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I’m so focused on the looming what-ifs with Denver that I don’t detect the immediate threat.
Not until Kody stops in his tracks, removes the crossbow from his back, and goes deathly still.
“What is it?” My scalp tingles as I probe the desolate landscape.
In the distance, the cabin lights twinkle, barely a few specks in the dark. We’re at least two miles away.
“When I say run, you run.” He tries to cock the bow, his injured hand fumbling with the balance and tension.
A trickle of sweat drips between my breasts. I need to help him with the weapon, but I’m afraid to move. I don’t even know what we’re up against.
“Kody?” I take a step toward him, the snow crunching like broken glass.
“Be still.” He abandons the bow, unsheathes a twelve-inch blade, and aims it at the darkness.
For months, I’ve felt a shiver of something lurking around Hoss. Flickering movement here and there. A blur of something ominous, something real enough to raise my hackles every time I go for a run. But no matter how often I mention it, the Strakh men always say it’s nothing.
Is the ghost finally revealing itself?
Several yards away, a silhouette rises out the darkness. I strain my eyes, tracing the height, the length, the fur.
Whatever it is, it’s fucking monstrous.
As it prowls out of the deep, the first thing I notice is the immense size of its head. It looks like something out of Game of Thrones.
A direwolf.
It can’t be.
They’re extinct. They don’t exist.
Then how am I staring into the glowing, amber eyes of a wolf that stands as tall as a small horse?
With fur the color of the snowdrift from which it emerged, it shakes vigorously, sending mighty ripples along its body—at least seven feet from end to end—freeing a flurry of snow and ice.
Regaining its terrible stance, it swings its head toward me, its lips pulled back to display a lethal row of shredding white fangs. Fangs made to rip limbs from sockets and strip meat from bones.
The frigid winds slice through my heavy coat, cutting me to the quick as I stumble back.
They said the wolves don’t leave the hills. They don’t venture this far south.
They’re fucking wrong.
With trembling hands, I reach for the straps of my pack.
And freeze.
It tracks my movements, nostrils huffing as it stalks on claw-tipped paws. Thirty feet away. Twenty…
How will I dig out the gun and chamber a round before it attacks?
I won’t.
Too fast, it closes in, revealing matted, stained fur on its forelegs and muzzle. Red-stained fur. Shining with blood.
A fresh kill.
My heart stops.
This can’t be happening.
It snaps its bone-shattering jowls, flinging spit in my direction.
Still hungry.
My ears ring. My knees lock. If I had a full bladder, I would’ve soiled myself.
Too far away, Kody jams two fingers into his mouth and whistles defiantly at the hellborn thing. “Over here!”
It doesn’t change course. Not when there’s an easy meal right here, quivering like a rabbit in her boots.
I retreat another step, and everything happens at once.
“Run!” Kody bellows as the wolf lunges.
I burst into a sprint with its hot breath already on my neck, its snapping teeth at my ear, and its snarl…that vicious, death-dealing sound escapes a gaping maw from inches away, chilling my tattered soul.
And I know.
I know I’m already dead as a massive paw lands on my backpack, ripping it from my shoulders. I lurch from the impact, legs tangling, and hit the ground hard. My air knocks free. The beast falls with me, and I brace for the fatal blow, tucking into a ball and…
Boots scraping snow. A masculine shout of pain. Then, “Run, Frankie! Run!”
My breath catches as I roll to my back. Did Kody throw himself at the wolf?
Yes, he fucking did.
And now he’s wrestling with it, bare-handed.
Kicking it away, he roars, “Run, goddammit!”
Like hell.
He catches the rabid thing as it flies at him, and they tumble through the snow in a blur of growling, spitting, primal aggression.
One bite. That’s all it will take.
No.
Adrenaline kicks in, and the world goes quiet as I scan the ground for my pack.
There. On the other side of the fight lies the pack with my gun. So close yet so far away.
“Ruuuuuun!” Kody’s shout ends on a heavy, pain-laced groan.
Pinned to the ground, with his hands buried in the wolf’s neck, he holds those chomping jaws away from his face. His bleeding face, where strips of flesh have been removed by teeth.
Pointy, flesh-eating teeth.
Carnivore teeth.
Apex predator teeth.
My chest caves in as I spin, searching, until my gaze lands on the crossbow.
Racing for it, I skid onto my knees and scoop it up with shaking hands.
My fingers slip as I try to cock it. “Dammit!”
It’s the gloves. I strip them and try again.
Feet away, Kody fights valiantly, brandishing a knife in one hand while his bandaged one wrestles those jaws.
