Boelik (22 page)

“
Of course not.”

“
I vote we kill him,” the
icy female said.

“
I vote not,” Opal and
Droka said at once.

“
I agree with them,” the
other man agreed. The woman snorted.

“
What, then?” asked the
gruff man.

“
Just give them more time,”
Droka replied. “I promise, we—they—can handle it.”

“
They’d better be able to,”
the woman said. “Or else I will.”

“
Don’t worry. They’ve got
it,” Droka replied. “So, what else do we have?”

Bo snuck away from the dragon’s meeting then,
melting into the darkness and fleeing until he was well out of
hearing range. Once he felt safely out of the way, he looked up
into the dark sky, the stars glittering above him. “So I should
find this ‘Sault’ to start with. Then what? Run around the
forests?” he thought aloud. Bo shook his head, closing his eyes and
sighing. He stood like that for another moment before an idea came
to him.

“
They mentioned some
friends,” he muttered, putting a finger under his lower lip in
thought. “And a white she-wolf. Wolf changelings, then? I would
assume that would narrow it down, but only to someone familiar with
those around here.”

Bo turned his gaze back to the sky as he
heard the dragons leaving. “Well, I certainly won’t be asking
them.”

***

It was another week before Bo found where he
needed to be. He managed to get directions in a town not too far
from the mountain and from there found his way to the Sault—Sault
Sainte Marie, as he discovered, was its proper name. Then, from
there, he traveled south. He ended up in a small town called
Pickford at some point and decided that he’d gone too far.

Bo backtracked to the north and checked in
the woods by the main road. He wandered through the summer shade,
watching carefully for any signs of wolves or people. The forest
got quite dense for a while, and Bo thought he might have to find
another way before the trees began to thin again and he emerged
into a much more traversable area.

He only had to walk a little further to
discover a pair of teenagers walking across his path. The boy
stopped first, turning to face him and glaring at him with brown
eyes as he lowered his head warily. Bo raised his right hand
non-threateningly, keeping his left still under his cloak. The girl
with scarlet hair that reminded Bo of Ryan’s, turned to look at her
companion as he changed into a black wolf and snarled at Bo.

She looked at Bo with marble-colored eyes,
only a little greener than Ryan’s. What Bo had to say, however, was
aimed at the boy. “You must be the demon.”

“
What are you doing here?”
the girl snarled, changing into a white wolf before Bo’s eyes. She
stepped out of her clothes just like the boy had and stepped up to
be on par with him, mimicking his stance.

“
I’m here to give you a
hand with that,” Bo answered, nodding to the black wolf, hand still
raised. He was trying to be as abstract as possible about the black
until he had a feel for how the she-wolf perceived her companion.
Come now, I’ve been searching for a week. Give me
a rest, he
thought, exasperated as the two continued to
bristle.

“
That
happens to be a friend of mine, and I’d
appreciate that you’d at least acknowledge
his
gender,” the girl snarled. Apparently, she saw the
boy in a good light, even though Bo was certain this was the white
she-wolf the dragons had spoken of. Though she seemed to be in good
health, if a bit stiff.

“
Calm down, girlie,” Bo
tried to say calmingly, a bit distracted with how she still seemed
to be speaking English to him, “I just said—”

“
Don’t
call me ‘girlie’! And I heard what you said,”
she growled back, thrashing her tail in a cat-like manner.
This is what I get for trusting the tongue of a
present-day bachelor, Bo
thought as Kian crossed his
mind.

While Bo was trying to find different words,
the boy piped up. “What do you mean, give us a hand? Looks like
you’ve only got one yourself.” He spoke coldly to Bo who glanced at
his left side before returning his gaze to the two wolves.

That’s it, the first lesson
begins now,
Bo thought, his face twitching into a snarl for
a moment before disappearing from his spot.

In an instant, Bo had the boy in a choke-hold
with his neck and paw in his right arm, still leaving his left
motionless as he lifted the wolf’s back paws a couple of inches off
the ground. As the black coughed, the girl whipped her head around
to spot the source of the sound. “Hey!” she yelled immediately,
leaping at Bo and grabbing his forearm in her jaws.

Bo flashed the boy a look of surprise before
letting go and shaking the girl off, darting back to his original
position. He ignored the blood that welled on his arm from her
teeth as he let it rest at his side.

