Wilderness

Chapter 5

  I turned and glared at Raven and stood there with my hands on my hips, “Does it kill you to actually try and be nice?”

  He growled at her and shook his head, “Look, I’ve just had an argument with my mother I don’t need a bad mouth human girl insulting me. You want to die in the cold, I’m all for that. However, River would not be very fond of me if I allowed that to happen and seems how he’s my best mate I would rather he not hate me.”

  I smirked at him, “Do you have a best friend complex?”

  He looked at me confused, “Best friend complex? What is that?”

  I giggled, “You know, like you have feelings for him.”

  Raven continued to look at me like I had two heads, “Of course I have feelings for him. We’re part of a pack. Feelings are a part of it if you want to survive.”

  I giggled again, realizing he didn’t understand what I meant, “No, feelings like love. Like you love him as more than a friend.”

  Raven’s eyes widened and he shook his head, “Yeah, um… No! That’s weird. We’re wolves, remember. We are meant to find a female and mate with them, not males!”

  I rolled my eyes, “You also live a double life as a human. You might want to start getting with the program. Guys being into guys isn’t wrong.”

  “You cannot carry onto the next generation if you aren’t mating with a female. It is in our DNA to mate with only a female. Mating with a male isn’t heard of.”

  I sighed, “Whatever. Can we just go find some place warm?”

  Raven nodded and we started walking. He remained silent for a few minutes and then he sighed, “Look, I don’t try to be an ass, it’s just hard for me to be nice to others.”

  I looked up at him and he was looking down, his face turned away from me so I couldn’t see him, “Why is it so hard?”

  He kept his face turned away from me and he shrugged, “I guess because my mother never showed my kindness. The only time she did was when she took me in, but even then it wasn’t kindness.”

  I looked down at my bare feet and shivered, wrapping my arms around myself tightly, “Why was that?”

  He sighed, “You ask a lot of questions, you know that?” He shook his head, “My mother didn’t take me in because she wanted to. She took me in because my father told her too.”

  “Your father?”

  He nodded, “Yeah, Father was the one that found me. He brought me home and told Mother he had found me. She resented me because she couldn’t have her own pups, and because of that Father loved me more than anything. Mother hated me even more once Father died. I guess after all this time, Mother rubbed off on me more than my father ever did.”

  “Oh, I’m sorry,” I looked up at him and put my hand on his shoulder.

  He shrugged my hand off him and shook his head, “No need to apologize. The den is up ahead. We’ll get you warm and them wait for River to come back and then we can explain what we can.”

  I nodded and then wrapped my arms around myself, “Are you sure I can go into the den?”

  He looked down at me and shook his head, “It’s not the smartest idea we’ve ever come up with, but it’s the only thing we have right now. We need to warm you up, otherwise you will die. I may not like humans, but I sure don’t want you to die because I didn’t try to help you. Besides if you did die, River would never let me live it down.”