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ChapterOne
Skal was alone. He was old. He was scarred. And he was alone. He didn’t try to follow the other males who formed triads and sought promised mates among an unfamiliar people—humans. He did not trust them. Their cities were loud, and they gathered like wasps on a hive, always ready to sting as far as he could see. Nor did he have any desire to form a triad. His males and his mate, like so many others before the passage, had died slow, terrible deaths on their home world. The gods were merciful in that he had never sired rogs only to watch them die as well. That he survived his mate was enough shame.
He was not a fool. He knew that this was a new chance and opportunity for males who lost their families to try again and had begun forming triads even before arriving to this world. He snarled unpleasantly at any male who attempted to approach him, ensuring that they would leave him alone. Skal was too old and too mean to welcome any other males into his company, and he had little interest in trying to attract another mate. He sought nothing more than some secluded place where he could pass what was left of his life in comfort and peace.
At least humans did not venture far from their hives, leaving much of the wilderness free. Much of it was filled with other monsters without a safe place to truly rest, but it was merely an inconvenience compared to what he had left behind. What he could sate his appetite on, he avoided as he continued to make his way among the vast stretches of land, looking for the place that he would call his.
He didn’t need much. Many triads sought sprawling territories that would keep others far from their dens. He just wanted a small, defensible area that would make it easy for him to keep out Ragoru and humans alike.
Casting a look around the mist-shrouded forest, Skal rumbled in approval. He liked this place. Sheer cliffs of a mountain enclosed much of it, leaving only a narrow access point into it except for the forest that funneled into it from a small opening of land directly to the west. The mist poured in through the forest, gathering against the cliffs like water filling a basin. It was thick and dense, obscuring much of the woods within it. He was not a small male. Even among Ragoru, he tended to tower over most of them and was broader across the chest, and yet he felt comfortably concealed as he slipped through among the trees, the autumn leaves crunching softly beneath his paws.
His ears pricked, his sharp sight scanning for any hint of the dangerous predatory plants that grew where trees sprung up the thickest. He had to remain alert for their presence. Even a full-grown Ragoru could be pulled down by one of the monstrous plants and consumed. That aside, his stomach felt empty and hollow. Hunger gnawed at him. Traveling through the mountains had yielded little game, and now that he was in the woods, he was eager to search for prey.
His nose twitched as he slipped among the trees. He paused as he caught a faint, appealing scent. It was sweet, thick, and musky, with a sharp blend of spices that made him salivate. A branch cracked, and there was a rushed, rustling sound as something darted among the bushes. Skal’s ear turned to follow the sound, but he dismissed it, suddenly far more intrigued by this new scent. Under the rich food smells, there was another tantalizing scent that he could not quite identify. It intrigued him, pulling him in as much as the other scent did. It pulled him through the woods and mist until a glow of light shimmered and broke through the haze. It pulled him up short because humans made this light, but he did not hesitate long.
The light was solitary and weak. A lone human or a very small number at most. Not enough to overpower a male such as himself. He would frighten them away and claim the territory and the delicious things within it for his own.
Skal’s hackles rose with his excitement as he sped toward that light, watching as it grew bigger. He didn’t stop until he was at the edge of a very small clearing where a human den sat in the midst without any others nearby. He slowly peered around, his nostrils flaring to pick up the scents. The tasty food smell was stronger than ever, but the other scent had grown as well and become more defined. A sweet human scent.
His head cocked curiously. This was unusual. Nearly all of his human experiences with human scents were stale and layered over each other repeatedly from the close contact that they seemed to enjoy with each other. They were not anything he considered appealing. It was actually the opposite. He disliked the sourness of human musk, but there was a ripeness and freshness to this human scent that made him lick his teeth hungrily. He was confused as to why it was alone, but he felt emboldened by it, too. There was no reason not to investigate. It had been so long since he felt intrigue over anything that he suddenly felt alive and excited.
Prowling through the darkening woods, he crept closer. His ears tipping forward, he cautiously scented the air as he closed the distance between himself and the human den, wary in case there was some sudden new arrival.
