The Wolf in His Arms (The Runes Trilogy) Read Online Free PDF Page A

focus on the run. She
loved this quiet time, before Darrin was rushing around for work, before Sable
was up, before she was running to daycare and then work. This time was a
precious, daily ritual that she loved.
    Jenna
turned as the trail merged with a state park trail into darker woods. Some
mornings she took their dog, Petey, but the small terrier slowed her down,
often almost tripped her, and she figured what protection did he really offer
anyway? She consciously checked for her pepper spray and realized she’d
forgotten it. She pushed the dark thoughts out of her mind and concentrated on
her breathing.
    She had
just reached mile three, and the twenty-four minute mark, when a loud
noise—muffled by the music, broke her stride. Ignore it, she told herself and
resumed her pace. She would turn around in another half mile—and she was
determined to make it.
    A few
minutes later, Jenna turned at the three-and-a-half mile mark and jogged back
down the trail toward home. She picked up her pace. Her goal was to make the
three miles back at a better time. Jenna reached the three-mile marker and cast
her eyes side-to-side, the odd noise still lingering in her mind. As she
passed, the song on her iPod faded out, and she heard the noise again. She
stopped suddenly and pulled the earphones from her ears. The music sounded
distant and tinny as a new song started.
    “Hello,”
Jenna called as she peered into the woods just off the trail. The small light
on her dog-walking cap lit up the trees and branches, leaving gaping canyons of
darkness in the deeper woods. “Hello?” She repeated, certain she had heard a
woman—in distress.
    She
heard the noise again, not quite a cry, or a whimper. Jenna trembled. “Do you
need help?”
    She
reached in her pocket, realizing she’d left her cell phone with her pepper
spray. Her jaw tightened and every fiber of her being told her to run, come
back with help. She fought the urge, thinking that minutes mattered when
someone was injured. She took a step into the woods, listening. Snow dusted the
brown leaves on the forest floor. Twigs beat against trunks in the breeze with
a distracting tapping.
    The
February air suddenly felt bitter against her sweaty skin and damp clothes. A
violent shiver shook her. She told herself that she had imagined the noise. She
started to turn for the trail. Again, the soft cry of distress stopped her.
    Jenna
took another step into the woods. She rounded another tree.
    Her
scream sent sleeping birds into the dark air, their calls echoing across the
forest. Jenna stumbled back, her eyes wide, disbelieving that she had found
someone so badly injured. A woman, around her own age sprawled across the leaves,
blood soaking her tattered clothes. Her skin was stained in bloody smears.
Great gashes covered her arms, legs, and across her chest to her neck, where
blood flowed heavily onto the ground and puddled around her. Jenna fought the
urge to flee and fell to her knees. “I’ll help,” she whispered.
    The
woman muttered.
    Jenna
shook her head, not understanding, thinking the woman was in shock. Jenna
grabbed a piece of the woman’s shirt and pressed it to her neck, trying to stop
the blood.
    The
woman muttered again.
    “What?”
Jenna asked.
    “Run,”
the woman whispered.
    Jenna
heard a branch snap behind her.

 
Wednesdays with Adam
    Ilene
turned off the car and immediately felt the cold radiating through the glass
into the warm bubble. She tightened her scarf, and before opening the door, she
looked at herself in the rearview mirror. She could only see her eyes, but she
felt that they told everything. Dark circles hung under them like shadowy
moons, and the lines around her eyes had deepened. She felt that in the last nine
months, she had aged a decade.
    With a
portentous sigh, she threw the door open and braced against the February air.
The air clutched her face with its cold hands and she shivered. The morning sun
did little to cut through the gray clouds that