Page 45 of Monster's Mystery

About ten paces in, I realized I couldn’t hear the noise from the pep rally anymore. I froze, unsure of whether we should keep going or go back.

The light kept moving further away.

“Come on,” Aiden urged, pulling on my hand.

Ignoring my instincts, which were telling me to go back now, while we still knew which waywasback, I followed Aiden further into the dark forest.

Branches kept scraping my face and catching on my clothing because I couldn’t see them to avoid them. Nothing a little magic couldn’t fix once we were out, but for right that moment, it was irritating.

Suddenly, the light vanished.

“Where did it go?” I hissed, uncomfortably aware that I had no idea which way to go to return to the academy.

“It went out,” Aiden replied with a growl. “This is frustrating.”

“What do we do?” I asked, trying not to sound like I was about to cry.

Aiden tensed, drawing in a sharp breath through his nose. “Don’t make a sound,” he murmured. “We are not alone.”

I swallowed down a lump of fear, frantically trying to seeanythingin the pitch darkness that surrounded us. I wobbled, my shoes impractical for walking through a forest, and stepped back on a branch.

Crack!

The twig snapping sounded louder than a gunshot and I clamped my teeth down on a scream that wanted to escape my mouth.

“Down!” Aiden roared, and I dropped to my knees instantly.

I felt something jump over my head, brushing by my hair, but couldn’t register what it was right away. Aiden shifted in a second, the flames on his body lighting up a few feet around us, and caught the creature by the neck, using its momentum to throw it further away from us.

I got the impression of fur, sharp teeth, and a big body.

Wolf.

Wolf. Wolf. Wolf!

The word got stuck in a loop in my mind. I couldn’t see it anymore, Aiden’s flames not lighting far enough into the trees, but he was still standing protectively between me and where he had thrown it.

“Get up and get ready to run,” he said, not looking at me.

“Isn’t running supposed to make their hunting instincts kick in?” I asked breathlessly, getting to my feet. I shed dead leaves and other forest floor detritus from my hands and knees.

“We’ll have to take that risk. We need to get back to the school,” he said. “Go!”

My heart pounding in my ears, I turned and ran blindly, hoping that I was going in the correct direction.

I kept my hands outstretched to prevent running into any trees when I couldn’t see them.

“This is ridiculous,” I muttered.

Instead of casting a light spell in front of me, I cast a subtly changed one on my eyes, tricking them into believing that it was daylight. It worked perfectly, and I was able to see broken branches and kicked up leaves on the forest floor.

I heard Aiden panting behind me, and hoped that he’d be able to stop any other wolves that attacked us.

I also hoped that this path was the one we had made on our way in.

All I could hear for the next few minutes were my panicked breathing and the steady thumping of my feet on the leaf-covered forest floor.

Suddenly, it was as if we had broken through a barrier, because the cheering and shouting of our schoolmates reached my ears.

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