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Tears tried to form.
My heart swelled agonisingly in my chest.
I didn’t know why I’d been walking, what I’d been searching for, or why I’d been so alone, but every piece of seclusion and savage solitude came crashing down upon me.
A sob gathered in my chest.
I tried to curl into a little ball, to hide, to forget, to die.
“Hey...” Niya ducked to her haunches again, cupping my dirty cheek. “You’re okay.” Her eyes glossed with overwhelming kindness. “You’re not alone anymore.”
You’re not alone anymore.
Her voice echoed.
Her words repeated.
They chased me back into the eternal forgetful fog.
And the last thing I remembered was strong arms slipping beneath me.
I turned weightless as the sky claimed me for its own.
Chapter Two
. The Stranger .
I FLINCHED AS SOMETHING WET and warm ran over my face.
The first sensation I’d felt in so long.
Too long.
The wet-warmness came again, following the shape of my nose and up over my dirty forehead. Groaning, I curled tighter in the grass where I’d collapsed last night.
My last memory was the moon shining down, pitiless and murderous as the final dregs of energy abandoned me.
It hadn’t cared that I’d reached my limit.
It didn’t try to stop me as my knees buckled, and I folded into the dirt.
It just watched me die.
I was alone.
Just like I’d been since I could first remember. I had no memories of another life. No recollections of another existence apart from the never-ending walking, searching, struggling.
I just wanted to fade...
Black fog settled over my thoughts again, hushing the grasshoppers chirping in the grass and blotting out the dusk that signalled my last day on this painfully lonely earth.
The wetness returned.
This time, it slicked over my bare shoulder and down my arm.
I didn’t have the strength to swat it away. I didn’t even have the strength to groan again.
A huff of warmth on my side as something cool and damp snuffled against my skin.
I suddenly knew what it was.
They’d been stalking me for days.
Trailing me in the shadows and slinking from the moonlight.
Wolves.
Wolves that left pawprints bigger than my own foot. Four-legged hunters with black-and-silver fur dusted with gold around their thick ruffs. Their spiral ivory horns looked as sharp as their fangs as they howled at the night.
So be it.
I relaxed every muscle.
I gave in to my fate.
If my exhaustion could provide them with a meal, then I would gladly die. I would be grateful to them for ending my loneliness and taking away my unbearable hollowness.
The wolf nosed me again, nudging my shoulder.
I flopped onto my back as my heart stuttered with its final beats, giving myself up, presenting my bare belly for its teeth.
The hunter huffed and licked below my naval, tasting my dried blood from when I’d crawled through a thicket of thorns a few days ago, eager for the scant berries on its branches.
That had been my last meal.
I’d found nothing since.
I was glad it was almost over.
I tensed and waited.
I waited for its teeth to rip into me. To tear at my unprotected belly and transform me from living to a meal.
I waited.
...
I waited longer.
...
And the wet lick finally came again, following the scars down my thighs and lapping at my weakened legs. The brush of coarse fur tickled my hip as the beast nudged me with its snout. The faint scraping of fangs sent a last-ditch effort of survival through me.
If I didn’t move, I would die.
Even if I did move, I would probably die.
I had no strength to fight off a hungry wolf.
It didn’t matter if I fought in my last moments or lay still, I was dead. And I chose to ignore the sudden racing of my heart and remain strewn in the grass.
Hurry.
Get it over with.
Its tongue lapped over my face, dipping into the corners of my mouth. A blanket of fur covered my cold and naked body as the wolf settled beside me, pressing itself close.
My eyes that’d turned hazy with starvation fluttered open. Dusk-light cast everything in creeping shadows. The sun set behind a mountain in the distance, illuminating the plain where I’d collapsed, turning green grass into reds and golds with its blazing beauty.
It took everything I had to turn my head and force my eyes to focus.
To focus on the giant spiral-horned beast beside me.
I locked eyes with it. With its ancient soulful gaze.
It held my stare, licking its lips with a tongue that caught on sharp teeth. Bowing its majestic head, catching the final dregs of sunset on its coiled horns, it opened its mouth and captured my wrist.
Pinpricks of fangs threatened to pierce my skin, but I didn’t yank my arm away. I didn’t try to strike the wolf or defend my impending death. I merely lay on my back and gave whatever I had left to this creature about to put me out of my misery.
