Bait & Blood
Ryanna POV
They’d stopped chasing me.
That alone was enough to make the hairs rise along my arms. The forest had gone still again, but it wasn’t the comfortable stillness I’d started to enjoy, it was loaded. Watching. Waiting.
I crouched low on a thick branch, scanning the dark, my breath slow. My instincts said I wasn’t being pursued anymore… but I sure as hell wasn’t alone.
Then the scent hit me. Not cedar and amber. Not steel, shadow, or wild heat. Blood. Not just any blood, it was familiar. Sharp and metallic, yes, but threaded with something that made my stomach clench. I didn’t know why I knew it, but my body reacted before my brain caught up. My mouth was dry, my pulse spiking hard.
I inched forward on the branch, peering down. There, on the forest floor, was a flash of red fabric against the green. A figure slumped against a tree, head bowed, hands bound. The moonlight caught pale skin and dark hair. Human. Injured.
The scent of their blood curled up toward me again, pulling harder this time, until my teeth ached with the need to move.
I didn’t remember them, but something in me screamed they mattered. Which meant the bastards had planned this.
A twig snapped in the distance, deliberate. I scanned the shadows and caught a flicker of movement. Silver-eyes, leaning just far enough into the light for me to see the curve of his smirk before he melted back into the dark.
My chest tightened. They were baiting me. Using someone I… maybe… knew.
Smart. Dirty. Effective.
I dropped silently to a lower branch, every muscle taut. My brain was shouting trap, but my blood was louder.
If they wanted me to take the bait, I’d take it, but I’d be the one holding the knife when it closed.
I stayed in the branches, keeping my movements slow, measured. The injured figure below barely shifted, their shallow breathing proof they were alive, and that they weren’t faking it. My gut twisted, but I kept my distance, scanning the treeline for the real threat.
They’d expect me to come straight in from above or behind. So I didn’t.
I circled wide, looping through the canopy until I was downwind of the scent. That’s when I caught him, golden hair glinting faintly between the shadows, his body angled toward the clearing, not moving. The golden wolf. Watching. Waiting for me to bite.
A slow grin spread across my lips. “Gotcha,” I whispered.
I dropped down behind him without a sound, my shimmer breaking only when my knife pressed cold against the back of his neck.
He froze, but I felt the subtle shift of his breath, that same damn calm he’d had the first time we met. “You’re getting bold,” he murmured.
“Bold?” I pressed the blade harder. “Sweetheart, I’m just getting started.”
He didn’t move, but his voice came low, edged with amusement. “You really think you can save them without stepping into the snare?”
I leaned in close, letting my words ghost over his ear. “I think you’re forgetting one thing, cedar and amber a snare works both ways if you know how to reset it.”
In one swift motion, I hooked my arm around his throat, using my weight and momentum to pull him backward into the cover of a thick oak. His balance broke just enough for me to twist away, vanish into the shadows, and take the high ground again.
From my new perch, I watched him scan the branches, his smile faint but dangerous.
Somewhere to my left, silver eyes emerged, clearly impatient, his gaze snapping between the bait and the golden wolf. The fourth’s low growl rolled through the clearing a heartbeat later, and then black eyes stepped out from the opposite side, shadow curling like smoke at his feet.
All four, closing in. Good. Let them think they had me boxed in. Because the second they all stepped into the basin, I’d drop the hammer, and turn their perfect trap into a warzone.
The basin was their arena. Which meant tonight, it was mine.
I waited until they were all inside. The golden wolf, slow and deliberate, eyes scanning the treeline. Silver eyes, coiled like a spring, impatient to move. Black eyes, his shadow stretching and twisting as if it had its own hunger. And the fourth, massive, silent, his heat rolling off him in waves, a storm wrapped in muscle.
Four predators. One queen. I gripped the branch under my palms, my breath steady. Then I moved.
The first strike was for silver-eyes. I dropped from the canopy like a ghost, my shimmer breaking at the last second. My boot caught him in the ribs, sending him sprawling into the mossy slope. Before he could lunge, I was gone, back into the branches.
A snarl ripped through the air. “Coward!”
“Strategist,” I called back, my voice bouncing between the trees.
The golden wolf spun toward the sound, his gaze catching movement, deliberate movement, as I flickered in and out of shadow. I gave him just enough of a trail to follow before vaulting to the opposite side of the basin. His cedar and amber scent burned hotter as he chased, but he was too slow to stop me from dropping a branch directly in his path, forcing him to roll under it or take the hit.
I didn’t wait to see which he chose. Black eyes was next.
I came at him from above, aiming for the shadow at his feet. My knife sliced through it, and it recoiled, twitching like something alive. His head snapped up, black eyes locking on me. “Interesting.”
“Not half as interesting as you bleeding,” I shot back before vaulting away, branches swaying under my weight.
The fourth came at me from the blind side, silent as a wraith for his size. I only caught him in the corner of my eye at the last second. His arm swept out, a grab meant to take me out of the trees. I dropped flat against the branch, feeling the wind of his strike skim over me, then rolled off into the next tree before he could recover.
Their movements shifted. I could feel it. They were trying to corral me again, their paths crossing and tightening, the air growing heavier with their presence. But I wasn’t in the mood to be cornered.
I hit them again, in quick bursts, a kick to silver eyes’ thigh, a slash across the golden wolf’s arm, a sharp strike to black-eyes’ ribs, a flash of steel near the fourth’s throat, each time vanishing before they could retaliate. The basin echoed with snarls, growls, curses.
I was a storm in their cage. And they were starting to realize they weren’t hunting me anymore.
The golden wolf’s laugh broke the chaos, low and dark. “She’s playing with us.”
“You think this is a game?” silver eyes snapped.
“It is,” black eyes said, his tone edged with something between anger and admiration.
The fourth just growled, deeper than before, the sound vibrating through the ground. “End it.”
That was my cue.
I let them think I’d slipped away completely, the basin falling silent except for their breathing. Then I dropped into the center, standing tall, knife in one hand, blood on my knuckles.
“All four of you,” I said, my voice carrying, “and you still can’t catch me.”
The tension snapped like a bowstring. They charged.
And I was gone.