Predator

Part Eight✔️

It all stopped the moment she closed her eyes.

The pain was gone, the weight of the wolf on her chest, the fear. Everything disappeared and was replaced by a crippling silence. She felt nothing, not even the cold snow surrounding her body; not even the wounds that littered her body and left her surrounded by crimson snow. Why this was, she didn't know, but Grey welcomed the peace and took in a deep breath.

She lay there as she released the breath in a sigh, her body completely relaxed. She took this as death but when a sound so eerie erupted her silence, she thought she might be in hell. The sound repeated again, a cross between a deep moan and a loud sob echoed in her ears over and over until she realized that sound was coming from her. She was crying, sobbing so hard the only thing she could feel was her body shaking.

Then it seemed reality came flying back. She was thrown back into a world of searing pain and a heaviness in her lungs. Her own sobs weren't the only sounds reaching her ears, they simply muffled the sound of skin being torn from the bone, yelping and growling. There was a battle happening meters away from her but she was paralyzed by fear and pain she was unable to move and watch the scene unfold. Even if she had wanted to see what awaited her, she couldn't, her body was still shutting down and death's cold hands were wrapping around her.

By the time Grey's breathing became slow and shallow and her body had grown numb from the cold, the sounds had all stopped and left was a heavy panting. Snow crunched beside her under a large weight until there were puffs of warm air fanning across her clothes. Above her body then loomed a large wolf, a familiar one at that, one that sent shivers down her frozen body and caused a stirring in her stomach. It was khishchnik.

He simply stood there, panting heavily with blood matting the fur near his mouth, his bright eyes watched Grey who was frozen in her place. As much as she wanted to move away from the beast, she was unable; the pain having paralyzed her as well as the realization that Petra's theory was true. He didn't want her dead - he'd saved her from that fate - he wanted her. Plain and simple.

Somehow she found her voice, it was barely there, raspy and thickly laced with pain, but she still managed a snarky remark to the beast who could end her life in the blink of an eye. Little did she care, because mythical creature or not, what could he do to save a girl already in death's grip?

"Is this your way of playing with your food?"

If beasts could smirk, she would've sworn those lips had curled into just that. And that scared her; more than werewolves being real and more than one wanting her, the fact that a wolf could smirk shook her to her core. For it was a sinister sight to see before her eyes rolled to the back of her head and her body succumbed to the eerie whispers of death.

• • •

Grey was drifting between the land of the living and the land of the dead. Her eyes fluttering open occasionally to look at the branches of trees intertwining above her, watching curiously as they passed her by. She thought for a moment she was floating until she registered the slight shake in her body and the arms wound beneath her back and knees. She tried to move, to fight whoever was carrying her, but her arms were limp, draped across her still-bleeding stomach and the other swinging through the air by her side, dripping little red droplets of blood in their path. Her lungs still felt heavy, her breathing shallow and wheezy. She was barely holding on to life, a tiny sliver of light in the darkness called death that had surrounded her.

Her head lulled to the side on a particularly heavy step, away from the treetops to see the old barn in Petra's backyard through eyes that she struggled to even crack open. Standing on the back porch of their house was an frail old woman who she knew as the grandmother of Petra, and beside her stood Dimitri who looked paler than the snow at their feet. His eyes were on her, taking in her graying skin and bloodied body with a little fire of anger in his eyes.