Page 7 of Bite Sized Bride
They are an annoyance. Nothing more.
I see my quarry for a heartbeat. A small, dark shape, scrambling away on the far side of the clearing. It is soaked, covered in mud, its movements clumsy with terror. It looks back, and in the flash of lightning that splits the sky, I see its eyes. Wide. Dark.
The red torrent in my head screams in triumph.Mine.
I wade through the swarm of Razor Birds, swatting them from the air like insects. Their claws and wings glance off my hardened hide. One manages to slice a shallow gash across my arm, and the sting of pain only fuels my rage. I am almost upon it. The property. The small, warm, terrified thing that has awakened this glorious hunt.
It disappears into a dense wall of ancient, gnarled trees. I follow, but the space is tight. My massive shoulders wedge between two trunks. I roar in frustration and put my full strength into it. The trees groan, their roots tearing from the earth, and then they splinter and break. I am through.
But the clearing is empty. The scent is everywhere, confused, tangled. It has gone to ground.
I slow my pace. The brute force of the chase is over. Now, the cunning begins. The curse is not just rage and strength. It is the instinct of a perfect predator. I know this forest. I have hunted it a hundred times for my master’s sport. I know the caves, the hollows, the places a small, frightened creature would seek refuge.
It is heading for the old temple ruins. A place of broken stones and deep shadows. A place to hide. A place to be trapped.
I no longer follow its trail directly. I circle, moving through the forest like a ghost, my heavy footfalls silenced by the storm. I will cut it off. I will be the cage that snaps shut.
The scent grows stronger. It is close. I can smell its ragged breathing, the frantic, hammering beat of its heart. I crouch behind a moss-covered slab of fallen stone, a collapsed archway that leads into the temple’s main courtyard. I wait. The red storm inside me is a quiet, humming thing now. An engine of pure anticipation.
I hear it before I see it. The snap of a twig. A desperate, choked sob. It stumbles through the undergrowth and into the courtyard, collapsing against the central, broken altar. It is a small thing, all sharp angles and trembling limbs under its soaked, thin tunic. It pushes its dark, wet hair from its face, its chest heaving. It thinks it is safe. It thinks it has found a moment of peace.
It is wrong.
I step from the shadows.
The property freezes. Its head snaps up, and its eyes—the same dark, wide eyes from the clearing—lock with mine. The fear-scent that pours from it is a perfume, a feast. It does not scream. It does not run. It simply stares, its body rigid with a terror so profound it has become stillness.
I move toward it, each step slow, deliberate. I am savoring this moment. The end of the hunt. The fulfillment of the command. The red storm roars in triumph.
I loom over it, blocking out the faint light from the storm-wracked sky. It is so small. So fragile. I could crush it with one hand.
Retrieve.
I reach for it.
5
MIKANA
My lungs are twin fires in my chest, each breath a ragged gasp of pain. The forest has taken its toll. My thin tunic is shredded, my skin beneath a lattice of angry red scratches from thorns and whipping branches. My bare feet are cut and bruised, every step on the sharp stones and slick roots an exercise in agony. But I no longer feel the pain. I am blessedly, terrifyingly numb.
The storm has exhausted its fury, settling into a miserable, weeping drizzle that clings to everything, making the world smell of wet rot and decay. I stumble through a final wall of dripping ferns and into a clearing.
Before me, stone claws at the sky. The ruins of an old temple, surrendering to the forest’s slow, green embrace. A courtyard of cracked flagstones is choked with moss, and a central altar, a massive slab of granite, lies broken in two, as if struck by the fist of a god. Ivy pours over crumbling walls like a silent, green waterfall. It is a place of forgotten things. A tomb.
It is a good place to die.
I know it’s coming. I can feel its presence behind me, a pressure in the air, a shadow moving through the trees. The chase was never a race. It was a countdown. And my time is up.
My legs give out. I collapse against the broken altar, the cold, wet stone a shock against my back. I slide down its mossy surface to sit on the ground, my head tilted back, letting the rain fall on my face. There is no fight left in me. I ran. I chose the manner of my end, and this is it. Better the swift violence of a monster’s claws than the slow, artistic cruelty of Lord Malakor’s sanctum.
The forest falls silent. The drip of water from the leaves, the sigh of the wind—it all fades away, replaced by a new sound.
Thump. Thump. Thump.
It is a footfall, heavy and deliberate. It is not the sound of a mindless beast crashing through the undergrowth. It’s the sound of a hunter who knows its prey is cornered. The ground beneath me vibrates with each step, a deep, resonant tremor that travels up my spine and settles in my teeth.
I close my eyes. I picture Ren’s face, pale and terrified in the green light of the runes. I picture the minotaur, his honorable defiance broken in the arena. I will not scream. I will not beg. I will give my master no final performance to savor in the reports of his handlers.
