Haven't given you much in the way of music for Hunted, so here's "Madness" by Ruelle! Enjoy! <3

Knowing Chiro was close enough for Gabriel's howls to prevail over the wind was a far worse fate than stumbling around wondering where in the woods we might encounter him. And we would encounter him, the way we'd inevitably encounter Akta. That wave of dread smashed against my chest, a wretched ache whose undercurrent carried on no matter what I did or where we went. We were destined to meet again.

As the group of us huddled together in the blackened cave, with only the coals to leer at us, I  experienced a small bit of relief in my chest that perhaps the Prince would find us before the Stag. Though there was a chance he could be just as ruthless as the pale, thin warrior, I preferred Chiro.

Dawn brushed the cliffs in a sickly green light. The morning was just as humid as the previous one, with clear skies and wisps of gathering storm clouds. The knotted vines and roots I'd used to repel down swung in the sweltering breeze with ominous creaks. Suspicious, I grabbed the edge and gave it a tug; immediately the plant matter detached and fell limp into my hand. Between the wind and my weight, the rock had shorn the bristly material inch by inch. We had two options at that point: climb up no worse than twenty feet (it'd seemed shorter last night, but then I couldn't see well and in the light I did always got a bit queasy around heights) or descend forty. I wanted to move down, but Dakota was well and truly haunted by the mud and what she'd seen; she was quick to point out that the harpy's remains were nothing but smears on the rocks, which themselves were covered in a syrupy substance.

So up we went.

The trick was in finding secure hand and footholds. The wind had wicked away some moisture from the cliffs, but water bled through the soft stone in muddy rivulets. It was a workout, getting everyone up and out safely: Leda and I each had rocks crumble beneath our hands before we could scrabble over the top with wet asses, soaked chests and the slight panic that comes with slipping on the edge of a cliff. We hurried after that, along the top of the cliffs until the landscape shifted back into milkweed, peat, and the enormous, ever-looming oaks.

Beetles the size of our heads zipped through the borderline cusp of swamp and forest. I thought the bog's thick stench might mask our scents better from Gabriel, but I owed Dakota one here and made a wide birth around the murk, winding our way through bushy undergrowth, back in the direction of Shail and our camp, back toward the waterfall and Jessie.

The other women were relieved for fresh air and sunshine (a temporary pleasure until the clouds formed). I understood why, but couldn't make myself join in their mellow chitchat about old lives and ended dreams. Somewhere between us and safety was at least one hunter. The wolf's howls had faded in the green vespers of dawn, but even now my ears strained to hear that lurid bay.

Dakota had her arm around the nameless woman for most of the walk, lending her the recovered spear as their bare feet eased over root and bramble. Dakota was more subdued than usual, but it was dark-haired girl with the tattoos that had me most concerned. She had the wide eyes of a rabbit, freezing and tensing at the slightest crunch of leaves. Stopping, coaxing and always looking over our shoulders for her was slowing us down, and we had a long way to walk yet. At this rate it'd take us another day to get to Shail, so we'd have to find somewhere to crash in between. As we moved forward, I cut between Leda, tall and graceful, and the tiny Val, who moved with a fire and energy I wished I could emulate.

"Do we have any idea what her name is, anything about her?" I asked at the next stop. A lizard spooked her. We were near the mole's churned soil, where all manner of crawling insects and lizards had tucked themselves into the newly formed ditches and holes. Dakota passed a strained smile toward me and murmured encouragement to the shadow at her side. "Anything?"

Val ran a hand through her frizzy red hair. The humidity had done a number on all of us, but hers was near standing on end. "Been calling her Dot, for what she's got inked on her shoulder there. Five big black dots, all of 'em in a row. Take a gander next time she's in front of us."

"If she gets in front of us," Leda said with a tired sigh, knowing as much as I did that 'Dot' wasn't going to be marching ahead anytime soon.

"Wish I knew what they meant," Val continued. "She's got a lot on her: skulls and birds and dream catchers, very vamp roses and rebel chick stuff I guess, but dots...who puts dots on their shoulder like that?"

