Running Wild

so Seamus wouldn’t hate me for it. No fatal injuries. None. They all recovered. I’ve been a good person since I met Seamus. I’ve not done anything to make him hate me.”
“You were careful,” Ri agreed, trying not to show his alarm. “But…” He was at a loss for words. He didn’t want to call Pete a stalker. Not at this moment.
“I want you to understand something.” The intense expression on Pete’s face as he leaned towards Ri did not bode well. “Seamus has made me a good person.”
Ri opened his mouth and closed it.
“He did,” Pete insisted.
“Maybe you did that yourself,” suggested Ri.
They heard the outside noise at the same time, soft but there, an animal presence. Pete turned to block an attack while Ri felt a sense of relief at the backup.
Jonah, in lynx form, and God he was beautiful, leapt through the screen door, tearing it open and landing with catlike grace.
He didn’t attack as Pete expected, of course he didn’t. Instead, he circled around, placing himself in front of Ri. Pete watched him, unsure of his next move, bracing himself for what Jonah did next.
The lynx walked over, head down, and rubbed his body against Pete, a sign of affection. He did it again, this time with a low purr, and Pete didn’t react beyond looking rather helplessly to Ri for explanation.
“They’ve been searching for you,” Ri told him.
“Trey will kill me,” Pete said flatly. It occurred to Ri that Pete’s experience with wolves hadn’t been a heck of a lot better than his own.
“No he won’t, and neither will Jonah.” Ri was confident of this. Though Jonah was a giant lynx and capable of taking a man down, even a large man like Pete. “He’s killed men before,” Ri added, because Jonah had told him his life story during their time together. “But he does not want to kill you. Look at him.”
Jonah had seated himself right against Pete’s leg. Pete began to shake.
“Sit down,” Ri told him, and Pete obeyed. “You should know, they intend to take you to a place called Wolf Town.”
Pete jerked his head up, incredulous. “They won’t have me, not after what I’ve done.”
“Trey thinks otherwise.”
Pete’s next words were soft, almost like he was speaking to himself. “I thought they’d take you to Wolf Town. That’s why I contacted them. To get you away from Seamus.”
Ri supposed he could be grateful Pete had chosen that strategy rather than do Ri bodily harm. Even if he didn’t find Pete’s thinking to be totally rational. “Pete, c’mon. You’re the one who’s a wolf.”
Epilogue
    Seamus had been delayed a day by the early December snowstorm. He’d left a message on the landline and hoped to hell Ri was snug in the house drinking tea and staying warm. Not caught in the blizzard.
    Yes, Seamus understood in theory that Ri was smart enough to look after himself. He’d managed it for all the years before they’d met. It nevertheless ate at Seamus’s gut.
    He parked at the bottom of the driveway. Not shoveled. That didn’t mean Ri wasn’t safe. It just meant he hadn’t gotten around to clearing the drive yet. It was really too long for shoveling, and they needed to arrange to get it plowed or something.
    Seamus pushed his way through to the snow, trudging the quarter mile up the drive to the house.
Surrounded by undisturbed snow. No sign of Ri. When he came to the front door, it was locked.
Fuck.
He opened the house, turned up the heat and feared Ri had been caught unprepared in the snowstorm. He pulled on his boots again. No reason he couldn’t scout out the area. He wasn’t stupid enough to go too far in this cold, but he couldn’t just sit inside the house either.
He walked out as far as he dared—next year he was buying snowshoes—and yelled Ri’s name. Silence was the only response, his yells muffled by the snow all around him.
They needed a better system, he decided. This was no good. Not when…
He stopped, twisted around and listened hard. Swore he heard something and started marching towards the sound.
The long whinny pierced the air, and Seamus bent over in relief. Not long after, Ri came into sight, black and beautiful against the stark winter landscape. Seamus felt like the relief pouring off him was palpable, and he was incapable of doing anything but stand there, waiting.
Ri was trotting, given the depth of the snow he couldn’t go faster, and it took a few minutes to reach Seamus.
He was smiling hard, and as Ri came up to him, Seamus threw