HUNTED

Tyra's POV

“Who are you?!” I yelled through the blinding pain. “What do you want with me?!”

Silence answered me. 

And somehow the silence was worse than the threatening words.

Every breath I dragged in came out as a broken gasp; the sharp and searing pain racing through my veins felt like a live current.

I yelped as the silver net suddenly tightened and lifted me off the forest floor.

It rose until I hung a few inches above the wet leaves while every glowing strand hummed against my skin like a swarm of angry insects.

After a few seconds of unsuccessfully trying to see if I could find a way to break out of the net, I resigned myself to curling into a ball. I twisted the exposed areas of my skin into my clothes as much as I could, protecting them from being stung by the accursed net.

I had just found a suitable position when a fresh wave of horror washed over me. The net wasn't just holding me in place; it was also draining me. 

I could feel it pulling at something deep inside my chest, something warm and vital that I hadn't even known was there until this moment, and every tug felt like a hook being dragged slowly through my ribs.

My vision swam, and my limbs grew heavier with every passing second. 

I froze when dark shapes began to separate themselves from the trees and started coming towards me.

They were all masked and dressed in black from head to toe so that they seemed to melt in and out of the shadows as they moved. 

I counted five of them, then six, and then I lost count entirely as my eyes refused to focus. 

Moonlight glinted off the long blades in their hands, and when one of them finally stepped into visible distance, the symbol I saw etched into the steel made my stomach lurch.

It was a cracked moon.

It was the same mark I had seen on the wrist of the masked man at the ice cream shop, the same one that had been haunting my dreams ever since, and now it was burning faintly along the edge of the blade like fire carved into metal.

"Who are you?" I tried to demand, but my voice came out hoarse and thin, barely more than a breath.

The tallest of them stepped forward. When he spoke, the mask twisted his voice into something low and hollow that didn't sound human at all.

"The mistake that survived," he replied in a cold, detached tone, tilting his head as he studied me like an insect pinned to a board. "It's time to die, accursed wolf."

My heart stuttered painfully in my chest.

"W-what do you mean, wolf?" I stammered, my voice climbing higher as panic clawed its way up my throat. "I don't have a wolf! You've got the wrong person!"

None of them answered. They didn't even seem to hear me.

The tall one raised his blade, and the others began to hum, a low and eerie tone that rose and fell in a rhythm that made my teeth ache. 

I screamed as the pain shooting through me suddenly tripled as the net pulsed brighter.

“Please…”  I whimpered brokenly, feeling as if my blood was drying up within me. “I swear, y… you’ve got the wrong person."

“I can assure you,” he said, walking towards me slowly. “We have the right person, cursed one.”

I didn’t like the look in his eyes as he pointed the blade at me. It was almost… reverent. 

“Lower her!” He ordered the two men holding the ropes. 

Tears gushed down my face as I was lowered until I was at arm's length from him.

“Today,” he yelled as he lifted the blade like a priest approaching an altar, and the moonlight slid down the length of the steel as he aimed it at my heart. “We end this!”

The others all cheered. Then they continued the creepy humming that fell over me like a trance.

I closed my eyes, feeling weaker than I had ever felt in my life. My mind went to my mother, alone in that big house, waiting for a phone call that would never come. 

I thought of my father, and of the same eyes that had apparently been watching all this time, and I wondered if this was how he had felt at the very end.

My eyes snapped open when a loud growl suddenly split the silent air.

It was feral and unrestrained, so full of raw, murderous rage. 

The humming faltered, and every masked head snapped toward the sound at once.

Something huge crashed through the trees in a blur of motion and teeth and fury. 

The tall man barely had time to turn before Alaric’s wolf slammed into him and sent him flying.

He was half-shifted, caught somewhere between man and wolf. His shirt hung in shreds from shoulders that seemed far broader than they should have been, dark fur rippled along his forearms, and his eyes were blazing gold in the darkness. 

Without wasting a single glance at the remaining attackers, he came straight for me. 

The spell shattered as his claws tore through the silver net like it was made of paper. Light flared blindingly bright around me, and then it died all at once.

I dropped to the ground hard enough to knock the air from my lungs, and for a moment, all I could do was lie there in the wet leaves, gasping and shaking from the reprieve from the pain, while the world spun above me.

Two of the masked figures lunged at Alaric, and he met them head-on with a growl so deep I felt it in my bones.

Dazed, I pushed myself up onto my elbows just in time to see a third figure break away from the others and charge straight at me with his blade raised high. 

My body wouldn't listen to me. 

I tried to run, but I couldn't. I couldn't even find the tiniest bit of energy to lift my arms to shield my face.

He was almost on me when Osric’s wolf came out of nowhere and hit him mid-charge. 

Before the man could get his bearings, Osric seized him by the front of his cloak, spun him clean off his feet, and drove him into the trunk of a tree with sickening force. 

The crack of bone echoed through the forest, and the man crumpled to the ground in a broken sprawl. 

Osric was already pivoting to meet the next one before the first had even stopped moving.

I had watched the twins spar when we were teenagers, laughing and shoving each other around the training yard while half the pack cheered them on. This was nothing like that.

Alaric was all brutal strength. Every strike he threw was deliberate, and every movement was measured and meant to end things cleanly. He caught a blade against his forearm, twisted it out of his attacker's grip, drove an elbow into the man's ribs, and swept his legs out from under him in one devastating motion.

Osric was faster and more fluid, and he fought like he was dancing. He ducked and spun and slipped between blades, and every time an attacker thought he had him cornered, he was already somewhere else, grinning.

Together, they moved like mirrored halves of the same beast, and neither of them ever had to look to know exactly where the other one was.

Then one of the masked men slipped past them both and lunged for me.

Alaric was there before I could even scream. He caught me by the arm, hauled me behind him, and turned his own body into a wall between me and the blade. Steel flashed in the moonlight, and I heard the wet, awful sound of it slicing through flesh. 

Alaric grunted, and blood bloomed dark and fast across his torn sleeve.

Something inside me lurched violently at the sight of it, a sharp, wrenching pain right beneath my ribs, like the blade had cut into me instead of him.

It made no sense. This was Alaric, the man who had spent ten years acting like I didn't exist, who had looked straight through me since the day I came back and treated me like a problem he had to manage. 

Yet he had just put his own body between me and a cursed blade without a second's hesitation, and now he was bleeding for me in the dark. 

My throat burned, and I had to press my hand against my mouth to keep from crying out his name.

He didn't even flinch. He just looked back at me over his shoulder, his gold eyes burning into mine for a single heartbeat.

"Stay behind me," he growled, his voice rough and barely human. "Don't you dare move."