#1 Teeth in the Dark

Branches tore at my arms as I sprinted through the forest. My lungs were dragging in air like bellows and my heart was hammering so hard it felt like it might rip out of my chest.

The night air was a sharp bite of cold against my overheated skin. Sweat dripped down my temple, stinging when it slid across the scratches on my face. Every stride burned through my muscles. My thighs were screaming, my calves on fire.

Stopping wasn’t a fucking option. Stopping was death. Because I wasn’t running alone.

The howls kept coming. One. Then another. Then another. All different pitches, different distances, weaving together like a hunting song. They weren’t just chasing me, they were corralling me, pushing me deeper into the forest where the moonlight barely broke through the canopy.

Four predators. Four alphas.

Every nerve in my body screamed, move faster, don’t let them catch you.

My legs obeyed, my boots pounding dirt, roots, moss, anything the forest threw under me. My body didn’t falter. My strides adjusted without thought, my breath syncing to a rhythm I didn’t remember learning. I didn’t know who I was, but whoever I’d been.... had trained for this.

A crack of wood behind me snapped my focus. Heavy and deliberate. I veered left without hesitation. A clawed hand slashed through the space I had just been, gouging bark from a pine trunk. Splinters exploded across my cheek. Too close.

“Fuck!” I hissed, pushing harder, my knife held tight in my grip. My lungs burned. My pulse thundered.

The adrenaline surged through me like fuel, keeping my body moving long after it should’ve collapsed.

Ahead, silver light flashed. There was a stream, narrow but moving quick, the moonlight glinting off its surface. No time to think. I vaulted it, my knees tucked, my heart in my throat. I landed in a crouch, the momentum carrying me back into a sprint.

A howl split the air right behind me, closer than ever. The bastard hadn’t slowed.

I risked a glance back. That was a mistake.

Silver eyes locked on me through the dark. Too bright. Too sharp. Intelligent and hungry. His body flowed like shadow through the trees, fast as death, silent as smoke. My chest tightened. Not from fear. From something sharper.

I snapped my gaze forward and pushed harder. My breaths came ragged but controlled, my muscles burning, my feet pounding the dirt in a steady rhythm. I couldn’t let him catch me.

The forest started to thicken around me. The trunks were pressing closer and closer together.

My instinct screamed for me to zigzag, break the line of sight, and confuse the scent trail. So I did. My body weaved between trees, my hands brushing the bark for balance, every move precise and efficient.

A fallen log loomed ahead, it was too high to clear. I dropped, sliding under it, dirt grinding into my palms, then popped up into another sprint.

A roar shook the air behind me, furious and primal. I had bought myself seconds.

But it wasn't enough.

The woods weren’t empty anymore. I felt them. The others. Shadows moving at the edge of my vision. Footfalls echoing on either side.

My muscles screamed. My chest ached with every breath. My sweat soaked hair was sticking to my damn forehead. My knife felt like an extension of my hand, ready but useless against four monsters who moved like gods.

Snaapp.

A wire shimmered faintly in the moonlight. It was strung low across the path. I had almost slammed into it.

Instinct jerked me sideways. I vaulted and tucked, then rolled, the dirt biting into my back. I came up on one knee, my knife out, my heart pounding.

The wire glowed faintly with runes, magic shimmering over the surface. Not a snare. A ward. My gut said if I’d hit it, I wouldn’t be standing now.

The silver eyed alpha thundered closer, his claws scraping bark as he rounded the corner.

I grinned like an absolute maniac, breathless and wild. “Bring it, asshole.”

I spun and bolted again, my legs burning and my throat raw.

The trees thinned. Suddenly I was in a clearing, the moonlight spilling across grass like liquid silver. Instinct screamed at me to stop, open ground was suicide. No cover, no shadows. But momentum carried me straight into it, my body refusing to falter.

Halfway across, the air shifted. My skin prickled. Another howl, closer and louder, answered in perfect unison by three more.

The hair on my arms stood straight up.

They weren’t hunting anymore.

They were closing in.

I poured everything I had into my sprint, my legs trembling, lungs tearing, heart a drumbeat of pure survival. My vision blurred with sweat, but I didn’t stumble. Every part of me burned, but my body refused to quit.

Roots. Rocks. None of it mattered. My muscles remembered. My instincts screamed. The forest line rushed up again on the far side of the clearing, and I dove for it like it was salvation. Branches whipped against me, the shadows swallowing me whole.

But the howls didn’t fade. They followed. Closer.

I forced my body even faster, ignoring the ache in my legs, the fire in my lungs, and the painful cramp slicing across my side. Every nerve in me screamed predator at my back, claws reaching, teeth ready.

And for

one wild, furious moment, I didn’t feel fear at all.

I felt fucking alive.