The Hunt (The Wilds Book Two)

by Donna Augustine

  “Believing you are a murdering maniac and trust are two different things. Big difference,” I said, holding my hands way apart and not liking the way he’d forced me to reveal that.

  “Nope. Too late. You trust me and it’s been proven,” he said.

  “Nothing of the sort has been proven,” I said, and started back toward the gate, and he followed.

  “Be ready after dinner tonight. Pack a bag with whatever you’ll need for a few days—jerky, water, everything. I want to be gone before anyone else notices. I’ll leave a note that we went to go check on my oil rigs.”

  “Why? What are we doing? Going to march up to the Skinners’ fortress and demand answers? Just the two of us?”

  “Not exactly. I’ve got a plan.”

  “You going to share it?” I asked as we squeezed in the gate that was still partially open.

  “Not yet.”

  “Why?”

  “Because I don’t want you to smell of fear on the way, and it doesn't matter, because you trust me anyway.”

  “Shooting at me is much different than me telling you I trust you. You have to realize that,” I said, wanting to somehow take back the silent admission of trust he’d tricked from me.

  “Nope. Too late.”

  “No. It’s not.”

  “Can’t take it back.”

  “Yes I can. It’s my trust and I can. Try and shoot at me again and I’m going to flinch big time. I’m going to be all over this place dodging.”

  “Sorry, got stuff to do,” he said, walking off in the opposite direction of the house.

  I went to go pack, trying to figure out why I was so annoyed by this.

  Chapter 30

  Dax had left a note about some nonsense I knew Tank wouldn’t believe but would hopefully swear to Bookie and Fudge was true. We’d only gone a few miles at most when Dax was stopping the bike and motioning for me to get off.

  “Why are we leaving the bike here? And I’m not great with directions, but aren’t the Skinners that way?” I said as I pointed in the opposite direction. “And one more question, why did I need a bag for a place only a couple hours away?”

  “This is where the trust is going to come into play.” He was rolling the bike into some bushes. He handed me my bag off the back and started to pile branches on top of the bike.

  “You’re going to have to fill me in,” I said as I slung my bag on my shoulder.

  He dropped the final branch and wiped his hands on his legs. “I’m going to see if I can pick up some company on our way.”

  “Company?”

  “Yes.”

  There was only one company you could be sure of finding after dark in the Wilds, and it mostly had fur and claws.

  “You can do that?” I asked, drawing only one conclusion: he was going to round up other beasts.

  “You want answers from the Skinners or you want safe?” he asked, and I got the sense he was giving me a final chance to back out.

  I notched my chin up and repositioned the weight of my bag. No one was going to call me a scaredy cat, and I was not going down as boring, either. “Go gather your little friends.”

  He’d never looked so proud, and I focused on not blushing. I hated when he looked at me like that. “Northwest it is,” I said, and walked to the edge of the trees, ready to get this show going.

  “Don’t stop until dawn. We’re going to have to travel at night. I’ll be with you, but I won’t always be in sight.”

  I nodded and marched off into the night. It was hard to traverse the land in the dark, but at least we had a full moon. I fell every now and then, but I got used to it pretty quickly.

  Once in a while, Dax would show up in beast form and signal me to walk a different way. He never got too close or stayed in sight for very long. Each time I saw him, my heart skipped a beat as it took me a minute to look in the dark and make sure it wasn’t some unknown beast.

  I didn’t stop to eat, but chewed on jerky as I made my way. The only breaks I took were when nature called or to chug some water from my canteen. I was the walking dead by the time the sun started coming up.

  Dax appeared soon after and pointed to a clearing in the forest. I immediately took his meaning. I stopped, tucked my bag under my head, and trusted Dax would cover me while I caught a few hours of sleep.

  When I woke up sometime in the late afternoon, my canteen was refilled beside me and there was a rabbit cooking over a fire. Dax wasn’t anywhere to be found. I ate alone, listening to the forest, wondering about every noise I heard.

