Page 38 of Alokar
“Hannah!” My voice erupted from my throat in a raw, desperate bellow that sent birds exploding from the treetops in a panicked flutter of wings. The forest swallowed my cry, offering nothing but the mocking whisper of wind in return.
Her rifle lay abandoned on the faded cloth seat, its barrel pointing at an unnatural angle as though she’d been struggling to bring it to bear when something had seized her. The sight of it—her last desperate attempt at defense—sent waves of nausea crashing through my gut, followed immediately by a rage so pure it threatened to consume my sanity.
A few feet from the truck, a clump of matted fur caught my eye. I approached it, fingers trembling slightly as I pulled it from the dirt. Dried blood and chunks of putrefying flesh caked the fur, the stench so overwhelming that bile rose in my throat. Still, I forced myself to lift the revolting mass to my nose, my nostrils flaring as I drew in a deep, analyzing breath.
The reek of decay crashed over me, but underneath that putrid mask—just the faintest whisper of another scent—one that froze my very soul with terror.
Yaard.
The realization hit me like a physical blow. Fuck! How could I have been so catastrophically stupid?
The festering trail I’d been following through the forest had never belonged to an injured grizzly. It was Yaard using the rotting carcass of some poor beast to mask his own distinctive scent. He’d been stalking us like prey, while I’d stumbled through the wilderness like a fool, completely oblivious to the trap closing around us.
No wonder the grizzly that had killed Rodney had seemed wrong to me. It hadn’t been a bear at all.
Yaard was alive, and he’d been hunting us all along. Hunting Hannah.
I hurled the wad of rotting fur to the ground with a snarl of pure fury, throwing back my head and drawing in a great, desperate lungful of air. I was no longer hunting Yaard—that mission had become secondary to something infinitely more precious. The scent I sought now was sweeter than honey, more vital to me than oxygen itself.
Hannah.
My mate. My heart.
Her scent called to me through the chaos of fear and rage like a beacon, and I followed it with the single-minded determination of a male who would tear apart the very fabric of reality to reclaim what was his.
Chapter 15
Hannah
“Let me go, you fucking alien Bigfoot asshole.” The words scraped raw from my throat. The creature—Yaard, without a doubt—reeked of decay so vile I could barely suck in air without my stomach lurching violently. No wonder Ewok couldn’t smell him. All I could detect was the overwhelming stench of rotting flesh.
I’d been waiting for Ewok in the truck, engine ticking as it cooled after driving into Redmond for supplies. I’d stopped in to visit Stella, but after an hour of her incessant whining about her vanished lumberjack, I’d escaped to the blessed silence of the wilderness.
When Yaard first emerged from the treeline, I mistook him for a massive grizzly and lunged for the rifle stashed under my seat. But he moved with inhuman speed, razor-sharp claws shrieking against metal as he wrenched the truck door open before my fingers could barely graze the weapon. I managed one piercing scream before his massive, filth-crusted paw slammed over my mouth, praying desperately that Ewok was within earshot.
“Stop struggling, human.” His voice dripped with condescension, as though he spoke to an animal and not asentient being. His grip on my upper arm constricted like a vise, claws puncturing skin and sending hot rivulets of blood down my arm as he dragged me through the trees.
I thrashed harder. Yaard paused mid-stride, just long enough to backhand me. I crumpled, knees slamming into the rocky ground as darkness exploded across my vision. His claws released my mangled arm only to tangle brutally in my hair, yanking me forward as he resumed his relentless march. His massive strides forced me into a stumbling run to prevent him from ripping my scalp clean off.
“What are you going to do with me?” I gasped, feet sliding treacherously over loose stones and gnarled roots. He was hauling me deeper into the forest, into territory where even the most seasoned hunters paused to tread. Yaard twisted back to fix me with a hateful stare, his yellowed fangs gleaming as his grotesquely long gray tongue swept across his lips in anticipation.
I would be dinner, just like my father.
No! Ewok would come for me. I knew it with every fiber of my being. I just had to survive long enough for him to find me.
“I have been stalking you for days, but the pathetic princeling remained oblivious,” Yaard gloated, his voice dripping with arrogance as rancid as the decomposing grizzly hide draped across his shoulders.
“Oh, he noticed,” I lied, stumbling violently over an exposed root as his grip tightened mercilessly. “How could he not? You reek like a fucking corpse.”
Scent.
Ewok could detect the faintest odor from fifty miles away. He might not recognize that the putrefying grizzly stench belonged to Yaard, but he would know my scent.
With my hands still free, I seized every opportunity, frantically rubbing my palms and forearms against every tree trunk and branch within reach, smearing my scent like a desperate trail of breadcrumbs.
Ewok would come for me.
“All part of my ingenious camouflage,” Yaard bragged. “The cuddwisg device transforms our physical form but leaves our scent unchanged. For that, I had to become resourceful.”
