Oh hell no.
I ran.
Behind me, jaws snapped shut on empty air close enough to ruffle my hair. The monster's growl vibrated through my bones, more sound than any animal should make. Then the moon vanished behind clouds, plunging the forest into perfect blackness.
I crashed behind the widest tree I could find, knife clutched so tight the hilt groaned. My lungs burned, but I forced each breath through my nose, silent, shallow. The metallic tang of blood filled my mouth where I'd bitten my cheek.
Somewhere in the dark, I heard it sniff. Then again. Wet nostrils flared.
It was hunting by scent now.
Fuck. This wasn’t the badger or fox I was expecting. This was a giant monster.
“Come out, and I will go easier on you, little human.”
The words slithered through the trees in a voice that shouldn't exist. The half-growl, half-mangled human speech was like something learning to talk by tearing out a man's vocal cords first.
Lies. He was going to eat me up and spit my bones out in a fucking cave somewhere.
My stomach lurched as a wet, rhythmic slurping cut through the dark. It took me three horrifying seconds to realise that the beast was drooling. The sound was obscene, like a starving man staring at a banquet he couldn't touch yet. A fat droplet hit the leaves near my hiding spot with an audible splat.
Gross. Absolutely fucking gross.
Some primal part of my brain short-circuited between terror and disgust.
The voice was distorted and not human. My mind froze when I heard the loud slurping noise, and I realised it was the beast's drool.
Gross.
The monster sniffed again, closer now. My fingers turned numb around the knife.
Then I felt it. A traitorous, hysterical laugh bubbled in my chest. The kind that comes when things are so horrifying they loop back to absurd. I bit my tongue hard enough to taste blood.
Not now. Not here. My nervous laughter would get me killed.
The dark clouds parted enough to allow the moonlight to shine through the forest. I stared at the luminous globe of white light but denied what my brain was telling me.
I was being chased—No. Hunted by a werewolf.
God help me, they were real and in Wales.
The snarl ripped through the air an instant before claws seized me. The world became a whirl of shadows and moonlight as the creature spun me with terrifying ease. My back hit the forest floor hard enough to knock the breath from my lungs.
I swung the knife up or tried to. A massive paw swatted it away like it was a child’s toy. The blade disappeared into the undergrowth with a mocking thud.
Hysterical laughter bubbled up my throat as I stared past the monstrosity pinning me down, up at the indifferent stars. This was how it ended. Not with a bang, not with some grand finale. Just me, some nobody office worker from London, about to be mauled in the Welsh backcountry.
The beast's weight pressed me deeper into the earth, its growl vibrating through my ribs in a way that felt disturbingly intimate.
Hot drool splattered across my cheek. I squeezed my eyes shut, waiting for the pain.
It never came.
When I dared peek, the creature's face was...changing. The muzzle seemed to be melting back into something almost human, the fur receding from its chest in uneven patches. My relief lasted exactly until my gaze travelled lower.
“Oh, fuck no,” I whispered.
The massive, red erection bobbing above my stomach was the final straw. My brain, bless its cowardly heart, took one look at that nightmare and pulled the emergency exit cord. Darkness swallowed me whole.
