Page 110 of Hunted By Her Demon Wolves

Chapter One

“Come here, little witch. Worma must know if you taste as good as you smell.”

Pressing my back against the tree trunk, I dared not move a muscle or breathe too hard, lest that creature find me, though I feared it was only a matter of time before she did. The flimsy tree limb I stood on verged on breaking apart as it groaned and splintered beneath me. The crone’s eye sockets might have been two hollow, scarred holes, but I knew she had a superior sense of smell to go with her wickedly sharp claws. Berchta, that’s what Father had called the demonic hags who slashed open stomachs of travelers who dared find themselves in the forest after nightfall, eating out their guts like birds picking off corpses. He’d warned me of her kind often enough. And to think, I’d thought his stories were only fables, a means to keep me from entering the Werewood Forest. Now I knew such creatures of nightmares were real.

“Sweet witch, tasty witch.” The crone’s hoarse voice carved through my chest like shards of glass. “Let me peel back your layers. Formed of old and new, ancient, dark magic reborn as something so sweet and pure. One taste, my dear. Just one ear or toe. That is all Worma will take.”

Great goddesses, how does she know me when I don’t even know who I am?I was tempted to hear her out, but I knew better than to trust a berchta.

I closed my eyes tight and placed a hand on my stomach to quell my roiling gut when I felt her lengthening shadow beneath me. Something crawled across my shoe, but I dared not look down into that blackened pit teeming with all manners of creature and twisting vines that moved as arms, snatching forest creatures and hapless wanderers, shoving them into the jaws of monster plants with rows of sharp teeth.

Demon, my rabbit familiar, stirred in my pack, thumping his back paw in dissatisfaction.Calm,I projected while clutching the woven satchel to my chest.I will not let her harm you.

“The smell of your fear and confusion, so delicious,” the berchta taunted. “You do not know the blood that flows through your veins. He deceived you. He betrayed you. He stole your memories.” My blood turned to icy sludge. How did she know? “I can tell you who you are. I know the scent of your blood. You do not know why the mind spinner would hide you in this wretched place.”

Mind spinner?Was she referring to Father? Because that’s what he’d done. Spun my memories into something new, something unfamiliar like a weaver with a loom. I’d always known my past had felt more like a dream, more like a life that someone else had lived, but tonight he’d confirmed it. And that’s why I’d run. Why I was still running. He’d taken me from my family and altered my memories. That’s what he’d said to the wandering witch as they thought I slept by the campfire, though they didn’t know I was wide awake, and I’d heard every word.

“Heir to the throne, queen of all creatures, goddess of light. One taste, and I can tell you everything.”

Now I knew she was lying. I was no queen and certainly no goddess. No, I was a green witch, and not a very good one. I had a way with animals, with all things nature, and I had minor healing powers, nothing more.

“One taste. One tiny little taste.”

She would take more than one taste. I didn’t need to recall Father’s stories to know that. I could feel her hunger, her quiet desperation leeching from her pores like a poisonous fog. She would devour me, and as miserable as my life was, I wasn’t ready to become some demon crone’s meal. I could not die, I would not die, until I had answers. Namely, who was I and why did the man pretending to be my father erase my memories?

Demon thumped again. I pulled some grass from my pocket and slipped it into the satchel.Please, be quiet.He thumped once more as if to remind me that I certainly was no queen of all creatures.

“Why do you not answer me? Do you not wish to know who you are?” Her voice rose in power. “Foolish witch. Do not make Worma angry, or I will take more than one taste when I catch you. I will take hand. I will take foot. I will take womb.”

She was standing directly beneath me. I worked hard to stop my teeth from chattering as all warmth seeped from my bones. A pale frost coated the decaying tree trunk at my back, and I never wanted to die so much as I did at that moment. Great goddesses! This demon wasn’t just devouring the warmth from the air, she sucked the very joy from my soul. I swore my heart shriveled up in my chest, turning into a blackened piece of coal, and I wanted to surrender my body and let her rip me to shreds, so I could sink into oblivion.

Demon thumped two more times.

“Worma knows secret about your womb, too,” she cooed. “Don’t you wish to know?”

My womb? I placed a hand across my abdomen. I closed my eyes and pictured two sets of silver-blue eyes blinking up at me, two cherubic smiles, four grubby little fists waving in frustration as I worked to arrange each of them on my breasts. But no, that was an illusion planted by the crone. I had no children. I had no husband. And after discovering Father had deceived me, I had no one save for Demon.

Blinking back tears, I stared at the night sky, eyes widening when a flaming comet shot overhead, painting a streak of stardust as it hurled in a perfect arc, disappearing behind a line of shadowy trees.

You’re the only one who can save him!a foreign woman’s voice cried out in my head.Please.

I flinched at the voice sounding as clear as if she was standing right beside me.

Save him! Follow the flame!

I didn’t know what force of nature compelled me to run. Maybe the splintering branch beneath my feet. Maybe the fear of dying in that forest, or maybe instinct told me that flame held the answers to my identity. I jumped with a war cry, meaning to land with the dexterity of a cat, but I lost my footing on the fresh ice that carpeted the forest floor.

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