Predator Girl (A Paranormal Romance)

by Roozenboom, S. B.

  I didn’t want to spend my last hours of life stressing. I wanted to spend them here, with the guy who hadn’t put me in harm’s way, the one who had tried to protect us and hadn’t run for the hills when I was in trouble. He might be human but that didn’t matter now.

  This boy had followed me into a club, chased me down an alleyway. I had hated him, feared him. Now things were different. I had heard rumors about humans being capable of great compassion. Now I believed it.

  I snuggled up against him. If only we had more time.

  Chapter Twenty-two—Jared

  I shivered as Ilume pressed closer, her breath warming my neck. We’d never been this close before, and my emotions stirred up. I was rarely this close to a girl that wasn’t, well, naked. But Ilume wasn’t another Nilydra—lust wasn’t exactly what I felt, though I did want her. I couldn’t remember the last time I felt happy just sitting still, having a girl curled up with me.

  But I shouldn’t be. I didn’t want to be.

  My longest relationship was five weeks, two days. After that, I only stayed with a girl so long as there wasn’t drama, boundaries, or attachments, because attachments mean pain. Pain when the girl you care about cares about someone else. Pain when you realize she has high standards you can’t meet. Or when you want to make her happy, yet she’s always crying or pissed off with you.

  Ilume might need me now, but it wouldn’t last. If I let these feelings keep up, she would break me. And there is no worse feeling than that of being broken. Plus, she was Rex’s mate, although I wondered if that would change after today’s events. Still doesn’t matter. Hell, even if by some chance she didn’t take Rex, we could never really be anything. She was a werewolf, an Otherworlder, and while there was no law against it, a Finder with an Otherworlder was unheard of. And, oh yeah, Rex would stop at nothing to murder me then. Maybe even her too.

  I had to be a brick wall. My heart was set in stone, untouchable.

  But as her fingers knotted in my tee, nose bumping my chin as she shifted in my lap, I felt the brick wall crumbling. Her chest rose and fell with mine, our hearts mirroring each other’s beats. God, she was turning me into a marshmallow. A big, soft, toasted marshmallow with a melting center. I hated it! I hated how much I liked this.

  You’ve got to give her up, man, Peter would say. Just let her go. Either Rex is going to separate you two, or something else is. What if you can’t save her from the venom?

  What if she dies?

  That last thought caused me to jerk. I must’ve fallen asleep, for as my eyes shot open the woods were dimly lit, the stars replaced by pale pink clouds and warm air.

  I yawned and laid back, Ilume still passed out on my chest. “Hey.” I shook her gently. We needed to get an early start, see if the pack hadn’t come looking for us and left a scent trail. “Wake up.”

  She didn’t respond. Her hand, the one that had held onto my shirt, lay limply in her lap. Her head lolled on my shoulder, my neck no longer warmed by her breath.

  Oh, no.

  “Ilume?” I shook her harder, sitting up. “Ilume, hey! Wake up!”

  Nothing. Oh, God, how could I have fallen asleep? Panicking, I pressed two fingers under her jaw, praying that she wasn’t dead.

  A pulse. It was weak, but thank God she had a pulse. Holding her around the waist, I pushed myself off the strange curling tree and stood up. She couldn’t die on me. Not now. I couldn’t bear the thought of losing her, the first girl I cared about in years. I had just gathered her into my arms when I heard footsteps. I froze.

  The trees were dense where we stood above the valley, obscuring my view. The footsteps resumed, faint and hard to hear, but I could tell it had two feet and was most likely an Otherworlder. Someone knows how to tread lightly. When they move with that kind of consideration, they tend to be one thing.

  Predators.

  A strange odor clung to the mist, something like rawhide and flowers. Definitely animal. I inhaled, hugging Ilume closer. The scent of woodland dog was present as well, and it didn’t smell like any of ours. It smelled more like the tracks, like the creek water.

  Like the Jackals.

  My mind raced, trying to decide whether to put Ilume down and find a weapon, or hold onto her and make a run for it. I looked this way and that, but there weren’t any branches worthy of being made into spears, no jagged rocks, nothing.

