Drugs.
They’d drugged her.
She pushed herself up, her heart pumping faster, harder, her fear rising, making the toxins rushing in her bloodstream even faster.
But the quicker she tried to run, the deeper she tried to go into the woods, the more she felt a heavy weight on her, slowing her, making her movements sluggish. She took another step, forcing herself to keep moving, and her foot got caught on a thick root that grew out of the ground. Audrey fell down hard, but the ground was at a slope, and she descended, tumbling down and picking up speed with each passing second. When she reached the bottom of the hill, her body screamed out in pain, her vision was a constant double scene of shapes and colors, and she couldn’t hold her head up any longer. Audrey had the will to keep moving, but she didn’t have the strength.
And then darkness claimed her, and she could do nothing to stop it.
Styx heard rustling not far from his dwelling, and instantly he went on alert. He’d made his home deep in the woods, and anyone foolish enough to venture this far out deserved death.
He stood from where he sat in front of the fire, grabbed a spear and knife, and tucked the latter at his ankle, between his skin and boot. Tightening his hand on the spear, he stepped out of his cave and stopped, looking around and listening for any other noises. The sounds of Maccoon birds in the treetops overhead filled the space around him, but he was focused on what was on the ground. It was the creatures that were at the same level as he was that were the greatest threat.
Taking a step out of his dwelling, he inhaled deeply. With his senses far more attuned than humans’, he could pick up on the tiniest scent and sight. His hearing was far superior, and his strength allowed him the power to live in this dangerous environment. Styx wasn’t just superior to the others that physically looked like him in all ways, the ones that lived like fish packed together in their stone and glass homes—he was smarter, free from their desires and needs.
Styx’s world was made up many different cultures, people, creatures, and beliefs. Being from the Northern tribe, all he’d ever known was living off the land, being deep within the Asaga Forest, and knowing that all others feared his kind. He’d never understood that as a boy, how his kind could be taken as a threat, as dangerous, when they were a family, only hunted when threatened or to feed their tribe, but it wasn’t until he’d heard and understood the stories that were told around the fire at night that he realized who and what he was.
He accepted that. He knew he might be alone in this world, but he accepted it.
Bigger, stronger, and when threatened more violent than anything else, his savage species—the Soveign Tribe—was known as barbarians, and as primitive killers. The descriptions fit them well. His kind knew how to survive in this hostile forest, with creatures that were poisonous, waters that ran red from poisons, and predators that could be just as vicious as his kind. In these woods, in this world, he was at the top of the food chain, and anyone that meant him harm felt his wrath.
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.