by Kyla Stone
Raven still remembered that day, remembered her mom saying, “Do you want to come with me?” And while her heart cried don’t leave me, instead, Raven had shouted, “I hate you! Don’t ever come back!”
She’d watched something fracture inside her mother, a fault line that couldn’t ever be repaired. Instantly, she’d wanted to take it back. But she couldn’t.
She’d unleashed the words, intending to hurt, to wound, and once released, they’d done their dirty work. Her mother, already unloved by Raven’s father, couldn’t take the dual rejection.
The next day, her mother had packed her meager belongings while Raven was at school and her father was fixing a broken fence post in Sal’s enclosure. Raven had come home to an empty lodge, a paper note folded on her mother’s pillow with Raven’s name printed in her mother’s dainty handwriting.
Her mother needed to leave before this place killed her, she wrote. She had no choice, she said over and over. The letter was full of empty apologies, line after line of I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry.
Raven brought the note to her father when he returned, sweating and dirty. He’d scanned it, mouth thinning to a grim, bloodless slash. He crumpled it in his fist and dropped it on the floor, not even bothering to use the trash can.
“She was weak,” he said hoarsely.
“What are we going to do?” Raven asked in a trembling voice, fighting back tears. “We have to bring her back. She has to come back.”
Her father must have seen that she was devastated, that she was shattering into a thousand pieces right in front of him. But he hadn’t pulled her into his arms. He hadn’t hugged her. He hadn’t even tried to comfort her.
Instead, his expression only hardened. “There’s only one person you can depend on. Yourself.”
And then he’d strode from the lodge, escaping to his wolves, leaving his daughter behind to deal with her grief the best she could.
Her father never brought up her mother again. One moment, she was there; the next moment, she wasn’t. A few letters came, a few packages. Raven kept them in her room, away from her father. She knew he didn’t want to see them. Raven never brought her mother up again, either.
Because she knew, deep down, that it was her fault. It wasn’t her fault her mother left; it was her fault that she never came back.
Raven had locked up the words she wished she’d said that day somewhere deep inside her. She’d locked up a lot of other things besides. Thoughts she didn’t want to think. Feelings she didn’t want to feel. Tears she couldn’t bear to cry.
Even surrounded by people, Raven had felt alone for most of her life. Her family had always been broken. Her parents too wrapped up in their own hurts to recognize hers. After her mother left, things only got worse.
She’d learned to stop wishing for what she couldn’t have. She’d learned to stop wanting.
Now, lying here on the dirt floor of a cave, her limbs entangled with wild animals twice her size, breathing in their raw animal smell, her body warmed by their huge, furred bodies—she found herself wanting despite herself. Longing for this, right here, to never end.
She knew what this meant, what it signified for her and for them.
The wolves had made her pack.
31
Shadow woke Raven before dawn, nudging her neck with his cool, wet nose. The wolves seemed to know it was time to go.
The Headhunters would be back. And they wanted blood.
Raven had done what she could. Now it was time to run.
Her stomach rumbled. She’d been far too tired to set snares last night. She dug in her pack and tore open an instant self-heating meal pack full of some vaguely spiced faux meat that might have been chicken-flavored.
Adult wolves ate five to fourteen pounds of meat per day on average, but in the wild, sometimes twelve days or more could pass between feedings. Even as intelligent and powerful as they were, hunts were successful less than ten percent of the time. They survived on a feast-or-famine diet.
Shadow and Luna could last a few days without a meal. Still, she threw them several more strips of dried venison. Shadow gulped down his share with an eager wave of his tail. Luna growled unhappily, but she ate them.
“This time, you follow me,” Raven said. She had no idea if they would. They were alphas—leaders, not followers. The thought of the wolves separating from her now, after everything, threatened to crack something deep inside her.
She couldn’t do this alone.
She set the GPS destination on her SmartFlex. Battery low blinked back at her. Of course. Luckily, she had tucked an old-fashioned compass in the side compartment of her pack.
