Long snout, eyes glistening deep under a heavy brow. What was this thing? It was like no animal I’d seen before.
The glimpse of his erection in the thick, long fur of his crotch struck me with another stab of terror.
It was certainly a he.
I whimpered, and made another pathetic attempt to crab-walk away.
With a low roar, he pounced after me and clawed at the front of my sweater, slashing it all the way down. The two halves fell open, exposing my cotton bra underneath.
A growl rumbled out of his throat, and he buried his snout between my breasts. Feeling his cold nose against my skin, I stiffened in horror, expecting his sharp teeth to tear into me next, but he only sniffed and snorted his way up to my neck.
With his huge body now flush with mine, the stench of something like wet dog assaulted my nostrils. A clawed hand pawed at my inner thigh, slicing through my jeans with a flash of searing pain up my leg.
The weight of his bulk pressed me into the ground, forcing all air out of my lungs. With my feet and hands scraping uselessly against the ground, I couldn’t breathe to let out the scream building in my chest.
I was pinned to the ground, completely incapacitated.
Just like then!
I had the same feeling of helplessness once before. And just like then debilitating panic overtook me. The scream that had painfully stuck in my dry throat finally escaped in a sharp high-pitched shrill.
The sound must have been enough to stun the animal on top of me. He stopped his wet sniffing and lifted his head enough to meet my eyes.
After a gasping exhale, I screamed, “No!” in his maw hovering over my face, putting everything I had into that one word.
Dark and wild, his eyes were almost completely glossed over by animalistic lust.
Almost.
A faint spark of . . . something—a light, an awareness, some clarity—flickered in his gaze. Then a low growl rumbled deep inside his chest in response, but the glimmer of understanding was undeniable now.
His lips drew back, baring long sharp-looking teeth, and he roared into my face, washing it with his hot, humid breath.
The next moment, he shoved back from me and disappeared around the corner of the garage, running on all fours, the animal that he was.
I lay there for another second, trying to process what had just happened. The ringing in my ears replaced any outside noise, and white spots danced in front of my eyes.
The need to get out of there in case he returned finally registered with me, urging me to stumble to my feet and lunge for the opening in the bushes.
With the rose hedge behind me, I didn’t stop running.
Chapter 3
DODGING SHRUBS AND tree trunks, my lungs on fire and my heart pounding high in my throat, I didn’t pay any attention to the direction I was running, as long as it was away from the house and the raging, nightmarish creature.
However, after running until I was breathless with a painful stitch in my side, I realized that there was nothing but deep forest around me, and I had no idea in which direction the road lay. There was no sign of the chain-link fence, either.
Panting and pressing an arm to my side, I turned slowly, scanning my surroundings.
Trees, undergrowth, dead leaves and pine needles. Nothing else.
The good news was, I saw no monster chasing me, either. But how was I supposed to get out of here?
The sun had moved low behind the trees. With the evening fast approaching, frost was setting in. I felt it even more through the rips in my clothing. A biting chill seeped through the fabric of my jeans too, quickly stealing the heat I’d worked up while running.
My teeth began to chatter, and I attempted to close my jacket over the torn pieces of my sweater. It didn’t help much—the holes on the back from the animal’s claws only opened wider as soon as I closed the jacket in the front.
My knitted hat was long gone, lost during my struggle with the monster. I belatedly remembered my leather gloves, tucked in my pocket, and quickly put them on. I was dressed appropriately for a daytime walk through a forest in autumn, not a night out without shelter. And now, I feared the very real threat of hypothermia.
If I didn’t get out of here soon enough, I was screwed.
I inhaled deeply, trying to stop from diving head first into panic.
It was obviously a large property, but not infinite. If I walked in one direction, eventually I would most likely hit the chain-link fence that surrounded it. Then I could follow it back to the road.
Would Ashley and Jason still be waiting for me? I didn’t expect them to go into the woods searching for me—they had no guns to face off that monster, even Jason’s axe I’d left in the bedroom. But hopefully, they’d be honking the horn or flashing the headlights, waiting for me in the truck. So, I had a chance to hear or see them maybe even before I saw the road.
In any case, I couldn’t remain still for long and risk freezing. I needed to find the fence.
Wrapping my arms around my middle, I kept moving. Hunger began to gnaw at me, and I took out one of the granola bars I had lying in my pocket next to my Swiss Army knife.
Trudging along, hopefully, in a straight line, I had no idea how long I walked, but the shadows thickened and it soon became too dark to see where I was going. The air turned even colder, and I was too scared to stop.
Hugging myself, with my head down, watching the uneven ground under my feet, I would have missed the fence if my shoulder hadn’t hit the post.
There was no chain-link here, the property line seemed to be marked by log posts placed at even intervals and connected by a string of barbed wire stretched at the top, high enough for me to pass under without noticing it in the dark.
What was the purpose of a fence if it didn’t prevent anyone from entering?