  It was just starting to get dark for the evening when I saw him standing on the outskirts, still in beast form. I nodded, kicked dirt onto the fire, and packed up my stuff.

  I’d been walking for about five hours and it was close to midnight, judging by the moon, when I started noticing the presence of other beasts. I’d hear noises simultaneously from all directions as I walked. I’d catch sight of fur in browns, tans, and black, unlike Dax’s grey. I didn’t know how many he’d gathered, but we weren’t alone anymore. Whatever Dax was doing, it was working.

  It was an hour or so later when Dax appeared, this time as a man. His skin was flushed the way it always was when he’d been the beast, and I tried to not look at all of the skin on display and focus on his face as he walked over to my bag. He grabbed a pair of pants out of it that I hadn’t realized were in there with my things.

  The amount of magic still pouring off him right now made the air fizzle even feet away. I realized it must be stronger when he was in beast form for a long time, like maybe the duration he was a beast made it harder to tone it back down.

  He stepped toward me but didn’t get too close. “We’ll be at the Skinners’ fortress soon. You’re going to need to speak for us.” His voice was deeper, rougher right now.

  “Why?” I had no problem being a spokesperson. In fact, I preferred it, but so did Dax.

  “Because I won’t be capable of speech.”

  Whoa. Did this mean… “You’re going to be in beast form?”

  “Yes. It’s the way this has to go,” he said.

  I’d be approaching the Skinners as the only human in the group. Whether or not we got any information would weigh heavily upon my shoulders. I should’ve been panicking, but I wasn’t. “I got this.”

  “When we get there, demand to speak to their leader. Don’t speak to anyone else. You are to tell them we want to know everything to do with Tiffy or you’ll order the horde of beasts with you to rip through their home.”

  “You think that will work?” I asked, not wanting to be skeptical, but I’d seen the fortress.

  “They’ll do it. I have to remain with the horde to keep control. Promise me you won’t go within the fortress.”

  “How can we be sure, then?”

  “Because when we march upon them, they’re going to be willing to give us whatever we want to get rid of us. Remember, you need to appear in control. I won’t let you get hurt.”

  I nodded, and he got up and disappeared again.

  * * *

  I stepped onto the cleared land that surrounded the Skinners’ fortress twenty minutes later and I knew I wasn’t alone. Dax was close by, but the nerves were the worst I’d ever experienced. It wasn’t because of the Skinners, either. They were tucked behind a wall of metal. It was what I knew was with me. I could feel them, and the more that came, the stronger the feeling. I slowly walked until there were no trees or shrubs to hide in, onto land that surrounded the fortress.

  I could see movement in the periphery and I briefly glanced over and saw the grey of Dax’s fur. I forced my eyes forward and continued to walk, as I heard the other ones join us.

  How was Dax doing this? Controlling them? There had to be twenty or thirty of them, and I could hear more coming, growling behind me.

  By the time I was halfway to the Skinners’ fortress, I knew I had to look. There had to be close to a hundred beasts behind me. I was stunned. There were a hell of a lot more beasts than I
realized—maybe more than anyone realized existed.

  I’d found the max capacity of my nerves. I was still on my feet and exuding as much confidence that I could on the outside, but I wasn’t quite as steady on the inside. It was hard when I could practically feel the horde behind me. I might have fared better mentally if I could’ve kept an eye on them, but I had to turn and face the fortress. I couldn’t ruin the mirage we were trying to display that I had them under control if I was watching my back.

  By the final steps, I’d almost psyched myself up into believing I had some control of the situation.

  “Open the door,” I yelled as I stopped in front of their door, knowing the Skinners had to be watching us. We weren’t guests that you could miss.

  “Why are you here?” a voice called out.

  “Send out the person in charge.”

  “Leave our home or we’ll make you.” I could hear them on the other side, whispering and moving about.

  “No.”

