Home > Where Foxes Hunt with Wolves(4)

Where Foxes Hunt with Wolves(4)
Author: K.A. Merikan

Air got stuck in his throat when the giant by the door grabbed his neck and freed him of the rifle before Radek could have managed to pull the trigger.

There, he’d gotten distracted, and was now defenseless.

The shadows inside the cottage were so deep even he couldn’t see his opponents clearly, but when he grabbed the man’s wrist to pull the hand off his throat, he found it hard as steel. But Radek wouldn’t give up, and writhed as hard as he could, not ashamed by the pathetic whimpers he was making. The booze was evaporating from his blood at record-breaking speed.

“Did anyone else follow you?” the clothed one asked the naked guy in Ukrainian, confusing Radek further. So he hadn’t followed a wolf? It was just his luck to end up in the middle of a drug-smuggling operation, because booze confused his senses. There had been howling, though. He was sure of that.

“Yeah, but this idiot parted from the rest.” The naked one huffed. “Don’t be too free with your words, he could understand.”

The tall stranger shook his head, but when he leaned in, the moonlight captured his face through the open door, revealing thick brows over eyes like polished steel, which seemed to reflect more light than reasonable. Or maybe it was the alcohol. The man also had a scar. Thick, as if it had been sutured too late, it ran vertically across the eye, ending on a slight dip in the cheekbone.

“Walking around at night, intoxicated, with a loaded rifle? You could kill someone,” he said in Polish, but his speech betrayed him as someone raised beyond the border with Ukraine.

Radek stared up at him, desperate to de-escalate, and spoke as soon as the hold around his neck lessened. “I was just hunting a wolf. And I… I won’t tell anyone about the weed. I smoke myself. I’m a supporter of legalization!” But his Adam’s apple bobbed in panic under the massive paw of a hand.

“What weed?” the man asked, and his hand flexed against Radek’s throat, as if he were trying to make a point.

Radek was a hundred percent certain he could smell it all over the hut. “The… I mean… Maybe I’m just smelling it on myself.” He dared to smile.

“Yev?” the naked man started

The stranger holding Radek still pulled him out of the shed, into the light, where his face was finally revealed. The black hair brushing the man’s shoulders wasn’t enough to soften his somber features. His nose was somewhat flat and severe, his chin—pronounced and, like his cheeks, covered by a dark stubble. He was tall, strong enough to move Radek like a mannequin, and if he chose to break Radek’s neck, there would be more than enough places in the woods to hide a body so it would never be found.

“I’m the forest ranger here, and you broke the law,” Yev said sternly.

Radek stared at him, dumbfounded. “Say what?” He glanced back at the darkness inside, but the naked man didn’t follow them into the snow.

“You heard me. Do you have any documents on you?” Yev asked, still holding on to Radek’s arm, and the strength of his grip made Radek unwilling to struggle.

“N-no.” Radek glanced down his bare chest, which now felt painfully cold. “But I’m Radek Nowak, and I live in Dybukowo. I’m local. And a member of the Hunting Association.” The paperwork should be somewhere at home. Then again, his dad had been the one to pay for both their memberships, and he died two years back, so maybe Radek’s permit was out of date?

“You pointed the rifle at a person. The wolf is a protected species, and you’re drunk,” Yev said, dragging Radek along the shallow ravine, away from the dark little shed and the naked Ukrainian man.

“B-but it’s my birthday.” It wasn’t, but he’d try anything to slip out of this one. The earlier adrenaline was fading away, and he could feel the cold nipping at his skin.

And now, a complete stranger, who claimed to be a forest ranger despite obviously being a foreign drug smuggler, was dragging him farther away from the safety of his cabin, and the friends who’d let him go into the woods on his own.

Emil would have stopped him. Or gone with him, if Radek couldn’t be stopped.

“Shut up. I’m taking you to the police station. They’ll know what to do with you,” Yev said with more conviction as they passed through dense evergreens.

“What? The police? You cannot be serious! How would you even prove what I did or didn’t do, huh?” Radek tried pulling away, but it was like struggling with a bear. It infuriated him that he was so much weaker than this guy, and the hours spent on the treadmill now seemed like a waste of time. He should have done weight-lifting with Jan.

At least he wasn’t about to get killed over the supposed forest ranger’s little side business, or it would have already happened.

Yev sighed and pulled Radek through a row of juniper bushes, onto a narrow road entirely filled by the breadth of an old pickup truck in some dull green-brown color. “I’ll give them a statement. And that firearm surely has your fingerprints all over.”

This wasn’t going Radek’s way at all. He needed to think on his feet, and fast. “Ooor… we could forget all about it, and you could come over to my party? Lots of young, friendly single women there. I could introduce you as the man who saved me from a wolf. Let’s say you strangled it with your bare hands. Or would that be too much?”

Yev grumbled, dragged Radek to the passenger's side of the vehicle, and tossed him inside. “I’m not looking for a woman.”

“Dude, please, don’t be like this.” Radek slid right back out, but his foot slipped, and he landed in the snow. “Are you saying…? I mean no disrespect, but would you rather be introduced to a guy?” Radek glanced up at Yev in a whole new way when that idea wormed its way into his brain as he rolled to his knees. If Yev swung that way, they could definitely work something out.

The man stilled, and with that table turned, Radek took in his sturdy form, his muscular legs and broad shoulders hidden under a thick jacket, the somber features and bright eyes.

Maybe Yev could be reasoned with after all?

Radek bit his lip. What the hell? He could always dismiss any adverse reactions by saying he was drunk and joking around. “I know this one freckled ginger guy. He is such a slut. Your dick would love his throat.”

Yev froze, a monumental presence above Radek’s kneeling form. There was a faint change to his scent, a drop of blood in a pond, but Radek could still sense its aroma. “What?”

Jan always laughed that Radek could’ve been used as a gay detector. It was hard to explain, but he could sense it if men were attracted to him, and it went beyond what people called a gaydar. He could smell their arousal. So yes, he’d dare.

He licked his lips. “I’m saying you’re really handsome, Mr. Forest Ranger.”

Yev’s nostrils flared, and he leaned that bit forward, as if he were about to place his hand on Radek’s head, but then his brows lowered, and he hauled him up, back into the vehicle. “I don’t fuck drunk idiots.”

“How about sober idiots?” Radek grinned, increasingly amused by this interaction now that they were away from the creepy naked man and the wolves.

But he only got the door slammed in his face in answer.

 

 

Chapter 3 – Yev

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