Maybe keeping visitors out wasn’t the point? Obviously, the thing that lived here didn’t have to worry about trespassers—people or animals. He must be the largest predator around here.
A chill, unrelated to the cold of the night, ran down my spine when I thought that he was still out there somewhere, roaming through the same woods I was trying to escape.
Nearly frozen inside the thin leather gloves, my fingers shook as I opened my pocketknife. Not much of a weapon, but I felt safer with it in my hand.
I kept following the property line, from one pole to the next, keeping an eye on the wire, which glimmered in the faint light of the moon between the dark clouds shrouding the sky.
The hair on the back of my neck rose every time I heard a cracking noise in the distance. Was it the monster coming back for me?
Even if he were stalking me right now, I couldn’t see him behind the dark tree trunks. I curled my fingers tighter round the pocketknife and focused my attention on counting the steps between the posts. Eight. I had to make eight steps before the next post would hit the palm of my outstretched hand.
My prospects were grim. I had no map, no water and no way of knowing where I was in this wilderness. If I allowed myself to consider in earnest my bleak situation I would quite possibly lose it and break down. If I wanted to give myself the best chance of survival, though, I should just focus on each step I made instead.
The moon fought to break through the clouds, leaving me in almost complete darkness under the tall pine trees of the forest.
My foot slipped off something, a moss-covered rock or a fallen tree, my ankle twisted at an odd angle. A scream ripped out of me as sharp pain shot through my leg and I crashed to the ground dropping the knife.
Whimpering, I grabbed my leg just above the ankle and carefully straightened it. The pain was agonizing, making me afraid that a bone might be broken. I prodded around it gently through the jeans and wiggled my toes inside the boot. It still hurt like hell, but there didn’t appear to be any fractures.
Carefully, holding on to the nearest fence post, I hauled myself up, and tried putting some weight on the injured foot. Gritting my teeth against the sear
ing pain, I let go off the post and even managed to hobble a couple of paces, before collapsing to the ground again.
“No, please,” I groaned.
I could no longer ignore the hopelessness of my situation. Shivering from the freezing cold, with a busted ankle, getting hungry again, and, by now, very thirsty too—whatever composure I had mustered crumbled. Tears pricked at my eyes, and I stifled a sob.
Not caring if anyone or anything heard me, I threw my head back and screamed on the top of my lungs in anger, fear, and frustration.
Oddly enough, it helped—as the sounds of my meltdown quieted, rational thinking returned. My body shook from cold. Adrenaline coursed through my veins, pushing me to do something.
I was still alive. Jason and Ashley were out there somewhere. I just needed to keep going, lest I freeze to the ground sitting here. I could find a stick, thick enough to use as a crutch and keep walking.
In search of my dropped pocketknife, I rummaged through the dead leaves and pine needles around me as far as I could reach until I felt the cold press of metal. Snatching the blade up, I clutched it to my chest with relief.
Now I needed to find a stick. Propping myself up with my arms, I attempted to crawl forward, searching for one. Pain speared through my ankle again, making me grind my teeth.
The only choice I had right now, I reminded myself, was either to keep going or lie down and freeze to death.
Sucking in a deep breath I crawled ahead.
Chapter 4
MONSTER
He remained on the west part of his estate, giving the intruders a chance to leave. After a while though, the foreign presence in his brain drove him to skirt the property along the southern fence, all the way back to the road.
There were no cars visible anywhere. However, the annoying presence of a stranger remained like a splinter inside his head.
Back, deeper in the forest, he caught a whiff of her scent.
Did they leave her behind?
Once again, he fled to the river, circling the area with her scent, hoping the others would come back for her soon. They would take her back to the life he no longer wished to have any part of and would leave him in peace.
The wind in his ears, the blood rushing through his veins made him feel alive. Running, swimming, chasing prey, falling asleep with his belly full—those were the things that made him content.
Not happy—content.
Happiness was a human emotion—the highest of high. And for him it came at the price of excruciating emotional pain—the lowest of low.
For years he had fought the uphill battle for his humanity only to lose it to the animal inside him at the end. Instead of a complete despair, however, he got an unexpected consolation prize for his defeat—the oblivion of a simpler mind.
When he was hungry, he hunted. When he was tired, he slept. Hunger and cold became his biggest problems, his only worries. All the complexities and tortures of the emotions experienced by a human heart faded into the background.
That was what kept him alive all these years. Embracing the animal within instead of fighting it was what had helped him survive for so long.
The girl ruined it all today. One look into her autumn-sky grey eyes opened wide the door to the human world and all its torturous emotions.
Hope, longing, loneliness . . . anger. So much anger.
Why was she still here? This was his property, the only place on earth where he could exist. She was free to be anywhere else. Why did she come here? Why of all the people in his life, did she have to be the one to show up?
The nagging sense of her presence added to his headache, which always increased at night. His horns felt ten times their usual weight, crushing his skull. He collapsed to the ground at the water edge and pressed his forehead to the cold rocks beneath him. The frost on the rocks felt calming through the fur.
