I take one long stride, kneel, and catch one ankle.
“Let me go!” She tries to kick out.
I circle her delicate ankle in my fingers and check the cut on her leg. Blood beads bright. My jaw clenches.
“Why the hell are you here?” I demand again.
She shakes her head, lips trembling. “I told you. I’m?—”
I don’t listen. Can’t. My instincts roar louder than her voice. I scan the tree line, searching. My mountain is silent, but that doesn’t mean she’s alone. There could be more. She could be bait.
I rise to my full height, towering over her again.
She cranes her neck back to keep me in sight, and I see it—the exact moment she realizes just how big I am. How helpless she is at my feet.
Her voice wavers. “What are you doing?”
I don’t answer. Silence is better. Silence has always been my friend.
I prowl the perimeter, checking for signs. No second set of tracks. No scent of another. Just her. Just this slip of a girl in buttercup yellow who shouldn’t be here.
When I turn back, she’s scrambling. Limping, but trying to crawl away from me.
The first attempt.
She doesn’t make it three feet before I’m on her. My body moves before thought, the same way it did in the ring—pure instinct, pure hunger.
I sweep her off the ground, and feel her gasp hot against my chest.
She kicks, struggles, fists beating weak against me. “Wait, what are you doing? Let me go!”
I don’t slow.
I turn toward my cabin and just keep walking.
2
LILY
Ohmygod ohmygod ohmygod.
I thought being snatched up in a wire snare was the absolute worst rotten cherry on top of a shitty cake of the last forty-eight hours of my life.
When rope bit into my calf and the pain went white-hot, until I thought my skin might peel open, I may have prayed for a quick death.
But apparently, that wasn’t the worst of it. There was more to come.
There washim.
The monster who charged out of the trees.
A giant.
Bare-chested, scarred, sweat-slicked muscle on top of muscle, a massive axe held like an extension of his arm.
He didn’t rush to help me. Didn’t even move at first. He just stared, silent, eyes dark as the mountain behind him.
And when he finally spoke—“You’re trespassing”—the sound vibrated down to every single bone in my body. A voice made for threats, for orders, for warnings you ignore at your own risk.
