Page 27 of Wild Fated

"This is it?" I asked, my voice hushed.

He nodded, his eyes fixed on the stone.

I took a step closer, my boots crunching on the cracking slate. "Looks like a rock to me."

Destin's jaw clenched, a muscle twitching in his cheek. "It's not just a rock."

I nodded. “How do you know this place?”

He didn't answer. I took another step closer, my curiosity piqued. He sucked in a breath and held it as I stopped in front of the stone. "You've done your job. You can go. I'll figure it out from here."

He didn't move, and somehow, I’d known he wouldn't. He'd led me here, and as much as he’d played it tough, he wasn't about to leave me alone in the middle of the mountains. But part of me wished he would.

I felt self-conscious as I leaned down, inspecting the base of the stone. There were no markings, no inscriptions. Nothing to indicate that it was anything other than a chunk of rock. I stood up and dusted off my hands, turning to face him. “I don’t have any traps handy. Can you please just tell me what you know?”

His eyes flicked to mine, and for a moment, I thought he was going to say something. Instead, he just stood there, silent and brooding.

I huffed and walked back over to the stone, determined to figure it out. If he wasn't going to be helpful, then I'd do it myself. I reached out and placed my hand on the stone, feeling the cool surface under my palm.

Destin flinched. "It needs blood, Lana."

I swallowed hard, placing my hand on the dagger. "How do you know that?"

Destin's gaze flickered, his eyes darting between mine and the stone. His lips parted as if he was about to speak, but then he hesitated, his jaw clenching. His hands curled at his sides, the tendons in his forearms standing out against the skin. Then his eyes darkened, and he lowered into a crouch so fast, I didn’t have time to react. The next second, he was a blur, launching himself directly at me.

Chapter

Twelve

Destin

The world shifted. Not physically, but emotionally. The air hummed with a sudden tension, a ripple of wrongness. Lana had just asked me a question, but I couldn’t focus. There was no scent, no rustle in the leaves. Just the gnawing pull of instincts that had kept me alive for years. Something was coming. I knew it like I knew my own heartbeat.

The sensation peaked in front of me, and I crouched, launching myself toward Lana. Her head whipped around, eyes wide with shock, but before she could move, I was airborne. My body twisted mid-leap, bones snapping, sinew reshaping in a blur of heat and motion. My clothes shredded, left behind as my paws hit the ground with a thud.

The fur along my spine bristled as I collided with something that slipped out of the shadows like a nightmare made real. Gaunt and skeletal, its bone-white skin stretched tight over impossibly long limbs. Its eyes burned a sickly red, glowing with hunger, and its mouth opened in a silent, snarling grin.

A Bone Stalker. The kind of creature you heard about as a pup, tucked in by the fire, tales spun to keep you close to the den and out of the woods. I used to think those stories were bullshit. Just something the old wolves made up to scare us.

Until I’d seen one in the woods for myself.

I slashed at its chest with my claws, but the thing didn’t bleed. It moved like a broken puppet—fluid and wrong all at once, its joints creaking as it twisted out of reach. I snapped my jaws at its neck, but it jerked away, limbs bending at angles that shouldn’t exist.

Where the hell had this thing come from?My mind raced even as my instincts kept me moving, dodging and striking, but it was relentless. The damn thing moved like water, fluid and silent, slipping between my attacks without a pause. No hesitation. No pain. Just endless hunger.

I couldn’t tell Lana to get out of there. Couldn’t do anything but keep the stalker at bay.Fire.That was all I could remember about my research back then. Fire could kill them. Not helpful in the least.

The creature lunged again, and this time, I was ready. I shifted my weight at the last second, slamming my shoulder hard into its ribs. The brittle creak of bone reverberated through my chest, and the thing staggered back a step but didn’t fall. Damn it.

I flicked my gaze toward Lana. She was scrambling in the dirt, her hands reaching for the dagger. After the incident with the birds from hell, Lana was sure she understood what these creatures were after, and I couldn’t argue. But to protect the dagger, she couldn’t shift. She couldn’t protect herself.

A growl rumbled low in my throat. No way in hell was I letting this thing get anywhere near her. With a savage snarl, I launched myself at the Bone Stalker, claws gleaming under the thin sliver of moonlight that slipped through the trees.

Lana clenched the dagger, her knuckles white, and then another Bone Stalker burst into the clearing. It moved with the same eerie silence, its eyes locked onto her. It swayed back and forth, its bony limbs twitching, then lunged. Lana's reflexes kicked in, and she pivoted on her heel, bringing the dagger up just in time. The blade sank into the creature's side, and for a split second, it seemed to hang in midair. Then it howled, a sound that was more vibration than noise, and recoiled just as my stalker attacked again.

We weren’t going to win this fight. Not with Lana forced to stay in human form. She could spar, but not with creatures like this. I wouldn’t chance a fight without my wolf.

I had to get a message to her. As terrified as I was about what would happen with the stone, she needed to activate it. If the ground tried to swallow us up like it had the last time I was here, so be it. Maybe it would take the bone stalkers with us.

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