Total pages in book: 46
Estimated words: 42861 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 214(@200wpm)___ 171(@250wpm)___ 143(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 42861 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 214(@200wpm)___ 171(@250wpm)___ 143(@300wpm)
“I… uh…”
He sighs. “I can smell him, Jem. I know he’s young. I know he’s hurt. I know you feel sorry for him.”
My jaw drops. “How the fuck did you know any of that?”
Gruff allows himself a smile of amusement at my expense. “You know our scents mean something, right? The way a buck smells tells everybody how old he is, how strong he is, how aggressive he is?”
“I did not know that.”
“Our scents tell one another everything we need to know. You asked about defenses. One of the defenses of this place is its scent.”
An idea pops into my head at this most inopportune of times. I can go from here to the city completely unmolested, probably, if I can just smell like Gruff.
“Don’t,” he sighs. “Just don’t. I can see your thoughts, human, they are written all over your face. They dance in your devious little eyes. My scent is mine alone, and you cannot take it. Even if you were to scrape the scent from me and rub it over yourself you would not smell like me. You would smell like me, plus whatever amount of time it had been since you gathered the scent.”
“Oh.”
“Where is the male?”
“I don’t want to tell you. I don’t want you to hurt him. He’s been hurt enough.”
Gruff takes me by the arms and crouches down in front of me, then says two words that give me hope.
“I know.”
8
“He won’t come near me,” Gruff says. “If he smells me, he’ll run. So you need to go down and bring him inside the bridge. You need to get him located in one of the rooms.”
“You mean I need to trap him.”
“You can give him the soap and the clothes and the food,” he says. “But it won’t change the fact that he is being preyed on.”
“And what are you going to do? I don’t see any other males here. These young ones must come by all the time. You don’t let them live with you.”
“No. I don’t,” he says. “Because young bucks who live with me soon learn to stand on their own feet. That’s the second line of my defenses, Jem. Around this region, a very large percentage of the bucks owe their survival to me.”
“So it’s your protégées who have been inflicting themselves on Billy? Beating him up? Doing I can’t even imagine what else to him?”
“I’m not a law man,” Gruff says. “I am not the horned sheriff of the woods. I am a buck with territory, and they are bucks without. Their world is a harsh one. They are not kind to interlopers. I have the advantage of being able to be generous, because I have all I need. Now. Go get him. I will make sure I am upwind.”
That sounds like a reasonable plan. I’m prepared to go ahead with it. I go off to try to find Billy, hoping he is still here.
“Billy?” I hiss his name to the foliage. I know he’s here somewhere. I can smell him. Or maybe not so much him. I can definitely smell the same scent that coated my dome.
“Billy? Are you still here?” I’m sure he’s gone. I wouldn’t have waited this long, especially if I thought there was some chance the biggest, baddest buck in the region might come for me.
“Shh,” Billy hisses from the depths of the bush. “They’ll overhear us. I thought I caught the scent of a buck nearby.” He sounds so scared.
“There you are. I thought you were gone.” I ignore the part about the buck nearby. Obviously there’s a buck nearby. Gruff is never far away.
A flash of red appears behind the green. He does an impressive job of hiding given how brightly colored he is. He still hasn’t emerged fully. He’s lurking. Waiting. It would creep me out if I didn’t know how scared he is.
“I got you some food,” I tell the eyes staring at me from the bushes. “But I can’t stay long. Gruff will notice that I’m gone, so grab it before I have to run.”
A red furred hand extends from the bushes. He’s spooked. Maybe his instincts are telling him not to trust me. Maybe it’s because I’m wearing Gruff’s scent like a cloak. I am owned and possessed. I am controlled, like a puppet.
There’s a high pitched shriek as Gruff bursts through the bushes behind Billy. I throw myself into the foliage to see what is going on, and try to stop Gruff from doing something terrible if that is what he was secretly planning.
Gruff is twice Billy’s size and has captured him by the hair.
“Don’t hurt me!” Billy’s cry is one of panic.
“Relax. I’m not going to hurt you,” Gruff says. “Stop struggling. You’re hurting yourself.”
“Let me go! I’ll run away! I’ll go all the way to the ocean. You’ll never see me in your territory again!”