Free Alex: A Rylee Adamson Short Story by Shannon Mayer Page B

her blades.
    A snicker slipped out of me.
    “You, shut it.” She didn’t even glance at me, but I knew she was talking to me. I covered my muzzle and just watched.
    “We seem to have a problem. I do the killing around here, not you and your pack. Got it? Tell your bitch that, would you?” She stepped forward, forcing him back with her crossed blades.
    The wolf snarled, but gave way with her pressure.
    The woman lifted one blade and pointed it out toward the cornfield. “Take your loser buddies and get the fuck off my territory. Next time, I’ll be making a wolf rug for my fireplace.”
    In a whirl of dark brown fur, the wolf spun away and loped out to the edge of the crops. Tipping his head back, he let out a long howl that shook me to the bone. The howl was one of death and promises, my brain translating it into what I understood. A threat.
    The woman slammed the door shut, rattling the glass pane. With quick, smooth motions, she slid first one sword and then the other back into their sheaths. The handles hung low on her back. How did they stay in when they were upside down? There was no way I could ask her.
    You are in a world of magic and wonder, anything is possible, wolf. Great. Just what I wanted to hear.
    “What the hell am I supposed to do with you?” She placed her hands on her hips as she stared at me on the floor.
    I peered up at her, found myself staring into her eyes. Three colors stared back at me, gold, green, and a rich brown that made me think of chocolate.
    “Alex hungry.”
    Her eyebrows shot up, and I couldn’t help but stare. She was really pretty. Like hump her leg pretty.
    The air in my lungs froze. I did not just think about humping her leg, did I?
    “Well, here, you might as well eat my breakfast.” She pointed at the table and I slowly rose up, resting my nose on the edge of it. “Smells yucky.”
    God, did it ever smell like crap. Something healthy. I poked at the gelatinous goop with a claw I suspected was tofu, grateful I didn’t have to feel it for real.
    “It’s good for you.” She leaned over, pulled a chair to her, and sat down. With a single swing of her body she propped her boots up on the table. “Now, why were they chasing you?”
    I cringed and slid down so that I was under the table. Creeping across the floor, I made my way to the base of her chair. “Alex no knows.”
    Arrrggghhh! I wanted to explain, to tell her that the woman in the club, Beauty, she’d done this to me. Somehow. I just couldn’t remember, and then she set her wolves on me, that they were going to kill me. But instead, I grabbed the chair legs and rested my head on her upper thigh. “Stay here. Alex safe.”
    “Oh, no.” She swung her legs off the table and pushed my face from her lap. “Nope, that isn’t going to happen. You can stay for the day, have a rest, but that’s it. Got it? Then you have to leave.”
    I wanted to stay with her, for more than the obvious reason that she was stronger than me, that the wolves respected her. I narrowed my eyes, and took a deep breath, breathing her in. Tasting her.
    Like a brisk fall day, the smell of rain and wind cascading down a mountainside, and the hint of honey. My brain registered and identified her, and like a machine, kicked out a name for her.
    Tracker.
    “Alex stays.”
    “For now. You stay here, I have things to do. They shouldn’t be back.” She walked across the room, the heels of her boots clacking on the tile and then thumping down the wooden hallway. As ridiculous as it seemed, I believed her, believed that they wouldn’t be coming back for me. That she would protect me. Even though they were five times her size.
    Relief flooded through me. There had to be a way to get her to let me stay. Hell, maybe she could help me out of this mess I was in. Maybe she could un-stick me from whatever this was that had happened to me.
    The sound of her boots thumping in a rhythmic pattern drew me down the hallway after her, slinking along the