  I was about to take off when the intruder stepped out of the trees. It wasn’t a wolf, but a man. His bald head gleamed in the sun, grey beard tangled with twigs and bits of wildflower. He blinked at me with pale eyes, a gnarled walking stick in hand.

  I relaxed—dude, it was just a short, old man—but then I found the source of the rawhide smell: he wore a black cloak made of (gulp) wolf fur. Worse, the second we met each other’s gaze, my Finder senses switched off. I could no longer hear his breath or footsteps. His smell was reduced to a whiff of damp bark.

  Whatever this Otherworlder was, he was powerful.

  The strange man straightened up. “What are you doing here, hunter?” he demanded. He had the voice of an old king, worn but respected, the type that should always be answered.

  I hesitated, not sure what to say. Could he be trusted? “My friend is dying and I’m trying to get her out of here. You, um, you don’t know how to get back to the fence do you? Back to the creek that runs through the woods?”

  “You will never make it to the fence or the creek in time.” The man swayed forward, his stick silent as it touched the ground. He stood a few feet in front of me. I still smelled nothing. His nose twitched, his eyes falling on Ilume, who still hadn’t moved.

  “Ctenizidae,” he muttered. “A run-in with the traps, I see. She needs medical treatment immediately.”

  “Yeah, I kind of already knew that.” I shifted on my feet, trying to hide how antsy I was. I didn’t want to piss off this extra-supernatural being, but the Grim Reaper was closing in on my werewolf. I didn’t want to stand here and yak.

  The old man looked up at me, then over his shoulder. “Come,” he ordered, stepping back onto the trail. “I have what she needs, but I cannot guarantee she’ll make it. The venom may have already attacked her central nervous system.”

  I watched him start up the hill. Crap, I hated situations like this. Follow the powerful Otherworlder who smelled like the enemy, or bolt off into the valley and see if I could find the fence. He wouldn’t attack me if I took off. I had options here.

  One glance at Ilume and I knew what had to happen. He was right: the chances of getting her home were nonexistent. A trap or not, the old man had offered me a chance. I couldn’t let it slip by.

  “All right,” I said, starting after him as he veered off the trail.

  It was a long hike through rough terrain. The tree limbs were intertwined like family members holding hands. Brambles and morning glories ruled the ground, knotted together like the hair of a dryad.

  The old man stayed far ahead. He never glanced back, and he only stopped once when we fell behind. “Keep up,” he said firmly, then proceeded up a steep incline.

  While I was panting and sweating, he didn’t even pause to catch his breath. I reasoned that my slowness was because I carried an extra hundred pounds. All he had to carry was that stick.

  The journey ended in a small field outside a gigantic, white tree. It towered into the sky, trunk twisted, limbs spread like the dancers in Whirlwind. Hollowed out, one could easily fit a bedroom inside.

  Old Man stood beneath a branch with orb-shaped blooms. Lifting his stick, he tapped the trunk three times. I jumped back as the tree moved. Limbs shifted and the orb blooms glowed like will-o-the-wisps. An exposed root lifted up, revealing a set of steps.

  “Down,” he said, pointing.

  I snapped my mouth closed, suppressing my awe as I trotted down the stairs.
He made the tree move. Unless the tree had moved on its own, but I’d never heard of that happening before. Not without fey involved.

  The last step took us into an underground room. The dirt walls had roots growing out and around them, the space taken up mostly by wooden cabinets. Below the handles were labels, everything from RHUBARB and NETTLE LEAF in capital letters, to more disturbing titles like COBRA EGGS and PARROT’S FOOT.

  On a lit table against the back wall, old torn books were stacked beside glass jars. All jars were empty but one, which held a gold fluttering thing. The other side of the table was kept clear, save for the few lizards licking a bowl of crushed petals.

  “Lay her down in the furs.” Old Man passed me, leaning his stick against the desk chair. The lizards scattered. “That wound needs to be cleaned and sanitized. There are some clean rags in the nightstand.”

  A cabinet drawer squeaked as he pulled it open. Something inside the drawer clicked, like glass bottles colliding, as he rooted through.

