Page 26 of Hunted by Them (Primal Desires #1)

“You will never leave this forest again. Even when given the opportunity to come clean, you still can’t apologize for all the things you did.

You don’t know how to take accountability, but out here.

” I looked around. “Out here, you will learn humility. Here’s your closure, Connor.

I’m not the girl you kept trying to put back in a box.

I choose them. I choose the dark. I choose me. ”

“You’ll regret—” His voice broke.

“I won’t.” I stood tall as I felt the truth of it settle into my bones.

The Buck moved, slowly walking over to the same rock that the Caribou had pulled the masks from, and walked back with a satchel in his hands. He held it out like an offering.

Taking the simple brown piece of leather, I opened the flap and pulled out a mask. Bone white, leaner, crowned with two single spike horns. Smaller than theirs, but fierce. A thing made for speed.

“For you,” he said. “This is the choice. Stay small. Stay theirs. Or put this on and run with us. Never be prey again,” Buck proclaimed.

The breath caught in my chest. I raised it to my face and then stopped. Handing it back, I held up my finger. I unzipped my jacket, then pulled off the hoodie I’d been wearing so that I was left in my black sports bra.

“Now I’m ready,” I said, taking the mask. I shuddered as I pulled it on and tightened the leather straps. It fit like it had been carved especially for me, and when I took a deep breath, the final piece of my new life clicked into place.

The world narrowed. The weight of the bone against my skin, the sound of my own breathing, and the fire in my blood grounded me.

Through the eye sockets, I saw the Buck watching me. Waiting.

My lips curved into a smile I didn’t recognize, but it felt truer than any I’d worn before.

“I choose all of you. I choose this.”

Elk lifted his head and howled. The other two joined in until wolves and coyotes in the forest around us answered the call.

My blood raced, my skin prickled, but I didn’t flinch.

Ryder

We gave him his head start.

I clenched my fist, which was now covered with massive bear claws and leather. As we stood there waiting, counting down the seconds to pursue our prey, I thought.

This night wasn’t like the others. This one carried an edge sharpened for her.

Sage hadn’t moved when we let Connor go, and he took off running. She stood still at the clearing’s edge, arms at her sides, watching us through the veil of shadows that the mask provided. No fear left in her eyes. Just hunger.

I had made the mask weeks ago, not knowing its purpose until I met her.

White bone that I’d carved leaner than ours.

Not branching like the Elk, not heavy like the Buck, not twisted like the Caribou.

This one bore two sharp, singular antlers, each spiking upward like weapons that had never broken. The mask of the Spike-Horn Deer.

She was always meant to be one of us.

Connor screamed somewhere deeper in the woods, his voice desperate as he yelled for help, but there was no help here.

“It’s time,” I announced, and the Elk and Caribou took off, disappearing into the thick trees. I reached out, brushing my claws against the mask she wore. “Now run with us. Claim your new life.”

She nodded, and I smiled as I took off running with Sweet Daisy by my side. She was light on her feet and so sure-footed that I would’ve said she’d done this her whole life. We were nothing more than four shadows racing through the trees. Buck, Elk, Caribou, and the Spike-Horn.

We didn’t stalk her. We ran with her. Sage’s strides matched mine, strong and exultant. The ground blurred beneath us, fallen logs and trees dodged by instinct. Every breath she took sounded like a promise. My Sweet Daisy wasn’t following our rhythm. She was weaving her own into ours.

Up ahead, Connor crashed through the brush.

He was loud and obnoxious even when he ran, as if demanding the trees move for him.

He thought money meant safety. He thought being loud meant he was the toughest in the room.

He was wrong. Raising my nose in the air, I sniffed and smelled his panic.

It stank, acrid and easy to track even without the crashing sounds. An elephant would’ve made less noise.

Jaxon angled left, letting his laughter thread through the trees like a banshee’s call.

Connor whipped his head in Jaxon’s direction, veering right.

Dash surged forward, silent until the last second.

I pictured the smile on his face as he purposely stepped on a branch.

The snapping sound was so close to our prey that it sent Connor lurching back toward the center of the makeshift trail.

He didn’t know it, but he was nothing more than cattle being herded where we wanted him to go. Sweet Daisy and I stayed behind, forcing Connor to keep moving forward while Dash and Jaxon herded him.

Sweet Daisy sprinted beside me, her pace never faltering and staying perfectly even with mine, like she knew what we were doing without being told.

I sensed the wild energy flowing off of her.

As much as I wanted Connor’s blood, the idea of tackling her to the ground and fucking her here in the middle of the ferns, under the stars, for all the animals to see…

to let all the other wild things know who she belonged to was strong in my mind.

I shuddered and pushed the thought to the side for now.

