The girl’s shriek had Aiden wincing, his posture shrinking considerably. Despite his worried, stammered apology and asking if she was okay, the girl reacted rather violently, kicking out at him as she pushed herself away across the snow. With a quick scurry of large paws, the boy backed out of range of the girl’s flailing extremities, his concern mixing heavily with surprise and confusion. He’d just apologized and wanted to know if she was okay, and here she was shrieking and kicking and pleading.

A bit dumbfounded in his expression, Aiden could only conclude that he’d hit her harder than he thought, and, oh gosh, did he feel bad about it. Ears hugging his skull in humble regret, he tried again to apologize with a rather panicked, “Sorry! Really, I’m sorry!” It seemed to fall on deaf ears, though, as the girl jumped in a whole different direction.

What did he want? Aiden blinked in confusion, giving his head an unsure shake from side to side. The girl was hysterical, looking around all panicked like she’d just found herself ambushed by a whole herd of angry raccoons instead of accidentally trampled by an idiot boy who fell down a hill. And, yes, he did feel like an idiot. He should have been watching where he was going. It wasn’t like that embankment had jumped out of nowhere at him, or anything. He’d just been too busy looking over his shoulder to see what was up ahead. Stupid, really.

Before Aiden could answer the girl, she beset him with another, probing question, and his eyes followed her gaze to where the carcass had fallen in the snow. Was food what he wanted? Well, that was a trick question. Of course he wanted food, but he sort of already had food. Maybe it wasn’t a lot, but that was okay. He’d find more event—Wait, what? Eat her?

“I don’t want to eat you,” Aiden said in deep, unhidden confusion as he leaned away and fixed her with a cautious stare. “I just want to know if you’re okay.” Though, honestly, he wasn’t sure whether he was more concerned with her physical or mental wellbeing at this point. Had he hit her so hard that he’d rattled her brain, or was she already like this? He didn’t know, but he was absolutely positive he had no intentions of eating her. Or anybody, for that matter. Wolves didn’t eat wolves. That was just…wrong.