Page 18 of Untethering Dark

But this was the best offering yet. A steady diet of fear fed him well, but he quite liked the taste of these other feelings. Something new and varied.

He popped the last Springerle into his mouth.

When the witch offered her body to him, his first thought hadn’t gone to sustenance. The way she openly appraised him, he thought she meant to lie with him.

It was just the sort of thing a Hexe would do. Bed down a formidable creature, produce strong offspring, raise the next generation of Hexen, expand their coven and the breadth of powers they could tap into...

Such a proposition had never tempted him before. At least the producing offspring part. A different sort of drive always occupied the forefront of his mind.

But had she really propositioned him? The scent of fear had been potent, too potent to leave room for much else but bravery.

It began the moment she spoke to him, made a promise.I’ll be back.

No screaming. No running. No hiding. Just staring down an inevitable end with her head held high and poison at her sly, cunning fingertips.

If she had tried to run or hide, he would have eaten her as his predator’s instincts demanded. But true to her word, she returned and faced him dead on, bravely accepting her fate. The courage with which she offered her life and a plate of lethal, homemade Plätzchen... This was someone who understood the old ways of the world, who knew courtesy and respected ritual, but did not bow down without a fight.

That was when his fury quelled, the fierce rumbling in his stomach fading to nothing.

The way she looked up at him with her mismatched eyes—one slate gray, the other so pale its color was little more than swirls of smoke and mountain fog around the black pinprick of a pupil.

The way her snowy hair felt like silk in his hand.

He looked. Really, truly looked and appreciated her features for their beauty.

Her nose sloped elegantly; such a clean, unblemished line he’d only ever seen achieved with the mountainside after new snowfall. Angular cheeks, lips rosy but thin. Not much there, but no matter. He didn’t have lips at all.

There wasn’t much he could glean of her figure beneath her puffy, powder blue coat, which fell to the tops of her knees. And beneath those, fur boots. She wasn’t completely human, but she covered herself head to toe like one.

What a joy it would be to unwrap her, to discover all her edges, both soft and sharp. If she offered, he would accept.

His interest pulled like a cord, somewhere deeper, somewhere lower than his stomach. Desire was a kind of hunger with the potential to be just as insatiable.

He would definitely go back.

As the wind picked up, snow pelting from all directions with the beginnings of a blizzard, the sounds of distressed bleating snagged his attention. Ears pricking toward the sound, Gudariks sniffed the air. Goats. Two of them nearby.

Even in the worsening weather, it would not take long to find them.

He moved with ease, even in the deepening snow, using his sense of smell to track them through the forest. That is, until a new scent caught his attention.

Human. There were more than three trespassers this night.

The locals smelled differently, had the essence of der Schwarzwald in their blood. Gudariks smelled one now, and the blood of the game caught in their snares.

A hunter.

And a rule breaker by the humans’ count to be setting traps on protected national park land. But Gudariks didn’t care about human rules, apart from where they overlapped with his, and subsistence hunting wasn’t one of them. He never begrudged a creature’s need to eat and feed their family.

But that wasn’t to say an offense hadn’t been made.

Wandering this deep in the woods after sunset meant they were fair game for feasting.

They didn’t see him at first, watching through the trees. Garbed in puffy winter gear, the hunter snowshoed along, trekking poles in hand with a white-furred rabbit slung over their back.

Gudariks took a silent step forward, not even a crunch as hoof met snow. But the trees around him creaked and groaned; a twig snapped, as if the forest itself issued a warning.

The hunter stopped, head turning in his direction, their eyes rounding, the rush of blood pulsing in a frantic staccato.

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