Why was she still here?
He seethed with anger while the headache pounded against his skull.
Even if he had to roar in her ear again to chase her away, the stupid girl needed to get out of here.
No, not just the girl.
A painful exhale rushed through his tightened throat.
He never thought it would be possible, but the moment their eyes connected and the animalistic lust evaporated blown away by recognition, he remembered her name.
Sophie Morel.
She wasn’t stupid, either.
Long ago, in what felt like a different lifetime, she was a math tutor and an A-student in high school.
Chapter 5
MONSTER
Impatience and something akin to anxiety—he could no longer accurately name the long-forgotten emotions—made him break into a run through the forest again, searching the frosty air for her scent.
This time, the warm perfume of her skin was laced with the coppery smell of blood when it reached his nostrils.
The blood from the wounds he had inflicted on her, he realized the same moment another emotion rose from the dark grave deep inside him. This one could not be mistaken for anything else—guilt weighed heavily on his shriveled soul.
He’d done more than simply roar in her ear, hadn’t he?
Acting like a feral animal—a true predator that no one would want to be near—he’d hurt her.
He’d done enough to scare any sane person into running for the hills.
Yet she was still here. The only explanation that made sense was that she couldn’t physically leave for whatever reason.
The moment her scent was strong enough to indicate she was very close, he slowed down and halted his breath. He didn’t need a delicious lungful of Sophie Morel in his chest, lest he run berserk with lust again.
The wind had picked up, but the sky was still overcast, with the moon peeking through now and then.
He could see well enough, even without any moonlight—one of the few benefits of his condition.
Regular humans couldn’t see well in the dark, though. Maybe that was Sophie’s problem. Had she somehow got lost on her way off the estate? In that case, all he would have to do was to spook her again and make her run in the right direction.
He realized that was not going to happen the moment he saw her. The way her right leg was carefully extended in front of her indicated she was hurt beyond the wounds of his doing.
She obviously couldn’t walk. With her friends gone, she had no other option but to spend the night out in the open. On his property.
Fuck!
The old familiar anger rolled over him, along with nervous anxiety. She couldn’t stay here. He couldn’t allow it. Nothing good could come for either of them if she was anywhere near someone like him.
Not wanting to betray his presence to her was the only thing that kept him from howling in frustration.
Instead, he paced under the cover of nearby trees, trying to consider what best to do when Sophie’s muffled groan captured his attention. She was attempting to crawl along the ground, dragging her right leg behind her, confirming what he had suspected—she could no longer walk.
Her prospects weren’t just grim—they were dire. The temperatures would reach below freezing as the night progressed. If she remained where she was, hypothermia would claim her before morning. That was, of course, if other predators didn’t find her first.
Wolves ventured on to his property every now and then, mostly for the same reason human hunters did, chasing prey. Bears were frequent visitors. And he noted a cougar following him on quite a few occasions in the past three years.
The cat was huge, much bigger than the average size. He seemed to wander in and out of the estate, sometimes disappearing for weeks or even months. But he always returned.
The wind had finally ripped through the clouds, and the moon peered out. The eerie, pale light pierced through the dark branches of the forest.
A wisp of an ominous scent reached his sensitive nostrils—just a small tendril of it before the wind changed direction again—the cat was out hunting.
He cursed under his breath and turned towards her again, searching for a pair of glowing eyes or a flash of sandy-brown fur of the cougar in the surrounding trees.
Her cowardly boyfriend would most likely be back tomorrow, probably with the Royal Canadian Mounted Police in tow.
The cat might be the one to get her, but he would be the one hunted if her dead body was discovered anywhere on this property.
Sophie sat a few feet away from the place he saw her last and held a thick tree branch. She was busily trimming off smaller branches and twigs with a pocketknife.
He realized, with mild surprise at her resourcefulness, that she was fashioning a crutch for herself.
Not stupid at all.
The cougar’s scent tickled his nose again, much stronger now. He scanned the area and this time quickly found what he was searching for—a pair of eyes, glowing in the moonlight, as the cougar stalked easy prey.
He had met his share of predators since he became one himself. Some he fought, some he stayed away from. He learned all he needed to know about their behaviour to stay alive in the woods. Most of the predators he encountered would give him a warning and run away if he challenged them back. Not the cougar. The cat stalked his prey from behind, invisible and deadly. There was no warning of his attack until it was too late.
And right now, the glowing eyes were glued to the unsuspecting Sophie.
Monster lowered his head to the ground, aiming the horns straight ahead, and shifted to the side to stay clear of the tree trunks.
He leaped through the air the same moment the cougar pounced.
Chapter 6
I COULD NO LONGER FEEL my fingers inside my gloves. My whole body shook violently, rendering any attempt at coordinated movement useless. Still, I kept trying. My crutch didn’t need to be perfect. It just needed to be functional.
To Love A Monster Page 2