Page 5 of The Pack

I stumbled away, my breath coming in ragged gasps. My hands were trembling, the rock slipping from my fingers as I stared at him. Blood pooled beneath his head, dark and viscous, soaking into the dirt as seconds slowly ticked by.

I didn’t wait to see if he would get back up.

I grabbed my knife from where he’d tossed it and ran.

The forest was darker now, the shadows deeper, the air colder. My mind was racing, my heart pounding as I tried to process what had just happened.

These shifters weren’t just feral animals.

They were human enough to want to kill me—and worse, human enough to want to try to pin me to the ground and rape me.

And I wasn’t going to wait around to find out how many more of them were out here.

I was going to get the fuck out of Dodge.

The forest seemed endless, the trees pressing in tighter as I ran, my legs screaming for rest and my lungs burning. The smell ofblood lingered on my hands, sour and metallic, but I didn’t have time to stop and clean it off. Not when the forest felt alive with unseen eyes and sounds that made my heart jump at any given moment. Every rustle of leaves, every crack of a branch made me whip my head around, my makeshift knife clenched so tightly my knuckles ached.

The sun was sinking lower, the light turning orange and golden as it bled through the trees. Soon, it would be gone, and the thought of being caught out here in the dark sent fresh fear flooding through me. I needed shelter. Somewhere hidden, somewhere safe.

But nothing about this place felt safe. It kind of felt more like a death sentence.

Finally, I found a small hollow beneath the roots of a massive oak. The tree had toppled years ago, its roots jutting upward like a twisted skeleton, leaving a shallow space underneath. It wasn’t much, but it was better than nothing.

I dropped to my knees, crawling inside. The ground was moist and smelled of dirt and decay, but it was hidden, and that was all that mattered. I pressed my back against the roots, clutching the stone knife to my chest as I tried to catch my breath.

The silence of the forest was oppressive now, broken only by the occasional distant cry of birds or the soft rustle of the wind. My muscles ached, and exhaustion was creeping in, but I couldn’t afford to sleep, not yet.

So, for a few minutes, I just sat and caught my breath before I began to move again.

I spent the next hour gathering what I could without straying too far from my shelter—dry leaves, small branches, anything Icould use to keep warm or set up a tiny barrier at the mouth of the hollow. The light was fading fast, and my nerves were more than a little frayed. I’d heard no signs of any more wolves coming after me, but that didn’t mean I was as alone as I hoped. I was careful with every step to be as quiet as humanly possible, just to be safe.

As the last rays of sunlight bled away, leaving the forest cloaked in darkness, I crouched back inside the hollow. My heart thudded in my chest as I lit a small fire with a spark of flint I found nearby and some dry grass.

I couldn’t remember how I knew what flint was or how to start a fire with it, but when I saw the gray rock lying there, I just knew what it was and what to do with it. Thank goodness, because I needed a campfire like I needed to breathe tonight. The flickering flames caused long shadows to dance on the walls of my shelter, and I wrapped my arms around my knees, staring into the fire.

I tried not to think about the men—theshifters—I’d killed.

Or the fact that there might be more of them out there, hunting me. Could they smell me, scent me somehow? Was that how they were finding me? I shook my head, dropping it into my hands as the fire crackled in front of me, before I finally curled up and tried to get some rest.

Sleep came in restless bursts, broken by the faintest of sounds: an owl’s hoot, the crack of a branch, the sigh of the wind. I jolted awake more times than I could count, my knife clutched tightly in my hand, all my senses straining for any hint of danger.

But exhaustion was a cruel thing, and eventually, it dragged me back under.

And I started to dream.

His face was the only thing I could see. I should have recognized him, but I couldn’t quite place him. He was familiar all the same.

His dark eyes, so much like mine, stared at me with a mix of fear and determination. His face was streaked with dirt, a gash cutting across his cheekbone, but he was alive. He was always so stubbornly, defiantly alive.

“Zara,” he said, his voice low and urgent. “You can’t let them find me.”

I reached for him, my hand trembling. “I won’t,” I whispered, the words tearing out of me like a promise I couldn’t afford to break.

The scene shifted, the edges of the dream blurring like smoke in the wind. I was in the woods now, the trees thick and dark around us. I couldn’t see him anymore, but I could feel him—his presence just out of reach, his footsteps crunching on the leaves ahead.

“Stay with me,” I called, my voice breaking.

He didn’t answer.

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