Chapter 4: The Chase Ends
Winter’s sneakers slid on the polished marble as he careened around the corner, the joyful, thunderous bark echoing behind him, shaking the portraits on the walls. He didn’t know this part of the house. It was all shadowy grandeur and cold, sweeping spaces. The hallway forked. Left? Right? He chose right, his breath sobbing in his throat, and slammed through the first door he found.
It was a linen closet, deep and dark, smelling of lavender and cedar. He scrambled inside, yanking the door shut behind him, plunging himself into absolute blackness. He huddled between shelves of stiff, folded sheets, clapping a hand over his mouth to silence his gasps.
Outside, the pad of massive, quiet paws approached. Stopped right outside the door.
Winter squeezed his eyes shut, praying to a god he didn’t believe in.
He could hear the wet, sniffing sound at the base of the door. A low, conversational rumble vibrated through the wood. “Lost in my house, little Bunny? It’s a big place. So many rooms to get… tangled up in.”
Winter stopped breathing.
“You can’t hide from me,” the voice sang, playful and terrible. “I will always find you. The Big Bad Wolf always finds what he wants.”
The paws moved on, the sound fading down the hall.
Winter stayed put for another minute, maybe five, his heart hammering against his ribs. In the absolute dark, his mind, hysterical just moments before, began to stitch together a frayed, horrifying tapestry.
The attacks. The shredded timber yards belonging to Carson and Harlow, Kane’s only real competitors. Their brutal, “animal” deaths. The village had whispered about a rogue bear, a pack of wolves grown too bold. But it had always conveniently cleared the path for Alderwood Timber. Then he thought of the others. Mick Carson’s cousin, Jed, who’d cornered Winter behind the pub last autumn, his breath reeking of gin as he’d sneered about ‘freaks’ and ‘unnatural things.’ Jed had been found two days later, his truck wrecked in a ravine, deep gouges in the mangled driver’s side door. And before him, that asshole from the next county who’d tried to undercut Winter’s prices at the seasonal market, spreading rumors about the quality of his work. That man’s workshop had burned to the ground. An electrical fault, the report said.
Not competitors. Not business threats.
People who had hurt him. Winter.
A fragile, insane hope, sharp as a shard of glass, pierced the terror. He cared. The monster cared. In his own brutal, elemental way, Kane had been protecting him. Clearing his path. Keeping him safe.
But the thing outside wasn’t the Kane who brought him soup and fixed his drafts. It was the engine of that protection. Unchained. Unfiltered. And it wanted to play.
Winter slowly, silently, pushed the closet door open. The hallway was empty, illuminated by pale moonlight from a tall window at the far end. He slipped out, muscles coiled, ready to run in the opposite direction.
“Boo.”
The word was a hot, wet breath against the back of his neck.
Winter’s scream was a silent, airless tear in his throat before it erupted, high and shattered. He whirled. It stood there, not a foot behind him, having moved with preternatural silence. It was grinning, a grotesque stretching of its muzzle full of ivory daggers, its golden eyes alight with wicked delight.
He ran.
His legs pumped, fueled by pure adrenal terror. He ducked through an archway, into a sitting room, out another door, down a narrower corridor. He saw a partly open door, lunged for it, and tumbled into a dark bedroom. Without thinking, he dove for the canyon of space beneath the high, four-poster bed, scrambling into the dust and darkness just as the heavy footfalls entered the room.
He pressed himself flat, face against the cold hardwood, a hand clamped over his mouth and nose. The scent of his own fear was acrid, obvious.
The wolf’s paws stopped in the center of the room. It took a long, theatrical sniff.
“Mmmm,” it hummed, the sound vibrating the floorboards. “Something delicious in here. Something sweet and scared. Where’s that little cutie gone?” It took a slow step. Another. Winter saw the massive, furred paws pass by his line of sight, the black claws clicking softly. “I just want to have some fun with you, Bunny. A little game of hide and seek. My favorite.”
The paws paused by the bed. Winter saw the huge head lower, the golden eye peering, but not directly under. It was checking the sides. It huffed, a bored sound. “Not here, I guess.”
The paws turned. They walked toward the door. The bedroom door clicked shut.
Winter didn’t move. He counted. One. Two. Three. Ten. Thirty. A full minute of silence passed. A tremulous, defeated sigh leaked from between his fingers. He’d made it. He’d actually—
A hand, vast and furry, wrapped around his ankle.