  The word had barely left my lips before I was pulled roughly into the middle of a pack of beasts right before small windows were opened and a spray of bullets started whizzing through the air. Surrounded by fur on every side and being shot at, I felt pretty proud that I was still breathing at all, even if it was rough. Maybe I had a little more nerve than I thought. Or maybe I’d passed over to the place where you think you’ve got no shot at making it out alive and accepted death? Both were plausible.

  The bullets slowed down and then finally became a trickle before halting completely. The beasts, including Dax, who was right beside me, widened their positions, and I was afraid of what I was going to see.

  None of them were on the ground. There was blood but no gaping wounds. The bullets couldn’t penetrate the beasts’ hides. These things were tough. This might actually work.

  “Send out your leader or we will rip this place to the ground,” I yelled, a little louder this time, because I was still partially blocked as we all waited for more bullets.

  It took a few minutes, but the door slowly opened. A single man stepped out with greasy hair pulled back from his face, not one but two lines that I was now positive were blood upon his forehead.

  I approached him, but not alone. I could feel Dax’s fur brushing my arm. “Are you the leader?”

  “Yes,” he said, and even though he was standing tall and proud, there was a slight quiver to his voice that was the only thing that told me was this man wasn’t insane.

  The beasts were near growling in unison, and I hoped Dax could keep control of them long enough to let me get some answers. Then they could eat him up if they wanted.

  “Where’s the girl?” I demanded.

  “She’s not here. She disappeared the first night.”

  “You’re saying she escaped? That small girl? You and your people couldn’t keep one small girl? I’m supposed to believe that?” That was exactly what I believed, but I needed this guy on the defensive. “You had her toy.”

  “We don’t have her.”

  “Don’t lie to me.”

  “I’m not. We took her but we didn’t have her for more than a few minutes before she was taken from us.”

  I looked over to Dax, and his head tilted upward just enough to let me know he believed what he was saying.

  “Why did you try and take her?”

  “We didn’t want her. We only took her to get to you.”

  “Why?”

  “Because we’re out of the medicine.”

  “What medicine?”

  “We give the Dark Walkers skin and they give us medicine to ward off the Bloody Death, but they said they wouldn’t give us any more until we got them the Plaguer.”

  “Do you know why they want me?”

  “No.”

  My gut told me he was telling the truth. He was too scared of the horde of beasts growing restless behind me. The growling was growing, and I was afraid it was because Dax’s leash on them was tentative and they saw a snack waiting in front of them.

  I could feel Dax, even in beast form, growing tense. If I didn’t get the rest of my answers soon, the Skinners would have to send a new person out to talk to me, because this one might be dead.

  “Who took the girl from you?”

  “I know nothing…but the Dark Walkers believe one of their enemies now have her.”

  “Which enemy would that be?”

  “The Wood Mist. That’s all I know.”

  “Not good enough. Where can we find these Wood Mist?” So the Dark Walkers knew about the Wood Mist, too.

  “I don’t know.”

  I could feel the beasts edging in closer, see them starting to circle around me, taunted by the man they weren’t supposed to have.

  I should let them eat him, but I didn’t know what would happen if these beasts really lost it.

  “Go. Now.”

  Their leader didn’t stop to ask if we would disperse, but ran back through the gate, to the safety of his metal walls. Dax edged in closer to me, and with loud howls, the horde of beasts seemed to be breaking off from the leash Dax had them on.

  With growls of frustration at having been denied their prey, they broke off, disappearing into the woods as we made our way across the fields.

  Chapter 31

  I didn’t know how long I’d walked or when the last beast left, but I finally stopped because I didn’t have anything left in me.

  I sat down on a dead log and felt frozen.

  It must have been a half-hour later that Dax, the man, walked into the clearing.

  The thought I’d been dreading kept rising up and slamming into me. The thing I hated to voice but could no longer deny or pretend wasn’t real. There was nothing left to try. “How do we tell Fudge that’s she’s really gone?”