"So we're going with Dot then?" I spoke loudly enough for Dakota to hear. She told the woman, who just kept staring around with those frightened doe eyes. If Dot loved or despised the moniker, we couldn't tell.

"Guess so..." Leda shrugged. Whatever else she had to say trailed into silence. She gestured on ahead beyond the tumbled soil. Huge paw prints tracked through the drying mud. I pressed my finger to my lips and eased forward to take a closer look, one hand on the dagger at my hip.

Canine.

I held my hand against one pad impression, touched the blackened surface where the hellish hound had crossed. Dakota pried her spear from Dot's white-knuckled grip and came beside me.

"This him?" she whispered, scuffing the ground with the point.

"He had a horse, too," I said, waving to Leda and Val. The pair spread out to circle the area in search of hooves. Ten feet away, Dot trembled in place.

Val came back first, shaking her head. "Ain't no sign of a horse."

I straightened, scanning the forest for Leda. Her dress was a filthy, stained blur some yards ahead of us. "Tracks are old," I agreed, dusting my palms. "And headed toward the cliffs."

Dakota leaned against her makeshift walking stick. "Maybe we passed him."

I shook my head. "If we passed him, he's got us."

Dakota's full lips dipped down. "Seems to me you're paranoid."

"What I am is concerned," I argued. "And I was thinking, rather than going out after these guys, they're headed back to the palace eventually, right? So we intercept them on their way. Saves us energy, gives us an area we know and a shorter distance to make it back ourselves. No more swamps and cliffs."

Dakota tucked her hair behind an ear and frowned at the mid-afternoon forestry. "Should've done that before," she reasoned. "Lesson learned."

"I for one am glad you followed a bad strategy," Leda cut in. Val moved to retrieved Dot. Leda watched them and stretched her arms, dark eyes bright. "So back at your place, you got food?"

Dakota snorted. Leda raised her eyebrows.

"My cat ate everything," I lamented.

"Cat?"

"We're sort of his renters. You'll understand when you meet him," I explained, ignoring my own rumbling stomach. "Bottom line is if we want food, then we need to hunt or forage."

"The harpy hunted. Not much, mind you, but there were little animals I roasted over the fire. He seemed to think we were more fun when we had some energy. I could recognize a few species, what's safe and what isn't." A thin smile pushed itself across Leda's lips. "We suffered a few bouts of sickness from some of the meat."

Dakota eyed the blackened tracks we walked parallel to. "I'll hunt with you," she decided with a glance at me. "My daddy was one of the best in Alaska. Taught me a few pointers."

Leda nodded. "So it's settled. We get our asses back to your cat, get some food in us, and start prepping for the next fight."

The farther we moved from the mire, the wind dissipated into an airless stillness. Storms crowded the skies. The shrieks and burrls of feathered lizards died. The Malumbrian Oaks themselves seemed to hold their breath as we passed.

But the others didn't have goosebumps marching up my arms like me. They lacked that dark wave of dread and anticipation for what was to come.

Chiro was close. He may not have known our exact location, but he would, and there was nothing I could do but prepare. But how was I supposed to do that?

*

Two days of torrid heat and roaring nights awaited us beside the raging falls. And as the water rose higher and flooded the banks I was waiting, and thinking, and preparing, carving whatever the others needed and then sharpening my knife for its true purpose. The only thing that changed was my company. Sometimes a snoozing crag cat, other times Val, Leda, and Dakota— but mostly it was Dot. The woman sat in Shail's den day and night, barely eating more than a roasted lizard wing. She never spoke a word. Her shaky breaths were the only thing that gave her any more life than Jessie. She just sat, arms around her knees, rocking and hugging herself and none of us knew what to do. Nothing we tried worked.

So I sat with her and filled our damp home with wood shavings and tried now and then to talk.

Between her and the undisturbed site of Jessie's...Death, I had to say it: death. The toxins had overwhelmed her frail body and she was dead. I thought now and then about opening that hastily constructed door to see what lay beyond, but then my eyes would rove to the woods, where Val scouted and Leda and Dakota set traps for lizards and rodents.

