PRINCE OF WOLVES By Susan Krinard

Luke spun away from her so suddenly that she flinched, backing away from the violence of his retreat. He began to pace the room like a caged panther, the slight hitch in his turns revealing what his face did not. The charged silence of the room grew heavy with tension, Luke came to an abrupt halt to fix her again with his icy gaze.

“Don’t play games of dominance with me, Joelle. You can’t win them.” As if to prove his point, he shifted subtly into a posture rife with menace, one that made him look bigger than Joey had ever seen him, she felt herself mesmerized into immobility, all her limbs locked and beyond her control. She was drowning again in the cold yellow-green glow of his eyes, but there was no desire there to soften the experience. Her breath came hard and fast, from some distant place, for an endless moment she struggled against what he tried to impose on her and broke free with a gasp, trembling with exertion and indignation.

She waited until the shaking had stilled, until she could look at him again without fear of losing herself. With infinite, glacial chill, she said, “I’m not interested in playing games with you, Luke. Of any kind. I am interested in only one thing. Do your job, and I’ll cooperate. Get me to where I need to go, and you’ll never see me again. We’ll both have what we want.”

Turning her back on him, she knelt by the bed and began to fold up the maps with precise, deliberately controlled motions. Behind her, Luke said nothing, she wondered why she felt so little satisfaction that he had no answer.

There was a businesslike and perfectly efficient remoteness between them for the remainder of the evening. Luke set himself immediately to sorting through her gear, pronouncing approval or disapproval of the various items she had assembled over the summer and dividing them into two neat piles. True to her word, Joey did not attempt to interfere with his decisions, although she could not resist occasional comments on the necessity of paring down her already scant “luxuries.” Luke reminded her that a lighter pack made travel that much easier, something she could not deny.

They came briefly to an impasse over her butane stove, however, Luke insisted that there would be more than enough dead wood on their route to supply fires of the handmade variety, and Joey’s argument about the possibility of inclement weather didn’t sway him. When he pointed out that they’d return home if the weather got that bad, Joey found it most prudent to clamp her mouth shut; Luke got his way and, with an expression of loathing at the gassy smell, consigned the stove to the farthest corner of the room.

“What about that?” Joey said as she adjusted the shoulder straps on her loaded pack, nodding at the larger pile of equipment that remained untouched where Luke had left it. “You aren’t planning to carry it in your arms, I take it?”

Luke looked up with narrowed eyes that almost hinted at humor. “Not at all. My backpack is at the cabin, since it’s on our way, we’ll stop by and pick it up there. In the meantime…” He paused to gather up a large canvas sack Joey had used for laundry. “This will do until we reach the cabin.” With total unconcern he dumped out the contents of the sack and began to refill it with items from the second, larger pile.

Joey undid the buckles of the hip belt and shrugged out of her pack, setting it down carefully before she replied. “If we need to stop by your cabin to pick up your gear, that’s fine. But I won’t spend another night in it.”

Deliberately studying one of the zippers at the top of the pack, she sensed rather than saw the shift in his stance, the sudden stillness that followed her words. After a moment the efficient motion resumed. “You won’t be,” he growled. “The first night will be a good trial run to see if you’re up to this. We’ll camp a few kilometers beyond the cabin. Will that be satisfactory?”

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