Page 43 of Daddy's Mail Order Mate

Then, I hear him breathe out…

And the voice behind me is all menace and whispered thunder, practically salivating with a pressure I can only describe aspredatory.

“Run, little doe.”

I freeze at that, but then—

The growl.It sounds like a promise of hell itself behind me, and I almost stumble forward with a yelp. I catch my balance just soon enough to keep me from eating dirt right away, but not so well that I don't spend the next few strides desperately scrambling to try to get my feet under me.

The mild discomfort I'd felt being barefoot in the woods piques to pain as I start blindly running, but I barely register it. All of my senses are flooded, overloaded really. Each breath is already wearing my throat raw as I do my best to bolt ahead in a sheer panic. Even without looking back, Iknowhe is behind me, but I can't tell if he's stayed still or is breathing down my neck, and I can't trust myself to not stumble over something if I look back.

So I don't. I just keep running and let the forest blur around me, trying to get my bearings and try to figure out a path before me. Just when I start maybe getting close to a sense of equilibrium, a howl sounds off somewhere behind me and later I might feel embarrassed about the shriek it causes. I clapmy hand over my mouth, knowing he must have heard. But of course he'd already know where I am.

I'm so slow, awful, ungainly. Each step is too faltering and loud to not be missed by Thorn in his wolf form. I feel my pulse race humming bird fast through my entire body, which by this already feels like it's covered in a cold sweat.

I hurry down a slope, wincing as the branches scrape at my legs when I need to crouch into a slide to keep myself from just falling down it. I don't have the time to spare to check if the stinging of my thighs means I'm bleeding or not. As soon as I’m near the bottom, I practically leap out to try and go into another sprint.

By instinct, I map out a winding pathway through the trees before me. As I go, I try to take advantage of my height to force out each stride as long as I can manage at this speed. I'm not particularly fit, so it doesn't take very long for my muscles to burn so badly that it occupies most of my senses or for my lungs to struggle for each gasp of air.

If I could just shift, I could be faster, quieter,better—

I'm not enough. I've never been enough. Not as a human, not as a wolf.

I feel tears welling in my eyes, and my foot catches on a tree root and sends me scrambling to the forest floor.

A sob wracks my body, both in raw physical agony and my emotions running riot inside of me. I push my arms up but my legs burn in protest, betraying my efforts to get back upright.

Why can’t I just give up? I can lay down right here. I can shout ‘red’ and let this whole farce be over with. We could limp me back to the settlement with the last scrap of my pride burnedto ash and I can properly surrender being a wolf for the rest of my life.

But a fire crackles in me, all smoke and ash, and I get myself up onto my knees with a primal scream to fight through the pain locking my body into uselessness. This ismybody and it will do what I need it to, because that's the only way I survive, and Ialways survive, no matter what—

Why can’t I just give up?

Why do I have to keep going, even when I know I'm going to fail?

Tears run down my cheek and disturb the light trace of dirt from my landing. There's no time to wipe either of them away. With a pained grunt, I lurch to my feet, hands bracing on the tree that had tripped me in the first place.

An uncanny sensation slopes down my spine and sets my skin on a knife's edge.

I carefully glance behind me.

Massive, all black, with haunting amber eyes, the wolf I know to my bones is Thorn stares at me from thirty yards away. His jowls pull back and against the black night of his fur, his teeth are too bright, white, andsharp.The growl that stirs from him is not some idle churning; no, it is vicious to the core. That is the last sound some poor prey animal hears before it’s bled out on the forest floor. He is powerful and terrifying and—

Mine.

My legs almost give out from under me, and I distantly recognize that it's not just the exertion. It's this strange dizziness working its way through me that feels… Surreal. The best way I can describe it is like growing pains of the soul, like my verymind is cracking through scabs and bleeding itself out to move again.

I lean myself into the tree for a split second in a spell of complete weakness before I grit my teeth and shove off of it. I’ll either trip or I'll run, and I'm going to take the gamble, because Irefuseto give up. Not until there's nothing left of me.

I manage to keep myself moving, even though I'm having to rely on the forward intertia of the gentle slope to keep it that way. But I feel him in pursuit, a dark shadow lurking after me. I even catch the edges of sound from him following behind beneath the mad scrambling racket of my own movements.

But as I make it down to the edge of a little stream, there comes a furious noise and a clack of teeth snapping shutright behind me. I choke on a silent scream and try to leap in a panic over the water, but I don't quite have my footing right and fall on the opposite bank.

I swiftly turn onto my back and try to scramble, vision whirling to find him. The wolf looms silently back where I was, but just as I make to try to turn and get myself back up, he leaps. My palms ache as I try to get more distance, but he pounces perfectly on me.

I’m engulfed in the dark mass of him, all coarse black fur and the scent of wolf,hiswolf—something I never thought I'd experience again. I feel one of his paws scrape at my arm and force it to the earth, pinning it down like the rest of me. His huge ruff of inky fur sits like a regal mane around the tapered line of his face. Just as I am helplessly trapped by his body and those piercing eyes, his teeth bare once more and he growls.

A feverish chill wracks my body, and I feel myself tremble and ache to go limp.

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