No lord came by those blistering days and nights, not Chiro, not anyone else. When we weren't captured that first night, Dakota had immediately declared ourselves safe and sound. I knew better.

There was a wolf at our door; I could sense him both nights out in the reeds, through the fog and wailing lightning. But every morning, the water had risen higher still and there were hardly any tracks of Shail, let alone Gabriel.

So I sat beside Dot and cut better spears and wondered why he was waiting. That's where Val found me on the third morning.

The redhead bobbed down by the water, scrambling over the stones toward Shail's waterside densite. She sat out of breath beside the waterfall, waving me over hurriedly. "We got one!" she exclaimed, brushing sweat from her eyes. "A lord. I got his tracks. There's girls with him, four I think. Had to put my head down when they got close."

I glanced back toward Dot and gave Val's shoulder a squeeze. "What'd he look like?" I asked.

Her face scrunched. "Ugly fucker. Ten feet tall and full of scales. Part Godzilla or sewer croc or something."

We'd previously decided on whistling to communicate, and it was that (and a bit of searching) that brought Leda and Dakota home to plan. Within an hour Dakota skipped her way through the woods as noisy bait. When the lord went after her, Leda and Val had whisked away the four women. They used the stream to navigate back to our camp with minimal tracks. Dakota, meanwhile, frolicked her way into the webbed forest, the only place around where her dingy gown provided any camouflage. And it was there I waited, holding my breath, tapping my feet, hoping she'd make it far enough in like we'd planned.

But as if sensing a trap—or maybe he saw my shadow moving through the webs and thought I was something more intimidating—the lord turned and fled deeper into the forest. Dakota watched him go with crossed arms. "Damn," she hissed as I clambered down from sticky webs. "Think he'll go looking?"

"Let's hope he doesn't find anything," I said, pulling webs from my hair. 

He didn't. Again, and I wasn't sure why, our run of good luck continued. That scaled demon seemed to have vanished into thin air, never to come calling. Again, the rest were relieved and I was getting so nervous I couldn't sleep. These were fierce, formidable creatures and to have one just run like that, without going after his stolen goods?

No.

There was something worse than me out there to intimidate a lord like that, and I knew who.

*

Tay Wilson.

It started about an hour before sunset, on the single day in a week so far where it had yet to storm. Dark clouds built in the distance, flashes of lightning without thunder. We were safe for the time being.

And then I heard it again, a faint whisper through the trees: Tay Wilson.

My stomach clenched. Our newest target was on Dakota's trail. She was due to lead him back toward a narrow ravine that wound along wide boulders and a sharp turn, where myself, Val, Leda, and two of the new girls were ready and waiting to pounce.

Leda was draped along an overhanging branch, a pile of stones stacked carefully beside her.  Val crouched on the opposite side of the ravine from me. The other girls, Natasha and Brandi, were further down with buried vine to trip him once he made it past the first onslaught.

The sunset turned the leaves across the ravine into low level fire, brilliant, burnt colors that glistened with moisture from the nightly deluges. And then- footsteps, heavy breathing.

Dakota screeched, her dress hitched up above her thighs. She flew around the corner and across the ground as if she'd done it a hundred times before (she had, all day yesterday), never once tripping or stumbling. Her head was a blonde blur in the fading light. She shot past my position, then dove into the brush.

She rolled into the leaves at my right, panting and staring up into the light. Chest heaving, she passed me a thumbs up, then rolled onto her elbows and looked across the road. I tossed her her spear.

"He's a big fucker," she said between breaths. "Might want...let him go. Gonna be...Any minute..."

Tay Wilson!

A sharp, dizzying pain gripped my spine. With a rattled hiss I dropped to my knees.

She shuffled over to me, eyes on the narrow path. "Hey? You okay?"

I rubbed my ears, like that would clear the voice pounding against the back of my skull. A hand of hot iron caressed my spine in tingling pain. Trying not to dig my nails into her arm, I grabbed Dakota and shook my head.

She flung her blonde braid over her shoulder. "What's wrong?" she asked, eyes fixed on that sunlit path.