But no one came. There were no new sounds. No new unpleasant scents. Just the delicious scents that drifted from the wooden den, teasing his senses, and luring him in as much as the light called to him and invited him.
The hour was growing later, the darkness closing in among the heavy cluster of trees, and the mist thickened to a fog shrouding everything. It made his fur damp where it clung to him, and he wondered if the human knew that he was there. If the human could see his pale gray fur at all. If the human was scared.
Did he want them to be?
Skal wanted the territory and the strange den. But he also wanted the tasty things, including the human scent.
He would investigate and savor—and then he would decide if he would chase the human away or keep the human as his—as part of his new territory. He hungered for home and comfort, but these new scents made me hunger for something he hadn’t desired for many turns of the seasons. Hehungered.
ChapterTwo
There was something out there.
Eve Brennon stood beside her window, staring out into the fog and heavy trees surrounding her home. She wasn’t an adventurer to face the unknown. Over her transistor radio, she heard of the discovery of Evelyn Whitlock and had marveled over it at the time, even as she had shivered at what the agreements between their species and the aliens called Ragoru could mean. If she were Evelyn, she might have investigated and driven away whatever was hunting in her secluded woods. But she wasn’t. Not even in the closeness in their names gave her an ounce more courage as she shivered and watched the fog crawl higher around her house with the arrival of night.
It didn’t help that it was coming up on Halloween. Of all the things to survive from the old world, it was one of the few things that hung on with the most determination. No one forgot that it was the time of year when everything crept within the darkness and the worlds of the dead, the spirit, and the living encroached upon each other.
It was the perfect night to be eaten by some wayward monster, if there ever was one.
Eve shivered and drew her blanket around herself. Perhaps she should have moved into town like everyone insisted when her husband died, leaving her a young widow and all alone in the world since her parents had passed away years before in a freak accident. If she had, she would be protected by the town walls right now rather than all alone.
On the other hand, this was her home. She’d grown up here. The fog seldom lifted beyond a gentle mist, but she’d been born and raised there and could navigate her way among her orchards and raised gardens along the foothills without ever becoming lost or disoriented. She found it comforting, whereas her trips to the town market more often than not left her feeling terribly exposed. The power generator provided her with her few comforts and indulgences via satellite uplink. It was a solitary life, but her property was safe and cozy, and it didn’t attract the predators among humans or wildlife that other places seemed to. Eve had never once felt even remotely uneasy in her little home… until now.
A shadow within the murky darkness shifted and moved. Her eyes warily tracked it as it seemed to slide closer from between the trees, her tongue glued to the back of her teeth. Her breath caught as the shadow loomed larger and two pairs of eyes glowed like luminous pinpricks cutting through the dark. And they were peering in her direction, as if something were out there watching her.
Her hands turned sweaty, and she wiped them on her thick, woolen pants as she tried to slow her rapid intakes of breath. It was possible that it could scent her fear from its current distance with the same clarity that it appeared to her watch. With its four glowing eyes and considerable size, there was no doubt in Eve’s mind exactly what it was.
Ragoru.
It stood still for a long moment at the edge of the trees immediately surrounding her house and then slowly moved forward, a vague impression until the fog suddenly shifted and her eyes widened as she caught her first true glimpse of it, its pale, milky gray fur and enormous bulk just barely visible within the gloom, as if the Ragoru were an elemental demon materializing from the heavy vaporous cloud that filled her property.
Its jaw dropped, its mouth opening as it seemed to breathe deeply, and its teeth slid along its fangs, provoking Eve to wince in reaction as she withdrew a step from the glass that separated them. Its head cocked in noticeable response, its ears twisting back as its fur seemed to expand as if its hackles were raised.
It burst from the fog then, streaking forward with such speed and blending into its surroundings to such a degree that she could barely track it. It didn’t matter. She had no interest in standing there in front of the window on display, just begging to be murdered. She stumbled back, spinning around as her heart jumped violently within her chest. What was she standing there for? She needed to hide!
