Page 103 of Omega Hunted

Very close.

Kill, my wolf growled.

The forest blurred around me, branches whipping past as I followed the scent uphill through untouched snow. He’d crossed one of the old logging trails less than a minute ago, his stride long and deliberate, no attempt to disguise his tracks now that the humans were dead. Good.

Movement flashed through the trees.

Grey fur and broad shoulders.

We hit each other head-on.

The impact exploded through my chest, and both of us were lifted off our feet before crashing into the snow together. He recovered first, driving his shoulder into mine and snapping for my throat with frightening speed. His teeth found my shoulder and pain burst down my foreleg. I twisted underneath him instead of away, driving both hind paws into his ribs hard enough to throw him sideways before rolling back onto my feet.

He snarled at me, my blood around his muzzle.

This time, I was ready.

The wolf didn’t waste time posturing, and the moment his paws touched the ground, he came at me again, driving straight for my injured shoulder. He’d found the weakness almost immediately and intended to exploit it. There was nothing wild or uncontrolled about the way he fought. Every strike was calculated. This wasn’t some territorial challenge between wolves. This was a professional doing the job he’d been paid to do for a bounty too big to resist.

I met him head-on, then twisted away at the last possible second. His shoulder slammed into mine anyway, white-hot pain shooting down my foreleg, but I’d already committed to the attack. Instead of trying to throw him off, I let his momentum carry him past me. My jaws closed around the loose skin behind his neck, and I drove him sideways into the trunk of a pine.

The impact shook snow from the branches above us, showering us both in white.

He recovered faster than I expected.

His hindquarters bunched beneath him, and before I’d managed to regain my footing, he’d thrown himself backward into me. We crashed together down a shallow embankment, rolling over frozen ground and exposed roots, claws tearing through snow and bark as each of us fought for the smallest advantage. His teeth snapped shut barely an inch from my eye. I twisted my head away, felt them rake across the side of my muzzle instead, and answered with a savage bite at his shoulder.

The other wolf threw his weight across my ribs, pinning me just long enough for my lungs to empty in a violent rush. I bucked hard, twisting my hips beneath him the way ORT trainers had drilled into us years ago. The move was more leverage than strength, but it was enough. His balance shifted for the smallest fraction of a second, and I threw him clear before scrambling upright myself. We faced one another again, both breathing hard.

Blood dripped from my shoulder, each pulse carrying more of my scent into the cold mountain air. His nostrils flared as he caught it, and I saw the confidence settle deeper into his stance. He thought he’d already won.

My wolf’s answer was almost amused.

Come on, then.

The grey wolf lunged again, expecting me to meet him with force, but instead, I gave ground. One measured step, then another.

He pressed the advantage, relentlessly driving me backward through the trees, convinced he was forcing a retreat. I let him believe it. Every step took us farther from the open ground and deeper into a stretch of spruce where undergrowth and mud hid the uneven ground beneath it, disguising old roots and half-buried rocks.

I’d walked this trail in every season, in blizzards that erased the world and summers when the earth baked hard beneath the pines. I knew where the ground dipped. Where the rocks sat just below the snow and where a careless step would find nothing beneath it.

His left forepaw disappeared into a gap. Him being trapped and off balance lasted no more than a heartbeat, but it was long enough.

I launched.

Every ounce of my weight slammed into his exposed side before he could recover his footing. We crashed together into the trunk of an old cedar, the bark exploding beneath the force of the impact. Before he could twist away, my jaws found his throat, and this time, I didn’t let go.

He fought with everything he had left.

His claws ripped across my chest, opening burning furrows through skin and muscle. Pain flared so brightly my vision blurred, but my wolf refused to release him. I felt cartilage collapse beneath my teeth, then the sickening shift of bone as it gave way. The wolf convulsed once, then again, but his struggles weakened almost immediately.

I held on for several seconds longer, ignoring the blood filling my mouth until I was certain he wasn’t getting up again, and only then did I release him.

I stood over him, my chest heaving, blood running freely from half a dozen wounds. Every breath scraped through my lungs. My shoulder burned. My ribs ached where he’d crushed them beneath his weight.

The mountain fell silent again and my ears pricked forward.

A rifle cracked somewhere to my left. Ronan. A second shot followed, and I was already running.