Wolfless Red

Chapter Four - Uneasy Truce

"Wait, Aldris — just a second." Kallis called after him, but he didn't slow.

Then he stopped, turned, and pressed a finger to his lips. A warning to stay quiet.

She had no idea what had shifted until she heard it too — footsteps, branches snapping somewhere close in the dark.

He held out a hand, motioning her toward him. She crossed the distance carefully.

He pulled her in against him, one arm locking around her waist, the other holding the knife steady, his eyes cutting through the trees. She felt every inch of the contact — her back pressed flush to his chest — and hated how aware of it she was.

The tension stretched as the footsteps drew closer. Aldris held the knife ready, unmoving.

Then a deer broke through the brush and bolted past them.

Kallis exhaled, the tension bleeding out of her. Aldris, however, didn't move. He stood there a beat longer, his arm still around her waist, his breath steady against her hair.

"You know?" she asked, her voice flat.

He let out a low, quiet laugh. "Could smell it half a mile out."

She went rigid. "You let me think we were about to be ambushed."

"That's fun." He released her and stepped back, that warm, infuriating smile playing at the corner of his mouth. "You're more interesting when you're afraid."

"You're insufferable."

"Probably."

She used the moment against him — knocked the knife from his grip, dropped him to the ground, snatched the blade up, and pressed it to his throat. He hit the earth hard enough to grunt, but when his eyes found hers, they weren't concerned. They were almost warm. Almost fond.

That only made her angrier.

She pushed the blade a fraction deeper, just enough to draw a thin line of blood. "You're coming with me to the Keep. Alive or dead."

He said nothing at first, the smile never leaving his face. "That's not happening."

Her frown deepened, and in the same breath he'd knocked the knife loose, flipped her onto her back, and settled into the exact position she'd just had him in. The weight of him pressed her into the earth, the knife now at her throat instead of his.

"Better," he said, smiling down at her.

Fury lit through her — hot and useless against the weight pinning her down. She struggled, twisting beneath him, and the motion brought her face too close to his, her mouth grazing his for one unguarded second.

Neither of them moved right away.

She felt the heat of his mouth before she registered what had happened, and hated how still she'd gone. He smiled into it — a slow, knowing thing — and she answered by driving her forehead hard into his.

His head snapped back. He climbed off her. She was on her feet just as fast, knife retrieved, leveled at him.

"So what now," he asked. "You kill me?"

"If I have to."

He studied her, unreadable. "I don't know what they promised you to bring me in, but whoever sent you on this knew exactly what it was. A death sentence."

Something in her cracked open at that — she'd always known her father hated her, but not that he'd use her as bait and call it honor.

"Get as far from the Circle as you can," Aldris said. "That's what I intend to do." A beat. "Goodbye."

He turned and walked into the trees. She stood rooted, unable to make her legs follow, and watched until the forest swallowed him whole.

***

Night had fallen again, the same as every night here — curfew, barricades sealed tight. Kallis moved through the empty streets with her eyes sharp, ducking out of sight once when a group of men came into view. Vigilantes or not, she wasn't interested in finding out.

Once they'd passed, she made her way toward Michael's house. She didn't know why she'd come — only that something about it had stuck in her mind, a loose thread she couldn't leave unpulled. The barricade gate stood open. She checked the surroundings before crossing to the door, moving slow, quiet.

It wasn't locked. The lights were still on inside. Empty.

She moved through the sitting room first, taking in every detail, then on to his bedroom — plain, unremarkable, the kind of room a man kept when he didn't spend much time in it. What caught her were the photographs lined along one shelf: Michael with a woman, and a boy younger than him standing beside them both, the same pendant she'd noticed on him.

Footsteps sounded somewhere behind her. She went still, then pulled a sword down from where it hung on the wall and slipped out of the room, blade ready.

The noise led her back to the sitting room, where she found Aldris, searching through drawers like he had every right to be there. She stopped in the doorway and stared.

"Kallis," he said, without turning around.

She froze. He hadn't even looked at her — there was no way he should have known.

"I'm one of twelve High Alphas in the world," he said, as if that explained everything. "Once I catch something, I don't lose it. Miles."

She lowered the sword slightly and crossed the room to see what he was doing.

"What are you doing here?" she asked.

"Helping this town."

"Helping." The word came out flat, disbelieving.

"Michael is the one behind the attacks. His old den is exposed now, so he'll move somewhere else. I need something with his scent."

"So you can track him."

He nodded.

She remembered the pendant.

"He wears one around his neck," she said. "There's a photograph inside. I saw the same picture in his bedroom."

Aldris finally turned to face her.

"That will work."

He started toward the bedroom.

"Wait."

He stopped.

"I want the truth."

He looked at her.

"The Circle calls you a traitor. Your own clan put a bounty on your head. Yet you're risking your life to save this town."

She stepped in front of him.

"I want to believe you. But I need to know who you really are."

Silence.

Finally, he spoke.

"I have a town to save."

He held her gaze. She searched his face.

He walked into the bedroom.

After a moment, Kallis followed.