The Wild Hunt (Downworlder Series, #1)

Chapter Eight: Wild Cravings

Run

It was a simple instinct that drove the pounding of our paws on the earth. We needed to run off what our Doyen had given us. An order to kill all that were deemed unworthy in his eyes. None had survived the purging at the Doyen's command. Keep the pure, kill the rest.

Run

Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill. It had been our only thought for days. We had weeded them out of their hiding spots, like we had been hunting for mice. It had been simple for us. Easy.

Run

We still wanted the blood. Much blood had been spilled. It coated nearly everything we touched. We ran to fight off the urge to destroy the rest. We hadn't been given the order, hadn't been told to do as we wished. We ached for it.

Run

Killing was like breathing to me and my beast. It was how we had survived when we had been abandoned to the woods. The wilds of the forest taking us in, protecting us from the rest of the world. We had grown accustomed to killing what was needed. Our Doyen showed us how to kill for what we wanted.

Run

We killed for his territory, killed for his plans that we cared nothing for. He told us what to do and we did it. There was no need for if we understood. Our orders did not dictate our thinking. The humanity we carried was too confusing at times. It was overbearing, we hated our Doyen for bringing us out of our wilds to suffer the heaviness it had.

Run

The rhythmic pounding made the thoughts fall away. We were calm. The bloodlust had left our veins, the urge to kill had faded to a faint simmer. It was all I needed, the ability to run without red tinting my vision. We were too violent sometimes.

It was the forests of concrete and stone that agitated me and my beast to that point.

There was too much sound in the walls that had been built to house those that enjoyed the concrete to the trees. It was too bright and harsh when the sun retreated and it should have been still and dim. There was too much shadow and darkness as well. It clouded the people, shrouding them in their own vile natures. We hated it, our teeth baring instinctively at it.

We preferred the solitude of the forest. We preferred the quiet and survival of our wilds. My Doyen may have found me in the trees and had given me what he called purpose but that did not mean we had to like the concrete forests with the large hollowed stone and dead wood confinements they called buildings. It was too closed in and confining.

It was why we ran. When my Doyen did not need us, we ran and hunted in the wilds outside of the concrete forests that held those that were shrouded in their own inner filth. There was no such shrouding in nature. The prey did not think enough to know beyond the end of the day. They ate and they bred. The predators did the same.

It was purity. Not the type my Doyen sought, it was a better one. It was simply nature. Something I ached for more than the blood that my Doyen had made me crave.

I weaved around trees, I wasn't used to the wilds I now ran in. I wanted the ones I had grown up in, the ones that had protected me, provided for me. I couldn't go back, my Doyen had taken me from them and I didn't know how to return.

I pushed forward, the beast reluctantly giving up his control of our run. I didn't wish to think anymore. When I was awake in the beast's head I thought too much. The air was cold but I ignored it as I moved back towards the foul smelling darkness that my Doyen now ran. I didn't like it, I didn't like the people in it. It was too much.