather in the middle of the night…. And neither did their mother for that matter.

                Gazing at the clock, Abbey realized it was nearing one in the morning. She needed to find her and the children somewhere to sleep for the night… but she had no way to pay for that place. The only way to keep her children warm though the night was to continue to drive so the heat would keep the car warm.