I fought against the ringing in my ears, against a firm tug back to another land. "Half demon means half something else," I said hurriedly. "My mom slept with a demon. She knows about the Mid." Heavy, thunderous footsteps echoed around the corner. My voice lowered. "She summoned me once-" I recalled the king's staircase "-maybe twice."

The waning light vanished in a tremendous black shadow. The otherworldly light on the leaves went out. Dakota hunkered down beside me.

Tay Wilson!

Her dirty hand grabbed my chin, steadying me against the pressure in my spine. "Are you saying your mom's been here? She's gotten out? That you've been out?"

Walls, candles, and cabinets flicked like ghosts over the forested road. I struggled to focus. "She was never here. My dad met her in our world."

Through the branches we watched a dark-shouldered creature trot on all fours- hooves, by the sound of it. It sniffed loudly, walked around the edge of the boulder. Every so often a forked tail lashed into view. Leathery wings stretched into the thin night air. It was some kind of deer or antelope, with smooth skin, onyx horns and enough fangs to kill a lion. Not to mention its bulk; the thing was built like a tank, and about the same size. Thick nostrils drew in the surrounding scents as it walked on, flexing its wings, lashing its queer tail. Red eyes scanned the silenced path.

"This last time was like a seance or something," I said when I dared speak, my face pressed against Dakota's ear. "I wasn't physically there, you know? I can't control it or stop or send myself back. She's trying again. She's gonna summon me."

Dakota's eyes never left the demon's position. "So?" she whispered.

The lonesome bay of a wolf shook the pain from my bones. Dakota and I flinched. Our target's twisted muzzle lifted. From across the trees I met Leda's eyes. The woman pressed herself flat to the branch, rock in one hand, peeking over only slightly as the monster walked beneath her. I shook my head to stop her from throwing that first stone.

The brush exploded thirty yards down from us. Utterly dwarfed but equally as ferocious, Gabriel sank his jaws into a hind leg. With an ear-piercing scream the thing kicked wildly. The wolf wrapped his paws around the darkened haunch and bit harder. Leathery wings flapping, the demon lifted itself up into the air- straight into Leda's branch. Its powerful neck collided with the bark below her.

The force unseated her. She fell onto its back, smashed between the fluttering wings as its hooves slammed into the ground. Its head snapped around wildly to get her, but she pressed herself tight against its smooth hide. Gabriel leaped again, his paws inches from her legs as he struggled to find hold on its back. With a violent buck woman and wolf were launched into the air.

Leda fell into the leaves with a stunned gasp. Hooves smashed the ground around her as she got to her knees, unable to get up, unable to crawl away. Gabriel cut between her and the demon. A black wing caught the wolf across the chest and pushed him back. Leda had gotten up when it swooped around. She was running. Using its powerful hindlegs the lord kicked forward. With a sickening crack he trampled her. She tumbled into the dying sunlight and lay on her back in violent, bloody heaves.

"C'mon!" Dakota was screaming in my ears, but time was slowing down for me. I could barely hear her, didn't move when she tried to drag me.

The voices were so loud, Tay Wilson, Tay Wilson!

Dakota's fingers slipped from mine. She gasped. Across the way Val's eyes went large. She stood frozen mid-scramble to reach Leda. Her spear dropped at her feet. Every muscle in her body seemed to pull her straight. She stood exposed with eyes as wide as dinner plates, absolutely stiff with fright.

The demon set his red eyes on her.

But she wasn't looking at the demon. She was staring across at us, no, beyond us. Staring in that blank way when you can't see, but you know something's behind you.

A predatory, deep growl rose over Leda's retching coughs.

Sandy paws came down on either side of Val, swallowed her up into its shadow.  Dark claws tensed against the leaves. Her red hair swayed with a rumbling breath. One massive sabertooth skimmed Val's hair as the giant feline stepped over her.

He crouched, ears flat, hissing. Luminous, thundercloud eyes flashed in the waning light.

The demon lowered its head, onyx horns tipped toward its rival. For a moment there was only Leda's coughing and the scrape of a hoof through scattered debris. Then the demon charged.

