Page 13 of Untethering Dark

“The lighting is perfect. Butugh, this pen is littered with goat shit. What if we let them out and posed with them in front of the house? It’ll look like something straight out of a storybook.”

Casting a wary eye to the horizon, and the rapidly setting sun, Astrid trudged grumpily through the snow.Time to chase off the tourists.

Even if they listened to warnings from her, they’d never get off the mountain in time, so there was no point in doing much more than shooing. If she was feeling more gracious, she could suggest that they offer whatever they could, too, on the offchance it spared them, but horrendously rude fools might as well also be soon-to-be-dead ones.

They could just go somewhere else to be eaten.

One of them cried out, fearful and disgusted. “What the fuck is this—a cup of blood? What kind of sick psycho lives here?”

Scheiße!

Panic spiking, Astrid dropped the firewood and ran. Trespassing was one thing. Bothering her goats another. But if they spoiled her offering, and messed with her wards...

She was a dead woman.

Exiting the tree line, and sprinting for the cottage, a chorus of bleating and jingling bells raised. The individual laughed, like trespassing and distressing goats weren’t incredibly crummy things to do.

Then the laughter turned to a sharp curse. “The fucker bit me!” There was a smack, followed by angry bleating, even more jingling, and more cursing.

Rage bubbled and brewed beneath Astrid’s skin. Frost limned her palms as she tapped into the shallow well of winter magic she could access as a witch. Frostbitten dick would be the least of what he’d suffer for raising a hand against one of her darlings.

Astrid jerked around the corner, then skidded to a halt, fluffy mitten-covered hands flying to her temples. A sharp, anguished cry burst from her lips.

Caught red-handed, three backpackers turned to look at her, mouths agape.

Did they not expect to find someone at home? There was smoke billowing from the chimney, light in the windows...

Oh, never mind that.

This...this...disaster...

Even though she cleared the stone path from gate to door of snow, they tromped all over her winter garden. The wards that hung from her fence posts—bits of twigs and bone—were torndown and crushed. They’d been spelled to keep Altes Geweih at bay, but they were powerless against human stupidity.

Fritz and Liesel were gone, the gate to their pen wide-open.

And the offering...

Dread lanced through her. The offering was spilled out onto the ground, staining the snow red.

“What have you done?” she bellowed, rage rising on fear’s heels.With night quickly approaching, there wouldn’t be enough time to prepare another one. She was as doomed as the rest of them.

Unless...

Not bothering to listen to their excuses or empty apologies, she whirled around, storming to the back, a plan forming. If they were still polluting her space when she returned...

She yanked her ax from the chopping block, anger prickling her skin.

Their flesh and blood would do. Altes Geweih wasn’t the only monster in this forest.

When she returned, ax in hand, they were on the run, already a dozen meters away, their belated self-preservation instincts finally kicking in. She spotted their brightly colored winter coats, streaks of orange, blue, and purple zipping through the trees.

Lifting the ax above her head in a two-handed grip, she took aim at the one who dumped the offering and threw.

It twirled through the air, handle over blade. Round and round and round, whistling its approach.

With a thud, it hit into the tree beside the orange-coated human, missing the lucky idiot by a thread, sending splinters flying.

Scheiße!

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