Page 34 of A World Enough

“Hey, Wolf, come and lie down next to me.”

“Why?” Brogan said.

“Because you are wearing a hole on the floor and making it impossible to sleep.”

Brogan came over and placed a kit bag underneath her head. She turned one way, then the other, and started to turn a third time when Camber grabbed Brogan’s T-shirt. “If you turn one more time, Wolf, I’ll find a sleeping draught in my satchel and send you to sleep that way.”

“I need to run,” Brogan growled.

“We can’t do that at the moment. So let’s try to distract you.”

“In what way?”

“Tell me about wolves on your world, Earth. Your pack.”

Brogan ran her fingers through her hair. “Like I told you when we met, I come from the Irish Filtiaran pack, our nickname is the sea wolves, we live on the coast and love to swim and hunt.”

“I can’t imagine wolves liking to swim.”

Brogan was hit with the memories of the last time she went swimming with her family. “We live on the coast, and it’s just part of who we are. If my family could see me now, they’d never believe it was me. Flying around in space…”

Camber turned over on her side to look at Brogan. “I’m sure I would find your world out of the ordinary. Are you the only pack on Earth?”

“No, there’s the Scottish Wulvers, the English Ranwolves, the Welsh Blaidds, and the American Wolfgangs. There are others all over the world, but those are the ones who we know best. We do have other paranormals.”

“Paranormals?” Camber asked.

“It’s a word we use to distinguish between people like us. Like, from what I’ve seen so far in this place, having powers of some sort is more normal and out in the open. On my world it’s the other way around, and we keep our powers a secret. It would cause too many problems for us.”

“Strange. I’d like to see your world. Do you miss it?” Camber asked.

“Yes, I miss everything. I didn’t think I’d miss my family so quickly.”

“Why?”

“I’ve been living outside the pack on my own for years now, but I saw them just recently before all this happened and I was thrown into another realm. I wish I’d had more time with them.”

“Why have you been living on your own?” Camber asked.

Brogan didn’t want to get into that now. “That’s a story for another time, when we have time and are less stressed.”

“If you don’t work in your pack, what do you do?”

“I’m a tracker, but that’s just a side job. I paint, I’m an artist. That’s my passion.”

Camber’s eyes went wide. “A dominant wolf is an artist?”

“That surprises you? Art isn’t a dominant or submissive thing. It’s a way of expressing yourself, your emotions. I find it calms me down.”

Camber smiled. “You are a lot more than I first thought, Wolf.”

“I hope so. You thought I was sent to kill you or kidnap you,” Brogan said. “I still might.”

Camber looked deeply into Brogan’s eyes, the deep blue pools of a sea wolf, and shook her head. “No, you haven’t got it in you.”

Nothing was said between them for second after long second. Camber was falling deeply into those wolf eyes until she finally got hold of herself. She covered the awkwardness with a laugh. “I promise you when we get to where we’re going, you’ll get to run with the wind in your fur. In the meantime, if you need to shift, go ahead.”

“I think I will. It would help,” Brogan said.