Page 85 of Untethering Dark

Adrenaline, thrill, fear, and lust were an invigorating cocktail of feelings.

Racing cross-country, gliding down the slopes at breakneck speeds, Astrid moved as if the god-monster hunted to kill. Even though she wanted him to catch her, the pleasure of the chase was lost if she didn’t try her hardest to escape. They both had to earn it.

So, she sped for the border, to the boundary he could not cross.

His roar echoed in the mountains, startling a flock of winter birds from the trees around her, cawing as they took flight in a rush of wings. He was coming.

Danke Mutter Holle, this was all just fun and games.

Years sequestered inside her cottage, hiding behind her offerings and useless wards, Astrid never learned the true extent of Gudariks’s speed. She had no frame of reference, no way to calculate how quickly he might catch up. A fatal mistake if she were true prey.

But as his pounding footsteps and ragged, heavy breathing grew louder, edging closer and closer...doubt, then dread, crept in.

No teasing, no lusty promises, nor even a taunting “run faster, Liebling.” Nothing playful. Just cold, silent pursuit. If this was truly just fun and games, it would feel more like it, wouldn’t it?

What she got instead was his deadly focus and a hungry stare burning holes in her back.

Astrid dared not look over her shoulder. Not to see how close he was nor to determine whether murder truly ignited his gaze. If that moment wasn’t the one he took advantage of to pounce, it was the moment she crashed into a tree, which could kill her, even with her growing hag’s strength.

She counted on him to hunt her, but what happened after,his desire, wasn’t a guarantee. What if, in her foolish attempt to spur him into fulfilling one of her fantasies, they’d overlooked his instincts? What if he felt more compelled to kill, toeat? To sink in his teeth rather than his cock?

The tree line, the boundary, was just up ahead.

At these speeds, she needed only seconds, not minutes, to reach it.

He breathed hard behind her. Rasping, panting, struggling for breath.

And then...nothing.

From the corner of her eye, she spied a dark shadow flash by, darting through the trees to her left, at a speed her eyes almost couldn’t track. But she didn’t need to be able to make out the finer details to know who it was.

Then, he disappeared.

Heart pounding, she darted cursory glances around the forest, trying catch his silhouette. But she’d lost sight of him, not even the sound of breathing or crunch of snow to give her a hint of his whereabouts. Panic spiked through her, but she swallowed her rising fear and crouched low, both to increase her speed and to make herself a smaller target, poles tucked underher arms, letting the steep slope of the mountainside and gravity carry her onward.

Something big launched at her from the right, and she swerved hard, feeling furred skin brush her arm as she skirted out of the way.Scheiße! Scheiße! Scheiße!How had he gotten to her other side so quickly? And without being seen or heard?

Leaning left, then right, cutting around a rock here, a tree there, her thighs and glutes burned with the effort.

Altes Geweih ran ahead, his heaving form whirling around, long arms outstretched, ready to snatch her up in his claws, hot steam billowing from nasal sockets.

Dropping her poles, Astrid summoned her element, and icicles shot from the ground, ringing the forest god and barring him in. The sound that rumbled from within the makeshift prison was part laugh, part growl as he swiped it to pieces. It hadn’t lasted nearly as long as she wanted, but it created enough of a hindrance for her to shoot past him unscathed.

Another danger loomed ahead.

All too soon, she was closing in on the tree line.

She’d been so focused on one threat she forgot the other. All it had taken was a few seconds of distraction.

Cutting her skis to the side, Astrid tried to brake, but she was moving much too fast. Hurtling toward the tree line, she raised her hands and snow rose from the ground with them, piling up and up to build a wall that could soften the blow of collision.

It would work. It had to.

Crashing into a tree was not how she met her end.

Chapter Thirty-Nine

The witch didn’t make it easy, even when he was stalking, toying. The rush of the hunt, the way she made him work to catch her made his blood heat, his muscles coil. Primed and ready to strike. And strike he did, but she foiled him then, too. Dodging, and constructing that icy prison...that one was a nice touch.

---