With the flexibility only a cat possessed, the cat twisted away from the sharp horns. One heavy paw smacked against the demon's muzzle. The other raked its shoulder. Long fangs disappeared into the dark throat. Weight and force flipped the hoofed beast on its back. The short-tailed cat tumbled with it, crushing Leda as its prey sought escape. In a furious whirl of tooth, claw, and horn, the two combatants grappled for control.

I stood—

*

—My boots dropped onto a carved table. The seer's eyes had rolled far back into his head. He murmured my name over and over again. This time the hands he held were Mom's and Mom's alone. Tears glistened on her face. Her breath rose in cold puffs.

The table rattled. A cold wind swept swept through the darkened room, sending papers flying. The candle burned low.

"Tay, your mother wants to speak with you," the man said.

"Not now," I pleaded, spinning around, trying to find some way to make myself return. "Please, not now."

"Tay?" came Mom's hopeful voice. She wiped her eyes with the back of her sweater. With a heavy heart I turned away from her and crouched beside the man's white eyes.

"Put me back," I demanded. The black candle beside him sputtered and died.

The man's breath mingled with my mother's heaving puffs. "Tay, your mother has a message for you. Your mother loves you, Tay. Give her a minute."

I reached forward to grab him by his shirt collar. My fingers slipped straight through. At the same time, that burning, hot-iron grip yanked me back toward the center of the table. "I'm gonna die," I hissed. "Tell her I'm gonna die!"

He told her.

Her expression numbed. Even her tears seemed to freeze on her cheeks. And then she lunged at the man.

"Send her back!" she screeched, pounding the table. "For God's sake, send her back!"

*

Hoarse screams and thumps greeted my ears. I pushed myself up, stumbled down to the base of the ravine. The great cat was nearly as black as his opponent. He'd gutted the winged creature. Giant claws clenched the rubbery hide as his head disappeared into its stomach and removed great bites of flesh from the still-living demon. It kicked feebly against the cat's hide to no avail. 

Gabriel had Val pinned face-down. Dakota darted around his snarling frame, until at last she'd gotten the courage to plunge the knife into his shoulder. The wolf leaped from one to the other, slamming Dakota beside the small, stunned woman. Dakota, lacking fangs and teeth, was no less vicious. The woman punched the wolf across his slobbering mouth and dug her nails into his neck. In response, he crunched her shoulder and shook his head as if to snap her neck. She screamed.

I wrenched the knife out of his shoulder and shoved myself against the wolf's throat, pressing the knife against one unsettling orange eye. "Drop it," I yelled, tightening my grip.

With a whine the wolf spat her out. Dakota crawled back, panting, bleeding, shouting a thousand curses  at me to kill it.

But my eyes were on the feline that made an armored pony like Shail look like a kitten.

The great cat grabbed Leda's limp body in its jaws. With the girl dangling in his mouth those stormy eyes met mine. Crimson-stained lips peeled back in a sharp smile, and then Chiro sprang into the gloom.

Gabriel snapped at my hand. I dropped back as the wolf charged through the brush after his master.

"Why didn't you kill it?" Dakota screeched. Brandi and Natasha helped her and Val sit up.

"He'll lead us to Leda," I said as night closed in around us. 

"How?" she hissed, grabbing her arm. "You can't catch that!"

"He's bleeding." I had a feeling Chiro wouldn't stay a beast for long; it wasn't practical, but Gabriel didn't have a choice, and as far as I knew the animals in these woods didn't heal like the demons did.

"It's gonna rain, moron. There'll be nothing left to track."

"Not if I go now."

Dakota shrugged off Brandi's help. Her shoulder bulged out of position. Blood down half her dress. Her pale skin tone seemed ghastly here in the shadows of the ravine. She walked up to me and nodded at her arm. "Shove this into place. I'm going with you."

I stared at her. "Are you kidding? We've got minutes until the darkness falls. You're not going to be any use...."

"And you've got supervision, hmm? Pop me back into place. You can't go alone. What if you faint again?"

"Me? You're wearing half your blood."

She frowned. "You're our ticket out of here. You don't get to go rogue."

"Fine," I huffed and moved to reset her shoulder. "Let's go."