Zara's Wolf (Book 1 of the Zara's Wolf Trilogy) BWWM

6. Cody

I don’t know what to do about feeding this wolf following me around. It’s not like I have any idea on how to hunt or capture small animals that he could eat. I’m a city girl through and through. Never even had a pet before either.

Although, with Wolfie walking next to me, the thought of getting a dog didn’t seem too bad.  Someday, maybe.

I follow the stream for a few miles, and the wolf seems completely uninterested in leaving my side. I turn to him and try to shoo him away, to convince him that he’s better off without me, but he just wags his tail a little and gives me that panting, tongue-rolling out grin.

Stupid animal.

“Fine,” I sigh, “Stick around. Don’t expect me to feed you though.”

I spy a blackberry bush and eat a few of the ripe berries, but it’s insufficient for my appetite. I eat as many as I can before I can’t take any more of its tart flavor. Blackberries have never been one of my favorite berries.

Sitting down on a rock, I decide to take a little break from all the walking.

The wolf stops and lies down in the shade a few feet away from me, watching me as I massage my feet.

Why doesn’t he just go already?

He huffs a few moments later. I’m guessing he’s bored, or maybe hungry—probably both. He gets to his feet and begins to sniff around.

I watch him, but feel inclined to just sit and relax for a bit. A nice breeze blows over the creek, and I'm content to just sit and take it in for a change.

He circles around a tree and then disappears from my line of vision.

His absence makes me realize how much I’ve come to appreciate his company after such a short period of time. He is king of the forest, after all. He knows how to survive—I don't.

Maybe he’ll come back? I whistle and wait.

I look up at the sky peaking between the leaves in the trees high overhead. I can’t see much, but I can just sense that it's getting later in the day and night will be upon me before I know it.

Then what will I do?

A soft howl greets my ears and squeezes my heart. I’m positive that’s him responding to my whistle, but what does it mean?

“Please, come back,” I whisper.

For the first time in years, I feel truly alone—and lost. I still don’t know how I came to be in the middle of the wilderness, far away from home. It makes no sense at all.

I rub my temples, feeling a headache set in. Now is not the time to get a migraine. I don’t have my migraine medicine with me, and my migraines can be strong enough to knock me unconscious.

Maybe that's it? Maybe I had a migraine?

That still doesn't explain how I came to be out in the middle of nowhere with no memory. My migraines have never affected my memories before.

It’s probably a hunger-induced headache. I get those sometimes.

I wonder again at the possibility of someone slipping something into my drink at the club with Ava. It's totally plausible. And with my migraine medicine, maybe there was a bizarre chemical reaction that induced the short-term amnesia?

“I bet that was it,” I mumbled to myself just to fill the silence.

I wish I knew who the jerk was that slipped the drug in my drink. I’ll kick his sorry ass to the curb so he’ll never do this to someone else.