Page 5 of Red

On and on she walked, stopping only to drink before pressing on once more. She was too afraid to stay in one spot for more than a few minutes, especially as the shadows grew longer with the late hour. She walked until her feet felt blistered and raw in her boots, her limbs felt heavy with exhaustion, and she could barely summon the energy to set one foot in front of the other.

Everything had long since become hazy as she found it harder to focus on the landscape around her. She was certain that at some point she’d lost the path, for even when she managed to focus on the ground beneath her feet, she could no longer see the worn earthen ground. Worse, she was too tired to even be panicked over it. All she could manage were a few feeble whimpers as she stumbled from tree to tree, her fingers scraping the bark in a vain attempt to steady herself as her head spun.

Stumbling over her own swollen feet, Arie finally fell against a mossy log with a hoarse cry. Her throat was parched. It had been some time since she had come across the last stream, and her water skin had emptied hours ago. Hot tears leaked out of her eyes, streaking through the dirt and grime on her face. She was so terribly tired. She lay there looking up at the canopy, quietly crying until her eyes fastened on a gap between the log and the ground. It looked just big enough that, with some effort, a single person might fit inside. Picking up a nearby branch, she shoved it into the opening to see if there were any animals inside.

Nothing.

Tossing aside the branch, Arie scrambled, her fingers digging into the leaves and dirt on the ground as she struggled to turn herself over. Every exhausted muscle in her body screamed in protest, but finally she was on her belly and wiggled herself over to it. Pulling her blanket out of her bag, she shoved the bag in first and then, wrapping the blanket snugly around herself, slid inside. Despite the angry protest of her belly, Arie succumbed quickly to the weight of slumber.

When she woke, it was in confused disorientation. The world outside her hole was still utterly dark, but there was a terrible snuffling at the perimeter of her hiding place that immediately had her recoiling. Arie pulled her arms and legs tighter against her body as a massive snout prodded as deep as it could into her little impromptu sanctuary. Arie’s eyes widened at the wedge-shaped mass of tissue of a wild hog’s snout seeking her out.

A nuisance long before the world went to hell, the mutated pigs were even worse than their ancestors. Massive in size and happy to ferret out and eat anything—quite literally. Even the men of the villages who banded together for hunting steered clear of wild hogs and told tales of horrible goring and fetid human remains discovered. She shivered at the recollection. Her stomach dipped and sweat dripped down her brow as the hog squealed and pressed its snout as deep as it could go. It twisted from side to side as the sound of its massive tusks tore loudly at her hiding place.

With a louder squeal of frustration, it withdrew only to be replaced by the beast’s sharp feet that promptly went to work digging at her burrow with deep snorts of excitement. Arie pressed as deep into the log as she could, hoping that it might give up. Unfortunately, all that seemed to do was incite the hog to slam against the log as it dug faster. She swallowed her shriek when a wickedly sharp pair of tusks suddenly ripped at the bottom of the log. Bark, pulled free by the tusks, shattered, raining down over her. Arie coughed and covered her eyes to protect them from the falling debris, but it didn’t spare her the sight of the hog’s snout plunging in closer as it enlarged the hole with more of its feverish digging. The stench of its hot breath blew over her, and Arie wept as she gagged.

She was certain that she was about to meet her ignoble end to a hog’s appetite. Perhaps hunters would even find her remains later and she would become another village tale. She stared at the tusks in horror as they broke more and more of the log as it rooted closer, but her blood froze when a loud roar ripped through the air just seconds before something impacted with the hog’s body, ripping it away from the hole. A horrible high-pitched squealing filled the air and Arie slammed both hands over her ears, but it wasn’t enough to muffle the sickening thud of the hog’s body falling against the log, or the sound of a second snarl joining in with the first. The animal’s squeals elevated to shrieks as the two predators out there tore into it. She desperately willed herself to pass out even as she prayed that whatever was eating the hog would move on without noticing her. But if she was going to be eaten next, she would rather not be conscious for it.

The log creaked ominously above her, cracking with the weight of whatever was settled upon it. At that terrible sound, a new fear sprung in her chest as she imagined the hole capsizing and crushing her within her convenient grave. Arie was not ready to die yet if she had any ability to prevent it. She dug her fingers into the earth and pulled herself forward, scrambling out of the hole. She closed her eyes tightly and pressed her belly close to the ground as she did so with an idea that just maybe whatever was eating noisily mere feet away would not see her wiggle out from her hiding place.

It was childish to hope that closing her eyes would keep her invisible, but Arie didn’t have anything to lose.

Hope stirred in her chest as she wiggled through the grass but promptly died when a heavy weight fell over her, pressing her into the ground. Arie’s lungs burned as she gasped for air. Her eyes snapped open in panic just in time to see a silver muzzle coated with blood descend near her cheek. Lips pulled back from deadly fangs no shorter than her longest finger.

Ragoru!

“Orul er agar?” a voice growled as another body shifted nearer at her other side. From the corner of her eye she watched as the pair of large monsters that were hunched over the pig made their way toward her, brush snapping under their tread.

