The snarl freezes me. Everything else goes quiet. The birds, the breeze, even the panic inside of me. It all flatlines compared to that threatening sound and the sight of those teeth.
The wolf, if you can even call it that, takes one step forward, its massive paws sinking into the dry earth like it’s made of something heavier than flesh and fur. Golden eyes lock onto mine. They’re intelligent, curious, and seem way too fucking smart for an animal. I don’t move. Not a muscle. The only sound is my heartbeat thundering in my ears and the rasp of my shallow breath through cracked lips.
Then, without warning, the thing starts sniffing me. Like full-body head-to-toe kind of sniffing. It makes one slow circle around me. My hand inches toward the rifle again, but I stop after a second. If it wanted to kill me, I’d already have my throat ripped out. And there’s no way I’m fast enough to get a bullet into this monster and put it down before it takes me apart.
It huffs out a breath, then sits. Just fucking sits. What the actual hell?
My voice comes out hoarse. “Are you... a dog?”
It does the ear turn head tilt dog thing, and I swear I can see the exasperation on its face. Out of nowhere, a sparkly haze fills the space around the wolf, and I stumble back with a cry of shock. One second, it’s a massive wolf and the next it’s an equally large man. A naked man, built like a myth, and grinning at me like I’m his favorite joke.
“Do I look like a dog?” he asks in an amused tone, his voice rich and accented like something out of a medieval tavern, almost Scottish-sounding.
“Why are you naked?” I blurt the first thing that pops into my stunned brain.
He tosses his long, full mane of golden hair, exposing slightly pointed ears, and bellows out a laugh. “You want me to shift with my trousers on? Tear through my best leathers every damn time?”
“I mean... maybe bring a spare pair?” I shake my head at the stupid coming out of my mouth right now.
He stretches like he just woke up from a nap while looking around. “Not exactly carrying a satchel, am I?”
My hands still tremble from the adrenaline and whatever the hell just happened with the wall of dirt and now I’ve got some naked fantasy book warrior sniffing and laughing at me like this is his idea of fun. What the fuck is even happening right now?
“What are you?” I finally ask.
“Brannick,” he says, grinning again. “Warrior of the Ninefold Hunt. Fae-born.”
My eyebrows climb in confusion. “Fae?”
“You really are clueless,” he mutters, then jerks his chin upward. “Your moon cracked and broke everything. Now your world and mine are bleeding together.”
I squint at him. “What do you mean, bleeding together?”
“The Veil is thinning,” he states, like I’m supposed to know what the fuck a veil is. “Things that were separate now touch. Travel between the realms was lost long ago. We haven’t crossed the veil in over a thousand years.” And then he shrugs one muscle-bound shoulder as if to say, it is what it is.
My brain stutters. This guy’s talking about... other worlds. Magical barriers. Shit, that sounds like it belongs in a D&D campaign, not real life. But then I remember the wall of earth and the way it just erupted from the ground around me without warning. My heart kicks up harder as I turn and place a hand against it.
I shake my head. “No. That’s not... that can’t be real.”
“Tell that to the wall of earth you just raised,” Brannick says, still watching me like I’m a weird bug. “You bent the ground, Rock Snack. You called the stone to you. That’s no accident.”
“Rock Snack? Don’t call me that.”
He chuckles. “Fine. Stoneheart, then. That’s what you are, earth-bound, anchored to it. You have the power to call it to you, to move it at will.”
“I didn’t call anything. I was panicking,” I argue.
He narrows his eyes. “You really don’t know. You don’t know you’re gifted?”
“I’m not. I’m human.”
That makes him go still.
His expression shifts from amused to stunned. “You’re human? Fully?”
“Yeah. Why? Is that... bad?”
Brannick exhales slowly. “In my world, humans went extinct a thousand years ago. Too soft with no magic. They couldn’t survive what came.”
