Page 1 of Samuel
CHAPTER ONE
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The howls echoedthrough the trees—low, guttural, and terrifying. Not just one, but two.
The job description had said one rogue shifter.
Whoever had filed that intel needed a good beating. My heart pounded against my chest as I tried to keep up with Gordon.
His longer stride was effortless compared to my ragged pace.
My stamina had never been the best—disappointingly average as my deceased parents always said—and tonight, it was failing me.
Each gasp of air felt like it was tearing through my lungs.
We weren’t the hunters anymore. We were the prey.
I glanced around, but the trees of the Grey Arrow Forest all blurred into a repeating maze of branches and shadows.
Every direction looked the same. There were no paths, no familiar landmarks.
The rogue shifters were too fast for us to stay in one place for long anyway, so we’d just been running—no plan, no strategy.
Just trying to survive.
I stumbled over a thick, fallen branch, and pain shot through my leg.
I hit the ground hard, my knife digging painfully into my hip as I skidded to a stop.
“Gordon!” I called out, barely able to catch my breath.
I wasn’t sure if I was calling for help or just out of sheer panic.
Gordon turned, his dark eyes assessing me like I was a piece of meat already half-dead.
The cold calculation in his gaze didn’t surprise me.
Hunters of the Guild were trained to be ruthless, self-sufficient. A liability like me? I didn’t stand a chance.
“We have to split up,” he said, his voice hard and clipped, not even bothering to offer me a hand. “Take on the two rogues separately.”
It took everything in me to swallow the sting of his words. Hunters didn’t coddle each other.
We weren’t partners; we were competitors for survival, and Gordon wasn’t about to sacrifice his life for me.
That wasn’t the way of the Guild.
“Fine,” I managed through clenched teeth as I got to my feet.
Pain flared through my left leg. I must’ve sprained it when I fell, but I couldn’t stop now. I couldn’t afford to.
“We’ll split,” I said.
“Headquarters,” Gordon yelled over his shoulder, not even bothering to wait for me.
Then, he was gone, sprinting into the darkness like the cold-blooded survivor he was.
Sweat poured down my forehead, stinging my eyes as I limped on, trying to put as much distance as possible between myself and the howls.
