Rabid (Kingdom of Wolves #6) - Ivy Asher Page 0,74

made up of sheer cliffs and sharp ledges. Our footing is becoming more and more precarious, but he doesn’t hesitate as he moves, so neither do we. He stops at the top of a bluff, muscles tense and his eyes fixed on something.

By the time we catch up with him, he’s leaping over large rocks and darting forward. We hear a snort, as though there’s a horse on the other side of the rocky precipice. As my wolf and I crest the large rocks, we see Tyran darting at a herd of mountain goats. My wolf’s excitement surges.

Our first hunt.

The herd’s white hair is stark against the gray and brown rock of the mountain. The sharp cliffs and narrow footholds signal this as their stomping grounds, but it doesn’t stop Tyran from singling out a male on the outskirts of the herd. My wolf and I immediately follow, sizing up our options for how to bring the goat down, for how to work with the alpha to earn the kill. The goat jumps from one rock to another as though there isn’t a sheer drop just under its hooves, and we notice that it’s not putting all its weight on one front leg.

The goats smell like heaven, and our stomach growls impatiently as we move higher up the mountain to where we think the old, injured goat will run. The wind changes slightly, and the mountain goats finally catch a hint of Tyran’s and my smell. They start frantically running, but Tyran is on the injured one, driving him up toward me, as if we planned this ambush in advance.

Adrenaline and need race through my wolf and me as we bolt for the goat, chasing him up the cliff face and teetering dangerously on the edge of a brutal drop off. Tyran and I are one step away from plummeting to what would be a painful and crushing death, but it’s as though the danger adds a whole other delicious element to this hunt.

My wolf and I have never done this before, but we move like these mountains have always been our home, like we know this rocky incline wouldn’t dare to throw us off. With a powerful leap that has awe flashing through us, Tyran slams into the goat just as we pass a flat ridge in the side of the mountain.

He sinks his teeth into the flanks of our prey, keeping it from moving until I get on even ground with him and take over. I bite into its thick hide, anchoring it in place while Tyran moves up and expertly seizes its throat. He completely avoids any threats from the animal’s horns, and we both stay fixed to our spots as the goat slowly suffocates. It isn’t a massive animal, not like some of the other healthier beasts in the herd, but it’s certainly enough for the two of us, and just as soon as the goat gives up, we tear into it, our wolves gorging themselves.

I take the back end while he starts on the stomach, and we eat, burying our faces in the blood of our kill, snarling and posturing whenever one of us gets too close to what we’re gnawing on. I barely have time to be proud of this insanely dangerous feat, too focused on filling our empty belly and trying to ignore what’s been left in the wake of my rabid rage.

Eating next to Tyran, sharing our kill, it relaxes my wolf. He’s given her something to focus on, and all motions of ripping the goat apart makes her less willing to want to do that to her brown wolf. The other female scents still piss us off, but it feels less pressing with a full belly than it did back at the house.

Tyran was right, running it off helped the savage frenzy, but what’s peeled away beneath each layer of temper and mania isn’t much better.

Everything I said to him, everything he said to me...

By the time my wolf finishes eating, my chest is aching. It feels like a heavy rock’s been dropped in my belly, weighing me down. Tyran’s wolf is still eating, but we slink away further up the mountain so my wolf can clean up and clear the evidence of our hunt from her face and paws.

She licks her fur clean as the wind whips around us, the smell of our kill down below. When I ask for control over our body, she doesn’t hesitate in giving it