I stare at him for a short time, making sure he stays down. I take no pleasure killing one of my own, even though I have before and know I will again.
“You should have killed me when you had the chance,” I say, lowering my spear.
I flick my spear clean of blood and take to the trees, not giving Zhallaix another thought.
The creek is nearby. I hear it rather than see it, and from my viewpoint, I notice nothing out of the ordinary, nothing that will help me find Gemma. I need to find her. I don’t know how long I’ve been out, only that it’s dusk now, which means many hours have passed since Zhallaix’s attack. If not days.
I rush to the water, hoping there’ll be a trail, wincing from the pain of my wounds.
I follow the creek north until I’m at the place I was last with Gemma. I see her boots. Grabbing them, bringing them to my face, I inhale her scent.
She’s out in the forest alone, without me, the male who vowed to protect her. She doesn’t know how to defend herself; she knows little about my world. There’s so much more than animals and monsters…
I battle against the pain in my tail that threatens to slow me, slipping it in the water to wash the blood off as I frantically search for her trail.
Sticks are broken, leaves crushed on the ground. Someone hit the overgrowth hard, head-on.
It had to be Gemma. Imagining her fear as she fled infuriates me. She took to the dangerous forest in the darkness without a plan. My claws dig into the material of her boots, leaving the creek behind.
As I track her, I fear I’m going to stumble upon her broken form and a madness takes hold of my mind. But as the hours go by and the moon rises, I never do. She ran for hours…
Was she running from me as well? My tail coils, shooting spikes of pain up my spine at the thought. I refuse to believe it.
The moon ascends and deep shadows blanket the forest so thickly I lose the tracks.
My anger and helplessness coalesce into a roar. “Gemma!” I roar her name.
I’m answered with silence.
I stab my spear into the ground and gather wood to make a fire. If she’s nearby, she’ll see the light and will come. It gives me something to do while I wait for the sun to return, and the flames keep my mania at bay.
The night lasts an agonizing eternity. I do not sleep. Not with my female out of my reach and not knowing where she is.
Dawn has not yet risen when I take back to her trail. I lose it several more times throughout the morning because her tracks have begun fading. Backtracking and finding where it picks up, makes me lose precious time. The sun is past its zenith, the heat sweltering, when I’m plowing forward again.
I shout her name.
And again, rage takes hold at her loss. For losing her, and worse, for not being prepared to take on a human female like I thought I had been. I should have known better.
Why did I take her out at night when I could have taken her to my nest?
I could have her coiled up in my tail right now if I had.
Something blue appears in the distance, and I move toward it. Her jacket. I grip the material tightly to my chest. It’s torn and dirty but still in good shape.
A sign.
My hope returns.
The landscape changes, sloping downward, and her trail picks back up for a while. She slowed here. I have to lower to the forest floor to find her passage. Moving from tree to tree, I see dried blood upon the leaves. But as I do, I see something else, something far worse…
Pig tracks.
Dozens of them. Hoofprints everywhere, pig shit amongst them. The smell of their passage makes the forest reek.
My heart plummets knowing they caught her scent and that I will lose Gemma’s trail completely amongst the pigs’.
My fingers clench. She has to be close. Tearing my eyes off the forest floor, I look up to see where I am. I know this area, I realize. I’ve traveled through here countless times. Pig tracks or no, if she’s here, I’ll be able to find her.
Unless the pigs have gotten to her first… If they had, there’ll be nothing but blood where they caught her. They eat everything.
I’ll kill every last pig in the land if she’s met such a fate.
The sun hits the horizon far too soon, and the diminishing strength of my tail begins to impede me. Blood still gushes from my wounds, making me sluggish. I keep going.
When I hear the pigs, I slip up into the trees and find a mid-size pack of swine in the distance.
One raises his head and sniffs loudly. He smells fresher blood now that I’ve arrived.
I streak my short claws over the wounds of my tail and give them more of it. Pain soars through my nerves, and I grit my teeth. If the pigs come after me, I can lead them away and kill them off one by one. Within minutes, there’s a pack of swine beneath my branch, swarming over each other to reach me.
Lying flat on the branch, I position my spear and, gripping the handle tight, stab at the one nearest me. My speartip sinks deep into fatty flesh. The pig squeals, startling the others to do the same. I wrench my arm back and stab again. I hit another pig.
The pigs flail and scream, blocking out all other sounds. They frenzy, and some run off, the smart ones. But most remain because there’s a meal to be had. I brace and stab again.
Soon, they’re no longer after my blood, but their own. Snorting and snuffing, they turn on each
