Huntress

Chapter 10

I had seen a variety of werewolves over my time with the team. I had seen fat ones with big bellies, ones so white they stood out against the snow. Like any animal, they came with variations, no matter how slight or how massive they might be. At their core, they were all the same though.

But this one, this one was a nightmare. And the bloody irises were only the beginning of it. He was not black. He was a star-less night in the dead of winter. A normal wolf should have weighed as much as an average man. This creature could not have weighed less than a small pony and he stood just as tall as one. How had he managed to creep up so silently when he was so massive?

I had heard tales of werewolves, creatures that could turn bloodthirsty at the mere sight of a human. I had lived that reality. I knew it was their nature. Hunt. Kill. Destroy.

But this abomination didn't lunge. It didn't flash its teeth or even snarl.

It just watched me.

I took a shaky breath. Surely, something had to be amiss. This was not their nature. He would snap. He had to. Whatever trance had fallen over him would break. Or maybe he was just toying with me for now.

But he just studied me.

Armond said I wouldn't need arrows out here. He said it was just a surveillance trip, nothing more, nothing less. A small knife. That was all I had.

And maybe I should have realized that this was my lucky day. I was face-to-face with something wretched, something beyond what I had encountered previously and it wasn't trying to disembowel me. This...thing, some god among the werewolves, was just watching me.

But all my training led me to think of the glory, of the success. Success today just meant getting out of here alive. I could take out the royals. And I could kill whatever this thing was too. I could do all the things that no one else could handle. I could complete the tasks that Milo had run away from.

The beast cocked its head as I pushed my hand into my pocket. I watched every move, every twitch of the fur, every flicker of the ear. Were more coming? Was he just waiting so others could drag me from this tree? Or was he just curious?

My fingers curled around the cool metal. I pulled it out, keeping it concealed in my palm, then behind my back as I flipped the small blade out.

He could sense it then. I didn't know if it was the scent of the silver that carried in the air or if he had the same ability as a house pet to sense tension, to know that tight shoulders and tighter breath meant something was coming.

It didn't matter. It was too late for him.

Practice certainly made perfect. All those years of attacks just like this meant that the blade flew out of my hand at just the right movement. It sliced through the air, heavier than an arrow, but just as deadly. And the trajectory was set right for the beast's eye, coming at him too fast for him to dodge, to even straighten his head. It would pierce the delicate flesh of the eye and plunge far enough to strike the brain. A clean death.

I adjusted in the tree, already preparing to strut away.

There was a sound as the blade hit, a muted thump.

Then a soft noise as it hit the fallen leaves on the forest floor.

I couldn't process it for an instant. The knife was supposed to be in his eye. He was supposed to be lying on his side, barely cling to life if he was even able to draw breath at all. But he was standing. The knife was discarded. And the eye that should have been pierced was still locked on to me.

No blood. No brains. No cries to help as life slipped away.

A snarl ripped from his mouth. one howl would bring a team of vicious beings right to me.

I had no other weapons.

I did the only thing I could.

I flung myself out of that tree. And I ran.

The forest that I had been so diligent to map out was a blur now. All those notes, those thoughts of what I would need to do in an emergency, they all vanished. All I could focus on was the sound of paws striking the earth behind me. and trying not to calculate how little time I had before those long legs ate the distance between us. I had kilometers to travel to get back to my car. He only needed to close a few meters between us.

I barely stood a chance against a normal werewolf when surprise and weaponry were on my side. Against him, I had nothing.

I would be nothing.

My boot slid over the soft moss of a rotting log. Even a fraction of a second spared to mistake was too much. I found the last kernel of my strength, the kind reserved for death avoidance. and I forced my body to operate in a way it never had before. Arms pumped at my sides. Legs stretched to their longest strides. Lungs burned. Eyes watered.

The forest that should have seemed magical now appeared to me as a death trap. Greasy mud that I could slip in, dense moss that sapped my momentum, uneven ground that could twist ankles. Low, thorn bushes grabbed at my calves. Shaded areas schemed, hiding threats. Babbling brooks mocked me out loud as they slowed me. and the staggering descent that I had skirted around on my way in, now felt like the gates of hell closing me in. a sheer well of wet, slippery rock stood before me.

Curling my fingers like talons, I leapt at the steep living wall. I had never been much of a climber but now seemed like a fantastic time to try it out. I couldn't stop. Wouldn't let myself give up.

If I was going to die, I was going to die fighting.

A feral growl ripped from a mouth behind me. I just stayed low and begged my trembling arms to work harder. Each movement broke nails, strained muscles, soaked my clothes. I pushed on, forcing myself to draw upon everything I had when I heard claws scratch against stone.

He was coming.

I heaved my body up that short cliff face, grateful that I was hunting were-goats. Wolves could not climb. But, when I glanced over my shoulder, I saw that he had found the less daunting route that I had taken to get down. Nose to the ground, he followed the path I had laid out so beautifully for him.

The chase resumed.

My speed, it was slipping. I could feel it in the groan of my joints, in the heave of my chest. I had given it all. I had so little to spare now and what felt like miles to go.

My ears tuned in to the world behind me. his pace sounded slower as well. Not the pounding of four paws moving at full speed. It was off, almost sluggish.

I risked a glance over my shoulder. And there was the black nightmare, tailing me with almost the exact same distance we had started with. And for just a heartbeat, I thought that I was right. His legs were moving as if he were lazily loping behind. But it must have been a figment of my imagination, because an instant later, he was indeed sprinting for me and I was racing for my life.

A hard right around an ancient tree bought me a few more seconds, but they were sucked away when my leg got caught in the mud. It was all such a give and take. A moment gifted to me because I was able to grab onto a low hanging branch and swing over a creek. Seconds scraped off as he cleared a mass of roots I got tangled in.

The canopy that the trees created broke apart with a suddenness that startled me. I blinked against the blinding sun, cursing. My inability to see didn't stop me from running, but it did slow me down. But the sun....it meant that I had cleared the forest.

I whirled around, facing the creature that pursued me. the animal that should have been dead in the forest with a knife jutting from its eye.

Bloody irises stared back as he moved. Pacing along the edge of the forest line as if the sun would sear his fur.

He could have killed me. He should have killed me.

But he only snarled and turned his back to me.

When he disappeared into the dense foliage, my body gave out. Knees cracked against the gravel road I wound up on, and I emptied my stomach.

~~~Question of the Day~~~

If you had to describe yourself as an animal, what kind of animal would you be?