Chapter 8: Colt
Chapter 8: Colt
In the office that day, my boss commented, “Those circles are getting darker, Colt. What’s with the sleepless nights?” Then he leaned over my desk and spoke privately to me, “Is everything alright?”
I looked up from my computer, and the screen reflected in my glasses that I only wore in the office. Five other brokers seated at their desks all glanced sidelong at me, trying to hide their nosiness. “Everything’s fine,” I said, forcing a smile. “Just a new video game came out recently. I hate to admit that I’ve been staying up past my bedtime for it.” Tactful chuckle.
My boss crinkled his eyes and straightened up. “Ah, you youths and your Nintendos and Master Chiefs.”
“Surprised you even know those names,” I commented as he walked away.
“I’m hip,” scoffed my boss. “I see what my kids get up to, you know.”
Silent, I watched my boss return to his office but knew I would remain under the scrutiny of my coworkers, who would have far longer to observe me during these quiet, tense working hours. I minded my business and didn’t talk much. It was nice to have something else to think about, and I kept myself busy setting up a string of new accounts until the end of the day.
Instead of going to the silver mine, I parked my car on Hedge Road, pulling off on a section close to where Everett and his late Beta had once camped out for, at the time, reasons unknown. We later discovered that they had been monitoring a bug planted in the manor. It still rattled me to think about them spying on us. My anger justified Taylor’s death, and I even argued that Everett should die too for the invasion of privacy, but mercy and logic later reasoned that they had only done it to protect themselves. I wasn’t sure I even supported the decision to kill Taylor in the end.
After trekking into the forest, I found a hollow in a tree trunk where two low limbs split off from one another. There, I stored my clothes in a garbage bag. The overcast tonight suggested a strong chance of rain, and I didn’t want to come back from my hunt to a soggy outfit. I underwent the familiar transformation, black fur rippling across my body, teeth sharpened with predatory prowess. I wondered if she could feel it any time I transformed. What could I feel from her? Just the occasional ache, flares of indignant fury that I wasn’t sure belonged to her or me. She hid her feelings well, and not just from me.
I drifted through the forest, making my way toward the borders of Eastpeak. If she had been taken in by the Mythguard, then chances were she was with Everett. I wasn’t stupid enough to go right to Everett’s house to investigate, although partly, I wondered what I’d be risking by doing that.
As summer ebbed closer to autumn, the ferns began to lose their colour, fading from vibrant and supple green to a brittle copper. The leaves darkened into brown and paled into yellow. The stench of decay arose from under the dirt, decomposing leaf litter giving the ground a certain unappetizing squelch that made it difficult to travel silently. I kept my eyes on everything around me, my nose to the ground in search of smells, but as I crossed the neutral zone between Dalesbloom and Eastpeak and approached the mountainous pack’s territory, I found their scents to be lacking. They hadn’t refreshed their borders in a couple of days.
The pack hadn’t vacated their territory, had they? Probably be wisest if they did.
Their lack of scent inspired confidence in me to push past the perimeter. My thoughts clung to Kiara and what I might do when I found her. Right now, I wasn’t well prepared. I guess I hadn’t considered my game plan beyond finding her and convincing her to come with me to the manor, but what if I had to bring her by force? I strongly considered laying a trap.
My plan only gained in complexity when I felt a pang in my stomach. I was hungry, but it didn’t feel wholly like my own hunger. There was an emptiness within me, an inability to be satiated, and while I suffered these feelings on my own, I knew from the dissociating resonance of them that they belonged to somebody else too. Like me, Kiara was hungry. The interesting thing was that despite being a wolf, she couldn’t kill. Her unicorn blood wouldn’t allow her to ingest fresh meat. How did she cope with that? Did she struggle? Did it leave her feeling unfulfilled?
An idea was born.
Licking my nose, I changed trajectory, searching instead for prey. It didn’t take long before the scent of deer crossed my path. They weren’t hard to find here. And with the sun sinking into the trees, casting long shadows, I would find the terrain perfectly mottled to disguise me among it. I crept low and bolted through the twilight, following the trail until I spotted my quarry: a young doe born earlier this spring, somehow separated from her herd.
For minutes, I hid among the bushes and watched, discerning which path she was likely to run once I exposed myself. I waited for the wind to toss my scent her way and for her to detect me and then decide in the stillness that I wasn’t a threat. I would catch her off guard once she trusted the silence of the forest.
Guilt nagged me every now and then. The doe’s elegant, stilt-like legs reminded me of the hybrid. My hunger reminded me of her too.
When waiting became no longer bearable, I burst from the bushes and charged toward the doe. She immediately whirled around and soared through the trees, fleeing me. But I had enough motivation to move fast enough. My paws evaded the dips and upturned roots that might have otherwise tripped a more careless predator. I was focused, and my determination bred from envisioning the doe as the creature I wanted to capture and sink my teeth into. As the doe strafed sideways, I peeled after her, following each stride with razor accuracy until I had reached her flank. Craning my neck, I grabbed the flesh on her side and got a mouthful. The doe bleated in alarm. I squeezed, tasting blood, wrenching my head. Her movements became erratic as she tried to kick me off, but in the darkness, this animal could have been my fated mate, and I wasn’t going to let up. I ripped, throwing weight into my feet, skidding in the dirt. The doe slowed with me. I only let go to lunge forward and grab the junction of her neck and shoulder instead, and this time, my canines made purchase at the bottom of her throat.
It didn’t take long before her struggling to breathe had impaired her ability to run. The doe stumbled and then crumpled. I stood over her, victorious. Finally.
I was so hungry; my beast was no longer in my control. My heart pounded in my ears, blinding me as I ripped flesh away from the still-living deer, swallowing everything between my teeth. Pleasure in knowing Kiara would experience these same sensations inebriated me. But for her, the sensations wouldn’t be nourishing. Maybe it would torture her, imagining the meat that I was eating. Maybe it would frustrate her, knowing that she could never feed her beast. I hoped so. I wanted to taunt her.
My beast devoured the doe’s flank in a frenzy.
The rest of it would become bait.