King of the Wilds - Tasha Black Page 0,3

drink since breakfast, she told herself. And that idiot Larry told you about spooky lights in the woods and put the thought in your head.

But when she took her hands from her eyes, the lights were still glowing in front of her, twinkling and moving, as if urging her forward.

They seemed to be moving right along with the path, though the path was almost impossible to make out now, since the glowing lights were brighter than the moonlight filtering through the trees.

She took a deep breath and continued, moving slowly to be sure of the ground beneath her feet.

You’re being an idiot, Miranda, she told herself. They’re not evil lights leading you into a ravine. It’s probably just big, healthy Pennsylvania lightning bugs.

One buzzed past her face, and she swore she saw a tiny glowing human body with whisper-thin wings before it winked out and darted further down the path.

Now her imagination was really working overtime.

“One foot in front of the other,” she whispered to herself.

The pain in her heel and the humidity faded away until there was only the pounding of her heart and the cold sweat prickling at her forehead.

Why did the pounding of her heart seem so loud?

She realized that the birds and cicadas had stopped their song.

An instant later she heard thrashing through the trees to her left side.

The twinkling lights seemed to shiver as a whole and then swarm around her, preventing her from being able to see a single step ahead on the narrow path.

“No,” she murmured to herself.

But there was no place to hide. She was lit up like a Christmas tree by whatever these things were, blinded by their light so she couldn’t escape.

The movement drew closer. She could hear the snapping of individual branches. Whatever it was, it was right on top of her.

The breeze carried its smell to her - a rotten, evil odor like a combination of spoiled meat and the tiger cages at the Philly Zoo.

Miranda closed her eyes and screamed.

There was an answering cry from somewhere in the woods to her right - low and throaty and raw.

Her own scream cut off instantly at the haunting sound of it.

Then the trees began to tremble and crash on the right side of the path as well.

She wrapped her arms around herself and sank to her knees.

Thunderous footsteps, almost like giant hoofbeats, rushed her. Something huge and hairy was coming at her from the left. And she saw a hint of sleek fur and the moonlit outline of antlers on the right.

Oh, God. There are two of them.

They were going to rip her to pieces in their turf war.

She was going to die here in the woods. And Larry would stand over her grave and say, “I told you so.”

2

Bron

Bron stormed through the trees in the form of a giant stag.

There was a woman.

What was she doing out here?

Something about her primal scream left him undone, though the King of the Wilds was a fierce warrior and not one to be shaken by a mortal scream.

He smashed past saplings and leapt over fallen logs. Fingers of foliage reached out to caress him as he passed, but he had no time to commune with them.

He could see her now, huddled on the ground, arms over her head.

Mischievous will o’ the wisps surrounded her like a cloud, their light showing the bloodthirsty fachan exactly where to find her.

The fachan itself was nearly there. Bron could smell its horrible carrion breath.

He let go of his stag form and shifted back into a man shape, then threw back his head and roared again, calling to his own to help him.

The woman trembled.

On the other side of her the fachan yelped in surprise as the roots of the nearest tree reached out to trip him.

The enormous monster hit the forest floor so hard Bron could feel the wet ground reverberate under his feet.

He roared a third time and was gratified to see the awful thing drag itself further into the forest, away from the woman.

Bron stood over her, feeling a surge of pride and possessiveness.

“Woman, are you hurt?” he asked.

She wasn’t hurt, he already knew that. But he hoped it would make her feel better to answer the question.

“I’m f-fine,” she murmured, slowly lowering her arms from over her head as the will o’ the wisps dispersed.

She gazed up at him - her eyes were large, dark, and filled with fear. They were set off by the extreme paleness of her moonlit skin and