The Ragoru holding her down inhaled, his muzzle so close she could see his nostrils expand.

“Human,” it growled in rough, accented English. It was so deep and gravelly that Arie had to listen closely to make out the word. Since when did the Ragoru speak English? She didn’t remember hearing of anything like that.

The pressure on her back eased and Arie took a deep breath, greedily filling her lungs with air. Instinct kicked in, and her arms heaved her body forward. Within seconds, she was crushed into the leaves once more. Laughter sounded around her, which she tried to ignore as she sputtered out a mouth full of dirt.

A pair of massive black clawed paws came into immediate view. It was shaped nothing like a human foot. Rather, it was like that of the lupine predators the species resembled: four toes with a leg formed like the hind leg of a wolf. Arie’s gaze lifted to take in more humanoid thighs thick with muscle, a furred bulge was set just above a large, rounded sack holding the male’s testicles. She sucked in a startled breath. The Ragoru before her was definitely male.

Her eyes shot upward away from his sex, noting his defined abs, not hidden in any way by the fur dusting over them. The fur over the pecs seemed only slightly thicker until it reached his collar, where it protruded in a noticeable scruff. A trail of longer fur flowed down from there to make a crest bisecting his pecs and abs until it joined the fur around his sex. His arms, all four of them, were just as muscular as his legs, and heavy with fur that tapered at the wrist, where it lightened once more to a soft suede that only the wealthiest women could afford to purchase.

The only thing that ruined the image was the crimson blood matting his fur and dripping over his hands and claws. In one hand there appeared to be a half-eaten heart. Her eyes were trained on the organ as it slowly lifted to a short, bloody muzzle.

The overall shape of his head was somewhat more humanoid than lupine, with a long mass of coarse hair falling down the back of his neck and shoulders. Several small braids were wound into it. That decorative addition was perhaps the most humanoid feature it possessed. It certainly wasn’t the face that terminated in a muzzle with flexible lips for speech. Nor was it the two sets of ice-blue eyes—the second set at his temples just above and behind the primary set—that watched her balefully as he opened his maw, revealing his lethal fangs before bolting down the other half of the heart.

Her own organ in her chest beat as her fear hiked. Her eyes shifted when she caught a flash of movement just behind the black male. The other male was smaller and possessed reddish-brown fur, reddened further from the carnage. He held a bloody mass in one hand that she imagined was another internal organ from their prey. She watched as he lifted a leg in another hand, one that he’d apparently just pulled off the animal, and bit off a large mouthful of meat right in front of her.

A cold sweat broke over her. All four of his amber eyes widened as he returned her scrutiny before he flattened his ears and his lips pulled back from his teeth in an obvious show of dominance so unlike the casual authority that the first male had projected.

She was still staring at the pair anxiously when the weight behind her shifted and Arie found herself no longer pinned. Her eyes flew to the side as the third male joined the other two. With his furred back momentarily turned toward her, Arie noticed a row of bony protrusions running protectively down his spine terminating just above a thick tail that dropped from just above the curve of his ass.

Upon arriving at the side of his companions, he turned to face her, his yellow eyes peering at her with a mixture of amusement and suspicion. As she fearfully returned his stare, his upper silver-furred arms crossed over his chest while the other set hung with an air of relaxed attention. She didn’t understand why he wasn’t attacking. Why none of them were. Though his reaction puzzled her, the message his body language conveyed was clear: he would attack her without compunction if he felt it necessary, and it would be swift and brutal. His lips curled with a wicked smile, baring his sharp teeth and long canines, no doubt aware of his effect on her.

The darker male pushed to the fore with a low growl, and the silver one yielded with nothing more than a flick of one of his long, pointed ears, never once taking his eyes off her. Arie’s eyes darted up to the imposing darker Ragoru as he lowered his head and sniffed at her. His hot breath blew across her neck and face, and she felt her stomach tighten with fear. Arie screwed her eyes shut tight in reaction. She didn’t want to see what was coming. She knew it was only a matter of minutes before those terrible teeth would rip into her throat. She felt his muzzle drift down from her face and the hot brush of his nose against her neck, trailing down to the juncture of where it met her shoulder. Arie wanted to cry even as she tried to prepare herself for the vicious touch of his teeth.

It never came. He drew back and a wet tongue swept out and brushed her skin of her neck for a moment before the male snorted and pulled back.

She cracked open an eye and watched as he stepped back, his tail flagging behind him stiffly. All four of his blue eyes were narrowed on her, tension radiating from him.

“Human,” he agreed with a dark, deep rasp.

His ears pricked and Arie was mercifully forgotten for the moment as he whipped his head around to some point behind her. Scenting the air, his fur bristled, and he released a deep, rumbling growl. An eerie howl rose in the distance, making the fine hairs on Arie’s arms stand on end. Did Ragoru run in large packs like wolves? She couldn’t recall any information about the social habits of the aliens, or if anyone had ever possessed such knowledge. Perhaps they were waiting for the rest of their pack to join them before they killed her. If they were anything like wolves, the alphas would eat first before the rest of the pack stripped her remains.

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