Crissa's Mate

Chapter Fifty-Two

Covering David back up carefully with the blanket, Crissa realized he might take many hours to recover. She had seen his motorcycle in the living room of the cabin where they had left it in the corner days before, but she realized he would not be returning on it to his apartment for some time, possibly not until after another day and night. This was his first trans-mutated ordeal since returning from Germany, she knew, and remembered how he had to slowly return to his consciousness after entering the hotel. Crissa nevertheless felt her heart warm to him as she looked down on his sleeping face. Eventually, she was relatively sure he would return to his healthy human, and loving self.

To pass the time, she began to clean the cabin and found to her surprise, piles of his former wolf fur in the corner of the living room, where it had undoubtedly shed his body during the dramatic transition. She worked diligently to sweep it up as best she could, dumping the evidence outside, trying to keep the cabin looking as un-lived in as possible.

As she waited, seated on the floor next to the bed, she could feel the cool mountain air blowing into the cabin from the still-open front door. And as she stood to go back inside the living room to close it, she heard a faint sound in the adjacent room. Standing at the doorway of the bedroom and looking inside to the main room, a sudden panic came over her. She could see two large male wolves which had silently entered the cabin from the open door. They were both standing in a menacing position midway into the living room.

Looking right at her with their gray-blue eyes, both wolves remained motionless but began to show their teeth and growl loudly. Crissa quickly stepped back into the bedroom and slammed the door behind her, locking the two wolves out. Why had they come, she frantically wondered, feeling her heart beating wildly. She quickly went back over to the bed and then heard a great thud as one of the animals apparently ran forward and hit the door from the other side with force. It then began to scratch furiously on the wood, trying to compromise the barrier between itself and she and David. An involuntary scream came out of Crissa's throat as she backed up further against the bed, hoping not to witness the wooden door break open, releasing the two large animals into her presence.

The frantic scratching on the other side continued loudly. And also did the sharp cries of frustration vocalized by the two wolves as they now worked together trying to get in. They seemed determined to break down the door or scratch through it with their large clawed feet. Crissa felt helpless and totally vulnerable with David still unconscious next to her. She instinctively wished she had any sort of weapon to protect them both with—and all the while giving away to her fears of the bedroom door flying suddenly open.

"Go! Go away!" she screamed across the room. "Go away!"

She then mustered all her courage and ran toward the closed door and hit it loudly with her open palms to try and scare the wolves back outside with the sound. This was unsuccessful, as they kept scratching relentlessly. She could hear and see the scratching was making some progress as several small splinters of paint and wood had appeared from under the closed door and which had blown into the bedroom.

Crissa feared greatly that the two determined animals would eventually destroy the barrier and rush into the bedroom to attack her and David. Running over to the closed bedroom window, she pulled back the curtain slightly and could see the car she had borrowed from her father was not that far from the cabin. She knew they had only two choices at that point—to stay in the room and possibly confront the lethal jaws of the beasts as they entered or climb out the window and make a mad dash for the car.

As the pounding and scratching on the door became more intense, Crissa reached down on the bed and began shaking David's bare shoulder, trying to wake him. Her better judgement told her it was not good to disturb his recovery, yet she saw the situation quickly becoming one of life or death. She then shook him harder and began to plead with him to awaken.