Page 49 of Blood & Claw

Dropping low, she drove the knife upward as it surged past her. Her movement was awkward, and the blade skidded across slick muscle before catching. The creature twisted fast, wrenching the knife from her hand. Its tail slammed into her legs.

She went down hard, breath exploding from her lungs.

Get up!

She rolled across wet pebbles and staggered to her feet just as it wheeled back toward her.

She’d lost her knife, but the fire was behind her, and a thick branch lay near the flames.

She snatched it up.

The beast lunged, and she swung. Wood cracked against its skull. Her attacker staggered.

She struck again.

Bone cracked. The creature writhed.

She struck a third time—and a fourth.

In the back of her mind, a voice screamed at her to stop, yet she didn’t.

The branch rose and fell. Wet thuds echoed across the loch-shore.

Only when the wood splintered in her hands did she realize the beast had stopped moving several blows earlier.

Silence rushed in.

Ailsa stood over the carcass, chest heaving.

Blood dripped from the shattered branch.

Ailsa’s gorge rose. The Reaper take her. How she’d wanted to keep going.

Her knife lay half-buried in the beast’s side. She bent and grabbed it, marking the tremble in her hands. Thank the Gods, that’s over.

And then the water moved again.

A second shadow glided through the shallows.

For a moment, Ailsa merely stared at it before she breathed, “Oh, shit.”

13: EASY PREY

THE SECOND CREATURE rose from the loch.

Smaller than the first—yet faster.

Its eyes fixed on her the moment its head broke the surface.

Ailsa backed away, knife raised. Her arm trembled now, strength bleeding from it.

The cold focus that had carried her through the fight was fading. Each heartbeat stripped a little more of it away.

Her stomach tightened.

She was done for.

“Ailsa!” Dale’s shout cut through the morning.