Page 10 of Hunted Mate (Stalked Mates #1)

And then, suddenly, it’s not a man. He shrinks down where he is standing and his head becomes shaped like a wolf. As does the rest of him.

I shrink back through the trees, covering my mouth in case I make a noise and attract these people’s attention.

I watch them from a distance, and in watching, I forget about everything.

I forget about the death of my parents. I forget about the pain and the heavy weight that seems to constantly form in my throat and slide down to a never-ending pit in my belly.

I am instantly and irrevocably obsessed.

This is something that means something. The rest of the world has been trying to get me to get back to normal as quickly as possible.

They don’t want me mired in grief. It’s not convenient for a girl to refuse her schooling and not eat and not talk to a single one of the parade of counselors, each of whom puts on a sadder and more empathetic face than the last.

I’ve just found something that isn’t normal.

Something that doesn’t demand normality from me either.

I feel weirder and stranger just for having seen it.

I know instantly that I will not be believed, and in this moment, I am glad for it.

It is as if having been through terrible loss and strange fate has opened my eyes and allowed me to see other strange things.

This is magic, but it is happening right in front of me. This is real.

I see another man turn in front of the fire, throw back his head in a howl, and then simply melt into an animal right before my eyes. Again and again the ritual is done and the people turn into creatures.

I want more than anything to be like them.

I want to escape pain and thought. I want to be a wolf in the woods, with other wolves.

I want to be part of a family so big I could never lose it.

I can sense their bonds, hear them in the way they talk to one another and interact with one another, and see them in the body language.

I get brave.

I walk toward the fire.

I am drawn to it, like a moth to the proverbial flame. I want to be closer to the heat. I want to be part of the light. I want to howl with them. I want my pain as a human to be able to be transformed.

I walk into the circle of the light. I walk right into the pack of wild wolves, of people and of animals and I stand there, looking at them.

“Hello,” I say, my voice shaking a little from timidity. “I’m Calista Hart. I’m…”

They’re looking at me, but they’re not smiling like me, or like people usually do when I enter their presence. I’ve had a lifetime of being greeted in every place I’ve ever been like a conquering hero. I’ve been the center of attention. I’ve been Leonard and Miranda’s little princess.

Out here, in the woods. I am nothing.

Nothing at all.

I feel my insignificance crashing over me like a wave. I wanted to be stripped of everything that hurt, the life I came from, everything I knew. And it has happened all at once.

They turn toward me, their eyes locked on me.

And that’s when a second realization comes.

In the place I come from, I am the child of those who matter more than almost anybody. I am the apex. Out here? I am prey. I feel it. Deeply. I feel it completely and entirely.

Suddenly, I am a little creature out of place in a forest full of wolves.

They move toward me.

Fast.

Frighteningly fast.

I see eyes and teeth, fangs and hands, one becoming the other in a crashing tidal wave of transformation.

Like something out of a primordial nightmare, I experience the visceral terror that lives inside us, a shadow cast forever in our souls from millennia of living in caves with creatures we did not understand and could tear us to pieces.

I was made for this. Nature made me for escaping this. I follow instinct.

I shriek.

I am being hunted.

I run, leaves slapping me in the face, roots reaching up to trip me. I run track and hurdles at school, and I miss all of them, but in the end that doesn’t matter because I am fleeing on two feet and being chased by beasts on four.

I do my best to flee. I am fast for my age, one of the fastest in my class. None of that means anything here in the forest. I make it maybe twenty feet, and even that feels like a lot before I am pushed to the ground from behind and bitten hard.

Being bitten is a searing, cruel pain. I make a sound like a wounded animal, because I am one. I turn and I scream and I writhe. I am a dying rabbit, furious at the unfairness of being killed.

A large jaw closes over my throat. I close my eyes as a rush of endorphins runs through me.

Years from now, I’ll understand that’s a prey response left over from millennia where humans were hunted by animals far more powerful than themselves.

For now, I just feel a strange peace. No fear. Just acceptance.

“Stop, Ragnar!” Someone booms the order. “She’s just a baby!”

The jaws leave my neck, and next thing I know, an argument is ensuing.

“She saw us! She saw us shift.”

“Nobody will ever believe her. We’re going to let her go.”

“The law says we kill anybody who sees us. We’ve killed hunters who saw less than she saw. We’ve got to kill her.”

He sounds excited at the prospect. He’s not scared that I saw them. He’s angry that he’s been stopped from bleeding the life out of me. The hazy feeling I had before is starting to fade.

