His massive size already told me he wasn’t natural, but seeing him in full daylight, realizing that while I’d been praying to heaven for help...
I’d accidentally summoned something straight from the depths of hell.
And when you stare a demon in the face?
Well, you run like your life depends on it.
You sprint as fast as your legs will carry you, regardless of whether those legs have ever worked properly before.
When he explodes through the ice like some kind of mythical torpedo, I’m already in full flight.
He’s definitely going to kill me. Classic predator behavior—take your prey to a secondary location. How did I forget every piece of stranger-danger advice I’ve ever received?
As a disabled woman, I’ve taken every self-defense class available. When the first instructor said a person’s best chance is always to run, I remember thinking,Well, I’m screwed.
But here I am. Actually running. Actually fast.
The problem is, I’m not dealing with any ordinary predator.
And I am absolutely being hunted. I confirm this when I glance back and let out a terrified shriek. The bird-man-lion creature is airborne again, water cascading off his enormous wings with each powerful beat.
His head swivels as if he’s searching for something.
Maybe he has poor eyesight with those strange feline pupils. Maybe he’s like the dinosaurs inJurassic Parkand can only track movement. Not that this stops me from sprinting like my survival depends on it—because I’m pretty sure it does.
Fresh adrenaline floods my system as I race toward a rocky outcrop ahead—massive granite boulders that jut from the snow like the spine of some buried giant. The stone is dark gray, almost black, worn smooth in places by countless storms. Between the rocks, I can see shadowy gaps that might offer shelter, or at least concealment. If he really is like those movie dinosaurs, maybe I can hide among these ancient stones and he won’t?—
I scream as clawed hands seize me under my arms, lifting me clean off the ground. My legs bicycle uselessly in empty air as the pristine snow field disappears beneath me—endless white broken only by my own frantic footprints carving a desperate path toward those distant rocks. I’m swept into the sky above a landscape so vast and untouched it looks like the world’s beginning.
“Let go of me!” I shriek. “Put me down!”
I look around frantically as we soar through crystalline air. Unlike our takeoff from Alaska, there’s nothing below us now—no divided landscape, no signs of civilization. Just an ocean of white that stretches to every horizon, broken only by the dark slash of pine forests and the occasional rocky outcrop thrusting through the snow like ancient monuments. No lights from human settlements anywhere, not even the thin line of a distant road. It’s like flying over the surface of an alien planet.
The snowy peaks of the mountains surrounding us have peaks so high that they disappear into the clouds. And everywhere is that silence that only comes from true wilderness. The kind of quiet that makes you understand how small you really are.
“Are you certain you want that?” he rumbles.
My entire body shakes from the freezing wind... and something about his voice that makes my bones vibrate. This is all wrong. Completely unnatural.
“Let me go!” I scream again.
And then—oh Jesus—he actually does.
He releases me, and where moments before there was controlled flight, now I’m in absolute freefall.
I can’t even draw breath to scream as the white, packed snow rushes up to meet me at terrifying speed?—
I flail helplessly, as if my small arms could possibly cushion the impact I’m seconds away from?—
Then I’m caught again. Roughly, around my waist, sharp claws slice through my shirt as I’m snatched from above.
My descent stops with jarring abruptness, and we’re climbing again.
Unable to fight anymore, I go completely limp, my adrenaline finally depleted.
My body spins in the turbulence from his massive wings beating around us—whoosh-whoosh-whoosh—the sound surrounding us completely.
I brace for a brutal landing, if not to be dropped again entirely.
