Hunted [Wild Hunt Series: 1]

31: Hollow

A diurnal symphony played through the trees surrounding the road as if it were a distant dream. For a split second that mellow peace pushed into my heart, and then reality came on the thunderous crash of hooves and the faint rumble of stones beneath my feet.

I ran.

I did not dare look behind, but the view forward was no less disturbing.

Lord Yerik had sprung to his feet in a ripple of distorted skin. Across his shoulder stretched the peeling grin of an anaconda: four rows of upper fangs and wide, skeletal jaws. Small scales bulged against the walnut-toned skin of his back. He stayed a shifting creature for half a second, and then the demon shredded through the papery skin. The brush he'd been sitting beside disappeared beneath the crushing weight of a drab, freakishly large serpent. I couldn't judge the length as I ran toward its coiling muscles, but its girth seemed near my height. One of the girl's had been struck across the face by the powerful tail. She lay collapsed against the other, bleeding from a cut down the side of her face.

"Get up!" I shrieked at them, reaching for my knife, running harder, trying to avoid the serpentine curves that whipped across the road as it slithered forward to meet Akta.

Lord Yerik's head rose hissing as I drew near. One bleak, calculating eye swung my way. Wretched jaws split apart as if to swallow me whole when his head lowered into the glossy brown scales. The pallid tongue flicked overhead as he tightened his writhing bands into a dense, solid striking unit. To that twisting, winding creation, the tiny human woman running straight at him was no more threatening than a fly.

For half a heartbeat the impending collision of hooves slowed. The ground continued to rumble, cut by a sinister, rocky grind as Yerik's underbelly positioned itself for launch. I'd gotten past the length of his tail when bits of earth exploded against my back. I tumbled onto the ground, glimpsed a flash of fangs sinking through a wall of thorned vines that had risen up from the road like a living wall. And then, somehow, beneath a swinging tail and debris, I found my feet. I hauled both women up beside me, grabbed their arms and cut the rope from their hands and waists.

"Run!" I panted. The younger girl, whose skin had split across her forehead, wiped the blood from her eyebrows and took off into the forest. Her shabby dress vanished into the undergrowth as the earth rattled. The other woman, a brown-haired lady with eyes wider than dinner plates, clung desperately to my hand as I sheathed the knife. I pushed her away. "Run!" I said again. Flashes of gold and brown and crimson tumbled just behind the heaved earth and creeping vines.

This woman stayed rooted in place, her eyes staring straight through me, staring straight through the monstrous beasts that crashed and tumbled with guttural, inhuman howls. Panic weighed down my bones just looking at her. I didn't know what to do with her. She was going to die if she stayed. She had to run.Why wouldn't she run?

She dug her nails into my arm and shook her head. I started to pull her along with me, yanking her past the flattened bushes and colorful berries that streaked her legs and feet. Maybe if I could hide her somewhere, get her safe, Akta would spare her in the hunt for me.

First chance I got, I pulled her into the tangled depth of an upturned tree. Dirt and fine tendrils of smaller plats and roots shook upon us as I pushed her as far into the tiny space as possible. "Stay here," I said, pulling away. "You'll be safe."

But she wouldn't let go of my arm, tried dragging me in with her. She had to let go. She didn't understand that Akta only wanted me. There was no time to—

A screech blistered the air. The woman's vice grip tightened.

I pulled the knife from its sheath. All speed and no apology, the blade bit into the girl's forearm. Screaming, she fell back against the roots. Before she could snatch me in her bleeding hands I scrambled over the roots, onto the forest floor and broke into a sprint, looking back only to see if she'd followed me.