Chapter 27: Smell of Beast

I was frozen in terror from the sight of the two beasts that were circling me.

“GO AWAY!” I screamed, but the only thing that changed was the continuous growling that turned into barking. It almost sounded like laughter, only deeper and more intense.

I was cornered, and fighting them was useless. When one of them attacked me, I didn’t stand a chance.

I fell on my injured shoulder and cried out in pain, but the fear of having the creature heavy on top of me was worse.

But it seemed hesitant to kill me. Maybe it was going to play with me like a cat plays with the mouse before the deadly bite? God, no!

“P-please…,” I begged, but I wasn’t really sure I was begging for it to spare me or to end my life quickly. Anything but a slow, painful death. However, there was something about the way it hesitated.

It still growled and pushed me down so hard that it felt like it was going to crush me. But the way it dug its nose into my hair felt familiar. When I recognized a distinct and familiar smell, I gasped.

“Jared?”

The beast froze with its teeth scraping over the skin on my neck.

“Jared? Is that you?” I repeated, and he pulled back a bit.

I could see his face now, and it was far from the Jared I knew. Still, he was exactly the man I’d learned to know, only it was hidden in the shape of the beast that was towering on top of me right now.

His eyes had that wild, yellowish look in his eyes that I’d seen before, only as short glints. Now it was constant, and he had the most feral snarl that showed off his sharp teeth.

“It’s me. Skylar.”

He leaned down, and I was afraid that he was going to kill me anyway. But when he smelled my hair again, his entire expression changed.

He blinked a few times, almost like he struggled to focus properly, and I saw a glimpse of the man I knew. The man who had protected me as much as he could, only this was different.

No matter how hard he tried to fight it, he was still a beast under the moon, and it seemed like nothing would ever change that.

“You weren’t supposed to be here,” he said with a voice so deep and raw that it was almost unrecognizable. “You should be on the other side of the river by now.”

“I know. But the fog…I wasted an entire day walking in circles.”

I felt an overwhelming urge to touch his face. He looked so different. So hairy. His facial structure had changed into that of a wolf, but I could still see it was him.

His cheekbones, eyebrows, and the structure of his hair told me that, but most of all his eyes.

Now that I knew it was him, I felt the same magnetic pull that had gotten stronger each day we’d been together. But when I raised my hand to touch his cheek, he stopped me with a roar that startled me.

“Don’t!”

He breathed with that special growl he sometimes had, the one I had somehow started to find calming and safe. Only now I didn’t know quite what to feel. I knew he was dangerous, but a part of me refused to believe that.

“What’s wrong?” I asked, a bit hurt that he’d suddenly pinned my arms down. Hurt both physically and emotionally.

When he saw my reaction, he pulled back and sat up on his knees. Then he just stared at me as if he wanted to make sure it really was me.

The other werewolf, who I guessed was Buck, kept circling us and snapped his jaw repeatedly, ready to rip me to shreds. Still, he kept his distance as long as Jared was straddling me.

“I’m a werewolf, that’s what’s wrong!” Jared roared out, suddenly angry. “I hunt! And I kill!”

I gasped as he leaned over me and pinned my arms down again, only down along my sides instead of above my head. That hurt less, but his rage confused me.

Maybe he was going to kill me anyway? After all, that’s what he said.

To see him towering above me, baring his teeth ferociously, made me doubt him. But instead of attacking me, he leaned close and whispered in my ear.

“I want to make you mine.”

He growled into my neck for a moment before he said something that made me blush. “Then I want to fuck you until the end of time.”

We stared at each other for a long while, and Buck was starting to lose his patience. But we ignored him.

I had no idea what consequences it would have if I agreed, and I didn’t know what Jared would do. I just knew that I trusted him. Despite the situation we were in, I trusted him with my heart.

“Then do,” I finally whispered, and his low growling grew into a deep, prolonged howl. But just as he was about to lower his head down to my neck, the other werewolf pushed him away.

Seconds later, ~he~ was the one straddling me, while Jared was lying on the ground on the edge of the cliff.

“This must be a déjà vu for you, Skylar. Don’t you think this looks familiar to how I found you? In the mouth of that cute little grizzly.”

He snapped his jaw right in front of my face to illustrate exactly what he meant, and he looked like he enjoyed himself when he noticed the panic in my eyes.

The memory of the bear came crashing back like a ton of bricks. I thought that was the most terrifying thing I’d ever experienced, and that I would never recover from it. Now I knew better.

The horrible things that had happened to me after that were way worse, and this situation was only one in a row.

“DON’T TOUCH ME, BUCK!” I shouted while I tried to see if Jared was okay. But he just lay there, lifeless.

“I just love how you believe you’ll get away alive.”

Buck snickered and lowered his head like Jared had done, only with a much more vicious glare in his eyes. I started screaming and hitting him, but to no avail at all.

He was totally unaffected and kept showing his sharp teeth, ready to tear open my throat.

But just as I felt his sharp canines about to sink into the skin on my neck, Jared attacked him, and they had a terrible fight unlike anything I’d ever seen before. Not even in movies.

“Run, Skylar!” Jared shouted when he managed to get on top of Buck, but I was too petrified to listen.