  I wished I could become the beast, like he did, and let all of this reality slip from my shoulders. I didn’t want to be here, in this moment. I didn’t want to live this life of hurt and heartache anymore. I understood more fully than ever how the beasts could leave their human lives behind. How easy it would be to let their humanity slip away as if it had never been.

  He didn’t say anything, but stared intently at me, and I wondered if he was even fully himself right now. I stood and walked over to a tree farther away from him. For the first time, I really felt like I was on the verge of being broken, and I didn’t want any version of Dax to see it.

  There was no sound of him approaching me. I felt the heat from Dax’s body first and then his arms wrap around me. He’d never done this before, offered comfort like this. I wanted to pull away, pretend I wasn’t weak, but I leaned into his body instead, drawing on the strength that was him, that never seemed to falter, and wished I could leech some of it for myself.

  I turned in his arms, wanting more.

  My body shook against him, restrained terror for Tiffy finding its way out no matter how hard I wanted to keep it locked inside.

  Dax’s hand pressed against my lower back, and I circled my hands around him as I pressed my cheek against his chest. His other hand moved up and down my back as he tried to soothe the shuddering of my body.

  He didn’t say anything, and I tilted my head back to look up at his face. In his eyes, I could still see the remnants of the beast. As if some of its light and essence was still glowing through him.

  His wall was down almost completely, and I needed him. The man, the one who was raw and present.

  I gripped his shoulders, and all I could think of was how much I needed this connection to him.

  I pressed forward, lifting my face to his, and something seemed to change in him. It was like I saw the beast come awake. One hand shifted to my hair, gripping a hank of it at the base of my skull, urging my head back.

  His head lowered and his lips brushed against mine. I didn’t know if he kissed me from attraction or trying to offer me comfort in the only way he knew how, but I took it. I’d wanted this for so long, and right now I needed it desperately.

  If being near him
was akin to feeling a charge in the air, our bodies pressed together with his mouth closed over mine felt like I’d just entered the storm. My body answered his every touch as if it had been waiting for this very thing since the day I was born.

  It was everything I’d imagined a kiss should be and so much more. Every nerve in me was screaming to get closer, and I was all of a sudden overwhelmed by how intense this connection was. There was no control, only need between us, and it shocked me. I pushed on his chest and gasped for air, overwhelmed by the sensation of him.

  He didn’t fight me, and stepped back. I didn’t know if that was better or worse, but I already missed the warmth of him as he pulled away from me, trying to get some distance. I stretched my arms out, which made me awkwardly aware that my hands were still gripping him.

  His face said it all. He regretted kissing me. My hands dropped to my sides and he was gone.

  * * *

  We didn’t get back to the Rock until late next evening. We didn’t speak on our way back to the house, and the settlement was quiet, everyone asleep. I was grateful we had a few more hours so I could come to terms with what we had to tell Fudge.

  I walked into the house, finding it empty of even Tank.

  Dax walked into his room, and when he came back out, he headed for the door.

  “Shouldn’t you stay?” I asked.

  “I’ve got to—”

  “Shouldn’t we talk about Fudge and what we’re going to tell her?” I said, trying to let him know I wasn’t looking for anything more. “I don’t want you to…” My hands were fidgeting, and I shoved them in my pockets as I tried to come up with why it was better for him to stay right now, when my only true reason was I didn’t want to be alone. “I won’t—”

  “That’s not the reason I’m leaving,” he said. “I’ve spent a lot of time as the beast. It’s better if I…”

  I nodded and settled into the corner of the couch. “I understand. Go.” As much as I’d like for him to stay, I did understand. He was always raw after the beast, and I knew he avoided me afterward. This wasn’t anything out of the ordinary for him. At least it was a relief he didn’t think I was going to throw myself at him. I needed to stop being so emotional. I couldn’t lean on people like this. It was becoming a bad habit.