  I headed for the huge hammock strung up in the front corner. The pelt of a grizzly was spread across it, along with a bunch of raccoon tails sewn together and fluffed up like pillows. Reluctantly, I set Ilume down and checked her pulse again. Still weak but present.

  Old Man pulled out a few glass vials. Moving to the desk he picked up the bowl, dumping the petal mix on the floor. The lizards swarmed it like flies. He began mashing leaves and a blue fungus that smelled like pickles.

  I pulled open the bedside drawer, revealing a stack of rags. An old perfume glass made swishing sounds, and held a clear liquid inside. I picked it up and gave it a spray out of curiosity. It held water, not perfume.

  Spraying a rag down, I eyed the dried blood peeling off Ilume’s thighs. It had hardened in streams, creating ugly, broken patterns down her legs. I blushed, knowing I was the one to clean it off.

  I pulled up the edge of the jacket. It was like peeling off fly paper. The material was stiff, darkened from the wound. I took my time, scrubbing off the scarlet flakes. All the while I kept thinking, don’t stare, don’t stare. God, she was beautiful. Narrow feet, tight calves, sculpted thighs leading up to a perfect—

  Shoot, I just looked at her ass. My eyes shot back to my hands, working at her side. Focus, Jared.

  The spider’s bite wasn’t pretty. Bruises crawled up her side, puffy from the infection. Flaps of skin hung around her hip like raw chicken, and that spot of white among all the crimson . . . was that bone?

  A shadow passed over me. Old Man shooed me aside, bending down to smear a strange paste over her bite marks. “Wolves are quick healers,” he said. “I think once the anti-venom sets in, she’s going to heal up fast.”

  “She’ll be okay?” I asked, holding my breath.

  “Hopefully.” He gave a single nod as he went back to the desk. “I think we might’ve caught it just in time. If so, she’ll be very, very lucky.”

  Phew. I exhaled. As he waved a palm over the bowl, the last of the paste turned into a shiny, white powder. Tipping it sideways, Old Man watched the lizards bounce, catching the sprinkles in midair.

  “So,” I said, sitting on the hammock. “Do I get to ask what you are?”

  “I think it’d be politer to first ask me who,” he replied and then sat down in his chair. “But if you must ask what, so be it. To your kind, I am known as mediocris lupus.”

  I stared. Oh, great, Latin lessons. Luckily, I remembered some species list assignment we had in Monstrology last year. “Fairy wolf?” I guessed.

  His thin eyebrows lifted. “I’m impressed,” he admitted, “although the name is somewhat inaccurate. While my father was O’Brien, alpha of the Jackals wolf pack, my mother was Dragina, a Witch of the Wood—not a fairy.”

  “Dragina?” I didn’t hide my surprise.

  Dragina was one of three famous witch sisters that I’d studied in history. The sisters never got along, and their feuds tended to cause chaos like floods and earthquakes. Eventually each had broken off, inhabiting a different area in the world. I didn’t remember much about that lecture in class—yup, another snoozer—but I did remember that Dragina roamed the woodlands of North America, untagged. Made sense she would come here.

  “Yes.” Old Man nodded slowly. “But she is ever-moving. I was raised in the pack and stayed until my father passed from old age, but the Jackals feared my power. When a wolf moved to challenge me, I left and sent myself into exile.”

  “Oh.” A sudden thought came to mind. “Do you ever, you know, leave the fence? Go out into the woods?”

  He shrugged. “Every now and again.”

  “And the Jackals—do they ever come through here?”

  “They never come over the fence. They know what moves below the ground at the gates. I am the only one that the arachnids don’t dare attack.”

  “Oh, man.” I slapped a hand over my face. I should’ve known the second I saw only one set of paw prints; it hadn’t been the Jackals’ trail I’d been following at the creek.

  I had traced his tracks instead.

  An awkward silence filled the room. I watched the lizards. They’d cleaned up every last speck of sparkle powder and were on the desk again, basking in the lamplight and teasing the gold fluttery thing. I randomly wondered what would happen if I put a gang of those in my bedroom back home. Maybe they’d eat all the old crumbs and gym socks under my bed.

