ZARA POV
I woke up screaming and couldn't stop.
My throat burned. My lungs felt like they were on fire. But I was breathing—actually breathing—which made no sense because I'd been crushed to death under a thousand pounds of stone.
I shot upright, gasping, and immediately regretted it.
Pain exploded everywhere. My back, my ribs, my legs—everything hurt like I'd been run over by a truck. But I could feel my legs. Move my toes. That was impossible. The stone had destroyed my spine. I should be paralyzed. Should be dead.
"What the hell?" My voice came out scratchy and wrong.
I looked down at my body and my heart stopped.
Golden tattoos covered both my arms from shoulder to fingertips. They weren't regular tattoos—they moved, shifting and swirling like liquid light under my skin. Symbols I'd seen in the temple, the ones I'd spent months trying to translate, now burned into my flesh.
I touched one and heat pulsed under my fingertips. The symbol changed shape, forming different patterns, and suddenly my head filled with a single word: BOND.
"No. No, no, no." I scrambled backward and my hand hit something wet.
Blood. The ground was covered in it.
I looked up for the first time and my scream came back, louder than before.
This wasn't Peru. This wasn't Earth. This wasn't anywhere I'd ever seen.
The trees were massive, taller than skyscrapers, with bark that looked like it was made of twisted bones. The sky above was wrong—two moons hung in a red-orange sky even though it felt like daytime. And the forest floor was soaked in blood, actual pools of it, like something had been slaughtered here.
Or many somethings.
"Okay. Okay, I'm dreaming." I pinched my arm hard enough to leave marks. "This is a coma dream. The temple crushed me and I'm in a hospital somewhere having a really messed up dream."
A roar split the air.
Not a lion roar. Not a bear roar. Something bigger, wronger, that made every instinct in my body scream RUN.
I ran.
Didn't think, didn't plan, just bolted through the blood-soaked forest like my life depended on it. Branches whipped my face. Roots tried to trip me. My lungs burned and my legs screamed but I didn't stop.
Behind me, something crashed through the trees. Something huge. I could hear it breathing—wet, rattling breaths that sounded diseased.
I risked a glance back and wished I hadn't.
The creature chasing me looked like an elk, if elks were the size of elephants and rotting alive. Its flesh hung in strips from exposed bone. One antler was broken, the other covered in what looked like moss or mold. But worst were its eyes—it had way too many of them, clustered across its skull like a spider, and they all focused on me with hungry intensity.
"What are you?!" I shrieked.
It roared again and charged faster.
My foot caught on a root. I went down hard, sliding through mud and blood. The creature was right behind me, close enough that I could smell it—rot and death and something chemical that burned my nose.
I flipped onto my back, threw my arms up uselessly to protect my face, and screamed, "STOP!"
My tattoos exploded with light.
Golden energy burst from my hands, slamming into the creature's chest. The monster stumbled, confused, shaking its head like it had been slapped. The light wrapped around it, trying to hold it in place.
For three seconds, I thought I'd actually stopped it.
Then the creature roared, and the golden light shattered like glass.
It lunged.
I rolled sideways. Massive jaws snapped shut where my head had been. I kicked at its face—my foot connected with something squishy and the creature bellowed.
"Leave me alone!" I screamed. "I don't even know where I am!"
The creature didn't care. It swung its massive head, and one antler caught my side. Pain ripped through me and I flew through the air, crashing into a tree trunk so hard I saw stars.
Blood—my blood this time—ran down my side. I could feel the gash through my shirt, deep and burning.
The monster stalked closer, drool dripping from its jaws. Those too-many eyes stared at me with something that looked almost like satisfaction. Like it knew I couldn't run anymore.
I pressed my hand against the wound, trying to stop the bleeding. My vision blurred. This was it. I survived a temple collapse just to get eaten by a zombie elk in a nightmare forest.
"Please," I whispered, not sure who I was talking to. "I just want to go home."
My tattoos pulsed once, warm against my cold skin, and another word filled my head: CALL.
Call what? Call who? There was nobody here!
The creature lunged for my throat.
A blur of silver and white slammed into it from the side.
The impact sounded like a car crash. The elk-thing went flying, crashing through trees with screams that didn't sound animal anymore. Whatever hit it was fast—too fast to see clearly—and absolutely vicious.
I heard snarling. Ripping. More screaming that cut off suddenly.
Then silence.
I couldn't move. Couldn't breathe. Couldn't do anything but stare at the trees where the fighting had happened.
Something walked out of the shadows.
At first, I thought it was a wolf. The biggest wolf I'd ever seen, with silver-white fur and eyes like blue ice. But then it stood up on two legs, and my brain broke a little bit.
Not a wolf. A man. Except he still had fur, and claws, and those terrible beautiful eyes that looked at me like I was the monster.
"You," he growled, and his voice was deep and angry and definitely human even though he definitely wasn't. "What are you?"
Blood dripped from his claws—the elk creature's blood. He'd just killed that thing with his bare hands. Or paws. Or whatever those were.
I opened my mouth to answer.
My vision went dark around the edges. The blood loss was catching up. I was going to pass out in front of this wolf-man-thing who might decide to eat me next.
"Wait," I managed to whisper. "Please don't—"
My eyes rolled back. I felt myself falling.
Strong arms caught me before I hit the ground. The last thing I heard before everything went black was his voice, closer now, confused and almost frightened:
"Why do you smell like the Tamers? They've been dead for three hundred years."
Then nothing.
What Zara doesn't know: The wolf-man holding her is Kael Nightfang, Alpha of the most dangerous pack in the Beastworld. And in sixty seconds, her blood is going to mark him with a soul-bond that will chain them together forever. Some bonds are chosen. This one is about to be a catastrophe.