She shouldered her pack. Dawn was still thirty minutes away.
At least the fog had lifted. It was cold—in the forties—and the sky was clear and glittering with stars. When they entered the treeline, the leaf canopy blotted out the light.
Raven lifted her hood, drew her coat tighter around herself, and faced the thick, penetrating darkness. Her scalp prickled. She felt eyes on her. She half-expected five hundred pounds of muscle, claws, and fangs to pounce at her.
Vlad was out here somewhere. She could feel him.
For the next hour, she rode her hoverboard through the forest on its slowest setting, weaving between maple and elm and pine trees, angling sharply to avoid stumps and bushes and fallen logs. With the woods so dense, it wasn’t really faster than walking, but she left no tracks.
The sun gradually rose over the treeline. Shards of golden light pierced the canopy and gilded the forest floor. The wolves ran ahead and behind her. They disappeared entirely for a while, but they came back. They always came back.
Her heart jolted at every rustle in the brush, every cracking twig. She strained her ears, listening for the rustling of the trees, the scrabble of squirrels, the chirp of a bird or fluff of its wings.
A cawing drew her attention. She looked up at a patch of sky through the trees, shielding her face with her cupped hands. Calling in raucous cries, a dozen crows soared in low circles to the northeast, just above the treeline.
In the wild, crows would follow a tiger the same way ravens followed wolves. It shifted their odds of getting fed from if to when.
Thirty minutes after the sun had risen, she found the first tracks.
She hopped off the board and knelt on the ground, crisp brown leaves crackling beneath her knees. She brushed away a few more leaves, pine needles, a spider’s web.
The same deep imprint as before—thick palmar pad, four smaller digit pads.
She studied the ground. More tracks. The closely spaced indentations indicated a slow, sedate pace. The tiger had been strolling—or maybe stalking.
How long ago had he made these tracks? Hours? Minutes? They were headed the opposite direction that she was traveling, but that meant little.
Despite his impressive size, despite the burnt-orange and russet of his fur, the rich black stripes—a tiger, when he so wished, was completely invisible. He moved in absolute silence. He cloaked himself in shadows.
He would see her a hundred times before she laid eyes on him once. He could have doubled back and might be tracking them even now. Tigers were ambush hunters, masters of stealth and surprise.
She wouldn’t see him until he wanted to be seen. Until it was far too late.
She slipped her pack off one shoulder and stuffed her board inside. On foot, she followed the tracks to see where they headed, whether they doubled back. If Vlad was stalking her, she needed to know.
Yellowwood, beech, and white ash trees clustered along a hilly slope ahead of her. Golden yellow spice bushes and crimson sumac were everywhere.
After about fifty feet, the tracks changed abruptly. A yard ahead of her, the dense forest broke into a clearing about forty feet wide and twice as deep. Tall grass waved in the breeze.
Just before the clearing, at the base of two poplar trees, the underbrush was matted down like a heavy log had smooshed it—or a quarter-ton of predato
r.
Vlad had been lying in wait for something. Or someone.
Her gut tightened. Tigers were nocturnal hunters. But if she accidentally invaded the territory of his kill, he might attack. Besides, having just escaped life-long captivity, typical tiger behavior did not apply.
Vlad was capable of anything, at any time.
Her pack grew heavy on her back. Her fingers were numb with cold. She wanted to call the wolves to her, but the thought of making a sound now filled her with trepidation.
She rose to her feet, about to high-tail it out of there when her gaze snagged on something several feet into the clearing. Something that didn’t belong.
Glinting on a clutch of green mountain laurel leaves—a splash of blood.
32
Each droplet of blood was perfectly rounded, unsmudged, unsmeared. Like beads of water, only thick and dark red.
For a long moment, Raven stared at the blood, unwilling to move, her breath coming in quick, shallow pants. Her brain screamed at her to turn and flee. She didn’t need to see what lay beyond those bushes.
But she did. She did need to.
