Mercy Thompson 01-05 - THE MERCY THOMPSON COLLECTION

city scents and sounds. The forest scents were no less strong, just different: fir, aspen, and pine instead of exhaust, fried grease, and humans. I heard the distinctive rat-a-tat of a woodpecker, and, faintly, the howl of a wolf—too deep to be that of a timber wolf.
    The fresh snow, which was still falling, had done a fair job of hiding their tracks, but I could still smell them. Bran and his mate, Leah, both had brushed against the bough of a white pine. Charles had left tracks where the ground was half-sheltered by a boulder. Once my nose drew me to the right places, I could see where the old snow had been broken by paws before the snow had begun, and the tracks weren’t difficult to follow.
    I hesitated when the wolves’ tracks began to separate. Bran had taken the new wolves—there seemed to be three of them—while his sons, Charles and Samuel, and Leah, Bran’s mate, broke off, probably to hunt up game in the hopes of chasing it back to the rest.
    I needed to find Bran to tell him what had happened, to get his help for Adam—but I followed Sam’s trail instead. I couldn’t help it. I’d been in love with him since I was fourteen.
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    Not that I am in love with him now, I assured myself, following his tracks down an abrupt drop and back up to a ridgetop where the snow wasn’t as deep because the wind periodically swept it clean.
    I was only a teenager when I last saw him, I thought. I hadn’t spoken to him since then, and he hadn’t tried to contact me either. Still, it had been his number I had called for help. I hadn’t even thought about calling anyone else.
    On the tail of that thought, I realized the forest had fallen silent behind me.
    The winter woods were quiet. The birds, except for a scattering of nut hatches, cedar waxwings, and a few others like the woodpecker I’d heard, had gone south. But there was an ominous quality to the silence behind me that was too heavy to be only winter’s stillness. I was being stalked.
    I didn’t look around, nor did I speed up. Werewolves chase things that run from them.
    I wasn’t really frightened. Bran was out there somewhere, and Samuel was even nearer. I could smell the earth-and-spice musk that belonged to him alone; the wind carried it to me. The tracks I was following had been laid several hours ago. He must have been returning the way he’d come; otherwise, he’d have been too far away for me to scent.
    The new wolves were all with Bran, and the one following me was alone: if there had been more than one, I would have heard something. So I didn’t have to be worried about the new wolves killing me by mistake because they thought I was a coyote.
    I didn’t think it was Charles stalking me either. It would be beneath his dignity to frighten me on purpose. Samuel liked playing practical jokes, but the wind doesn’t lie, and it told me he was somewhere just ahead.
    I was pretty sure it was Leah. She wouldn’t kill me no matter what Carl had implied—not with Bran sure to find out—but she would hurt me if she could because she didn’t like me. None of the women in Bran’s pack liked me.
    The wind carrying Samuel’s scent was coming mostlyfrom the west. The trees on that side were young firs, probably regrowing after a fire that must have happened a decade or so in the past. The firs were tucked together in a close-packed blanket that wouldn’t slow me at all, but a werewolf was a lot bigger than I.
    I scratched my ear with a hind foot and used the movement to get a good look behind me. There was nothing to see, so my stalker was far enough away for me to reach the denser trees. I put my foot down and darted for the trees.
    The wolf behind me howled her hunting song. Instinct takes over when a wolf is on the hunt. Had she been thinking, Leah would never have uttered a sound—because she was immediately answered by a chorus of howls. Most of the wolves sounded like they were a mile or so farther into the mountains, but Samuel answered her call from no more than a hundred yards in front of me. I altered my course accordingly and found my way through the thicket of trees and out the other side where Samuel had been traveling.
    He stopped dead at my appearance—I suppose he was expecting a deer or elk, not a coyote. Not me.
    Samuel was big, even for a werewolf. His fur was winter white, and his eyes appeared almost the same shade, an icy