"Any luck?" I whispered, trying not to disturb the dense silence of the woods too much.
"Rrrhmm," he grunted in response, the bear equivalent of 'still on it.'
We edged forward, our shoes muffled on the leaf-strewn ground. The moon played hide and seek behind the clouds, giving us fleeting glimpses of the blood trail. But even those started to give way as the droplets became scarcer.
"Damn," I hissed under my breath. "We’re losing it."
Daniel let out a low growl, head swinging from side to side. He was searching for something I couldn't see, hear, or smell. But he could. His bear senses were far superior to my human ones in this shadow-soaked forest.
"Still got it?" Hope tugged at the edges of my tone.
A deep rumble vibrated through him, up through my hand still resting on his back. It was all the confirmation I needed.
"Lead the way." I pulled my hand back to let him move unencumbered.
He snorted and pushed forward, his large form surprisingly graceful as he wove through the trees. I followed, trusting Daniel to guide us where we needed to go. Trusting that we'd find the unicorn before it was too late.
Daniel stopped short, then turned to look back at me. He swung his big head back around, indicating he wanted me to look through the brush. Our breaths came out in quick puffs visible in the cool night air as we peered around a bush. There, illuminated by a sliver of moonlight, was the unicorn, majestic even in distress. A man crouched beside it, in a dark robe, his hands covered in silver blood, working a saw back and forth on the unicorn's spiraled horn.
"Hey!" I shouted, as anger and shock flowed through me. "Stop!"
Daniel charged forward on all fours, his growl reverberating through the trees. The man's head snapped up, his eyes meeting mine for a fraction of a second beneath the shadows of his hood before he refocused on his gruesome task, sawing faster now.
My loyal powers blasted out, aimed straight at the man. At the same time, Beth stepped into the clearing, her fingers twitching in the beginnings of an incantation.
She spat out a word I didn’t quite catch. Magic crackled from her fingertips, weaving toward the man in a tangle of light and force.
"Get away from it!" I yelled again, already moving to intercept him if he tried to run. My adrenaline spiked, fueled by anger and the need to protect this poor innocent creature.
We closed the distance quickly, ready to do whatever it took to stop the man from harming the unicorn any further.
The man twisted, a sudden blur of motion that shouldn't have been possible. Beth's incantation, bright and snaking through the air, swerved at the last moment, missing him by inches as he contorted his body in ways that defied normal human anatomy.
"Damn it," Beth cursed under her breath, her spell fizzling out into the night.
Karma, swift and silent, should have hit its mark. But the man ducked, rolled, and sprang up like a coiled spring, evading the attack with an eerie grace. I had never known karma to miss a target before, but something about this man made me one hundred percent sure he wasn’t human. And whatever he was, karma appeared to have a harder time pinning him down. Which didn’t make me happy. Not at all.
I stretched out my hand again, letting my powers flow. "You’re going to get what’s coming to you!”
Again, he moved faster than my eyes could follow, and Ifeltkarma miss him. Felt it deep inside. The sensation was uncomfortable and wrong, like I wouldn’t feel okay again until he was properly punished.
"Son of a—" I clenched my fists, against the bite of the cold air on my skin. "How did he do that? He dodged it. He actually dodged it."
"No one can dodge karma. Emma, be careful, " Beth warned, her tone laced with disbelief and fear. "He's not normal."
No, he wasn’t. He was something far more dangerous than anything we’d faced before.
Daniel came roaring up to the man, but the man moved again, that fast as lightning movement, and… vanished into the trees. My bear shifter roared again, looking between the place he disappeared and me.
I watched the shadows where the man had disappeared. "You guys stay with the unicorn, we’ll catch him."
I bolted through the underbrush, Daniel's massive bear form crashing beside me. Our breaths came out in ragged puffs as we chased the elusive figure weaving through the trees. The man was a shadow, slipping through moonlit clearings and into the dark embrace of the woods with unnatural agility.
"Over there, " I pointed to a rustle in the bushes ahead. But when we got there, nothing. No man, no trace, just the shiver of leaves in the cold night breeze.
Daniel growled, frustrated. He sniffed the air, his head jerking one way and another. He’d go in one direction, then another, before letting out another frustrated growl. The scent trail had gone cold. How? I had no idea.
"Back to the clearing.” We retraced our steps, the eerie silence of the forest closing in around us.
