Luc looked down at her. Cocking his head to one side he realized she was shivering. “Damn! Can’t let her freeze, but… Damn!” he thought. Looking around, he headed for a dense stand of trees. Under one of the big pines, it was only damp. Luc sat her down and tried to dig through one of the packs for anything to get her warm. He gave up in frustration and shifted fully. He nosed himself under her poncho, and tried to wrap himself around her all at the same time.
Meg couldn’t figure out what was going on, and then the brainfog lifted. Luc was trying to warm her up before hypothermia set in. “Oh! I get it Luc!” she said to the wolf. She popped the sides of her poncho to make a big sheet and draped it over the wolf and herself. The wolf wrapped around her and pulled her to him.
“Silly soft one,” the wolf thought. He brought his paw down on her leg to make her stay still. Then he nuzzled her closer to him and wrapped his tail up and around until it almost touched his nose. Then he went to sleep.
Meg didn’t have any choice but to curl up to the huge wolf. She was afraid to doze off, but realized that she was much warmer and it was probably safe. She dozed off as the wolf began to snore.
Meg woke. Something was different. It took her a moment to realize that the rain had stopped. The sun hadn’t come out, but the steady drip of rain had ceased. She was still wrapped up in the huge wolf, but she was warm and just damp.
“Hey Luc, wake up. The rain has stopped,” she said. The wolf didn’t move. “This is crazy. I’m talking to a huge wolf that doesn’t speak English. Damn! Luc! Hey you!” she called again, not knowing what else to do.
The wolf heard a noise far off. He’d been dreaming that his mate was curled up in his paws. The noise got louder. He shook his head and realized that he was under something. Then he smelled the soft one and realized that she was making the noise. He wanted to go back to sleep, but she had grabbed his fur and shook him.
“Grrrrrrrrrr…..” the wolf growled in deep subvocal tones. The sound sent a shiver thought Meg, but she didn’t stop.
“Hey! Stop that! Shift or whatever the hell it is you do!” she said, trying not to freak out.
The wolf let the growl taper off. He could smell she was scared, but she didn’t stop. He blinked a few times and then started to shift. He’d let the other one handle the soft one.
Luc felt himself come back slowly. He could hear Meg saying something to him, but he didn’t exactly have all the connections right yet. “Juhsht mihn ut,” he tried to say around a tongue that was still too long. He yawned and stretched, trying to finish shifting.
“About time you came back,” Meg said. “I woke up and the rain was gone. I tried to get your wolf self to let me go and he growled at me.”
“Shorry, Mehg,” he said. He stretched his neck again and things popped. Wiggling his jaw, things finally slipped into place. “Dihdn’t meahn to schare you,” he said apologetically. “Buht you scaared meh when you fell into the wahter,” he said becoming more articulate with each word. “I didn’t have any choice but to grab you like I did and then all I could do was think about trying to get us to safety.”
“I understand, it just scared me when he-you growled. It felt like something rumbled all down my spine and gave me the shivers,” she said as she reached out and touched Luc.
“Sub-vocals,” he said. “Wolves use them as emphasis. The hearing is different, so sub-vocals really get your attention. He looked around to see if any of his clothes had survived. He found a sock and both his boots, but his jeans and undies were shredded. No sign of his shirt at all except a cuff on the ground.
“Meg, could you hand me my pack?” he asked.
She smiled and handed it over. Luc dug out clothes and some of the food. He handed her some trail mix and jerky.
“Eat, we’ve still got to get down the mountain, and I know that neither one of us has any energy to spare,” he said. Once he was dressed, he grabbed some jerky and then a handful of trail mix. He drank some water and handed the water bottle over to her. “Here you go,” he said.
A few minutes later, they stuffed things back in their packs and headed down the trail. The trail still ran with water and was muddy. It took them forty-five minutes to reach the trail head. Luc had never been so happy to see his Subaru in his life. He dug the keys out of his pack and got the doors unlocked as fast as he could.
“Get in and get it started and turn the heat up full blast,” he said handing the keys to Meg. She got in and did as he asked as he threw their gear in the back. She had just gotten back in the passengers seat when he crawled in the drivers side. He sat down and let the heat play over his body. The windows steamed up from all the humidity. Ten minutes later, Luc was beginning to get warm. Meg’s clothes were steaming. A few more minutes passed and then Luc turned on the defroster. It took nearly five minutes to clear the windows. As soon as they did, he put the car in gear and headed down the mountain road towards home. Luc took care driving as the road was muddy and in some places, the water stood inches deep on the road. He was concentrating so hard, he almost forgot that Meg was in the car.
Luc looked over at Meg when they reached the highway. He was going to ask her which house to head for, but she was asleep. He turned left towards his house. It was closer. Thirty-five minutes later, he pulled into his driveway.
“Meg, wake up,” he said softly.
Meg blinked and looked at him owlishly. “Where are we?” she asked.