Page 27 of Untethering Dark

He stalked forward, eyes flitting all around, watching for movement.

They should be right here.

But the night was still.

Gudariks followed the tracks they left, searching until the yellow fingers of dawn crept up over the horizon. He found nothing.

They simply, and impossibly, vanished.

The next morning, Gudariks paced the boundaries of his domain, avoiding the trails and daytime hikers. Back and forth, back and forth, all day long. How had the humans evaded him? It should’ve taken them hours in any direction to escape the forest. Stood to reason that they were still in it, hiding somewhere, somehow, but here he was, wearing a trench in the snow, a day wasted with twilight quickly approaching, and not even a whiff of their potent odor or a whisper of their drunken revelry.

It was maddeningly confounding.

“Guuudaaariks.” A singsong voice called, sickly sweet. Tensing, he snapped his head in the direction of the sound.

Two fiery red eyes stared back at him from the shadowy, immaterial silhouette of a woman. But in a blink, she, it, whatever it was, was gone. An apparition. Or fuzzy memory? There was something strangely familiar about it.

He suddenly felt very tired and foggy. The call of his den—to lie down and rest and forget for a while—beckoned with a long, crooked finger. Maybe he was due for another long hibernation. A century or two of rest. He needed those once every one to two millennia.

But the pretty snow-haired witch...

Not fully human, but not fully creature either, she didn’t have centuries to spare. Not unless she chose the hag path like her mother.

He shook his head, trying to clear the fog.

This was not a good time to disappear from the world and take a long nap. He wanted to see her again, just be near her for a little while and fill his head with pleasant daydreams.

Then he’d return to his den and sleep—not a whole century, but maybe a week.

Mind made up, he let muscle memory bring him to the sleepy little cottage with smoke drifting from its chimney. Always a warm aura amidst a frozen landscape. Coming here each night was one of the few constants he had.

He lingered outside the gate, near the tree stump where she always left generous offerings and found new wards hanging from the witch’s fence posts.

Gudariks flicked one. His claw sizzled in response, sending up a plume of smoke, but while he disliked the protective magic’s sting, as deer and rabbits disliked marigold planted in gardens, it wasn’t enough to keep him out.

Chapter Nine

The forest was still when Astrid hurried out of her cottage, a cookie plate cradled in the crook of her arm. While it wasn’t fully dark yet, it was far later than she usually dared to leave the house, twilight painting the frozen landscape with silver and indigo brushstrokes. One night without a visit, and already she lowered her guard and let her routine fall lax.

Just because she had a couple conversations with Altes Geweih, and he rescued her goats, didn’t mean he wasn’t still a dangerous creature. A creature that might eat her at the slightest provocation, fickle interest already worn thin.

Assuming he wouldn’t come again tonight was a careless gamble.

Heart hammering in her chest, she scanned between the trees for the telltale glow of crimson eyes, for shifting shadows, or the gleam of bone-white antlers snatching a bit of moonlight, certain she’d erased any goodwill she might’ve had.

Snow crunched beneath her boots as she walked toward the tree stump beyond her gate, her breathing too loud, too ragged for comfort, breaking the silence. Even the normally blustery winter wind was dormant tonight.

“Do you fear me, little witch?” The words, though purred, lost none of their rough edge.

The sound that erupted from her mouth was more of a strangled wheeze than a scream.

He was behind her. How had he gotten behind her?

Slowly, she turned around, only to find the weathered wood of her front door, the glow of the hearth within, and the tracks she left in the snow.

Her roof creaked.

This time, she really did shriek.

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