Page 23 of Moonmarked

All my thoughts came crashing down once more—does this mean thatI amdead after all?Because I’d seen that werewolf on the ground when the sorcerers were here. She hadn’t been breathing, hadn’t been moving, and the sorcerer who’d checked on her had confirmed that she was dead.

Yet now she was sitting andeatingsomething stuck between her front paws, looking around us calmly, her tailswooshing from one side to the other like this was just an ordinary day.

And I still had no fucking clue what to make of it—if this meant I was dead, that both of us were, or that somehow we were alive.

Until the werewolf slowly turned her head toward me, licking her lips, and our eyes locked.

She was most definitely not dead. Her big brown eyes were sprinkled with yellow, and her attention was a hundred percent on me. She was an intelligent being—averyintelligent being, judging by the way she was looking at me, and for a moment there, I could see thatwomanshe was when she didn’t look like a wolf. I could see her, and I couldfeelher, and the warmth that spilled all over my insides recognized her, too.

For a moment there, I couldn’t breathe. I felt her as if I’d known her my whole entire life, and the stinging in my forearm intensified while our unblinking eyes held.

Then she turned her head and continued to bite on whatever she had between her paws.

Animal.Fur—bloody and dark. She was eating an animal.

And when I finally got myself together, and I turned my head the other way—I found a dead squirrel right there on the ground near my head, too.

A scream escaped me involuntarily. That’s where the smell was coming from—the dead fucking squirrel someone had left there, far too close to me.

But the momentary panic gave me a boost of energy, and my body moved on, and suddenly I was sitting up. Suddenly, I was trying to drag myself farther away from the dead animal, its brown fur matted with blood, its chest so perfectly still, just like the dry ground underneath us.

The dry ground of the riverbed we’d fallen in from… “Oh, my God,”I whispered to myself when I looked back and saw the edge of the cliff—so fucking far up. Farther than I’d realized the first time I was conscious down here, and now I wasreallysure that I was dead because there was no way I could have survived that, let alone without a single broken bone. No fucking way.

And the werewolf stood up, too.

Just like I suspected, she’d had a dead squirrel between her paws, except all that was left of it now was the fur.

Don’t throw up, don’t throw up, don’t you dare throw up!

Easier than I thought because the fear of having an actual werewolf in front of me, coming toward me slowly, took over the disgust completely. My God, I was so screwed.

She moved slowly, each step precise, her eyes on my body, scrolling up and down, and she sniffed the air as she approached, too. I could have sworn that she was bigger than she had been, or maybe it was because I was sitting down. But she was standing taller, her sharp ears raised, no sign of weakness anywhere on her.

Her fur was three different shades of brown mixed with black around the ears and tail. Her paws were huge, disproportionate to her legs, I thought—but what the fuck did I know about the werewolves of Verenthia?

They love mortal flesh, can smell it from far away—wasn’t that what Rune had told me? Wasn’t that the reason why we hadn’t gone anywhere near The Vale, where the werewolves lived?

And now here I was, with a werewolf of my own that I’d freed myself, thinking it was a dog—and she looked so much like a fucking dog! Before that sorcerer called her a werewolf, I’d have bet my right hand that she was a dog, a gorgeous mix of possibly a husky or even a Germanshepherd. I didn’t really know dogs, but I’d have bet my life that she was one.

In fact,I did.I bet my life on it when I broke the lock of that cage and let her out, and now…

Now she was walking all around me, coming to my other side while I tried to drag myself as far away from her as I could. But my body was so slow to respond, my limbs so heavy. Not because of pain, but because of the fear that robbed me of all my energy.

“Don’t…d-d-don’t eat me,” I said, and I hated my voice shook, but fuck, I was terrified.

And the werewolf turned her head to the side as if she were confused—fucking hell, how is that not a dog?!

I licked my dry lips and was going to talk again, to remind her that I’d let her out of the cage, that she could at least just walk away without killing me, but…

Then the werewolf went for the dead squirrel on the ground, not to eatit, but to push it toward mewith her muzzle.

Stunned, I watched the body of the dead squirrel roll over as the werewolf pushed it, then sat down on her hind legs and looked at me.

Justlooked at me.

“Are you…” I looked down at the squirrel, but I was too scared to be disgusted right now. “Are you giving me that squirrelto…toeat?”

Her head turned to the side again. When we were both sitting like this, she was just slightly taller than me, but that still didn’t mean that I was less afraid.

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