The world snapped to stillness, the shaft humming where it pinned his ear to bark.
She stood now in the clearing, bow raised, steady as stone. No tremor, no flinch. Her eyes locked on his, not wide with fright but sharp with intent.
Not an accident.
She had known he was thereâhad felt him circling, perhaps even invited his storming approach. The little flame had baited him like quarry, and he, proud hunter, foolish male, had blundered straight into her snare.
Pride surged hot and molten through his fury. She had teeth after all. Gods, she had claws.
He ripped himself free of the arrow with a sharp snarl, ear tearing, blood hot down his neck. The arrow quivered in the tree, a trophy she had claimed without even moving from her mark. It should have humiliated himâwould have, if he werenât already burning with the need to show her who he was.
So he straightened. Tall, broad, shoulders squared in a way that made him look even larger than he was. He rolled the ache out of his neck like it was nothing, flexed his hands loose at his sides, and tilted his chin so the light struck his profile just right. The blood was no longer a woundâit was war paint, a mark of feral glory.
Every line of him screamed: look at me.
And she would. She had to.
He prowled a step closer into the open, letting the full cut of his body be seen, daring her to take it in. This was not just predatorâs menaceâthis was a young male in all his pride, puffed and fierce, wanting her eyes on him, only him.
Now she would speak. Surely.
She would laugh in disbelief, or whisper his glory, orâbetterâask for his name. Anything to prove she had seen what he was, how impressive he stood, how he was so utterly unlike the dull human boys she must have known.
He knew how he lookedâmagnificent, blood-bright, every inch a hunterâand he knew she knew it too.
He waited, thrumming with certainty, heart hammering louder than he wanted it to, desperate for her to give him somethingâjust one word, one glance that was recognition.
Her gaze swept him, slow and deliberate, from torn ear to blood-slick jaw, down the breadth of his chest and the long lines of his stance. For one dizzy instant, triumph swelled in himâshe was looking.
He preened beneath it. His grin stretched sharp, teeth flashing like a challenge and a promise both. He shifted just enough to flex the curve of muscle across his shoulders, angled himself so the light caught the wild gleam in his eyes, the proud flare of his stance. Every nerve sang with the certainty that she was impressed, that she must be impressed.
He waited, breath shallow. Any second now. A word. A smile. The smallest crack in that stony composure. He could taste it, already certain of his victory.
But she only blinked.
And thenâwithout a sound, without so much as a smirkâshe turned on her heel and walked away.
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And his pride cracked.
__________________________
I walked away as if nothing had happened.
My chin lifted, my shoulders square, my steps smooth and measured. Regal. Composed. Unbothered. To any eyes that might have followed, I was cool as stone, a lady taking her leave of a tiresome spectacle.
But beneath my calm, the truth was raw and vicious.
When the thrashing in the underbrush began, I had thought it no more than a boarâan irritable beast throwing a tantrum at the edges of my clearing. I had ignored it, content to let it rage itself quiet, to sit in my silence until it blundered into the open.
Then the trees had split and it was not a beast. It was him. A Fenrathi male, magnificent and terrible, blood-bright and crashing forward like a storm set loose.
And I had loosed my arrow.
I had flinched at the last instantâmy hands trembling with terror as I let it flyâand instead of piercing his eye the shaft tore through his ear and pinned him to the tree. The sound of it, the sight of it, the blood running hot down his jawâevery shred of me knew in that moment what it meant. I had accepted my death. Right there. I had known he would rip me apart for the insult, tear me down to bone and scatter what was left.
But thenâgods, but thenâhe had changed.
The storm became spectacle. The predator became boy. He tore himself free as though it were nothing, as though the arrow were a bug bite, a splinter hardly worth notice. He bled and he grinned and he preened, rolling his shoulders and baring his teeth, showing off like some ridiculous peacock who believed himself irresistible.
And I had answered him with silence. I had turned, calm and cool, and walked away.
I did not look back.
I did not falter.
To him, to any who might have seen, I was unshaken.
But only when the trees closed thick between us, when I prayed distance alone might protect me, did I break.
I stumbled behind a boulder and collapsed into the dirt, the terror I had swallowed bursting loose all at once. My chest seized, air tearing from me in ragged, useless gasps. My stomach convulsed until bile scorched my throat. I muffled my cries into my fists, half-screams, sobs, gasps, all clawing to escape. Tears streamed hot, blinding. I shook until my teeth rattled.
I had shot him.
Gods, I had shot him.
Every breath was knives. My body betrayed me, folding tighter, curling in on itself as if I could vanish into the ground. I saw again the arrowâs flight, saw it drive into flesh, saw his blood glisten scarlet. If I had not flinched, if the terror had not made my hand tremble, I would have taken his eye. I would have killed him.
I lay in the dirt, curled against the stone, breath ragged and shallow, every muscle taut as wire. My ears strained for the sound I knew must comeâthe crashing storm of him, teeth and claws, the judgment I had earned. Fenrathi were beasts. They killed each other for insults smaller than the one I had delivered. And I had done worse than insult. I had turned my back. I had walked away after I had SHOT HIM!
He would not let that stand. He could not. He would come for me.
I listened and time crawled. Hour upon hour I laid there hunched, breath caught in my throat, certain each stir of branch, each whisper of leaves, was him closing in. My heart pounded so hard I felt it on the earth. My body braced for the moment his shadow would fall, for the weight of his wrath.
But nothing came.
No storm.
No sound.
Only the night deepening around me, the forest beginning the evening rituals of hunter and prey.
When at last the silence grew heavier than the fear, I crept from my refuge, trembling and hollow, every step a slow betrayal of my own terror. I made my way back to the clearing, heart hammering, certain I would find him waiting.
But he was gone.
The only sign that he had been real at all was the arrow still jutting from the tree, quivering faintly in the night breeze. My arrow. My mark. The shaft was dark with dried blood.
And I did not know whether to weep with relief or drown in the knowledge of what I had done.