“Feel it?” I growled between breaths, just for her. “The hunt in your blood?”

“Yes,” she growled back, and that one word held so much emotion.

Connor burst through the trees toward a shallow ravine.

He started down, slipping on slick stones and trying to scramble to his feet, but falling and sliding on his ass.

He screamed as he hit the slick mud from the heavy rains.

There was a raw edge of hopelessness breaking through his bravado.

The forest swallowed the sound, like it was laughing at him.

We boxed him in tighter and drove him up the other side of the ravine, where we would drive him into a corner of no escape.

Jaxon, on Connor’s left, antlers glinting white in the moonlight, darted toward him and slashed at his arm.

Connor screamed as the claws easily cut through his clothes and skin.

Jaxon retreated, allowing Dash to leap toward Connor from the right and cut the back of his leg.

He had an executioner’s precision. Connor wailed, blood soaking through the back of his jeans and down his leg.

My hands flexed, wanting my turn.

The clouds broke and let the moonlight shine down just as my Sweet Daisy stepped into the opening. The Spike-Horn mask glowed bright against the dark night. Her arms pumped and her legs pushed hard.

Fuck she was gorgeous.

Connor reached the top and almost fell as his knees buckled. He looked back in a blind panic.

“No…no, please…” he gasped as we reached the top together.

We stepped up onto the flat ground like demons crawling out of hell. A blood trail followed Connor as he ran to the right. He had a distinct limp to his stride now, and I smirked.

We moved as one, following him. The terror was thick in the air as he screamed like that would somehow help. Nothing helped when you were chosen by the shadows of the forest.

The first cut of the chase had been ours. The final would be hers.

It didn’t take very long for Connor to realize his error. We stepped into the clearing, blocking the only way out. We watched as Connor tried to scramble up the sides of the smooth stone surrounding the area.

“Help, someone help me! Please.”

We stepped forward, our boots silent. Connor looked back and screamed hysterically, nails clawing at the immovable wall.

Sweet Daisy lunged without hesitation, but with clarity of the situation, only scaring Connor before retreating.

He was still dangerous. Like any cornered animal, you needed to be careful.

She pressed him further into one of the corners.

For once, he was the prey rather than the predator, and his screams shredded the night.

When Connor turned to face us, he was at his most dangerous. He took a fighting stance.

“Come on then, you fucking crazy motherfuckers,” he yelled. “You think you’re scary? You’re nothing but men dressed up like animals. A bunch of wannabes.”

Connor had wanted ownership. He had stalked my Sweet Daisy, torn through her life, tried to cage her with fear, but never again. The forest had claimed her, and the forest took care of its own.

With a roar, I let loose and lunged at Connor. My claws raked down his chest, blood flowing and dripping. He stood there, shocked, looking down at the lines of red in the moonlight. With a roar of victory, I wrapped my hand around his throat while my claws dug into his thigh.

Connor hollered as I picked him up over my head.

“No, no, no, please.”

“No one hurts my Sweet Daisy,” I growled, and brought him down on my knee. The force snapped his spine with an echoing crunch. I pushed him to the ground, and he tried to crawl away, arms dragging his body across the rocks. Blood trailed along the ground, and tears replaced his screams.

“Please…I’m sorry…I’m so sorry,” he blubbered.

I rolled him over onto his back with my boot. “It’s too late for sorry.”

Driving two claws into Connor’s neck, his eyes went wide with shock. Yanking them out, we watched him choke and clutch at his throat. It would take time. I had cut him with an exact precision that only came from lots of practice. I wanted him to suffer, but I also wanted him to see what came next.

His blood slowly spread onto the stone around him. He reached for our Sweet Daisy in a final effort for help, but she didn’t move. She didn’t blink.

Unable to contain myself any longer, I grabbed Sage around the waist. She let out a startled squeal as I picked her up and laid her down on the ground in Connor’s blood. I hovered over her, my arms flexed as I stared down into her green eyes.

“You donned the mask and ran like all the wild things do, but now you need to be blood born through our first kill.”

Kneeling back on my heels, I pulled my knife and cut through her sports bra, revealing the lines that spelled MINE .

They were faint but no less true. Her nipples hardened as I gently scraped the tip of the blade over her skin.

I locked eyes with my Sweet Daisy and then held the knife over the word carved beside her heart.

With slow and steady hands, I traced the lines.

“I will do this every time it starts to fade until it is as permanent as you are. Understood?”

“Yes,” Sweet Daisy panted.

“Good girl,” I growled, turning the blade to her jeans and cutting them off her body. “Are you ready?” My voice was thick with a need that consumed me.

She didn’t say a word, just spread her legs, welcoming us home.