Hunters, Hunted (Wolfblood Fanfiction)

Prologue

Prologue

Rhydian

I am racing through the trees, joy as fierce as the sun and smile as bright. There is no freedom in the world like this, to run as a human with the wolf pulsing through your heart, dodging trees and leaping ditches and gulping in the wind as it lashes your face. All around me is autumn at its richest; the air is fresh and damp with the heavy scents of leaf mould and dew, while the dawn torches every crisp, golden leaf it touches. The fire of a new day spreads about me and licks at my heels.

            The speed tears a laugh from my lips, endless in this run, and I hear her echo it behind me. We are so well matched in pace that the distance between us never alters, filled only by the electric charge we share. We are one and the same, never tiring, never faltering, and that one is itself at one with the forest, a single, massive, wild creature.

            Down we go, down, down, arms windmilling as we hurdle a fallen trunk that glistens in the golden light, and then she springs onto my back. We whirl round with the leaves before collapsing into their bed, breathless with laughter. I feel her at my shoulder, where she always is, and collect myself to say,

            “You know, Maddy, I really do l-“

            But as I turn my head to look at her all I see is leaves. I sit up.

            “Maddy?” I ask the forest, and now my voice is echoed not be her, but by the trees. “Maddy!” I call again and this time, from far off, I hear her say,

            “This is as far as you go.”

            I’m on my feet in a second and running again, uphill now where the leaves make me slip and slide.

            “This is as far as you go, Rhydian,” whisper the branches to me, “as far as you go.”

            I’ve reached a clearing now, but it’s somehow closing in, full of shadows, inescapable.

            “I’ll find you,” I promise her voice, “I’ll find you.”

            But no one replies.

Reality hits with a gasp like a bucket of water in the face. I’m covered in cold sweat in the dark of my bedroom, waiting for my breathing to slow after the dream. Just a dream, Rhydian. Except that it’s not completely.

            I pull myself up and tuck my head between my knees, willing the dull pain in my chest to subside with the breathlessness. I know it won’t. It never does. In the end, I might have woken up, but the nightmare goes on just the same.

            She’s gone.