The boy gasped for air and the girl glared up
at Bo. “What was that?” she snarled, putting herself in front of
the boy. “I don’t know who you are, but about now I don’t care. No
one treats my friends like that.”

“
I wasn’t going to kill
him,” Bo replied calmly. “I was just putting him back in his place.
Though, I could have killed him if I had wanted to. And you as
well. Isn’t that proof enough that I
won’t?
”

“
No,”
she replied, staring back at him, her wolf’s eyes
a piercing blue. At that moment three more wolves burst out of the
bushes; a gray, a scarlet, and a strange black and
midnight-blue.

“
What’s going on?” the red
demanded of the girl instantly, his chest heaving. He had a scar
from above his left eye, across his muzzle, and to his right
cheek.

“
An intruder, obviously,”
the boy replied, now mostly recovered. The girl didn’t take her
eyes off Bo.

In a moment, the red was beside the white,
glaring at Bo with stormy gray eyes. “Tell us your name and state
your business,” he commanded, lifting his tail.

“
My name is Boelik. I’m
here to give you a hand with him,” Boelik said, gesturing to the
boy. He was careful to use ‘him’ this time.

“
Boa-lick? Sounds like he
has an issue,” the gray muttered in the background.

Boelik gave him a baleful glance. “Boelik.
Not as in licking a constrictor.” The gray sniffed haughtily.

“
How exactly do you plan on
‘giving us a hand’ with him?” the blue and black wolf asked with a
mild tone, his yellow eyes piercing Boelik.

“
By teaching him
self-control, to start. I heard he went on a rampage in demon form.
I’m just here to help.”

“
How do you know about
that?” the charge snarled, coming back up beside the white wolf,
opposite the red.

“
Overheard some dragon
talk. They have spies everywhere, you realize.”

“
And what makes you think
you can help him?” the red asked.

“
That, sir, is a personal
secret that I have no desire to share at this time. Let it suffice
to say that I have personal experience with people like him.”
Boelik was struggling to remember his etiquette—mostly because it
had been a long time since he’d last used it.

“
And how are you going to
prove that you won’t betray us?” the gray asked, bristling. His
green eyes narrowed at Boelik and seemed to be
irritable-looking.

“
Well, I guess you’ll just
have to trust me on that,” he replied. At that moment, the girl
shuddered throughout the entirety of her body, then sat and cocked
her head at Boelik.

“
I think we can trust him,”
she said, a hint of a question in her voice. It was as if a switch
had been flipped in her attitude—rather than glaring at Boelik as
though she wanted to kill him, she simply gazed at him with a
quizzical expression.

“
How do you know?” the boy
and blue-and-black asked simultaneously, with various levels of
aggression. The blue sounded more curious than anything.

“
I dunno,” the girl
replied, continuing to stare at Boelik. “By my instinct’s telling
me that he’s okay. Kind of like the time with you, Gen,” she said,
looking at the black wolf.

Gen growled one last time at Boelik, and then
sighed and glanced away. “All right. If you say he’s fine, I’ll
work with him.”

“
You see? I’m on your
side,” Boelik said.

“
Don’t cross me,” the girl
snarled, shooting her sharp eyes at him once more. “After having
seen what you can and will do, I’m not going to trust you right
away. Not a chance. Not like I could really stop you with that
speed of yours, but that doesn’t mean I wouldn’t try if it came
down to it.”

Boelik held up his hand in a position of
surrender once more, arm stinging where he had been bitten. “I’m
just here to help.”

“
Then follow me,” she said,
nodding to the red as she stood. He returned her nod, and she
turned, waving her tail in a gesture for Boelik to
follow.

“
What’s your name?” Boelik
asked after her.

“
I’ll tell you later,” she
replied. “Now hurry up and follow. There’s a whole pack for you to
meet.”

###

This is a side story for a series Amy is writing
about shape-shifters, like Kian and Ryan.

Amy Lehigh

Amy is a proud dog owner, animal lover, and Upward
Bound student. When she isn’t reading or writing, she’s probably
daydreaming, fishing, or riding four-wheelers. She enjoys a life
full of dog fur with a Pomeranian/Japanese Spitz mix named Rusty
(and yes, he is the white fur-ball in the photo).

Thank you for reading my book. If you enjoyed it,
won’t you please take a moment to leave me a review at your
favorite retailer?

Thanks,

Amy Lehigh