My heart, fumbling in my chest like a caged, feral animal.
It begins huffing as if from frustration, exhaling a shrill hiss. Deciding there isn’t anything here, it turns around and walks away, so similar to the posture of a human. Chills crawl back under my skin like a flesh-eating virus.
Wait. Don’t move until the hissing simmers to silence.
Springing to my feet, I whip around toward the firelight beaming from the house that looks too far away to outrun a night dawper. Doubt overtakes me that I might not make it, that I probably won’t make it, and I ignore it with a grunt. There’s a shriek behind me, cold winter’s rage, and earth-vibrating footsteps that follow. The cold is peeling the skin off of my knuckles. A whiff of clipped wind brushes against the back of my neck—the breath of a predator closing in on me. The cottage grows in detail, more than a simple candle’s light in the distance.
Aforce, stronger than a bucking horse, throws me into a tree. As if the walls of my ribs have collapsed, I slide down the bark, unable to gasp for air. I fall between the giant curly roots swimming above the black soil mixed with snow. Oh, God—I’m going to die—
The air floods back into my lungs just in time to scream as it pins me down with gnarled feet. My body bucks and squirms and thrusts.
I squint up at the white eyes studying me, wide with hunger and strong releases of adrenaline in its veins. Another shriek escapes its mouth, spittle forming on the corners. A victory cry. I must be a far easier target than what this creature normally preys on. It drags its long, yellow nail across my torso, slowly and nearly as precise as a surgical movement. I bellow again. My voice slicing through the forest, through the ice on the trees, like a machete cutting through butter.
It sticks its bloody nails in its mouth, closing its eyes as it hums. I stare at it in horror, my joints gone rigid. I’m going to die this way. Blood courses into my neck and ears, sloshing around like the violent waves of the sea.
A large black mass of what looks like a wisp of smoke slams into the night dawper like a train running through a falling leaf. I shriek at the sudden attack, the weight and pressure lifted from my body. It’s an animal, a black beast ripping into the night dawper, tearing it limb from limb.
“Oh my God,” I say under my breath.
The black animal’s eyes flash up at me, a russet-cinnamon color, and I now catch the familiar details—awolf, agargantuan black wolf. But the markings of russet red on the paws, the chest, the small brows above the eyes—a beast said to be extinct.
A RottWeilen. They weigh four hundred to five hundred pounds. Beautiful creatures, but never seen. Not since the first settlement. The agronomists that worked near Scarlett’s and my home used to share stories about the massacre of the RottWeilen. They claimed their ghosts still linger around the red oak woods. There were hundreds of them, a massive pack of animals at the top of the food chain. For our settlers to reach the center of this continent and make it through the feral forests, they had to slaughter the pack of beasts.
I didn’t know there was anything that could take down a night dawper. It barks at me in between ripping into another body part, a low, thundering growl. Authoritative. Demanding me to leave.Now.
I stare a moment longer, halfway paralyzed. Then, I pick up my feet, my hand pressed on the cut on my stomach, and shuffle through the snow to the cottage.
The front door is wide open.
Aurick is home.
Before I can take another step—I see him standing inches away from me—a crossbow pointed at the mass of black fur and gray ribbons of flesh.
With a focused glare, he squeezes his finger to pull the trigger.
“No!” I scream and jump into his arms and swat away the firing contraption.
I quickly look over at the wolf that takes off running, stepping over the night dawper’s bloody, mangled body.
Aurick looks at me and back at the dead animal. “What the hell was that?!”
I watch the black wolf run through the snow, barely touching the ground in its long and majestic strides. Thank you.
I sigh in relief, feeling the stinging pain burn across my stomach.
“Sky? Why the hell did you do that?” He grabs my shoulder and gives me a light shake. “I had a perfect shot!”
I pull my hand away from my burning belly. My fingers and the palm of my hand are smeared in blood.
“Ow…” I wince. But when he notices the thin, not-so-serious cut, and his irritated expression falls, replaced with worry, confusion, panic—I can’t help but grin.
A wide, adrenaline-soaked smile.
He cocks his head back, more confusion. “What—are you in shock?”
I shrug. Throwing my hands in the air. “I feel—I don’t know—I just feel—”
He smiles back, nodding in agreement. “Alive.”
