Chapter 30: Predator

  There was a shift in the wind as they all traveled.

  It wasn’t the kind of change you could measure. No sudden gust or rustle of branches. Just a subtle rotation of the forest’s breath, carrying with it a scent that didn’t belong there normally. Alex halted mid-step, one hand lifted instinctively to stop the others. Garret, a few paces ahead and slightly to the right, caught the signal and froze.

  They stood still listening, but there was nothing. No birds. No rustling underbrush. Even the insects had gone quiet in that strange moment.

  “I don’t like that,” Lance murmured. His voice was low, like sound itself didn’t want to echo here.

  Alex nodded slowly. “Yeah. Something’s off.”

  After everyone’s refinements, they’d been tracking badger trails for the better part of a day, cutting wide sweeps through the forest. Even with the bloodbath they had been painting through the forest, the was still movement, life, noise in the place. The constant white noise backdrop to the natural world.

  And yet… this.

  Alex adjusted his stance, eyes narrowing as he swept the treeline. It wasn’t just the silence. It was the weight of it. Like the air had thickened. Like the trees were holding their breath.

  Then he saw it.

  Nestled in the shadows between two old oaks, halfway up a gentle ridge of moss and root, stood a creature he couldn’t quite categorize. It was shaped like a wolf. Well…mostly. The creature’s proportions were wrong, with longer limbs, thinner joints. Its coat looked metallic, like fine steel wool spun with strands of living silver. Every one of its breaths shimmered with faint heatless light, pulsing faintly at irregular intervals.

  Its eyes were the most unnatural thing of all. Not amber. Not red. Not animal. They were crystalline in appearance, clear and refractive, like polished quartz cut into twin lenses and set into the sockets of something living. They didn’t glow but they bstill had a eerie sense of illumination.

  And they were locked on him.

  “What the hell…” Garret whispered.

  To Garret’s credit, he didn’t decide to make some stupid joke at that time, and he didn’t move either. Didn’t raise his weapon. Didn’t shout. There was a rustle of movement from behind as everyone else tensed and shifted to get a view. All of them stared, caught in the creature’s focus like flies under glass.

  It made no sound. No snarl. No movement beyond the subtle rise and fall of breath.

  “What do we do?” Allie asked. Her voice was tight. Controlled. But she was ready to move.

  Alex didn’t answer immediately. He took a slow step forward, not toward the beast, but to the side, easing into a defensive position that would let him move, dodge, or run if it lunged. He kept the spear slack down at his side in a loose grip. Not wanting to risk seeming threatening.

  The beast didn’t react.

  “Not hostile,” Alex murmured. “Yet.”

  Garret frowned. “That thing’s giving me corpse-skin.”

  The creature blinked once. Slow... Intentional. Like a person might blink when thinking. Then it tilted its head, not much, just a few degrees. Alex’s heart skipped. It wasn’t mimicking behavior. It was studying . Evaluating.

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  “I think,” he said quietly, “we’re being watched. Not hunted.”

  “Yet,” Garret repeated.

  The beast stepped forward. Just a single stride. A soft shift of its paw through damp leaves. No sound came from the movement, utter silence. Then it stopped again with its eyes locked on Alex and team, staring. The world held still. No wind. No birds. No movement beyond the team’s slow rise and fall of their chests from their breath.

  Alex felt it in his teeth. The way you feel lightning before it strikes. A tension humming through his bones, resonating somewhere deep inside his essence and exciting it to action. That instinct of survival that told every prey when they stood in front of a predator, and to run.

  He almost brought he spear up in front of himself, just to have something, anything, between him and this thing. Then the beast turned. Not in fear, not in haste, or to run away. It simply… turned and walked away.

  One step, then another. A third.

  Its tail curled slightly, trailing mist that hadn’t been there a moment ago. The mist dissipated instantly after a second. Alex watched as the beast seemingly vanished between two trees, silver fur catching the rays of sunlight and then it was gone. No tracks. No scent. Not even disturbed leaves.

  Alex slowly let out the breath he hadn’t realized he was holding.

  “Okay,” Garret said after a moment. “That wasn’t normal.”

  “No,” Alex agreed.

  “You think it’s a boss?” Devon asked.

  “I don’t know.”

  Henry scanned the woods. “Whatever that was, it didn’t want a fight.”

  “No,” Alex said. “But it wanted us to know it was there.”

  “Why?”

  Alex shook his head. “Could be anything. Testing us. Observing. Or maybe it’s just… old and curious.”

  He really wasn’t sure, and he was on fence of whether he actually wanted to know. That thing reminded him of the panther-like creature that had nearly killed him when was saved by Sylvaris. Completely out of their league. Staying off its radar was their best plan.

  It didn’t appear to be upset with them though. Even after all their badger killing, spreading death and blood across the forest, it didn’t seem to care at all. So Alex didn’t think it would try to stop them from slaughtering the rest and clearing out the den. It might even want them to finish the job and remove the competition from its territory. Not like any of these badgers are that things territory.

  “What do we do now?” Holly asked, pulling Alex from his thoughts.

  “We move,” he said. “Now.”

  Garret opened his mouth, then closed it. They moved. Behind them, in the stillness of the trees, the wind resumed. The birds began to sing again. Crickets chirped

  And somewhere deeper in the woods, a beast watched.