I awoke with a start from the strangest dream I’d ever had, stranger even than Matthew Jones coming in through my bedroom door with a firefighter’s ax.

The cast of Goodfellas had been in my kitchen cooking up pasta and talking back and forth in their Jersey accents about how they were going to stuff me in a trunk, then take me out to a cornfield somewhere in Nebraska and bury me. Joe Pesci’s character even looked at me, framed in the doorway to my bedroom, and asked if I was talking to him.

I shivered as I lay there in bed, cold sweat drying on my forehead, and pulled the covers tighter.

But then, after I’d flipped the pillow over to the cool side and rolled over on my side, I heard it. The wolf howl.

It cut through me like a hot scythe through butter, slicing into the core of my being. I sat upright in bed, my breath coming faster and faster than I’d ever experienced. I threw back the covers and leapt out of bed onto the cool hardwood.

I couldn’t explain the emotions inside me. They were one part fear, two parts attraction. Not to the wolf, but to the idea of the wolf. The idea of running free, of racing through the woods with my pack, my mate. And then it dawned on me—wolves were gone from Colorado. Or, at least, they had been, except for the one Gladys had seen outside my bedroom window the night before.

There had been a wolf outside my bedroom window. And now there was one outside my bedroom window in a completely different house.

I swallowed hard and let that sink in for a moment.

What the hell was going on? Was I being stalked by some wolf? Some creature that wasn’t even supposed to be anywhere around here?

Whatever was going on, I instinctively knew it wasn’t normal. It was like looking at an optical illusion on one of those gently sloping hills that didn’t match up with the background, where a car that’s placed in neutral appears to roll up the incline instead of down. Something just felt off. Not bad or evil. Just strange.

“Matthew,” I whispered, panting a little as I went to the bedroom door. “Matthew will know what to do.” I stepped out into the hallway and, feeling a little ridiculous since I hadn’t heard the wolf howl again, knocked on his bedroom door.

“Matthew?” I asked through the door. “You awake?”

No answer.

Maybe his great hearing, where he could hear me scream from all the way outside in his truck while he was driving by, didn’t apply while he was asleep? I knocked harder.

Still no response.

I looked down at the doorknob, unsure if I should breach his privacy. Could I? I mean, what if he slept in the nude or something?

I shook my head as I licked my lips. No, bad idea. That was a bad way to disincentivize me from barging in.

My breathing began to quicken. Somehow, I felt that the wolf was coming closer to the cabin, its four paws pounding into the dirt and rocks as it rocketed toward me. How was I feeling this? Why?

I quickly decided that if I didn’t get an answer on a second try, I would just go in. “Matthew,” I said more loudly as I rapped my knuckles on the door. “Are you awake?”

Nothing.

My mouth suddenly dry, I reached down, grasped the knob, and turned the handle. I closed my eyes tightly, hoping and not hoping simultaneously that he had at least most of his clothes on, and burst inside like an annoying kid sister. “Matthew?” I asked.

Still not a word.

I opened one eye and cast a look at the bed.

It was unmade, the blankets twisted and unkempt. But it was empty.

My heart began to beat faster. Oh no, oh no.

“Oh, my God,” I said, my voice almost breaking, “where did you go?” I backed out of his room and headed down the hallway and around the corner into the living room, the tips of my fingers slowly guiding me down the planked walls.

The living room was dark, with the only light coming in from the umbrella of stars that seemed to surround us entirely this far up the mountain. I called out to him again, but didn’t receive an answer.

And that was when I heard it.

The panting.

The panting of something like a dog outside on the porch.

I sunk low, nearly squatting, and snuck through the living room. As I passed the coffee table, I glanced down and saw Matthew’s pistol in its holster.

Where had he gone? And why hadn’t he told me where he was going or taken his pistol with him? “Oh, my God, oh, my God.” What was I going to do?

I heard a low whine out on the porch. It was calling to me, beckoning to me like some sort of old friend who I’d only just recently met.

It was here. The wolf from last night was here. I had no doubt about it. Had it come inside? Taken Matthew somehow? I bit my lip hard, struggling to hold myself back from going outside and joining it.

What worried me the most, though, was that my worry only seemed skin deep. Rationally, I knew I should be afraid. But deep down? I couldn’t feel the fear. Instead, I could only feel a weird, demented fascination with the creature that must be on the other side of the door.

But, mesmerized or not, I needed to be safe, despite my ridiculous lack of fear for this creature. I reached down and grabbed Matthew’s pistol from the coffee table. I drew it from the holster and flicked the safety off. Gripping it in both hands just like my Uncle Zeke had taught me to all those years ago, I eased myself to the front door. I pressed my ear to the solid wood fixture, closed my eyes as I held my breath, and just tried to listen.

There was only the sound of heavy breathing. Nothing more, nothing less.

I reached down and pulled the door open, stepping through it with my pistol lowered, raising it again as soon as I was on the other side.

Looking back on what happened, it was all my fault. I shouldn’t have had my finger on the trigger when I didn’t know what I was walking out into. But the shock seemed to be almost literally that, causing my finger to twitch, and Matthew’s gun to roar and jump in my hand just as I saw him standing there.

The gun tumbled from my fingers in horror.

He was naked except for a bundle of black cloth he held against himself like he was Adam after taking a bite of apple and just discovering a fig leaf. His other free hand was out in front of him, palms out. A scarlet ribbon of blood ran down from the right side of his chest. I stared wide-eyed in horror.

I’d just shot the man of dreams.

I’d just murdered the man I wanted to spend the rest of my life with.

I screamed.