She remembered Zachariah’s jovial tone as he cheerfully told her, at ten, that it took less than a hundred pounds of pressure to crush a windpipe, and only five pounds of pressure to block the carotid artery. A tiger’s jaws exerted a thousand pounds of pressure per square inch.
Humans were soft-skinned and thin-boned, as easy to break as a twig.
She crept closer, step by step. The horrific, grisly scene slowly revealed itself. Long red streaks in the trampled earth. A shoe, empty, turned on its side. A set of keys, shining like gold between two tree roots. A bloodied piece of khaki fabric.
And then, thirty yards into the clearing, behind a dense thicket of rhododendron, she halted. Before her lay a wide circle of horror. An arm—without a hand or a shoulder attached. Bones, gnawed white. And red, so much red. Deepest scarlet, almost black, splashed and slicked and drenched over the ground in a ten-foot radius.
The rest, her brain would not let her describe.
For several frozen moments, she stood there, stunned into silence. Her belly heaved. Everything inside her churned—her gut, her mind, her heart. She was sick, flushing hot and dizzy. Horror, shock, and revulsion flooded through her.
She turned abruptly and retched into the bushes.
She wiped her mouth with the back of her hand and retreated a step, shaking and unsteady, unwilling to turn her back on the grisly scene.
Something dark and gleaming caught her eye. A semi-automatic rifle lay in the grass, blood staining the stock, the pistol grip, the long, thin barrel. It hadn’t helped the Headhunter. She tightened her grip on her own rifle.
A brown baseball cap lay less than a yard from the semi-automatic. Her stomach lurched again. She stared at the hat and swallowed the sour acid burning the back of her throat. It was the only recognizable thing left of Gomez.
He hadn’t returned to the lodge with the rest. He’d stayed out in the woods, unaware that he was being hunted.
Until it was too late.
Or maybe some part of him wanted this, wanted to die quickly. He was already doomed. Over the next ten days, the Hydra virus would’ve ravaged his body, siphoning his life away as he transformed into a highly contagious threat to every living creature who strayed within ten feet of him.
His death might have been quick, but it hadn’t been painless, or free of terror.
Gomez was a Headhunter. The enemy. He’d killed Suki. Though only because he’d had no choice, she reminded herself. He’d tried to drive the wolf away first. He’d shown mercy. Not all the Headhunters were bloodthirsty monsters.
But what did that make the ones who stood by and watched, doing nothing to stop it—like Gomez, like Damien? Whatever Gomez had or hadn’t done, she couldn’t help the pity and horror twisting in her gut at his fate.
Increasingly agitated, Shadow and Luna alternately growled and whined, tails curled beneath them, backs arched, jowls pulled back from their teeth. They snarled frantically, tiger musk thick in their nostrils.
They smelled death. They smelled danger.
And then she smelled it, too. She froze in mid-breath.
Raven spun, rifle up. She cocked the hammer, checked the safety. Her blood raced, panic thrumming through her veins.
In the wild, tigers would stay with their kill or bury it to return and dine over a period of several days. The tiger was still here.
The wolves knew it. They howled, whirling and lunging at phantoms. The palpable stench of his presence was nearly unbearable.
Alarm bells screamed in her head, warning of imminent danger. Her gaze flicked from tree to tree, scanning bushes, shadows, scrubby underbrush. She saw nothing. But that didn’t mean he wasn’t there, prowling silent as a held breath, waiting to pounce.
How many shots would she have to get off in the second or two it took for the tiger to cross thirty yards? How many bullets would it take to bring him down? Would her aim be true with a monstrous beast hurtling toward her at a fearful speed?
Most likely, she wouldn’t even see it coming.
Tigers surprised victims from the side or from behind, either approaching upwind or lying in wait downwind. They rarely pressed an attack if they were seen before they’d mounted their ambush.
Shaking, she whirled, sighting more trees, more empty shadows. The forest was impossibly still. She heard no birds. Even the crows had fallen silent.
No sudden movements. What was she thinking? She knew better. Her father had taught her how to act around predators to minimize the chance of attack.