  “Sorry, you’re right.” I shook my head, cutting the daydreams. “I should’ve asked your name first. I’m Jared, just so you know.”

  Old Man’s lip twitched, like he might smile. “I already know,” he informed. “I know all who wander in my woods. And you may call me Arasni. You are welcome to stay as long as you like, Jared, but I must discourage talk of my home when you leave. I am an old wolf—I like my privacy.”

  “Understandable,” I agreed.

  My grandpa was the same way, which is probably why we haven’t heard or seen him in six years. “No worries. No one will know we were here.”

  Chapter Twenty-three—Ilume

  It was like someone had stabbed me with a pitchfork. My hip and thigh were scorching as I rolled over. Had I gotten into a fight with Althea again? Everything hurt. Maybe I’d just passed out by the fireplace.

  My nose smelled like damp rocks and earth. I blinked away the sleepiness, glancing around the room. It looks like Gram’s den. My eyebrows knit. Since when did I go back to Gram’s den? That was over in Loralin. Plus, her home didn’t have oak cabinets. Whose den was this and why was I in it?

  I sat up, hair tumbling over my shoulders. I plucked at the long, silvery shawl draped over me. It looked to be made of spider silk, a rare, hard-to-make fabric. This isn’t mine. Hadn’t I been wearing something else? Jared’s jacket. Yes, I’d been wearing Jared’s jacket. Wait, why was I wearing his clothes?

  “Ouch!” As I moved my leg, the fire surged from head to toe. Tugging the shawl up, I stared in horror at my hip. No pitch forks luckily, but massive bruises rimmed a set of holes in my flesh. They looked like bite marks, and judging by the thick, scarlet scabs, I’d say these had once been bigger. Who the hell bit me? Another wolf? A giant snake?

  No. A giant spider.

  My stomach filled with ice as the memories surfaced. Gruesome memories of the iron gates, the attack in the clearing, my lost wolves. The unbearable pain as two black fangs came down into my side. And Jared.

  Where was Jared?

  Gritting my teeth, I rolled off the bear fur. Everything wobbled, and I pressed against the wall while standing up. It took a minute for the nausea to pass. This definitely takes the spot for worst injury I’ve ever had.

  A set of dirt steps caught my peripheral vision. That must be the way out. I limped up them. At the top I hit a dead end. Reaching up, I searched blindly for a bar or flat spot like at Gram’s. Before I
could find one the ceiling moved on its own. I stumbled back, nearly falling down the stairs. It was a tree root. A huge, white tree root that curled up, revealing the exit.

  Whacked. Maybe it was a faerie’s den or something, although most faeries hated living underground. And they hated werewolves. They sometimes played tricks on us. This in mind, I wondered what happened while I was out. If it was a faerie, had he done anything to me? God, I still had my innocence, I hope. Someone would pay with their life if that had been taken from me.

  I stepped out into a colorful clearing. Poppies, violets, and purple-tipped clovers waved in the breeze. Among them I smelled something sugary as the folded, twisted blooms of fey flowers appeared. Large lightning bugs flitted by my head, will-o-the-wisps perched in all corners of the tree. Those wisps look awfully small. I did a double-take and saw they weren’t wisps at all; they were bubble-like blooms with an eerie glow.

  I had just started across the clearing when a voice called, “Ilume!”

  I stopped, swiveling to the side.

  Sitting in the grass below a pine tree, Jared waved at me, smiling.

  He was here. He stayed for me. In an instant, I stopped worrying about the blackout. Jared must’ve brought me here, and he wouldn’t have let anything bad happen to me.

  Leaping to his feet, he came jogging over. His feet skidded to a stop, and for a second I thought he might hug me. Blush crept into both our cheeks. He pocketed his hands. Dried blood covered his tee and jeans, yet all he had was a few scratches. Was that my blood?

  “You’re okay,” he whispered, relieved.

  “Yeah,” I breathed, tucking a wild curl behind my ear. I’d meant to sound relieved, too, but my reply had been solemn. While I was grateful to be alive, the sleep had been peaceful. No pain. No worries.