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It was a woman.

She stared at me with wide eyes before she stumbled sideways and vanished back into the dark.

I yanked the wheel, skidding to a halt on the shoulder, dust and gravel pinging off the undercarriage like gunfire. Heart hammering, I kicked the door open and stepped out with my hand already on my holster.

“Hey!” I barked into the night, my voice echoing through the pines. “Stop—sheriff!”

Nothing but wind and shadows answered me.

Fucking hell.

My gaze swept the tree line and caught a flash of movement ahead, her shape breaking from the shadows before disappearing again between the trees.

I bolted after her, my boots pounding the shoulder as I quickly closed the gap. She was fast, but terror made her sloppy. Her ankle rolled on the loose rock, and she stumbled, a move that cost her precious seconds.

I lunged and tackled her hard into the dirt beside the road; my body covered hers as we hit the ground with a thud that knocked the air from both of us. She thrashed beneath me wildly, her nails raking at my arms, knees bucking as a broken scream tore from her throat.

“Easy, easy,” I growled, pinning her wrists above her head with one hand, my weight holding her down as she fought like a cornered animal. Tears were cutting tracks through the dirt on her face, and her eyes were huge and glassy with pure panic.

“I’m not going to hurt you. I’m the Blackwood sheriff. You’re safe now.”

She froze under me, her chest heaving in frantic pulls and her huge golden eyes locked on mine. They were glassy with terror but sharp underneath, like she was sizing me up for whether I was the next monster or her only shot.

I shifted, and she cried out. Glancing down to see what was hurting her, I saw it.

Bite marks.

Deep on the inside of her left thigh was a semicircle of jagged teeth impressions. The flesh had been torn out in ragged chunks, like something had tried to take a real piece of her. Blood crusted the edges, fresh enough to still ooze, and the wound glistened under the cruiser’s headlights.

Son of a bitch.

Someone, or something, had tried to eat her.

“Let me go,” she cried desperately. “Please…they’re coming⁠—”

“Who?” I demanded, scanning the trees behind us, every instinct screaming threat. “Who’s coming?”

Her mouth quivered as a violent tremor ran through her beneath me. “The Feeders,” she gasped as I shifted my body weight so she could breathe better.

Then her eyes rolled back, her body going limp in my arms as the wind carried the faintest whisper through the pines of a very familiar chant⁠—

“Breathe the deep…feed the deep…”

My blood turned to ice.

For the first time in years, even I felt the chill of something bigger than me closing in.

Game on, motherfuckers.

Because whatever was coming for her…

It was going to have to go through me first.