I was practically glued to the ground from anxiety while I watched the two abnormally large creatures trying to kill each other.

My fear increased even more when Buck suddenly flexed his legs and kicked Jared so hard that he flew through the air and fell off the cliff and into the darkness.

I screamed his name in panic, but I could only hear Buck’s barking and snarling. There was no sound from Jared. I was alone, and I had to face Buck all by myself.

“Aw, what is it? Did your boyfriend die?”

He circled me again, and I stumbled backward until I couldn’t come any farther. A wall of solid rock was blocking my way. Not that I could manage to run from him, anyway, but at least it would’ve felt better if I tried.

“Get away from me, Buck!”

However, he did the exact opposite and pretended to charge at me, which made me fall on my back. Then he made another fake attempt that made me crawl backward on my elbows until I was flush up against cold stone.

That made him laugh, a hoarse, sickening laughter that made the blood freeze in my veins. When he attacked again, it was for real, and I rolled away so he crashed face-first against the rock wall.

“Fuck!” he groaned and shook his head, and if he wasn’t furious before, he sure was now.

He snarled loudly and snapped his jaw a few times while he scowled at me, and I reached into my pocket to find what seemed to be my only way to defend myself: The silver knife.

I quickly pulled it out of the sheath and held it in a solid grip. Unfortunately, before I managed to get up, Buck charged again and landed on top of me while he roared out in anger.

But his roar changed. It became a growl unlike the one he made moments ago. He was in pain. I immediately realized that he had fallen on the knife that was still in my hand.

I tried to push him off me, to no avail. He was way too heavy. I screamed for Jared again, but there was no sign of him.

In a last, desperate attempt to get him off me, I twisted the knife as much as I was able to, and Buck roared out again and finally rolled off me, clenching his chest, as soon as I pulled the knife out.

Warm blood covered my hand and clothes, but I was blinded by a sudden anger about what he did to Jared and jumped at him.

I swung my hand through the air and stabbed him with the knife over and over again, until my adrenaline ran out, and I sank down on the ground next to him.

For a minute or so, I just lay there like a trembling mess and tried to catch my breath. Buck was lying lifeless on the ground next to me and looked like he was dead, but it was difficult to see if he really was.

It wouldn’t really surprise me if he wasn’t, because he endured a lot more than a normal human being. Then again, there was nothing about him that was normal. That’s why I got up to take a closer look just to make sure.

His mouth was open, and his head was turned to the side so he was facing me, but because of the darkness it was difficult to see if his eyes were open.

At least I didn’t see any movements in his ribcage indicating that he was breathing. His limbs were sprawled around him, and I could vaguely identify a large pool of blood underneath him.

I didn’t have to see it to know it was there. I even smelled it. But just as I was about to get up, his eyes suddenly shot wide open and glowed with pure evil and insanity.

“You bitch!” he gurgled before he choked on blood and started coughing. Then he tried to get up, and I stared in shock at the tall monster that once again rose in front of me, getting ready to attack.

But as he crept together for the jump, he fell to the ground again and grasped at everything he could reach.

In panic, I called for Jared one last time and felt tears stinging in my eyes when the only thing I heard was an owl hooting in the distance and Buck’s wheezing breath.

But then Buck tried to get up a second time, and I decided to aim for the only way down from the cliff—a narrow path right next to him.

To make sure he wouldn’t be able to follow me, I ran toward him and kicked him in the groin as hard as I could. Then I just ran.

I still had the knife in my hand, and even though I’d learned to never run with a knife, I simply couldn’t let go of the tiny safety it gave.

The dim light made the long silver blade randomly blink like lightning from the reflection of the moon, even though most of it was covered in blood.

I never looked back. Even though I worried about Jared, I knew I had to get out of this wilderness, even if it took all night and the next day, or maybe longer.

I just walked the fastest I could and prayed that Mother Nature didn’t have any other surprises for me.

But the full moon that up until now had been my enemy was now helping to guide me in the right direction through the rough terrain.

I cried a lot. Mostly because of Jared, and that he died because of me. But I also cried because I killed a man, even though I knew I would do it again without hesitation.

Buck was a very evil man. Or…werewolf. And it was either him or me. However, right now my body hurt so badly that I actually started to wish it ~was~ me who died.

The exhaustion was worse than all my injuries combined, and I was starting to lose faith.

After hours of stumbling, falling to the ground in exhaustion and getting back on my feet so I could stumble a few steps more, the darkness finally gave way to the dawning day.

That’s when I gave up. I simply couldn’t walk one step farther, and I was too drained of energy to even cry anymore. I just lay there with my head resting on a pillow of wet moss and knew that this was it.

The heart that was beating in my chest would eventually stop, and I would never see my parents or Keesha again. I would never hug them and tell them how much I loved them, even if it was for the very last time.

But the worst part was that I had to lie there and wait for death to come, slowly and inevitably.

I closed my eyes and didn’t want to open them again. However, after an unknown amount of time lying in a daze, they opened when I realized that I heard a sound.

It was vague and far away, and to begin with, I was sure it was my imagination playing tricks on me again. But when I lifted my head to listen closer, I recognized the sound.

It was the sound of running water. I’d finally reached the river.