“We’re not killing a girl because the scouts fucked up and the guards didn’t guard. She’s one kid out here on her own. Does she have a phone on her?”

I am rifled through in the dark.

“No.”

“So she hasn’t even recorded it. And even if she did, it wouldn’t matter. How many times have they gotten Bigfoot on film and nobody believes it? Let her go.”

“It’s against the law, Lachlan.”

“I am the law, Ragnar,” the voice says. “I am the law and I say she lives, and I will spill the blood of anybody who tries to hurt her. Melody, Serena, take her to safety. She will need treatment for the bite. The rest of you, get the fuck away from her. Now.”

I feel and hear the others retreat at their leader’s orders. Their desire to kill me is not stronger than their need to follow the orders the man just gave. Lachlan. I’ll remember that name for the rest of my life. He’s the only reason I’m alive.

I lie in the dirt, whimpering. A pair of sympathetic female eyes swims into my vision. I bet they were predatory just like the others a few minutes ago. I bet she would have joined in with tearing into me.

But now she’s going to be nice. Now she’s going to keep me alive. Because Lachlan told her to.

“Here,” the pretty lady says. “Chew this. It will take the edge off the pain.”

I let her stuff the leaf into my mouth, and I do as I am told.

It does take the edge off the pain. It also sends me into the fucking stratosphere.

I start to see things. I start to hear things.

I stop worrying about the pain because the pain feels like a separate thing right now.

It’s not part of me. I’m something different.

I’m okay. I’m warm. I’m safe. I’m going home.

I blink and I am back in my fancy bathroom with a man who is looking at me as though I am a victim. Gray. Fucking Gray. I’ve gotten even more sober now. Remembering the most terrifying part of my life, the one that changed my trajectory forever has pushed away all the alcohol haze.

“You were bitten by something,” he says, like he has the right to comment on my body. “When? Looks like you must have been a lot smaller. That is a big wound.”

“It doesn’t matter.”

“Of course it does.”

This fucking asshole has the nerve to burn my research and then come to my house and ask me questions about what happened to me like he’s a friend. Like he gives a fuck. He’s not capable of caring. He’s a fucking arsonist, and I need to keep him here long enough to get him arrested.

“You didn’t find out what it was when you were getting all the information you needed to hunt me down and ruin everything I’ve been working for all these years?”

“No. Clearly not,” he deadpans. “Tell me what happened.”

“I don’t feel like telling you what happened, so I’m not going to.”

He starts talking, and what comes out of his mouth is the worst thing he could possibly say. “You were attacked by an animal. You thought it was a human. You became confused and…”

Smack .

The sound of my hand hitting his face echoes through the room like a gunshot.

“Don’t you ever,” I say, my voice shaking with rage, “gaslight me. I know what I saw. And I know what happened to me.”

For a second, I think the ferocity in his eyes means I am about to get hit the hell back, but he chews and swallows the anger down.

“You’re upset,” he says, obviously.

“Yes. I am.”

His eyes turn cold, calculating. “You seem sober enough now to take care of yourself,” he says. “I’m going to go. Sorry, Callie.”

“No!” There is a hysterical edge to my voice as I stamp my feet.

“You’re going to stay here and you’re going to get arrested, and you’re going to go to jail for a very long time because I am going to have the book thrown at you.

Actually, fuck that, I am going to have the whole fucking library dropped on your head. I am going to…”

He opens the bathroom door and walks out, not listening to my threats

“I’m going to have you charged with terrorism. You’re going to spend the rest of your days in a federal box with no sharp corners, you fucking asshole.”

I chase after him, holding my shirt together over my shoulders.

I’m aware now of how much I’ve fucked up this evening, and I absolutely hate that.

I almost let myself get murdered in an alley, and now I’m going to let him go because I didn’t have the sense to call the cops right away.

I was too fucking drunk to realize that he was in reach.

He stops at the front door, opens it, then turns back to look at me. “Look after yourself, Callie,” he says. “I’m not always going to be here to save you.”

I pick up a vase that happens to be at hand, and I hurl it at him. But he’s already gone. He’s stripped me down, seen my vulnerability, and now he’s leaving and all I can do is arc some ceramic at him.

It hits the closing door and shatters.

“ Fuck! ”

I scream the word after him. It does nothing.

I run to the phone, and I start to call the police. But then I realize… he’s given me a chance. This is an opportunity. I’m going to take it. Fuck the authorities. It’s time I handled this like an animal.