Her primitive brain was going haywire, shrieking in panic and terror, begging her to run.
Her primitive brain was going to get her killed.
Fleeing a tiger was all but inviting death. Inciting a chase would provoke an uncertain tiger into attacking. Back away, step by step. Move slowly and calmly. Don’t show fear. She straightened, resisting the urge to cringe and cower, standing as tall as possible instead. It made her look like less of a helpless prey animal. Crouched down, a person appeared weaker and smaller—both increased the chances of an attack.
She remembered her father’s instructions. Stay upright. Stand tall. Look like a human. A brave, fearless, bland and tasteless human.
Shadow stopped short fifteen feet ahead of her, a growl rising in his throat as he stared into the treeline. His hackles bristled.
The hairs on the back of her neck lifted.
A great rumbling growl thrummed through the air. It seemed to come from nowhere and everywhere at once.
Raven went rigid.
The tiger’s thunderous roar slammed into her, paralyzing her muscles, constricting her heart in terror.
33
The tiger erupted out of nowhere, as though out of the earth itself. Thirty yards away, he sprang, crossing the space between them in the span of two seconds.
He launched at Raven, a blur of yellow eyes and orange fur and gleaming fangs.
A deep, primal terror surged within her. Her hands were on the rifle, but her arms no longer remembered how to lift it, her fingers had forgotten how to pull the trigger. Her heart refused to beat.
There was only time for one thought to sear through her panicked mind—she was going to die. She was going to die a hideous, painful death, and there wasn’t a damn thing she could do about it.
Instead of pouncing, Vlad halted less than five feet from where she stood rooted to the earth, unable to move. Distantly, she heard the snarling wolves. Her brain registered nothing else except the lethal predator crouched before her.
The tiger, supreme predator of these woods, of anywhere. A king among kings, the undisputed emperor of his domain.
His head was as broad as a grown man’s shoulders. His paws the size of pot lids. Fangs the length of a finger. Claws like meat hooks. Every inch of him radiated spectacular brute strength, power, and virility.
Ears flattened, tail lashing, Vlad
glared at her with his piercing yellow eyes. Eyes hypersensitive to movement, designed to track prey. Even a full, contented cat would pounce if the prey-response was triggered.
She remained utterly motionless.
Vlad roared. It was a savage, ferocious sound. A tiger’s full-throated roar was something she’d rarely experienced, and never this close. The clearing exploded with deafening noise. Loud as a jet engine and directionless, filling the space around her, expanding inside her skull, scrambling her brain, rendering her immobile.
It shook her, shook the earth, trembled through her very cells. It rumbled over and through her like an avalanche.
Think, her brain screamed at her. No one was coming in to save her but herself. He hadn’t outright killed her. She had a chance, slim as spider’s silk maybe, but still a chance. She wouldn’t waste it.
She couldn’t move, but she could speak, remind Vlad who she was.
Tigers were incredibly smart, boasting the second-largest brain of all carnivores. And they had a phenomenal memory. She knew he remembered her.
It took a supreme act of will to open her mouth, to form words on her tongue, force them out. “You know me,” she croaked. “You don’t want to kill me.”
He snarled and bared his fangs, his tail snapping, one paw lifted. His right foreleg was streaked with blood. He was limping, wounded. Gomez must have had gotten off a shot, she realized, before the tiger tore his limbs from his body.
Vlad growled at her again, furious.
The gun. She remembered her father telling her how tigers were intelligent enough to connect gunshots—thunderous noise, a flash of pain—with the stick in the hands of a human fifty yards away.
Vlad already knew and disliked tranq guns from every single vet visit he’d ever known. Then Gomez had shot him in the leg. Vlad recognized the rifle—and knew what it was for. As long as she held it, he would view her as a threat.
Slowly, hands shaking, the tiger still crouched and snarling mere feet away, she lifted the strap of the rifle over her head. It snagged on her pack. Damn it. In her hurry that morning, she’d strapped on the rifle, then shouldered her pack.
