Where Foxes Hunt with Wolves - K.A. Merikan Page 0,4

of the slope He shot again without thinking. Then again, already trudging through the snow in a parody of a jog, but the lone wolf kept evading him, as if he were luring Radek away from other people.

Yet another howl. Then a yelp. The beast was mocking him. The same beast that had surely killed his dad.

He roared and ran forward, hopping through the deep snow as he chased a large form that disappeared in the dark, as if it were a ghost—not substantial enough to reassure Radek he was chasing the right animal in the first place, but it didn’t matter anymore.

He wanted to see blood in the snow.

“I’ll kill all you motherfuckers!” he yelled and briefly turned around when he realized how quiet it was behind him. Figured. His friends, including his kinda-but-not-boyfriend lacked the balls for this. But Radek’s dad taught him how to hunt, and he wasn’t afraid.

Or it was the alcohol talking, but he wouldn’t know the difference.

He continued his hike with new focus, guided by his inhuman sense of smell. He sped up when the familiar stench of sweaty fur caught his attention, and pressed his nose to the bark the wolf must have rubbed against.

He breathed in the musk of the animal and followed it, now certain he was after a wolf. It smelled young and strong but would be no match for the rifle in Radek’s hand.

The cold was getting to him as he continued through the gray-blue landscape with the half-moon above providing white light. It was getting difficult to breathe, as if the vapor he kept exhaling created a collar around his throat, but Radek wouldn’t let that stop him.

He stilled when a branch broke nearby, only to run to where the landscape dipped lower, creating a shallow ravine. There was something there. Something that smelled of fur and raw meat, but as he placed his foot close to the edge, the snow crumbled under him, and his stunted reflexes didn’t notice what was going on until he toppled down.

Radek yelped despite his best efforts not to, but he landed on his ass and slid to the bottom of the ravine. For half a second, he thought he’d be done for if there was water under the snow, but the ground was solid, and moonlight peeked through the treetops revealing a large wooden… shed?

Radek jumped to his feet, looking around for predators, but he couldn’t hear any wolves despite being able to smell them. Radek knew the woods. Ish. It had been a while, years actually since he’d last gone hunting with Dad. But the hut, with its sloped roof and wooden shutters covering tiny windows, couldn’t be ignored, and he walked along the ravine to reach it, weirded out that there was another smell, one he was very familiar with, mingling with the stench of wolves.

Weed?

He blinked, stepping closer to the wooden structure growing out of the slope of the ravine. The gaps between wooden planks had been filled this year, as the moss still looked fresh enough, so it wasn’t abandoned. The door was partially open, inviting him with the comfort of the herby scent he knew so well. But the odor of a predator? It was dense in the air, so Radek pressed the stock of the rifle to his shoulder and walked toward the shed as steadily as he could.

He hadn’t realized until now just how fast his heart was beating. Everything seemed to still, even the snowflakes hung in the air instead of falling, as if he were the single living being moving through a landscape stuck in time.

Radek set his foot on the wooden floor inside the hut, which was much bigger than it had seemed from afar. He now regretted not taking a flashlight. He regretted many things, but that didn’t mean he would back out.

He’d come here for a kill, and as paws tapped against wood somewhere inside, his index finger twitched against the trigger. His stomach tightened, blood rushed to his frosty cheeks, but a low voice spoke behind him before he could have taken the shot.

“I don’t think this property belongs to you.”

“Huh?” Radek turned so abruptly, he slapped the person behind him with his damp hair, but that meant the man stood far too close, and that he’d managed to approach unseen, like a ghost. Radek stumbled into the hut that smelled like a weed farm, and pointed the rifle at the stranger, painfully aware of the canine somewhere