Page 80 of The Last Sanctuary
He might’ve pounced then, taking her down with a single leap, but he didn’t. He spun in the opposite direction, hissing at Shadow, who prowled at the tiger’s exposed backside.
Raven’s gaze darted past the tiger, where the corpse of Gomez lay in the bloodied grass. Since he’d appeared, Vlad had remained between her and the wolves and his next meal. The tiger was defending his kill.
If they left him alone, hopefully, he would do the same.
Raven moved silently, carefully backward. Ten yards, fifteen, twenty. Her pulse roared in her ears. Finally, she reached the perimeter of the clearing.
Thirty yards away, Vlad faced down the wolves. If he wished, the tiger could still reach her in two seconds.
At the moment, he seemed more surly than enraged. His roars had become growls. He batted at the wolves like irksome flies, snarling at them to let him be.
She slipped between a sugar maple and a dogwood tree, thorns snagging her pants as she stumbled backward, unwilling to take her eyes off Vlad for a second.
The wolves seemed to have come to a similar conclusion as Raven, because a moment later, Shadow and Luna retreated from the clearing, backs arched, their hackles bristling.
Vlad snarled at them half-heartedly. Rather than chase after them, he hunkered down in front of his kill, protecting it. The tiger gave a deep-throated moan as he licked his wounded paw in peace.
For whatever reason, he’d spared them. She wanted to believe it was because Vlad knew her, recognized her smell, associated her with affection and kindness, all those years of jerky treats and back-scratches against the chain-link fence.
More likely, he simply wasn’t hungry. Or he’d been more interested in protecting his kill and wanted them out of his domain. Maybe it was a mixture of multiple things. She’d never know for sure.
Whatever the reason, she was still alive.
Once out of Vlad’s sight, Raven whistled to Shadow and Luna. Then she turned and ran north, ducking branches, weaving between trees, leaping over roots and fallen logs. Branches and thorns snagging at her clothes and skin. Feet pounding, breath panting, heart whooshing against her ribs.
The wolves trotted with her for a while and then disappeared deeper into the forest. She ran until her stomach cramped. The pain seared her side and bent her double. Her throat burned. Gasping, sucking in precious oxygen, she kept going until it felt like her legs would collapse beneath her.
Finally, she took a moment to rest. Pausing beneath a spreading oak, she retrieved her last water bottle from her pack and drank several mouthfuls until the bottle was empty, then she shoved it back into its pouch.
The damp, earthy scent of the woods filled her nostrils. Sparrows, finches, and swallows chirped. A red-tailed hawk soared in the patches of sky through the leafy canopy.
The trees were bursting with vivid color, their crowns tinged in fiery shades of burnt orange, crimson red, and canary yellow. Squirrels chased each other from trunk to trunk, branch to branch. Chipmunks scurried across the leaf-littered ground ribbed with gnarled roots.
Raven wiped the back of her mouth with her jacket sleeve. Her legs trembled. Her sides heaved. None of that mattered. She was alive. Gloriously, miraculously alive.
Shadow appeared through the trees and stalked to her side. He rubbed against her side as if to make sure she was okay, to reconnect. Luna was nowhere in sight.
“We survived,” she said, her throat raw. “We faced the king of beasts and lived.”
She buried her hands in the thick ruff of his neck. The cool fall air chilled her skin. The wooden wing of the bird carving in her pocket dug into her thigh. The stitch in her side burned. Dead leaves and twigs crunched beneath her feet.
She felt everything, every beautiful, glorious thing.
Shadow gave a low yip. He bolted into the forest ahead of her. On her left, she glimpsed Luna slinking through the shadows. A moment later, she too vanished through the trees.
They were off to hunt or explore or do whatever it was that wolves did in the woods. They’d come back. She was certain of that. She trusted them. The wolves hadn’t abandoned her to Vlad.
Together, they’d escaped the jaws of death.
Raven knew how lucky she was.
She’d lost her gun, though. No way could she risk going back for it. Vlad would stay with his kill for another two or three days at least. She couldn’t afford to wait for it—not with the Headhunters stalking her through the woods. Not with Dekker bent on vengeance.
She withdrew her tattered paper map from the inner zippered pouch of her backpack, unfolded it, and dragged a finger along the faded line drawn from Haven Wildlife Refuge across the expanse of green through the Piedmont nature preserve, north through the Oconee National Forest to avoid people as much as possible, and to circumvent the sprawling metropolis of Atlanta and the city of Athens.
She’d keep north until she hit I-75 at the small town of Monticello, up through Mansfield, then 78 to Monroe, 11 to Winder and Braselton, 85 to 441 up to Baldwin and Clarksville to circumvent the larger city of Gainesville.
From Clarksville, she’d head northwest to the place called Scorpion Hollow. From there, the trail was marked to the cabin’s exact location. Detailed coordinates were scrawled above the spot on the map.
