Someone behind him asked about a flashlight, but Radek didn’t need one. He could see in the dark as well as a cat, so he trekked uphill, toward the old firs covered in a dense white layer, as if they had been arranged to pose for a fairy tale illustration. Blood pounded under his skin as he slid through a passage in the bushes. The branches brushed his stomach, but he was hot enough to melt every single snowflake in the valley and not afraid of either winter, a wolf, or the night.
A shiver ran through his body despite the warmth in his head when the wind pushed under the open jacket, but he trudged on, lifting his knees high in the dense snow. The hardened layer on top broke under his weight, but Radek was already sweating from the effort by the time some of his friends voiced their doubts about this late-night hunt. Cowards. City wimps. They should have stayed at the cabin if they were chickening out. This was his forest. His valley. And if those dirty furbags dared to come anywhere near his home, it was only his right to defend it.
But in the dark, with inches of snow covering every vaguely-horizontal space in sight, all he could see were shades of white and gray. The wind direction must have changed, since he couldn’t smell the unfamiliar fur anymore, but when one of the heavy branches moved, and a large form skirted off, beyond the trees in sight, Radek lifted the rifle and took his first shot.
“Fucking die!”
Spurred on by the whistles and yelling behind him, he ran farther into the forest to see if he’d managed to land a bullet in one of the beasts, but couldn’t sense blood beyond the overpowering odor of gunpowder. When he pushed into the igloo-like space in the shadow of the fir, he couldn’t see dark blots in the snow either, but paw prints were definitely there, leading away from the cabin.
The bastard had gotten scared off, and when his friends cheered in the far-off background, it passed through Radek’s mind that with the wolf chased away his work here was done. But the stars and the moon shone above, giving the forest an eerie blue glow and transforming it into a prime hunting ground. Once he’d walked between the trees, he couldn’t back down.
The ground rose toward a hill where he stepped into a passage of even snow, where tiny trees stuck out, dotting the pristine surface, but Radek’s gaze followed the tracks, and his blood boiled when he saw a shadow at the top of the slope He shot again without thinking. Then again, already trudging through the snow in a parody of a jog, but the lone wolf kept evading him, as if he were luring Radek away from other people.
Yet another howl. Then a yelp. The beast was mocking him. The same beast that had surely killed his dad.
He roared and ran forward, hopping through the deep snow as he chased a large form that disappeared in the dark, as if it were a ghost—not substantial enough to reassure Radek he was chasing the right animal in the first place, but it didn’t matter anymore.
He wanted to see blood in the snow.
“I’ll kill all you motherfuckers!” he yelled and briefly turned around when he realized how quiet it was behind him. Figured. His friends, including his kinda-but-not-boyfriend lacked the balls for this. But Radek’s dad taught him how to hunt, and he wasn’t afraid.
Or it was the alcohol talking, but he wouldn’t know the difference.
He continued his hike with new focus, guided by his inhuman sense of smell. He sped up when the familiar stench of sweaty fur caught his attention, and pressed his nose to the bark the wolf must have rubbed against.
He breathed in the musk of the animal and followed it, now certain he was after a wolf. It smelled young and strong but would be no match for the rifle in Radek’s hand.
The cold was getting to him as he continued through the gray-blue landscape with the half-moon above providing white light. It was getting difficult to breathe, as if the vapor he kept exhaling created a collar around his throat, but Radek wouldn’t let that stop him.
He stilled when a branch broke nearby, only to run to where the landscape dipped lower, creating a shallow ravine. There was something there. Something that smelled of fur and raw meat, but as he placed his foot close to the edge, the snow crumbled under him, and his stunted reflexes didn’t notice what was going on until he toppled down.
Radek yelped despite his best efforts not to, but he landed on his ass and slid to the bottom of the ravine. For half a second, he thought he’d be done for if there was water under the snow, but the ground was solid, and moonlight peeked through the treetops revealing a large wooden… shed?