Page 288 of Pucking Feral: Part Two

I take a step to the left and she mirrors it, one step to her left, keeping the distance constant.

I take another.

She matches.

We circle each other like wolves. The moon lights up her eyes as she watches me with the same intensity with which I'm watching her. She isn't afraid. Not even cautious.

This is hunger.

My pulse kicks harder against my ribs.

I stop circling.

She stops, too.

Her left hand comes up from behind her thigh, gripping something. It isn't the flare gun. Whatever this is, it's black. My eyes slide to it, taking in its compact shape. A canister with an orange safety tab.

Pepper spray.

I tilt my head.

Really?

The feral grin that splits her face is beautiful and absolutely fucking insane. "You didn't say I couldn't bring supplies."

My laugh comes out rough and startled behind the mask. The sound surprises even me. I don't laugh like that.

But this woman…

"No," I concede. "I did not."

She flicks the orange safety tab off with her thumb.

"Then come get me, wolf."

I lunge.

She fires and the spray hisses through the air where my face was half a second ago. I twist sideways and the cloud still catches enough of me even through the mask that my eyes, nose, and mouth light up.

She's already running.

And I'm right on her heels, half-blind and snarling.

The forest tilts downhill and she uses it, her smaller frame weaving between trunks with reckless speed. She ducks under a low branch and cuts hard to the left, boots skidding on the dirt, kicking it up.

I vault the branch entirely to make it further down the slope, cutting her off at the path.

She fires over her shoulder without looking. Blind shot. It misses by a wide margin but I have to dodge right to avoid it, which is exactly what she wanted. To send me into the fucking undergrowth that slows me for three critical seconds.

By the time I rip free of the bramble, rivulets of blood running down my forearms, she's twenty feet ahead again.

I accelerate.

She's fast but her stride is short, and on flat ground, it's inevitable. The gap shrinks with every second. Fifteen feet. Ten.

She hears me closing and does something I don't expect.

She stops dead.