Page 104 of Omega Hunted

Pain tore through my shoulder with every stride, but I barely noticed it now. The scent reached me before the clearing did.

Blood. Wolf. Ronan. Too much blood. Fear slammed through me harder than anything I’d felt since Raff died. I drove myself faster, branches whipping at my face as I tore through the trees until the forest opened.

Ronan lay crumpled against the base of a granite boulder; one arm twisted beneath him at an angle that turned my stomach. Blood soaked his chest and shoulder, spreading across the snow in a widening pool. His rifle had fallen several feet away, just beyond reach.

Less than ten feet from him lay a dead hyena, its skull shattered by a rifle round fired so close there was almost nothing left of the back of its head.

The second hyena stood over Ronan.

Smaller than the wolf. Leaner. Its dark muzzle gleamed with blood.

The hyena lifted its head as I burst into the clearing, and its lips curled.

Almost as if it was smiling.

Then, with complete confidence that Ronan was no longer a threat it turned its full attention to me.

The hyena reacted before I’d covered half the distance between us. It watched me, matching every step I took with one of its own, shifting sideways through the snow with an unnerving economy of movement. It kept between Ronan and me at all times, never once exposing its flank or giving me a clean line to attack. Everything about it spoke of patience.

My wolf slowed.

Different.

He was right.

A wolf wanted dominance. A wolf committed.

This bastard wanted an advantage.

It wanted me to make the first mistake.

I dragged in a painful breath, forcing myself to ignore the blood spreading around Ronan’s body. Every instinct screamed at me to reach him, to drag him clear, to make certain he was still breathing, but that was what the hyena wanted. If I glanced away for even a heartbeat, I’d already lost.

The animal’s lips curled away from bloodstained teeth, and a strange, chattering laugh rolled out across the clearing. The sound crawled beneath my skin. It wasn’t triumph, and it wasn’t mockery. It was communication. Somewhere deeper in the forest, another hyena should have answered. None did, and its ears flicked once.

Its head tilted, as it studied me. There was intelligence in those dark eyes, calculating and cold. It wasn’t searching for an opening anymore. It had already found several. My chest burned where the wolf’s claws had opened me from collarbone to ribs, and every breath scraped against bruised lungs. I wasn’t hiding how badly I was hurt. I couldn’t.

The hyena attacked. Its jaws clamped around my left foreleg just above the paw, and instead of trying to drag me down with brute force, it twisted violently. Agony exploded through the joint. My footing vanished beneath me, and I hit the frozen ground shoulder first, the impact driving every breath from my lungs in one brutal rush.

Before I could even react, it was gone again.

It hadn’t stayed long enough for me to reach it.

It hadn’t given me anything to fight.

By the time I’d forced myself upright, it was already circling once more, dancing across the snow while blood dripped from the new wound in my leg. It wasn’t trying to overpower me. It was bleeding me one bite at a time.

My wolf snarled.

Coward.

The next attack came from my blind side.

I heard nothing until teeth raked across my flank, opening another line of fire through skin and muscle. The pain was sharp enough to blur my vision for an instant, but when I spun, snapping for its throat, all I caught was empty air. It had already withdrawn beyond my reach, pacing just outside striking distance with infuriating patience.

It hunted without risking itself, letting exhaustion do the killing. Each wound was survivable on its own. Together, they’d kill me.

Movement behind it caught my eye.