Page 41 of Winter’s Teeth

With a frustrated cry, I pushed off him. “Explain it, Fox! Tell me what’s going on.”

I shouldn’t have let go of him. I should have dug my nails in and grabbed him by the collar. Because as soon as I released him—

He turned and bailed out the back door.

“Hey! Wait!”

Shoeless, coatless, I tore after him.

Splinters poked through my socks on the back steps, and then came the bite of frozen snow that instantly soaked through the wool to my skin.

He dashed into the trees, crashing away from me at top speed like the day we met by the creek before first responders could reach us. But I was just as determined—just as desperate.

“Fox Winter!” I screamed after him, arms pumping as I raced across the snow and into the woods. “Get back here this instant! I’m not done with you!”

My ankle nearly gave out on me three times on the uneven terrain. Crashing into the woods, I followed his disappearing figure, but when I emerged through a thicket of brambles, he was gone.

I spun around, chest heaving with ragged breaths as I listened for his footsteps or branches breaking.

There was nothing.

A snort like a deer snuffling through leaves for fresh blades of green sounded behind me.

Slowly, I turned, and what I saw stole the breath right out of me.

Chapter 19

Huge, black body rippling with muscle, patched unevenly with hair. Horns like a bull’s, pointed and ridged, almost two feet long each. Hooves cleaved in two like twin blades on each foot.

And gold, gold, gold eyes piercing into me as it snorted, preparing to charge.

A scream lodged in my throat, unable to burst free as I tripped backwards over a root. In my panic, I yelped, imagining the worst, that what I’d landed on was Fox’s dead body, and I would be next.

The demon creature snorted again, hot breath steaming in the cold air around its snout.

Maybe this was what Angie had seen. Maybe this was what she couldn’t put into words and had been too traumatized to so much as breathe when creatures sounded in the woods last night.

My mind could scarcely keep up. Buckets of icy fear washed over me again and again.

Whatever it was, it looked like it wanted to eat me.

Rearing up on its hind hooves, it walked toward me. Powerful, angry, and rippling with muscle and sinew.

I tried to scurry backwards, hands in the half-frozen mud, but it didn’t like that. It wanted me frozen with fear. It wanted easy prey.

Where’s my gun? Where’d I put my damn gun!

It swiped a massive, talon-curled hand at me, and my scream finally broke free. I threw up my arm to shield my face and neck, fully expecting to have that arm ripped off, but it only grazed me. That grazing did enough damage to rip through three layers of sweaters and underclothes, right down to the skin, leaving me bleeding profusely, but at least I still had my arm.

A crash and angry cry like an agitated cow made me glance up again. Two blurs of black fur wrestled off to the side, trampling the thickets and sapling trees around them.

Something had saved me. Something had tackled the demon right before it skewered me.

That something was a huge bear with midnight black fur, protruding fangs on either side of its maw, and unholy white eyes that blazed with fury when it roared. It pummeled the demon creature, beating it with its paws. Each knock would have broken twenty bones in my body, but they only seemed to stun the other monster.

Clutching my arm to my chest, blood seeped between my fingers—the only warmth I had left. I couldn’t bring myself to look at the wound just yet, still too captivated by the fight in front of me. Every time one fell, the whole forest shook like an avalanche. I scuttled out of the way, moving left and right to stay clear of the rolling beasts, but they were more concerned with each other than with me.

When the bull-like creature had had enough, it kicked out with cloven hooves, sending the bear flying into a hemlock tree with enough force to bring down three branches, then it took off running.