Page 287 of Pucking Feral: Part Two

I stop beneath the tree, my mask tilting up and eyes sweeping the canopy branch by branch. Checking every shadow, every dark mass that could be a body pressed against bark. The leaves are thick but not impenetrable, and the moonlight is generous enough to separate trunk from limb from empty air.

My prey is gone.

I circle the base of the oak, inspecting the trunk. There's broken bark where her feet kicked chunks loose. A smear of dirt from a hand on the lowest branch.

But these are from climbing.

The ground is covered in thick leaf litter with fresh leaves scattered on top of it, shaken loose by her going up the tree. If she landed on it, or ran through it, I would have heard the leaves crunching.

Which means she went through the thickest section of canopy, branch to branch, before dropping somewhere I couldn't see.

This little omega just fucking tree-hopped away from me.

My mouth curves behind the mask.

The hunt just got interesting.

I move through the forest in expanding arcs.

Nothing.

Her scent is everywhere. She scattered it. The panties, the bra, whatever else she tossed from that duffel bag while she ran. She turned the entire hillside into a minefield.

And now I'm the one feeling watched.

My little huntress.

I climb to a rocky outcropping and crouch, tearing the mask off and holding it low to kill the light. Without the neon tubing, I'm as dark as the trees around me.

Think.

She's competitive. She won't hide forever.

She'll want to see if I'm still looking.

I stay low and wait.

The wind shifts.

One thread of honeysuckle cuts through the ambient noise of scattered decoys, warmer than the rest.

Warmed by her body heat.

She's northwest. Moving fast.

I drop off the outcropping and land silently on the forest floor, pulling my mask back on.

The clearing I enter next is smaller than the last one. A rough circle of silvery grass ringed by dark pines, open to the sky and the moon above. A river must be somewhere nearby, close enough to hear but hidden behind the slope.

My eyes find her immediately, standing on the far side.

Flashlight off, hanging from her fingers at her side. Coat open and feet planted.

She's been waiting for me.

I step out of the treeline.

She steps forward.