Wild Moon (Kingdom of Wolves #1) - C.R. Jane Page 0,3

out here, I’d seen the map many times as Alistair tried to plan world domination or whatever it was that he was interested in. Which meant the howl I was hearing was not a good sign.

Fuck, I sighed. I really was cursed. Deciding to proceed with my plan, I finally made it to the roadway, praying the next car that came by didn’t contain a psychopath. I’d definitely already had my fair share of those.

I waited.

And I waited.

And I waited some more.

How was it I couldn’t get cars off my ass earlier, and here I was, actually wanting cars to be on my ass, and they were nowhere to be seen? Had I taken a wrong turn somehow and stumbled upon a road that no one went down? I squinted at the road, trying to see if it looked like it was in disrepair. I hadn’t noticed any out of the ordinary bumps.

“Are you fucking kidding me right now?” I screamed at the night sky, cursing at it for what felt like the millionth time.

Sighing and deciding I was going to just have to walk off this mountain myself, I set off down the dark road.

Weren’t the stars supposed to be brighter out here? Where was the freaking moon?

I stumbled over a rock and barely caught myself with my hands. Of course, catching myself meant scraping my palms on the coarse asphalt and dropping my flashlight.

“Shit,” I whispered, picking myself up and cradling my hands against me as the pain shot through me.

And there was a wolf howl again.

Perfect.

I’m sure the smell of my bloody palms was going to get me eaten alive.

Wouldn’t that just be the most ironic way to go…ever.

I snorted, hysterical laughter threatening to spew from my mouth. I was definitely losing my mind.

Something shifted across the road just then, and I froze, the threat of laughter abruptly coming to a screeching halt.

I picked up my flashlight and began to jog down the road, despite the fact that I knew you were never supposed to run from a predator.

Where were all the fucking cars?

When nothing attacked me from behind, my confidence grew and I started to run faster, despite the fact that my legs were screaming in protest.

I came to a halt when a road that diverted from the main one I’d been running on appeared in front of me just a ways off. I hesitated and tried to squint farther down the main road. I should just stay on this road, right?

The sound of something running down the main road seemingly straight towards me made the decision for me, and I darted down the roadway and quickly realized that it was going downhill rather than uphill as the highway had headed. That was a good sign I thought.

I sighed again as I slowed down to a quick walk, the effects of the crash and my extremely poor diet over the last few weeks doing me in. If I had to run again because something was after me, I was probably going to have to accept it.

Damn those Cool Ranch Doritos.

The air was freezing here. I had on a stained I Love New Mexico shirt I’d found in one of my convenience store runs. It was pink, so I knew I had to have it. Alistair had hated pink, banned it from my wardrobe in fact…

Was it going to last forever, this way that my heart would squeeze every time I thought of him? How was it possible to hate someone with every fiber of your being but still feel like you couldn’t breathe without them?

I stifled a sob, determined not to cry for him.

“Never again,” I whispered to myself, even as his face appeared in my mind as I remembered the way he’d been looking at me right before he ripped my world into a million pieces that had no hope of ever being put back together.

I was so lost in my four hundred and twentieth pity party that it took me a while to notice the lights beginning to pop up in the distance and the enormous wooden sign with the symbol of what looked like a wolf carved above a scrawled ‘Welcome to Amarok.’

Amarok? What kind of name was that? And why hadn’t I seen this on the map I’d poured over before setting off today?

I pushed myself to go faster, the lights giving me hope, even if I was wary of getting so close to civilization. The places I’d picked had been out