The Hunt Begins
I didn’t move at first.
The pine needles were damp under my hands, cool against my overheated skin. My head pounded like I’d been hit with a brick… or a truck… or maybe both.
I blinked up at the tree canopy, where pale morning light sifted through tangled branches. The air smelled sharp—pine, smoke, and something metallic that made my stomach turn.
Okay. Focus.
My eyes dropped to the steel cuff clamped around my ankle. Sleek, matte black, with a blinking red light. Not a fashion accessory. Not something I could pry off.
I sat up too fast. The world tilted. My fingers found the leather backpack next to me and tore through it. Water. Two protein bars. A combat knife in a battered sheath. And the envelope—the one with the neat, sharp handwriting that had already started to burrow into my brain.
Four alphas are already tracking you…
No. No, no, no. I didn’t know what that meant, but every nerve in my body recoiled from the words.
I pressed my hand to my chest. My heart was hammering, too fast. I didn’t even know my name. That was the worst part—the blank, yawning emptiness in my head where I should’ve been able to grab something. A face. A memory. Anything.
Instead, there was just… nothing.
The only thing I knew for sure was that whoever stuck me here thought this was a game.
I stood, brushing dirt and needles from my legs. The cuff was heavier than it looked. I tested it—pulled, twisted, dug the knife point into the seam. Nothing. Not even a scratch.
“Fine,” I muttered under my breath. “We’ll play.”
The trees were dense in every direction. I picked a path east, because… hell, why not. The forest floor was soft under my bare feet, muffling my steps. I forced myself to walk slow, scanning for movement, for sound.
Ten minutes in, I found it—a boundary. Not a fence. Not a wall. Just… nothing. An invisible line in the dirt where the air shimmered faintly, like heat on asphalt. I threw a stick at it. The wood hit and vaporized into black dust.
My stomach dropped.
The forest was my cage.
Something moved behind me—too heavy to be wind. The hairs on my arms rose.
And then I heard it.
A howl, deep and long, rolling through the trees like thunder. It was answered by another, from farther off. Then a third. And a fourth.
I didn’t need the letter to tell me what that meant.
They were here. And they were hunting.I didn’t think. I ran.
One second I was frozen in place, heart pounding like it wanted out of my chest, the next I was cutting through the trees like I’d been doing it my whole life.
My bare feet should’ve hurt on roots and rocks. They didn’t. I landed light, each stride eating ground without wasted motion. My muscles moved like they’d been trained, like my body had been built for this. My breaths came steady, controlled, even though I was sprinting harder than I ever thought I could.
Instinct said don’t just run, vanish. So I listened.
I zigzagged through thicker growth, slipping between trees that would’ve slowed someone bulkier. My hands brushed bark for balance, my legs coiled and leapt over a fallen log. I didn’t think about it, I just knew how to place my weight, how to keep silent despite the speed.
A scent hit me then, wild, sharp, and intoxicating in a way that made my pulse stumble. My gut clenched in warning. One of them was close.
I launched myself upward before I could question why. Fingers found a low branch, my arms and shoulders hauling me up with ease. Another branch, then another. My body moved with a surety my mind couldn’t explain. I was ten feet up before I stopped.
I pressed my back to the trunk and held my breath.
A shadow slipped through the trees below.
Tall. Broad shouldered. His movements were almost too smooth for a man. Dark hair fell forward as he tilted his head, scenting the air. His shirt clung to muscles that looked carved from something dangerous. Even from here, I could see the faint gleam of claws.
He paused directly beneath me.
My body went still, but my heart slammed against my ribs, not from fear, but… something else.
He looked up suddenly. I flattened against the trunk, holding the breath until my lungs burned. A beat passed. Then another. He moved on, melting into the forest.
I didn’t breathe until I couldn’t hear him anymore. What the hell was that?
I climbed down, slow and silent, every nerve buzzing. My mind didn’t remember a damn thing about who I was. But my body? My body remembered everything.
And if that was true… maybe I wasn’t as trapped as I thought. I stayed in the tree until the forest swallowed him.
Only then did I slide down the trunk, careful not to snap a twig or send bark raining to the forest floor. My body moved smooth, silent, like I’d done this before. I didn’t question it, I couldn’t. The moment I started asking how, I’d lose the edge.
Water. I needed water. I didn’t know why, but the word pulsed in my head like a drumbeat. My ears caught the faint trickle of a stream somewhere to the north, so I followed it. Every step felt intentional, measured, like muscle memory was steering me instead of thought.
I reached the bank and knelt, dipping my hands into the icy flow. My reflection stared back, long blonde hair tangled from wind and leaves, bright green eyes locked on me like they knew something I didn’t. Pale skin dusted with freckles, dirt streaking my cheeks, lips still stained red.
The woman in the water looked dangerous. And yet… unfamiliar. A word slid through my mind so suddenly I froze.
Ryanna.
It wasn’t just a sound. It was a feeling, like the low thrum of a heartbeat, warm and steady. My chest tightened, the name sparking something deep under my ribs.
“Ryanna,” I whispered, testing it.
The trees didn’t answer. The stream just kept moving past my hands like it hadn’t heard me. But the word lingered, ghostlike, as if it belonged to me.
Maybe it did.
A snap of a branch on the far side of the stream pulled me back into focus. My head whipped up in time to see movement, fast and deliberate. A tall, broad figure weaving through the trees, this one with hair pale as moonlight and eyes glowing silver in the dim.
My heart picked up, my muscles coiling without permission. I didn’t wait to see what he’d do. I ran.
Only… it wasn’t panic this time. It was precision. My legs ate the ground, my breaths stayed even, my stride adjusted automatically to dodge roots and leap fallen logs. I didn’t stumble once. It was like my body knew the forest better than I did.
And whoever this silver eyed predator was, he was keeping pace.