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My stomach grumbles.
Great.
I unfasten one of Kalistratos’s knives and tie the sheath to my belt.
WHUMP.
The hare is practically a mile away when the stone hits the dirt. It stops to look back at me before hopping into the underbrush. The little bastard is taunting me! I’ve been after him for over an hour, and I’mnotgoing to let him get away. I can’t.
I pick up the stone again but stop before slinking after the hare. There has to be a better way to do this than throwing rocks.
Think, Tyler.
And then I realize that I do know a better way. Or at least I think I do. It’s not something I’ve tried in over a decade, ever since those camping trips with my Uncle Carl. He’d shown me once how to make a rabbit snare. I’d tried it and managed to catch a small rabbit, and vowed never to do it again. I’d felt so horrible about seeing that little bunny dead in the trap that I’d completely pushed it from my memory.
I didn’t need much. Just a bit of twine, a few sticks, and patience.
Kalistratos was still out cold. I used the sleeve of my tunic to wipe the sweat from his forehead, then cut a strip off the end of my cloak and twisted it up so that it became like a cord of rope and set the trap between two dense shrubs, a space I noticed the hares would dart through to escape me.
I wait.
And then, finally, a hare appears.
You’re mine.
It’s not mine.
I chase the hare into the trap, but it zips right through the little noose that was supposed to snag it by the neck.
“Argh! Damn you!” I shout as I sprint full tilt after the animal, throwing rocks and sticks and anything else I can get my hands on at it.
It makes a sharp turn around a boulder and I slide after it, then skid to a halt. Sitting on a fallen tree is an alpha with striking blond hair chewing on a strip of dried meat. The hare swerves when it sees him and dives into the nearby brush.
“An interesting strategy,” he says. “Going after rabbits with your bare hands never tends to work the way you want it to.”
I stay where I am. Habit pushes my hand to my waist, where my work belt would have my taser and pepper spray. Instead, I find the handle of Kalistratos’s knife, and I remember how completely vulnerable I am here. But I also feel a strange smoldering energy inside of me, like a feral defensiveness. I’m pregnant. I will do anything to protect the baby, even if it means death. It flashes through my mind in a split second. I’ve never felt like this before.
He chews for a while, staring mildly at me, then chases the mouthful down with a swallow of liquid from a red gourd that he has hanging from his belt. He gives me a warm smile and finishes the strip of jerky. There’s something about him that feels oddly familiar.
“Who are you?” I say cautiously. “And what are you doing here?”
“Traveling, what else?” he says, and points in the direction of the road, down at the base of the canyon.
“Uh, right,” I reply. I begin to back away.
“I have the same question for you,” he says. “A strange omega dashing out from the wilderness.”
“I was hungry,” I say.
“So your companion made you chase after rabbits?”
Maybe it’s just because the sun is gleaming off of his bright hair, but he has a distinctly angelic vibe that is really disarming. Were this home, I could easily imagine him up on a billboard as part of some boy band, or something.
“I never said I had a companion,” I reply.
Was that smart of me? Saying I’m alone out here? I mean, I might as well be, given Kalistratos’s condition. But it’s hard to get used to the reality that I’m vulnerable here, and that most of my street-smarts and self-defense abilities from back home don’t apply in this world.
“But I do have one,” I add quickly. “He’s an alpha.”
