The Savage

Styx moved through the forest slowly, stealthily, and made sure to keep his gaze locked on his surroundings. The tribe he’d grown up in was hours from his current dwelling, but it had been his choice to leave. After his mother died and his father found a new mate, Styx had felt disconnected, and he had wanted to go out and make his own home, his own family. But with no mate of his own, he’d lived a solitary life. It had suited him well, and he’d accepted that way of living.

But the need to find a wife, to have a woman that was his mate, grew strong inside of him until he felt it like a beast in the very depths of his body.

Styx wanted a family, wanted to find a mate and put a baby inside of her, to claim her in all ways. He needed that now more than ever. He either had to go back to his tribe and claim a woman there, which didn’t appeal to him because he’d felt no connection to any of the females, or he’d have to leave the forest to find one.

Styx wasn’t above taking a woman, even if she was unwilling, and making her his. He was desperate enough to do anything.

With his spear in hand, he moved through the forest, having an idea where the sound had come from, but with the mountains surrounding him, noise echoed throughout the land, seeming to come from all directions.

Winter was coming, just a short time away, and there was a chill in the air. Being this deep in the woods and so close to the base of the mountains, the cold weather seemed to come even quicker. But Styx had survived many winters easily, had supplies stocked, and there was no worry about whether he’d make it through another harsh year.

Styx had never been one to feel as though he fit in with his tribe, which was the reason why he’d left. He’d also not desired any of the available females, and he decided he’d rather venture away from the tribe and find his own way.

The sound of a small creature scurrying across the branches above him rang through the sudden stillness in the woods, but he focused in front of him. Stopping and inhaling deeply, Styx scented a nest of Bringada birds close by. Their eggs and the meat from the adults were delicious, as well as nutritious in proteins.

Turning slightly, he inhaled again, the darkness of the forest coming on deeper, stronger, with the setting of the great sun above him. But his pupils dilated and his vision became sharper, his heightened senses making his vision crystal and clear and everything around him appear as though light shone on it. Inhaling again, Styx took note of a morano beast a short distance away. A great creature, which was slow but had deadly toxins, was not what he wanted to fight right now. Had that been what he heard? He inhaled again, and that’s when he picked up several scents coming from one direction.

Female.

Human.

Blood.

Fertile.

He inhaled again, seeing if there were any scents, maybe of a male companion, of death, of anything that would give him more information on why a lone female was wounded and this deep into the woods.

Styx moved swiftly, getting closer and closer to the scent of where the blood came from. His protective instinct flared up, the very thought of a female alone and hurt in these dangerous woods having the male part of him rising up, wanting to protect her. That desire was engrained in him, in his kind. Females, having strengths of their own, were physically weaker than males, but humans, compared to his kind, were even more so. And then he slowed when he saw the swatch of white coming through like a beacon of light.

Styx moved toward her motionless body, her hair a vibrant color like flames licking over wood. The gown she wore was torn in several places, filthy, and he saw one side was completely saturated with blood. Once he was close enough to her, he crouched, looking her small body up and down. She breathed, her chest rising and falling slowly, the intervals between them worrisome.

Reaching out, he lifted the strip of material that covered her side to get a better look at the wound. It was a nasty gash, and the scent of poisons came through, tingling in his nose with a bitter, uncomfortable sensation. The very thought of leaving her wasn’t an option. Even if her life hung by a thread, and he didn’t know if he had the herbs and medicines to heal this wound and rid her body of the toxins, Styx would try to heal her.

Mine.

That word played through his head over and over again as he looked at her. She was sick, injured, and although she wasn’t of his kind, but a frail human, she was a woman, compatible with his species, and he wanted her. Had fate looked upon him and brought him this female? He couldn’t deny the scent of her nearing her fertility piqued the male side of him, but it was the desire to heal her that rode him hard. He wanted her healed. Everything after that would be worked out later.