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A few more feet, and they came upon the split, and indeed, more blood, the most they’d seen because his wounds were freshest, and the smell now—Goddess, the stench was making his eyes water.
Even Isla had brought her sleeve up to her nose. “Something tells me the bak weren’t moved.”
Indeed, they hadn’t been.
They came to a halt a few feet away from the closest of the dead beasts, the two others a little further away. Three throats torn to shreds by Kai’s wolf, swarms of insects, and some tiny rat-like creatures fed off the carcasses.
“Goddess,” Isla groaned, her eyes flicking up and focusing on something. “Of course, there’s a marker here, too.” And, of course, she’d have to get right by the beast to wrench it from the cave wall.
“I’ll do it,” Kai said, extending a hand for her to hand him her small chisel. To his surprise, she didn’t oppose. Though, she wasn’t far behind him.
While he drove the little blade into the rock around the marker’s edge, Isla examined the bak’s dead body. Some of the rats had scurried away, while others had just moved further away from her, observing its face or gnawing on its legs.
“How did you kill this one?”
Kai glanced down from the stone wall, noticing her tipping its chin with the blade of her sword. “What do you mean?”
“Its throat’s still intact. The others aren’t.” She gestured to the clear pools of blood beneath the other two and trained her eyes elsewhere along the body. “And I don’t see any other injuries.” Though the creature appeared very muchdead, accompanied by a blank, vacant red stare, Isla lifted her sword high. She was about to bear it down, cleaving the beast’s body, when she screamed and fell right back on her ass.
Her shout still echoed as Kai abandoned his work on the marker, his wolf attempting to rise to the surface. “What? What is it?”
But Isla didn’t speak; she just sat on the rock floor, sword at her side as she panted, wide-eyed. It took him a few darting glances to realize what she’d been staring at.
A minute, beady set of red eyes peeked from the large crevice between the mammoth carcass’s neck and shoulder. Then red eyes became a tiny head, half-drooped ears, a small, wet snout, over ashen gray, sparsely hair-covered skin. Then he caught a glimpse of paws without skin-tearing, gutting claws. And when the creatureyawned,those were not throat-tearing teeth.
Kai’s whisper reverberated off the tunnel’s walls. “You’re fucking kidding me.”
“It’s ababy,” Isla gushed, more confused and fascinated andexcitedthan he probably would’ve liked her to be.
The first two, he agreed on. He’d never seen a bak pup before. Hell, he didn’t know they…reproduced, but then again, they’d never explored much of the Wilds. And the bak had to come from somewhere with the Hunt going on for as long as it had.
Suddenly, one of the rats, no longer satisfied with the lower limb—or dead—meal, lunged for the bak pup. Its enlarged teeth nipped at the baby, making it yelp and cry.
“Hey!”
Before Kai could stop Isla, she was lunging forward, scooping the pup in her arms and impaling the rat with her sword.
The others took a break from there to turn on her, but one flash of her violet eyes, her wolf rising, sent them squeaking and scurrying away. “Yeah, you better run,” she muttered under her breath, flicking their dead companion off her blade’s tip.
Kai noticed the pup gazing up at her, its tiny red eyes taking her in. A wolf, a predator—a queen. He was shocked when it didn’t squirm, didn’t even try fleeing from her arms.
No, the little beastsettled.
It took up the entire cradle of her arm, a decent size but nowherenearan adult bak.
For a delirious moment, he would admit that it was cute—endearing, even, as it tucked into her for protection.
Then the reality of whatever the hell was going on set in.
Kai asked, “What are you doing?"
Isla, subconsciously it seemed, tucked the pup closer as she turned to him. She met his eyes, then followed his stare to the bak in her arms. Then they darted back to him, then to the bak again. She smiled weakly. “I…don’t really know.” From its perch in her hold, the pup shivered as it stared at the dead bak below. Isla frowned. “I think one of these is its mother.”
Kai observed the gruesome scene. It had been a melee of teeth and claws and death. He hadn’t noticed a mother protecting her pup—though if they’d been calm in this makeshift den of theirs and they perceived him as a threat…
Of course they’d fight. He was surprised by the nausea that roiled his gut.
But these werebakintheirterritory. He had to get a grip.
