Chapter 2

Ifeel. For the first time in what must be centuries, I feel. I take in a slow breath, my lungs unused to work, unused to anything but sleep. Light filters through my eyelids, and I open them. Confusion muddles my thoughts. Where am I?

Dust lies thick over the cave floor, undisturbed, coating everything in grey.

But something has changed. I sense it, as surely as I sense my hunger, the blood pounding in my heart, the smell of prey scampering outside the mouth of the cave. Birds call, a doe crashes through tall grass, her young at her side.

Something has changed. I chuff, my sensitive nostrils flaring as I try to find my bearings. How long have I been sleeping? Hunger gnaws my stomach, and a low growl rumbles in my chest. Food.

A breeze kicks up, and my nostrils flare again. Something… something is different since the last time I awoke. The world exhales, tense and strained. I shudder, sleep still tugging at my mind. Carefully, I pad through the cave, leaving massive pawprints in the dust behind me, easy enough for anyone to follow.

Or anything.

Let them come, I think. Let them sate my hunger and face my growing wrath. How long have I slept? It nags at me, this unknowing. I cannot quite place why I am here in the first place, or how I arrived at this particular cave. The dust, puffing up in clouds around my paws, disturbs me the most.

How long must I have slept for the entire surface to be this deep in dust?

I pace faster, until I am running, my muscles stiff and weak from disuse. I scent food, closer now, a deer and her young. My body tenses, and I leap. I break their necks before they know I am there, their deaths quick and painless as possible.

My nose is so full of flesh and food that I've half-devoured them both before I realize what has changed.

A breeze ruffles the great golden ruff around my head. Slowly, I lift my maw from the still-warm carcasses, inhaling.

There it is.

My heart stutters, shock sending my tail whipping back and forth in a frenzy.

My mate.

I let out a roar of approval, sending a flock of birds into flight. The deer are forgotten. Not even a centuries-long hunger could distract me from that scent. Sweet, like wildflowers in spring. I roar again, bounding over the deer, following the intoxicating aroma. Mate.

My mate.

The terrain changes as I pass by, the green grass and woods giving way to crumbling stone walls. They tug at my memories, but I shake my head.

My mate. Nothing could stop me from finding her. Need fills me, an urgency driving me into speed I do not remember possessing. Mine. Finally. My memories are muddled, swirling in shadows I cannot seem to pierce. The present is the only thing I can truly remember, but I know I have waited long to claim a mate.

There is something important about this moment, about finally having a mate to care for— but I cannot untangle it from the need to possess her, to sink deep in her, to fill her with pleasure. I roar again, telling her I am coming, that I am here.

That she is mine.