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I follow it, slower now. Her scent’s on both sides of the trunk, and I’ve put mine through it too. Where the path narrows, the marks overlap until I can’t separate them. I’ve hidden her trail for her. I have to check the ground beside it for where she turned off.

A few strides farther, damp grit shows on a patch of bare rock. I step onto it and find her scent on the leaves at its edge.

Perkele. I’d like to see her face right now.

When I get hold of her, I’m lifting her off her feet by the waist. That shirt’s going up over her hips and my tongue’s going back in her, until her thighs shake around my head the way they did in the rain. She can gloat after that, if she’s got the breath.

The stone runs out under a spread of roots. I’m past them when I get her scent from my right, much stronger than anything on the trail.

Close.

It’s coming from a tangle of brush, and it gets stronger with every step, so I go faster than my thigh likes. I keep my ears forward for her feet.

The branches are thick at shoulder height. I turn sideways between them, catching one with my left hand so it won’t drag over the scratches. Her scent’s just beyond it.

I lean through the gap.

A strip of cloth hangs from a forked twig. That’s not her.

I stay there looking at it with the branch still bent in my hand. Then I let a long breath out through my nose, let the branch go, and reach for the cloth.

It’s got a hem on one side and a torn edge on the other, and it’s my shirt. She’s ripped a strip off the bottom and left it here for me. That was a good shirt.

I lift it from the fork, but a loose thread catches on my index claw. I ease it off and take the cloth between my thumb and the two blunt fingertips. When I rub it, I get smoke and her skin, plenty of her to bring me straight through the brush.

I look back through the branches I’ve parted. The rock where I turned is beyond them, and her real trail’s back there somewhere. I’ve come all this way off it for a piece of my own shirt.

She could walk straight through that gap. I’ve had to turn sideways to get to a rag. That shirt was already up at her thighs when she ran out, and she’s just made it shorter.

Riesa.

I want her under me with her legs around my waist and her fist in my fur, pulling until I bend. I told her not yet with the head of my cock held against her, wet and open, and I’ve thought about that one push every night since. I’m hard enough to ache, standing in a bush with a scrap of cloth in my hand, and I put it to my nose anyway and breathe her in. That doesn’t help.

When I catch her I’m going to mount her. I’m going to shove my cock into her cunt until she’s taken all of it, with my claws sunk in the furs either side of her, and rut her until she can’t tell me anything. She’ll be dripping with what I’ve spilled in her and still pushing back for more. I’ve kept this valley quiet for two hundred years, and I want her screaming in it, loud enough that every animal on this mountain knows to keep clear of my den. Then I’ll put my teeth in her skin and take her blood while I’m still in her.

She’d better still be grinning.

I put my head back and breathe in, with the cloth loose in my hand. The bellow shakes my ribs coming up. I open my mouth and let it out, rough and loud through the trees, and it climbs into a rasp until it breaks and I’m laughing.

Chapter 31

I’m halfway over a root when Rauk bellows, and I stop with my foot still on it.

It goes up rough and loud through the trees, and then it cracks and he’s laughing. I turn toward it, grinning so hard my cheeks hurt.

Found it, did you?

I stand there for another breath, listening. He’s still laughing, and I want to be close enough to see his face. He’ll have that strip of shirt in one enormous hand, and I hope he had to get right into the bushes for it.

I’ve never heard him that loud. The most noise I’ve had out of him was in the rain, groaning into my hair, and this is a lot bigger than that. I want to find out what it takes to get that bellow out of him with me underneath it.

I could call back. Instead, I step over the root and keep running.

He can come and tell me about it himself.

My wet foot wraps slap against the ground, and a loose bit of hem keeps brushing my knee. I tuck it through the belt as I pass between two pines. My back hurts every time a foot comes down, so I take shorter steps.

Running’s not helping with the other thing, either. The scrap of cloth between my legs has been damp since he had me up against the wall by my pallet. It rubs every time my legs move.