Page 111 of Wolfkissed
I should run.
I dash toward the trees, my shoes getting caught in muddy hollows and rocks. My heart is hammering against my ribs and echoing inside my head as I sprint toward safety.
My goal is to reach the thicket, and then… then climb a tree, I decide, although I’m not sure I can make it on my own. I have to try.
As I run, I glance over my shoulder from time to time, unprepared to see what horror is following me and yet unable to stop myself. But there’s nothing. A blur. Tall grasses, scraggly trees, rocky outcrops. Where is the animal?
I expect to hear Valen yelling at me to run, run faster, but he doesn’t, and that silence finally has me pausing at the edge of the thicket.
Where is he?
“Valen,” I whisper, suppressing the urge to scream for him because that would give away my position, and I still don’t know what’s out there. “Where are you?”
An eldritch scream jerks me backward, sending cold sweat down my back. What was that? Was that a wildcat scream or something else entirely?
Suddenly, a triangular head rises from the grasses, higher and higher. A huge head with horns and fangs.
A land dragon, a wyrm.
I almost choke on a gasp, still walking blindly backward, a primeval fear gripping me. The sky may be teeming with winged dragons, but it’s the ones on the ground, cousins of the snakes, that scare me the most, slithering about, in the weeds, close to the ground, hidden from view. Attacking without a sound,sinking venomous fangs into your body. Coiling around you and choking you.
They’ve always been my prime nightmare material, enduring even after the wolf attack, tangling in my dreams with furry bodies, claws and canines dripping blood.
And the nightmare becomes reality when a giant gray wolf leaps at the huge serpent, attaching himself below the triangular head and dragging it down.
A wolf with gray fur and a white tuft on his head.
Oh Gods… Valen.
His wolf form is as powerful as his humanoid one, a match for a dragon. Werewolves are bigger than normal wolves, but even by their standards, Valen is large, so large I bet I could straddle his back and ride him.
The wyrm writhes, throwing its body this way and that, trying to shake the wolf off. It’s shaking Valen like a ragdoll, but he holds on stubbornly until he loses grip and falls. I cry out in anguish as the wyrm’s head dives after him, and instead of entering the grove, I set off toward them.
“No! Let him go! Valen!”
I can’t see what’s going on. The grass sways, some taller thistles and golden sorghum cracking and falling as the wolf and the giant snake fight.
“Valen!”
The wolf growls, and I almost laugh out loud with relief. The wyrm screams again—I didn’t know they could produce such a sound, such a tortured, twisted sound that makes my head hurt—and snaps at the wolf.
They move apart, and Valen stands between me and the giant earth dragon, growling. Is it over? My gut tells me to run away, as far away as possible from the two monsters, but my feet are rooted to the ground and somehow… somehow I know Valen won’t let the wyrm get me.
The serpent lunges, the wolf jumps forward… and the serpent retreats. Heart in my throat, I watch it turn and head in the other direction, crashing through the undergrowth.
The wolf growls for a while longer, ears up, fairly bristling with aggression.
Not the best moment to approach an animal and yet… I approach him.
“Valen,” I whisper. “Are you all right?”
The giant wolf turns toward me and I take an involuntary step back. He’s taller than me, and I look straight into his golden, flecked eyes.
What am I doing? He’s a wolf. The same monster that abducted me as a child, tormented me, dragged me through thorns and rocks, and left scars on me.
That old terror grips me, panic sending my heart racing, and black dots dance in my eyes. I can’t breathe.
The wolf turns his massive head away, producing an odd sound—or maybe it’s only that my ears are buzzing. I’m feeling faint.
